I rented "Kate and Leopold", and was glad I didn't see it on the big screen. The movie is cute and all, but so not worth a big screen movie ticket.

Hugh Jackman was so adorable, but Meg Ryan. Oh my god! I kept thinking the whole time, what happened to her face. She used to be so cute, and now she just looks old and haggard. What's up with that bad haircut of hers too?

I loved the Leopold character, and I hated Kate. The ending would have been better if I could have figured out why Jackman's character fell in love with her, because Kate was a stereotypical nasty career "bitch". Why any mad would want to sleep with her character much less marry her is a mystery, other than she's your typical blonde blue eyed girl.

Updated the site with the National Novel Writing Month 2003 logo. Yes I'm doing it again, writing a novel in 30 days. I've got an outline, characters, and I think I can write it from start to finish this time. It's love story, and those stories are short.

I also updated the two new books I'm reading:

Paradise Park by Allegra Goodman and
I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven.

Someone told me that I write like Allegra Goodman, so I decided to check her out. I wanted a shorter book to read on the train, so I picked up the Craven book from the paperback rack at the library. Smaller books fit better in my purse.

I'm still slogging through the Kafka book. He does take time to read.

I read somewhere that on Halloween, All Soul's Day and Day of the Dead, the veil between the realms of the living and dead become loosed. I wonder if it's true, because I've been missing my dead grandmother a whole lately.

It started on Tuesday, and every day it gets worse. Maybe she's trying to visit me or something. I was going to go out and hang out with friends on Halloween, but I think I should stay home in case my grandmother is trying to visit.

My cousin said grandma was haunting and visiting her when I was at home for the funeral. My aunt said the same thing was happening to her, and we were sharing a room together. I never had the feeling I was being visited or haunted. Why would grandma visit them and not me?

But maybe Halloween is my chance, especially because I'm missing her something awful right now. I just want to see and talk to her one last time, even if she is a ghost.

I'm addicted to this online game called Hexic. I started playing it last night, and I couldn't stop. I have no idea why I like the game or why it's so addictive, it just is.

So I thought I'd blown my modern art history mid term and gotten a B or some other lower grade, because the last part really threw me. I thought I had studied everything I was supposed to, but I was I wrong.

The last part consisted of writing one of two essays. I thought he was going to give an essay on comparing AbEx-Colour Field and AbEx-Action, so I studied for that question. He said he was going to give an essay on comparing AbEx NYC and Art Informel, but I didn't study for it. I thought the AbEx movement comparison was a more compelling argument.

Why study for two, when you only have to do one right?

So I was right about the AbEx NYC comparison to Art Informel being on the mid term, but I wasn't expecting the other question to be about Pop Art. And of course, I didn't really devote much time pop art.

I could have written the Art Informel essay, but you had to compare works of art and I couldn't remember the names of any of the Art Informel pieces at the time.

So I wrote this two page BS rant on Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, where I said Pop Art was not a reaction to AbEx or fulfillment of NeoDada, but was brought about by changes happening in American and British Culture. I cited the invention of television, the media and Hollywood, and the growing interest in Hollywood stars and stardom as birthing Pop Art stars Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

Talk about making it up as you go along. I thought for sure he wouldn't buy my argument and give me like maybe 5 points on a 20 point essay.

So it was so shocking that I got 100/100 and an A, and a comment that he agreed with me and that I really understood pop art.

He even held on to my test along with a few others, and said he was going to read from some of them as examples for what people should have written, but thank god he ran out of time and decided not to do that. That would have been embarrassing to hear my own BS read out loud in class. How scary is that?

But I guess I shouldn't be so surprised by my grade. I managed to convince my art history professor one night after class, that Jackson Pollock's AbEx Action paintings birthed conceptual art because of how Pollock showed tme in artwork.

You don't have to right about art, you just have to argue it well.

So I told a bunch of girls in art class to go see Kill Bill, but I did warn them that if their only exposure to kung fu movies was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix, they wouldn't like it.

Maybe I should have warned them about all the blood and gore, but oh my god, those were the best and funniest parts of the movie. Of course, I was the only one in the theatre laughing my head off but still. Gotta love a movie with tons of squirting blood and cut off limbs flying all over the screen.

People take stuff so seriously. It's just typical asian movie crappy special movie effects. It's so fake looking, that I can't believe people think it's real blood and get all grossed out. See this is what happens when you watch a movie that's an homage to a genre that you know nothing about, or you've never been exposed to.

You don't get how cool the awful special effects are. You don't get how great the stitled dialogue and sappy music is. You don't get how hard it is to actually write stuff this bad on purpose and not by accident or because you're in a hurry.

But if you have, you realize that Quentin Tarantino is an absolute genius!

So back to the dentist today because my crown still doesn't fit right. I hate this I get jaw headaches now. I think my dentist hates me because it's taking forever to get the crown to fit right.

He wasn't too happy the last time I came in, and I'm like I'm not happy either. My jaw hurts, and I wake up with headaches constantly. Please just fix it!

My horoscope for today:

Don't underestimate your talent. Don't discount your ingenuity. Don't overlook your perspicacity. You're a smart cookie and you have many resources to draw on. You may lose the odd battle in your ongoing struggle with adversity but there's no way you are ever going to lose the war. Lately you have accomplished something truly excellent. You ought to be proud of yourself yet you are too conscious of the other areas of life that this victory did not seem to touch. Fear not. Now, you can turn your attention to those.

It's a great horoscope, but I have no idea what it's talking about.

I'm trying to save more money, and it's so hard. I'm like so struggling at 10%, I don't know how people do it.

I'm also going to try and up my 401(k) percentage as well. If I increase my withholdings, I can up my 401(k) percentage and not feel it too much.

I wish I could be like my brother. The man has an empty house, very few clothes and books, very few of anything, but he's got a Scwab One account with $50K in it, and that's just his regular savings. I'm sure his retirement accounts have even more money than that.

He's so cheap on everything except for eating out, travelling first class and collecting antiques and old books. I don't know how he does it. I don't how he lives with so few things, but that's why he's got way more money than I do and he owns his own house.

I'm glad I just rented "Once upon a Time in China" before I saw "Kill Bill Vol. 1". "Once upon a time in China" starring Jet Li is your classic Hong Kong Kung Fu movie. The kung fu fighting is just amazing, but parts of it are really, really bad.

The dialogue is bad and stilted, but all Hong Kong kung fu action movies have bad dialogue. The movie music is like this bad 70's drivel, and I laughed when I heard it because I'd forgotten how bad the music gets in these kind of movies. And some of those characters, you just want to slap them all sometimes because they're so silly and stupid. But overall, "Once upon a time in America" is one of the better Hong Kong kung fu action movies.

Talk about time warp though. Watching the movie made me feel like I was 14 years old again, and in a movie theatre at home with my parents.

So I'm watching "Kill Bill Vol 1", and I get the same thing; bad stilted dialogue and horrifying yucky 70's music. And I'm like, this is cool, this is just like watching a Hong Kong kung fu action movie, especially the really, really bad music.

If you're not used to watching Hong Kong kung fu action movies, you'd never get why the bad stilted dialogue and bad cheesy music are so great. The reviewer for the NY Times didn't get it.

And all that blood spurting and limbs flyjng around, I mean that was really funny, and again classic Hong Kong stuff. In fact the whole movie looked so familiar, like I'd seen those scenes somewhere but it's been a long, long time.

Watching "Kill Bill" makes me want to watch every Hong Kong kung fu and japanese samurai movie I can get my hands so I can get the references I know Tarantino is making in this film.

There's even a japanese teenage assassin that I know is a ference to something. She's the stereotypical looking girl that's depicted in japanese movies, even in the porno ones. Guys love to fantasize about young japanese school girls in their uniforms, with those big eyes, straight hair and bangs, and those long eye lashes. She was such a classic.

I went to check out the Nanowrimo party in the Mission this afternoon. I'd never been to any of the Bay Area events before, and it was fun to see all the people from the forums.

Chris Baty, the founder of Nanowrimo, was there and gave a little talk about how Nanowrimo founded in 1999 during the heady days of the dotcom boom. Did anybody even guess back then that about five months later the dotcom boom would all come crashing down and a trillion dollars would be lost in the market, and many more trillions to follow.

Lots of businesses and ideas are gone now, but Nanowrimo is still going strong, five years later with people participating from all over the world.

There were writers from all over the Bay Area, with municipal liaisons for San Francisco, the East Bay and the South Bay. The liaisons organize writing parties at cafes all over the Bay Area, as well as other get togethers.

Writing is such a lonely endeavour, and if you're a group person Nanowrimo is a great thing to do. You can write in groups, participate in online forums, go to informal get togethers, and be part of huge write group for a month.

I've never gone to the writing parties. I've written with other people before in cafes, but it hasn't been that productive for me. I have to be by myself, with my thoughts, in my head to write.

What I like about Nanowrimo is the thought of other people all over the world, struggling to do exactly the same thing I'm doing. I don't have to know them, I don't have to meet them, I just have to know they're there struggling along like I am.

Because writing is lonely, and you always feel like you're the only who is struggling, who is trying to write and be creative with a full time job and a thousand other life distractions.

