I had the weirdest dream this morning. I dreamt I was in a relationship with some guy I knew when I was in junior high. I was in junior high and he was a senior in highs school. I only knew him because he used to pull on my braids when he walked by me. I was 13 years old and I wore my hair in braids.

But like I was such an innocent 13 year old, that I just thought it was so annoying that some guy I didn't even know was pulling on my hair. It wasn't till I was much older did it occur to me that maybe that guy him was like flirting wtih me or something. I don't know, because there was some other guy who used to pull on my braids as well. It's still such a mystery to me.

Anyway, I think I dreamt about this guy because when I was home last summer I found out that he had run for mayor of my island and lost. The guy from junior high was really smart, and went to USC and then went on to law school.

When I first heard the story all I remembered about the guy, his name was Randall, was he was that annoying senior freak who couldn't stop pulling on my hair. I couldn't believe he had come back home, opened up his own law practice and then tried to unsuccessfully run for mayor. How bizarre is that?

In the dream, we were together but here and not at home. Only the dream was kind of fuzzy, because then Randall the laywer island guy turned into this other guy I met a few years ago who was in law school here in San Francisco. So maybe I just had a dream about marrying lawyers or something. But it was so weird to dream about that guy from junior high, because I haven't seen the boy since junior high.

Just thinking about it gives me the creeps. I was 13 years old and the guy was 17 or 18 years old and pulling on my braids. What was up with that? And my poor 13 year old did not know what the heck was going on? Not that being older makes a difference, because I'm just as foggy about men and their actions now as I was at age 13. Clueless!

I finally started reading "A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. I couldn't help myself, but I had to read the last chapter to see how it ended. It's a bad habit I have. I wish I didn't because now I'm disappointed. Oh well. I think I would have been disappointed whether I read the ending or not.

In the screenwriting class I took a couple of weeks ago, the Hollywood guy said that most characters in movies are very unaware. I remember sitting there and thinking that movies must be like Oprah books then, because the character in her book pick are dreadfully unaware. The characters in these books are so unaware of the consequences of their actions that all I want to do is slap them and make them get into therapy.

I mean, not that I'm not that self aware myself, but honestly the people in some of the Oprah books I've read aren't even the kind of people who would watch Oprah. What's up with that?

I'm specifically thinking of the book "House of Sand and Fog". The woman in that book was so silly to me. I was so unsympathetic to her character, that I really did not care what happened to her. I only finished the book because I wanted to find out what would happen to the persian people.

I got the same reaction from reading "White Oleander". After awhile I was like when is this character going to get it? When is she going to watch Oprah or go to the library and borrow a self help book and read it and learn?

I have a feeling "A Thousand Acres" is an Oprah book,and I'm going to end up hating the characters. I don't know this for a fact, but I've got a bad feeling about it. I just don't like characters who aren't very smart or who don't make an effort to get it together and fight against doing stupid things.

I don't know, maybe because I so relate to them and can't admit that to myself or I really can't relate to them and can't even find compassion in my heart to feel sympathy for their plight. I need characters to fight a little against their worst impulses, or at the very least, think about it a little and feel some kind of remorse. And then if they need to, give into their worst impulses, but at least go into the situation with their eyes open just a little, instead of tightly closed.

I want them to be like moths drawn to the flame, trying to fight the flame, but drawn to it nonetheless, only to get burned and die. But I think I want character to be like moths, because that's how I sometimes feel about my life. I'm that moth, and I get drawn to the flame, and I get burned, only I don't die. I get bruised as all heck, but I don't die. Not yet anyway. I just get up and keep on flying, because what else if there to do but keep going on.

Buying clothes is much more relaxing to think about than what is going on in the news. I have been deliberately avoiding the whole Nick Berg thing, because honestly I do not want to see someone beheaded. What is point of witnessing such cruelty, especially when the reports said the idiots took a long time to do it.

Beheading was once reserved for royalty, think England for example, because you get killed quickly and relatively painlessly. Those terrorists forgot to read their instruction booklet on beheading because they completely botched the whole thing up.

Honestly! If you have to behead someone, at least do it right and don't mess around with taking too long. It's like that scene in the movie "The Green Mile", where the evil prison guard deliberately forgot to wet the sponge for the death row inmate's head. And then when they tried to fry the guy, they literally ended up frying the guy and burning his hair and head because there wasn't any water to conduct the electricity quickly and easily to kill the person.

Maybe that's the point though, it was supposed to be torture and not a mercy killing but my point is the same. Why does anyone want to watch such things? It's like people on the freeway having to slow down whenever they see an accident, because they have to see how bad it really is. How entertaining is that to see a car with people in it on fire or someone's head through a windshield or hanging bizarrely outside a car window like the neck was made of rubber.

Nothing much to write about other than the fact that I'm now obsessed with buying silk skirts. I just picked up two the other day, and they are so fabulous to wear for the summer. Since they're silk, they look dressy and I can wear them to parties but they're light and fun enough to wear casually as well.

The same catalog also has two more silk duponi skirts but in brown and green checks. Very gingham and so summery. I am tempted to buy them just because they're silk, but I keep hesitating because I don't own brown shoes or brown sweaters. The other two skirts matched easily to things I already owned, so the choice was easy. But brown and green?

And I don't know. Do I really want brown and green checks emphasizing the size and width of my bum? Plus I'm thinking the brown and green gingham just aren't as versatile to wear all year round and they may be a little too dressy for work but not dressy enough to wear at night. I mean gingham is so day wear!

My film history professor, Ira Mr. Liberal Hollywood left winger, came up to me during the break in class last night and thanked me volunteering alternative opinions during class. He said it made him think differently about things, and he was glad I made an effort to participate.

What an odd comment! Of course cynical me was thinking, are you thanking me for pointing out the left wing liberal view is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

We were discussing Michael Moore's latest new film and how Disney wasn't going to distribute it. And I decided to pipe up and say, but that's what happened to Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ". Gibson put up his own money to make the film and found his own distributor, because Hollywood wouldn't go near a "christian" movie with a 10 foot pole. But you never heard an uproar in the press about Gibson being treated unfairly in Hollywood like what you're hearing about Michael Moore.

And why is that I wonder? Because Christian films are not a 'cause du jour' for the liberal left wing media? I wanted to add that you can't just say Michael Moore, a supposed left wing nut case, gets the shaft by Hollywood without saying that so does a supposed right wing christian nut case like Mel Gibson.

But of course nobody in class wanted to say that because it's so not politically correct in San Francisco to defend anything Christian even when you know the Christian thing is being treated just as unfairly as the left wing thing. And it's that kind of hypocrisy on either side of the political spectrum that just makes me madder than a hatter.