So I'm sitting in my all day work meeting thinking this is the first company I've ever worked for that I don't really care that much about. It's a strange feeling. I made a deliberate choice a few years ago that in order to concentrate on my writing, I would take a job that paid reasonably well but was not demanding. I would take a job where I wasn't so emotionally invested, so I could leave it at 5 pm and work on my writing.

Well, I have that kind of job. I'm not emotionally invested, I don't work more than 40 hours a week, unless there's some huge client meeting and that's happened only twice in three years, and part of me just doesn't care about the place other than the fact that the pay me.

This is like the weirdest feeling for me because I've always been into whatever job I'm doing, and now I'm just not. A friend tells me that I'm just treating my job like how everyone else treats their job and that I was weird for taking my jobs seriously and having my self esteem so tied into my career and my job. This is a horrible feeling though, not to care that much about the company you work for. It's a new experience for me, and although I know it's good for me to think of job like this, I'm not sure i like the feeling.

Maybe if I was married and had kids I wouldn't want to be so emotionally invested in my job, but I don't. I know that some of the other people at my meeting probably treat their job like a job and have no emotional investment in it whatsoever, and that's normal for them.

I don't know how they do it. I don't know how I've done it for three yearsl, and not driven myself crazy. I know the only thing that keeps me at this job is 1) it's easy 2) it's not time consuming 3) the job market sucks and it's better to be gainfully employed at this point in time and than not and 4) the job doesn't stress me out at all like all the other jobs in my life.

I just feel so purposeless about life right now. I haven't been wriitng, so maybe I just need to get back to my writing and then I'll feel like my life has purpose again. It's like torture to feel so rootless about life, to feel like I'm just living my life without any aim or purpose in mind. That just doesn't sit right with me somehow. It's so utilitarian of me I know, but I just think my life should be for a purpose and if I don't have a purpose than honestly what is the point of living?

That's probably harsh, but it's like so true for me. I'm like one of those types who has to always feel like I'm living for something, a purpose, or cause greater than myself. I need a reason to exist, to live, to go on, so I can feel my life is worth living.

I know the times when I've felt I've had no purpose in life, no reason greater than myself to live, have been times where I've been incredibly depressed, suicidal even. Maybe it's like some gene I stood in wrong line for in heaven. The gene that says you won't ever feel you life is worth anything unless you're dedicated to something, someone greater than yourself.

Do other people have this gene, or is just me? It's so not curable either because I have tried to rid myself of need to feel like I have a purpose several time but to no avail. It's an odd way to think about life, I think sometimes, but I can't help but think of my life like this.

Okay, so this is my first night working from home. I hate this because it's so easy to get extra work done. I have TV on so I can hear the finale of American Idol.

I wouldn't be working tonight if there wasn't this huge, huge client meeting next Tuesday in Florida, and I wasn't assigned four analyses to get done for the meeting. I was supposed to only be doing three projects, but we had a data issue so to make up for the messed up data the president of the company decides let's get Brenda to do an extra project so maybe they won't notice. Isn't that nice?

I'll probably work on the weekend as well since tomorrow I have to go Sacramento for an all day meeting. If I didn't have to attend this conference, I could finish my fourth project on Thursday and then wait for changes to made on Friday. I'm finishing projects 2 and 3 tonight.

Then silly me scheduled dental surgery for Friday morning, and I don't think I'll be able to work very much when I get back. I should have taken the day off, but even if I did I'm sure I'd get a call or email asking me to work the weekend anyway. What a drag!

I've had more projects due these last two weeks working from home, then I've had in the last two months when I was still working out of my office. My paranoid self says my bosses are doing it on purpose so they can be assured that I can be a productive employee at home. Whatever.

I guess it's good to be busy. It keeps me employed and gives me a regular paycheck. I have another report project that I have to start work on next week, which I think will involve some people from my Sacramento office. I have a feeling I'll have to drive up there every other week, if not every week to get the project off the ground. I'll find out tomorrow I think.