But just for one month, I'm one of thousands of participants (14,000 did it in 2002) and I don't feel so lonely anymore.

From the Fox Sports site:

For New Yorkers, what McKeon and the Marlins did was almost that disastrous, given that Florida ($54 million payroll) defeated the most celebrated team in sports ($164 million payroll).

I'm glad the Florida Marlins won the world series against the game's highest paid team. I'm glad that money can't buy the best team in baseball.

It's been two years now that the NY Yankees have lost to lesser paid younger teams. I wish I knew where the Marlin payroll stands compared to the rest of the league. I hope they're a small market team like the Oakland A's. I know from the news stories that their payroll took a big hit in 1997, and they had to rebuild from scratch.

Heads are probably going to roll in Gotham City, but who cares! The Florida Marlins won the world series and the Minnesota Twins won the central division chapionship after being on the verge of almost having their team closed down.

Maybe now things will change in major league baseball. Maybe now they'll think about revenue sharing and even parity in the league. Maybe that huge steroid scandal brewing in Burlingame that the mainstream sports media seems to be avoiding like the black plague will really shake the league up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Talk about having Watergate like overtones; that steroid scandal will be huge,

Tonight I listened to a 3-hour seminar on writing given by Stephen J. Cannell. He's the guy who came up with all those TV shows like Wise Guy, The Rockford Files, Hunter, etc. He's also written and published 10 novels.

Cannell started out by saying he is severely dyslexic, but it didn't stop him from being the successful Hollywood writer he is today. He writes five hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, even on vacation. The guy is definitely a workaholic. When he's working on a novel, he writes a chapter a day.

Because of his dyslexia, Cannell writes with a selectric typewriter, then has his secretaries type the pages into a computer document. He said that David E. Kelly, creator of Ally McBeal and The Practice, writes all his episodes in long hand.

In the middle of listening to his seminar, I realized what was wrong with my second screenplay and why I was having such a hard time finishing it. Thank you Mr. Cannell.

Cannell said you know you're a professional writer, when you can finish your writing projects whether they're good or bad.

My revised second screenplay definitely sucks. It's not fully developed, my second act drags, it's too talky and I don't show enough. And I think deep down I knew it, but I didn't know why. And even if I knew what was wrong, I didn't have enough skills in craft of storytelling to fix it last year.

Now I know, but I would have to completely replot my whole screenplay to fix it and start over from the beginning.

So I'll finish the sucky second version of my screenplay, just to practice the art of finishing my work. Afterwards, I'll rewrite another outline, treatment and beat sheet, and start what I hope will be a third and final rewrite.

I went to a screenwriting seminar last night taught by James Dalessandro, a working writer and teacher who has had over 500+ pitch meetings and selling 25 screenplays to Hollywood in about 21 years. The guy had some serious screenwriting street cred.

He just sold a screenplay called "1906", about the San Francisco earthquake, to Hollywood. His screenplay was the subject of a bidding war by the studios and sold for around half a million to Warner Brothers. Barry Levinson is directing the film.

The screenplay was based on a fictional novel he also wrote called "1906", which is due out in Spring 2004. Dalessandro said he thought the movie would outsell James Cameron's "Titanic".

He is currently in the process of creating some kind of TV show for Court TV called "Citizen Jane", which he says was paying $75,000 per episode. Dalessandro also went to the UCLA film school.

The seminar cheered me up considerably about my own writing and where I was in the process. Three things he said which struck me:

1. According to him, Aristotle said that "we cannot understand art before we understand its science." I love this because I was good at science and I'm very good at learning. Maybe one day I'll figure the writing thing out.

2. The best story to write is never the story you know, nobody cares and nobody is interested. I love this! I hate writing stories which too closely resemble my life. I don't want my private life opened up for criticism like that.

3. A character doesn't necessarily have to change or transform, but can just have a realization at the end of the story. I like this because real life is like that. Things happen in your life, and you don't always change. You get realizations, insights, maybe even epipanies, but you don't necessarily change your behaviour.

I have my modern art history mid term tonight.

Does it really matter that I know by heart Harold Rosenberg's theory on abstract expressionism - action painting?

Does anyone still care about Harold Rosenberg's abstract expressionism - colour field theory, or any of the art that came out of this movement?

Will I get extra points at a cocktail party because I can tell you the similarities and differences between Ab-Ex Action and Ab-Ex Colour Field?

What about extra points for knowing the differences and similarities between Ab-Ex New York and Art Informel in Europe?

I received a hooded sweatshirt from BloggerPro today. Should I wear it out? Do I want random strangers to know I have a blog? Does the general population even know what a blog is?

No writing today, and I feel guilty. I was on such a roll this week. I may write in my journal before I go to bed.

I did read two essays on writing by Octavia E. Butler, a black female science fiction writer. I think I want to eventually concentrate on fantasy/science fiction writing.

It's the the most thought provoking type of writing there is, and I love how as a writer you will have the ability to create brand new worlds.

I don't think I've seen any classes on learning the craft of fantasy/science fiction writing, and I missed the JR Tolkien seminars that the Learning Annex ran this year. Hopefully they'll have the seminars again. They were booked up, so I'm sure they were very popular.

I'm lazy today. I'm still in my jammies, and I haven't left the house or taken a shower. I had planned to do so many things today.

I'm trying to decide if I want to write or give myself a day off because I finished a short story. I didn't think I'd be done writing the story this quickly. It's such an accomplishment for me to finish any writing piece! I definitely must celebrate and goof off.

I also came up with two new short story ideas, since I've been trying to do the daily writing habit.

This one was inspired from a freewrite I did yesterday afternoon.

A struggling woman writer is dying of some kind of cancer. She had on radiation treatment, but the doctors are unsure if it was successful. Her health is bad and the prognosis is not good.

An old friend, a famous writer, comes to visit her and gives her a pen and inkwell. The friend tells her that the pen and inkwell saved her life, when she too was diagnosed with cancer. The famous writer friend tells the woman to make sure to write every day because writing is healing.

The woman thanks her friend, and starts to write with the magic pen and inkwell that night in her journal. The woman followed her firend's advice and remarkably, she starts to feel stronger and in the next few weeks her health improves dramatically. The doctors are amazed and declare the radiation treatment a success. There is still some chance that the cancer could come back, but the doctors say that the chances are very, very slim.

Relieved by the good news, the woman calls the famous writer friend to chat and finds out her friend is dying. The woman goes to visit her friend in the hospital, and finds out that it was the magic pen and inkwell that kept her friend alive. That she too had cancer, and the writing instruments kept the cancer at bay as long as she wrote every day.

Guilt ridden, the woman vows to give the pen and inkwell back but the famous writer friend refuses. "I have had my success and my fame, it's your turn now. And after you have your success and fame, there will come a time to pass on the pen and inkwell to another dying writer friend, as I have done to you as was done to me." The famous writer friend dies a few minutes later.

Racked by guilt, the woman goes home that night and doesn't write. After a week of not writing, the woman feels her body becoming weaker. She goes to the doctor, and after testing the doctor tells her that the cancer started growing again.

A few more weeks pass and the woman is now very weak, and contemplating another round of chemotherapy. Unable to face more treatment, she decides to start writing again and instantly feels better.

A week passes, and the woman's health improves dramatically and the doctors tells her that miraculously she had a spontaneous remission.

In a year the woman starts publishing and becomes a famous author, which was her childhood dream. The woman decides that while the pen and inkwell are a gifit, they are also a curse. She doesn't know if she's a famous writer because of her writing, or because of the writing instruments.

But she decides to keep on writing, in hopes that one day be able to pass the writing instruments to someone else.

I finished a short story last night. It's one I started in 2000 called "The Blue Haired Buddha on Union Street", but never finished. I rewrote an outline on 9/3/2003, and started writing it onTuesday.

Writing for me is much easier if I have an outline. It takes awhile for me to come up with an outline, but once it's done the writing is relatively easy.

Sticking to the outline was hard in the beginning. My first writing attempt on Tuesday went off outline, and my writing became bogged down. I think I wrote myself into a corner.

On Wednesday, I reread my outline and did a freewrite about what the story was supposed to be about. Then I did another character interview, and I was able to get back on track.

I was reading some material on Joyce Carol Oates, and how productive she was, is. The woman is manic about writing. One of my writing teachers knew her when she was young, and he said that Oates could write a short story in a day, and on a typewriter at that.

Some critics have said that she may be too productive, and that perhaps if she slowed down her quality would be better. Quality can be debated, but I don't think anyone can deny that she is one of the finest writers of her generation.

I don't think I'll ever have Oates' work habits, but she is a role model I can learn from and emulate.

I went to the art exhibit, and spoke to the guy from art class for a bit. He and his wife, who is also in the class, recognized me.

I teased him and said that I might write a paper about him and his exhibit, if I could figure out a way to tie into class. He said if I did, to make sure I gave him a copy.

Art class guy and I started talking about his exhibit, and he said something about what his exhibit meant, and I ended up countering, "No I think this is what you meant ..." I wonder if all artists cringe when a total stranger contradicts you and says "no your art doesn't mean that, it means this." I hope I didn't freak him out.

