When I was in the seventh grade I read a book called "Catherine called Birdy".  It was a diary of a british girl and during the time that I was reading the book and right after, I began to narrate in my head with a British accent.  This was the first case of this I experienced, but since then I amuse the mannerisms of any book I read that's written in the first person.  As such, books in first person are my favorite.

The main character in the book I'm reading does a lot of narrating.  He had a ton of inner monologue and so I do too.  Sometimes my inner monologue sounds like the guy reading the story on the CDs, but sometimes it sounds like me and I'm just narrating my life as I go.  It's how I know I was born to write.

I think I'm asking Santa (don't get me started on Hanukah Harry ok) to bring me one of those little ditigal recorders so that when I think of something I can just say it out loud and come back to it when I'm lacking inspriration.  Reading really inspires me.  It makes me happier and lighter and better.  It makes me a better friends and a more intersting conversationalist.  It's stopped me from being a crazy person driving and talking on the cell phone.  It's a life improvement. 

My main character has an english teacher he's got a crush on, and the english teacher just got through lecturing him on the importance of books.  He said something about being the guy carrying a book, and how carrying a book is a way of showing people outwardly exactly who you are.  I'm a guy that reads.  I like the idea and I think I may try it.

The library was closed today and so I had to go to a bookstore instead to get my fix.  I spent some time in the children's section.  The books we read in our youth are so instrumental in shaping our lives.  I can't imagine growing up without books.   It's an inspiring place, the children's department in a book store.  My old friend Amelia Bedelia, I have missed you so.  Oh, and Tyler, Encyclopedia Brown says hi.

I am boring, and there's really no doubt about that whatsoever. 

I want to live a fullfilling life, and all my goals are really about achieving that.  As a dreamer, I'm torn between the dream and the practicality all the time, but I think everyone is in little ways here and there.  And I think that the hard part is how good practical feels most of the time.  Comfort is a direct decendent of practicality, at least as I see it.

I'm thinking a lot about business school and my career.  It's hard not to when I'm spending so much time and energy at work.  I can picture that life, that time spent studying, learning, thinking.  I can picture myself as a recruiter, working for a college or some great company or just consulting on my own terms from home...while I write my novel and raise triplets.  It might be a stretch, but what's impossible to know is how happy it will make me.  And really all my reluctance throughout life comes down to this.  Fear of the unknown.

Why fear the unknown?  It's not scary.  No, I suppose it's not.  The scary part is not being able push control+z and just undo the mistake.  The idea of devoting all the time, energy, and money to business school without really knowing how I'll handle the related MBA jobs, well it seems unreasonable.  How did I know that college would be good?  I guess I didn't, it was the alternative I knew more about.  So perhaps this should be a decision of reduction.  The way to find out where it is is to find out where it's not.  Suess was really profound.

In my book today the main character almost had a three some with the captain of the football team and hot blonde former cheerleader turned drama girl.  That did not happen in my high school.  At least, I'm pretty sure.  I wasn't in senior play either, but I'm fairly positive that the one place threesomes where happening in my high school was in the masturbatory minds of my male peers.

I really didn't see the appeal until my 20s.

I'm reading this amazing book.  I've really been enjoying listening to the classic works, but when I went to the library on Monday, I couldn't find a classic that looked appealing.  Likewise, I was running out of time.  It takes 20 minutes to walk to the library and thereby 20 minutes to get back, leaving a far too brief 20 minute period for undertaking selection.  So I started with the first book in the top left hand corner, and I've decided to work my way through the entire collection.

This book is called "How I paid for College".  It's got a great subtitle and great main characters and it makes me smile to listen to it.  Our main character is entering senior year in high school, and I'm entering my quarterlife crisis so it's a good time for me to undertaking this bit of listening. 

Now, I'm not one for regrets.  I'm really a believer in not changing a thing, because I am an even bigger believer in "everything I did, lead me to where I am."  I like where I am, and so I'm not one for regrets.  It's hard not think about doing it all over again though.  Would I stay for spring semester of senior year?  Would I think about majoring in communications?  Would I go the other way and study in the city at UofArts.  That's one I've already regreted.  You never get your undergrad back, and I should know since I'm basically chasing it right now.  I had no idea those choice would lead me to this place.  I didn't take a single business course and I didn't do a lick of extra credit.  I never volunteered on campus and I didn't take on one single summer internship.  If I'd gone to UCLA I could have applied for the internship at ABC daytime and started my career where my heart was.

But I'm not one for regrets. And I'm not giving up the dream.  But not like Gatsby.  I'm going to find a way to make my dream reality instead of finding a way to make reality my dream.  It's a fine line, but I'm drawing it here in the sand (California after all).

Every year on the first Tuesday in November we come together as a nation and sit in judgement.  We judge each other and those figures who would put themselves out in public, in the public sector.  We judge them on age and race and sex and sexual orientation.  We judge them on intelligence and honor and integrity.  We judge them on their actions and their words and their intensions, or what we would perceive them to be.

There is nothing more American than voting.  I love voting.  I love the short lines (I've never been so lucky as to see the long ones).  I love the act of voting, and getting to see the inside of the firehouse across the street where I vote.  I definitely want to be a voting volunteer when I'm retired or independently wealthy.  I have a special relationship with voting as I turned 18 on election day.  It wasn't a very important election, but I felt very important that day.  I was a different person on that election day 7 years ago, but today I'm still a democrat.  Voting day makes me want to study Political Science and go back to law school.  It makes me want to be president.

Actually, it makes me want to work on the Clinton 2008 campaign.  I hope I get the chance to.

But as I sit here at the end of judgement day and wait for the answers that will inevitably come, I can only hope that this judgement day ends the same way T2 did...it's a Schwarzenegger reference.  There is just never a huge tube of melted metal around when you need it.

Robert got me plants for my birthday.  We went this morning to pick them out at the Home Depot.  I've been wanting life in the apartment with special consideration for a lemon tree.  Citrus is big out here.  The town where I live used to be nothing but one giant orange grove.  So I have a little meyer lemon tree and a rosemary tree and some beautiful indoor plants including an aloe plant that reminds me of my mother.  It really adds a lot to the house. 

I'm still not feeling well, but I hope to get some excercise tomorrow.  My new plan is to lose weight by walking.  60 minutes a day on the treadmill going as fast as I can and working up to 4 miles an hour.  To that I'll add 30 minutes three times a week of weights.  I'm also thinking about some sort of fasting, something to settle whatever is making my stomach so angry.  On the opposite side I need to regain control of food.  I was doing alright there for about 10 days and then I've been backsliding.  The goal is to feel better about the self. 

We had a good day today but we didn't get a lot accomplished the way I had hoped, and now, of course, I'm feeling this morning's motivation has left me.  Maybe I'll regain some of it through the night.