Signs that the book Helter Skelter is scaring the shit out of me:

1. I find myself constantly checking the back seat and the floor of the passenger seat of my car through the window to make sure there's no one there before I get in.

2. I check for people lurking around my building and inside the garage before I pull in.

3. I was leaving work on Monday and shared the elevator with another woman. Sometime in the middle of the ride, she dropped a full plastic bottle of water and it hit the floor with a bang. I leap away from the sound in sheer panic, slamming into the side of the elevator. Unfortunately, this woman was one of the psychiatrists who shares an office on our floor. Fortunately, her attention had been focused on picking up the bottle and she hadn't witnessed my extreme reaction nor my look of pure terror.

4. Later that night, I was in the garage of my building walking to my car on the way to the gym. My neighbor must have gotten home not too long ago because his engine, as it cooled down, suddenly made a loud pop. I dove out of the way ala duck and cover, then frantically inspected the area of his car to check for persons hiding inside or around the car. There was nobody.

5. After spending 4 hours at a bookstore reading the book, I went home to watch the pilot of Lost. I had the lights turned out and I was in bed, when Reggie walked in close to midnight. Even though he had called no more than half an hour before to say he was on the way, I was nonetheless so terrified to see a dark figure suddenly enter my room that I screamed and catapulted the remote control that had been loosely cradled in my hand into a wall across the room.

I plan to marathon the rest of the book right after work while there's still light out, just to have it finished so I can rectify its damage to my psyche with children's videos, images of petting zoos and happy, happy thoughts.

Last night, the phone rang and the caller ID popped up as Kristi Lang* (name slightly changed). I picked it up and the person hung up.

Then, sometime around 3AM, yes, I repeat, 3AM, the phone rings again. Now, I'm the type who gets really jumpy when the phone rings in the middle of the night, because you never get good news when the phone rings in the middle of the night. I look at the caller ID and it says Private Caller, which gets me more scared because that's how my parents' number comes up. So I pick it up in a mild panic, and this chick goes (none too politely), "Is Richard there?" I'm uber-irritated because I don't know who the fuck Richard is, but he sure as hell isn't at my house at 3am so I tell her she has the wrong number. She quickly hangs up. About 5 minutes later, the phone wakes me up again and this time, the ID says, "Kristi Lang." I answer the phone and she says, "Is Richard there?" I yell, "You called me last night! There isn't a Richard here." She asks me if this is a new number and I say no, and then she hangs up.

So I'm really irritated because I'm just not the type of person who likes being woken up, especially by really bitchy strangers looking for their mensfolk. But then I've also been reading Helter Skelter which is all about the Charlie Manson cult and the brutal Tate murders, which has had me sleeping with the light on when I'm home alone because it scares the hell out of me. So now a part of me is irritated for getting woken up, and another part of me is scared that the call was someone who was checking to make sure I was at home in preparation of breaking in and killing me. I decided the best defense would be to curl up in a fetal position and go back to sleep, but I have to say, when I woke up this morning, I was really tired and cranky and irritated with that caller.

So I did a reverse search on her phone number and came up with her address. I'm thinking if I were evil, I could probably do something with it, like send her weird mindfuck things in the mail like cut out pictures of farm animals or disposable kitchen utensils at random intervals. Or if I were just mildly evil, I could call her at 3am tomorrow night and ask her if Richard was there.

Mostly, I think I'm just irritated that she woke me up at 3am twice, but wasn't even polite enough to apologize.

Richard...your chick is rude.

Since Reggie has been working so hard all week, when he left Brian and I in the elevator to run back to the car to grab videos, we thought we would treat him to an improvised tableaux upon his return...

Why You Never Use The Men's Room No Matter How Empty the Building Looks

So this happened a few weeks ago but I've finally had the chance to talk about it.

It was about 7:30pm and I had to run back to the office to pick-up a book I'd forgotten. I'd been at the Starbuck's down the street doing some writing, and as you all know, coffee has a filling effect on your bladder. So I go to the office, wait the 10 minutes it takes for our elevator to decide to do its only salaried task, and get to the 3rd floor when I realize: 1. I really have to pee badly; 2. Standing in front of the elevator, I'm exactly at the halfway point between my office and the bathrooms; 3. To use the ladies' room, I will have to go to my office, figure out which unlabeled key on my keychain is the key to the office, unlock the door and grab the bathroom key before heading all the way to the exact opposite end of the building to get to the ladies' room; 4. I can minimize the amount of walking distance, time and probability that I will wet my pants if I just go to the men's room which remains unlocked at all times (the building is not as afraid of liability from a man getting raped in an office bathroom).