While walking to the bus stop, I started composing a very political art review in my head. His exhibit was very anti-Iraq war. I tentatively titled my essay, "Were Satre and Warhol right? The Celebrity of War: Reflections on the art of so and so".

It would be fun to write a SF Bay Guardian type, left wing political review of art class guy's exhibit. Never mind that I supported the US led war in Iraq, I could write an anti war piece. That ultra left wing hippie education of mine has to come in handy for something.

I told art class guy that my dad took me to my first political protest when I was 12, and I wore black armbands when Reagan was elected. I got hippie left wing street cred!

If I write it, I'll post it. I think it will be fun for me to exercise my writing brain and try to write an essay about what some guy's art exhibit means. I could quote Sartre, Warhol, and I might even throw a David Mamet quote in because I'd love to fit a "Wag the Dog" reference in, and argue how Andy Warhol's pop art birthed that concept and movie.

My modern art teacher loves to say that art and society in general is still influenced by Andy Warhol's pop art philosophy and vision, so I've got to work those Andy Warhol references in when I can.

I'm having adventures in faxing. I just tried faxing 18 pages to my screenwriting teacher, who happens to be surfing in Hawaii at the moment.

My stupid company fax machine cannot seem to fax more than 2 pages at a time. I should have just stuck with Winfax Pro software, instead of asking for a printer/fax/copy combo machine.

It prints and copies fine, but fax. Hell no! Unless faxing is some kind of gift from God that I just never got because I was too busy standing in the "great writer" gift line, which by the way I'm starting to think was one of those scam in heaven lines because writing is just way too hard for me.

I'm sure the hotel people in Hawaii are having fun with the dozens of faxes I sent.

I'm trying to decide what I want to do tonight. I was out yesterday with a friend at the Asian Art Museum. They had a member's preview for their new Korean art exhibit, and we saw a woman performing Korean dance.

I kind of just want to stay home and vegetate, write, and watch one of my rented movies, either Asoka or The Four Feathers, but it would be nice to get out.

A guy in my modern art history class is having art opening tonight somewhere in the Mission. I think he does sculpture because it's an installaion. Our professor said if we liked his art, we could write a paper about him. I don't know him, but I am interested in seeing his art.

Some other girl in from my art history class was even featured in Pink Section of The SF Chronicle a few weeks ago. They had a picture of her and her paintings, and she's even showing some of her work at the new Danielle Steele Gallery.

She had an open house at her artist's studio last weekend, and I had planned on attending but it just didn't work out.

I also have a hankering to see "Kill Bill", Quentin Tarantino's new flick. The New Yorker ran a profile on him this week, and I do love his films. Plus it's a homage to Hong Kong martial arts action movies, which I totally love.

It would nice to stay home tonight and relax, because I'll be out all day Saturday, with a party to attend at night, and I'll be out all day Sunday as well.

And somewhere between now and Sunday, I've got to fit in 4.5 hours of writing. No wonder I don't get any writing done, I'm always out!

I think I've got a new plan for my writing. Hopefully this one will stick, be consistent and become a long time habit.

My goal is to write an hour to an hour and a half a day, with at total weekly goal of 8 hours. I like the 8 hours, because then writing will become like a part time job for me which is how I want to think about it.

I will try to write every day, but I'm not going to freak out if I don't. It will probably work better for me if I don't skip a day, but if I do I will be able to make up the time before the week is up.

For this week, I wrote for 1.5 hours on Monday and Tuesday, and then 2 hours today. That's five hours, so I have three more hours to go.

I also decided to try this new way of writing and editing. First an outline and some character work and interviews. Then I'll write the first draft by hand, then I'll type up my notes into the computer and that will be a second draft. I'll read the second draft and make any structural changes, and new outline if needed. After that I'll retype the second draft from the beginning, which will become the third draft. I will read and line edit the third draft, and the final draft will be typing up my corrections.

This is a variation on "the radical rewrite" technique I learned in screenwriting class. With radical rewrite, you write the first draft and then write a completely new second draft over, without looking at the first draft.

I think this variation is better because you can still look at your first draft, but you're not tied to it and you're not writing without it.

I still haven't decided if I'll do the second draft by hand or on the computer. It would probably be easier to do it on the computer, but I would start with a new document and not just try to rework the old one.

I've been trying to rework "Spooning with my Mother" using the original document, and I don't like it. I think it's better to start fresh with a new document, and not worry too much about what I originally wrote. If I want to use a particular line from the first draft, I can retype it from the printed copy.

By retyping sentences over, I will have the opportunity to see if the sentence makes sense, os necessary and is worth keeping. Starting with a fresh docment enables me to be more ruthless about throwing out what works and what doesn't work. At least, I'm hoping that this is the result of my new writing process.

I wonder if Arnold Schwarznegger will have a "Galaxy Quest" moment when he gets to the governor's office in Sacramento.

Galaxy Quest was such a great movie. Remember when the actors had to actually become the people they portrayed in the television show?

Will Arnie soon realize that he's not just an actor playing a governor, he is the governor of the 5th largest economy in the world and he's got to balance the budget without raising taxes and figure out out how to dig California out of its $38 billion deficit hole.

So I turned down the Deacon nomination for church. I came to the conclusion that my opinions are just too different from many of the members on the Deacon Board, and I didn't want to be stressed out having to either defend my opinions or keeping silent about them.

It's only going to get worse in the next three years as well. My church is going through the same thing as the Anglican/Episcopalian church, although we are not quite up to their level yet.

I know I will not support any actions that will split my church from the greater national body. My church did it once for slavery and split the denomination in two, but slavery was a different issue than the ones the mainstream protestant churches are facing right now.

I think I am going to catch a ton of flak for what I did, because I felt the need to explain myself to the person who called for the nomination. I think I will test the old adage of "honesty is the best policy".

I feel fatalistic about this whole issue right now. If I have to leave my church I will. Our sister church has been trying to recruit me for years, and they have a huge membership. It's terrible to think like this, but I don't care.

I hate that my church is becoming like the rest of the country, partisan, intolerant and politically correct. They never used to be that way. My church used to welcome everyone, and tried to stay on the middle ground on issues. But like the rest of the country and I think the world, lines are being drawn in the sand which makes it hell for anyone who likes the middle path.

My life is stressful enough without having the added burden of an ideological political fight happening in my church, and me being in the middle of it.

I ran across a article by a published author, Alex Keegan on writing and rewriting, and here's his take on writing:

"Becoming a writer is harder! I think it was Ray Bradbury who said we need to write at least a million words just to make it to the foothills. Seems like a lot? Not really. 3,000 words a day for a year or 1,000 words a day for three years and you're home free. What d'you mean it sounds tough? It IS tough!

Presume that one million words is a real goal. Write 300 words a day, every day, never miss, and nine years from now, you'll be able to write. That is WRITE, that is, as someone once wrote, you will have eaten your technique, absorbed it until it's in your blood, so that HOW to express your thoughts will be semi-automatic.

And now an old piece of OK advice -- write at least fifty short stories before you embark on a novel, do exercises, snippets, try rewriting great short stories or novel openings, experiment with poetry, flash-fiction, writing to tough word-limits. Burn off the obvious, the commonplace, the too-closely autobiographical stuff early on. (Writing shorts does this). You will learn so much and still be creating pieces worth submitting. "

50 stories! I was so bummed out when I read this. To see where I was on the 50 story scale, I went through my writing filebox which contains a gloriously unsorted morass of writing class notes and assignments since Spring 1998. That's about 5 years worth of paper mind you, for 6 writing classes and a number of one day writing seminars.

Here's my list in no particular order:

1. Playing Catch with Dad – screenplay
2. Spooning with my mother – short story
3. The Crow Priestess – unfinished novel
4. The Taste of Ice Cream – short story
5. Crazy Eddie – short story
6. Following in the Dark – unfinished novel
7. Art is Scary – short story written for performance
8. Bare Trees in Winter – unfinished play
9. Going Home Again – unfinished screenplay
10. Time and Distance – short story
11. Rodeo Spurs on My Heart – short story
12. Mother’s Heart Shaped Diamond Pendant – short story
13. Holding Hands in the Desert – short story
14. Past Connections Lost – flash fiction
15. Are you mad for it? – short story
16. The Princess who lost her voice – fairy tale
17. Princess Sushmita – fairy tale
18. The Forest of Forgetfulness – fairy tale
19. Kim and the Boys on the Beach – short story
20. Maggie and the Crying Freeman – flash fiction
21. A Hot Day in Dallas – short story
22. Theatre Audition: Five Minutes to Strut Your Stuff – essay
23. Dating Your Best’s Friend Ex – short story
24. Rules of Dating – monologue written for performance
25. Baseball was my Life – short story
26. The Secret Playboy Subscription – short story
27. Clasped Hands in the Desert – short story
28. 9/11 Remembrance - published on SFGate.com

Shock of shocks! I was so surprised that I managed to crank out 28 pieces. I think there might be more, but that's all I could find in the box.

I feel a little better now. So what, 12 more short stories and maybe I'll be able to finish a novel.

