A soft rain falls tonight . . .

and the rain-infused dusk light is simply wonderful. I attempted to capture it with my camera, not sure if I did:

My legs are shaking.

Did I witness a car wreck? (No--thankfully)

Did I fall in love instantly? (No--sadly)

Did I take my first-ever ride on the bike I purchased yesterday, the first bike I have owned since my high-school ten-speed? (Yes!)

Here are the pics of "Blue"--the new bike:







This morning, I carefully lifted Blue into the back seat of my car and drove 5 minutes north, to the nearby lake. I placed my bottle of cold water on the bike, tucked my keys and phone into its pouch, and took off on the great, smooth sidewalk that runs next to the lake. We saw a sailboat and fast riders and runners and walkers and ducks and an engaged couple being photographed and many other interesting things. The temperature was quite bearable, being only about 80 degrees at 9:00 a.m. I rode for about 40 minutes and realized how I had exerted myself only when I felt the shakiness of my legs when I dismounted from the bike. A nice man parked next to me noticed that my tires needed more air and filled them for me, so hopefully my next ride will be even easier, due to the proper tire pressure.

I think this biking thing is going to entail a major lifestyle change for me. The excitement of biking makes me more likely to start my day early and next to a lake, because merely walking near the lake did not inspire me as much due to how much more slowly the scenery passes by when one is walking. And one encounters a different breed of person when biking early in the morning--the Biker! These Bikers are, for the most part, lean and serious-looking. But none of them ran me over today and one even helped me with my tires, so they must be kind-hearted deep down inside. I'm looking forward to more bike rides!

Here's how I scored on a very difficult test:

Pure Nerd 60 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 17% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd. The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful. Congratulations!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 45% on nerdiness You scored higher than 47% on geekosity You scored higher than 18% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid

I have posted some new stories on my

other blog, in the event that you're interested in checking them out.

I have been trying to catch up on writing about trips for which I have not yet posted pictures. Some of these stretch back to last year! You can find updated entries by clicking on the months of April, May, August and September 2004. I travelled to Italy in April and May of last year, had a wonderful August trip to Santa Fe for my pre-birthday, then visited friends at their East Texas lakehouse for Labor Day weekend.

These are some of the pics you'll see if you visit these new posts:

Pale-colored clothing.

Today I attended a CLE (which is short for "Continuing Legal Education" in the world I inhabit) and noticed something interesting (to me, anyway). The room was filled with a collection of the most boringly dressed people I have ever seen in one place. I wore a bright-colored top, but nearly everyone else was wearing shades of beige, gray or white. What's up with that?

And this was despite the fact that it was a seminar on jury trials, which should have attracted the more lively among species of lawyers--the crazy, dysfunctional, high-spirited trial lawyers. But no--you would have thought this was a tax seminar if you didn't know any better.

A small observation, but one that I found mildly entertaining.

In contrast, here are some beautiful colors:

I am nothing if not spontaneous.

Is it a sign of an impulsive personality for a person to reserve a plane ticket on a week's notice (using miles), without calling any friends who live near her destination to see if they will even be in town? Because that's what I did tonight.

I have been yearning to get away for Labor Day weekend, which also happens to coincide with my birthday. However, a case I've been working on has a lot of deadlines in the September time frame and I feared that I would be working through pretty much every weekend in September. So, I made no travel plans, other than a quick trip to Chicago. Today my case went away and when I arrived home, the idea of a jaunt over the long weekend began forming. Because it's on my birthday weekend and because I feel I should reward myself for obtaining a fabulous result with which my client is delighted, I wanted to do something different, instead of visiting a "tried and true" favorite kind of place.

Where am I going, you ask? I will be traveling San Francisco--a place I've never visited before, but which I suspect I will love. And I could not be more thrilled! If I have any skill in life, it is the planning of interesting trips on short notice. For me, this is as essential to existence as the air I breathe.

