Some silly yahoo thing that's part of my email account. I used to wear my hair like this in college. I think she's supposed to look like me.

I didn't know you could upload photos with blogger. I just downloaded the images from my digital camera onto my laptop. Here are some pictures of the coast line in Marin I took last year.

A view from the North.

Looking towards the South.

A pretty rock.

This is a picture of one of the jewelry sets I made over Christmas. It's made of amethyst chips, amethyst coloured balls, and sterling silver pretty squares and flowery beads.

Well, I guess I am not going to so my boy down south after all. He's got bronchitis and on antiobiotics and working all week. And he had a good point when he told me I need to get my car checked out this week, because God forbid something should happen to my car as I'm driving down to LA.

I'm kind of relieved. I've never driven down to LA by myself before. It's a very long drive. The farthest I've ever driven was four hours and with LA traffic, the drive could be eight hours. I won't say that I'm not bummed, but I was tellng a friend of mine that when I saw M-Square over Labor Day it was perfect and we did a ton of haggling for that weekend to happen.

M-Square said he needed to sort some things about his job. I think he should stick it out. It's driving him insane because it's very stressful and he has to work long hours, but I think over time it will be very financially successful. He just has to learn to manage it better. Plus despite the insane working hours, he has alot of freedom in this job that he wouldn't have in a job in corporate America.

So I'm at home this week on vacation and relaxing. I took two beadmaking classes and I've so far made four necklace, bracelet and earring sets. If I can figure out how to work the digital camera my cousin gave me last year, I'll post pictures of my creative venture.

I love making jewelry. I even paid the city a fee to get a business license so I can write off my beading purchases on my taxes. I'd like to be able to sell the stuff I make, but mostly I want to be able to write off this very expensive hobby.

I have to figure out how to buy beadmaking supplies wholesale. So far I've only been buying stuff retail because I have no idea where the wholesale stores are. Once I figure that out I'll be very happy.

I don't konw if I'll be able to sell my jewelry though. I make jewelry for myself to wear and I don't know if I could part with anything if somebody wanted to buy it. I had the same experience when I was making art collages, and a guy in class asked me if he could buy one of my collages. He said he would pay me $50 for this piece I made on the theme of beauty. I was very torn. I probably should have let him buy it and then I could have had the satisfaction of being a paid artist.

What I should have done was take a picture or a copied the artwork through a copy machine, and then sell it. Then at least I would have some record of the piece before it left my hands. That guy would have probably put my art collage up in his house and had it framed and everything. Right now that collage is sitting in my art collage portfolio gathering dust. I haven't looked at the piece since that class. Silly huh?

If I would have sold it to Peter, my art would have hopefully been framed and shown to people and lived the life of a beloved piece of artwork instead of being forgotten by the artist and put away and thought about in odd moments.

I am watching the last broadcast of Monday Night Football. What a sad incident! I have so many memories growing up and watching Monday Night Football with the family, and then later as an adult going to Monday Night Football parties or watching it in various bars all over the country.

They say it's moving to ESPN but it won't be the same. But I guess it's inevitable as John Madden and Al Michaels are getting old and I don't think the ratings have been that great. Ah well, it's another American institution ending and a sad night for football fans the world over.

I don't know about you, but ESPN has the worst announcers! Some of those guys are like so illiterate. Let's hope they get better broadcasters. Hey, does this mean we won't get to see the jumprope competition or the those huge guys chopping logs on ESPN anymmore?

I can't end the posts for the day on such a negative note. I've lost about 10 pounds with all the dramarama going on with car and at work. So once again, my size 8 jeans are fitting again. YEAH! I haven't been able to get into those jeans since I broke up with the red-headed guy. It's nice to have my jeans fit again. Of course, my gigoundous tummy is still there because when I lose weight it comes off my bum and legs first and off my stomach last, but I am very happy to be fitting into my clothes again.

So I guess my new year's resolution for next year is again to try and lose more weight to get rid of my tummy. I'd like to drop another 20 pounds or so and get back into a size 6 which I was starting to get into two years ago before I changed jobs.