I heard a bunch of girls saying on the train today, on the way to the dentist for yet another crown adjustment, that they were going to watch the Yankees/Redsox game tonight because of "the fight".

The girls loved the drama of the fight. They so got into watching Don Zimmer cry in some press conference. They loved the melodrama of the whole baseball game, and now they want to see it through to the end.

I guess there's nothing like real life controversy and melodrama to get people to watch TV, and for women to watch a sporting event, huh?

JC is calling me to service. I just received a call from my church's nominating committee telling me I was nominated to be a deacon.

I was a deacon before, and it was tough. I took it so seriously, too seriously, humorlessly actually, that after awhile I hated doing it.

I never felt like I was doing a great job, although my parishioners said I was doing a great job.

My screenwriting teacher told me I have very high standards for myself, and some of them were very unreasonable. She's right, I do. But I know myself and I've seen myself when I've been very productive.

But maybe I need to change those high standards a little bit, because I also suffer from burnout constantly. I'm productive and then I burn out, and lately the burn out periods are lasting longer than the productive periods.

Maybe it's better that I work constantly, do a little bit every day, and for longer periods of time. Maybe I won't get burn out and feel consumed, and out of balance with my life. I could still have my high standards, but they'll be adjusted for the long haul.

I haven't decided about the deacon thing; it's a three-year commitment. I do feel called to serve, and my church needs more people to be involved right now.

In the past when I've had a lot on my plate, I became very good at scheduling my time. I was forced to because of the activities I was involved in. I'm thinking if I'm forced to become more efficient with my time usage, maybe I'll get better at scheduling time to write.

I have more time now, and I still can't come up with a consistent writing schedule. I'm willing to try anything right now.

I just watched "The Passion" trailer, which is the new Jesus movie by Mel Gibson. It was very graphic and it made me weep. It's like all those years of having to do stations of the cross at easter came back and I was in tears and so upset at JC being whipped, beated and crucified.

I felt like I was an overly hormonal 13 year old again, crying night after night over JC being crucified, and wondering how could people could be so cruel.

I still don't get it, the cruelty, mean thing. I see it all the time in people I know, it's very subtle but it's there. People crucify each other every day, and for no good reason. I don't understand it, even though I know I've done it myself.

My problem is, I know when I'm being intentionally mean and I feel bad about it for a long time. It's like I've crucified Christ when I'm mean to someone, and it freaks me out and makes me think if I was there, what would I have been shouting? Crucify him or have mercy on him? I can't honestly say what I would have said.

My new favorite term, "tush hog". While watching the Pittsburg/Denver football game, Phil Simms started talking to Greg Gumbel about a "tush hog", which is a football player with a huge behind. This wonderful asset apparently comes in handy for certain types of plays in the red zone.

I'm glad the big behind on a guy comes in handy for something because most women I know cannot stand a man with a huge bum, and will so make fun of it all the time. No bubble butts allowed except on the football field.

I went to see the movie Luther on Saturday. Only for Martin Luther would I pay full price for a movie.

I loved the movie! It starred the beautiful Joseph Fiennes, who played Shakespeare in "Shakespeare in Love" and Robert Dudlely, Earl of Leicester in Elizabeth.

And for Colin Firth fans, the movie also featured his brother Jonathan Firth. Who knew he had a brother? He looks alot like Colin, but not as cute.

I got so caught up in the movie, when Luther was on trial for heresy at Worms, I wanted to shout "No, don't recant, don't! The fate of modern western civlization depends on you!"

Here's the new 2-cd set I bought today from Virgin Records, Cocktail Hour: Dinah Washington. She's got such a great voice!

I've always had this fantasy of being a cocktail lounge singer, with a fabbie smoky dreamy voice, wearing some slinky figure hugging tight dress, and lying on a piano and singing some bluesy sad jazz song like "I've sold my heart to the junk man and I'll never fall in love again."

I went to the dentist this afternoon so he could put a new crown in. My jaw really hurts now. It doesn't matter how much they numb you up, all that poking of your gums still hurts for a long time afterwards.

Since my dentist's office is near Union Square, I went to the MAC counter at Macy's to buy some lipstick. Those MAC girls at the counter are so scary looking. They wear their makeup like they're trying to mimic a Christian Dior model in the ads I've seen in the high fashion glossy magazines.

What looks great on a model in a Chrstian Dior advert, sadly looks horrid close up in real life, especially on women who don't have model cheekbones or faces.

Those girls are doing MAC cosmetics such a disservice. I'd be afraid to buy makeup or having someone put make up on me who looked like these girls. They are truly frightening.

Someone needs to clue them in that the heroin waif look only looks good on actual heroin addicts from NYC or fashion models, and not on suburb girls who look they appreciate the taste of donuts way too much. That, and the herion addict clown waif look is just darn old.

It's the year 2003 ladies, time to move on to the next fashion trend. It's like seeing women wearing those black leather backpacks. God, that look is so over done, so tired, so old and so K-mart!

Those noisy Blue Angels are back and buzzing around the Bay for Fleet Week San Francisco.

This is one of the few times I wish I had a bay view instead of my beloved ocean view, but it doesn't matter I guess because I just saw two of them do a turn from the bedroom window.

I love the colour of the planes, all bright blue and yellow. The best spot to see them is from a high rise office building in downtown San Francisco. I swear those planes fly through the building just to scare people.

I did some google research, and searched through the US Senate's website and found the following substantiating The Economist's claim about republican senator Orrin Hatch.

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to make eligible for the Office of President a person who has been a United States citizen for 20 years. (Introduced in Senate)

The bill was introduced by Senator Hatch on July 10, 2003. Arnold Schwarznegger became a US citizen in 1983, so if this amendment passes he will be eligible to be elected as president of the country.

The Economist's take on Arnold's victory, Hasta la vista, Davis.

Here's the scary part of The Economist's story:

"Should he succeed in taming the state’s grim finances, some Republicans may begin to dream of Mr Schwarzenegger following in Mr Reagan’s footsteps all the way to the White House. Having been born outside America, Mr Schwarzenegger is constitutionally barred from the presidency. However, that could change if Congress were to pass a constitutional amendment now being proposed by Orrin Hatch, a Republican senator."

I heard a rumor on the Net a couple of days ago about Hatch and this new constitutional amendment, but it looks like the rumor is true.

I finally finished reading Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain". I really liked it, although the ending of the book disturbed me for awhile.

I have a bad habit of reading the ending of any book I'm reading before I finish it. It's horrible to do, and I tried to stop myself with "Cold Mountain" but I couldn't do it.

When I read the ending first I was so bummed out, but when I finally finished the book the ending made more sense and seemed more logical. Still, I don't much care for the ending of "Cold Mountain".

A movie based on the book starrring Jude Law and Nicole Kidman is supposed to be coming out in December, and Charles Frazier reportedly received millions to write a sequel.

Even Jim Rome of the radio program "The Jungle" and the ESPN's "Rome is Burning" is shocked and disgruntled about Arnold becoming governor of the world's fifth largest economy.

Yeah Jim Rome!

I read somewhere on the Net that in the movie "Demolition Man" with Sylvester Stallone, the characters said that Arnold became governor of California and then president of the USA.

That movie was made about 10 years ago, and I wonder if the Arnie as governor of Cali is really in the movie. I saw the movie, but I don't remember that part.

Well, at least I voted like most of the the voters of the city and county of San Francisco; 80.4% voted No on The Recall.

I am surprised by how high the percentage is, but it makes me feel good about the city that I call my home.

In fact, all the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area voted No on The Recall. The city and county of Los Angeles voted No on The Recall as well. Yeah LA!

I think I'm starting on a Hong Kong kung fu action movie kick. Last week I went to the video store and rented Iron Monkey.

What a great flick! "Iron Monkey was directed and choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, who choreographed the fight scenes for "The Matrix" and "Crounching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

I grew up watching and loving hong kong kung fu action movies, since my parents were fans and I went to the movie theatre with them. I don't think they were into the "let's shield the kid from violent movies" type of parenting. It's either that or they couldn't get or afford babysitting.

But then again, they also loved "The Three Stooges" and we always watched them when they were on television. A friend of mine just told me that most women don't like The Three Stooges" because they were too violent.

Were they violent? I thought they were a scream! They were always poking and beating up on each other, but in a brotherly and silly way which was very, very comical.

Iron Monkey reminded me so much of movies I watched as a child. It definitely resembled old hong kong kung fu action movies. And there wasn't any of that fake flying stuff like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which was a hong kong kung fu action movie dumbed down and made for american audiences.

Iron Monkey delivered great street fighting action scenes, and lots of old style shaolin kung fu with more emphasis on technique instead of acrobatics.

I also rented Bulletproof Monk with Chow Yun-Fat, just to see what that movie is about.

Now I want to rent more kung fu movies! They are so much, and they remind me of my childhood. Maybe I'll see if I can rent a Three Stooges video as well, just to see if I still like them or if I'll think now that I'm older that they were violent.

Do people now think that Laurel and Hardy were violent as well? Hardy was always hitting Laurel. Those guys were so darn funny!