So being the lazy, lacking-in-bladder-control, always-waiting-until-the-last-moment person I am, I decide that since it's 7:30 at night and there's clearly no one else in the building except for the cleaning guys who are on the first floor, I'll just use the men's room. I'll be in and out in 1 minute, no sweat.

As expected, the door is unlocked and the room is empty. There are two urinals along the wall on the right as you enter, and a single stall tucked in around the corner to the left. Since I have not yet mastered the art of peeing standing up the way some men have mastered the art of peeing sitting down, I use the stall. I do my business very quickly and everything is fine, but just as I've finished putting on my belt, I hear someone come in. I freeze, clearly realizing my demise of being trapped in a bathroom. I hear the man walk around the corner and then curse under his breath. I presume that he had probably entered the bathroom planning to take a dump, but then was irritated by the fact that someone was already inside the lone stall.

I figured that if I didn't come out and he really had to go, he would probably head downstairs to one of the bathrooms on the other floors. I make a lot of noise playing with the toilet paper dispenser like I'm in no hurry to come out, and finally I hear the door open and close. I wait for a few seconds. Blissful silence.

Jubilated, I come rushing out of the stall, only to turn the corner and find that--not only has that man not left, but there are now TWO men standing in front of the urinals right next to the door to freedom, spread-eagled, weiners in hand, getting ready to take simultaneous pisses. I freeze, calculating my chances of getting out of here without a mess of embarassment, and realize that their backs are to me and they are busy trying not to acknowledge each other, so I still could conceivably slip out the door as long as both of their heads were staring straight ahead at the tiled wall.

So I quietly and stealthily move towards the door and even get as far as having my hand on the handle, but as soon as I turn it, the damn thing squeaks and the man closest to the door turns around and looks at me.

"Uh..................sorry?" is all I manage to mumble as I streak out the door and run the whole way across the building and into my office. I wait there for about 20 minutes, trying to figure out what would be the "right" time to come out in which I would be able to not run into these guys again and even worse, get stuck riding the elevator down with them. I've worked late on many occasions and I've never seen anyone else on my floor at that hour, and I've never used the men's room no matter how badly I've had to go when our office restroom key goes missing, and of all nights, I get caught by not one, but TWO men in the men's room.

So finally I venture out, sneaking down the stairwell to the floor below, call the elevator and hide behind a pillar until the elevator comes and I can ensure that it's empty, then take it down and run out of the building.

While this, unfortunately, isn't the first time I've (accidentally) walked into a populated men's room, usually I walk in through the entrance, realize my mistake and quickly hurry back out. It just seemed more embarassing this time because these guys (especially the first guy) had obviously been in there for a while, and all of a sudden, I come out from INSIDE the bathroom, while they've basically got their manhoods exposed. I wonder if it feels like as much of a violation as it would if a girl were say, sitting in a stall with her pants down and a guy came bursting in.

Regardless, I hope those guys can't tell Asian girls apart and won't recognize me. There's another Asian girl who works in the building. Maybe I'm lucky and they think it's her.

Denver, Colorado (aka White People Galore)

The weekend before last found us in Denver, home of pristine snow-capped mountains and Rocky Mountain Oysters, which I hear are surprisingly stringy. Since Reggie and I average a major fight about every two weeks, we were due for one the week of, which put this trip in jeopardy. Luckily, we managed to pull it together in time to get on a plane with the Michigan crowd, consisting of Sareet, AD, Josh, Courtney, Hong and Amol. We were also joined by this greasy rock-star, villain-in-a-set-in-Miami-Bruckheimer-movie dude who we had to turn the plane around for because he told the stewardess that he had a machine gun in his bag, which was sitting in his lap. Hong theorized that the guy was referring to his penis, but nevertheless, we didn't get past the runway before they took us back to the gate and escorted the snakeskin-wearing gentleman off the plane (note to self: Do not refer to my penis as a machine gun until AFTER landing at destination, at which time stewardess will be free to fully express suitable admiration).

We met up with Amol's girlfriend Annie (flying in from Salt Lake City) and Sareet's Max at the airport, and soon packed a clown minivan full of enough luggage to fill Gilligan's Island and headed to Vail. Max had rented a cute little wood cabin at the resort facing the slopes which we couldn't see at night but imagined must be beautiful. In a cursory search of the cupboards, the boys discovered a VHS copy of Executive Decision (starring Steven Seagal and Kurt Russell), which ran continuously on the TV throughout our stay at Vail.

