I've been fooling with my blog page trying to add better links for the archives. It's hard when you're like me and you have little or no knowledge of html, but there are some good posts in the help section on how to do things so I use those.

I had an earlier post but I lost it when I tried to publish it. A friend of mine who's a website genius, having been paid to design sites for JC Penneys, Penzoil and Michael's, told me that java script is unstable and I've been using java script to redo my archives. I think I fixed the problem but I'll have to test and find out.

My spiritual healer told me that you’re only attracted to someone who is either your soul mate or your soul partner. So which one is screenwriting guy I wonder. She said it’s good to be in a marriage with a soul partner but necessarily your soul mate, only because you'll have a lot of left over karmic issues to deal with. I guess now I just need to find out if screenwriting guy is a soul mate or soul partner. I guess it’s nice to know that if I’m very physically attracted to someone he is either a soul mate or soul partner. I didn’t know that before because they are very few men I'm really that attracted to.

I wonder how this explains an attraction to movie stars and rock stars and other celebrity types. Are you attracted to them because of seeing them all the time and therefore it's familiarity? Or are they really your soul mate or soul partner? It has to be the familiarity thing because so many people love these celebs. I love Keannu Reeves but only because he looks like guys I grew up with and well he is such a cutie. Then there's the Fiennes boys, Raffe and Joseph. They can have me any day. I would also add Russell Crowe, Nicholas Cage (he's so cute who cares that he's losing his hair), Tom Cruise only because of Top Gun and I'm sure there are few others but I can't think of them right now. Oh yeah, Val Kilmer because of The Saint.

So I submitted my blog to the eatonweb portal and they've got me listed under NEW blogs. Does this mean I'll get emails from people reading my blog or will my blog just go unnoticed due to lack of graphics and interesting written material? I don't think I care either way.

This is my online journal and although the thought of complete strangers and my friends for that matter reading about the way my brain works give me the majorly serious willies, there's something so cool about other people finding your life interesting enough to read about it. I can see you friends wanting to read it, although that's probably quite a stretch too, but strangers?

That poor dead bug outside my window caught in the spider web is really dead. I haven't seen him move all day. It's supposed to rain over the weekend so I'm hoping that the rain sweeps him away so I don't have to stare at this dead bug body whenever I look out of my window at work. Who knew that a spider's web could be so strong because this was a big bug?

I'm off to see The Lord of the Rings for the second time. Everyone said to see it twice because the first time you get so blown away that you can't concentrate on anything. I wonder if I'll like it as much the second time around. I rarely see a movie more than once in the theatre. If I have to see it over and over again, I wait till it comes out on video and I guess now DVD and buy it and then watch it nightly till I'm sick of it, which of course never happens. I think I've seen The Matrix over 10 times and I still so loooove this movie. But then again, I've seen the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice five times and I never grow tired of Elizabeth and Mr. D'Arcy.

For screenwriting class we have to see a movie as homework beside work on writing our screenplay and this week's movie is The Verdict. Last week's movie was Witness. I've never seen The Verdict. It's an old movie starring Paul Newman. It's got to be old right? When was the last time you saw Paul Newman in a movie? I was going to rent The Spanish Prisoner, which was written by David Mamet who also wrote the screenplay for The Verdict, but I decided on Ghost World instead. I have to see what's so good about this movie since it got nominated for Best Screenplay adapted from previously published material. I was going to try and see The Man Who Wasn't There and Mulholland Drive at the bargain theatre on Saturday but I may be movied out by then. I also thought of seeing In the Bedroom on Sunday but seeing this movie might just a bit too much.

What can be wonderful and at the same time devastatingly heartbreaking is being able to find information about your old loves on the Net. Such a depressing thing to do on Valentine's Day I know, but at the same time it's nice to find out that men that you thought you loved in your life are happy and well, even though sometimes it's like opening an old wound.

I was listening to KDFC earlier and they were playing the top ten most romantic classical music as voted on by its listeners. They played Rachmaninoff piano concerto # 2, which made my cry because my first love Michael played the piano part for me one night. I haven't heard that piece in a long time even though I've owned it for years to remind of that occasion.

I found Michael's website one day using Google. I just typed his name and clicked on every link till I found this website with a picture of him. He hasn't changed at all. He owns this production company which produces industrial films which apparently are award winning. It made me happy to find out that he was doing something creative for his life because I know that this was important to him. There was a line in Anne Rice's The Queen of the Damned, where one of the vampires says he doesn't need to be with his love but he did need to know that she was alive and going on. I feel the same way about Michael and all my ex-loves. I just need to know that they're alive and going on with their lives and are happy.

Sometimes I wonder if Michael thinks about me at all. He was my first love but I'm not sure what role I played in his life. I know he kept all my letters because he would refer back to them in conversations or letters with me and remind me of things I said to him in the past and say things like "reading through all your old letters". Does that mean something other than the fact that he's a pack rat? I don't know. And then I think it doesn't really matter what he thought or what any or them thought or if they still remember me or if I'm a memory they threw out of their heads a long time ago. What matters to me is what I feel because I can't control what they feel. My old loves will feel what they feel and that's really their issue not mine, because it's not something I can control. I can only control what I feel and I prefer to feel love, because I think in the end, at the end of my life, love is the only thing that's going to matter to me.