I was getting caught up on reading all my favourite blogs, when I read on Carol's Chaotic Collection on Curiousities that eggplant has more nicotine than any other vegetable.

Is this why I love and crave eggplant? Because it has nicotine? How shocking! I've been trying to figure out for awhile now why I crave eggplant, and I do crave it. I used to smoke ciggies, so maybe I'm just craving nicotine and somehow my body knew that eggplant has nicotine because my mind sure as heck didn't.

Eggplant has nicotine ... I'm still so shocked!

Just filled out my absentee ballot, and will take it down to the polling place in awhile.

I voted No on the Recall, No on 53, and No on 54, and for insurance I voted Yes for Cruz Bustamante. I almost protest voted for Tom McClintock but I could feel my dead dad, a dyed in the wool union democrat freaking out, so I let that feeling pass.

If The Terminator gets in, we wouldn't be the first state to put someone like him in office. Minnesota voted Jesse Ventura, the wrestler, as their governor a few years ago. Ventura turned out to be a lame duck governor.

I think it will be an interesting dilemma for the GOP party in California if Arnold gets in. Are they going to change their social platform because Arnie is a RINO (republican in name only) after all? There are no other republicans in the state with Arnie's moderate social views. If this was a regular election, Arnold wouldn't even had won a statewide GOP primary and everybody knows that.

Cali is a weird state though. It's so huge and hard to poll. In the 2000 election, the pollsters kept saying up until election day that Bush would win the state and they were so wrong. I mean wrong, big time!

If Arnold gets in, then people in Cali have gotten desperate and are willing to give the other party a try. My birth state, who I never thought would ever elect a republican governor, did so. Hawaii is so democrat, it's the only state that voted for McGovern in 1972.

But the demise of the Japanese economy and a few natural disasters wreaked the state's economy, and after many years of recession voters had enough and voted the republicans in.

Cali might be in a similar state. I don't know. We'll find out.

I just read a post on a bulletin board that said the world must be coming to an end because the Cubs and the Red Sox are in the post season?

For their long suffering fans, it's about time they have their teams end up as winners.

Now if the Cubs and the Redsox are in the world series, then what? It's really going to be the end of the world then.

Even if the A's win against Boston tonight, I don't expect them to go much further. Their pitchers aren't healthy, and their hitting has been spotty. But it's baseball, and it's been a wild season and anything can happen.

Poor Giants! Is there any satisfaction anywhere when their former manager takes his team to their first post season victory in 95 years?

At least the 49ers won a game over their old coach, so that's something to feel happy about at least.

For my modern art history class I went to First Thursday tonight. On the First Thursday of every month, many of the commercial art galleries around Union Square stay open late so working people can view the artworks in their galleries. Many of galleries serve wine and some even have snacks.

It's kind of fun if you're interested in viewing contemporary art and getting free glasses of cheap wine. Plus it's a great for people watching because some people definitely dress for the occassion.

My art history teacher said that if we went to First Thursday and saw artists that we really liked, we could write about them and maybe compare and contrast their styles.

One artist in particular really stood out, Travis Somerville whose work was showing at the Catharine Clark Gallery.

I really liked his work, and out of everything I saw tonight, his stuff really stood out. He definitely has singular vision, and it's very fascinating.

I saw one artist's work, who actually lives in my new neighbourhood, and it was kind of cool because I recognized many of landscapes she painted.

As I was looking at work, I started to get an idea for a story. Many of this artist's painting featured people, and I was thinking, you know how artists are always sketching people in public.

Well, what if you were to walk into a gallery one day, and you saw a picture of yourself on the wall as one the background people in a painting. How interesting would that be.

And what if unbeknownst to the artist, she had capture some kind of dramatic moment in your life. Does this kind of thing even happen? Would the artist have to have permission from someone if they wanted to hang a picture of that person in a gallery. What if it was some kind of random crowd scene, that you just happen to be in?

I don't know. I think it would make for some kind of interesting story line to have a character discover the art in a gallery and then tell the artist that they're the one in the picture, and what was happening that day with them.

Was it american indians who didn't allow pictures to be taken of them because a picture captures your soul? Or was this some kind of Hollywood myth? Anyway, if a photograph can capture your soul, why not a painting?

I suppose I could have the artwork be a photo show instead of a painting show, but I like the idea of a painter rendering the likeness and emotion of the character with paint and brushstrokes.

An artist would just be interpreting the character and what they saw, but the question would be, did the artist get the character right? Or does it even matter that the artist got the character right, it's just an intepretation right?

From Gordon Zaft's blog, I read about this game called "In the Bag" which was from a blog by Terry Teachout, the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the music critic of Commentary.

Here are the rules "you can put any five works of art into your bag before departing for a desert island, but you have to decide right this second. No dithering: the body snatchers are banging on your front door. No posturing: you have to say the first five things that pop into your head, no matter how embarrassing they may sound. What do you stuff in the bag?"

Here are my picks as of this second.

1. cd - The Cure - Wish
2. artwork - Vincent Van Gogh - Vase with 15 Sunflowers (London, National Gallery)
3. book - Japan at the Dawn of the Modern Age, Woodblock Prints from the Meiji Era (MFA publication from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
4. book - The Bible, NRSV
5. book - The Riverside Shakespeare

Interesting, huh?

There was a man strumming his guitar and singing "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd at the Powell Muni/BART station last night around 10 pm. He had a pretty good voice, and could definitely play guitar.

Memories of other troubadors crooning in public places flooded my tired brain.

The guy with the beautiful dreadlocks at the Picadilly tube stop in London, singing "Wonderwall" by Oasis. The escalator leading down into the station was steep and reminded me of the escalator at the Dupont Circle station in DC.

The man's voice drifted up to me as I rode the escalator down, and his beautiful face came into view at the bottom. I smiled at him and he smiled back, and the I hurried on my way to catch a train to Earl's Court.

When I was vacationing in Bali for a month, I stayed at a hotel in Kuta Beach that had a piano in the foyer. There was a man from Boston, playing "Knocking on Heaven's Door" on the piano at all hours of the day and night. He didn't sing, but played beautifully, slowly, meditatively.

Hearing the song at night was beautiful, and it blended wonderfully yet at the same time eerily with the sounds of the gamelan player who played in the gardens at night.

Then of course, I have many memories of hearing some guy playing a saxaphone in downtown San Francisco during the evening rush hour, serenading the commuters home. There is nothing like hearing a jazz saxaphone soundtrack with its music floating to the top of the highrises to make you feel like you're really lucky to be living and working in a big city.

Where there's a will, there's a way. I was all set to buy a usb to parrallel cable to connect the free office printer my friend gave me, when I decided to try to connect it to my ethernet 10/100 base_tx network and the home portal device I bought for my DSL connection.

After much searching on the internet and stumbling around, and even calling the people who made my home portal who blithely told me that they don't support printer sharing, I figured it out and now I have two printers. YEAH!!!

I used to curse the time I worked for that startup and had to work the helpdesk for six months, but not anymore. The best thing I learned from the "Hi I'm the helpdesk" experience" was how to troubleshoot a computer problem.

I mean, it was the three of us at the startup and if we couldn't figure it out it's not like we could ask anybody else. I learned how to fix things out of sheer survival. It would take all day sometimes, but at least I got it fixed.

The laserjet printer is great. It prints so fast!

As a California resident and voter who remembers all the media hype during 2000 election about Bush winning California, I wonder if the same thing is happening again with Schwarznegger and the recall election.

I remember Senator John McCain even saying one week before the presidential election that Gore would lose California and Bush would win. The polls even showed Bush winning. Yet, Gore won California by a huge margin.

I mean this is the same media after all, who hyped the dot com market and never said anything about it the stocks being overvalued or even talking about the possibility of a crash. We didn't get any of that, except maybe the mainstream media scoffing at the doom and gloomers who said to get out of the market before it crashes.

So let's see ... in March 2000, Nasdaq was at what 5,000 + and today it closed at 1,824.

Does the mainstream media ever get anything right?

I saw "Underworld" on Friday night, and loved it. The critics hated it, and I can see why, but I don't care. Word has definitely gotten around about its suck factor, because there were only about ten people in the theatre.

I think I loved "Underworld" because I love vampire movies. I've seen every single one of them including the original silent screen edition of "Noseferatu", which made weep at the end.

I was googling the movie afterwards, and there's like all this gossip about the movie. At the time the movie was being filmed, Kate Beckinsale was living with the head werewolf guy, Michael Sheen. They also share a daughter Lilly. She probably helped to get him the part.

After filming, Kate breaks up with head werewolf guy Michael and says it was was because they were incompatible.

Months later, Beckinsale ends up engaged to the director of "Underworld" Len Wiseman, who was married to someone else during the filming of the movie.

I wish I'd known all this juicy gossip before I'd seen the movie, because it might have been fun to check out the interaction between the two actors.

Maybe I'm depressed because in the process of studying the modern art of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Alberto Giacometti, art informel, Jean Fautrier, Jean Dubuffet, Antoni Tapies, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, I've had to read up on existentialism.

Reading the philosophy of existentialism will, I'm convinced, depress anyone.

