Maybe I posted this already, I can't remember but here's a short two page paper I wrote on a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153) "Father of Western Mysticism" and a christian saint canon by Pope Alexander III in 1174.

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153)
Sermon: On David and Goliath

Biblical Text

Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew nearer to the Philistine. (NRSV, 1 Samuel 17:40)

What the biblical text says
The book of 1 Samuel is a historical narrative, which shows the changes taking place in the leadership of Israel from the Judges to the monarchy of Saul and David, and the establishment of the House of David dynasty.

I believe the text is straightforward, and tells us that David chose weapons that he was used to carrying as a shepherd to do battle with Goliath.

Stones were plentiful in the area, and small stones were used in a sling as a long-range weapon.

What Bernard of Clairvaux says
Clairvaux says “the law is spiritual and has been written for our learning, not only to delight us with a history of external events as with the contemplation of a beautiful exterior surface, but also and more particularly to nourish our minds with the sweetness of its mystical signification”.

Clairvaux uses an allegory and preaches on the mystical meaning of each element in the David and Goliath story.

Goliath is meant to symbolize sin, and Clairvaux says that Goliath is the sin of a type of pride. Since Goliath was the Philistine’s greatest warrior, Clairvaux makes the case that Goliath represent pride. For Clairvaux, pride is the greatest of sins, the people of God are very prone to pride, and pride shows up when all other sins have been defeated.

Clairvaux assumes that we are in always in constant battle and warfare against sin, and that like David we must defeat Goliath, the sin of pride.

Clairvaux then goes on to talk about what happened earlier in the story, when Saul offered David his armor and weapons. He likens Saul’s battle gear to worldly wisdom and the tradition of philosophers, and he says that these are useless weapons in our battle against sin.

Clairvaux states that we should reject worldly wisdom and the tradition of philosophers, just as David rejected Saul’s armor and rely solely God and be armed with our faith alone.

Clairvaux then goes on to say that the five smooth stones that David picks up represent the “fivefold word of God”:
1) the word of warning,
2) the word of promise,
3) the word of charity,
4) the word of example,
5) the word which relates to prayer.

He then says when we are attacked by the sin of pride, we should use the five stones or “fivefold word of God” to defeat sin, to defeat pride, in whatever order they come to us, and if one stone fails to keep using them until one of them works.

When we are confronted with pride we should think of 1) the word of warnings which are the threats from God; or 2) the word of promise which are God’s promise and covenant with us; or 3) the word of charity or God’s loving actions towards us; or 4) the word of example which means to reflect on the lives of the saints; and if all fails, 5) the word which relates to prayer, in other words, “apply thyself to prayer with all the fervour that canst command.”

Clairvaux concludes by saying that if we want to kill Goliath, the sin of pride with it own sword as did David, we need to create a “feeling of elation” in our minds and “a reason for greater humility”, so we can condemn ourselves as proud people and become afterwards more humble and less conceited. If we can do that, Goliath, the sin of pride will be defeated.

Was the Word faithfully preached?
As much as I like this sermon for its creative attempt to make the historical biblical text more meaningful, I do not believe that you can assign the kind of symbolism to the five stones that Clairvaux has done. There is nothing in the Bible to support such a claim, and while his advice is eminently practical on what to do when facing sin, Clairvaux’s allegory fails when you try to relate the word stone to “fivefold promise of God”.

If you wanted to really stretch it you could say, the word of warnings come from stone used as weapons, the word of promise comes from the Ten Commandments being printed on stone tablets, and the word of charity could be God providing stones for housing. For the words of example and prayer, it becomes increasingly difficult to take the stone symbolism and apply them to charity and prayer without sounding like you’re making it all up.

This is why I have to stop taking classes. Instead of working on finishing my novel, I have to spend tonight writintg an 8-10 page paper for my greek drama class.

I'm comparing Eugene O'Neill's trilogy play "Mourning Becomes Electra" to Aeschylus' Oresteia. I picked the paper topic so it's something I want to write about, but this kind of writing is sooo not creative writing!

So I've spent about an hour looking for a scene from my "Changing Timelines" novel that I thought I had typed out. I looked on my palm and on my computer and it was gone. I was so pissed thinking I had accidentally deleted it. But then I decided to check my pile of handwritten writing and it was there.

I thought I had typed that whole story and I guess sometime in January, I decided to for a few days to write some of it out. I was so happy because I hate when I delete stuff and I've done it before and been severely bummed out.

I managed to type 866 words on Thursday for chapter 12 of my Texas novel on Thursday at the Starfbombs across from The Curran Theatre. My goal was to type 500 words as I only had 45 minute, but I got to 866. And it's a good 866 too. It wasn't all painful coming, but very easy and fluid once I started typing.

I dragged my laptop to work and made the mistake of carrying it in my backpack. Big mistake. Stupid backpack wouldn't fit underneath my chair at the theatre, so I had sit all squished in my seat with my backpack between my legs.

My boss has this great Tumi bag that she carries her laptop in when she comes for the day from the LA. It's the perfect size because it's small and looks like it fits about anywhere. It costs about $300 when I went to price it at the Tumi store, but that's a minor detail I guess. I might have to buy it someday if I don't find a cheaper alternative to carrying my laptop around.

I watched Eugene O'Neill's play "A Moon for the Misbegotten" on Thursday night. It's such a great play, but towards the end when there was this intense speech where the character is pouring his guts out on stage, some guy starts snoring and cellphone of the man sitting next to me goes off. I wanted to laugh out out and add further to the hilarity of the moment. Talk about a play for the misbegotten.

I think someone nudged the snoring guy finally because after a couple of minutes he stopped. I can imagine what the actor must have thought if he had actually heard the person snoring in the midst of this intense speech.

We used to say in the growth and development seminars I usd to go to, that when a person falls asleep it's because they can't handle the information that they're listening to so their brain has to immediately shut off and the person goes to sleep. Guess the snoring person couldn't handle a drunken character telling another character why he thinks he's messed up.

It was hard to watch myself since I dated someone who was a bit like that and had to experience the same thing one night a long time ago. Some people drink for fun, some people drink to escape and there's a fine line between the two before you cross the top of the bell curve into addiction.

Actualy there's a scene from David Lynch's "The Straight Story" that shows a character telling another character why he drinks. It's the most honest depiction of casual alcoholism I've seen in a movie. It's straight talk and frightening in its honesty and humanity.

This is trippy! I just got a call from a recruiter who got my name and phone number out of a publication called National Managed Care Leadership Directory. I didn’t even know about the publication or that my name was even in it.

I've been using Microsoft Excel for years so one would think I could easily come up with this simple little IF formula -

=IF(ISTEXT(B10),"NA",IF(B10>AQ$9,"Abv CA Avg", IF B10=AQ$9,
"Eql CA Avg",IF B10 < AQ$9,"Blw CA Avg"))))

But ... the above formula took me over two hours to figure out and to get it to do what I wanted it to do. I hate when applications make me feel stupid.

Back to a more pleasant topic. I saw "Sahara" on Saturday. I knew it was a special effects movie and I wanted to see it on the big screen. I liked it. I think the movie took itself a little seriously, and if it didn't it would have made for a better movie. It was so darned politically correct, which of course made it a little boring.

I think the movie was supposed to be like another Indiana Jones, but Indiana Jones was not politically correct and it never took itself very seriously and that's what made the movie so fun and entertaining. And yes, Matthew M is cute but he's no Harrison Ford. Indy had a cruel streak, I mean come on, the guy had a whip for god's sake. Dirk Pitt is too much of doogooder type character, and yes that's attractive but it's an adventure story and you need an adventure type guy. Matthew M is too much of a goofy good ole boy, without a hint of meanness in him.

I think Matthew M's best role was in the movie "Contact". He was the wild-eyed hippie type philosopher who was Bill Clinton's religious advisor, and Jody Foster's fling from her C-seti days. But I think Matthew M is trying to change his Hollywood image and getting himself cast as Mr. Adventure, which he is so not. He wasn't very good as a swashbuckling dragon killer in the firebreathing dragon movie either.

Still the movie was fun and definitely worth the $7.25 I paid to see it. I wished I'd gone to see Nicholas Cage in "National Treasure". I think Nick Cage makes a better Mr. Adventure type, and he's definitely shown he's got a mean streak. He was great in that movie where he changed faces with John Travolta called "Face Off".

I'm on the last chapter of my Texas novel and I'm having the hardest time finishing it. I know how it's going to end because I wrote a four page outline of what the chapter is about, but it's feeling so anticlimactic to be writing this last chapter. I'm like, this is the first novel that I am finishing and it's like the freakiest feeling. I didn't think I would feel this way.

I thought I would feel elated and ecstatic to be writing the last chapter of my novel. Although it's not exactly the last chapter because I have two more chapters to write, but those last two chapters are epilogues. Chapter 12 is the final ending. Chapter 12 is the end of the story.

My intuition is telling me to take this week slow and to not push my writing. I want to finish the chapter this week, but I'm not going to rush it.

I think my problem is I'm going to have to end the relationship for my characters and it's sad. I'm not writing a happy ending, I'm writing a bittersweet ending. I wanted to write a fun love story with a sappy happy ending, and instead I'm writing a love story where the characters breakup.

I feel like I'm reliving the ending of the relationship I had with the person I based my male character on, and I don't want to go through the pain again. Silly isn't it? When I originally conceived of the story, I wanted to experience a fairytale happy ending with my male character. In real life the guy and I broke up, so I thought wouldn't it be fun to write a story with a similar male character except that we end up together.

But my ending didn't work out that way, my characters didn't want a happy ending. Yes I think they fell in love, but they were never meant to be just like me and that guy were never went to be. Just writing that line makes me feel like crying.

It's not like I didn't try my damndest to end my story happily, because I did. But my storyline couldn't justify a happy ending. I hate this! I write to experience things that I didn't experience in real life, and I end up writing a story that's closer to reality. This is supposed to be fiction and not my real life.