The next day, everyone went skiing except for Reggie and I who were left behind due to bum knees. Since we've been adamant about some day catching a fish, we figured Colorado would provide stellar fishing, despite the fact it still displayed winter-like conditions. We hiked around the village (where we noted that we saw more black people in China than in Vail, and where I also noted that The Bachelorette's Ryan had lived here) until we found a place that offered a guide and equipment for flyfishing for $275. We asked if it was a good time to go fishing and they told us it was a perfect time. The guide showed up and fit us in waders, making us look like burly meatpacking workers. I proceeded to do a dramatic reinactment of Charlize Theron from North County fighting for women's rights in a blue collar man's world, but since I hadn't seen the movie and only knew the clip they used for the Oscar's, I just kept screaming at Reggie to, "GET IN THE CAR!"

Mercury Retrograde made the staff of the fishing store unable to print out a pair of fishing licenses for us, so the guide had to take us to Kroger's to try to obtain licenses. Unfortunately, the woman at Kroger's couldn't print out our licenses either, which makes me suspect that in Colorado, people potentially spell "print" as C-A-N-C-E-L. We finally manage to get a pair of temporary licenses, and we're off to the river to fly fish.

Reggie and I have never fly-fished before, but the guide was great and gave us a short lesson. Fly fishing is a lot about timing--pulling the line as soon as you feel a tug and maintaining the tension, since the hooks are barb-less. We got into the water, which is the strangest sensation because I could feel freezing water between my boots and my wader, and my natural instinct when water gets into my shoes is that it's a very, very bad situation. I managed to drop first one glove then the other in the water, so I was more or less fishing with bare hands when it started snowing. We trooped it out in the freezing cold and both managed to each catch 1 tiny fish and 1 stick. At one point, the snow was coming down heavily and the guide said to me, "You guys are crazy." I asked him why and he said, "Because you guys are fishing while it's snowing." Keep in mind, everyone back at the store had told us it was a "perfect" time to go fishing.

By the time we got back to the car, neither of us could feel our fingers or our toes, but it was fun. It wasn't as fun as it looked in "A River Runs Through It," but I suspect that it would be a lot more fun if it weren't, say, snowing.

Later that night, we headed out to this basement club in Vail Village that was packed in a way that tensions ran high because you couldn't move without hitting someone (ie...a girl elbowed me in the eye trying to motion to a friend). The music was okay (good music if it were the early 90's) and the crowd was heavily made up of Europeans and drunk hos. When someone on the dance floor farted and nearly killed everyone within a 12 foot radius, we had to leave.

I'm not a huge fan of snow because it's cold. I don't like it when my fingers burn. But the absolute best thing about snow, especially fresh snow, has to be the snowball fights. Outside the club, we got into an internal snowball fight that escalated into the inclusion of strangers. Alliances were formed (Midwest Alliance, Asian Alliance) and it all escalated into Protecting The Bus Stop. Friends and enemies were made that night, and at least one Legend--The Vigilante who threw major-league speed snowballs and launched a surprise attack from the roof of the bus stop--was immortalized. That snowball fight is probably in my Top 10 Most Fun Events of my life. Our drunken asses also launched a minor snowball attack on Amol/Annie and Josh/Courtney as they slept in their beds, which they very much appreciated and thanked us for with expletives.

We headed back to Denver the next day to stay at Max's pad downtown. While everyone settled in for March Madness, a small group of us headed out to explore. We found an ESPN Zone and Reggie and I beat that boxing game where you hold these heavy-ass "gloves" and box animated guys, and the game tells you how many calories you burned. We walked over to city hall where a newsperson interviewed Reggie and I about the incoming storm (I claimed that Denver was due to get 30 feet of snow) and then we asked the twitchiest guy for directions (he left us by walk-walk-skip-skip-turned around and stared at us, then walk-walk-skip-skip-turned around and stared. He did this for a good 100 yards). Even though he could have potentially been a serial killer, his bizarre behavior made me decide to chase him, but I got tired after about 10 yards because of the thin air.

Dinner at Red Lobster followed, then a minor snowball fight and retirement at an early hour to catch a 6am flight (3 am wake up call) the next day.

One thing I've gotta say, when you travel with a good group, even the must mundane things seem fun.