Maybe I'm in a bad mood because I saw the ACT production of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", by Choderlos de Laclos and adapted and directed by Giles Havergal, on Thursday.

When the Glenn Close/John Malcovich version of the movie first came out, I got a weird kind of intuition not to see it, like it was really bad or something. I did end up watching it years later on video, and didn't think it was that bad.

The Annette Bening/Colin Firth version which was titled "Valmont" didn't quite have the menacing feeling that came across in the Close/Malcovich version, but it was better at portraying The Vicomte as a more charming rogue.

"Cruel Intentions" with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillipe, and Reese Witherspoon, was the updated teenage angst version of the story. And although enjoyable, there was something missing in translating the story to a modern day upper class prep school in NYC.

I also saw a play version by Christopher Hampton performed by some friends of mine a few years ago at City College, and they weren't the best but the playwright's adapation was amazing.

In ACT's production, Giles Avergal returned to the original version of the book, which was written in the forms of letters. Giles Havergal did a fantastic adaptation of Graham Greene's novel "Travels with My Aunt" for ACT a few years ago, and he did a good job with this book as well, although as some critics have pointed out he did simplify the plot probably more than was necessary.

The actors were great, and I thought this was the best version I've seen of the relationship between Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil. The two were lovers first, and the play showed that the Marquise was more in love with him that she was willing to admit.

As an audience, you have to know that the two were lovers first so you can understand the extent to which their love, their attraction turned into pure hatred and evil. Havergal's adaption shows that evolution in its entirety and the actors give a great performance as well.

What's missing is the more seemy side of Valmont's debauchery as well the more treacherous aspects of the Marquise' libertine games.

It is disturbing to see love used so wantonly, so cruelly, with little regard to people or to feelings, but I think that was the whole point of Choderlos de Laclos' book. The kind of behaviour of portrayed in the book is common fare on soap operas, although not quite as elegantly done as the original french version.

But despite the shocking nature of the story, in the end the play and the book is a morality tale, and all the bad people get what they deserve. And it is maybe the ending which is the most disturbing part of the play and book. After all when in the real world do the villians ever get punished?

I think I'm having not just a bad hair day, but a bad hair weekend.

I feel blah.
I feel depressed.
I'm sniffling and I feel a cold coming on.
I've slept more than 8 hours, and all I want to do is crawl back into bed.
I saw "Underworld" and loved it, so I must be more of a goth girl than I thought.
I feel like I need new clothes. All my clothes are so boring, so conservative. I want to be edgy and daring, and wear black leather. It's my goth girl coming out.
My stupid pair of $11 DKNY ribbed tights, which I just wore the first time yesterday already has a run. Damn!
I'm starting to think Rush Limbaugh has a point about people who live in California, especially the left wing feminists women.
Maybe it's getting close to that time of the month, and I'm having a major PMS breakdown, because I just want to slap everyone who pisses me off.
I never get PMS, so the world must be ending.
I miss my grandma, and keep dreaming she's still alive.
I'm starting to question the writer thing.
I think my acting teacher was right when he said my biggest fear was fear of failure. He said it's what drives me and stops me from being a great actor.
I hate that I might be driven by the fear of failure, but I hate failure.
Somtimes I feel like if I'm not successful at something, I'll go insane.
I think my biggest fear is living a life of mediocrity, and I'm hiding from the fact that I'm already living that kind of life.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't weird, artistic and creative, since it must be nice to go through life and not worry whether you're any of these things.

So shocking. Robert Palmer, of "Addicted to Love" fame, died at age 54 of a heart attack.

I don't think of him as old. I don't think of any rock and roll guy as old. But they all age don't they? And then they die, which is normal but still shocking nonetheless.

The radio news is reporting that 7.8 earthquake hit Hokkaido Japan. That's huge!

Nanowrimo novel working title: Dallas is a State of Mind

Characters:
Marshall B. Raker - failed dot com executive, living in Dallas, divorced, missed his window of opportunity when the dot com market bottomed out, his big idea in 1999 was building a bigger pipe to move data through, voice and data over IP with a bigger pipe than a T3, Microsoft and IBM said it couldn't be done, the technology wasn't there. He's 5th generation Texas native, family still owns a working ranch in west Texas, republican, former rodeo bull rider, speaks and writes four languages fluently including french, smart, suave, Mr. modern day Texas Cowboy incarnate, loves 19th century literature and quotes Dickens and Melville, sees himself as a character in a Dickens novel battling against society and himself, has old fashioned values bordering on sexism, but manages to cover it up with his magnetic charm.

Jane B. Cartano - SF journalist who is researching an article on executive casualties of the dot bomb era, flies to Dallas for a week to interview him. She's hip with inner hippie, hates 19th century literature - too many long winded sentences and boring middle class values, she grew up in a commune located along the Hanapepe river with her very hippie dippy rich parents. She's ambitious, a vegan who eats meat when she's on assigment because it makes her aggressive, and of course she's attracted to Marshall B. Raker because he's everything she despises about men and dot com executives.

Harlequin romance, here we come!

My structure, subject to change, is 12 chapters about 10 pages each. I think it will be fun to write from the Marshall's point of view and then from Jane's, so it will 6 chapters for her and 6 chapters for him, alternated of course.

Chapters 1 & 2, intro
Chapters 3 & 4, first meeting - Day 1 in Dallas, lunch at the Hyatt Regency Dallas
Chapters 5 & 6, Day 2, lunch at The Mustang Cafe at Las Colinas
Chapter 7 & 8 - Day 3, dinner at the revolving restaurant at Reunion Tower, the passion night
Chapters 9 & 10, Day 4, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
Chapters 11 & 12 - Day 5 - DFW Airport and goodbyes

I received an email from the Nanowrimo folks asking if I was going to write a novel in 30 days in November again. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it, but I told them to put me on the list.

I was at a cafe last night writing in my journal, and I came up with an idea for a novel, and even outlined a possible chapter structure. I didn't think I had any more novel ideas I wanted to pursue, but this one came and I like it.

My last two Nanowrimo novels weren't complete novels, but just the start of novels. I didn't know back then anything about how to structure a novel. Not anymore.

I learned a really cool trick in my writing seminar at Learning Annex last month, on how to outline a story, and so far it's been working. Actually, I'm combining outlining ideas I learned in my screenwriting class with the new technique I learned in last month's class.

So I'm going to attempt to write a novel from start to finish this time, and it will be a romance of sorts.

For some reason I was thinking about my good friend B from Dallas, who I don't talk to anymore because he said he couldn't be friends with me without wanting soemthing more. I still miss him, but he did what he had to do for his own well-being and I can't him fault him for doing that. But B from Dallas was such a trip and a character, that I was thinking he would make a great fictional character if I amped him up big time.

That governor debate was scary. Peter Camejo of the Green party is a lunatic. The man is so scary! Ariana is a fright.

Actually liked McClintock a ton, but I could never vote for him because of his social views who will have the right to appoint judges. Can't have judges with McClintock's social views legislating from the judicial bench.

Arnold was scary, and Bustamente, well, I am a democrat voting NO on the recall after all and I could never vote for a republican for the any high government office.

The LA Times last week ran an article on the old Al Pacino movie "Scarface" because there's a new print of it in theatres right now, but I couldn't read it because the darn LA Times is now charging about $40 a year to read their Calendar Live articles. I love the LA Times, but I don't know if I love them enough to pay $40 a year to read one of their sections.

I'd never seen "Scarface", so I went out and rented the movie. It was a great movie, and definitely a classic.

Now the NY Times also followed suit and wrote an article about "Scarface", 'Scarface,' a Foul Mouth With a Following. The article says it's now an underground classic among hip-hop fans and how college students are throwing "Scarface" parties.

Brian De Palma directed the movie, and Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay. Al Pacino has a really bad cuban accent, but his performance is so over top and great, that it makes up for the fact that his accent is more italian than cuban.

A DVD is being released by Universal which will include prominent rappers talking about how influential "Scarface" is to them. P. Diddy says he saw the movie 63 times.

I really loved the movie up until the very end, when the Tony Montana character started to just make me mad. The end of "Scarface" reminded me of an F. Scott Fitgerald novel I hated so much because of the ending that I've blocked memories of the novel from my mind. I hated that Fitgerald novel so much, the experience made me think Fitzgerald only wrote great short stories and wrote awful novels.

I really should reread that Fitgerald novel again, if I can remember which one it was, just to see if it makes me crazy again. I read the novel sometime during college, and my values were definitely different then.

If you haven't seen "Scarface", or it's been awhile, watch it again because it really is a great movie classic and showcases a young Pacino at this best.

NY Times columnist and middle east specialist Thomas Friedman was interviewed on KGO AM this morning. His insights are so great, and he had some interesting comments about the war in Iraq and politics in general.

Below are a few of his gems but I'm paraphrasing what he said:

France wants us to fail in Iraq, and won't help us and will do everything to insure we fail. They are not an ally, they are our enemy.

To my liberal friends, some things are true even if George Bush says them.

To politicians - Never put yourself in a political position where when you succeed the US fails.

I still stand behind my position that the US was right to go to war with Iraq, even though I had strong reservations.