I know I'm being silly because these characters aren't me and they had situations happen to them that never happened to me. I just wish I could give them a better ending to their relationship than the one I had.

Sometimes my intuition kicks in and send me warnings about people that they're untrustworhty. I never know what to think when I get these feelings especially when I have no factual evidence to base my intuition on. But I think I need to start paying attention to those warnings.

There's this guy at work. I've never liked him, and I couldn't figure out why and I just had the feeling that he couldn't be trusted. The feelings I received were confusing because everyone else in the department really liked him.

Today my boss told me to watch out for him because he's the biggest gossip, and he's already tried to get several people in trouble. I told her I thought he was bad news when I first met him, but I didn't want to say anything. My boss said she got the same feeling too. My boss told me to watch what I say around him and to watch my back. She wouldn't elaborate on the people the guy has tried to mess up, but there's been quite a few.

What a freak! I know the guy thinks I'm snobby because I never talk to him but now I don't care. If I don't instinctively trust someone, I can't talk to them, I just can't, especially at work. I'm not rude or anything. I'm very civil, but I don't go out of my way to talk to an untrustworthy person at work. People of that ilk are just too dangerous, and who needs another person you have to be careful with in your work life; there are enough of those already.

So my intuition was right ... it usually is but it's kind of scary when it's confirmed the way my boss confirmed my intuition today.

I went to see "Kung Fu Hustle" tonight, and it was an "excellent, excellent" movie! I've got to kick a movie out of my top 10 list, so I can add Kung Fu Hustle. It's a fantastic spoof of the hong kong kung fu movie genre and steals from The Matrix, Gangs of New York, and as one review noticed Fred Astaire movies as well. There were some sequences that reminded me of my fave Bollywood movie "Lagaan" as well.

The movie is funny, fast paced, really really cute and sweet, and it has some of the best body parts hacked off nd flying all over the screen that I've seen in a long time. Gotta love a movie that has awesome violence in it! Plus of course, the kung fu is spectacular and puts the Matrix series to shame. And it doesn't take itself so seriously like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", a movie where the fighting special effects were just a little too over the top and laughable really.

The movie was written and directd by Stephen Chow, who also wrote and directed "Shaolin Soccer" a movie I wanted to see but never got around to. Now I definitely have to see it and everything else he's written and directed.

"Kung Fu Hustle" is so fun I think I'm going to have to buy the DVD.

On iTunes there are celebrity playlists, and I can buy the Cure's playlist of 21 songs for about $21. I love all of their song picks, but then I adore the band so that makes sense doesn't it?

So I've finally joined the modern world and downloaded iTunes on my laptop and bought the following songs:

Collide by Howie Day
Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson (I hate that it's her but I like this song a ton!)
Breathe (2AM) by Anna Nalick
She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
Where's Your Head At by Basement Jaxx
If You're Not the One by Daniel Bedingfield
Headstrong by Trapt
Beautiful by Pharrell, Snoop Dogg and Uncle Charlie Wilson
Mesmerize by Ja Rule
In da club by 50 Cent
Down with the sickness by Disturbed
Slept so long by Jay Gordon
Los Angeles is Burning by Bad Religion

So I think I figured out perhaps a few reasons why I can't write at my pct at home.

Back in 2002 while I was desperately trying to finish my screenplay to enter into a contest and watching the SF Giants and the Angels world series, my pc died. It took about two weeks to get someone to build me a new computer. Because I didn't back anything up, I had the pc guy install my old hard drives into my new computer.

When my computer died, I lost about a day's work on my screenplay and I believe some of my enthusiasm for writing. That was back in October 2002. I somehow managed to keep writing because I did Nanowrimo that year and started my second novel.

Then in May 2003 I moved, and I worked at home which was shocking and weird and made me not want to write. But I did manage to write and start my third novel, which I'm still trying to finish. Then in March 2004 I started a new job, which was again shocking and disruptive but I did try to write, only I wrote on paper at cafes and into my palm pilot.

And now that I have my new laptop, I'm thinking that my two year old computer is so slow and needs a new chip and if I replace the 256 memory chip with a 512 memory chip maybe I'll want to sit down and write at my pc again. Plus if I upgrade from windows 2000 to windows xp professional and uprgrade my software from office 2000 to office 2004, my home pc will run much faster which will make me want to actually sit down and use it.

I could probably just keep writing using my laptop, but it would be nice to have my home pc as another option. Or I could just buy one of them new macintosh pc computers, and own a mac like I've always fantasized about.

So here's some economic speculations I've been paying attention to the various boards I read. Experts have been speculating for a couple months now what would happen to GM and Ford if their bond status was rated as "junk". Many were speculating that GM would file for bankruptcy because it's been bleeding debt for years, and was only making money through GMAC. If GM were to declare bankruptcy, they could separate GM and GMAC into two companies. GM could also in bankruptcy courts unload the unions and all the costs of their retirees, which would be great for their bottom line but bad news for GM retirees, employees and the dozens of companies who have invested stock on GM including many large retirement funds. Experts have also warned that GM stock is a bellweather of the American economy, so if GM filed for bankruptcy it would not be a good sign for the US economy.

Well, it just happened. S&P cut GM's and Ford's bond status to "junk". It will be interesting what GM's next move will be. I say "bankruptcy" and if GM does that, it will be bigger than the Enron bankruptcy and the markets will take one hell of a dive on that day.

The movie "Angel Eyes" was on TV over the weekend, and I ended up watching the end of it. For fun, I printed out the screenplay to read as well. I didn't watch the beginning of the movie, so I netflixed it and it should be arriving soon.

The screenplay version I found on the Net was a little different than the movie, and when the movie comes I'm going to compare the lines to see how different they both are. It's interesting to watch a movie and then read the screenplay. And when you do the reverse, reading the screenplay first and then watching the movie, it's interesting as well. It's kind of like reading a novel first and then seeing how they make the movie or watching a movie first and then going back to read the book.

John Grisham's "The Firm" was a much better novel than the movie. The movie of
"The Girl with a Pearl Earring" was quite a good adaptation of the novel, and I think the visuals of Vermeer's world added a different element to the telling of the story.

The problem for me with reading screenplays is most of the screenplays that I can find on the Net and print are not necessarily movies that I like. But I guess I should get over this dislike, and just read whatever I can get my hands on. Everyone working in Hollywood as a screenwriter says that reading screenplays is the best way to educate yourself about the trade, and that watching a movie is not the same. I just wish there were more screenplays from movies that I liked that are free to print on the Net.

I am loving my new laptop. It has freed my from the tyranny of writing at my desk at home. Now that I used to mind writing from my desk at home because I did start two novels (over 100 pages of typed pages each), wrote over 20 short stories and finished a screenplay all at my desk. But for whatever reason, I can't write at my desk at home. I don't know if it's because I'm in a different place now and I just don't have my desk in the right place to write, or if it's because I just got burnt out from writing at home.

I wrote my mid-term paper on my laptop sitting on my bed and then transferred it to my pc to print. So it's not like I can't write at home, because I can. I just can't write at my desk at home. This is not a good thing for a writer, but with the laptop maybe it doesn't matter.

I'm even thinking it's now time to sign up for i-Tunes so I can download songs into my laptop. But I'm still hesitating. I still like the listening to music in cafes, because sometimes I hear songs that I wouldn't normally listen to and end up liking or I hear sets of songs that I wouldn't think go together but end up being a great set. I'm constantly surprised by the fantastic sets of music playing on the radio sometimes ... everything flows and there's a theme and the beats are the same so when one song ends the other song starts and it's same on the same beat. I've tried to do it and it's very difficult to get it just right. But it would be nice to have tunes on my laptop, so when a song gets stuck in my head I can listen to it a hundred times and write.

I was a conference call this morning with people involved in healthcare quality this morning, when someone mentioned blogs. The person was suggesting that maybe the group should start a blog to find out what consumers think about healthcare quality. No one on the call knew anything about blogs, and I was tempted to volunteer my knowledge but declined.

Apparently there was an article in the Wall Street Journal today about blogs and healthcare and how patients are discussing their doctors, and the doctors are of course very unhappy about it. Here it is, Blogging from your sickbed,

This is the first time the subject of blogs have come up in one of my nationwide conference calls on healthcare quality. What a riot!

My favourite new song that I keep hearing on the radio ... Collide by Howie Day.

Went to the cafe tonight and wrote about 1300 words. Not a lot but better than nothng. The writing in the morning thing is hard, so I'm going to switch to working out in the morning at 5 am. I'll make myself get used to getting that early b exercising, and then maybe I'll start trying to write early in the morning again. I really like writing at night though, and am so much more comfortable doing it at that time and in a cafe than I am sitting in bed and trying to compose in the morning.

If I workout in the morning, I have the whole night to write and do other things that needs to get done. Ideally, I'd love to write and workout in the morning, but I don't see that happening in the forseeable future anytime soon.

For whatever reason I got sucked into watching "Project Greenlight" on Sunday afternoon. I have a friend who's a theatre producer who is an avid fan. It's definitely eye-opening to see what it takes to write, produce and direct a movie in Hollywood.

It just confirms my idea that at the end of day, all creative arts is a business enterprise especially if you want to have a ton of people see it. If you're only making art for you and your friends, then you only have to take their needs into consideration. But if you want the masses to see it, then it takes cash and a heck of a lot of collaboration. And the logistics of making a movie are mind-boggling, especially if you want to do special effects. No wonder movie tickets are so expensive ... it takes so many people, and specialist people too, to put a movie together. I think if you want to see how much a move costs to make, then count how many people the movie has to pay when they run the credits at the end. All those people in the credits need to be be paid by the profits from a movie.

So maybe this is what you do when you're a wannabe writer. It's a Saturday night, and you're in bed polishing your half finished stage play that you wrote years ago but could just never seem to finish, and you're saying to yourself, this dialogue is really, really bad.

The Zatoichi movie over so I can go back to writing my blog. I started on Chapter 12 today and I wrote about 1,300 words. Then I went to library and I borrowed two more John Grisham books and another Michael Crichton book, that I think was made into a movie I saw.

