My friend Judy's dad died last Wednesday. They discovered an inoperable brain tumor in mid August. The familiy knew he didn't have long to live, but I think they thought he would last until early next year. Brain tumors are like that; quick and painless. Judy's dad died in his sleep.

My ex mother-in-law, whom I dearly loved, died like that. Brain tumor diagnosis one day and three months later she was gone. Even the doctors at Stanford couldn't do a thing for her. Poor Lou.

She asked my ex-husband about me, you know. Asked my ex in her last dying days, about me and about how I was. Lou even told me ex how much she loved me. She was a great mom-in-law. I was really touched by her gesture, since I hadn't seen in her in five years.

The last time I saw Judy's dad, we were in Vermont and watching Monday Night football. He was a big New England Patriots fan and was lamenting about his team. He had gone up the day before to Canada to buy Molson beer and we were drinking beer, talking about football and watching the game. He was such a sweet man. Sort of high handed in his own way, but then I think all old dads are high handed. And boy did he love his Big Band music, the music of his youth Judy said.

Losing a parent is so hard, even though you're expecting them to die. My dad was in the hospital for two years before he finally moved on. Towards the end, I couldn't even go and see him. He was wasting away to nothing, paralyzed from the waist down and in pain, and just getting sicker and more depressed as the two years wore on. My family was relieved when he finally left since he was depressed and in pain, but it was still hard, very hard.

My friend Patti, from my writing group, is into writing flash fiction. I had to write one page story for a writing class I was in during the Fall 2000, so I think this qualifies as flash fiction.

Flash Fiction – Maggie and The Crying Freeman

It's late she thought, looking at her watch, almost midnight. Maggie stared at her notes again to see if there was anything she might have overlooked. Five killings were done assassin style. The victims were all males, between the ages of 30 and 50, found in dumpsters in the Mission district in San Francisco with their hands and feet tied and a note pinned to their chest which read, "The people have spoken and made their judgment. The accused has been punished in the manner befitting the crime". The note was signed "The Crying Freeman" and under the signature the killer had drawn tears as if he was sorry for the killing. Each victim was shot in the head at close range from behind. Each man had been wearing an expensive suit, had carried a briefcase, laptop, PDA and a cellphone. Each had held a top position at their respective dot com companies and they all lived in the mission.

Other than that, there was no apparent connection between each man. Maggie put her pen down and stared out of her hotel window gazing at the lights of the city flickering in the darkness. The Crying Freeman was a comic book character she’d found out. However, the murders were nothing like the comic books. If this was a copycat murder, she mused, then the assassin would use the same killing metho, but he didn't. Maggie leaned her head back and closed her eyes and thought about all the murders she had helped solved over her twenty-five year career as private investigator; not one resembled this case. She thought about the young kid she had interviewed at the comic book store. The killer must be a regular at the comic bookstore she thought and wrote a note to herself to question the employees again.

Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. Maggie started and looked at the clock wondering who it could be at this late hour. She stood up, went over to her bag on the bed, and got out her gun. She looked through the chambers making sure it was loaded and then put the gun in the holster at her side. She put her jacket on and then went to the door and opened it.

"Maggie, Hi, I’m Oscar, the guy you interviewed today at Al's Comic Books."

"Oh yeah, hi, how are you?" Maggie wondered why he was here.

"Good. Listen, I know it's late, but you told me to come by your hotel if I remember anything and I have. Can I come in?" Maggie looked at the kid again. He wasn't a kid actually, she thought and guessed his age to about late 20's. There was something very sweet and eager about him.

"Sure come in" she said, "I was just go over my notes again." Maggie closed the door, undid the chain, opened the door again and gestured for Oscar to come in. She saw the kid's eyes look around the room and widen as he walked in. Her room was a big suite with a desk and a living room.

"Why don't we sit on the couch and you can tell me what you remembered", Maggie said walking over to the sofa and noticed out of the corner of her eye, Oscar fumbling for something in his jacket. She turned around and put her hand on her gun under her jacket, watching him. All of a sudden, the hair on her neck started rising. She caught a brief glimpse of the gun in his hand.

Maggie pulled her own gun out and yelled, "Drop it", cocking her gun. Oscar started for a second but didn't drop his gun.

"I said drop the gun or I'll shoot", Maggie yelled. Oscar stared at her and the gun. Maggie saw a tears roll down Oscar's cheek and thought to herself that he wasn't prepared for her having a gun and that she had caught him off guard.

"Why are you doing this?" Maggie asked, "Who the hell are you?" There was a long silence in the room.

"I said, who the hell are you.”

"I am the Crying Freeman," he said simply. Oscar lifted his gun and before Maggie could shoot, he shot himself in the mouth.