Trip Statistics:

# of Greasy Weirdos Thrown Off a Plane: 1
# of Bags Lost by Airlines: 1
# of Major Skiing Injuries: .5 (minor cases of hurt pride)
# of Rocky Mountain Oysters Knowingly Eaten: 0
# of Times Bus Stop Successfully Protected: 1
# of Buses Assaulted by a Drunk Max: 1
# of Police Cars Assaulted by a Drunk Max: 1
# of potential serial killers chased: 1

In summary, I highly recommend a trip to beautiful and eventful Colorado.

(Sareet also has a funny and detailed recount of the weekend with photos...so here.)

You know you've neglected your blog for too long, when you can't remember your sign-on information...

I've been trapped in the world of reality, where I want to focus on work and career and "building a solid future." I have not been able to focus on such paramount tasks as comparing astrological natal charts of celebrities, surfing the net for gay NBA player rumors, browsing the online dating sites to see if there's anyone I know or pondering if Elton Brand is proportionate in ALL ways. Which means it's about time I get back to those things.

The hardest thing has been starting blog entries but not being able to finish them. This mostly has to do with, again, my employer's annoying insistence that I work during work hours rather than, you know, not working. It's ridiculously unreasonable. I do, however, enjoy surfing porn sites at other people's work stations during after hours, when I'm the only one left in the office to do those evil little deeds I do. Bob in accounting likes farmhouse threesomes? Wow, I would have never known....

(I'm just kidding)

I don't really have anything to say about the Oscars, since the only movie I saw was Crash (and I missed the first 5 minutes), so I really don't have any kind of educated opinion. I do like Jon Stewart as the host and think that man should run for president. I would rather have a hilarious presidency than an idiotically criminal one. My favorite joke? "Bjork Couldn't Be Here Tonight. She Was Trying On Her Dress And Dick Cheney Shot Her..." Did anyone see Jennifer Garner almost fall? THAT'S what you get for shacking up with Ben Affleck. Loser.

I am very proud of Ang Lee though. And Salma Hayek's right boob which looked like a watermelon.

Our lemonade thing which went from a joke to a hobby to a little business is doing really well. We're currently in 6 stores/cafes and on the set of CSI, and we're in negotiations with a few more. The owner of the Houston's chain just bought a case and we're waiting to see where they go with it. Brian still regards it as a joke, but the thing has a life of it's own. We're selling out in all of our locations and Reggie's being stopped by people who recognize him as "the lemonade guy" from the label. Personally, I don't think he's as cute as the Snapple Lady, but you know me and my love for sassy overweight East Coast mamas.

I'm taking an online contemporary business class and have an accounting class starting this week. Considering I don't know how to balance my checkbook and failed statistics twice, it's going to get ugly with accounting.

Mostly, I'm pretty tired all the time.

I think T-Mac's gay. And there's nothing wrong with that.

2/6/06 Updates, Observations and One Exclamation About Another Woman's Boobs

I watched the Super Bowl yesterday at AD's fresh new digs in Culver City with a fully stocked bar, pool table, and dunkable basketball hoop in the backyard-turned-obstacle course when you're trying to keep the ball from rolling too close to a monstrous pile of poop. I had bet $40 on Seattle, which incidentally was the money I bet online in the preseason last year that the Suns would win the Pacific Division. Needless to say, I lost it all, thanks to some shoddy calls by the refs. Honestly, I'm really upset about the supposedly touchdown by Big Ben. It was a great block, in my opinion. But what do I know about football. I drafted 4 quarterbacks and 3 kickers on my very first fantasy team this year.

I think I forgot to mention on my blog that I went to China over Christmas. It was great and I highly recommend hiking the Great Wall which is both wondrous, mind-blowing, and a great workout for the calves, thighs and buns. Michael almost got beaten up by an angry Chinese mob then thrown into a Communist prison...I think it will take me a very long time to be able to talk about that incident, and I suspect that whole thing is why I haven't found the will to blog about the trip. But overall, it was great...the squat toilets are absolutely disgusting, the food is cheap and good, the meat is mysterious, the sites are beautiful and interesting, and Shanghai is a Space City. Oh. And beer is 33 cents a can.

We have basically finished filming the short film for better or for worse...the pickup shoot was on January 21st, and it went incredibly well despite the 20 degree weather and shooting from 11am until 4am outdoors. We needed/wanted about 53 shots to give us the coverage needed to edit everything, and we got 38. As they say, we didn't get everything we wanted, but we got what we needed to put together a film. Now it's a race against the clock to finish post, since our sound designer is leaving the country for months at the end of February, so we have to get that all settled. Which reminds me, I have to find a composer ASAP. This whole movie has been really stressful, as indie productions are when you don't have the manpower to cover all the individual duties and very few people have to wear too many hats. I had been having intense stomach and chest pains last month during the preparation for the shoot that miraculously disappeared after the shoot. Which was unfortunate because it took me about a month to get in to see my doctor, so when I finally got an appointment 5 days after the shoot, I was feeling fine and couldn't convince him that anything was wrong with me. No pain equals no drugs and by that I mean, no case for medical marijuana.