I'm going have to figure out what to tell my friend about her screenplay. I really need to read more screenplays, so I can tell what's good and what's not good. Her characters are so stereotypical and there's no, how do you "oomph" to her story. It's not that her story isn't good, it is, the story is just a little trite and it's really not that original although she does have a good angle. It's not a Hollywood movie, but more of a movie like you'd see on the Lifetime channel.

Still I envy her because I know she worked hard on her screenplay, and I'm jealous that she completed another one. And you know I would love to write a movie for the Lifetime channel. I'm going to try to more tonight.

I just found out my screenwriting software can be used to write stage plays. I didn't know this, and I have a play that's been sitting around that needs finishing. I just thought of a new way to write it as I walking back home today too. There's so much to write and there's never enough time.

I got kind of depressed on Wednesday, well more than a little depressed, and depression definitely sucks away my creative energy. But even though I woke up depressed again this morning, I made myself get up and out of the house to write. And once I was sitting at Starfbombs drinking my venti latte, I was fine.

I guess I need to stop calling the place Starfbombs since I write there a lot. I even took my new laptop with me and was typing away. I'm definitely loving my new laptop, and I'm glad I'm using it alot.

I went to Starfbombs to read a friend's screenplay and write. My friend told me it was a Bridget Jones type screenplay, but it really wasn't. The writer of Bridget Jones wrote Bridget tongue in cheek, and it was always a take off on "Pride and Prejudice". Bridget was always supposed to end up with Mr. Darcy, despite her quirkiness and her fat. My friend got the fatness and quirkiness of Bridget right, but the story ended up being more of a stereotypical feminist rant about leaving a marriage where you're not treated right and claiming your singlehood, which Bridget Jones was never about. The character resembles more the "Nurse Betty" or Geena Davis' character and marriage in "Thelma and Louise".

I don't know, I just couldn't relate to the woman. But then again I have a hard time relating to female characters who don't have fun in the sack, because thank god bad and depressing sex has never been something I've experienced in a long term relationship. But that's just me I think. Sex has always been fun for me and if it wasn't, I wouldn't be in the relationship in the first place. But I know my attitude towards sex is a little different than the average girl's.

I'm trying to watch "Zatoichi 8", and it's hard to write to wach a movie that's subutitled and write at the same time. So more later.

I learned this new kind of therapy technique over the weekend, and it's bringing up all kind of stuff. You know, one would think that if you've been in and out of therapy since you were 21 years of age (and yes I've been in therapy that long) you would have solved alot of the big emotional issues in your life. Apparently this is not the case.

I have stuff coming up now about my parents that I had no idea was in my subconscious programming and this stuff is huge!!! This stuff has been lodged in my brain since I was six years old. You would think after having spent thousand and thousands of dollars on therapy and growth and development courses that this stuff would have come up. I mean, it's like so major and it explains patterns that I've noticed in my life since 1998. I hate that it's taken what, seven plus years for me to figure it out. That is like so slow!

I just made one connection last night, and then everything else fell in place. I'm like what else is in that black hole of my subconscious that is ruling my life. I feel like I'm in the matrix and I've created this messed up world, and I want to start over and recreate everything. But first, I have to keep digging through my subconsious programming. I'm afraid to know what else has been there.

Here's a new technique that I received in a newsletter today about money. Get a money bill in a large denomination and hold it and see what comes up in your mind about having it and whatever else you have going on about money. Or, hold your paycheck and see what issues you have about your career. Or, write a huge, huge check to yourself and see what comes up about money and worthiness.

The mind is a wild thing, and it's amazing what kind of interesting ideas are knocking around in there, that support and don't support you.

So I made the mistake of reading a John Grisham book "The Summons" that someone had given to me, and now I'm hooked on reading all of his stuff. Grisham's books are great bus-reads. You can go through a book in 2-3 days, and they are fast reads and very entertaining. I read the "The Firm" a long time ago but wasn't that intrigued by Grisham, but I guess I'm hooked now. That same friend also gave me Grisham's book "The Testament", so I'm plowing my way through it.

It's got some sad but hilarious sections on how people think about money. I know you're not supposed to say this as as writer, but I would love to write books like Grisham. I know as a writer you're supposed to want to write the next great american novel and not the next great beach/bus read, but what if you can't? What if my level of writing is on the level of the next great beach/bus read? I don't care, I'm not fussy ... I just want my stories published, and hopefully lots and lots of people will want to read my stuff. I would love to be the kind of writer that makes the reader unable to put novel down until they get to the end. That would be cool!

Up very early again trying to write. Wow, I'm finished with chapter 11 of my Texas novel. Three more chapters and I'll be done. Chapter 12 is a full chapter and chapters 13 and 14 are more lke epilogoues for each character.

Maybe there is something to this getting up at 5 am every morning thing. I'm awake and I can write. I'm tired and it's a little difficult, but that's because I'm not using to getting up at this hour. I'm amazed though how my brain is still quite functional at this early hour.

So it's after 5:30 am and I'm and in bed typing on my laptop and trying to write. I hate this! But the words are coming, which is nice. One thing that I noticed that I thought was impossible. My wireless network is working even though my main computer is powered off. I thought my main computer had to be on for me to pick up any internet connection. I guess not. Wow, this is new. I guess this means I can surf the net without me having to turn on my main computer. This is good.

I'm in bed and writing on my laptop. On Monday I finished typing up the handwritten pieces for Texas novel. I didn't write on Tuesday or Wednesday and didn't get up early to write either. It's still dark at 5 am and I just couldn't deal with it. I'm so lazy about getting out of bed. It has to stop though. Although I like writing after work, it's just too easy to skip it and do other things. I have to try writing in the morning again. Then I'll get it done and I won't have to worry about trying to fit it in with the rest of my day. I'm just so not a morning person, but I guess I'm going to have try and become one.

All the writing books says that you should write in the morning before you're critical mind has a chance to activate and nag you about how horrible you write. I think I owe it to my writing career to become a morning writer.

Before the money seminar last night, I did get an idea for a comedy screenplay about a woman who is a money seminar junkie. I got the idea from Ed Norton and Helena Bohnam-Carter in the movie "Fight Club", who were support group junkies. That was funny how they kept running into each other.

My character is a money-seminar junkie who is still in sad financial shape after many years, but who luckily gets an idea to start a business and it becomes a success. The plot follows her from klutzy financial ditz to Wall Street loved CEO, to her falling in love with a loser gigolo and then about to lose her company until her best friend, another money seminar junkie, comes to her resuce. And as in any good Hollywood romantic comedy, she falls in love with the guy best friend and gets back her company.

That's writing isn't it? I haven't had an idea for a screenplay that I've liked in a long time. It thihk this would be a fun one to write, once I get around to it.

Tonight I wrote 781 words for my Texas novel. It's not much, but it took to an hour to get it out even with me typing. Even if I just wrote 500-700 words a day, I would be done with novel sooner than the rate I'm writing it now.

I have the urge to get back to my baseball screenplay and to keep writing my timelines novel, but I'd like to fnish the Texas novel first because I'm so close to the end. It will be the first novel I've ever finished, and I think this accomplishment will be so amazing for me.

One thing in the money seminar that I got was that completion was very important. I have so many half finished stories. I need to just sit down and finish them even thoug they suck just to finish them. I think the energy of those completions will do wonder for my writing self-esteem. I still have two unfinished novels that I want to complete as well. There's just so many things to write and complete, but I'm having the hardest time finding the motivation to just sit down and write. I don't have blocks to writing, I have blocks to siting down and starting. How do you solve that problem easily?

I went to a seminar on money last night given by the Learning Annex, which I only attended because I received an email coupon to go to the seminar for only $20 when it would have normally cost $60. The seminar was actually quite good, and at one point the speaker asked the audience if any of us had made money in the last five years in California. No one raised their hand, and he said if we didn’t buy real estate we were fools because real estate has just skyrocketed in California over the last five years. He said we didn’t have to buy in the hyper-inflated real estate world of the San Francisco Bay Area, but could have bought property elsewhere in California and we still would have made money.

I’ve been thinking about his question since then because of course like everyone else in the room last night, I felt totally stupid when he said that. But you know, the more I think about it the more I feel like I did make money in the last five years and that I’m in a much better financial position than I was in 2000.

First of all, I don’t own a house but I have a positive networth. I didn’t for a long time because I am a serious shopaholic and didn’t care too much about money thinking I was always going to earn it. It wasn’t until I saw the size of my credit card debts that I realized that I was in serious, serious trouble. Well, all that’s changed now. I will be pretty much debt free by the end of year. I will have paid off all my credit cards and my car as well.

The following incidents have helped me achieved positive networth.

1. I’ve always contributed to my company’s 401(k). Sometimes not very much, but I’ve always tried to have money taken out of my check and put into some kind of retirement savings. I did end up taking money out of my 401(k) at some point to pay off some of my debts, which was a big mistake because of the taxes I had to pay, but since then I’ve managed to build the amount back up to what it was before.

2. I moved my money out of the stock market and into money market funds before the market crash in 2001. I probably moved my money out a little too quickly and missed out on some of the market’s bigger gains, but at least my 401(k) didn’t turn into a 101(k).

3. Before the stock market crash, I had some good stock tips and doubled the amount in my 401(k). So I did make money in the stock market boom, which I managed to keep.

4. I was never unemployed during the economic downturn that hit the SF Bay Area after the stock market crash. I was lucky, very lucky and blessed.

5. I forced myself to curb my freespending ways, still a horrifying daily, daily struggle, and made my instead save money. I have money taken out of my check which goes straight into savings. This method really, really works. If it doesn’t hit my checking account it’s like it’s not there.

6. I earn more money now than I ever have in my whole life. My salary increased by 23% since 2000, but this is also my third job since then. The moving around for more money thing really does work.

And it’s not like I didn’t spend any money either. I moved to an apartment that doubled my rent in 2002, and I bought a new car in 2000.

And now I’m like, okay, maybe I’m not financially where I want to be but I’ve made darn good progress in these last five years when I had pretty much negative networth at the start of the millenium.