It obviously was meant to be, as I have called my friend Mike, and he will be in town, so we will definitely get together. I also plan to visit the ex-boyfriend who stopped by Dallas recently, when we had too little time to really catch up. A college friend and her husband and kids live there, too--I am looking forward to seeing them. In between visits with friends, I want to see SF, Berkeley and the wine country (if possible). Specific stops on my now quickly-forming itinerary include the famous Chez Panisse restaurant (which I learned about from Ruth Reichl's book Comfort Me with Apples), Chinatown, the Fisherman's Wharf and Haight-Ashbury.

If any of you have suggestions for other things to do in San Francisco that are more off the beaten path, I would love to hear them! It occurs to me now that if I am actually able to visit all of the friends I have listed, I probably won't make it to the wine country, so suggestions in the SF area are especially welcome.

Putting the feeling into words so right.

Sometimes a really great writer is able to take something about which I have had only a vague feeling and describe that feeling in words so right that they actually take shape and settle into the crevice where the feeling once resided. Susan at Skull Stew did that for me, with the following words, which I would have missed if not for The Archer Pelican:

One day I will find that mysterious element that will make me complete, fill that gaping hole that I try to fill with food and books and the internet. Maybe that missing element will be the satisfaction of finishing a novel. Maybe it will be the forgiveness of those I have wronged. Maybe it will be my forgiving those who wronged me. Maybe I will realize that in letting go of the things I cling to, that I think are necessary for my survival, I will be able to soar high because the weight of that baggage is not holding me down. And on that day I will finally see myself as beautiful, imperfect, kind, cruel, right, wrong, controlling, and passive.

The difference is that I will see those elements of myself as parts, not the whole. And I will love the whole they create, instead of lamenting the hole that used to be there.

As for now, I'm still lamenting the hole.

But the whole is there somewhere. I just know it.

Ahhh . . .

this picture will appear on my other blog as well, but it captures such a wonderful feeling that I wanted to save it here, too:



This is the view from the window of the wonderful place where I stayed in Castellina di Chianti, which is in Tuscany.

There is a huge writing desk in this room.

It is big enough for me to live in.

I want to go back one day.

UPDATE: I just realized it is somewhat unfair of me not to show you the room in which I wouldn't mind living out the rest of my days. Here it is:



Do you like it, too?

Updating Italy travel posts with photos!

At long last, I have begun updating my Italy travel posts from April 2004 with the photos I took along the way . . . check it out of that sort of thing interests you!

Practicing writing

I suspect that many of the few souls who drop by this humble blog are aspiring writers and/or people who enjoy others' writing. If you are one such soul, you may enjoy checking out this blog of the Phantom Professor, where I have been spending some time recently.

The Phantom Professor's site began with tales from an adjunct English professor writing about teaching 19 year old kids who wear Prada and Gucci and drive BMWs, but don't know the difference between "to" and "too" or "its" and "it's." Although she disguised the identities of the school where she taught and those about whom she was writing (referring to some subjects as the "Ashleys" and the "Brads"), it was clear to anyone who has ever so much as driven by the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas where this professor found her material.

The Phantom Professor was outed and her teaching contract not renewed. But she made lemonade from the lemons, seizing upon writing and editing assignments that came to her, presumably, due at least in part to the publicity surrounding her blog. She also continued to write on the blog, adding interesting stories, some funny, some sad and some hopeful. Her blog is one of my daily visiting spots.

Why am I writing about this, you ask? Well, now the Phantom Professor (actually, Elaine Liner) has graciously offered to conduct an online writing workshop at her blog. I'm trying to make the time to participate in this, in between staying on top of matters and work and pursuing the exciting career opportunities on the horizon. I thought you might enjoy participating as well, or at least reading the contributions of those who are.

