My film history professor, Ira Mr. Liberal Hollywood left winger, came up to me during the break in class last night and thanked me volunteering alternative opinions during class. He said it made him think differently about things, and he was glad I made an effort to participate.

What an odd comment! Of course cynical me was thinking, are you thanking me for pointing out the left wing liberal view is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

We were discussing Michael Moore's latest new film and how Disney wasn't going to distribute it. And I decided to pipe up and say, but that's what happened to Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ". Gibson put up his own money to make the film and found his own distributor, because Hollywood wouldn't go near a "christian" movie with a 10 foot pole. But you never heard an uproar in the press about Gibson being treated unfairly in Hollywood like what you're hearing about Michael Moore.

And why is that I wonder? Because Christian films are not a 'cause du jour' for the liberal left wing media? I wanted to add that you can't just say Michael Moore, a supposed left wing nut case, gets the shaft by Hollywood without saying that so does a supposed right wing christian nut case like Mel Gibson.

But of course nobody in class wanted to say that because it's so not politically correct in San Francisco to defend anything Christian even when you know the Christian thing is being treated just as unfairly as the left wing thing. And it's that kind of hypocrisy on either side of the political spectrum that just makes me madder than a hatter.

Sometimes I wish I could just date to date, and have fun and not be too concerned about the future. But I can't. I am this point in my life where I want to be with my true love, and if can't be with him then I'd rather be alone.

I have enough guilty conversations with myself about time and what I need to be doing, that I don't need to complicate my life even more by mindless dating. I wish I could date and not care, but I can't. Believe me, if I could change my attitude towards love I would.

It sucks to be alone, to not have companionship, to not have someone to do things with like watch football or baseball games with and just hang and drink beer and laugh and make out during the breaks. But if I can't have true love, then what's the point.

I have so many other things to occupy myself with like my writing, taking classes, reading, working out, and all the other things I manage to fill up my days with.

But wanting true love is such a hard way to go. Plus I have requirements now that I won't compromise on like our religious views have to compatible. I am so not going to live the rest of my life with a guy that I'm going to have serious religious differences with.

I will compromise to a certain extent on politics, although I draw the line at any guy who voted for Nader or other types like him. I would rather marry a loyal party republican who voted for the Shrubmeister than someone who was silly enough to go green in 2000, and who now complains about the state of the country.

But who am I kidding? When do I have time to date? I don't even have time to do the thing I most want to do which is writing, so it's not like I have any time to spend dating and getting to know someone.

I hate having this ongoing conversation in my head about not having enough time for the things that are important in my life.

I've been reading again, and I'm excited. 7 books since about April I think. That's a book a week for me. Granted they're small paperbacks that I can keep in my purse, but still a book a week is good for me.

Finally made myself finish "Silas Mariner" by George Elliot. That book made me cry. I think I'm going to end up like poor old Silas Mariner one day, with no Eppie to rescue me. Sad, sad, sad!!! The ending of the book made me cry, but it's TOM time so my mones are raging. There were a couple of chapters I just skimmed because they were just dialogue, and it was hard to get through, but other than that Miss Elliot made some very good observations about life in her book.

Now I'm reading this book about a mentally ill patient's journey from insanity to sanity, called "I never promised you a rose garden". The book has reaffirmed what I've always believed, that mental illness is a defense mechanism that the brain uses to survive reality. The human body is built to survive. So if you're in a seemingly threatening situation that your mind can't handle, your mind will do things to enable you to keep going. What we call mental illness is just one of those defense mechanisms that the mind creates in order to help the body to survive traumatic events. Some events are so traumatic and scary to some people that if they didn't find a way to mentally escape, they would literally collapse and die. And yes sometimes they do, but most times a mental illness just develops.

You know how there's "fight or flight" syndrome. Mental illness is the extreme of "flight". Your mind literally collapses in on itself to flee, and creates worlds for the person to survive in, creates people to help the person survive. Of course they're all in the person's head, made up and not real, but the affected person doesn't know that.

I'm reading this book and wondering if I'm crazy, if there aren't places or things I've made up in my head to shield myself from a harsher reality. I had this same kind of feeling when I finished watching "A Beautiful Mind". I wondered for awhile if the people I knew were real or made up. Russell Crowe's character figured out that the imaginary people don't age, even when you do. But everyone I know has aged even quicker than I have, so I guess this must mean I really don't have an imaginary friend.

Sometimes I wonder what I do all weekend because the time seems to go by so quickly, but here's what I did.

Saturday:
Woke up late and didn't get out the door till noon
picked up drycleaning
took 3 skirts to tailor to be hemmed
went to the Asian Art Museum to have lunch and check out the exhibits. There was a great exhibit by a Thai artist, where you walked through a small temple with curtains of beads filled with herbs and incense. The smell was so cool!
worked out for 1 hour.
went through clothes hamper to get clothes read for laundry
cleaned up bedroom

Sunday:
woke up early
went to 8:45 am mass
worked out for 1 hour
went to Whole Paycheck at 4th and Harrison to buy products and have lunch
did laundry
went Trader Joe's to do grocery shopping
opened up laptop and worked on two spreadsheets for a meeting I had on Monday at work and watched Harry Potter

I know I did alot this weekend, but I have the feeling I could be doing mor. Like writing. I did no writing this weekend, which is so bad for me. I made plans on Saturday and on Sunday, but I couldn't fit it in.

I think I need to do this exercise I did in a seminar once, where you keep track of your time by the hour for a week. The purpose of the exercise was to see where your time went, and to see if there things you were doing that were either time wasters or if there were holes where you could fit something in.

I hate having a conversation in my head about time, and this is the only way to put a stop to the noise.