I joined weight watchers and although I've been too busy to go to meetings, it must have helped because I did lose weight. Not a lot of weight but enough for my pants to fit again.

This week has been about me having adventures with car care. The back of my car got flooded from all the rain. There was in inch of water on the floor in the backseat of my car. When I took it to the dealership, they told me that the drains in my moon roof were clogged and the clogging caused the rain to seep into me car. Who knew you were supposed to clean the moon roof drains. I have my my moon roof open all the time when I drive because I hate having wind on my face and hair when I drive.

I called my insurance company and they said I could get it covered under flooding. Thank god for car insurance. To drain and clean out my car cost me about $1200, but I only paid the deductible of $250. Okay, that was adventure # 2.

Adventure # 1 which I'm still reeling and in shock about happened in November. I took a friend of mine to the pet store to get a cat scratcher for her new cat and then we went out to dinner. I didn't even drink but I don't need booze to get myself into a dummy car fender bender.

The opening into my driveway is very small and I am usually careful driving into for fear of scraping my car. Well, I guess three rootbeers was enough to get me going because I ended up scraping the passenger side doors of my car. It looked like a some huge animal with sharp claws took a swipe at my car, because I scraped against brick. Oh my god, I am such a bonehead!

I felt like my co-worker at work who ran her BMW into the pylon in the parking garage at the job we both used to be at. We used to always joke that one of us was going to hit the pylon and it was her. My co-worker called her insurance company and the woman told her not to report it because it was an accident she caused herself and based on that, the insurance company would raise her rates.

So I decided not to call my insurance company because I don't need my car insurance rates to get any higher, and instead took it to the shop that repaired my car three or four years ago when I got into that accident on the Bay Bridge. I told another friend of mine about my accident, and she told me that she had similar type accident. She didn't report it as well and never got her SUV fixed.

I think if the scratch wasn't so bad I probably wouldn't have bothered to get it fixed, but it was really, really bad. So I took it the shop and the guy fixed and even gave me a discount because I was a previous customer. But even with the discount, I had to shell out $1,800. God, that really, really hurt! Still does as a matter of fact.

So remember how it's a saying of mine that bad things come in threes, or maybe four as the case may be.

After I picked up my car at the dealer on Friday, the dealership guy told me my airbag light was on and I told him that it was fine when I brought my car. So now I have to take the car back to the shop next week so they can take a look at it and diagnose what's wrong. The dealership guy said they would do it the diagnosis for free because the service people might have done something to my car when they were trying to air it and dry it.

The dang car still smells kind of mildewy but at least the water is gone. I'm going to have to blow some cash in the next couple of months to get the car detailed to see if they can get rid of the smell. I put two new car air fresheners in today hopoing that would help.

And then there was the matter of the knob that controls the side mirrors on my car breaking. That cost me another $100 or so dollar to fix. Then as I'm driving home from the dealership yesterday, I noticed my AC was on. The garage probably had my AC on high to dry the car. Well, now the AC light sometimes doesn't go on, and the airflor switch next to it isn't working.

I swear to god I am not buying a european car again. All my friends who have japanese cars never have this kind of stuff happen to their car!

But wait it's not over. This is bad adventures with my car # 3. After picking up my car from the dealership, I decided I needed to get some things at Target and then at Costco. On the way home from Costco as I'm driving home on 280, I noticed there was a crack in the windshield on the driver side, my side. I was like freaking out. Someone had tried to break into my car. They tried to smash the windshield and as I found out later in the morning, whoever was trying to break into my car had used some kind of sharp instrument to pry open the bottom covering of my windshield. And this all happened in the Costco parking lot because I was in a hurry and just grabbed the first open spot I could which was far from the store entrance. And I'm like okay this is my lesson. I need to park at night as close to the store entrance as possible or to a more populated portion of the parking lot and under a light. Parking far away with no overhead lights is just inviting trouble.

