My first bible reading wasn’t too bad. In this other new thing I’m doing to put more structure in my life, part of the daily-to-do is to reflect upon the word of God. This is the passage that really spoke to me.

The Fiery Cloud
Numbers 8 (NLT) :
15The Tabernacle was set up, and on that day the cloud covered it.[f] Then from evening until morning the cloud over the Tabernacle appeared to be a pillar of fire. 16This was the regular pattern--at night the cloud changed to the appearance of fire. 17When the cloud lifted from over the sacred tent, the people of Israel followed it. And wherever the cloud settled, the people of Israel camped. 18In this way, they traveled at the LORD's command and stopped wherever he told them to. Then they remained where they were as long as the cloud stayed over the Tabernacle. 19If the cloud remained over the Tabernacle for a long time, the Israelites stayed for a long time, just as the LORD commanded. 20Sometimes the cloud would stay over the Tabernacle for only a few days, so the people would stay for only a few days. Then at the LORD's command they would break camp. 21Sometimes the cloud stayed only overnight and moved on the next morning. But day or night, when the cloud lifted, the people broke camp and followed. 22Whether the cloud stayed above the Tabernacle for two days, a month, or a year, the people of Israel stayed in camp and did not move on. But as soon as it lifted, they broke camp and moved on. 23So they camped or traveled at the LORD's command, and they did whatever the LORD told them through Moses.

I feel like I’m other some kind of cloud, waiting for the signs to know what to do. I think this is part of the grieving process when you lose a relationship. I have to grieve, I have to be sad, I have to learn the lessons so I can move one.

One big lesson I learned it is I neglected my writing. I never ever want to do this in a love relationship again. Writing is good for me; it takes the stress out of my mind and body. I already have an overly active imagination, and when I’m not writing my imagination tends to spill over into my real life. I need to keep my imaginative mind active by making up stories about my fictional characters, instead of making up stories about my relationship. My imagination does not know the difference, honestly. My imagination will make up a story about anything and everything, and it doesn’t take much to get it going. Making up stories comes fairly easy for me because of my imagination, which is great for writing but not great for having a love relationship. When I don’t write I also get depressed, which makes me focus on what’s wrong with my life instead of what’s good and great about it.

So I must learn to make myself write every day, even if I don’t want to, even if I don’t feel like it, which is how I feel most of the time. Even if I only do 15 minute timed freewrites, at least I will still be writing. I am reading my Natalie Goldberg books; she wrote “Writing down to the bones”. Natalie talks about writing like a spiritual practice that you must do every day, so that one day you will be able to write short stories and novels. And not journal writing either, which is what I do, but timed freewrites.

This is my plan and on Monday I restructured my current screenplay in a freewrite. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, but I think it will be fun to see if could restructure my screenplay to fit my new plot. I like problem-solving. I do it naturally, and I get paid to do it in real life. Maybe if I can transfer my natural problem solving skills to my writing, I will be able to put out a story that I really like instead of something that I sort of like.

So I finally gave in and bought a one-year bible. It’s been a dream of mine since college to read the bible in its entirety, and not just the passages they dole out ritualistically in church readings or the ones that get attention on the History channel with those fanatical doom and gloom evangelical and conspiracy theory pundits. The theatre lit professor who was teaching my class on Samuel Beckett, the playwright, lambasted the whole class for our humongous bible illiteracy. Beckett, like most scholars of his time, knew the bible inside and out and used biblical references throughout his work. I can still hear Ellen Mease screaming “And you all missed 90% of them,” and then going into a tirade of the inadequacy of the American educational system. “How are you supposed to read great literature and understand what the authors were trying to say if you don’t get the biblical references?” We all rolled our eyes secretly, eyes that said “yeah, yeah Ellen, whatever.”

But I never forgot her remark. I hate when I don’t get the references; it like so bugs me. I feel stupid and out-of-it when I don’t get things because I’m a smart girl and should get these seemingly simple things. But I never got around to actually wanting to fulfill this dream until a few years ago.

I started on my one-year bible plan three years ago, and that unfortunately only lasted through the middle of February before I gave up. It was too hard. The bible study plan I was using started off in The Old Testament and I don’t know about you but there are parts of the five books of the Torah that are just, I don’t know, unreadable. The people who put together the one-year bible must have first hand knowledge of the bible’s put you sleep state because each day has a reading from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. Leviticus and its endless dietary restrictions should only be taken in small doses.

I also found the one-year bible online after I bought the book, so dummy me didn’t even have to spend the money. Oh well. My only issue with these bibles is the translations. Although I’m used to reading the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation, personally I like the New Standard Version (NSV). The NRSV takes the wonderful and violent language of the NSV and waters it down, makes it politically correct and I think infinitely more boring. But the one-year bibles that I saw at the bookstore in the Embarcadero only came in the New Living Translation (NLT) and the New International Version (NIV). The NIV is the most popular translation but it only came in the compact version, so I ended up buying the NLT not only because the book was bigger but I wasn’t sure what to make up the NIV introduction when I read that evangelicals endorsed it. That statement, I am embarrassed to say, was enough to scare me off that translation.

The online one-year bible gives you more options to translations, which I wish they would do for the book version. I guess it makes sense for the publisher to print translations of bible that they know will be bought.

So okay, I know it’s March 7 and I have January and February to get caught up with in my reading plan, but I’m hoping that I will be able to fulfill my dream to read the whole bible.

So I talked to my boss this morning and she told what my raise would be. I got the highest amount you could get for the review I received, which wasn't much, really, but considering last year was not a financially stellar year for the company I'm happy I received a raise at all. I've been at companies where they've held back raises because the finances were so bad or haven't given them at all.

I don't think I've done that badly at this company. Since I left my other job in 2004, my salary has gone up 12%. The yearly bonus will be small as well, but I'm just happy becauseI haven't worked for a company that gave out yearly bonuses in a long time. My thinking is, whatever money the company can give you is a good thing.

I'm not going to lie and say I'm not pleased that "Crash" won the oscar for best film. "Crash" was an excellent ensemble film dealing with so many relevant issues from racism to caring for an elderly parent to the seeming inhumanity of the health care system to children getting more love from their nannies than from their parents to human slavery to arab race relations.

It was an intense movie with some of the best realistic dialogue I've seen in a film in a long time, outside of anything David Mamet or Quentin Tarantino have done. I also liked that it was a relatively low budget film of $6.5 million that made $55 million at the box office. Now that's one heck of a return on investment.

"Crash" dealt with perhaps what some people say are mundane issues, but they are issues nonetheless that so universal to anyone living in America right now.

When I went to a Robert McKee seminar last year, the man himself even raved about how great the movie "Crash" was and one that we all needed to see. This praise was coming from the same man who totally dissed "The English Patient" a year previously. Guess the guy really knows his movies. I wasn't even going to see "Crash" until Robert McKee recommended it. I don't think the movie was even marketed that well when it came out, and made the amount of money it did from people seeing the movie and telling their friends.

Not that "Brokeback Mountain" didn't cover a relevant subject, but "Crash" I think just covered more issues and did it in current day. And with the disgusting political correctness that is taking over everything from the coverage of the news to what people say, "Crash" was a like a big "F-U" to all of that, and said "you know what, this is how life really is and no change in vocabulary is going to change it unless we confront it and transform it through the medium of film."