And I've been lucky too because I've laid to rest all my traumas about them, all of them. Well, maybe not all. I'm still working on Brian, but that's still relatively new and what's left is just regret for what couldn't be and what hurts is he seems to have gone on and gone on with a vengence without me. But he's pragmatic like me, he would go on, just as I would have if I had obligations to like he did. It's hard sometimes, to take my own regret about him when I know full well that we were never really well matched and that I told him as much. But regret is what I feel, or more loss really because what I miss the most is his friendship more than I miss an actual relationship with him. The loss of a friend to me seems so much harder to bear than the loss a boyfriend who was never really a friend.

But the night is young and delight awaits on this Valentine's Day night for me and I must leave this brief interlude into my past knowing that a better and brighter future awaits me.

Outside my window at work, a bug with wings got caught in a spider web. I’m not even sure what kind of bug it was, but it may be a wasp. It was struggling all day having been caught in the morning. And now as I look outside my window at the end of my work day, the bug is dead but the spider hasn’t come to collect the prize. For all that struggle, I hope there is a spider. Poor dead bug. I hope his body is recycled and eaten by the spider.

I feel like that bug caught in some weird web with this man from my screenwriting class. All of this will make for a good story though so I know shouldn’t begrudge the experience. I don’t even know the guy.

The bug is still alive. He’s not dead because I saw his legs moving. I wish I could free him but I can’t. Maybe if I free him, I can free myself from this web of physical attraction and lust.

So like this is really spooky. This is the astrological forecast for today 14 February 2002 from my fave Brit astrologer Jonathan Cainer. Like my most ultimate freak of all freaks fantasy is the screenwriting hottie wants to jump me the same way I want to jump him. He was kind of staring at me in class but that never means anything, does it? I don't believe in love at first sight, lust at first sight definitely, but not love. But I'm willing to experience love at first sight if this is it. God, I want to have this man's babies, that's how bad it is. Anyway, here's my forecast for today.

"There's a somebody I'm longing to see, I hope that s/he turns out to be someone to watch over me." I'm not sure really, whether this is the song you are secretly singing, or whether it is simply the tune that is being hummed hard in your direction by a certain person who feels sure that you are indeed that special someone. But I don't suppose it much matters. All we need to establish is that there is now significantly more romance in your life than once there was. Be careful. You are in danger of losing your Aquarian reputation for being cold and uncaring!

So it's Valentine's Day today and I decided to walk around my office to see who got flowers. I'm glad I'm working in a small office in a burb of San Francisco, where everybody is laid back and not so status conscious. When I worked in downtown SF in a bigger very corporate office, there was this pressure to get flowers on Valentine's Day and if you didn't get them, people noticed. Most of the time, I think people sent flowers to themselves but bragged that their boyfriends/significant freaks or hubmeisters sent it to them. The receptionist area on Valentine's Day was the place to hang out to see who was getting delivered roses, flowers, balloons, stripograms, etc.

I didn't walk through the whole office, but I did see one bouqet. I'll have to walk through the rest of the office later to check for more flowers. Most of these women who I work with are married with little kids, so I'm wondering if they're going to get flowers here at the office or later from their hubbies and kids.

Valentine's Day at the office has always been traumarama experiences for me. I'm like one of those pathetic people who have never gotten flowers at the office. My boyfriends have always been the "I Hate Valentine's Day" types who wouldn't be caught dead succumbing to the crass commercialism and pressure of the day or at least letting other people know except me that they did. I would get dinner and flowers but never at the office. One year, I think it was 1996, I actually thought I might get flowers but I got nothing and I was so pissed. When I confronted the guy later that afternoon on the phone, he said "You know I'm not into commercial holidays". After that, I threw a shit fit and hung up on him. I think I wouldn't have been so hurt if one of my "office friends" didn't keep asking me all day if my boyfriend was going to send me flowers. Why I thought this freak of nature was going to send me flowers is still a mystery to me to this day. He so wasn't the type and I knew it, but I think I got caught up in the pressures of the day.

The Valentine's Day incident was just one of his many indiscretions, so I dumped him a few months later. Actually I first dumped him in November when I found out he was sleeping with other women, but we got back together with him around New Year's eve, so I was dumping him for the second time. You know years later, this same guy is still calling me wanting to get together. He calls me like three of four times a year to see how I'm doing and always suggests getting together. I even went to dinner with him once because I ran into him at Union Square and he offered to buy me dinner. He's a nice guy and everything but I was never into him back then and I'm not into him now. I'll have to write more about this guy later because he's a piece of work. I think I'm the only woman who's never bought into his act so my resistance is fascinating to him and he just can't give me up.

The first time called me back in 1998 two years after we broke up, I asked him, why are you calling me? And he said "because I think about you all the time." This was funny to me so I told him "You know, that's funny because I haven't thought about you at all". There was like this dead silence on the phone for about five minutes, but he soon recovered. Poor guy! I would actually feel more sorry for him if he wasn' such a jerk, but he is, so I don't.

I'm still having fantasies about the Beautiful Boy from my screenwriting class. I've never been so sexually attracted to someone I've never spoken to before. It's got to be karma or a past life thing or it's my damned hormones. But it is fun. Is that what Steve meant when he broke up with me because there wasn't this spark between us? There was a spark, but it was very small and I was so afraid of it back then. Compared to my crush on Steve, this attraction is like a blazing bonfire and I'm being burned in a totally silly way. I have never met a man in my life that was so jumpable. Well, there was Paul. But I worked with him and got to know him so he became even more jumpable. But this guy, I don't even know this guy and I'm thinking I just want to jump him and jump him now. It's hormones, it's got to be hormones, like ovulation or something. But you know, it might be kind of fun to date I guy I wanted to jump constantly from the get go, instead of someone I had to get to know to jump. Is there a difference? And I know the sex will be good and I'm never wrong about that aspect.