Yes, I’m still around. I just haven’t felt like writing. I’m having fun with my new laptop. I finished typing up all my handwritten pages of my Texas novel using my new laptop, and that’s been fun. I went to CompUSA yesterday to try to find a laptop sleeve for it, and ended up buying a Mac laptop sleeve because it was the only one I liked. I think I remember seeing laptop sleeves at the SFMOMA store, so I’ll have to make a trip over to there to see if I can find a better sleeve. I just want to find something to cover the laptop when I’m carrying it in my backpack or another bag so it doesn’t get scratched.

What else? I got an A on my Greek Drama midterm. We have to do a 8-10 page paper and I received approval to compare Eugene O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra” to Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Supposedly O’Neill based this play on Aeschylus’ trilogy and my paper will compare and contrast the two plays. I haven’t read this play since junior high and don’t remember any of it, and I’m looking forward to rediscovering it. I fell in love with Eugene O’Neill’s play “Long Days Journey into Night” when I had to do a book report on a play, and ended up reading most of his works. But like I said it’s been awhile. I wonder if I’ll still love O’Neill as much now that I’m older.

I’ve been reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” this week, and having only ever seen most of the movies, it’s been fascinating to read the book. The book consists of letters from the captain of the boat in the North Pole to his sister. The sea captain picks up Frankenstein and ends up telling the man his life story. The captain then faithfully writes to his sister all that he’s been told, and Frankenstein even edits the letters to make sure the captain has his story right.

I think Kenneth Branagh’s portrayal of Frankenstein comes the closest to the person written about in the book, but his movie plot version altered the book’s plot in a big way although much of the important plot points were kept in place. No other Frankenstein movie comes to mind except for Gene Wilder’s version. The creature in Mary Shelley’s version is much more menacing and more evil in that 19th century romantic sort of way.

I wonder if the Dracula movies were based on any novels. I’ll have to investigate because that genre of horror movies is a particular favourite of mine.

I typed up 8.5 pages last night, and 2.5 pages this afternoon. I might type up more later when I watch the new NBC series "Revelations". It was on Bravo at 6 pm, and I watched and was very intrigued. It's an interesting series to say the least.

I'm going to try to get up at 5 am to write on the weekdays. I'm not a morning person, but everyone says that writing in the morning is the best. I'm going to have to change my sleeping habits and go to bed between 10-11 pm. What an early time to go to bed. I've been going to between midnight and 12:30 am for years. I need my 6.5 hours of sleep to function, so if I want to get up at 5 am I have to be in bed earlier. Wow! Talk about a change in lifestyle. What a frickin' drag!

I can write at night after work, but it's too easy to have that time gobbled up by other things. I have to think how this is going to affect my workouts. I haven't been going to the gym at all, and I feel guilty because I do pay a monthly fee for it. It's better to go to the guy after 7 pm during the week when it's not crowded. 5 pm to 7pm is the gym's crowded time.

I guess I could still go to a coffee shop and write more or read or something. I haven't decided if I should continue to write by hand or write by computer. If I write by hand, I could spend the time after work typing up what I've written. Or there's always editing. I could be editing after work instead of writing, since editing is a different skill set than writing.

I'm not going to start taking my laptop to work with me just yet. Maybe someday, but not now.

I'm typing up this message in my living room, and typing up pages from the Texas novel on my new laptop and listening to some super storm movie on the SciFi channel. It's kind of cool to be transcribing my handwritten chapters while listening to the tv at the same time. It's so relaxing to sit in my chair and type into my laptop and half listen to a movie on tv. This is so much better than sitting at my desk.

I think I might go to the coffee shop later. I want to finish typing up all my handwritten pages before I start writing again. The next movie is about earthquake aftershocks in New York. I hate earthquake aftershocks. For two years after the big earthquake here, everytime the ground shook I thought it was an earthquake aftershock. I remember being at a friend's tennis court in New York (how rich are you when you have a tennis court as part of your backyard) and feeling the ground shake and thinking it was an aftershock. When I mentioned it to my friend, she laughed and said it was probably just a heavy truck driving by.

I was walking through Golden Gate Park and walking along Stow Lake, when I saw all these people with telescopes and cameras watching these two birds in the tree. There was a woman with a table selling cards, and when I stopped to check it out I found out that we were all watching a blue heron couple mating in the trees.

I heard someone say, "I think she was on top of him." The woman at the table explained that the blue heron couple had produced 71 babies and have been mating in Golden Gate Park for years. It was so cool to watch that I bought a card of the blue heron couple as a souveneir.

It was so beautiful and sunny day in the park, even though it was a little chilly at 60 degreees. I love living next to Golden Gate Park. It's like having this amazing nature preserve as my backyard.

What I will probably end up doing is disabling my wireless network until I want to surf the net from my laptop. Then I'll just reconnect it. It's kind of a pain, but I don't plan to surf the net from laptop very often. At least I hope I don't end up doing that. Now if I can just figure out how to connect my printers wirelessly I'll be happy.

I did end up buying a memory stick, and plan to transport files back and forth between my laptop and my pc that way. I'll have to see how tht works.

So I'm posting from my new laptop, which I just connected wirelessly to my other computer. I wasn't going to do that, but I didn't want to spend another $50 for a phoneline adapter. My wireless network is secure and I don't think anyone else can get in it. I can see other people's wireless networks, and some people do leave them open.

I'll probably end up buying a phoneline adapter because I'm not all that comfortable with connecting wirelessly to my other pc, but at least I did it. YEAH ME!

So I just contacted Dell and I can return my system and reorder a new system with my company discount, but I have to pay to ship the laptop back. And with all the shipping costs involved, I'll end up saving only $40 and I don't know about you, but saving $40 is so not worth the hassle of shipping the system back and reordering and waiting again.

Unless Dell gives even a bigger discount in the next 21 days, then I'll probably end up keeping the laptop I bought.

I'm bummed at myself. I didn't know my company had a program with Dell so employees could buy computers. So I tortured myself and priced the system I just bought, and if I had used the company discount I would have saved myself about $85.

I wonder if I can call Dell and let them know I didn't know about the company discount.

I’ve never been much of a shoe person. I’ve always bought shoes on sale and wouldn’t spend more than $50. After one or two years, my shoes would either fall apart of I’d get bored of them and throw them out. The only time I was really into the quality and cost of my shoes was when I was running marathons. If you’re going to be running continuously for 26.2 miles, choice of footwear becomes a major, major issue.

But who cared about work shoes. I used to wear sneakers to work, and only wore my work shoes in my carpeted office and out to lunch on the street sometimes. Then I had that problem with my heels and had to start wearing very, very comfortable well built shoes that I seemed to only find from European manufacturers. And since wearing sneakers to work is like so last millenium, I wear my comfy, comfy european shoes all day along.

Well, my foot problem is gone now thanks in great part to $2,000 worth of acupuncture treatments but after a couple of years of wearing incredibly comfy shoes, it’s hard to go back to shoes that don’t feel comfortable to walk in all day.

But I now seem to be in a different shoe phase. I am now the proud owner of three pairs of shoes that cost each $300 to $400 retail, which I bought from Ebay. The comfort level is still there, but my shoes are now more stylish not to mention they just plain look more expensive than other shoes. And I only know this because I’ve starting looking at other people’s shoes and trying to guess how much they cost retail.

There is a world of difference between very expensive shoes and cheap shoes, and you can tell just by looking at the shoes. It’s such a weird thing to be aware of, but I am, and I don’t think I’m the only one who notices such things.

So I finally broke down and bought myself a laptop. I just purchased on Dell 700M, and bought myself a new printer/fax/scanner/copier as well. My poor printer although still working, it's an ancient HP Deskjet 722C, is on its last legs. Plus when I had printer/fax/scanner/copier for my work at home job, I really really got used to it. I liked being able to make copies and fax stuff.

I hope I'm doing the right thing. I hope it doesn't just become a toy that I will eventually get tired of playing with. I think I got a good deal though considering I bought a multi-function printer, a port replicator so I don't have to mess with plugging and unplugging wires, 60 gig rather than 40 gig, and a 128 MB memory stick and extra battery that I hope to God I will use.

I just wish it didn't have to cost so much money. That's the part I really, really hate, and wonder if it's worth it to buy new instead of used on Ebay or refurbished at the Dell Outlet.

I think I might be allergic to chocolate and if I am, I will be so bummed. I so love chocolate, but lately when I eat chocolate my mouth itches. I don't know if it's just my other allergies or if I'm truly allergy to chocolate.

I know when I'm stressed I crave chocolate like you wouldn't believe, like it's an addiction. Addictions to food are sometimes a sign of an allergy. Damn, I'll just be like my sister. She's allergic to fish and eats it anyway, and has a constant rash. I used to just lecture her about it, and now I'll be in the same boat if I find out I'm allergic to chocolate. I'll eat it anyway and have my mouth constantly itching, not mention be bloated like a whale for the rest of my life.

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

I am saddened by the Pope's death. He was a good man and tried to do much for the Catholic Church. Although I disagreed with many of his views, I admired his tenacity for life and how much he kept holding on despite his failing health in the last several years.

I have always wanted a Tizio lamp. Here's what a few websites have to say about this lamp.

"Tizio desk / table lamp is perhaps the most recognizable lamp in the world."

"Tizio Lamp, Large Black, Richard Sapper, 1972
Probably one of the most famous modern lamps of the century, this lamp is notable for the absence of visible wiring, its counterweighted arms and adjustable head. It is constructed of aluminum and thermoplastic with a matte-black lacquer finish. Made by Artemide."

"The Tizio lamp (1972) has probably made an appearance on the desks of more architects and designers than any other object since the lead pencil. Richard Sapper, its designer, has provided a model for product design that combines the rational approach and technical sophistication of his German homeland with Italian flair and originality. After receiving an engineering degree from the University of Munich, Sapper began work for Mercedes Benz and then moved to Italy to work in the design studio of Alberto Roselli and Gio Ponti.