Dropping her hands to her side, Maggie wiped her brow. She felt her hands clammy with sweat and noticed that her blouse was also wet. She saw a small book that must have fallen out of his jacket. Maggie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the rubber gloves she always carried with her, and put them on. Then she bent down, picked up the book, and flipped through the pages. There was a page for each victim, with their names, what comic books they bought, where they worked, where they lived, how they looked. They were all comic book shop customers she thought, that's the connection.

She saw another page. It read, "I am the Crying Freeman. It is my duty to rid San Francisco of those people who are responsible for its demise. I have been ordered to kill all those work in dot com companies." Maggie shook her head, went over to the phone called the police.

God, all this talk about anthrax. Who knows what to believe? I feel like I'm listening to the Y2K doomsayers again and Y2K never happend. People are so paranoid right now, even the experts. They're saying that these early cases of anthrax are just test cases and that we can expect a mass attack. Why do they do this? It's scary!!! They're talking about spraying biological and chemical weapons on money, on food, in our water supply, etc.

Whoever is doing this, I think they are very serious. But I believe in karma and it's really, really bad karma what they're doing and I think karma will take care of these people down the road. But until down the road comes, I'm afraid of what will happen to me, to my family and friends and to my country.

I honestly don't know what to believe. I'm listening to a guy who's scaring me about biological and chemical weapons and in the same breath, he's hawking his book about biological terror for $20. There's something not right about that somehow.

Here's a first draft, mistakes and all, of my "Crazy Eddie" story. I have 14 handwritten pages more of this story but they're not typed up yet.

I came here to his barren place, to shed any sense of normalcy I had left. That’s what happens I’ve read, when you’re in a traumatic event, they say you lose any sense of your life, your routine. And since I’m the kind of person, who likes to take things to their logical conclusion, although in this case, it seems, their logical extreme, I packed up, put all my stuff in storage, bought a camper and came here. I like the dessert, I always have. There is no one out here but sand, cactus and nocturnal animals, especially in the summer when the temperature goes up over a 100 degrees. The guy at the ranger station gave me a strange look when I bought my camping permit and warned me about the heat of the dessert. I smiled and told him I grew up in this area and I liked the heat. He smiled and shook his head and handed over the permit. He was right about the heat though. It is hot here. Most times I stay in my camper and it feels like I’m in an oven and I’m roasting. I sit with the window open and fan myself. Some days I just have to sit there and not move, because even fanning myself makes me sweat. At night it gets so cold and then I feel like I’m sitting in an icebox. I try not to turn on the heat or any use any electricity so I can conserve my energy supplies. The less supplies I use, the less frequently I have to go into town for supplies. I am so into my own isolation I don’t even like seeing or hearing other people. Every night I lie in my bed with all my blankets on and wearing every single piece of clothing I own and still I’m cold. It’s hard to sleep when you’re cold. Not that it matters, I can’t sleep anyway so I don’t really mind. I’m afraid to sleep. Every time I doze off the memories start – the sounds, the smells – they call, come back and I have to relive the whole thing again, like it wasn’t bad enough the first time. I can still see him lying there – smell the liquor that seemed to always be oozing out of his pores. He always smelled like stale cigarettes and cheap booze, that sickening stench you smell when you first walk into bars. He was lying there in that unnatural position, all sprawled on the floor, spread eagle, lying in his own pool of blood. God only knows how long he was in that position. I didn’t come home that night till really late and that’s how I found him. I don’t remember much after that. I was told by the cops that my next door neighbor called them when she heard me screaming over and over again. When they got there fifteen minutes later, I was still screaming. They tried to get me to stop but I wouldn’t. Finally one of them slapped me real hard and only then did I stop screaming. Then they said I fainted from the shock. Next thing I know I’m sitting in a hospital bed and it’s three days later. The cops came and interviewed me later and asked me if I remembered anything. I told them what I saw when I came in. Then they asked me if I knew about my boyfriend’s gambling debts and I said I knew he gambled at the bar but that was all I knew. The cops told me that my boyfriend Eddie, good old Eddie, had over $50,000 in gambling debts and when he couldn’t pay, they decided that they would teach him a lesson and kill him. Some lesson. I knew Eddie was trouble but I didn’t know he was that much trouble. Since it’s too hot to do anything during the day, I sit in my chair and I go over how we met in my head, over and over again. Like I’m trying to find the key to a door that might unlock why we even started going out.