My poor car. Thank god the idiot theives couldn't break my windshield. For all the problems I've had with german fat boy car, my baby has protected me. It's a well-built strong little car, able to take a lot of knocks without totally getting wrecked. But my baby car gets a ton of love too. The owner of the shop that fixed my dented and scratched door told me he could tell my car was well taken care of and that my engine sounded great.

So again for the second time this week I call my insurance company and they said glass damage was covered under my policy. So luckily I was able to get an appointment at noon and my windshield was replaced and all I had to pay was my deductible of $250. My insurance company is so going to hate me and will probably raise my car insurance rates to the sky come renewal.

My car insurance rates area already large just because I live in the city and county of San Francisco. I have a friend who insures two cars and because she lives in Oakland, she insures two cars for less than what I have to pay for my one car. I asked the insurance rep about this once, and they told me car insurance companies determine rates all by zipcode. And apparently I live in the high insurance rate zipcode.

So my holiday car adventures which are far from over have cost me about $2,500 this year. It has not been a very joyous christmas for me financially. I mean I have money to pay for all of this, but still! I could have used that money for other things. I really want to visit M-Square for New Years and drive down to the LB but with my car luck these last two months, I don't know if it's a good idea. Plus, I'm like thinking I probably should just stay home and not wreck my car and not spend any money.

What's trippy is that I just finished paying off my car and I have the title to my car, and now all this crap happens. What is up with that? I guess I should try to be positive. Bad things are happening to my car and luckily not to me personally. But still, I'm the one who has to pay when bad things happen to my car. And yes, I was an amazing dumb dumb bonehead for hitting the side of my apartment building but at least no one saw me. My friend hit another car at her parking garage and the parkkng attendant saw her and reported her to the police and now she's got a point on her license. Apparently when you hit a stationery vehicle it's considered a moving violation. So things could be bad for me like her friend because having points on your license automatically raises your car insurance rates.

I'm like way whining here but it's been a horrible four weeks I think. The only positive things things are I have a new passenger side door, which is great because there were a couple of scratches on that door. Now my car almost looks brand new. I also have a new windshield, which means those stupid college parking stickers that I stuck on inside of my windshield and which I couldn't take off are now gone.

And of course, M-Square and I survived the winter holidays which makes everyone cranky and depressed. We're still together and it's my bestest christmas present ever!

Merry Christmas eve everyone! I'm at home stuffed from eating lobster. M-Square is spending Christmas eve with his kids. Yes, the guy has children. I received an early taste of what the winter holidays will be like with this guy, and it's so unknown territory for me. My parents stayed together so I am clueless of the protocol of divorced parents and their kids. It's a hard world to be in for a kid and for the parents, I think.

M-Square has never seen his kids at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, so this Christmas is a first and very, very big deal for him. My friend Melissa was telling me about her boyfriend and his issues with the holidays since he is from a divorced home. She says years later as an adult he still get depressed over the holidays. Melissa told me that either I get used to it or I get out now.

M-Square and I celebrated our 6-month anniversary on Friday. He said 6-months was a milestone for him, and I told him for me too! It's a been a long and rocky six months, but we're still together and us still together is my best christmas gift ever!

So okay, I'm alone on Christmas but I think it's fine. I am seriously dreading next Christmas with me in LA and us most likely living together and having to deal with his kids and the holidays. A friend of mine told me I will always be the evil stepmother ... something to look forward to huh?

Yes, I am still here! Thanks for asking. I've been busy at work and having a case of the blue meanies and the holiday blues. M-Square and I are still together which is my best Christmas present ever, but ... it's been a shaky couple of weeks. What is about the holidays that freaks everyone including myself out!

I decided I completely and totally hate my job and that I will never be promoted working for the people that I do. My boss' boss totally hates and is jealous of me. My cubemate, whom I've grown very close to in these last three months, suffers from the same fate. She's a smart kid who just graduated from Stanford, and my boss' boss shut her down because she came up with ideas that my boss' boss hadn't even thought of. The poor dumb witch couldn't take it and starting getting mean. It's the same thing that happened to me.

