I finished reading "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". It was fun, and now I feel like I have to read the whole series of books. It reminded so much of the brit scifi show "Red Dwarf", which I totally adore.

I'm now reading "The Parable of the Talents" by Octavia E. Butler, the second book after "Parable of the Sower". It's not as frightening as the first book, but it's a bit spooky nonetheless. Butler's premise seems to be that despite all our modern technology, nothing has changed. When you take away the modern technology from people and go back into survival mode, institutions like slavery and the evil things like the Inquisition or collobaration with the nazis that the catholic church did return in full blown cruelty but with modern new twists.

I suppose that's true in a way, that we're never really that far away from the events that we now in modern society say was barbaric and wrong. Slavery and child prostitution still exist in the world, and people still get killed in the name of religion all the time. Only now some of us calll it "an exercise in religious freedom and liberation from an oppressive society."

I bought a new mini stereo system for the living room, since the writing group was coming over. The old mini boom box now sits in my bedroom.

I went to one of those chain stereo places to get it after work not thinking it would have been smart to drive my car there so I could take it home. Instead, I hauled the box home on Muni and suffered the pitying stares of people thinking I was too poor to take a cab or own a car, and had to drag my huge box home on public transportation.

The box wasn't heavy, it was just bulky and hard to carry. By the time I got to my front door, my arms were like jelly. Still it was worth it to do because the new system fits in the space where the old one was, something I was very worried about and the sound is pretty good for a mini system.

My next task it to get a new tv, vcr and dvd player this weekend. I'm so tempted to buy a bigger tv but then it wouldn't fit where I have the old tv now. If I bought a thing to put a bigger tv on, I'd have to arrange some of my furniture to accomodate the size and I'm not in the mood to do that. Plus since I'll be probably hauling the tv home myself, I have to think about how much it's going to weigh and if I have the strength to carry it up to my apartment.

And even after all that's done, I have to figure out what to do with my old tv. I wonder if Goodwill or the Salvation Army will take it? I wanted to put into my bedroom, but it's too big. Besides, having a tv in my bedroom is too tempting. I'd end up watching it more and falling asleep to it.

I got the tv cable guy to put a cable wire in my bedroom, just in case I wanted to go that route, But a smaller TV would fit better in my bedroom. Or better yet, no tv at all.

It's so hot I can't sleep. I should open my windows, but then it gets too noisy and I'll keep waking up during the night because of the noise.

A friend invited me to go sailing on the Bay on Saturday. It was such a gorgeous day with no fog. I was in shorts and polo shirt all day and into the night. Usually when you sail on the Bay it gets a little rough sailing back in the aftenoon to where you started from, which in our case was Sausalito.

The tides change and the water flows in and out of the Bay very quickly, and usually the fog and cold wind are rolling in. Not on Saturday. Afterwards, we drank more wine and danced on the boat entertaining and most likely annoying the neighboring boaters who came out to watch.

Sailing is fun. I can see why people really get into. You have to really know what you're doing, and you have to always be aware of so many things. The friend who invited me is a member of the Corinthian Yaht club in Tiburon, and she's being sailing and racing since she was a kid.

The boat we sailed on belonged to a couple who are on a sailing racing with her and her boyfriend, and, they were trying to practice for their next race. Apparently they came in first place last year at the Corinthian Yaht Club boat races.

There is something so ancient about sailing. It's got such a history. I've always wanted to learn to properly sail, but I've never had the chance. My uncle in San Diego was going to teach me to sail the summer I lived them as their nanny, but other than boating a few times on Glorietta Bay we never got around to it.

I'd have to take lessons, join a crew, lose some weight. My friend was telling me that on sailing race day, you have to weigh in. She said that people stand around in their underwear waiting to get weighed, and other racers come up to you and ask you how much you weigh. She said the weight part is all part of achieving maximum boat speed, and every pound counts. I would love to learn how to sail to sail and not to race.

We also saw a bunch of kayakers. Ocean kayaking is such a blast. I would love to buy a kayak so I could go kayaking on the Bay. We also saw some windsurfers. I used to want to learn to windsurf for so long, and even took a couple of lessons. If I windsurfed or kayaked on the San Francisco Bay, I'd have to buy a wetsuit. The water is way too cold to not wear one.

The only saving grace to the whole Chris means instant love thing is I think the real "Chris" that I'm supposed to marry and spend the rest of my life with is supposed to be a strawberry blondie boy with brown eyes.

But I don't know. The strawberry blondie hair and brown eyes requirement might be part of the curse of Steve, the one that got away. Steve was a strawberry blondie boy with brown eyes.

After years of really not caring what a guy looked like and never having prefernces about hair and eye color, I hate that I'm obsessed with marrying a guy with strawberry blondie/red hair and brown eyes. It's so very odd!