I met Eddie on a Monday night. I was in my favorite bar having a drink at 10 pm when Eddie walked in. I don’t usually drink on Monday nights but I had a hard day at work. I was at work till 8 pm that night, helping my boss with her presentation that he waited to do till the last minute. I hate when he does that, waiting to prepare a presentation till the night before. You’d think I get used to it by now, since it’s been his pattern for the last two years, but I still keep thinking he might one day do something a little different. Fat chance. So there I am sitting at the bar having a conversation with Mark the bartender and Jeanne, a woman I had met the bar on a different occasion. I was a regular at that bar. I wasn’t exactly a resident, not like some of the people there, but I guess I was there often enough. Next thing I know this guy sits down at the empty bar stool next to me and joins our conversation. I took one look at him and I could feel myself licking my chops inside. The man was gorgeous. He had wavy dark blonde hair, hazel green eyes and a cute mustache and goatee. Everything about him screamed either construction worker or some other kind of manual laborer. I had a flashback of a coworker’s construction worker pinup calendar and I knew I was lost forever. I had never dated a guy like that before. Some of my friends had dated blue-collar type workers and I remember them saying they liked it. Not for very long, but they liked dating them.

Now Eddie wasn’t the most intelligent guy I had ever met in my life, but he could hold his own in a conversation, if you didn’t get too deep. Eddie had a lot of opinions on many things and he watched the news. Eddie was an electrician and it was interesting to hear him talk about all the things he could install. The rest of the night went by in a blur to me. Eddie sitting there, smoking and drinking screwdrivers, and me smoking and drinking light beer. We managed to talk all night till the bar closed, about what, I don’t remember. And then I remember Eddie driving me home, which was kind of funny since I only lived three blocks from the bar and it was a safe neighborhood. But Eddie insisted, and I found myself giving in. I must have really had a lot to drink that night because my next memory is of Eddie and me groping each other in my hallway and tearing each other’s clothes off. That was two years ago. Six months after that Eddie moved in. I didn’t want him to move in, but he insisted and I gave in again. I can’t stand when a man nags me, and Eddie was a constant nagger when he wanted something. Most of the time I just give in so I don’t have to hear the nagging.

I don’t know why I have go over and over again in my mind how Eddie and I met. I dated Eddie because he looked good period. He looked like he was out of a male pinup calendar and I never dated anyone that looked that good before. Eddie had other qualities but his looks were his best quality. There wasn’t anything that strange about him. So he drank a lot, so did I. He was kind of secretive about his life and his stuff, but not in a bad way. He was just secretive. And sometimes I think I didn’t care to know what his past was like. Some days it was enough for me that we had great sex, that I liked to watch him walk around my apartment naked and that I liked the fact that he fixed things around the house. I never saw Eddie as anything permanent and I don’t think he saw me as the love of his life. He told me he wanted to marry me, but Eddie told me a lot of things he wanted to do and never did. I knew Eddie gambled. He told me but he said it was just a hobby, not anything serious.

I keep thinking to myself there must have been something about Eddie’s behavior that should have been a tip off that one day I would find him lying in a pool of blood in my apartment, but I can’t find what that tip off was.

I am currently working on a story that I'm calling "Crazy Eddie". It's about a woman who comes home to find her boyfriend shot dead and lying in a pool of blood in their apartment. The story is told from the woman's point of view and tells her story, how she met the guy, what their life was life and what happens after she discovers her boyfriend's body.

It's an odd story but I'm kind of into writing it. I have no idea what is going to happen at the end of the story. Right now she's living in a camper in the Joshua Tree National Park, near LA, alone and drinking and going over and over in her head the murder, her life, Eddie and her life with Eddie. To her, Eddie was a little crazy but in a good way. He drank too much, gambled at the horse track more than he should have and didn't have a steady job. But, he loved her and in his own way took care of her and supported her.

Sometimes I wonder who the crazy person in the relationship is? The one who's doing all the wrong things or the one who is with the person doing all the wrong things. All the people who write biographies about married couples say that you can never tell what's going in a relationship between two people from outside of the relationship. Only the two people actually in the relationship know what's going on and they couldn't explain to someone else, let alone themselves. The biographers say all marriages and for that matter, any relationship btween two people, is complicated. People hook up together and consequently stay together for all sorts of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with love. I've also read somewhere that people decide to be in a relationshp on the basis of 1) opportunity and 2) incentive.

My female character thinks the key to understanding her dilemna is to understand all that's come before. She believes in the existence of a "magical key" that will unlook the door to answers about Eddie and their life together.

I'm not sure if she'll find the key yet. I have to keep writing the story to find out. I hope she finds the "key" to her life. Wouldn't it be great if we all could find the "key" to our lives?

I'm not sure there is a key though. I'm not sure certain events and experiences can ever be explaind properly. Some events just happen in one's life and there's no rhyme or reason for it and certainly no keyl

I ran into someone from my past while getting coffee on Sunday. It's been about 10 years since I've seen him and I was shocked by how he had aged. Gone was the strapping young enthusiastic happy canadian boy in his 20's and in his place was an older, greying around the temples somewhat bitter and tired older man.