In 1959, he received a Compasso d’Oro for his Static table clock, subsequently collaborated with Marco Zanuso and finally, opened his own design office in Stuttgart in 1970. He continued, however, to team up with Zanuso and together they produced a number of notable products including a plastic child’s chair for Kartell which doubled as a construction toy. They also created the highly styled Doney television for Brionvega, a sewing machine for Necchi and the compact Grillo folding telephone. These products represented state of the art technology, elegantly housed and designed to convey function with a visual clarity that was eloquently modern.

The Tizio lamp was created for Artemide in 1972. Matte black and minimal in form, it had not only a new look but operated in a completely new way. It was equipped with an inner balancing mechanism that allowed users to alter its position by the lightest touch of the hand. It won the Compasso d’Oro in 1979. Since 1981, Sapper has been a design consultant for IBM, designing portable computers like the minimalist "leapfrog" computer. He has also given his high tech style post-modern inflections, creating successful designs for Alessi including the Caffettiere coffee maker and Bollitore kettle. Sapper is an impressively versatile designer who can create compelling visual images for sophisticated electronic technology, and still respond to the simpler challenge of making everyday objects like flatware or a child’s chair."

But having a famous lamp does not come cheap; it's a $300 something lamp. But maybe that's why God invented eBay. So I'm bidding on a Tizio lamp now. You gotta love eBay.

I think I had a visitation from an angel on St. Patricks Day a couple of weeks ago. I was on the train going to work, and I was reading a book on Remote Viewing (Mind to Mind by Rene Warcollier). I had closed my eyes to nap, and when I opened them this man sitting on the side of me asked me if I liked the book. We started conversing and he said something about synchronocities and then he got off at the next stop. When I meditated on the experience a few days later, I got the feeling that he was an angel reminding to pay attention to synchronicities.

The guy looked kind of strange as well. He kind of reminded me of this Amish guy I saw at Chicago Greyhound station. He had kind of odd haircut, like really old fashioned and cropped, and his features were ancient, like he could have a monk in the movie "The Name of the Rose". If you've ever sent that movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. Some of the guys they had in that movie looked they were from another century and it wasn't just their costumes, it was their facial features. You just don't see men with those kinds of features walking down the street of a modern city. I'm not quite sure how to explain it either, but again if you've seen the movie you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

If he was an angel, this was my second angel visitation. My first one was in 1990's sometime. I was walking home from church and it was raining and I had forgotten to bring my umbrella. I was really depressed that day too. I was dating someone at the time whom I really liked, but he was your classic "bad frat boy". I knew it was not a good relationship for me, but the guy was so much fun, really really smart, so charming and really, really cute. I spent all service telling JC I needed a sign that every was going to be okay.

A woman asked me if I wanted to share her umbrella with her as she was going in the same direction I was. I looked at her and was shocked because no one had ever asked me that before. She has a nice smile and friendly face and kind of reminded me of a nun, although she wasn't wearing a nun's outfit. So we walked up the hill to my apartment together, didn't actually chat at all, and then at top we said our goodbyes. I turned around a minute later to check her out again, but she was gone.

I don't know who that woman was, but her gesture of generosity really, really touched me deeply. I don't know. Maybe I looked so incredibly depressed and pitiable that when the woman saw me, she felt she had to do something. I don't know. In a big city like San Francisco, her gesture was just so unbelievable. This experience hasn't happened to any of my friends who've lived here all their lives. And I've yet to repeat the experience.

The woman had to be an angel. She looked so otherworldly too, like familiar and yet not familiar. Totally nunlike, but she definitely wasn't in the outfit.

So now I'm into angels and am attending an angel seminar this Sunday being given by Doreen Virtue, who's written all these books on angels. I found out about the seminar by accident, by sychronicity, and I'm going and I'm excited. Maybe my muni angel boy will be there, or others angel boys like him.

I moved my desk yesterday in my bedroom, in preparation for my lapptop. I'm moving my computer to where my work computer used to be and my laptop will be in my bedroom so I can still listen to internet radio in bed or other internet programs.

My desk is now facing west and when I'm typing at my computer I can look out the windows and watch birds fly across the sky or the clouds move or the stars twinkling in the night sky. I really, really like it. I wished I thought about moving my desk earlier. Speaking of birds, I always see two crows flying across my windows. Crows and raves are my animal spirit totems, and I love to see them.

How weird! I just realized I dreamt around March 7 that I had a desk facing a window in a two story house and I didn't know what it meant at the time, and now my desk is facing the window. I just came up with moving the desk on Friday, but perhaps my dream inspired me. In my dream I had a home office with a desk facing the window on the bottom floor of a two story house, and I was sharing the home office desk space with my husband and we were living out in the suburbs. Like what a nightmare! In the dream I was living in the house but I didn't feel very comfortable there and I wasn't sure why. The house was nice and big, with four bedrooms upstairs, but it didn't feel like my house. It was "his house" (meaning my husband's) and not mine, which I think means he was already living in it and then I moved in. It was such an odd dream.

I finally ordered and received my copy of "Harry Potter and The Order of Phoenix." I wanted to read it before the new book comes out. I only read the British version, and my copy from amazon.co.uk cost me $30. Gotta love that falling US dollar.

While driving around today I saw a gas station with gas at $2.57. I'm so glad I don't drive to work anymore. One journalist I read today said that they didn't know why people were moaning and groanig over the price of gas, when they willing to play the same amount of money for daily designer coffee.

Speaking of designer coffee, are times getting desperate for Starfbombs? They were giving away freebies the other day. They never do stuff like that. A favorite jewelry store closed their branch in Pacific Heights. I was surprised because the store was always so packed, but I guess there were not enough people buying.

We went out to brunch today in Pacific Heights and it wasn't even crowded. No place looked crowded actually which was shocking because usually Easter Sunday is a big brunch out day. Either people aren't eating out as much or they're eating at home.

My family always had a huge feast on Easter. We'd be doing the not eating meat thing every Friday, so on Easter Sunday we pigged out and ate tons of ham. Some childhood traditions never die. I still buy myself a new easter outfit to wear to church, the way my mother did in my childhood. But I had a filet mignon steak and swiss chard yesterday instead of ham for my pre-easter meal. But I did have an omelette with ham, goat cheese, bacon and avocado this morning. Goat cheese in a omelette is divine by the way!

I was talking to a friend of mine about Terri Schiavo today, and seh reminded me that Terri was a bulemic, which caused her present condition. All that barfing up of hydrochloric acid rotted away her stomach and other body parts. She was only 26 when her brain damage happened. How ironic for a bulemic to be forced to eat food ... talk about karma.

On my favourite radio station, Live 105, they're having a "What would Jesus play (WWJP) weekend". How funny! Would Jesus listen to alternative rock music for the Gen-Y generation? They play the music of the band in three, like the trinity, cute huh?

From the Live 105 website: "All this weekend we give up the wheels of steel to the one man who we're sure could do justice to our crack weekend team... The Man himself... JESUS H. CHRIST. And because of His Lord's fondness for the number 3, he'll be playing sets of 3 song from his favorite Alternative Artists... U2, Queens of the Stoneage, Green Day, and many more."

I went to two office supply stores to buy some office supplies, and they were both cloese for Easter. I didn't know stores closed for Easter anymore.

Church was crowded, but uplifting. The pastor preached from 2 Timothy on Christian values, but thankfully did not get maudlin about Terri Schiavo. I missed going to this church as I haven't gone in awhile.

So scary, I thought I saw my old ex-Steve as I was coming through the door. I'm like what the heck would he be doing there? He's a Peninsula boy. It must have been a Steve haunting or something. The Steve-lookalike was so cute too!

I went to Easter service with a friend of mine, and she told me that she had just auditioned for a play, got cast and was about to start rehearsal when the 25 year-old director was killed in a car accident in the East Bay last week. Shocking, huh? The guy was driving on a rainy day, got hit by another car and ran into a tree going 60 mph and was killed instantly. I'm like where were his airbags? My friend didn't know any more details other than the guy was killed. So sad and right before Easter too.

I hate Howard Dean, so I'm not at all amused to be receiving letters from him now that he is the head of the DNC. It will be a very long time, probably not until the next presidential election, that I'll be donating money to the DNC with Dean as the Chairman. And if Dean is the next demo presidential candidate, he's definitely not getting any money from me. And the next time I get another letter from Howard Dean, it is going straight to recycling.

I suppose I should comment on the Terri Schiavo case, although unless the rest of the nation I'm not that traumatized. I've been hearing about this case for about six weeks now, and I don't know, I'm not really moved. Callous isn't it?

It just makes me think that if you're that concerned about it, you should make sure that you have a written directive about what should happen in case you're in Terri's position. My brother knows that if I ever am brain dead, I would want him to pull my plug or let me starve to death. What is life without the mind anyway? I wouldn't want to be an emotional or financial burden to my family.

I feel bad for the Terri's husband and for Terri herself. Her husband had been trying to do this for 15 years and this the third time she's been starved to death. Why would her family want to subject her to 15 years of this is a mystery?

And you know, everyone assumes that Terri's parents treated her well while she was alive. What if that wasn't true? What if they were bad parents in her youth, and this is their guilt trip way of making it up to her? No one ever talks about that. It would be like that scene at the end of "Chinatown" where the Faye Dunaway's grand daughter goes off with the incestous grandfather. Or the people who insist that if a woman who gets pregnant from a rapist, that the woman should carry the baby to full term.

You know the only people who ever benefit from a national traumatic event like this are the laywers. They'll be making money from people wanting to put together living directives so they don't end up like Terri Schiavo. Lawyers always make money in times like these.

What's a girl to do on Saturday while cleaning up, but bid on expensive french shoes. Here's what New York Metro has to say about the Stephane Kelian shoes I just bid on and won for about $25:

Shoes, Women
The art crowd swears by these dowdy-chic, fuss-free shoes that are edgy enough to be seen on the gallery circuit and sensible enough to walk around in—like suede ankle boots ($555) and leather boots with an accented heel ($585).