But all this mental stimulation is bad because I know the next time I see him, which won't be till February 25, I'll just freak out and not talk to him. I feel like I'm reliving being a 13 year old and I hate it, because that age was so depressing for me. And after all these years, it's not getting any better.

I guess I'm in the mood to rant about my writing habits. I told someone in screenwriting class that I write my journal on my computer. This person looked me straight in the eyes and told me I couldn't do that. And I'm like, why the hell not. I've been doing it for months.

I have a job where I'm usually waiting for things to finish like programs, queries or analyses and started writing out my thoughts into a Word document. Now I just do it all the time because it's fun and it's therapeutic for me to just write about the random thoughts in my brain and the petty details of my life.

Then there's this blog, which is like another journal for me and to which I post sometimes the same entries from my Word journal or just totally new entries. And it seems everyone is blogging or posting to an online journal so I know I'm not the only one.

I know there are some writers who have to do their writing manually by hand using pen and paper. Most published writers use their manual or electric typewriters. My pc is just like a typewriter for me. I've been writing on the computer since I was 18 so I'm just used to just freewriting on to the screen. I've heard people say that you edit yourself, but I really don't. Word does annoy me because it tells me most of the sentences are too long or fragments, but other than that I appreciate the instant spell check.

Is this a generational thing? People who aren't used to typing on computer will naturally feel that handwriting is the best and for people like me, who have been around computers most of their life don't see the difference between writing by hand or writing on the computer other than the fact that when you write into a document, you can actually read what you wrote. I took a typing class in highschool, which I totally hated because I made too many mistakes and never typed fast enough, but that class has come in handy for writing on a computer since I don't really have look at keyboard when I type.

I think I just shocked that person in screenwriting class, like it was politically incorrect to journal to a Word document or to the Net, but I love it. And I think other people do too.

A writing rant about selling out.

I don’t want to write the great American novel and now I don’t even think I want to write something that’s good enough to win any prize. I love the Anne Rice and Stephen King books but they’ve never won elite prizes for writing like Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel or a National Book Award. And those writers are my favorites because they tell good stories. They may not have the most poetic writing in the world, but god can they tell a good story. And that’s what I want to do; tell a good story and entertain my reader if only for just a few hours.

Maybe it’s a product of my lower class upbringing, but I have no pretensions like Jonathan Franzen. I’m a reverse snob. I don’t want my books in snotty bookstores where regular people are afraid to go in because the snotty book people treat you badly because of your writing taste. The best thing about a company like Amazon.com is you can indulge your own peculiar tastes in book and because it’s all anonymous without judgments, it’s the most democratic of all book shopping experiences.

I know all my friends, especially CF will hate my writing. CF never even liked my Art is Scary story even though JW loved it and everybody who saw me perform it loved it. She’s not very generous that way, which is sad. I am happy for her when she’s successful but she has never celebrated my success or told me any of my stories were any good. JW loved my stories and for his insight I will always be grateful.

CF is so quick to judge that Jane Campion sold out on the ending of the movie "The Piano, but I think that’s a judgment. I know I’ve said people have sold out but the more I look at being at artist, the more I think that art is a collaborative process and that one has to compromise to get one’s art in the world. And I’m starting to think that it’s not selling out and to say sell out is a elementary understanding of the business. I just know right, I’ll be accused of selling out. But you know, whatever. Those people who don’t want to sell out can spend the rest of their life resenting other people’s success and not having the time and energy to create their art.

I need to be commercially successful to buy my free time. And what is so wrong with masses and masses of people want to read my work? It just means that more people can relate to my work, which would so cool because that would mean you were in touch with how normal people think. I don’t think I’m normal so to write something that lots of other people like, normal people, would be so fun and great for me.

There’s nothing wrong with people’s attitude about selling out. I just think society has brainwashed everyone into thinking there’s something wrong with appealing to massive amounts of people. It’s society’s way of keeping the artist from creating and producing art; to denigrate successful artists. Art like theatre needs an audience to live, art produced to appeal for one or a few is not art but some self indulgent piece of art that only a few people will like. And that’s fine. But art that captures the imagination of a lot of people I’m beginning to think, is like tapping into the universality that exits in all of us. This tapping of the universal mind is what I think true art is about because it’s the most real, the most widely read and watched, because everyone that sees or reads it can relate.

In honor of Waylon Jennings who died today who wrote one of my fave country song "Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys".

From the NY Times today. Worst Country Song Titles of All Time Until the next Time.