Running into him, I wonder if I have aged as much as he has. I can't tell. Too me I look almost exactly the same, maybe a lot heavier, a little more wrinkled, but still the same. And I am more secure, more confident and happier than I was when I met this young man, so for me aging has been good in some ways. Not that I like aging. I hate it and I fight it every step of the way and spend way too much on time and money on ways to hold back the clock. But other than the physical ravages of aging, emotionally, intellectually, psychically, psychologically I feel so much better than I did in my youth.

Sometimes in unexpected moments, I mourn my past, but those times are few, so as not to even occur as an exclamation point in any moment of my life.

After we had parted, I wished that I could meld my personality back then to my personality now. I was so different in my 20's than I am now. I can't even tell if anything of me back then has survived, although I'm sure something has. I want the best of both worlds, but I don't know if that's possible anymore.

I was in a seminar where the leader said we live in an "either or" world. We're either this or that. He said that this either or thinking is just a mental construct and that we can live live in "and" world. We can be this and that and everything in between. I used to believe him, at least for the time, when I was in that seminar. But now, I'm not so sure. Can I still be who I was in my 20's and still be who I am in my 30's? Is there a compromise somewhere? I guess I shall have to find out.

So much as happened since my last post, which coincidentally were two days before the WTC/Pentagon attacks. I not only had to deal with the terror and fear the September 11 incidents engendered, but my best friend Amy had a relapse in her brain cancer and was put into a nursing home. Twin tragedies for me, like the twin World Trade Center Towers in flame.

I suppose I shall write about it more sometime, but right now I'm still in processing mode.

They say disasters come in three or is it pairs? I'm not really sure which. But here's a semi-disaster. I tracked my first love down on the Internet. On a whim, I typed his name into Google and found the website for a film production company he just started. I also found a review of some commercial/industrials films he produced and they said he was brilliant and cutting edge. There was a picture of him and he looked exactly the same as I remembered him. He doesn't look like he's aged at all. I don't why I consider this a semi-disaster, but somehow I do. Part of me really wants to get in touch with him and reconnect and the other part says now. I mean, do I really want to hear what a great life he's having, do I want to see a picture of wife and kids? For me, maybe it's enough to just know that he's alive and doing well. I don't know.

Then there's that small part of me that say the past is dust and besides, he was the one who walked out on me, walked out on our friendship, hung up on me after I told him I was living with a man, much to my surprise since by that point in our relationship we were nothing more than very, very good friends.

Men keep saying they don't understand women, well as a woman, I don't understand men or anyone who would walk out without explanation on a deep love and friendship. As you can tell, I still haven't quite gotten over his walking out on me. I want to get over it but to get over it, I have to understand it and I don't understand it all. I have a half written play about what would happen if were to meet years later by accident. I thought that I wrote about us meeting, I could speculate on why he walked out on me. That play was hard to finish because I wanted to write what was true, but I don't think I'll ever find out the truth.

And do you know what is the most absurd bit in this whole situation? He probably doesn't even remembe what happened. The incident doesn't even occur as a miniscule blip on his consciousness. Whereas in my life, I have speculated on it off and on, obsessed, paid thousands of dollars worth in therapy and group work to try and figure it out and I still haven't come to an explanation that makes sense.

My friends tell me that love doesn't make sense, that love can turn bitter, can turn into hatred and make people do mean things in the name of love. And I guess that's the part I don't understand. Love is supposed to expand you, to make you want to do good things, at least that's what it's done for me. It's never made me that mean, perhaps cruel for a few minutes but never mean. I've never said or did anything I couldn't take back. In fact, I've been accused of holding back my punches in the name of love. I've never wanted my love to hurt people, at least not consciously.

Speaking of love, many of my friends have an urge to merge, to couple, to want to have children. I've had the opposite reaction. I have, for the time being, lost my urge to couple and to have children. If my city is ever attacked, I think I will do better by myself because I know how to do that. I don't how to survive in a couple. And as for children, I don't know if I want to bring children into the world right now.

What future would a child of mine to have? I support our government's current response to terrorism. I don't think we were left with a choice. Whether we attacked or not, we still would have been attacked. The Taliban left us with very few choices. The problem is this war will take a long time, longer than four years, maybe even longer than eight years, no one knows. All I know is we will all be living with this war for a very long time and I just don't know if I want to bring children into this kind of world.

Speaking of the war, the peaceniks bug me, only because they complain about our government's actions but don't offer any workable solutions of their own. In this current world we live in, you can't just complain without offering a solution because then it's a waste of everyone's precious time. I support their right to protest, which is a freedom our country was founded on, I just wish their protests had some kind of relevancy. The peaceniks, I fear are in danger of protesting themselves into irrelevancy and that would be sad because their voices do need to be heard. But, they'll never be heard if they don't start making sense.

It is hard not to live in fear right now about what the future will bring, and it takes every bit of control I have to not freak out, but I know I cannot do that. If we all do that, then the terrorists have won. So I write and I keep writing and I obsess about small things like finding my first love's website, because these small things keep me grounded, keep me in control, make me want to keep going on. And perhaps at this point, to keep going on, is all that counts right now.