This week's assignment was to write an opening sentence and post it in the comments where requested (titled, "Assignment 1: Compelling Sentence). The sheer variety of the offerings (211 at last count) is amazing . . . and some of them are very impressive! Curiously, these words are among those appearing in the "compelling sentences" of multiple authors:

blood
spandex
life
father
rain
eyes
vomit(ed)

Check it out . . . it's well worth a read!

Fifteen Things I've Done that You Probably Haven't

Brett gave me the idea to do this . . . and I relish the task:

1. Worked as a Bus Supervisor for Detasselers in Illinois.

2. Rode on the back of a Jeep in a parade in North Little Rock, Arkansas, while volunteering last fall with the John Kerry campaign.

3. Watched the Turkish version of "American Pie" with a new Japanese friend and Turkish twin brothers after the boys' mother cooked us a traditional Turkish dinner, while on a six week trip alone through Europe.

4. Experienced the joy of my law school friends making a game of using my last name in the titles of a multitude of songs just for laughs, including this one.

5. Accidentally locked my dogs in the bathroom (broken lock) just as I needed to be dropping them off at the kennel before catching a flight. (My saintly friend Dan saved the day by rescuing the dogs and dropping them off at the kennel just as I arrived at my gate). If you're wondering how the dogs came to be in the bathroom, I was trying to load my luggage into the car without them escaping before I could herd them into the car as well, so I ushered the dogs into the small guest bathroom that is just inside my front door for what I expected to be 60 seconds.

6. Traveled to see the Chicago Cubs play in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Houston, all in the same season.

7. Broke my nose playing softball in my junior year of high school, due to wearing new contacts without any warning to be careful for the change in depth perception they would bring.

8. Perfected the art of "rolling," an activity particular to those attending my small liberal arts college.

9. Achieved the most disproportionate LSAT score and GPA in the history of the universe.

10. Seen the movie "Philadelphia Story" 216 times.

11. Helped my friend Jim meet the woman I think he will marry.

12. Read and loved Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged while a progressive's heart beats inside me.

13. Poked Brett Hull in the shoulder--twice.

14. Road-tripped to New Mexico where, among other things, I bonded with a delightful old man and his grandson while poking around in their antique store, which is housed in an old livery stable that is on the National Historic Register.

15. Met a guy on the Island of Ios, Greece, who looked familiar . . . I learned this was because he studied for the bar exam at the table next to the one where I studied for the bar exam, in the Rice University business school library.

Bonus item:

16. Chided Salman Rushdie for his Yankees baseball ego-centrism.

A different way of looking at things.

One source of angst in my career has been the jerk behavior frequently displayed by opposing counsel. I have been thinking recently about why this bothers me so much, as my encounters with opposing counsel are typically fairly limited--a phone conversation, exchanges of letters, at most a day spent in a deposition together. I enjoy winning, but hate the fights that proceed it.

After many years of feeling bad or angry during the sporadic times when I am forced to deal with rude and/or unethical opposing counsel, I experienced an ephiphany this morning. I realized that what bothers me most about opposing counsel's bad behavior is that I internalize it . . . believing that behavior would not occur if I didn't deserve it or do something to bring it on myself. This defeating thought process of mine certainly isn't limited to the work context, but it is particularly damaging there.

I am currently dealing with a situation that challenges my adopted belief system. Specifically, I now realize a particular opposing counsel is actually trying to divert attention from their own bad conduct (details omitted) by treating me like the problem. It occurred to me this morning while I was agonizing over this situation that the conduct of which they falsely accuse me (misrepresenting conversations) is actually something they have done themselves on multiple occasions. They accuse me of delaying in the case, when in fact they have delayed and then scrambled to get out of the consequences. They have accused me of not agreeing to things, but have not agreed to reasonable requests of mine that any other lawyer would have accommodated. In short, this counsel would rather falsely accuse me of bad acts than admit to these bad acts of their own. Until now, I have been letting them get away with it by responding to their attacks instead of going on the offensive and calling it for what it is--a diversionary attempt at projection.