There is freedom of speech in the arab world, but there is no freedom of after speech in the arab world, and that's why I supported the US led war in Iraq.

It's good to be a baseball fan in the SF Bay Area. Both my boys, my teams - the SF Giants and Oakland A's, won their divisions.

Already dreams of a Bay Bridge World Series are going thorugh people's head.

It's good that baseball is good here, because both the football teams are sucking the big ones right now!

It looks like the Raiders may have missed their window of opportunity for a Superbowl with the current roster. And the 49ers ... okay you have a new coach but there's no excuse for the mistakes they've been making on the field.

So I'm flipping through this Sunday's SF Chron Book Review, and I see a familiar face and name.

Some guy I went to college with wrote a book on russian history, and his book was being reviewed. So weird. From his picture, the guy hasn't changed at all.

The guy lived in my college house for awhile, and we even had a brief flingie. His girlfriend moved into the house later, and we became really good friends. The review said the guy is a historian and a former professor of history at Harvard.

As I remember, the guy was really smart, studied constantly, was constantly in writing lab for his papers, is very tall and hails from Kansas of all places.

He's the first person I know from college who wrote a book that's been reviewed in my local paper.

Is it a small world or what?

The funniest line I heard on that show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" was "Say no to crack!", which for guys would mean don't let wear your pants too loose that when you bend down everyone can see your butt crack.

But what about for women? Do we need a show called "Queer Eye for the Straight Chick"? Low rise pants for women are really in, but that means when women bend down there's not a lot of material covering their butts.

I've seen so many chicks' butt cracks lately, hairy ones too, and it's so not attractive. I mean, maybe guys get turned on by seeing a chick's butt crack, but I sure don't.
If you don't see a chick's butt crack, you see their ratty panties or worse, you see their thong. I saw this girl yesterday, and when she bent down her white thong was huge! And what's with thongs? I thought women were wearing thongs so don't you see panty lines. It's so not true.

Sure you don't see panty lines on the butt itself, but then you see the thong line at the top of their tight pants. What's up with that? I thought the whole point of wearing butt floss was so you didn't see any panty lines at all on the whole butt, and not just on the cheeks. Seeing the thong line looks like you're wearing a pair of panties with the part for the butt cheeks cut out, and it looks very weird under tight pants.

I bought some low rise bikinis when I bought my low rise jeans, because it did disturb me that my bikinis were hanging outside my jeans when I sat down. Scary!

For men as well as women "Say no to crack!"

The California Recall election is on for October. The 9th circuit court of appeals just issued their decision.

The ACLU will probably appeal, so the next question is will the Supreme Court take the case or turn it down.

The news is reporting that republican Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County, the guy who started all this recall mess, said at The Commonwealth Club that "if there are still two republicans in the race when we finally get to vote, to vote NO on the recall." Meaning Davis is way better than Bustamante.

What a freak!

The presure is definitely on for McClintock to get out of the recall race.

Those 9th circuit court of appeals judges are very funny. They won't let you BS them that's for sure, and they will call a lawyer for laying on the gloss.

KGO 810 AM is broadcasting the 9th circuit court of appeals 11-judge panel hearing on the California recall.

It should be interesting to listen to just to hear what the arguments are on both sides.

Look for the station on Google. You may be able to listen online if you're interested.

Here's a twist on democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark; Latest contender for president comes from long line of rabbis.

That Erasure song got me started on a synth pop kick, having been a huge Joy Division fan in my youth.

I've been looking at cds by Kraftwerk, New Order, Style Council, The Jam, more Erasure, OMD, Level 42, Men without Hats, Bronksi Beat, and of course Depeche Mode.

As my friend Drew used to say "techno pop and disco!"

This is so cool. Erasure doing a cover that old Elvis Presley tune, Can't Help Falling in Love. Click on the song to hear it. You'll need Real Player to hear it.

This is one of my favourite love songs! It makes me cry every time I hear it.

This cover version is almost as good as the time I heard Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman doing a cover version of "Misty" in Golden Gate Park.

My friend and I went to see free Shakespeare in Golden Gate Park. It was a hot day, which is rare in that part of San Francisco, and I roasted my legs while sitting in the full sun.

They're like burnt and on fire right now, but I put some after sun lotion on them so hopefully I won't peel or burn. The sun was so hot today, and it's still hot at 8 pm.

Usually the fog rolls in on hot days, but not today. The whole city seemed be out enjoying the park, and it was great to see everyone out.

We watched "Love's Labour Lost", which was done with late 50's costume La Dolce Vita style. Everyone was good, except for the page who was played by a girl. She totally annoyed me for some reason. She was very cloying, and really not that funny.

Usually the pages are played by guys, and it's a different part when it's played by a guy. The page part is supposed to be a young boy in his teens, and most actors play it that way. This actor chick played it like a some 20 or 30 something chick, which was so off putting in a way.

I don't know. The rest of the audience seemed to like her, so maybe I was the only one who kept praying for a giant hook to get her off the stage. The critic at the SF Chron thought the performances were uneven, and for once he and I agreed.

At Sharon Meadow the local radio station Alice 97.3 put on their annual "Now and Zen" festival, which featured Liz Phair, Maroon 5, Seal and Duran Duran.

The music was so loud from Now and Zen, that we could hear it during the Shakepeare play. It was kind of annoying but kind of fun, because we had wanted to go to Now and Zen but decided we didn't want to pay that much money for the tickets.

I kind of felt that I got my wish. I saw free Shakespeare in the Park and I heard Duran Duran and Maroon 5, the two bands whose music I really like.

The music was so loud that you didn't really have to pay money to hear the concert. There was a ton of people sitting in front of the flower conservatory enjoying the concert, because the sound at that location was so clear.

I heard that Maroon 5 song they keep playing on the radio "Harder to Breathe" (they sound Bon Jovi to me), Seal's hits (saw him in concert a few years ago), and all my Duran Duran faves. YAY!!! And I didn't have to pay $40 to hear them.

My friend had seen them in their young and beautiful days, and we both wanted to remember them as those pretty young boys on that boat sailing on the ocean and not have that be spoilt by an older and I'm sure more weathered version of themselves playing their old hits at some kind of reunion concert.

Simon LeBon was beautiful and I want that memory of him preserved!

Here's a very interesting article on The Darwin Awards website, Stupidity should be cured — Watson.

The best bit from the stupidity story:

"If you really are stupid, I would call that a disease," he was quoted by The Times of London as saying. "The lower 10 percent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it?

"A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 percent."

I got into a Second City Television mood, and started surfing the internet for news about them. I remember watching their show a long, long time ago, and thinking they were so funny and just as good as Monty Python's Flying Circus. I love Monty Python!

The big news is the Second City Televisious group is releasing on DVD next year their shows from NBC. I bel they'll be expensive, but definitely worth getting.

Then I went surfing for Monty Python stuff, and they have a 14-dvd set of all of their Flying Circus shows. It's not cheap, but it might be worth getting one day.

I have this one memory of an SCTV show, where there some kind of murder on the show and the people involved were all children's television stars. It must have been very funny if I still have memories of it to this day.

I have a couple of Monty Python Flying circus memories as well. One is a sketch where there's a bunch of people in a boat, and they're out in the middle of the ocean. They're starving and have to decide which people to eat.

My other vague memory is when they used to go out and interview people in the english countryside, and the interviews were always so strange, but funny in an odd way. It wasn't until I saw British television years later, that I realized they were spoofing BBC interviews.

BBC news is a riot. They're so different from american news. When I was there in the mid 90's, I couldn't believe they didn't show satellite pictures for the weather report. Instead, they showed what looked like felt cutouts for rain over a felt cutout of the British Isles. What a goof!

Following in the Dark - tentative chapter divisions and titles

1. In the Beginning
2. The Mother of all experiences
3. Alone with him
4. Darkness pulls you
5. Darkness Descends
6. Following in the Dark
7. You can't see in the Dark
8. You can't hear in the Dark
9. You can't move in the Dark
10. Darkness has no pain
11. Alone in the Dark
12. In the Darkness all is revealed
13. Entombment
14. Between the Darkness and the Light
15. Out in the Light
16. The Darkness hides all
17. The Stranger in the Light
18. Light hurts
19. Light lets you move
20. Light lets you hear
21. Light lets you see
22. Leading in the Light
23. Light lifts you up
24. Light invites you
25. At one with him again
26. The start of something new
27. Another beginning

These chapter titles are so structured, and I've never done that with my stories before. Usually I just write and write, and then afterwards step back to see what I've done.

Not this time. This story is structured like a pyramid. You go up, get to the top, and then descend in the way you went up, so the chapters for the ascent and descent mirror each other.

I don't know why I made it so complicated, but it makes sense somehow to structure the story this way.

But who knows? I could change it all next week.

I went to the library last night to do a writing session, and oh my god, it was so hard. I don't why I just can't sit down and write. I think I'm a little down because I'm not sleeping well, and when I don't sleep well my whole world feels off.

It's not like I even sleep that much either, but I need my 6.5 hours of sleep to feel good and I'm not getting it. Not sure what's wrong other than I'm having disturbing dreams.