God, I'm so bummed. I had just finished posting my feelings about watching the PBS show Changing Stages. I thought I hit the post and publish button but I hit the post button instead and I lost 30 minutes of writing. This is so unfair! And now I'm too tired to recreate and I don't remember what I wrote since it was so off the cuff. Such a bummer.

Perhaps I'll rewrite it tomorrow. And it was good, so good.


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No other posts this month ... too distraught and depressed. Besides 9/11, my best friend's brain tumor got worse and she became a veggie a few days after the attacks. It was a horrific month for me. Check October posts.
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No blogging for awhile. Don't know why ... just didn't feel like it, I suppose.

I did a Master Cleanse diet from August 9 - 17. This juice fast was very popular in the late 1980's in the crunchy granola health food circles and in Europe. I did my first one back then. You drink nothing by freshly squeezed lemon juice, water, grade B maple syrup and cayenne paper for 10 days at a minimum. You're also supposed to drink a natural laxative tea to help get the stuff out of your system. Also recommended is a salt-water flush, where you drink a quart of water with two teaspoons of sea salt. The stuff goes right through in about three hours and is supposed to be like a cleansing bath for your colon. The lemonade diet is supposed to rid your body of all accumulated buildup of toxins and poisons, unclog your arteries, and move out whatever else isn't supposed to be in your body.

The first time I did the Master Cleanse Diet, I was deathly ill for a couple of days. I had massive headaches and bizarre drug flashbacks, most likely due to all the toxins and poisons coming out of my system. My skin cleared up incredibly at the end and I felt cleaner somehow. I won't begin to tell you the stories of what was coming out of my body; they're horrific. But I suppose, better that they come out than stay inside of me right?

This time the symptoms weren't that bad. The first couple of days I had mild headaches and felt a little ill, but that was it. I had never done the salt flush before, so I decided to try it.

The salt flush was terrible. Since I grew up near the ocean and had been swimming since I was a babe, I have innumerable memories of swallowing ocean salt water from near death drowning experiences. Drinking the salt flush brought those memories back in amazing technicolor; some of which I didn't remember and had blocked. And my body had memories of it too. It was hard to drink the salt water without wanting to gag and having experience of drowning. It was very strange.

The salt water flush made my stomach hurt very badly and it was scary what was coming out of me, despite the fact that besides the lemon juice concoction and a cheating handful of almonds, I wasn't putting anything else into my mouth.

I lost about 6 pounds which I expect to gain back once I start eating again, but I'm very glad that that whatever was in my colon is gone now. I started to take the phrase, "Don't look back" very seriously during my cleansing diet and my countless trips to the bathroom.

But now I've finished the Master Cleansing Diet and I hope I can get back to writing and exercising, which I put off during my juice fast. I miss both terribly. Well, that and eating and cooking of course.

More revelations this month it seems. More of me making peace with my past. It's funny how you sort of get stuck in this view of yourself as a certain kind of person and that you think of yourself this way, even though you might have changed. I caught a glimpse of this recently and I was surprised. The me I thought I was no longer exists and it seems I've moved on to a different view. I didn't know it though and I wonder when the change happened because it wasn't that visible to me. I didn't even know I'd changed until I recently came across someone who reminded me of how I was five years ago. And I only recognized myself in that person because I was now so radically different from that person.

Poor Greg. What I must have put him through and how he was right about so many things. He put up with me for all those years. How I must have just tortured him with the minefield of problems that surrounded me. But even love and friendship couldn't hold us together. I still have that memory of us driving over the Bay Bridge in his white saab and us both singing Elton John and George Michael's duet song "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me. And I knew we were singing about our relationship and how neither of us wanted to lose the other. But it was already too late at that point. We had started to go down separate paths slowly and inexorably.

I thought about contacting him today just to tell him I'd changed, but then I remembered that he hated that I changed so much, so I didn't call. But I have changed and I know he would have liked the new me better.

I've been thinking about whether my novel, "Following in the Dark", should be erotic or have erotic writing. I mean it is about a woman's sexual adventure so it's already erotic right?. But I don't know. I think what makes something erotic is so individual, so personal. Is punishment erotic? Is pain erotic? Most people would never readily admit that sensations such as pain and punishment give them sexual pleasure anyway. I also don't want to make pain and pleasure necessarily that erotic either, it just is what it is. And for me, that's erotic enough.

You really can't believe the mainstream media news anymore. They go on and on about the dotcom bomb and it's effect on the national economy. What they don't report is what's happening in the telecommunications industry and how $2 trillion dollars have been lost by companies such as Cisco, MCI, Lucent, etc. Thank god there is such a thing as the internet where you can read news reports from all around the country and really find out for yourself what's happening in the world.