I don't mind driving up to Sacramento every other week, but once a week would be tough. It's a two hour drive for me, and that's two solid hours of freeway driving and not stop and go traffic. The Chief Technology office suggested that the report project be a joint one, and my home is that they just the project over to the IT department to be automated and leave me out entirely. I suggested this to my boss, but I still might have to consult on the project since I helped to build the report and consulting always means meetings.

I think they're about to announce the winner of American Idol in my time zone, so I've got to go and watch. I'm torn. I really like Ruben, but I like Clay too. I should have voted, but I didn't know who to choose. I think either way, they will both get record contracts which is so great for both of them.

Is it the terrorists? The radio news just reported that there was an explosion at Yale's mail room.

Scary!!!

The only good thing to come out of the whole "the one that got away'" experience is I came up with a great idea for a screenplay.

It's a romantic comedy, kind of like Romancing the Stone and an all girl road trip. It's loosely based on my relationship with "the one that got away" but totally amped up and dramatized.

The movie opens with this girl who's crying because she missed her boyfriend. We find out it's been over for a year, but the girl is still moping. Then we see her at this 12 step group meeting, where all the women are cute, blonde and trendily trashily dressed.

One girl gets up and says "Hi my name is Bambi, and I'm a silicon valley gold digger". It's a meeting for a 12 step group called "Silicon Valley Gold Diggers Anonymous", where all the women are dating, divorced, married or broken up with filthy rich silicon valley nerds.

The girl has been attending this meeting since she broke up with her nerdy sili valley boyfriend. We see the girls take out pictures of these really awful looking nerdy men, and cry. I don't know why but I think this scene will be so funny, but I do have an odd sense of humor.

The girl in my story goes out for coffee with a couple of the girls, and one of them tells her about this healer in LA who can cure anyone of their sili valley nerd addiction. No one in the group has done it because they're all afraid that if the LA healer cures them, they'll never date sili valley rich nerds again.

My girl decides to do it because she is desperate to get over her man and lead a normal life where she's attracted to normal men. She flies down to LA, one of the beach towns like Redondo Beach, and take a cab to the house of the LA healer.

The LA healer will be a spoof of a stereotypical new age healer complete with crystals, pyramids, filmy scarves, those stinky healing sticks, coconut man guards, etc. The healer tells her that her and her boyfriend, Steve (what else would I call him), were married in many three previous lifetimes where she pledged to be his twinflame soul forever. The healer tells her that she will never get over Steve unless she makes peace with her three previous incarnations by visiting the sites of her former marriages.

Incarnation # 1 - some island in greece or italy that disappeared because of a volcano eruption, it's famous but I can't remember the name. Her husband was away, and thought she died in the volcano but she actually escaped with the children. He vowed to spend the rest of eternity looking for her, and she vowed to be faithful to him for all eternity. This is where it all started.

Incarnation # 2 - Ohio, she was a mormon wife # 6, and back in those days they chained the wives so they wouldn't run. She died on the way travelling to Utah while trying to escape

Incarnation # 3 - Hawaii, on the big island. He was a magic man, the kahuna and she was his apprentice, and they got married.

Th LA healer tells her that her graves must be found and she has to do a clearing ritual at each gravesite. The healer gives her a set of clues for each place.

My girl decides to go and drags her best friend, another member of the Silicon Valley Gold Digger Anonymous with her.

So the movie is all her adventures, and in Greece she has an accident with this guy, who ends up for some reason following her on the rest of her adventures. Of course they get together in the end, and he turns out to be another rich millionaire guy, but not a rich sili valley nerd.

So my girl gets her cake and gets to eat it too.

I have one scene in my head where she goes to a support group for families of polygamists in Utah (another 12 step group), and one girls gets up and says "Hi my name is Catherine, and my grandather is a polygamist", which is loosely based on a spa trip I took to Utah. I was talking to one of the hiking guides, and the woman just blurts out to me like it's a common everyday thing to hear "my grandfather is a polygamist." I mean, what does one say to this kind of remark other than "really?". I got kind of freaked out, like "oh my god, yucky", but then the woman told me her whole life story and it all seemed kind of normal after that.