This realization is so freeing! Instead of beating myself up, I can actually respond to these jerks from a place that isn't personal. As distasteful as the thought may be, I think The Evil Karl Rove actually knows what he's doing when he points the finger right back at those pointing it at him. I shall do the same--calling their B.S. out for what it is, which is an attempt to make me the bad guy when they are in fact the bad guys. Figuring this out makes my day feel more manageable already.

Lines I wish I had written*

This has to be one of the best sentences written recently, if not ever:

The fact is, no room improves with the presence of a litter box, and most of them are seriously compromised.

From The QC Report.

Perhaps I find this line so great because not only is it funny; it is also true, true, true.

I have a confession to make that may bring serious recriminations from blog land: I don't like cats very much. Sure, I have truces and even "acquaintance-level" friendships with particular cats, like the dear departed Jack Benny, who belonged to my friends the Bracys, or their current cats, Coco and Thunder. But I would never own a cat and cannot wrap my brain around what possesses a person to own one.

Exhibit B in my case against owning a cat (right behind Exhibit A, my fierce allergy to cats) has always been the litter box. I find it disgusting and there is no work-around for it, other than having a cat trained to go outside only, which seems impossible, otherwise why would they even have litter boxes? One of my friends keeps the litterbox in her downstairs guest bathroom, where one must tread for shower-taking purposes while staying with her. I adore her and her house, but cringe every time I am forced to step into that bathroom, with its scattered litter all over the floor and the constant aroma of a litter box, whatever its state of use. People think dogs are a lot of work and they're right--I have two who prove this every day--but they don't take a dump in my house. And for that (and other things), I love them dearly!

*Some credit should be given to Eric Zorn, as his "fine lines" feature caused me to think of this totally-different "lines I wish I had written" feature.

Let's laugh a bit, shall we?

I worried a bit today that someone might read my last post and think I'm about to leap head-first from a bridge or tall building. Although writing that post was a surprisingly cathartic experience, I am not about to throw in the towel. However, I am very much in need of a good, hearty, lengthy laugh, so I thought I would share with you some web sites that have made me laugh recently.

This site, called Overheard in New York, is one of my favorite go-to's lately for a good laugh. The site appears to consist of posting funny exchanges that are overheard by folks walking in Manhattan and its surrounds. Many of the exchanges are heard while riding the subway. The premise of this site combines two of my favorite things in the world: laughing and eavesdropping. This post from yesterday is one of my recent favorites:

Woman: Oh, I wanted a large popcorn. I thought you said this size was the biggest?

Movie guy: It is.
Woman: What about the bucket over there? It looks bigger.
Movie guy: It is.
Woman: Well, if this is the large, what's the bucket?

--City Cinemas, E. 86th Street

Another site I have been enjoying recently is called bighappyfunhouse. The guy who runs it loves "vernacular photography," which appears to mean "old photographs about people, places and things one does not personally know." Just as fun as the pictures themselves are the comments that people make about them, so be sure to check out the comments if you stop by for a visit!

Finally, sometimes you just need some Simpsons to remind you how crazy life is. This place has an amazing repository of Simpsons stuff, including a very detailed episode guide and episode capsules.

Enjoy! Have a laugh!

Thoughts about last days.

After my father died unexpectedly on that December day in 1998, I thought a lot about the fleeting nature of life. I turned over and over in my mind the seeming impossibility that a girl could hug her Dad goodbye at Thanksgiving, feeling a bit sheepish when he cried in anticipation of missing her, chat briefly with him upon returning home, then never talk to him again. No one expects to lose a parent at age 29, much less the parent to whom she is closest and who gives all shape and form to the wisp of confidence she carries.