Mainstream media would have you believe that everyone in the SF Bay Area worked for a dotcom. Well, they're wrong. I don't work for a dotcom and most of my friends don't and we live in the City and County of San Francisco and have lived here for a very long time. We love San Francisco and certain other parts of the Bay Area and would never think of leaving for any other city, other than maybe NYC, Paris or London. The whole dotcom thing sort of passed us by or affected a few of our friends. The dotcom bust hasn't really affected our way of life and we still still live the same way. It's like the 60's all over again, where the mainstream media would have you believe (if you werent' there) that the country was full of war protesting hippies. Wrong again. The hippies were in certain pockets of the country but not everywhere.

The only thing the mainstream media got right was to call all the people moving here "the new oakies coming to the SF Bay Area to dig for internet gold". These oakies didn't come to the SF Bay Area because they wanted to live here. No Way! They came here for one reason only; MONEY. And the media was again right, because now that the money is gone people are moving back to where ever the hell they came from and we say goodbye to them and good riddance.

I told people around me who were buying into the media hype abou the dotcoms that the price per earnings ratio for most dotcom stocks were unrealistic and the stock was hyperinflated. I told them to sell their stock while the stock was still high and get out of the market. There wasn't anything financially wrong with what happened in the markets. Wall Street is full of highs and lows. The problem was that people got emotionally attached to the highs and didn't sell when the market was high. Good times never last forever in stock and neither do bad times. The people who lose money are the people who are emotionally attached to the mood of the country and follow that instead of following good financial principles, which means investing to make money, which means constantly selling and buying and knowing when to cut your losses.

But this whole telecom financial crisis ... that's got me worried only because the future of the internet depends on companies finding a way to move information across the net faster. My friend B from Dallas has this theory that all you needed to do to move information across the wires faster was to have a bigger pipe. The consultants at Microsoft and IBM were sceptical about this theory. but I think he was right. And what's great is that the technology is already out there. But ... with the slowdown in the telecom industry, investment into this new technology is now delayed a couple of years if not more.

Or is it? People are greedy, dont' you think? Greed is what drove the market and the Nasdaq into the dizzying highs and now very dismal lows. If new technology is out there to create a bigger pipe to move voice and data faster, then I'm hoping some greedy investors will sell the hype to the mainstream nedia and mainstream media will report it, and greed will once again rule the markets and drive them back up. Since I've got money invested in this new technology, I can only hope.

Picnicing in Stern Grove was so much fun! The second celtic band was from Donegal Ireland and played great music. It was quite a sight to see everyone trying to do the jig or their version of Riverdance. I found a great scone recipe and another friend made lemon curd from her Yorkshire Cook book, so we had a very english first course. Our second course was bagels, with cream cheese, sliced heirloom tomatoes, chopped red onions, capers and smoked salmon. The third course was tortellini in a balsamic vinagrette with chopped red, yellow and green bell peppers. Fourth course was fried chicken with coleslaw and sliced carrot and celery sticks. And for dessert, we had shortbread with milk chocolate chips cut out in shape of 3 leaf clovers and chocolate yorkshire pudding. We also drank champagne mimosas and ate champagne soaked strawberries.

For our next picnic at Opera in the Park, we decided to have quiche bake-off. People around us must have thought we were insane as we debated whether James Beard, Martha Stewart or the Moosewood people could kick Julia Childs' butt in the quiche department. I think I have a quiche recipe from the Findhorn colony that was pretty good and those Sunset quiche recipes are also killer.

Alas, I didn't see any beautiful chubby red haird/strawberry blonde men there. But then I think I was having too much fun with my girls arguing about quiches and dancing irish jigs.

I was trying to organize all of my writing pieces together last night when I realized I lost a journal. Seven months of my life gone from May 98 to November 98. I told myself that it doesn't really matter because it's not like I ever reread my journals anyway but still, seven months of my life erased, disappeared just like that.

I've been keeping journals since junior high. My english teachers in junior high and high school made me keep one every school year. I made the mistake of throwing these journals out and I've regretted that decision ever since. God, it would have been so interesting to read about what I was thinking back then, what I was obsessing about, what scared me, what made me happy and what my life was like. Those journals were a record of each of those years. When I search through my own memories for what happened in those six years, I draw a fuzzy blank. I feel like Keanu Reeves in that movie about using the brain for storage. Somewhere along the line, I must have dumped a chunk of memory. Either that or all those of memories are misfiled and basically irretrievable.

I'm hoping that my seven month journal will turn up in my place one day. That somehow I stored where it wasn't supposed to be stored and I will somewhere in the future be able to read what my life was like from May to November 98.