But, you know what? I don't care. I can't care! My immediate boss is really nice, and she told me if I wanted to move to Southern California to be with M-Square, I can still keep my job. And this is the only reason I am staying in my current job, even though it is spiritually totally killing me. It's so difficult to know that I don't dare sound intelligent because I know I'll get shut down for fear of showing my boss' boss up. But whatever!!! That is her karma and I'm a total believer in karma.

As soon as I move to SoCal and get settled with M-Square, I can start job hunting again. But until then, I'm going to have to be very British and have a stiff upper lip and just deal with it.

The people at Blue Calico are so nice. They sell dinnerware from the Burgess Dorling & Leigh's Middleport Pottery, the oldest continuously producing pottery in Staffordshire, England. Burgess Dorling & Leigh, maker of Burleighware®, is the only pottery in Stoke-on-Trent which makes all of its blue and white ware using the ancient transfer-print process.

I have the Blue Arden pattern and my teacup saucer broke, and they said they would contact the Pottery to find out if they have extra stock or could have one made for me since they don't make the particular teacup and saucer set I have anymore. Aren't they great?

I am a blue and white dish fiend! All my dinnerware is blue and white, and I especially love English dinnerware. I have Burleighware and Spode. I also love Denby too, and would buy them if they made blue and white dishes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm at home now and my tummy is completely distended! I didn't eat breakfast hoping that would help, but I ate too much and I now my tummy totally hurts. Oh well! I had a fun dinner at my friend's house. Her fiance's son and his wife and kid were there and a guy friend of ours hadn't seeen in years, who brought two fo his friends.

I made maple glazed carrots and broccoli with a crunchy bread crumb topping with orange zest. I found the most heavenly citrus zester! It's so delightful to have a tool that makes your cooking chore so easy. I'm going to have get one for all of my friends. Who doesn't need a amazing citruz zester!

I spoke to M-Square this morning before he took off to see his kids. I miss him, and I guess if we stay together I'm going to have get used to him having to be with his kids during the holidays. I think the next time I have thanksgiving it will be somewhere in Orange County with M-Square and his kids.

My aunt from Hawaii called and I told her about him. She liked that he once played football for University of Hawaii. My cousin is going to look him up in the alumni database to see if she can find anything about him. My cousin, who is an assistant DA on Kauai, went to undergrad and law school at UH.

But my Thanksgiving day wasn't a wasted day. I got up early and did two loads of laundry and then cleaned out my storage closet. I'm going to make a trip to the Salvation Army this weekend to give away stuff. I've got to start paring down my possessions if I'm going to move to Southern California in six months.

I attended the screenwriting group last Sunday and everyone was very nice. I wrote a log line and synopsis for the screenplay I wanted to work on, and got really great feedback. Since I got along very well with the group, they told me I could stay. This screenwriting group has been together for 15 years so I was a little intimidated joining such a long-standing group. But it worked out fine.

One girl was saying how she rewrote her script 99 times, but it was worth it because her agent optioned it. She has another script that is currently being looked at by all these Hollywood production companies.

Madeline is great! She gives very constructive feedback and she definitely knows her stuff having been a TV writer for many years. I didn't feel so bad about my long-distance relationship with M-Square when I heard that Madeline's boyfriend lives in Houston. She used to live there and that's how they met, but then she relocated to LA. He works for NASA and has a good job and since he doesn't have long to retire, he stayed in Houston.

A really good friend of mine who lives in Irvine, met her husband by chance when he was down there visiting. They dated for nine months long distance until they decided it was serious and he relocated his job to be near her. They've been married for a long time and just adopted twin boys. She told me to go slow and to be very sure before I relocate. She said to wait to see if we were still togther by our one year anniversary before I even consider relocating. That's six months away.

It seems like a long time but I know it's not. The time will fly like it usually does and is. Hopefully M-Square's job will get better. I really think he should stick with it because the opportunity for profit sharing is great, but if it doesn't calm down I think he'll leave.

