I heard a phrase in a meeting today that I thought was very intriguing - "dollar curtain". It's a variation of the phrase "iron curtain", which was coined by Winston Churchill to define the boundary between the Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe and the West European countries.

"Dollar Curtain" means a town that defines the boundary between the rich and riff-raff/have-nots. Mission Viejo was described as a "dollar curtain" town in Orange County.

Is it like totally weird that one of my ex-boyfriends has his own entry in Wikipedia? I knew there was a reason I named him "the one that got away".

I had a dream about him last night where I was kissing his neck and it tasted very salty!

Men are like so dang emotional! I can't stand it! There's this guy at work, the one I took a two-hour coffee break with a couple of weeks ago, and he is like so mad at me. I don't want to work for him, and I have been avoiding not telling him because I hate conflict. So tonight there was like an Octoberfest outing for his group that I got invited to, and I went thinking I could talk to him. Big Mistake! It was not the right time and place and there were way too many people, and I got so triggered so I like flirted with whoever was sitting next to me and this guy like gave me the evil eye the whole time. God I hate that!

Okay, I know the guy is mad at me because I haven't fessed up to him that I don't want to interview for a position in his department, but does he like have to give me the evil eye at a company outing. I was only going to stay for one beer and instead ended up drinking three beers, and finally I couldn't stand it and had to tell him on the way out that I needed to talk to him.

How dang awkward! Oh my god! I'm not his fiance and I don't need him being all mad at me because I'm too chicken to talk to him and tell him that I don't want to work for him. He wants to talk to me in person and so I'm going to have to take him to lunch next week and break the news to him, like he doesn't already know that I don't want to work for him. What a bother!

But I totally like this guy and he's like a soul mate and everything, and if maybe things were really different and he wasn't like that much younger than me and not spiritual, I might go for it somehow. But god! The guy has got a fiance whom he totally loves, but for whatever reason the guy totally loves talking to me and we can talk to each forever and feel like there's no one else in the world but the two of us. It's a weird situation and I can't deal with weird right now.

But I guess he has a right to be mad at me because I'm like such a wuss, so I'll take him to lunch next week and face the music and hopefully salvage our friendship.

So like I am wondering if I should torture myself again and do the National Novel Writing Month. I was so good in 2001, 2002, and 2003. I failed in 2004, and completely skipped it in 2005.

It's such a great exercise for a writer to see what your capacities are for novel production. Lessons I've learned:

I can write every day, but it is very challenging with a full-time job.

I can only write for 2-hours at a time and then I burn out.

I can do three writing segments with each segment lasting 2 hours, if I have a 1-2 hour break in between each segment.

Four writing segments is way too much for me. I tried but I couldn't do it.

I need to write with an outline with the story loosely plotted out, otherwise I will get lost and take detours and spend hours writing about one thing.