I wonder if it will be depressing like that Samuel Beckett play, "Krapp's Last Tape". I saw this play in Berkeley last year. A man made recordings of his voice instead of journals. In the play, the man now about 80, totally decrepit, somewhat senile, with all those signs of aging that scare me. Loose wrinkled skin, slow agonizing movements, mouth that never quite close with a little saliva always dripping out and those old people's eyes that are semi clouded over from cataracts waiting to burst forth. Old people seem to also be covered with a layer of film made of grime, memories and sins from the past and the stench of death. The old man listens to a tape of himself at a much younger age when he was probably 40. The old man shows no emotion really, just the weariness of death. But the younger man's voice is alread full of regret as he goes over a lost love, lost opportunities, lost chances. Is that when death and old age start, when you start to regret your life so that by the time you reach a really old age, the regret wraps itself around you, becomes part of your being and becomes incorporated into your dying process to where you have to surround yourself with it by listening to old tapes of yourself. Talk about being in a hell of your own making. But it's Beckett, so maybe it's not that hellish after all because after all, you have the tapes to prove you at least did have a love, did have opportunities, did have chances. Was it John Donne who said in Paradise Lost, "Tis better to have loved once than to have never loved at all". Perhaps that is Beckett's small ray of hope for this man, he at least lived a life and has the tapes to prove it, listen to it, relive it over and over again.

I think I have the character sketch for my novel Following in the Dark.

She’s like my friend from Berkeley who's very delicate, very smart, and very erudite. This friend of mine is so funny. She calls Gaia Books in Berkeley "Pussy Books". Crude phrase yes, but when she says it, it doesn't crude it sounds classy and quaint. The character is also an incurable romantic. She reads all those old dusty novels from earlier times and dreams of men who punish. I have to make her a lapsed catholic who attended catholic school and goes to church for the high holy days, and of course for classical music concerts. This woman prayed for stigmata to appear on her wrists as a child because she wanted to suffer like Christ. She also fantasized about being a nun from the 1700’s so she could flagellate herself for her bad thoughts.

Religion and self punishment are intertwined in a twisted way in her mind. How else could an oddly religious woman allow herself to be in a sado-masochistic relationship and enjoy herself in a secret evil way? The conflict, tension in the story would how she reconciles herself, her religion, her beliefs with her fantasies of being punished. I'm liking the Following in the Dark title more and more because it's reminds me of the ancient catachombs thta exist under some catholic churches in Europe. Who knows what secrets dwell in those catachombs? It's start to sound very Freudian isn't it? I like to think it's more Aristotle with a whip, getting yourself out of your dark cave of guilt and punishment and into the light where you find more guilt and punishment only this time you're aware and not blind. There is a difference, I think.

After watching The Mists of Avalon on TV, I've decided I want to marry a chubby red-headed or strawberry blonde man who looks like the actor who played Uther Pendragon. That man was so cute! Nice and chubby and I love that reddish hair. I think he looks like a stereotypical celtic elf boy and that's why I like him.

The problem is where do I find this type of guy in the SF Bay Area? It's celtic music afternoon this Sunday at the Stern Grove Festival and I'm thinking maybe he'll be there waiting for me to find him. I've only ever heard celtic music in smoky irish bars so it will be great to hear celtic music played outdoors in what I hope will be a sunshine filled day.

I listen to the radio alot during the day because the door to my office is closed most of the time. It's almost too quiet. The great thing about listening to the radio is you get to hear the news right away as it happens. News is reported on the radio first in real time the second it happens. I also love listening to the radio talk shows and I get ideas for story lines from the people who call in. My favorite daytime radio talk show programs are Ron Owens and Pete Wilson on KGO, Jim Rome and The Jungle from LA and when I want to find out what the conservative right is talking about, I listen to Rush Limbaugh, who makes me laugh because he's so outrageous in his opinions.

The worst thing about listening to the radio is radio ads. For example, Mercedes has a series of radio ads about people who love Mercedes. I hate these people. I can't tell whether Mercedes or the ad firm that they hired to come up with these ads is being serious or funny. Whatever they're supposed to be, I decided that I would never buy a Mercedes because of these ads. I'm not sure that's the effect that Mercedes wanted.

One of the most offensive ad is the one where this woman is on a first date with this man. She goes on and on about all the details about the Mercedes and practically admits that she's not paying attention to him but l listening to the sound system in the car. At the end of the ad, she can't even remember his name. God, talking about playing into the worst stereotype of female that most men hate. I know I sound politically correct here, but this radio ad just reinforces the prevalent opinion that most men have that women are only interested in men for their money and their cars.

The other offensive ad is another woman on a first date, except this woman has a small little boy. This time those clever ad people have the four year old boy named Thomas, talk all about the Mercedes details. The hapless man says that Thomas must like Mercedes and the mother says seductively, no dummy, he likes you because you have a Mercedes. So now instead of gold digger mom we have a gold digger child. If my four year old child ever judged people because of their material possessions, I'd be furious.

