I had a writing group meeting tonight. I love my writing group. They know how hard it is to create a story, the struggle you go through, the insecurities you feel, all the BS you think about kin thinking your voice is not good enough for anyone else to read.

I love being with a group of people who are struggling like me to create, to reach outside of their regular lives and want something more, that something being a story that people want to read.

The act of creation takes will, takes everything you have from whatever you haven't already spent in your regular life just trying to survive and live, even though whatever you have left is just enough to get you to the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next story.

Writing should be the easiest thing in the world, but it isn't, because everything else gets in the way. To write is to have the strength, the will to create more than what you have, what you are.

To write is to struggle to do what no one else is doing, to fight against the forces of sloth, laziness, how about just plain exhaustion.

It's nice to be with a group of people who are struggling in the same way that you are, to know that there are other people fighting the same fight, and sometimes winning and winning well.

A friend from writing group just had a reading of his work in public, and people loved it. How cool is that? How cool is that to have people love your work?

Go Jon! You'll get your own column on SFGate.com some day. You are so much better than Mark Morford, who is irrelevant and doesn't even know it.

Another great Christopher Hitchens essay on 9/11, Don't Commemorate Sept. 11, Fewer flags, please, and more grit. Wow, I want to marry this man. He is so cool, so intellectual.

Okay, so he's a hard drinking, ciggiliscious smoking kind of guy, I don't care. I want to marry him. He is the ideal of the kind of brain power I want in a guy.

Kudos to the Pete Wilson show on KGO 810 am for turning me on to this article.

A great essay on the second anniversary of 9/11 from David E. Early of The Mercury News that I heard on the KTVU Fox Channel 2 news this morning, In California, feeling vulnerable.

A memorable line from the piece, "As a nation, we have not exhaled since Sept. 11."

Very true. I know I'm haven't exhaled yet.

I went back on my eating plan starting August 18 to try and lose the weight I gained on vacation and from all the stress I've been going through. I only gained about 10 pounds, but all my clothes are tight again and it was seriously bumming me out.

In April I was contemplating the purchase of a pair of size 6 Ralph Lauren low rise jeans because my size 8's were too loose, and I was so excited. I haven't worn that size since college.

Now, my size 8 jeans are so tight that they're uncomfortable. I hate that! It's so depressing, what 10 extra pounds can do to the size of your body.

I've been keeping track of my measurements, and since April of this year, I've gained 9.5 inches back. Dang! That's like an inch for every pound I've gained back. How scary is that!

Today I stepped on the scale and I've lost 5.5 of those pounds. YAY me!!! My pants feel so much looser than they did last week, and it makes me so happy. It's amazing what a difference 5+ pounds make.

I'm going to stick to my eating plan this time and not slack off, and try to get to 135 pounds, which was my original goal weight. This means I have to lose 20 or so pounds.

It's been about a year since I started my second weight loss journey, and I lost 28 pounds in April and then gained 10 pounds back. Bummer! I definitely need to get back on track.

I actually started trying to lose weight in May 2001, and managed to lose 20 pounds, but then gained 10 pounds back.

I've been tracking my measuremnts since May 2001, and as of today, I've lost 33 inches. That's almost 3 feet of me gone.

The only rewarding thing about the weight loss journey is I haven't gained all the weight back. I gained some of it back, but then I got back on track again and took more off and then gained some back.

But at least since May 2001, I've managed to take off 30 pounds and keep it off, so I'm ecstatic about that. I can maintain, and not feel like I've been on a diet for 2 years and 3 months, which is what I've been doing.

I just need to go one more round, and I think I'll finally achieve goal weight. It's been one snail slow process, but at least it's been working.