Reggie and I went through a rough spot that had a lot to do with the fact that we work together on so many projects and spend almost all of our time outside of our respective jobs together because of them. Mix that in with my commitment reluctance, his fear of abandonment and the fact that he's a couple person and I'm a lone wolf, and we were all kinds of unhappy-with-each-other-all-up-in-here. We went on a break that did or did not allow me to hit on certain people depending on how you interpreted the break (he wasn't interested), and now we're working on boundaries that will hopefully help out.

Now we're concentrating on the lemonade (we're in 3 more stores and on the set of CSI) and the business plan for the restaurant. I'm taking a class in restaurant operations and have 3 classes starting up next week (web design, accounting, corporations). And I hope as soon as I get a handle on the workload, I can get a job at Starbucks to experience their training program and get an inside look at their operations and corporate structure.

I'm starting to wonder how my full-time job is going to work around this, both in terms of time and desire. At work, I feel like that wife who's been punched too many times in the head...I just walk around dazed and scared of leaving the kitchen (aka breakroom). Actually, I'm usually holed up in my office, sometimes with the lights off, just trying to motor through stuff, hoping it'll make the days pass faster. But I think at some point, there's not going to be enough time or energy in the day to do everything, and I'm going to have to make a decision. And I'm going to have to face the fact that I'm a whore for a skimpy paycheck, and decide if I have the guts to go without a net.

In the meantime, I'm back in the universe of 24 obsession. Jack Bauer has to be the baddest-ass ever to hit the screen. "The only reason you're still conscious is because I don't want to carry you." That's what I tell my coworkers now whenever they piss me off.

Which leads me to...did anyone see that episode where Jack asks his girlfriend to come pick up her son who he'd kidnapped in a helicopter when he caught the kid spying on him? You know when they first show up in that parking lot and he goes, there's your mom, and they show her standing outside her car? Her assets are unignorably massive. I said to Reggie, "Oh my god, her boobs are huge!" They were the equivalent of that rack of ribs that tips over Fred Flinstone's car. Anyway, I read the Television Without Pity recap of the episode today, and sure enough, I wasn't the only one who noticed it because the recapper wrote:

He and Derek have arrived at the parking lot, Kiefer pulls into a spot and says, "There's your mom." He somehow manages not to say, "There's your mom's boobs." I'm not much of a breast man, but those things are visible from space right now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10788476/

The police can do whatever they want.

Really, it's the stress of feeling the weight of everything inside me with no outlet. It's probably as much my own fault as anything else why I've been more cut off from the world and my friends and support network. There just always seems to be ambitions to fulfill, until you stop one day and ask yourself if ambition is the fuel which keeps you running away.

What is it that I'm refusing to face? It hasn't gone unnoticed that I haven't been blogging as much, though it's not from lack of things to ponder and inner turmoil and observations. I can't go through life without using my legs when I know full well that my legs are perfectly fine.

I had a dream the other night where I was walking through the door of a hospital to the world outside with someone who was guiding me, when my legs went rubbery and I couldn't stand up. I was so scared that he would leave me there because I couldn't walk and I wouldn't be able to get outside. So I tried really hard to stand up but my legs had no strength in them, and I was terrified that he would see me and decide I was deadweight and leave me in there. It was imperative that I got outside. And when I finally did, I felt relieved at being free, but the place was dark and dirty.

I just need answers. But the answers demand that you risk everything before they reveal themselves to you. And everything just seems like a lot to potentially lose, but really, there's no choice. You have to do whatever it takes to at least give yourself a chance to make the most out of your life.

you can tell a lot about a person by who they high dial.

i was surprised by my choice.

Why being shy is awful.

1. You have trouble looking people in the eye when they talk to you, and when you make an effort to maintain eye contact, you worry that they think you're staring.
2. Your words don't sound the same outside of your head as they did inside, and the more conscious you are that you're stumbling, the more you stumble until you can't remember what it was you were saying.
3. You have a desperate fear of awkward silences.
4. You assume everyone is looking at you.
5. You anxiously pray that your fly isn't down every time someone walks by.
6. You suddenly have to concentrate on walking evenly whenever you notice someone staring at you.
6. You sometimes can't listen to what people are saying in conversation because you are so anxious to get out of that conversation.
7. You get so excited about meeting people and wanting to know their life stories, but you're too afraid to ask anything.
8. You never find out as much as you would like to know about people.