God, what is it with Mercedes? Is business so bad, sales so lagging that they have to put obnoxious ads on the radio? Mercedes never used to advertise so maybe busines is so competitive that they've been forced to do it. I never hear Lexus, BMW or Volvo ads on the radio. I'd like to know how much Mercedes is paying this ad firm for these ads because I don't think they're working and they should ask for a refund. The ad firm made Mercedes for such an uncool car to have. Too bad too, because Mercedes is such a great car. Mercedes has a great engine and is made with incredible attention to detail. But all of this doesn't matter any more because now I don't want to be associated with the crass people depicted in their ads.

I loved the Mists of Avalon movie on TV last night. Just for fun I started reading my new book called the "The Mammoth Book of British King and Queens". It mentions King Arthur and even Uther Pendragon but the book's authors doubts whether Arthur really existed. For a king that scholars say never really existed, it's fascinating how centuries later Western culture still talks and makes movies about him.

What's interesting in the Mists of Avalon is the conflict between the Druid/Goddess religion and the Christians. At the end of Mists, the christians adopt some of the Druid/Goddess elements into worship, their mythology.

I don't think the TV critics like the TNT movie, but I like it alot. The costumes and scenery are impressive and all the american actors are speaking in their best coached Brit dialects. Even Kevin Costner wouldn't attempt it when he did Robin Hood. I hated Jodie Foster's Brit dialect in Anna and the King, but these actors are really quite good.

Why do people lie? Why do they make up lies about themselves? Don't they know they'll get caught? I don't get it. If you lie and get caught then the person you told lie to gets even more upset, or at least that's how I get. You know, I don't mind petty white lies and exagerrations as long as you have the stuff the get away with it. But if you don't, it just makes me mad. Why play the game if you don't got game?

I've deleted all my ads from the the online personals. I kept meeting men who were content to tell me little white lies about themselves. I kept meeting men who withheld vital pieces of information that I needed to have so I could make an informed decision about whether I wanted to go out with them or not. I feel sorry for these men, I feel pity that they have to lie about themselves to get women to go out with them. It's sad really that they have to resort to that. And what's worse, although a nice part of me feels sorry for them, another meaner part of me says that they deserve to not get dates if they decide to lie or withhold information. I mean, come on, why lie especially this early on in the game when everyone is supposedly on their best behaviour. It's just plain rude and it leaves a very, very bad impression. Maybe they think that women who put ads out to meet people are so desperate that they'll ignore the white lies, the withholds of vital information, just to go on a date. Well, I'm not one of them. I'm not that desperate for a man that I give up common standards of civil behaviour in polite society and accept this kind of behavioiur. I'm sure there are plenty of women who will overlook such indiscretions on the part of thier partners. They're the ones probably dating these people. Not me, not now, not ever.

I think the best thing I like about writing fiction is that you can have your characters say things, do things that you normally wouldn't say or do. You can make them experience situations and people that you're curious about, wondered about, situations that you wouldnt' get into, people that you wouldn't talk to. There was a repeat of that Joyce Carol Oates Interview at the Herbst Theatre on Channel 35 last night. Joyce is a very interesting writer. She said she gets a lot of flak from feminists about her work saying it's offensive, other people say her work is depressing. Joyce was cool. She said something like, "If you don't like my work, don't read it. I'm not forcing you to read my books."

Some of Oates' work is totally depressing and has an amazing amount of violence towards women. Some of her characters are also totally weird and strange, I mean people you wouldn't sit next to on a totally crowded MUNI bus like the 30 Stockton. But her stuff is great because they are written so well and brilliantly crafted. She writes what she wants to writes. It doesn't mean she advocates violence against women or advocates anything for that matter. She's just a writer.

I read somewhere that Checkov told critics not to read anything into his work as reflection of his life, that his work had nothing do with his real life. And I think he's right. Sometimes writers just write about what they're interested in exploring and it doesn't mean they have certian opinions. A character in a piece of fiction might say something totally offensive and god forbid in NoCal totally non-PC, conservative and republican, but that doesn't mean the writer shares the views of the character. That's just the character talking. But in our so politically correct world, which I'm beginning to believe that Rush is right when he says is being Opraized and feminized, you can't say anything without offending somebody somewhere especially in the Bay Area. The problem with political correctness is that on some level it is a denial of free speech. You have the right toyour opinion about a piece of fiction, you might like it, you might hate it, you might think the author hocked a lugey on 300 pages and is now getting paid for it or you might conversely think that the author is Shakespeare reincarnated. But what you don't have the right is to ban it because it offends you, you don't have the right to burn the book, shut the author down, say the author is offensive when it's the work that's offensive. You don't have to right to do anything but have an opinion about the piece of fiction and that's about it.

And if you don't like it, don't buy it and don't read it. Use your freedom of choice but don't take away someone else's freedom as well, the author's or the other readers'.