The friend whom I went out to dinner with last night, asked me if I wanted to go to the 11 am service on Christmas day at our sister presby church and I said yes.

So I went to church this morning, and attending two services like that reminded me of growing up. My family always went to midnight mass on Christmas eve, and then on Christmas day we went to the morning service. We couldn't open our presents till we came home from Christmas day mass.

When I was little we would open presents after church, eat and then one of the relatives would take all the kids to the beach. Growing up in Hawaii, I always received a new bikini/bathing suit every Christmas as did all my cousins.

And when you're a kid growing up in Hawaii, Christmas day is all about going to the beach to frolick around and swim in your new bikini/bathing suit and to have fun with the cousins, some of whom you don't see very often.

I think the relatives appreciated having all the kids out of the house as well, so they could visit with each other. When we'd come back, there'd be a huge Christmas day feast being prepared to eat later that night.

I think if I was in a hot climate for Christmas day, I would spend the day at the beach just to relive my memories of my childhood Christmases.

Christmas at the beach ... how perfect!

I've been thinking about my grandma lately who was like bizarrely catholic, so when I ended going to the Christmas Midnight Mass at St. Ignatius Church next to USF I wasn't surprised.

I've been there to mass before, and it's always crowded and they put on a good show. This time however, I was shocked to see the number of San Francisco Police people patroling the service and the church. Even at a Christmas eve mass in a catholic church, one cannot escape the realities of the war on terrorism.

The priest gave a quite a good sermon, which was also shocking because I almost never hear decent sermons in catholic services anymore.

Merrry Christmas! It's sunny here in San Francisco, although the air is nippy and chilly.

A friend and I went to Boulevard for Christmas even dinner last night. "In the Zagat Restaurant Guide for the year 2000, Boulevard was rated the #1 Zagat Restaurant in the Bay Area for the 3rd year in a row."

Boulevard was crowded with people, and we had to wait 20 minutes for a table despite the fact that we had reservations. We had planned to have dinner and hit an 11:00 pm mass at the sister presbyterian church.

The service was relaxed and slow, so by the time we had our dessert it was too late to drive to church. I was kind of miffed at this, although my friend didn't really care because the food at Boulevard was quite good.

Their appetizers are probably the best thing on the menu, but all of their dishes are very complex so you always feel full and happy after each course. And food presentation as is customary was excellent.

I had a triple creme brulee for dessert; eggnog with a dollop of whip cream, tangerine and cream with a snow flake shaped sugar cookie, and peppermint with a candy cane. Isn't that a cute idea for a sweet? You get three mini creme brulees, and they added extra things like a candy cane and a snowflake sugar cookie.

Boulevard adds nice little touches like when you go to the restroom, someone comes by and folds your napkin for you. Of course such luxurious treatment and great food doesn't come cheap, but it's worth it to do on special times like at Christmas.

Sometimes I get really down on myself for my progress in writing, but I didn't know I wanted to be a writer till 1999 and it wasn't until sometime in late 2001 that I decided I wanted to pursue writing for the rest of my life and that maybe it was some kind of calling.

My earliest memory of wanting to be a writer was when I was in 4th grade, but isn't that an idea that all ambitious teachers put in their students' heads at that age? My 4th grade teacher had the whole class write stories, and then we bound our books up and donated them to school library where they could be checked out by other students.

I remember thinking at that age, it would be fun to write children's books. But then the idea went nowhere sort of. Oh, it resurfaced from time to time. Like in 6th grade when I discovered the playwright Eugene O'Neil and decided I want to write plays. Or like in 7th grade when we had to write a children's story in English class. But then writing got pushed back to some remote corner of mind. Always kind of there but only allowed out briefly every few years or so.

When I graduated from highschool, I saw myself as in the following two careers.

1) russian language interpreter at the United Nations. I thought it would be so cool to work for the UN and live in NYC. I chose russian because I was into the russian revolution, and wanted to restart the revolution over because communism had been such a failure.

2) Madison Avenue advertising executive living in NYC. I wanted to be one to change the way ads are put out. I wanted to put a social conscience in advertising, and decided to change the system I needed to be a part of it.

Being a writer wasn't something I thought about doing after high school or in college. I was told by countless people I was a good writer of stories, but I was like so. So what? Doesn't everybody write well and have vivid imaginations?

I wish I was one of those people who grew up wanting to be a writer. It must be so great to have started that young, and to have that writing ambition grow with you through life instead of disappear the way mine did.

I guess I should just be grateful my writing desire surfaced again, but it did so only after acting bug started to fade.

I sometimes wonder if writing is my thing, but I keep being drawn to it and it's kept me interested so far. I suppose once it starts to seriously bore me, I'll something else. But stupifying boredom hasn't set in yet. Serious frustration yes, but serious boredom no.