Another web page I found has this to say about these shoes:

It's not easy to design shoes that keep Parisians looking casually chic and ahead of the next trend, but Stephane Kelian continues to do just that. The shoes balance a European minimalist, fashion-forward style with a comfort and practicality that keep Parisians walking all day long. Kelian shoes are sturdy, but beautiful--not for the princess who likes to totter around on spindly heels. Both the shoes and the store, located right off Rodeo Drive, reflect a clean and modern style. The helpful staff will assist you in narrowing down the search for a pair of shoes, usually gorgeous, buttery leather creations, that will have you placing your best foot forward.

I bought a pair of black loafers with a 2.25 inch heel, which normally retailed for about $400.

Red-headed boy was a shoe salesguy and he thought I was wearing a pair of these. I didn't even know what he was talking about till I googled the shoes and found out they were very expensive french shoes that you can only buy in shops in LA and NYC. I was wearing a pair of 3 year old black Dansko sandals by the way when he said this which cost me under $100 and are shoes Dansko doesn't even carry anymore.

Well, now I have a pair and I bought them on Ebay for $25. I'm bidding on another pair as well just for fun.

So I think the advice about not buying things during the beginning of a Mercury retrograde are true. The astrologers says don't buy things at the start of a Mercury retrograde because you'll have problems.

I bought some underwear at Victoria's Secret on Saturday, and already I found a hole in one of them and on the second one, the cute little decoration is coming out. What a jip! Now I have to decide do I go back to Victoria's Secret to replace the one I accidentally ripped and the one with decoration coming off. I could just sew the decoration back on, but what a pain! And I do need to replace the one with the tear because it's matches something else I bought there.

Decisions, decisions ... but if workmanship wasn't so shoddy or perhaps if I hadn't bought them on first day of the Mercury retrograde maybe I wouldn't have to make these decisions.

Somehow I got pulled in to work on a project with my company’s foundation. Now I’m being pulled into all these meetings and if this project is funded, it has the potential to generate a ton of publicity which will make it a highly visible company project. I hate projects that generate a ton of publicity. Your work gets scrutinized up and ying yang, and you end up going to a ton of meetings to brainstorm and plan a strategy. This project will involve not only my company board of directors but also the foundation’s board of directors. Talk about people breathing down your neck.

Okay it’s not like this is the first time my work has been presented to a company’s board of directors, but I just hate the pressure of it all. I’d rather just do my work and projects anonymously, and not draw a lot of attention to myself. I stopped speaking up in meetings, so I would get disinvited off the meeting lists. And it looked like my no meeting strategy was working until now. Meetings are such a waste of time. If you start volunteering your opinions in a meeting, you end up being sent to more meetings because “people value your opinions.” I know, I know, it’s a compliment to be thought of so highly that people keep requesting you to be part of their projects, but it’s also a complete waste of time. Plus you still have to do your regular job and now do much more extra work. Talk about recipe for spending a lot of nights in the office.

I don’t mind doing the background research, preparing the opinions and briefs for my boss so they sound intelligent and look like they know what they’re talking about when they go to their meetings, but that’s about all I want to do. I don’t want to go the meetings and get assigned to do more work along with my regular job.

I had the weirdest dream this morning. I was out body surfing which I haven’t done since high school, and I was far away from shore like maybe out a mile. There were these huge waves that were coming out towards me, but instead of coming from the ocean they were coming from the shore. It’s like the ocean was backwards or something in my dream. When I woke up the first think I remembered was that the waves were backwards.

Anyway, the waves were huge and usually if a big wave like maybe a 10-12 footer is coming towards you, you need to dive under the wave to not get caught up in it. Instead of diving, I just kicked my legs back and forth like a ballerina and rose up above the wave watching it crest beneath me. In the dream I did this a bunch of times. Very strange! There was some surfer guy there next to me on an orange board and he commented on how huge the waves were. He ended up diving under the wave like you’re supposed with his board, and I just kicked my legs and fluttered up above the wave.

The water was also green and not blue. Not sure what this means and I can’t remember what color ocean water is when it’s really warm. I think the water was warm because I was wearing a swimsuit. But why the waves were originating from the shore and not from the ocean is so puzzling to me.

I haven't been writing much lately. Last Tuesday I had a midterm for my greek drama class. I'm not sure how I did because it was all essay. I'll find out tomorrow.

It's allergy season and my allergies while not too bad, leave me exhausted at the end of the day. By 5 pm, I'm tired and I want to sleep. I've been meditating again, this time in a completely new and different way that I'm thoroughly enjoying so much I try to do it for an hour when I come home.

I meditate on JC. This is completely new for me and something I didn't think was possible but it's definitely working and so, so cool. I was thinking today that maybe if my I hadn't been so depressed these last four months I might never have discovered this new way of meditation. I hate that though, that my heart has to break into a million pieces before I learn to make any kind of progress in my spiritual life. I wish I didn't have to learn everything the hard way.

I generally go through life thinking I'm a little aware and evolved and a little better off than most people walking around on this planet, and then something like this happens where I get the giant, hurtful, painful cosmic slap upside the head to make progress on something that should have been a no-brainer. I cannot help but wonder if my life would have turned out better had I learned to meditate on JC sooner in my life, which bums me out because I hate having regrets.

Oh well. I guess I wasn't ready and didn't know that I was seeking was always available to me from my own past and childhood. Now that I could have surrendered at any other time than right now, because I am forever "a doubting Thomas". I think I must have matured enough to have enough faith to believe in what I cannot touch or see. That was always my favorite player from my catholic girls days, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed." I never felt worthy and I never felt I would ever have that kind of faith, and as a little girl I knew it and saying that prayer used to always make me cry. Still does actually, even now.

So another announcement regarding a highly visible exec leaving was in my company email this morning. This means my company has been chopping one exec/VP a month since December. This new exec reorged my division, and I have a feeling that my division is about to go through another major reorg come April.

I keep asking my boss what is going on and she doesn't know. I don't think anyone knows at this point, and we just all have to wait till we get to work in the morning and see what email brings. Interesting huh?

I saw "Constantine" on Friday and totally loved it. The movie critic for my local paper panned it, but I totally loved the movie. Okay, yes it had Keannu Reeves starring in it and the movie was great just because he was in it, but the special effects were spectacular as well. And at the end the people in the theatre clapped, so they must have liked the ending. All my psychic friends who see "things" said that the movie depicted what they see some of the time.

I used to wish I was clairvoyant and had visions, but after seeing this movie I’m glad I don’t have this gift. Some things in this world are just not worth seeing since they’d probably scare me to death. It’s bad enough that there are some people I just won’t talk to or interact with because their "vibes" freak me out. It would be much worse I think, if I could actually see what they’re really like and why their vibes freak me out.

I am a comfort shoe snob. I went to Union Square to check out Nordstrom and Macys to look for shoes, but only saw f-ugly shoes! They look like silly little torture chambers for unsuspecting women who want to walk with a sway in their hips.

Yes, they're pretty if you like trashy f-ugly shoes but they look so uncomfortable. I don't know. Maybe if I didn't have that stupid problem with my feet a few years ago, I wouldn't be so down on uncomfortble shoes but I did and once you start wearing comfortable shoes you can't go back to uncomfortable ones.

But I don't want just comfortable shoes, I want stylish comfortable shoes with more than a one-inch heel. I hate flat heeled shoes.

Most women who start wearing fashionable stylish shoes in their youth, start only wearing athletic shoes in their old age or ugly Birkenstocks or Dexters or other old lady type shoes. Talk about feeling like you are seriously over the hill and going down the drain in nanosecond whenever you look down at your shoes.

I think it's better to wear comfortable yet stylish shoes with 2 inch heels, so you at least look and feel young.

I should start a list of the things NOT to do to look old.

1) NO SHORT MANNISH HAIR - all women over a certain age have short hair, it's like a disease or epidemic or something. Okay, maybe Annette Benning can get away with it, but if you don't look like Annette Benning or a Hollywood movie star or a Hollywood movie star, forget it. Keep the hair shoulder length or longer. Besides, hello, it's not the 80's anymore and that Dorothy Hamill do went out a really, really long time ago.

2) NO OLD LADY SHOES - another dead give away about your true age, especially those Dexter shoes!

I'm sure there's more for this list, but these are my major pet peeves about women over a certain age. They look so, what is the word, Stepford wifeish, only worse. It's like after you what, turn 40 or old, you get this list on how you're supposed to look, and boy do most women follow it. It's like they cloned the middle aged woman look all over America. It's so frightening. Don't succumb! And if you're not over 40, don't start the look early!

Fight, fight the middle age woman cloning of America!

So I'm so upset. I bought a pair of $80 Born mary jane shoes back in 2003, and last night during greek drama class I noticed that the sole of my left shoe was split in half. I took the shoes to the shoe repair shop across the street from work, and the shoe shop repairman tells me that he can't fix it and it's a factory defect.

God, I hate that. I love these shoes. They are so comfortable and so cute, and now they're broken. What is up with that? I've never had a fairly new shoe split like that before.

So I don't know if I should go back to Nordstrom to see if they're still selling the shoe sand repurchase them, or just get another pair of shoes. And in the back of my mind of course I'm thinking, what if the damned shoes split in in half again a year and half later.

What is the point of paying $80 for good european shoes if they break?

I went to a seminar on Saturday in Moutain View at the East West Bookshop and had lunch with the couple sitting next to me. They were such an interesting couple. The man was a nuclear physicist in the Johnson Administration, who told me he quit along with a bunch of other scientists when Johnson wanted nuke North Vietnam. He left the government and went to work in the communications industry, and was one of the scientists responsible for coming up with the technology to put communication satellites up in space.

They were such nice people, and they even paid for my lunch as well. I often meet the most interesting people in Silicon Valley seminars.

So I'm thinking maybe I need an IPOD now as I filled my bag this morning with my Jimi Hendrix cd collection so I could listen to that song that it turns out wasn't even by Hendrix.

