Here's my list of books read in 2004 - I read 58 books this year, which is higher than my previous total from 2003.

A Bend ln the road by Nicholas Sparks
A Parallel life and other stories by Robin Beeman
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
Clay's ark by Octavia Butler
Cowboys are my weakness and other stories by Pam Houston
Dawn by Octavia Butler
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Finding Your Writer's Voice by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall
From the corner of his eye by Dean Koontz
Genesis by Poul Anderson
Girl in hyacinth blue by Susan Vreeland
Girl with a pearl earring by Tracy Chevalier
Golf in the kingdom by Michael Murphy
I never promised you a rose garden by Joanne Greenberg
Imago by Octavia Butler
Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver
James and the giant peach by Raold Daoul
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
K-Pax by Gene Brewer
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Left Behind by Tim LaHaye
Life Strategies by Dr. Phil McGraw
Living the best life you can by Joel Osteen
Mind of my mind by Octavia Butler
Minority Report by Philip K Dick
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
One continuous mistake by Gail Sher
Seeing a large cat by Elizabeth Peters
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Silas Mariner by George Elliot
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
Taken by Thomas Cook
The 60 second procrastinator by Jeff Davidson
The hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
The League of Extraordinary gentlemen by KJ Anderson
The northern lights by Philip Pullman
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
The parable of the sower by Octavia Butler
The parable of the talents by Octavia e Butler
The Patternmaster by Octavia Butler
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
The Simulacra by Philip K Dick
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Ultimate Weight Solution by Dr. Phil McGraw
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Vittorio the Vampire by Anne Rice
When God Winks at Love by Squire Bushnell
Wildseed by Octavia Butler
Writing the Mind Alive by Linda T. Metcalf & Tobin Simon

I had my first full four hours of sleep last night. I've had the worst insomnia since my return from vacation. It feels so good to sleep. When I woke up I felt rested for the first time in months.

Maybe my insomnia means I'm not as depressed anymore, because last month I was sleeping more than 8 hours a night and still not feeling rested. Hopefully my life is turning around.

Last night on a whim I went to the Starfbombs across from the Hyatt at Embarcadero to write and while I was there I heard a big crash like there was some car accident outside. People ran outside to look at the commotion, but I didn't. When I finally left the place and walked outside, I saw police and car up on the sidewalk with its end into the wall near the Walgreens. How the car got onto the sidewalk like that is beyond me? Just another couple of feet and it would have crashed into the Starbombs where I was sitting.

I went to Carls Jr to get a bite to eat, and there was bunch of people playing scrabble there. Tuesday must be scrabble night at the Carls Jr located at Embarcadero 4. Like who knew?

Okay, so I don't like getting that excited about money but check this out. I bought into a gold mutual fund in December, and already I've made about $200 in capital gains. Isn't that like so fun? Money isn't everything, but when I learned I made $200 in a month from capital gains I got why people are into money and investments. And the stock market is not doing that well so to make money like is doubly more exciting.

So after this bit of good financial news, I decided to buy into a specialty natural resources energy fund. I know they say gas in going down in price, but so what. It will go up again because winter is coming up and any break in the supply chain of oil should send my mutual fund through the roof. Goodbye cheap gas and hello tons of capital gains for me.

If I have to play the capitalist pig dog investor, I might as well make a ton of money doing it.

I'm going to try and get back on the schedule today that I think seemed to work pretty well for me last year. From 5 to 7 pm, I sit in a Starfbombs somewhere in downtown San Francisco and write, and then from 7 to 9 pm I head to the gym. Boring as hell I know, but I get the two things done that I need to get regular about; writing and working out.

I've found three Starfbombs downtown that are open till 7 pm and where it's comfortable to sit and write. My gym is close by and after 7 pm, it clears out and I can get on a machine or lift weights without having to wait in line.

The only bad thing about this schedule is dinner. If I wait to eat till I get home, I'm starving and about to pass out. Usually I just have a latte, but it's really not enough food for dinner. So I'm adding dinner this year.

With all the writing I've been doing, I can either write tonight or spend my designated writing time typing up the 8 pages of handwritten text I've accumulated. Typing is a nice change for me and even if I do end up buying a laptop, I'll still have the option of handwriting or typing and I'll skip the step of transferring my text from my PDA into a word document on my home computer.