I think I am fighting some kind of stomach flu because I come home exhausted and my tummy keeps hurting. I so haven't felt like writing since I'm not feeling very well.

I just sit on my bed and watch tv and then fall asleep, but it doesn't matter how much sleep I get because I still wake up not feeling quite well.

M-Square is still having work problems and that's too bad. It's so hard to have a relationship when your work life is just stressful and you just want to quit your job. Some days are better than others but on the whole, he is feeling very rotten and stressed out.

We won't be spending Thankgiving together since he is having his kids over. It's way too soon for me to be meeting them.

I got into a little fender bender with my car when I accidentally knicked the side of my apartment building as I was pulling into my very narrow opening. I am usually so careful but not this time. OUCH! The bonehead accident cost a pretty penny to repair, so maybe it's just as well that I'm staying home and not spending any money.

On a whim, I asked my boss if it would be okay if I relocated down to Southern California and kept my job and she said it was fine. She lives in Orange County and flies up here every two weeks. My company wouldn't pay for my relocation, but I could work out of our LA office which is near Marina del Ray.

So for now, I have decided to job hunting. I think it would be better if I have a job if I ever decide to move closer to M-Square. Relocation is stressful enough without having to find another job. There's a guy who works for my company who is relocating down to LA and keeping his job, so it can be done. I had lunch with a girl from the LA office and she said a new guy just got hired in the LA office who is commuting from the Newport Beach area, and I'm thinking if I ever move down there that we perhaps could commute together.

I wish I knew what to do to get over this illness. My stomach is constantly hurting and I have these little aches and pains, not to mention I get tired very easily.

I can see lighting outside of my window and I'm hearing thunder. I can't even remember the last time that there's been a thunderstorm in San Francisco. It's so weird!

Talk about Do-Gooders Writing Bad Propositions! Dummies wrote a ban on handguns in San Francisco, which is of couse well meaning but dumb! SF is running out of money and now the City is going to spend money to defend a stupid law because the gun lobby is suing us. The only people who makes good in this scenario is the damned lawyers! Didn't people expect this to happen? And if they did, wouldn't it have been better not to even put the proposition on the ballot? Talk about fiscal irresponsibility ... I knew this was going to happen so I couldn't vote yes on it and sure enough the suit gets filed immediately.

It's so interesting to read about the riots in France. The French government seem to have absolutely no idea what to do. Some are saying the French riots are the results of multiculturalism gone wrong. You have to wonder if they're right. The best thing about assimilation is it makes people have a common bond, and having a common bond makes sense for people living in community. But anti-assimilationists have been haivng a free reign in the culture wars and I'm wondering what they are saying about the French riots. I'm sure they're theorizing that it's all economics, but is it? That's just way too simplistic don't you think?

Rainer Werner Fassbinder made a film in 1974 called "Ali-Fear Eats the Soul" and I think his commentary on the issues of immigration in Germany was a harbinger of the future. If he were alive today, Fassbinder would say that riots were in France were inevitable and that France should have been planning for it to happen.

I am now at 10,011 words, which means I am caught up for my word count for Sunday. I am taking a break before I work on tonight's word count. I really like the working in on hour increments and then taking a break. Hopefully, I'll be able do get two writing sessions done tonight and stil make my word count for today. But we'll see.

The 49ers lost and I think I will have to do more solid hours of writing to get to my 10,002 word count total for the day. I like writing in one hour increments and then taking a break. That was the advice on the Nanowrimo website and I'm taking it. I'm up to 6,238 words. I have about 4,000 words to go.

Maybe I need to write at home like this more often. I'm sitting on my bed listening to the classical music station and I have the 49er/NY Giants game on and I'm tying on my laptop. When I was writing earier, I had the Raiders/Kansas City game on. It's kind of almost like being in a cafe. There's music and I have something that I look at when I feel bored.

The 49ers are losing, but it's only the end of the third quarter. It would be nice if they could pull it out like they did last week and win. It's cold and wet and foggy outside. I went to the greek fruit and veggie store to buy some blueberries. Blueberries were like $4.99 per box. God, that's expensive, but I need my blueberries.