All I Want From You (Is Away)
All My Exes Live in Texas
Beauty's in the Eye of the Beerholder
Bubba Shot the Jukebox
Did I Shave My Legs for This?
Don't Put Me in the Ex-Files
Don't Squeeze My Sharmon
Get Your Biscuits in the Oven,and Your Buns in the Bed
Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart
He Can't Talk Without His Hands
Heaven's Just a Sin Away
Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)
How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?
How Come Your Dog Don't Bite Nobody but Me?
I Bought the Shoes That Just Walked Out on Me
I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling
I Got Tears in My Ears From Lying on My Bed Crying on My Pillow Over You
I Got You on My Conscience but at Least You're Off My Back
I Guess I Had Your Leavin' Coming
I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You
I Left Something Turned On at Home
I May Be Used, but Baby I Ain't Used Up
I Wanted You to Leave Until You Left Me
I Would Have Wrote You a Letter, but I Couldn't Spell Yuck!
I'd Rather Be Picked Up Here Than Put Down at Home
I'd Rather Pass Another Kidney Stone Than Another Night With You
If Fingerprints Showed Up on Skin, Wonder Whose I'd Find on You
If I Ain't Got It, You Don't Need It
If the Jukebox Took Teardrops
If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me
If Whiskey Were a Woman, I'd Be Married for Sure
If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl
If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?
I'll Give You Something to Drink About
I'll Marry You Tomorrow, but Let's Honeymoon Tonight
I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home
I'm Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail
I'm the Only Hell Mama Ever Raised
It Only Takes One Bar (to Make a Prison)
I've Been Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart
I've Been Roped and Throwed by Jesus in the Holy Ghost Corral
Lay Something on My Bed Besides a Blanket
Let's Do Something Cheap and Superficial
Make Me Late for Work Today
My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus
My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him
Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill
Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer
Redneck Martians Stole My Baby
Remember to Remind Me I'm Leavin'
Savin' the Honey for the Honeymoon
She Feels Like a New Man Tonight
She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy
She's Actin' Single . . . I'm Drinkin' Doubles
Shut Up and Talk to Me
Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone
The Chick's Too Young to Fry
The Man That Came Between Us (Was Me)
The Pint of No Return
There's a Tear in My Beer
Velcro Arms, Teflon Heart
Venom Wearin' Denim
Walk Out Backwards Slowly So I'll Think You're Walking in
We Never Killed Each Other (but Didn't We Try)?
Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?
Who's Gonna Take the Garbage Out When I'm Dead and Gone?
Why Did You Leave the One You Left Me For?
You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too
Your Alibi Called Today
Your Coffee's on the Table but Your Sugar's Out the Door
Your Negligee Has Turned to Flannel Nightgowns
You're a Hard Dog to Keep Under the Porch
You're Going to Ruin My Bad Reputation
You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

I think I'm in this weird kind of school girl crush with some guy from my screenwriting class whom I've never spoken too. It's wild because it's so stupid. Maybe it's my hormones on turbodrive but that man is haunting my fantasies and my dreams. I'm letting myself get up caught up in it because I think it will make for a funny story one day, but a part of me is upset that it's happening at all.

You would think that at some point in your life that you get to a certain age where you don't do unexplainable things like having a gigundous crush on someone you've never spoken too, but maybe you never outgrow your ability to do silly things. I don't know. I think if that guy knew, he'd probably be shocked because I'm damned sure it's some grand delusion of mine.

Where it will all lead is a mystery but like everything else, I"m sure there's some rhyme or reason for all of this happening and that everything will work out. It usually does and it always has worked out. But this has got to the most bizarre event that's ever happened to me and I'm curious to know how it will all wrap up. Till then, I guess I'm going to enjoy the ride.

So the Brian saga continues. I had a dream about him on Sunday morning. I was in some sort of jam or trouble, I'm not sure which. But right when things were getting really bad, along comes Brian to my rescue. Only Brian now looks like this guy from my screenwriting class, who I only met last week. It was weird. He didn't look like Brian, but in the dream I knew he was Brian. Anyway Brian starts kissing me in this dream and it was so deliciously real. Next thing I know, he wisks me away and we're somewhere else and I'm waking up in a cold sweat.

How weird. How very weird. I was do disturbed on Sunday, I couldn't even workout. Why would I dream about Brian and then have Brain look like a guy I hardly know from a class I joined just last week. I hate having dreams about people who are no longer in my life and I especially detest dreams where I need rescuing by some man. As if I need to be rescued by a man from anything.

So anyway, I go to my screenwriting class and that guy is there. Only now becauss of the Sunday morning dream, two things happen. One, I'm like so freaked about this guy that I'm afraid to talk to him and two, I found myself becoming physically attracted to this guy like 150%. I swear to god if I started to talking to him, I'd probably jump him. I'm at the wonderful point in a crazy messed up physical attraction where you know that if you just took a whiff of the person, you'd have a mini orgasm. It's bad, it's really bad, to be physically attracted to someone you hardly know in a class, who probably doesn't give a shit about you. It's like being a school girl all over again, except this time you're at the age where if you had gone down a certain path, you'd be a mother of a girl who would be experiecing these feelings.

God, that man in beautiful and I don't even know his name. I kept looking at him covertly, wandering what me smelled like, wondering what his skin would feel like under my tongue, trying to subtley strip the guy and fantasizing what he'd look like naked. It's bad, bad, really bad. I mean, the guy probably thinks I'm like the biggest freak in the world for staring at him like that. He seems like such a nice guy, but I'll never find out now because I'm too freaked out to speak to him. I can't have a conversation with a guy, whose clothes I want to tear off so I can let my tongue do my talking for me. It's bad, really bad to feel this way because it's so out of control, so hopeless and so silly.

I'm absolutely sure he's nothing like I've imagined him to be. And what's worse, I'll never find out because I'm too afraid to talk to him. He scares me and when a man scares me this much, I don't have anything to do with them. Better to let guys like this go because he's to threatening to my self contro.

I know that I'll be in this weird kind of hell from now until the end of class because I'll spend half he class wanting to jump him and the other half freaking out because I'm feeling a 150% attraction for him.

