This is trippy! I just got a call from a recruiter who got my name and phone number out of a publication called National Managed Care Leadership Directory. I didn’t even know about the publication or that my name was even in it.

I've been using Microsoft Excel for years so one would think I could easily come up with this simple little IF formula -

=IF(ISTEXT(B10),"NA",IF(B10>AQ$9,"Abv CA Avg", IF B10=AQ$9,
"Eql CA Avg",IF B10 < AQ$9,"Blw CA Avg"))))

But ... the above formula took me over two hours to figure out and to get it to do what I wanted it to do. I hate when applications make me feel stupid.

Back to a more pleasant topic. I saw "Sahara" on Saturday. I knew it was a special effects movie and I wanted to see it on the big screen. I liked it. I think the movie took itself a little seriously, and if it didn't it would have made for a better movie. It was so darned politically correct, which of course made it a little boring.

I think the movie was supposed to be like another Indiana Jones, but Indiana Jones was not politically correct and it never took itself very seriously and that's what made the movie so fun and entertaining. And yes, Matthew M is cute but he's no Harrison Ford. Indy had a cruel streak, I mean come on, the guy had a whip for god's sake. Dirk Pitt is too much of doogooder type character, and yes that's attractive but it's an adventure story and you need an adventure type guy. Matthew M is too much of a goofy good ole boy, without a hint of meanness in him.

I think Matthew M's best role was in the movie "Contact". He was the wild-eyed hippie type philosopher who was Bill Clinton's religious advisor, and Jody Foster's fling from her C-seti days. But I think Matthew M is trying to change his Hollywood image and getting himself cast as Mr. Adventure, which he is so not. He wasn't very good as a swashbuckling dragon killer in the firebreathing dragon movie either.

Still the movie was fun and definitely worth the $7.25 I paid to see it. I wished I'd gone to see Nicholas Cage in "National Treasure". I think Nick Cage makes a better Mr. Adventure type, and he's definitely shown he's got a mean streak. He was great in that movie where he changed faces with John Travolta called "Face Off".

I'm on the last chapter of my Texas novel and I'm having the hardest time finishing it. I know how it's going to end because I wrote a four page outline of what the chapter is about, but it's feeling so anticlimactic to be writing this last chapter. I'm like, this is the first novel that I am finishing and it's like the freakiest feeling. I didn't think I would feel this way.

I thought I would feel elated and ecstatic to be writing the last chapter of my novel. Although it's not exactly the last chapter because I have two more chapters to write, but those last two chapters are epilogues. Chapter 12 is the final ending. Chapter 12 is the end of the story.

My intuition is telling me to take this week slow and to not push my writing. I want to finish the chapter this week, but I'm not going to rush it.

I think my problem is I'm going to have to end the relationship for my characters and it's sad. I'm not writing a happy ending, I'm writing a bittersweet ending. I wanted to write a fun love story with a sappy happy ending, and instead I'm writing a love story where the characters breakup.

I feel like I'm reliving the ending of the relationship I had with the person I based my male character on, and I don't want to go through the pain again. Silly isn't it? When I originally conceived of the story, I wanted to experience a fairytale happy ending with my male character. In real life the guy and I broke up, so I thought wouldn't it be fun to write a story with a similar male character except that we end up together.

But my ending didn't work out that way, my characters didn't want a happy ending. Yes I think they fell in love, but they were never meant to be just like me and that guy were never went to be. Just writing that line makes me feel like crying.

It's not like I didn't try my damndest to end my story happily, because I did. But my storyline couldn't justify a happy ending. I hate this! I write to experience things that I didn't experience in real life, and I end up writing a story that's closer to reality. This is supposed to be fiction and not my real life.

I know I'm being silly because these characters aren't me and they had situations happen to them that never happened to me. I just wish I could give them a better ending to their relationship than the one I had.