fat

... i am!
yes, it's true. much as my adoring boyfriend will deny it, it's time i faced the fact. i am overweight. the stress and time limitations of the past year have pushed me over the edge of deniability. none of my clothes fit me anymore. it's kind of depressing. no more excuses, i've got to move exercise up to the top of my priority list!

on another note, i will be _so_ glad when this low-rise craze if over. frankly, i'm tired of seeing everyone's asses hanging out of their pants. and with the popularity of thong underwear... it just makes me shudder. i don't need someone's butt crack smilingback at me.

seeking something

i've been lacking something in my life lately, a sense of higher purpose, maybe. my nose has been to the grindstone too long, i need to look out, gain some perspective. i've been feeling this way ever since my mom passed away a couple of years back. the sense of loss is profound and irrecoverable. true, time makes it less acute, but the pain and the emptiness are still there, the abyss is still there, unable to be closed or filled.

in the meantime, i've gotten indolent, unmotivated. in my school program, i'm just barely making it by. why? because i have a hard time convincing myself that i care about anything, about life, about living, about progress. on some level, i do know that i care, and there are brief moments when the clouds part and a ray of light shines down and i see, clearly, a bright future glimmering in the distance. and then the mist closes around me and i feel lost again, blundering through the world, blind beyond the sight of my two hands.

it's a difficult situation to be in. i need to discipline myself, regain some of the will power that i've lost. some one once told me, "make your word count." i want to stand by that. i want to be able to say i'm going to do something, and then do everything i can to make it happen. i'm so far from that now that my word is a flimsy piece of foil that tears and crumbles easily with the slightest disturbance. but your word is the most direct link between thought and deed. if you want to pray for something, you have to earn, make the universe understand you deserve it, by first following through on your word.

move over, ny

more proof that we shouldn't be living in NY's food shadow any longer:

Bay Area nabs lion's share of Beard award nominations.

i don't have anything intelligent to post...

i just feel like writing something, anything undirected. i feel strange, a little hollow maybe - i can't quite put my finger on it. i've been thinking about the passage of time, growing older. and dreams, of course. dreams have to be good for something, right? they are powerful gifts bestowed on us by our subconscience. i can't ignore them, but i can't make sense of them in the light of day. so i incorporate them into my fiction. all my book ideas either stem from or contain a dream.

maybe that's why i like writing fantasy?

i have issues with reality

ryan and i finished watching one of my (if not my ultimate) favorite t.v. series _ever_, bablyon 5.

i cried, of course. i hate saying good bye. for the last 5 seasons, i've shared sorrow, joy, and triumph with the members of this space station. but more than that, at the end of the journey, i;m left feeling empty and lost. i will never be a hero like captain sheridan. i will probably never sacrifice my life for love or my country. i will never have to fight so tenaciously for my beliefs. so... what's there in life worth living for?

i know it sounds extreme. and it's not that i don't feel the value in my life, because i do. but on some level, i know i'm always going to end up little short. because the ruler i'm using doesn't have real markings on it - it's a fantastical ruler, and it stretches on forever.

sigh

okay, now i'm just procrastinating. i know it. you know it.

happiness is...

fiction writing. the more i do the other kind, the more i realize my heart lies in writing fiction. and no, it's not just because i get to make up facts, rather than having to seek them out!

i think i naturally have a fantastical mind. when my sister and i were kids, our papa would tell us tales after dinner, sometimes scary, sometimes funny, but always imaginative. in our room i remember we had a picture of a boy and a girl sleeping, and from their heads spilled images of knights, strange animals, explorers, boats, wars... and he would draw elaborate maps, a habit that both jane and i carry with us to this day.

i guess i like writing fiction because it reminds me of being a kid. i love taking real life things and seeing if i can give them a twist of sorts.