I went to visit a friend in Oakland, and all day long all I wanted to hear was REM's "Losing my Religion". So now I have "Out of Time" on, which has my favourite REM song "Shiny Happy People". Not sure why I wanted to hear an REM song all day though.

My brother called me tonight, and he is just the greatest and sweetest brother a girl could have. His birthday is on Tuesday, and he's sending me some Hawaiiana stuff for my kitchen because he knows I'm collecting that kind of stuff. He was the sweetest kid as a child, and he hasn't lost any of his sweetness.

He started his own appraissal business, and thank god he is making money. I was worried that he wasn't going to be able to make the business work. Him and his antiques though. He said he just bought a $1,200 antique bed that reaches to the ceiling, like a king's bed or something. What a riot!

My friend and I went to the Alameda Point Antiques fair this morning. It was do dang hot in Alameda. I'm not much into antiques, but my brother would have loved it. The first car we saw while pulling into the lot, was a truck loaded with a pile of furniture. You can buy a ton of old stuff at this place. One guy was just selling old telephones.

I don't know. I really still like very new functional furniture, although some of the better and more expensive pieces of antique furniture has the kind of work you just can't find anymore. I think the best thing to get there was old painting, and maybe old jewelry from the flapper era. It was hard to tell though, because after an hour I was on sensory overload, and just was barely taking everything in. Plus it was so darn hot, that it was hard to concentrate.

The antiques fair is only once a month, and I think I want to go again. My friend had never been and neither had I, so we just wanted to look at everything and get a feel for prices and to see what people were selling. It was much for fun that Ebay because you could actually see the stuff you were purchasing. I did see a nice print from the Meiji era, but I saw better prints at the Asian Art Antiques dealers show last year.

I think if you know what you want and what to look for, you can find good deals. The whole thing reminded me of "Th Antiques Road Show". I used to be so addicted to watching that show, I had wean myself off. I just was so fascinated by the stories the dealers had about all the pieces. The history was more interesting than the pieces themselves.

So I did it, and my stupid cell phone kept cutting out on me so I had to call him twice. And didn't want to call from my building, so I went outside between the buildings and it was noisy and people were walking by listening to me.

Whatever. I'm glad it's over. It wasn't too bad. I told him I wrote it out all out and I was going to be reading off what I'd written, although I did ad lib here and there. And hopefully the blackberry voicemail picked it all up. And just in case he wants to read it, I can email or print it out for him.

Telling someone you love them is hard. Writing it out so it sounds half way decent but still sounds like the way you would normally talk is much more difficult. I don't know if there's a way to make love not sound mushy and romantic.

I have no idea how red-haired guy is going to react to my birthday/love message. It might be freak him out enough to end it with me forever, and that's a scenario that I can't stop from playing in my head. But you know, he said he loved me first. So he started this whole love thing, not me. I'm just following his lead.

Wow, I am so nervous about telling the red-haired guy I love him. Talk about going out and jumping off a bridge without a safety net or harness. I have no idea how my little revelation will land. I want to chicken out and not do it, but I know I would so regret it if I didn't tell him.

I asked a guy to marry me once in college, just to do it, and of course I got turned down but I was kind of expecting that. I have no idea now why I even wanted to marry the guy now, but I'm sure it was part I really like this guy and part wouldn't it be cool to ask a guy to marry me just to do it once with no consequences.

So it's not like I'm asking red-haired guy to marry me. I'm just going to tell him I totally love and adore him. I mean, I'm not asking for asking for commitment here. I'm just stating to him a plain and simple fact. So why am I so freaked out?

So I've been excited all week and looking forward to telling my red-haired guy that I love him on his birthday. And I'm like so nervous, that I actually I typed up what I wanted to say so I don't forget. I'm hoping to get his voicemail on his blackberry, so I can just leave it as a voicemail and not have to say it in person. What I wrote is like so gushy and romantic, and so not like me.

Whatever happens with this guy, and I honestly don't know where my relationship with him is going right now, is going to be great. He is definitely god's gift me to me and even if we were to break up tomorrow, it will have been totally worth it. He's just taught me so much about myself, about love and about life, it's all been pretty darn amazing so far. And it just makes me so happy having him in life right now.

Sadly, what I feel for my red-haired guy puts into perspective all the other times I thought I was in love. And nothing, I mean nothing compares to this. It's just so wild, and so great and so fun.