And wha't worse, he's not even my physical type. He's just like Brian. I was never physically attracted to Brian by his looks but liked him because of his personality and his brain. Then we became such good freinds and I started to find so incredibly attractive. But I let all of that go because we were just friends.

This guy in screenwriting class sort of looks like him but is not him. They just have the same boxer/linebacker/pug dog body type. Other than that, the two men have no resemblance to each other. Brian has hazel greenish brown eyes with reddish/brown hair. The new guy has sea blue eyes and brown hair with some gray streaks.

It's so crazy. I just hope that some great story comes out of all this dramarama. And it really is just god awful Brenda dramarama.

God, I miss Brian. I know I'm not supposed to but I miss him. He was such a good friend. I could always rely on him to tell me the truth and he was so smart about so many things. He is one of the few men I really respect as a person. But you know, he just couldn't handle just being friends with me and when he told me, it all got so awkward between us that I think, out of self-preservation on his part and on mine, we parted. But shit, it's like losing your best friend because he's physically attracted to you, how messed up is that?

I think I really hurt him too when I said that I could never contemplate getitng into a relationship with him. As much as I so adore him, he would have been a hard person for me to live with. He's not the most easy going of people and I need that. I need to be with a male partner who's steady and stable and most of all easy to live with and very easy going. When I'm not with this kind of guy, it's been hell and I'm not willing to go through hell one more time. Brian is steady and stable as the rock of gibraltar, but he's not laid back and easy going. He's such a neurotic virgo! As much as I think we could have made a go at being together forever, I think part of me would have come to hate how high maintenance he is. Not to mention that he has a really bad temper and when he gets upset, it's pretty nasty. We were just friends and I got a couple of tongue whippings/lashings from him which left me breathless in their severity and anger.

I wonder what he's doing now. If were still talking, we could have celebrated three years of friendship a few weeks ago. It's all such a sad, sad waste. I'm glad he told me he wanted more than friendship from me. I value his honesty and his comfort level that he obviously had with me to be so honest, but damn! All that physical lust on his part just got in the way.

I did contemplate having sex with him once just to satisfy him, but Amy my friend who died, said that sex would hurt him even more. I could have sex with him for one night and walk away, but not Brian. Brian is too much of a romantic. One night would have led to more nights and then, since he's conservative kind of guy, marriage. And a marriage to Brian would have been way to challenging for my taste.

I miss him though and I think I always will. He's not the guy who got away, that honor goes to Steve. No, Brian is in his own category but I don't think there's a category for Friend You Totally Love but Can Never Marry.

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged. I keep thinking of making an entry but then I get sidetracked. I could probably write alot tonight but I'm tired an it's late. I am taking a screenwriting class and just finished bookmarking the websites for the screenwriting magazines which I'm supposed to find for class, but can't find anywhere. I went to the Borders on Union Square and of course, they were all gone. I ended up picking up another magazine not mentioned in class but seemed interesting. It's for international screenwriters, whatever that means. I also picked up a copy of Oxford American, only because they had a screenplay written by William Faulkner and I have to read that.

I like the Oxford American magazine even though it's very expensive. It's all about Southern writers and writing in the South and since I've been told that my stories read like I'm a southern writer even though I'm so not southern, I feel like I should read this magazine.

Borders is an interesting store. Either there are too many salespeople with nothing to do or they dont' have enough help. I guess they just need to improve their scheduling skills.

I am contemplating buying a Palm Pilot. My friend Mel said make sure the batteries are rechargable. I only want to spend about $100 and don't care about color, so I think I might purchase a Palm IIIxe. It has a cover for the faceplate which I like and I found a company on the Palm Message Boards that makes a rechargable battery for this model. The Palm IIIxe is bigger than the M100 and more recent models, but not by that much. The best thing about the Palm is that it's got all these software applications you can load.

You know, this whole Palm Pilot thing only started because friends of mine made fun of me for carrying around three small notebooks; my calendar, my Hello Kitty notebook for notes and a notebook to keep track of my expenses. My friends said I could just carry a Palm Pilot and not have to worry about losing three separate books. The problem is I love my Hello Kitty notebook and I like writing in it. It's not the most efficient way to organize your life but it works for me.

But I'm willing to give this Palm Pilot thing a try as long as I don't have to spend that much money. I lose small things very easily and can see myself easily looking the Palm. It's trivial I know, losing things, but it's the thought that the information I stored on my Plam could be lost forever has always been a sore spot with me.

More later.

Okay, so here's the beginning of that past reincarnation, girl in WW2 prison camp story. I just wrote this last night so it's unedited and raw. In an edit, I will probably cut half of this dialogue out but until then, it's all here. I'm starting a screenplay writing class on Monday. I write so much dialogue that friends have suggested, I try my hand at writing screenplays.

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Some people say the hardest part about living your life is knowing what’s real and what’s not real. I say the hardest part is going on with your life, you know, your real, mundane boring life, after having a fantastic adventure. Was she real? I like to think she is, although there are no historical records to confirm her existence. She was real to me as just as if she was my own dear sister. So what that she lived in the 1940’s during World War two and I live here and now in 21st century america. There’s a theory in quantum mechanics that the past, future and present are all happening at the same time. Now don’t you think that if this fact is true, that there could be overlapping of the past, future and present. I like to think that’s what happened with me and Gerta. But it all started out innocently enough.