I'm listening "Electric Ladyland" and the song playing "Come On, Part 1" and I'm having flashbacks to stoner parties in high school and college. I haven't listened to Hendrix in a long, long time, and damn, the music is good, bitchin' really even it's just a tad too dated. But then a classic guitar riff never quite goes out of style does it? And I'd forgotten how good the bass lines are on his songs as well, pretty funky really considering it's classic hippie rock-n-roll.

I've been thinking of this song all morning that I heard awhile back on a TV show that I was watching. I thought it was a Jimi Hendrix song, but it wasn't. It's by a 60's group I've never even heard of called The Chambers Brothers, and the song is "Time has come today".

Here are the lyrics.

Time Has Come Today
performed by The Chambers Brothers

Time has come today
Young hearts can go their way
Can't put it off another day
And I don't care what the others say
'Cause they say we don't listen anyway
Time has come today, Hey!

The rules have changed today, Hey!
I have no place to stay, Hey!
And I'm thinkin' about the subway, Hey!
Love has gone away, Hey!
And tears have come and gone, Hey!
Oh my God, I have to run, Hey!
I have no home, Hey!
I have no home, Hey!

Now the time has come, Time!
There's no place to run, Time!
Might get burned up by the sun, Time!
Well, I've had my fun, Time!
Well, I've been loved and put aside, Time!
And I've been crushed by tumblin' tide, Time!
And my soul's be psychedelicized, Time!

Now the time has come, Time!
There are things to realize, Time!
Time has come today, Time!
Time has come today, Time!

Time!

Now the time has come, Time!
There are things to realize, Time!
Time has come today, Time!
Time has come today, Time!

Time!

I was in a good mood this morning, can you tell? I even danced around at 7:30 am to my favourite 60's I want to fall in love song "Get Together" by The Youngbloods. Haven't done that since the late 90's. I think I'm ready to fall in love again.

More disturbing information from this national health care report.

Between 850,000 and 950,000 individuals are infected with HIV in the U.S, an estimated quarter of who are unaware that they are infected. Each year, about 40,000 people acquire HIV infection. Since the use of the drug therapy to treat HIV infection became widespread in 1996, new AIDS cases declined among the mid-1990’s to 2001, but then leveled off in 2002. Since its emergence 500,000 Americans have died from AIDS, including over 16,000 in 2002.

AIDS incidences and death rates vary by race and ethnicity. Blacks make up 12% of the population in the U.S., but they accounted for 50% of the new AIDS cases reported in the U.S. in 2002. Hispanics also have higher AIDS incidence compared with whites. AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women 25 to 34 and black men 35 to 44.

I'm summarizing a report on National Health Care at work, when I ran across the following paragraph: Are you just a statistic in government health report?

Over 40 million people aged 18 to 64 had a mental disorder in the past year, and about 20 million had a serious mental disorder that substantially limited activities. In 2003, about 16 million Americans age 12 and over were heavy alcohol drinkers and about 54 million had a recent binge drinking episode. About 20 million people aged 12 and older were illicit drug users and about 71 million people reported the use of a tobacco product. The direct costs of mental disorders and substance abuse amounted to $99 billion in 1996; lost productivity and premature death accounted for an additional $75 billion.

I just found out some disturbing news about my former meditation teacher. Talk about my world being rocked. He was someone I respected and trusted for his knowledge and wisdom and his spirituality. What was even more disturbing is one of the people involved was someone I knew and that without knowing it, I was part of the drama. Not that I knew what was going on, but I was there during the events she described in her allegations. I was there, I knew the names of the people involved, and yet I was ignorant to what was really going on.

Other people I know have corroborated the allegations, people I also trust. Talk about freaky! This all happened almost 15 years ago, and I'm only finding out about it now because I just happen to google my former teacher to find out if the group had a website.

In the shower this morning, I felt such a loss of identity that for a few seconds I didn't know who I was anymore. That group and my teacher had been such a part of who I was, who I became, and who I am to a large extent today.

The only good part of the whole incident, if there is a good part, is her allegations gave me insight into incidents that I had observed and that had happened to me 15 years earlier that at the time I didn't know how to comprehend or even process. Incidents that were so baffling to me that I never told anyone about them, not even my best friends. The only people who knew about the incidents I saw that particular year were in Bali on vacation during Gulf War 1.

Talk about a part of your self dying like a snake shedding another layer of skin. And why now? Why did it have to come out now? It's not like I was looking for it, it wasn't like I thought my life was damaged greatly by what happened.

A friend said I must have been traumatized by it because I've kept it secret for 15 years. Was I? I don't know. In my mind, I don't think anyone who wasn't there in Bali, who wasn' t part of the group, who didn't understand the group dynamics I was a part of would have understood it. I barely understood it myself. I lived through it yes, but some incidents in life I think are never meant to be understood, may be are never meant to be processed. Until last night, until today.

It feels like a veil was lifted, and that maybe I'm old enough and mature enough to deal with mentally what happened. I don't know. I keep going back to something I've always thought was nice but have never ever experienced for very long; ignorance is pure bliss.

I went to Well last night at ACT.

The SF Chron had the little man jumping up in his seat and clapping, and it was a big hit off-Broadway in New York and was name of the ten best plays of 2004 by the NY Times and other publications. It's also apparently heading for Broadway sometime soon.

It was a good play, funny as heck, but in the end I left vaguely feeling unsatisfied. I kept also looking at my watch, something I almost never do in a play performance. People clapped at the end and a few people stood up, but the audience response was less than what I've seen it for other plays.

Afterwards I kept thinking, you know the play should have worked and I should have walked out feeling like it was a good play. I laughed, I was entertained, but the ending left me flat. There was no big revelation at the end, no "AHA" moment, no lifting of veil to take a peek into the universality of human behaviour, no Aristotelian cathartic moment, just a gentle, gentle let down.

"Caroline or Change" had the same effect of me, only to a lesser degree. The character Caroline's last song was heartbreaking and really, really touching, and as she sang it I knew she was knocking for a few seconds on the door of some great universal truth, but then the truth wasn't sustained and the ending was flat.

Great art takes on a wild emotional ride, and at the end you feel complete, you feel full, and there is no flatness.

And it's not that these two plays weren't good, they were, they just weren't great and great art is such a mysterious thing.

I've had the urge to shop for weeks, and I finally gave in tonight. So I'm shopaholicking at Macy's and I find two silk skirts and two silk dresses that actually fit. They were all on sale and I was expecting to spend about $175 or so.

Much to my surprise, the bill came to $98.07. And I'm like "OH MY GOD!" I'm paying under a hundred dollars for four, count them four, 100% pure silk pieces of clothing, two of which are dresses. I'm buying silk housedresses to wear to work. You just pop them over your head, throw a jacket, pearls and heels on and you're ready for work. They are so comfy too!

I just love shopaholicking. I could have bought those trendy mini tweedy/boucle skirts that everyone seems to wearing, but you really have to have the right figure to get away with all that bumpy and textured fabric on your big old rear. And right now, I feel fat and I'm sure my bum does too.

You know the US economy is in bad shape when Thomas Friedman of the NY Times writes in his column about the dollar falling.

North South Korea's Central Bank is diversifying out of the dollar, which will probably have a domino effect through Southeast Asia. Once China decouples its currency from the dollar, it will be a wild ride on the markets. Sadam Hussein tried to do it before Gulf War 2 when he wanted Iraqi oil payment in Euros instead of dollars, but since his demise no other Arab country has followed suit.

Oil is heading up to $50 a barrel and expected to go to $60 by Spring, and my energy mutual fund is up $4 since I bought shares in December. Of course my nasdaq stock is tanking, but that's why I bought into an energy mutual fund to offset any losses that are bound to be expected when oil prices go up.

Noah's Bagels raised their prices and so did the cafeteria in my building. I would expect consumer prices to spike up in relation to how gas and oil prices rise. Is it any wonder no one is shopping? Once people stop shopping, prices will drop. I hear GMC has already lowered the price of their cars and trucks to get business going. Of course, they manufacture nothing but gas guzzling cars and trucks so I don't think their discounting will help their bottom line much.

I'm exhausted and cranky. I only got maybe three hours of sleep last night. I just couldn't fall asleep and ended up reading till 2 am, and when I finally lay down to sleep I passed out and the next thing I hear is my alarm going off.

I have to go to a play tonight, and I know I won't enjoy it because I'm exhausted. I had lunch with a friend and I thought maybe some Cadbury chocolate would cheer me up, but I ended up buying a dark chocolate bar by mistake and I hate the taste of it. I'm more of milk chocolate girl.

Another friend broke up with the guy she's been seeing off and on for about a couple of years. She didn't want it to get to the point where she hated him, but then it went that way. Sometimes I think that's the best way to break up with a guy. Get the point where you hate the guy so much and then when you break up with him you're not grieving and wondering if you've done the right thing. People say this is the unhealthy way to break up because then you can't be friends but you know, the whole "let's be friends" idea is so overrated. Who wants to be friends with an ex?

I wish I had broken up with the red-haired guy the old fashioned unhealthy way. I'm the one who broke it off because it was not a good thing for me, and I'm the one who is still grieving and wondering if I did the right thing. It's like been way too hard to break the pattern of unhealthy emotional behaviour because I don't usually break up with anyone in a healthy way and I'm not used to having so much regret about letting someone go. I hate the emotion of "regret". I've had very few regrets in my life,and I'm not used do dealing with this emotion.

I swear the next time I break up with some guy, I'm going back to how everyone else does it; unhealthy with no regrets because you hate the person so much.

I had a sleepless night and it's only 10 am and I'm already having a horrible, horrible work day. I put someone's phone number instead of their fax on a letter that went out to clients, and now my boss and his AA are so mad at me.

So my company just announced its fifth business unit reorg since December. Executive heads are getting chopped, but not anyone else.

The business unit that pays my salary reorged in December, but the business unit that I'm a part of has yet to reorg. I think our group is next, although no one is saying anything.

I guess the worse that could happen is I get a different boss, which would be a bummer, or my boss and I move to another section, which means I'll probably have to move to different floor.

