So considering I hardly put any effort into my new job and am now an official clock watcher and I scramble out of here at the stroke of 5 pm, I received a "Meets Requirements" which in the corporate world is grade equivalent of "C" grade. My boss said she was very happy with me, but that I needed to take more initiative and not be afraid to speak up at Board meetings. Whatever.

A "Meets" will still get me a 3% or more merit increase which is like a $100 more or less a month, and in this economy that's not a bad increase. At my last company, we didn't even get that much. I also get a $3,000 company bonus in March for our company's 2004 performance. If I factor the 2004 bonus in and the pay increase I received in this new job, I received the equivalent of a 10% merit increase in 2004. And that's incredible given the bad economy out here.

So I can't complain at all about how things turned out job wise, considering where I was around this time last year. I have a job where I work hard but not too hard and still get paid well, and where I can leave at 5 pm without guilt and work on my writing. Nope, can't complain at all.

Now if only I could say the same about my personal and my writing life. But I intend to get those two areas handled this year. I'm definitely laying the foundation for my writing life. It's my love life, I have the most doubts about and what's always been the hardest for me to get a handle on.

I think most people have the opposite problem. They seem to be able to handle their personal life issues better than they do their work life. I'm backwards. Work and other outside activities have always been the easiest areas of my life to control.

When I was getting my massage at Osmosis on Monday, the massage therapist told me that "you get into relationships with people to complete your issues from childhood." I was thinking about this last night and freaking out. My red-headed guy was like cross between my grandparents who raised me, and I'm like no wonder I was miserable. I was reliving my bad childhood with my boyfriend. What is up with that? There's got to be another better way to complete my childhood traumas without having to relive it with a boyfriend or worse yet in a marriage. I am so not having another unhappy childhood at this stage in my life.

Happy Birthday to me! Today's the day. My best friend and I planned a trip up north. On Sunday we went hiking up at Point Reyes and we saw whales spouting and elephant seals lying on the beach.

Then we headed to the Inn at Occidental, which is one of the top 100 hotels in the world according to Conde Nast. It was a very nice B&B, and my friend had a hot tub in her room so we hung out in the hot tub. We had dinner at Negris across the street, and passed out early Sunday night from too much wine and food.

Then we went to Graton to a jewelry outlet, an antique store with pretty nice antiques, and an art gallery with some decent art. We had lunch in Graton, and then headed off to Osmosis Enzyme and Bath. Osmosis is the only day spa in the U.S. that offers the Cedar Enzyme Bath, a rejuvenating heat treatment from Japan.

We sat in an enzyme bath full of woodchips and rice bran, then each had a 75 minute massage. It was very relaxing and supposedly very detoxifying.

It was great way to spend my birthday and I'm very grateful to my friend for planning the whole event!

I'm on a mini writing vacation. I haven't written for two days in a row, and it feels good to relax a little. On Wednesday I was too keyed after the board meeting to write and just had to relax.

I was going to write tonight before going to "Gamester" at ACT, but a friend called and we went out to dinner. The woman who wrote the play I saw tonight said she wrote for 20 minutes every night and finished the first act of the play. Was that like a reminder from the universe to me that I have the time to write. That if a woman can write for 20 minutes every day and have her play produced all over the country, surely I can find 20 minutes in my my day for my writing.

I don't think tomorrow is going to be much better since I'm attending a reception wtih a friend at 8 pm, and she's treating me to dinner using a gift certificate at a restaurant someone gave her.

This week has definitely been a busy week. After Wednesday of next week, my life should calm down a little I think and I can go back to my schedule of writing and going to the gym. I kind of miss it.

So I was sitting in our corporate divisional meeting this morning, and I was looking at the slide deck that I helped put together that our senior VP was presenting. I felt very proud to be part of this collaborative effort. It made me wonder if this is what I'll feel if and when one of my scripts becomes a movie. I'll be sitting in the audience thinking, I helped put that movie together. A script after all is just the structure, one small part of the movie making process.

It was a good feeling until someone in the back complained they couldn't see what on the bottom of the slide. The slide deck was chock full of information and many of the slides were way too busy, but I didn't have final approval. I was only one of many people who helped put the deck together. Still, I felt bad.

And then I thought well, this is bad part of movies as well. The critics, the people who hate your movie, the waiting every Sunday for your box office totals and knowing that if you can't fill them seats your movie will have a limited run at the theatre and go straight into the DVD abyss. Citizen Kane bombed at the box office and the awards and took many years to be considered "one of the finest movies ever made."

I've got another slide deck premiering tomorrow night at the Board meeting. Again, another collaborative effort that I don't have final control over. Maybe it's a good thing I'm not attached to when my slide decks get changed. It's kind of a relief actually to not be totally responsible for a presentation. All I have to worry about is version control.