“Come on, Jane, let’s go have that woman tell us about past lives. Don’t you love this sort of stuff.” Annie motioned over to a woman sitting at a table with a waiting life of people to the side of her. She had curly shoulder length black hair and dark brown eyes. She had the requisite dangling earrings, arm full of bracelets and neck full of colorful beaded necklaces. She looked like a gypsy of some kind, or at least what I imagined gypsies would look like. Her appearance was a little bit unusual but not out of the ordinary at this psychic fair.

“I don’t know why I let you drag me to these things. God, that smell of patchouli is revolting. I mean, can’t these people come up with a new smell to wear. It’s been forty years since the 60’s, you know.” I complained to Annie. Annie was my best friend but we were as different as night and day. Annie had explored every single new age woo woo group in California, had been a vegetarian off and on since she was 18 years old, and could talk philosophy and religion all night long. I ate meat and grew up catholic, but had long since stopped going to church. Religion was something you did on all the major holidays like Christmas and Easter, except I stopped believing in religion in college. Annie grew up catholic too but her fervor for religion never stopped. It was our catholic upbringing that brought us together because we had first met in Sunday school and had remained friends ever since.

“Oh come on, this is fun. It’s all just fun and interesting.” Annie smiled at me and winked. “I mean, you can’t tell if this stuff is true or not and you can’t prove that it’s false. It’s just fun to hear what the psychics have to say, that’s all, especially when they talk about your past lives. So what if it’s all bullshit. Who cares? It’s entertainment and it’s totally harmless.”

Looking at Annie, I wondered what she saw in all of this psychic mumble jumble. I knew she was in her element though because her brown eyes were sparkling and she had dressed herself up in her gray and flowery skirt, white t-shirt and matching gray sweater. I’m sure when Annie looked at herself in the mirror she thought to her herself “hippie outfit”, but she was a little too coordinated to pull that look off. She looked like she was attending a wedding reception instead of this free psychic fair in Golden Gate Park.

“You just want to hear again that you were a princess in another life just to assuage your guilt about princessy self.” I said this laughingly and looked over at Annie, who had this stricken look on her face.

“I’m only kidding.” I told her and her face broke into a smile again. She knew I wasn’t kidding but I knew she liked that I told her I was.

“You wouldn’t be so cranky if you’d only dressed the part. I told you it was a psychic fair. God, you look like you’re going to a business meeting or something. You could have at least worn something a little more casual.” I looked down at my outfit of fitted black pants, white t-shirt, pearls and black and white checked blazer.

“I look the way I always look, casual, tailored and professional. Ready to dash into a meeting if I have to.”

“But that’s the point, you aren’t going to a meeting here. You’re totally rigid and hopeless, you know that?” Annie said shaking her head.

“I’m not rigid, I have standards, high ones too.”

“Yeah, well that and that sour puss smile you have on won’t bring you any fun in life. It’s not all work you know, you have to have some fun sometime. And this kind of stuff is just pure entertainment and harmless fun. I’m sure you’d like to hear that you were a queen in a past life.”

“Well, that goes without saying, of course I was a queen.” I said proudly.

“I thought you didn’t believe in this kind of stuff.”

“I don’t, but if I did, I was definitely a queen.” I turned so Annie could see my profile. “See my face, my profile, I could have been on a coin.”

“Yeah, and what would that coin be worth, half a cent?

“A dollar, of course. No, I changed my mind. My face would have been on a gold coin. You know, the face that launched a thousand ships, that kind of thing.” I couldn’t stop myself and I started giggling very hard.

“God, I can see you now waving your hands at the masses.” Annie smiled at me and grabbed my arm so we could head over to the woman giving past life readings.

“This is all a joke, you know. She’s going to spin me a bunch of lies.”

“Who cares, it’s free and it’s entertainment for $10.”

Annie was a fervent believer in reincarnation. Listening to her over the years, I often wondered whether reincarnation was true or not. Annie had all kinds of feelings that she’d been in a new place before, or that unfamiliar places were known to her. I never had such feelings but then again, I was a numbers person and maybe I was too rational and even if I had experienced any “dejavu”, I wouldn’t have known it anyway. I ran my right hand through my hair, a nervous habit I had when something was troubling me. Reincarnation wasn’t troubling to me, I just didn’t understand it and not understanding something made me nervous.

“God girl.” Annie said grabbing a handful of my hair. “When is your next haircut? Your ends are getting really dry. How do you keep your hair so black? What color dye are you using?”

“I told you, I don’t dye my hair. My hairdresser guy told me I have virgin hair because it’s never been dyed.”

“Well, whatever. Your ends are dry anyway.”
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When I left my office this afternoon, there was some ice on my car. An icy car in Calfornia. Then it started first snowing and then hailing on the drive home. I moved to California to escape the snow and now it's snowing in California. What is our world's weather coming to?

Just heard on the radio that there were quakes in Southern California near Simi Valley. But people have been calling in and saying it's typical for the area.

I hope it doesn't snow tomorrow because I hate driving on icy roads. The last time I drove in snow was in New Mexico. I was vacationing in Santa Fe and I had reservations to stay at another hotel in Taos. The morning I was leaving Santa Fe, light snow started falling. I hopped in my rental car and drove up to Taos anyway. I drove right into a big snowstorm. It was wild. I hadn't driven in snow in years but it all came back to me. The snowstorm was so sudden, the snow ploughs weren't even out yet. Somehow I made it safely up the mountain but then I did have help. A car passed me and then slowed down and I followed this car all the way up to Taos. I never got a chance to thank the people or person in the car, because they just drove off. Maybe they saw that I was a tourist in a rental car and they felt so sorry for me. When I drove back down later and was able to look at the road, I was shocked by how dangerous the roads were. I guess I could have easily driven myself off a cliff in a snowstorm. Was it an angel car? Who knows. When I got to Taos, I checked into my hotel and then found the time of the next church service and drove to church to thank god for getting me through the snowstorm and to Taos.