Changes are definitely coming, it's just a matter of when.

A couple people in the department brought in homemade treats to eat for the whole group, and without thinking I gobbled the cookies and brownies up. Boy, what a mistake. I was sick as a dog last night! This is why I fear company potlucks. You just never know the cleanliness level of your fellow coworkers when it comes to cooking. This will teach me never to eat food at work unless it is packaged or from a store.

Silly isn't it ... but having the runs at 3 am in the morning is not a fun experience.

It was a work holiday today, but I woke up early to take my car into the shop to get my right headlight fixed since it was out. I thought there were going to charge me a ton for it and I was going to have a wait a long time, but they got it done in an hour. Times must be tough at my car dealership when they're handing out roses to their customers to thank them for taking their car in for repair. In the five years I've been dealing with them, they've never been that nice.

Then I was off doing errands all morning. I went to Target to buy some cleaning supplies and ended up with a new lamp and Brita water filter to fit over my faucet. I've been wanting a Brita filter for my kitchen faucet for a long time, and when I saw it on sale I had to buy one. I also ended up with a new paper shredder, since I burnt out the small one I had. So much for just picking up a few things at Target.

Then I went to pick up gas at $2.09 a gallon, and I'm thinking to myself I'm so glad I don't drive to work anymore. Gas is so expensive! I wonder how families with huge gas eating cars are doing with these gas prices. They're only going to go up too, and not go down.

I love Target so much! They've always had great stuff, and now they're stuff is so much better because they do knockoffs of the merchandise at stores like Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel. Since I regurlarly browse in these kinds of stores, I know an imitation when I see one. And Target does it for much cheaper and unless you're really looking close, sometimes you really can't tell the difference between the merchandise.

I actually saw a quilt I liked at Target. I've been wanting to change my bed quilt for a long time, and just can't seem to find a pattern I liked. Target had a lovely quilt, but only one pillow sham. I would have had to go to another store to find a second pillow sham, and I decided it wasn't worth the bother on the holiday even at Target's oh so cheap prices.

Then it was off to the mall to visit Nordstrom to buy some makeup, and then I was supposed to go to Macy's to buy a thank you present for someone but I decided it was better to buy it online so I could have the online retailer mail it for me, so I would one less errand to do.

And then it was back home to do my cleaning chores that I skipped all weekend, so much for a fun three days off from work.

Does it seem like the economy is really bad to you? It does to me. I don't think people are buying as much stuff, and shoppers aren't certainly out in droves like they used to be for a holiday. But I did my part today to support our consumer driven economy and came home with a ton of stuff.

Sometime I hate that I love to shop. I have so much stuff, and I keep buying more of it. I feel like paring down my stuff and just throwing everything out. I just threw out out a $80 shirt I bought years ago because it was looking frayed. I could have fixed, but I haven't worn it in five years and it's not really my style anymore.

I want to go through my whole closet and throw everything out, and just start from scratch. But it takes money to do that, and I really can't afford it right now. Besides I feel really fat right now, and I know I shouldn't be shopping for clothes until I lose some weight. I'm just so sick of all of my clothes right now.

For my Christmas/bday present, a friend took me to see the Broadway play "Caroline or Change". We had orchestra seats which were nice, and despite the fact that I'm not a big Tony Kushner fan, I really enjoyed the play. It's fun to see a Broadway musical in San Francisco, without having to go all the way to NYC. One of the characters in the play even won a Tony last year for best support actress in a musical for her role in this play. She's a local favourite, and my friend reminded me that we saw her in "Tartuffe" and "Resurrection: Changing History" at ACT. She even thanked ACT in her acceptance speech at the Tonys last year.

I liked the musical a lot, although the end left me very unsatisfied somehow. But all Tony Kushner's plays have that affect on me so I shouldn't be surprised. Sometimes I think he tries to be a bit too clever and intellectual for his audience, and it robs his plays of what the greeks would call a "cathartic ending." Oh well, whatever, it was a fun play to watch and singing was phenomenal.

I've been in a weird mood lately. Everyone at work has been out with the flu, and I've been tired and feeling like I'm fighting the flu as well.

I've been sleeping a ton which is weird, because I am usually a total insomniac and can only sleep for 5-6 hours at at time. Not anymore. Who knew I could sleep so much and not feel tired during the day?

My anxiety is back, but kind of at a low level. It was gone all of January it seemed and now it's back, or trying to come back. Every day it feels like something is going to happen, but nothing ever does. Just little things the right headlight going out in my car over the weekend, and then on Tuesday I lost one of the books for my greek drama class and had to repurchase the book.

I went out with a really good friend of mine on February 5, and we bopped around and went to the Asian Antique Art Show and then to China Town for the Flower Fair for Chinese New Years. I had a great time with her, but then I got kind of bummed when she told me she called her wedding off.

My friend told me she's been in love for like two years and last fall got engaged with a $6K platinum diamond engagement ring and wedding planned for June. I've been really sort of jealous only because I was wishing it could happen to me. But now the whole thing is off and my friend is freaking out because the guy is like living with her, and she doesn't know what to do with him. She loves him and all, but is having serious doubts about marrying him.

She had a laundry list of his faults, and I kept saying to her "didn't you notice these things in the two years you were together?" and she said no. It's only been since the engagment that she's noticed what an unsuitable partner he is. Part of her misery is driven in part by the fact that she's unemployed. It's amazing how lack of money can really put a damper on your life. But part of it is, and I didn't want to tell her this from the beginning, that he really is opposite to any guy she's told me she's ever dated. Her fiance is so not her type, and I knew that when I met him but I kept my mouth shut because she seemed so in love and like I was anyone to give advice to my best friend on being in love.

But like any good friend, I told her to stick with him because she loved him and maybe when she got her finances in better shape he wouldn't be so bad. And besides, breaking up is hard and painful especially if you've been living with a guy for over two years. I didn't know what else to say.

So I'm having a Marcel Proust "Remembrance of Things Past" week where I'm eating foods that I've loved in years past.

I had tuna sandwiches for lunch the last two days, which so reminded me of growing up and eating home packed school lunches. Then today, I went to Baja Fresh because I had a craving for nachos. I used to live on nachos and ate them at least once a week. I'm not sure why or when I grew out of my nachos phase, but I hardly eat them any more. Pizza is the same say. I love eating pizza but I hardly do it unless I'm with friends.

So I'm ploughing through my Baja Fresh nachos and I'm thinking to myself, I can't believe use to eat this dish regularly because it's really not that tasty. I get the same way with tuna sandwiches. I crave them for awhile and then end up thinking it's just not a very good lunch. It's kind of sad really.

I went to see the kineseologist I've been seeing every two months, and he said I was doing so much better with my health that I could stop seeing him every two months and had to only visit him once every three months.

This was such good news to me since I felt like all the work I've been doing with trying to be healthy was finally paying off. Not sure if I feel the difference healthwise but my kineseologist saw a big difference, which means less visits to him and less money spent by me.

So I've been a good couch potato and spent the last two Sundays at home being such a lazy girl, but this is a good thing. I haven't felt comfortable in my own place for a long time and definitely could not write there, which has been such a drag since I need to be able to write at home. Hopefully that's all changed now since last night I finally felt comfortable being at home for the first time in ages.

I think if I just move my computer to where my work computer used to be and get a new lamp, I'll be good to go. And when I get my new laptop which will be in a month, I'll put my laptop where my computer is now and have two places where I can write in my apartment.

It was the start of Chinese New Year's yesterday and it's the year of the rooster, so how weird was it when I walked out of the shower this morning and heard a rooster crowing. I'm like, did one of the neighbours buy a rooster for the new year or was that noise coming from the television? The weather report was on so I don't think it was coming from my tv, and the rooster crowed only once and it was already daylight.

So I'm like what is this supposed to mean? Is it like a good sign or what? Hearing the rooster crow reminded me of growing up because one of the neighbours kept chickens and roosters and I could hear them crowing every morning at the crack of dawn. I've been living at my place for almost two years and this was the first time I heard a rooster making a noise. Very very strange ...

There probably aren't very many people weeping, but I'm saddened by Carly Fiorina's resignation from HP. Fiorina has always been a sort of role model for my corporate self. The crusty old HP board booted her out. If she was smart she built herself a grand old golden parachute to make her leaving very soft and cushy. I wonder how much they offered her to take a hike?

I still remember when she first got hired and she was scrutinized by the media up and down and all over, from her choice of husband to her hairstyle to her clothes. If she had been a man, the media would have kept the coverage about business and would never have made a comment about the man's choice of wife.

Thank goodness Oprah is still going strong and earning a ton of money.

I know the network wanted to play it safe and all with the music and even though I like Paul McCartney and everything, I couldn't help but think that I was watching teh "Geriatric Music Super Bowl". OY! I'm so bad, but god was that music old and dated. Okay, maybe not the Black Eyed Peas but everything else, come on! They even had had John Fogerty on. I felt like I was watching the modern version of The Lawrence Welk Show. So, so, very, very scary....

Well, my personal life may be depressing me as heck but my work life is looking a lot better. One of my bosses just assigned me back to an old project that I was working on when I first started, and I told him I needed training. He didn't bat an eye and said okay. So now I'll get either Business Objects or Crystal database training or hopefully both. Maybe even SAS if I'm lucky. I love learning skills like these that I can stick on my resume.

I'm excited because the doctor that I worked with last year specifically requested me saying I had good positive energy and was great to work with. She said this to my boss and I'm hoping this will help when it comes to my boss figuring out my merit raise.

Plus, what I'm really excited about is I'll be learning new things because the earlier project has springboarded into another new project and will probably generate future projects in years to come. And it's a cutting edge project in my business and that's always a fun, fun thing.

Maybe it's not just me, but everyone at work is saying that this week has been really hard and it's only Wednesday. Everyone here is in such a bad, bad mood.

Lots of people out with the flu, and thank god I've got zero symptoms.

Blogger is slow today ... guess the people at Google are too busy celebrating their great stock results to mind the servers.