It never seems to make sense. How sometimes life can take you further and further away from who you are.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10929780/site/newsweek/

Really fuckin' cool.

http://www.vgmerchandise.com/misc.html

Read it, then let's form a support group because the world doesn't make sense to me anymore.

This is how we roll.

Amusing article about Amsterdam

If wealth is measured by the amount of true love, compassion and generosity in a person's life, some people die very poor, pathetic people.

Interesting Tidbits

I hope the one for the eyes works. I've been having trouble with my vision lately...for someone with supposedly 20/20 after having Lasik a few years ago, I'm finding that sometimes I can't even recognize people who are standing a room's length away. Reading the tiny print in English on signs when I was in China was hell. I'm spending way too much time in front of a computer.

Reason to Get Drunk #3948

Once again, Lengli's blog provides us with a great link: Celebrity Facial Recognition Matching!

You upload a picture of yourself and it tells you what celebrities you match up with. I apparently look like no male celebrities (I was actually disappointed since one of Lengli's friend's got John Tesh which gave me the giggles to no end), but I did run the gamut from Meg Ryan to Diana Ross, leaving the common denominator to be...trainwrecks (?).

We're triplets!

No wait...I just did it again with another picture and got...Danny DeVito (48%).

You want to make out with me. RIGHT now.

The subsequent matching of David Duchovny (48%) did nothing for my crushed sense of self worth. And what's funnier, is I matched both Monica Lewinski (44%) and Hillary Clinton (42%).

Bill Clinton wants me.

I do consistently get Zhang Ziyi. I think the software has an inkling that I might be Asian.

Reggie on the other hand, looks like Denzel Washington (68%), Eddie Murphy (61%) and Mira Sorvino (51%). Hee!

(Reggie's the Rhoda...)

1st Post of 2006

I've been putting off this post, back when it was titled Last Post of 2005, for whatever reason my conscious mind can't wrap around, or rather, too many reasons tangled into a maddening little knot to make any sense of. 2005 was a year that went by in such a blur, it made me realize the speed in which our lives are carried by the currents, and the urgency in which we have to taste the colors and textures and energies around us so that life has not been wasted on us. It's the first year where I considered aging as a reality rather than an abstract, and wondered who I would be years from now, and how I would reflect upon who I was and what I had stood for. One thing that marked 2005 was a newfound thankfulness for the blessings a person encounters when he or she keeps themselves open by stepping out of the now and appreciating everything that is alive and present...from the warmth of a good friend's smile, to the sound of the night when it whispers its secrets to itself in the darkness. Even surfing through blogs and reading the truths of hundreds of strangers who have the courage to reveal their life stories and thoughts and most vulnerable fiber in hopes that within their echoing into the dimensions of the universe, someone or something may echo back. Every person's personal battles and ways of sorting through the confusion of life and existing is an inspiration to those who dare to wonder what it is we're supposed to be doing, and it makes me think that throughout all of our collective stumbling, on some higher level, we're all on the right track.

There are times when I'm engaged in a conversation with friends, and I look around and feel a deep sense of appreciation for the goodness that glows from within the people in my life. No matter what their daily masks, my friends are intelligent, witty, kind and sincere, and have a driving curiosity that expands their horizons and the horizons of those around them. They are people who make those around them better people, just by their willingness to share in the experience of life and grow. I know a lot of people look at their friends and think, I've got a great set of friends, and I think that's not just the right way, but the only way. So often we let people into our lives who don't wish us the best or want us to grow, or who don't want us to achieve our full potential. But when you surround yourself with people who help you expand or even give you the seemingly little things at the most precise times like a needed laugh or kindly hug when you most need it, it makes all the difference in the world. And I just don't think people tell each other often enough or sufficiently enough that they're appreciated, so all of you who are in my life, the Michigan gang, the UCLA gang, the husband, the wife, the Hooch and the Nanny, the kids in the Midwest and the kids in the East, the artists, the rebels and the kids addicted to suits, the kids I haven't talked to in years and the kids I see every day, even the strangers I know only from your generosity in sharing your stories and thoughts on the internet, every single one of you under this blanketing sky...I think about all of you probably more often than you might think...and I want you all to know that I'm grateful for your existence and your truth to yourselves, and I hope you all have a wonderful 2006.