I'm trying to buy a mini laptop for myself on Ebay because I'm finding it hard to just sit down at my computer and write. I could write by hand, but it's more efficient to type directly into a document.

I thought bidding on Ebay would be easy. I've bought three items in the past and didn't have a problem with being outbid. I was outbid once, but then I found the exact same item and bought it for a cheaper price. But my buying binge on Ebay was in 1999/2000. Things have really changed since then.

I was outbid for the first mini laptop, but I didn't care because when I emailed the seller for information, he told me that he bought it used. Twice used is never a good thing in my book. There wasn't another similar item to bid on, so I went to my second choice. I thought I was about to win the item, when five minutes to the end, someone starting outbidding me and in the end, I lost by $5. I was devastated because I had spent the whole day Saturday online to make sure that I wouldn't be outbid. I had to some serious soul searching about why I wanted the item and how money I was willing to spend on it. I mean, it's not like I don't have the money to buy one, but I have a budget in mind for what I want to spend and I was intent on sticking to that budget.

Today at work, I decided that I wasn't bidding the right amounts for mini laptop choice #1 and #2 and that's why I was losing. I decided to use a straight three year depreciation and since the two mini laptops I wanted came out in December 1998, I would pay 1/3 of the retail selling price plus tax. This new calculation considerably upped the amout I was willing to spend, but I am convinced that my new way of pricing is fair and should work to my advantage.

I think bidding on Ebay for popular item is kind of like poker. You can't show your hand too early. I also think that I need to be willing to bid for an item at the last minute with my maximum price to assure my chances of winning the item I want. I can't believe that I am plotting such a complicated strategy to bid for an item on Ebay but hey, if I want it, I've got to plan a strategy to get it, don't I?

The problem with the mini laptop market is there aren't very many manufacturers in this market, so there's not alot of incentive to make less expensive units. As it is, the two units I want, the LG Phenom Express and the HP Jornada, have both been discontinued. I've only ever seen the LG Phenom Express because a friend of mine has one. I've never even seen the HP Jornada but it's two inches wider than the Phenom, so I can only assume that the bigger keyboard would be easier to type on.

I just bought Julia Cameron's book, The Right to Write, and she says you have to have different stations where you can write. I'm hoping that a mini laptop will do the trick for me. I want to get this all wrapped by the end of January and I just hope to god, there's a mini laptop out there on Ebay with my name on it.

I'm catching up on my blogging because most days I feel like I have nothing to say, although I know this is untrue.

My birthday was on Thursday January 24 and I had that day off. Friends of mine were taking me out to Chez Panisse in Berkeley for dinner later than night and to avoid rush hour traffic on the bridge, I left San Francisco at around 1:30 pm.

Berkeley, what a strange place. There's this big push in Berkeley by the merchants to get people to shop there but parking there is such a pain in the ass. I wanted to park near Chez Panisse and just walk around and check out ths shopes or go to a movie or something but there are no parking garages in that neighborhood and you can't park for more than two hours before getting a ticket. Berkeley is such a user unfriendly city. People talk about San Francisco being dirty but downtown Shattuck is filthy as well, if not filthier.

It's hard to believe Berkeley is even a California city because parts of it look like a bordered up Northeastern town. It's really sad because I remember downtown Berkeley in the 80's as being such a nice place to visit. It's not that way anymore. Berkeley is not even a big city, but it's dirty as any big city I've ever seen.

So I ended up parking near the Berkeley BART so I could see a movie, but the only movie that I had time enough to see was "The Brotherhood of the Wolf". I had seen the commercials on TV and was very intrigued by them.

It's kung fu martial arts fightibg set in pre-revolutionary France. The movie is long and the plot is unbelievable, but the main star is so cute. He looks like this guy I used to date, who is half irish and half french. Both men were blondes with big noses and big brown eyes and nice strong looking jaw. They even had the same kind of bodies, nice and big, and they had the same kind of personality, flirty and always on the make for a woman. Actually now that I think about it, the two main characters in the movie were like froggie version of The Lone Ranger and Tonto. The french guy has an indian sidekick, who just happens to be an expert in martial arts. He's indian in the movie, so I guess that makes sense for the french. The indian sidekick is actually some famous martial arts guy from Hawaii.

The movie is based on a true story about some animal/monster that killed about 100 people in the time period and other reviews say that french have been obsessed with movie ever since. Th Brotherhood was one of the biggest grossing movies in France last year, so at least the french liked it.

I did enjoy the movie, but I think only because I grew up watching badly translated hong kong kung fu action movies. French, chinese, what's the difference right? The movie was beautifully filmed with gorgeous and eerie scenes and chock full of interesting camera angles. I got into camera angles after Pulp Fiction. Since it's a period movie, the costumes look authentic and are gorgeous and if you're a wolf fan, there are a ton of them to look at.

Maybe because it's french, there's also some fun sex scenes in a bordello including lots of nudity shots and a nicely done sex scene with hunky main guy, who's the cutest bikkie I've seen in a movie in a long time, and some italian/french whore, who turns out to be more than just a prostitute. Don't all prostitutes in most movies turn out to be more than just whores? I would definitely do the french cute bikkie anytime.