I didn't think I dreamed very much, but I've been dreaming 2-3 dreams a night. They're all very disturbing, and I wake up in a sweat. I go right back to sleep, but it's the waking up that's disturbing my sleep.

I usually sleep like the dead, and have slept through parties, roommates, etc. But not these last two weeks.

Since I couldn't write, I decided to work on my structure for the novel, "Following in the Dark". I was able to do that, and I now have 27 tentative title chapters. OY! That's a lot huh?

I didn't even think of having chapter titles, but I'm reading "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier and he gave each chapter a title. I thought it was so cool, that I decided to do the same thing for my novel.

These are just tentative chapters divisions and titles. 27 chapters might be too many, and I think I could even whittle down the chapters to 15 or even 13 by just combining what I already have. But I'll decide that later. This is just a first pass at dividing the story into chatpers.

I'll post them separately.

Sayings of Zen to start your day with a smile

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much
leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.

3. Its always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Sex is like air. It's not important unless you aren't getting any.

5. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

6. No one is listening until you fart.

7. Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.

8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

9. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

10. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

11. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

13. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

14. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

15. Some days you are the bug; some days you are a windshield.

16. Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

17. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment

18. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

19. A closed mouth gathers no foot

20. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

21. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

22. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.

23. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

24. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

25. We are born naked, wet, and hungry, and get slapped on our ass...then things get worse.

26. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

27. There is a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

28. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

29. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday.. . around age 11.

30. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

31. THE MOST WASTED DAY OF ALL IS ONE IN WHICH WE HAVE NOT LAUGHED!

32. Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.

33. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

34. You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you can't make him computer literate.

35. Well-written software is its own heaven; poorly-written software is its own hell.

36. The more beautiful the rose the deeper cuts its thorns.

37. There’s nothing wrong with a one-track mind, so long as its on the right track.

38. If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water.

39. It is better to practice a little than talk a lot.

40. In a hundred-mile march, ninety is about the halfway point.

I'm bad. I just think this walking Mr. Hippie Lettuce Leaf is so darn funny. I stole it from fbombcompany.com. He's so cute.

Here's an interesting website to check out, Sumerian Artifacts, because sometimes I just can't take the crazy political freakishness in this place called the city and county of San Francisco, which is located in the messed up country called the California Republic.

At least the supervisor, Jake McGoldrick, from my former neighbourhood voted for it. I definitely need to move back to my old neighbourhood!

I'm so upset about the San Francisco Board of Supervisors not passing Care not Cash, I just sent a slammogram to my neighbourhood Supervisor.

I told her she should be recalled, and that I will not vote for her in reelection or for any other public office she chooses to run for in the future.

Everyone who votes in San Francisco should do the same thing. Recall the supervisors who didn't vote for Care Not Cash!

Talking about recall. I think the voters of San Francisco should recall each supervisor who didn't vote for Care not Cash, Proposition N.

Over 60% of the voters in San Francisco voted for it. Getting that kind of voting majority in any issue, yes or no, in San Francisco politics is next to impossible, talk about waiting till hell freezes over.

And now it gets voted down by our neighbourhood board of supervisors. Recall those idiots!

The only upside to this issue is hopefully it will guarantee the election of Gavin Newsome as mayor of San Francisco. We may have lost this battle, but WE WILL WIN THE WAR!

The radio talkshows I listen to in the SF Bay Area are going nuts over Wesley Clark. Everyone seems to love him, although everyone does caution their enthusiasm saying that he has problems.

One talkshow host said that Clark is short-tempered and doesn't suffer fools. Hmmmm... maybe the government needs some of this though. He'd be just like Rumsy, and I adore Donald Rumsfeld!

Thanks to Daniel at The Wall of Sleep, here's Wesley Clark's bio - General Wesley K. Clark, US Army.

The guy definitely fastracked his way to the top. All I can is interesting. Maybe we'll see a "I'm just like Ike" campaign strategy developing.

The man definitely knows his war stuff, and his insightful comments on the war on Iraq were fantastic.

But there are two issues at stake here:

1) America's military commitment in foreign countries which includes Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else.

2) The economy. The LA Times has a great article here on our countrie's looming government fiscal crisis, Federal Budget Disaster Seen, but Won't Be Heard.

The Shrub nation has decided to just sit and do nothing, and wait for the company to heat up to create more jobs thereby increasing revenue not only for the states but for the federal government as well.

It's not just that the US is spending a lot of money, which we are, it's also that the tax revenue for both the federal and state governments have gone down dramatically.

If the economy heats back up, then some but not all of the deficits at both the federal and state level will go down, which is always a good thing. The federal deficit can then be pared down by judicious cutting of extra spending and not the badly needed programs that truly help those who cannot take care of themselves.

Here's a thought. If illegal immigrants want all these rights like driver's licenses, wage protection, etc, which all cost the state and federal governments money, then illegal immigrants should pay taxes to help fund their "so called rights".

You want to use the federal and state services, then you need to pay for them. The US is not a welfare state for its own people, so why should it be one for illegal immigrants?

Interesting. Wesley Clark in the race for the presidential democratic nomination. I loved watching him during the CNN coverage of the war on Iraq.

In fact, I remember watching him and Aaron Brown when CNN first ran live coverage of the war. The both of them couldn't believe it, and sat there with their mouths hanging open in disbelief that they were watching the war in Iraq happen in real time.

I'm not sure Clark is qualifed for the presidency, as far as domestic policies are concerned but he'd be good for these war times.

I sound like the James Caan character in "The Godfather" movies. "I need a war time conciglieri!"

I watched the movie "Falling in Love" tonight, starring Robert DeNiro and Meryl Streep. WOW! Talk about watching to acting pros at work. It's an old movie from the 70's or 80's with totally cheesy bad movie music, but their acting was just so incredible.

They played ordinary people having awkward ordinary conversation. You don't get the feeling they're saying lines or they're even in a movie, but that you're a fly on the wall watching some very human drama taking place.

I was watching some bad TV movie a few months ago about two people falling in love, and the acting was so bad! It was such a pleasure to see Streep and DeNiro show how acting is really done, and done brilliantly.

Now granted the TV movie had a really bad script, and this movie's script was much better, but so what. A really good actor can deliver a great performance from a bad script.

What was so amazing was their delivery of the lines. It was so natural and unforced, like they were real people falling in love, and not bad actors looking like they were trying to fall in love. They made it look so easy, whereas the TV actors made acting look so difficult because they were doing it so badly.

This was a nice deal: Life
-- Warren Zevon, Songwriter / 1947-2003

Thanks to Josh, here's the link to what Howard Dean is saing about Hamas, Dean takes heat for Hamas statement.

My modern art teacher told me I made an original comment about modern art that no one else is saying. I think this is good. Here's what I told him.

Jackson Pollock's drip painting are a physical rendering of performance art. Pollock painted as if in a trance, like a performance, and it's captured in physical form in his drip painting.

If you took a movie, which is made up of frames, and laid the frame on top of each other you'd get a Jackson Pollock drip painting. Time is layered like the painting, one of top of the moment, moments are layered together to make one physical piece.

The concept of snapshop in time, what the impressionists were trying to achieve, doesn't exist in Pollock's work because his work is result of hundreds of snapshots in time, layered one on top of the other, to create one cohesive work of art.

In Pollock's drip paintings, you can also see the influences of cubism because in cubism you saw on one painting, faces, body parts from different angles, as if they were in different time periods. You get the same in Pollock's work because you can see how over time he layered the paint over and over again.

I think Pollock was also borrowing from Dada art, because of the performance aspect of his art, but also taking Dadaism and turning it on its head.

Dadaism is where performance art start, but really performance art for Dadaism was anti-art, a reaction against art, questioning what is art if it's not physical. Pollock took performance art and made it physical, made it art.

In studying how Jackson Pollock made his famous drip paintings, you can also see the birth of conceptual art, especially some of the pieces created by Yoko Ono, and the birth of performance art, in the work of Laurie Anderson and even Andrew Goldsworthy.

I can't believe no one else is making these connections, especially about Pollock's work being performance art, and him birthing conceptual and performance art, not as anti-art, but as an art form.

I need to find the link for this, but apparently Howard Dean defended the terrorist actions of Hamas by saying that Hamas was at war so their actions were justified.

Yeah, like right. Dean was started to look appealing, but if he really did say what he said about Hamas, then I don't know. I cannot vote for someone who has this view. No way, not ever!

The plumber guy guy is here fixing my sink, and listening to Michael Savage angrily rant on and on about the 9th circuit court of appeals decision to delay the election.

Savage's vitriol makes me wonder what he would be saying if a republican governor was being recalled, and it was the democrats who initiated the recall. I somehow sincerely doubt his show would be so invective as he's being now with his tirade about 9th circuit court of appeals.

A three judge panel has blocked the California gubernatorial recall. Shocking! The bets are this case will go all the way to the supreme court. The court making the decision was the 9th circuit court of appeals, those crazy people who wanted to take God out of the pledge of allegiance.

Phil Matier from The Chron said, "Once again, the chads win!"

I have no idea what's going to happen. We're either going to vote in October or March of next year.

Welcome the California Republic! We are definitely our own crazy country.