One of the girls on American Idol was quoted as saying she would love to marry Simon Cowell, and I think she was kind of embarrassed. I would so marry Simon Cowell is a serious second. He is so hot!

I've been sucked into watching "The Apprentice" with Donald Trump. So many people I know watch that show that I have to see it just to be able to understand what my friends are all buzzing about.

The comments about the contestants are pretty brutal, but pobably true. One of the guys said today that the girl who was being booted off was "probably an employee not a leader".

I was having this discussion with a friend of mine today. I really like being an employee, but most places I've worked at want me to be a "leader". It always creates problems, and it's happening in my present job. I know my bosses just don't understand me not wanting to climb the corporate ladder. I had a boss a few years ago warn me that I would run into problems with other jobs because I didn't want to go into management. I hate to admit it, but the guy was right.

At my last job I told my boss that I didn't really see myself as the management type, and she said she was fine with that. But by the end of my time there, I was managing a business analyst. It kind of made me mad but I had no choice but to accept it.

I want to be a full time writer, but until then I have to have a job. And I don't want to have a job that will eat up all my energy and my time. I need to have something left at the end of the day to pursue my writing ambition.

I guess if I wrote in the morning, this might not be such a problem because I'd give my energy to my writing ambition first and not to the way I need to earn money. But I am so not a morning person. I've tried writing in the morning, and it just doesn't work.

I think this is why most writers do write in the morning because that's when their energy is fresh and new. If you leave it to after work and at night, by that time you might be too drained to be creative. I've been in enough night classes to have heard people complain about being too tired to think.

There's got to be a way I can do both, to have an interesting job that challenges me and earns me enough money so I can continue my lifestyle but is not so stressed and tiring that I can't write at night when I get home.

Maybe I'll try writing in the morning again. If I can train myself to go to bed at a decent time, I'll be able to wake up an hour earlier. I can crank out four handwritten pages in about 40 or so minutes, so it's not like not like I need that much time to get my writing done.

I'm not one of those people who can crank out 2 hours of writing every day, week in and week out. Forty minutes to an hour of solid writing is about my creative limit.

Maybe if I turn myself into a morning writer, it won't matter what kind of job I have or how stressfull and tiring I am at the end of the day. I'll have to think about doing this. I've been such a night owl all my life.

I've been journaling a ton on the tumultous events happening in my work life, and I think I've managed to calm myself down and to view what's happening a little more rationally. It took six days, but at least I'm not on edge anymore. I've also been praying and meditating a lot, and I'm sure it all helps.

One way I know I'm feeling better is I was able to write tonight. Yeah me! I started chapter 10 of my novel, and I wrote for thirty or so minutes and hand wrote 2.5 pages. I'm writing this chapter in from the male character's point of view, so the writing is going a little slower but hey, at least it's going.

Instead of trying to imagine what it's like to think like a guy, a feat that would be pretty impossible for me I think, I try to instead imagine the male character telling me his side of the story. And since my male character is based on someone I actually knew, I just imagine this particular guy telling me the story. It's weird, but it's working so far.

I had my first weigh in today with the new diet from ediets.com and I lost five pounds. YEAH!!! I'm back in the 150's. Ediets has all these charts and if I keep going and the weight keeps coming off by two pounds a week, I'll be 127 pounds by June 2. That's really small. I haven't weighed that little since college when I used to wear a size 4-6.

Whatever. I'm just glad the weight is coming off, and I don't feel that starving yet. Besides, my pants are fitting looser and that's always a good thing. I miss my size 8 jeans.

I was watching the movie, Hardball starring Keanu Reeves about a gambler forced to coach an inner city cabrini project chicago little league baseball team.

The movie was a little long, and a little predictable but it was so heart wrenching nonetheless. It made me feel spoiled because those kids lead such violent horrific lives. My family didn't have that much money growing up, but at least I grew up in a house with a big yard where my mother raised orchids. There was no city violence to worry about, no gangs, no guns and drive-by shootings.

That movie made me think about my "charmed life", and how I think I am now what I hated as a teen - "middle class". We weren't really poor, we weren't really rich, we were in the middle. By the time I came along I was the only kid in the house, and the family wasn't so financially strapped.

I grew up thinking there would always be money somehow and compared to those kids, I've become cavalier in my attitudes toward money. I just spent $83 to get my hair cut. I only get my hair trimmed three or four times a year, but still $83 is a lot for a shampoo, trim, style, and blowdry.

I remember when I used to go to Supercuts and beauty schools to get hair trimmed, and now I pay top dollar. I don't pay it without blinking an eye because I'm way too Jack Benny for that, but I still pay it.

I heard Suze Orman say on her television show that it's foolish to take spending money for granted because every little expense adds up. She's right. A couple of months ago I bought myself some new eating utensils. I could have bought cheaper ones, but nooooo, I had to have the ones with the pineapple tipped handles that were originally $200 for four place settings but which I bought on sale for $100.

I could have bought cheaper silverware, because in the long run does it really matter what your silverware is like. But nooooo, I had to have pineapple tipped ones because I want to have the tropics inspired things in my apartment.

Like what is is up with me wanting "tropic inspired" crap? Where did that come from? Or the time I wanted to decorate my kitchen in french country, and the time I wanted to decorate my bathroom so it had a caribbean/ocean flavour, and that other time I wanted to decorate my living room so it felt like I was living in a country cottage. Not to mention that I have obsession for owning brittish made dinnerware, and not just any old brit brand but Spode only.

Like where did I pick up all this silly decorator nonsense from? I'm like totally spoiled, living and acting spoiled, and there are kids living in the squalor of inner city housing projects. I'm experiecing a case of "middle class wealth guilt", and it's horrible!