I am behind in my Nanowrimo word count. I'm supposed to be up to 10,002 words as of today, and I'm only at 4,163. I think I can get caught up today if I have three one-hour writing sessions. So I'm listening to the classical music station and watching the Oakland Raiders Kansas City Game football game.

I got the phone number of a woman from Los Angeles who is leading a screenwriting group in Cupertino once a month from a friend of mine. I spoke to her at work on Thursday and had to pitch my screenplay idea to her. That was nerve-wracking. But she liked in and invited me to her all day November 13 session. I have to bring a log line for my screenplay and a one to three page synopsis.

The woman's name is Madeline Dimaggio and this is her website; Create a Script. My friend has taken her seminar seven times and has written seven scripts. She says the woman is fantastic. Her seminar is six weeks long and I already missed the first session, but Madeline said I could come to session # 2. The seminars are held once a month for six months. I would have to start wriitng my screenplay right after I finish Nanowrimo in time for the next session in December, if I decide I like the group.

Madeline suggested I come to the November 13 session to check out the group and if I decided I like them, then I would continue. None of the people in the group has sold a screenplay although a couple of people have have agents and with scripts that have been optioned. My guess is these people are also novelists if they have agents. I've taken screenwriting classes in the South Bay before and most of the people I met at these seminars were novelists who had published books and agents and wanted to sell a screenplay. The friend who recommended this seminar has a published non-ficiton book and an agent and is working on her second book. She's trying to break into ficiton and screenwriting.

I pitched Madeline my silicon valley gold digger's story and told her it was a comedy. I was so not prepared to pitch that story and actually haven't thought about it in years. I really should be working on my baseball screenplay, but I haven't finished the second draft yet and I already know how I'm going to rework the final and third draft so I don't really need any help there.

I've never written a comedy before. When I was taking acting classes both of my acting teachers said I had natural comedic timing, so I'm curious if that sense of timing will translate into my writing. One of my acting teachers said my comedic timing was so natural that he couldn't see me doing anything but comedy. He said I reminded him of Elaine May, whom he had worked with in New York. Elaine May wrote "Heaven Can Wait" with Warren Beatty and adapted Joe Klein's "Primary Colors" for the screen. So we'll see.

Comedy is supposed to be hardest genre to write. You can't write funny. I know when I was acting I never did anything to be funny, and whatever I did just was comedic. I kept telling my acting teacher that I didn't know what I was doing that was so funny, and he said because I was a natural and I was always like "whatever".

As I've been typing, Oakland is now leading Kansas City 23-20 and there are only five second left in the game. There's some guy on the Oakland Raiders coaching staff who looks exactly like M-Square. I wonder who that guy is. He's the bulky bearded blondie guy. Oh well, Kansas City just scored a touchdown. Game over. Let's hope the 49ers have better luck.

I just checked the Oakland Raiders' website and if you want to see M-Square's twin, his name is Rob Ryan who is the defensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders. Check this guy out; Rob Ryan - M-Square's twin. How funny.

Today was Day 1 of Nanwrimo and I wrote 1,726 words. I am starting work on my novel series, "The Elf Girl Chronicles". I never did find that piece of paper with the screenplay idea that I came up with in January and wanted to turn into a novel, so I figured why not start work on my novel series.

I titled the novel, "The Elf Girl Chronicles Book 1: The Prophecy". But boy writing it tonight was like pulling teeth. I didn't know whether to write it in first or third person. I started out in first which was fine for an introduction I suppose, then switched to third person to tell the rest of the story.

Talk about bad, bad, bad first draft writing. But oh well, at least I'm writing and I made my word count. I didn't even draft an outline, which is so not like. I'm going to have to draft an outline this weekend, because I won't be able to write without a road map for very long.

And names, I didn't even have time to come up with good character names, so I am so making them up as I write. Oh well, it's only a very badly written first draft right?