The fight scenes were also very good and the french hunky bikkie boy was a martial art kung fu guy at the end of the movie. Was it a good movie? I don't know. I enjoyed it but then any movie with lots of fighting and with a cute hunky bikkie boy main character is a good movie to me.

I think I mentioned awhile ago that I've been wanting to write a story about a young girl who gets beat up in a concentration camp in WW2 germany. I had a discussion on Tuesday with my writing group about authenticity and after hearing Dean Koontz talk about the theories of quantum mechanics, I came up with a different way to write this story.

I think I may be riffing off my friend Mel's Picasso story, although I've never read it and only heard her talk about it.

I started freewriting the story last night and this is my sketchy plot. A woman goes to one of those free psychic fairs and has a past life reading done. The past life reader tells her that she had a past life as young german girl in a concentration camp in WW2 germany. As a young german girl, she was beat up by the Nazis and subsequently died later of her injuries. Most of the young girl's injuries were in the hip, legs and feet. The modern day woman has the same pain and the pyschic reader tells her the pain is from her past reincarnation trauma. The psychic reader tells her that the woman is experiencing the trauma because there is something she needs to learn from that incarnation. What the woman needs to learn, the psychic reader cannot tell her.

The woman is a skeptic when it comes to psychic stuff but after the reading, she starts see images of the girl everywhere. One day as she's looking into a mirror at herself, she sees the young girl and the young girl in the mirror sees her. The woman reaches out her hand to the mirror and the young girl does the same thing. The woman, magically, enters the world of young girl but as her imaginary friend, since only the young girl can see her.

I'm envisioning three scenes with young german girl right now. The first time she meets the young girl is before the family is thrown into prison by the nazis. The second time is life in the prison camp, and the third scene is after the young girl gets beat up by the nazis. That's as far I've gotten with plot and I started writing the scene where the woman is at the free psychic fair in GG Park. I have to figure out what the woman needs to learn from having this experience. I was thinking it would be fun to have her go to a church and find a magic portal, but I would have to find a lutheran church with what looks like a magic portal and I'm not into doing that kind of research right now.

I like this story and I keep thinking, I want to have this kind of experience happen to me. I want to go through a magic portal and enter into another world. How cool is that? This story has all my long time interests too, reincarnation, WW2 germany, religion, magic, weird stuff.

Does this story sound too derivative of other fantasy stories? I wish I knew what she needed to learn but maybe I have to write the story to find out.

I just finished reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The writing is beautiful and very lyrical but it's very dense and not an easy read. I shall probably have to go back and reread it again just to see what I missed the first time. It's fun for me to read a book then go and look at all the reviews about the books just to see what other people say about it.

There is a lot of violence in the book but because the writing is very stylized and lyrical, it cast an artistic sheen for me over what I think others would considers overwhelming and grotesque. I dislike violence in real life but in wriitng, plays and movies, violence if done right can actually be quite beautiful. I'm not surprised by the cruel and evil acts in this book but then I read this book after the tragedy of 9/11, so maybe nothing violent shocks me anymore, nothing man can to do to other men shocks me anymore. What's that famous phrase, man's inhumanity to man, a phrase that is so descriptive of the characters in Blood Meridian.

I suppose the only slightly surprising thing for me was the ending, but I suppose what happened at the end was logical and inevitable and I congratulate McCarthy for taking the end to its most logical extreme. Very few writers do that.

I don't think finishing Blood Meridian and then going to see Amy Freed's play "The Beard of Avon" was probably a good idea. God, it was hard to sit through this very funny comedy of a play and to hear people laugh after spending the last week and half trying to get through what some critics have called the "great american novel".

I liked "The Beard of Avon", it was very cleverly written and very entertaining, but I found it derivative of all the sight gags and jokes in Shakespeare in Love. And Tom Stoppard is a much better writter than Amy Freed. I also found it annoying that Freed used the same device of putting cliche lines in the play like they did in Moulin Rouge. God, I found that so ghastly and annoying, but people in the theatre loved it and laughed at every old and tired line. I had a friend who saw Moulin Rouge when it first opened and she loved the movie because it used all those old lines.

I find it odd that this play was the most produced play in regional theatres across the country in 2001 but there are no backers for a broadway version. Why? I thought all great plays if they are that good are bound for Broadway. I don't know. There was a lot humanity in Shakespeare in Love, something about the wriitng of that movie touched a human chord in me and I think in many others who saw it. I saw no such thing in "The Beard of Avon". Oh, the play is very well written to be sure, but great, I'm not sure. For me, the play did not strike me deep in the heart like Shakespeare in Love did and for me to really like a play, it has to do that.

But the play is very funny and entertaining and part of me thinks I might have enjoyed it more had I not finished Blood Meridian the night before. I did a brief search on reviews for this play and found critics who thought the same. Isn't it gratifying when you find a critic who agree with your assessment. It makes me feel like I'm not crazy, especially when a respected reviewer has the same thoughts I have.

I felt the same way about that movie, Erin Brockovich. I really was not enamored of the movie and when I read Roger Ebert's review which nearly mirrored my own thoughts, I felt so much elation. An entertaining movie to be sure but not great art.

I did enjoy reading Amy Freed talking about her process of writing in the program though because when I do write, my inspiration is the same as hers. But of course, all the published writers say that to write great things, you must first write horrible things. But my question is, how do you know what' s good and what's horrible? Who's to say?