In the days after the numbness passed, I vowed to make every day count. I was more patient with people, even bad drivers. I thought long and hard about whether my life was what I wanted it to be. I clung to and appreciated deeply the saintly friends who stood fast during this loss and the house fire that followed on its heels. I left the firm I had grown to dread driving to each day. I backpacked in Europe for six weeks before starting my next job, savoring every moment and reading books like Atlas Shrugged as if they held the blueprint for how to lead a happy life. But then I was sucked back into the soul-draining cycle that is a life of active litigation paid for by the billable hour, and soon forgot all of the lessons I had learned the moment I cried, "NO!" in response to the unexpected call from my brother.

I was reminded of those lessons recently, when a young man from Dallas disappeared while hiking Mount Everest . . . his family called off the search for him this week and apparently has accepted that he will not return. His name is Trevor Stokol, and he was taking the trip of a lifetime before starting medical school. He wrote a fascinating blog about his adventures; reading it makes me feel as if I was there, conducting the exploration of Asian lands about which I have dreamed for a long time. The part I find most thought-provoking, though, is Trevor's last post before his disappearance:

Wed, 13 July:                        

I am walking to Mount Everest tomorrow, to get 

some good pictures  and play on glaciers.  And 

then... I'M COMING HOME on August 1st. I'm having 

a slideshow open house on the afternoon of 

August 7th, so if you're in Dallas, come on over. 

There will be tea.

Here's to living dreams!!

Trevor

That post speaks for itself, I think. I'm just going to sit with this for a bit.

Steve Jobs rocks.

So I stumbled upon this really fascinating web site, via the blog list on this very big, happy and fun web site. And the fascinating web site led me to another web site, at which I found the text of Steve Jobs' speech at this year's Stanford graduation ceremony. For some reason, my linking capabilities have become finicky and will not permit me to link to that page. So instead of linking, then posting a blurb from the speech, I will steal the entire speech. Only it isn't stealing, because as I have said, I'M MAKING IT CLEAR THAT IT IS STEVE JOBS' SPEECH.

Enjoy.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky ? I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything ? all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Rose-Colored Glasses

My world feels a bit more manageable these days, due to a nice weekend and a determinedly brighter outlook. On Friday, I left work early to meet a former boyfriend for dinner . . . he was in town on business. We ditched plans to revisit the site of our last date (10 years ago!) in favor of a dive bar that serves great pizza. The extra benefit of this place is that it is owned by a Cubs fan who ensures that one can see any televised Cubs game while it is being played. In the days before the smoking ban, you couldn't see past your table for all the smoke in the place, but it now is a beautifully shabby, comfortable and smoke-free place. We had a fabulous time catching up before he was off to catch a flight, laughing about the people we were and learning a lot about the people we have become since then.

As I put the top down on the car and made my way northward for a surprise 50th birthday dinner for a friend, I thought a lot about the person I was when I last saw this man . . . a young woman full of ambition and lightheartedness and laughter, and utterly free of fear of failure, or of what the future might bring. I saw only possibilities then and barely thought twice about choices I made, trusting that things would turn out for the best. I vowed to dig down and find that old self now, because I really liked her and I think she is exactly the friend I need right now. Tonight she bugged me until I finished updating my resume, saved my writing sample, began the cover letter and touched base with a few of my references, all with an eye toward applying no later than tomorrow for that dream job I've had my eye on for weeks now.

Here are some photos that reflect my happier state:

My fairytale-like neighborhood (from the porch off my bedroom), in the magic light following yesterday's rain:



My street as it really looks (also from porch):



And my street with a faux-mountain that is really a cloud:



Sweetheart roses, my favorite:



And "where all the magic happens," as Kate's grandfather would say:

Being kind to oneself.

I still feel a bit paralyzed and skittish, but some nice things happened today. First, I was comforted by the kind words of readers who do not know me personally, but certainly knew what I needed to hear after last night's "Valley of Despair" post. Not only that, they were nice enough to take the time to share it with me. I need to show myself as much kindness as you have, I realize.

Also, I learned today at work of a really big win that I obtained for a client. Ironically, it is in the case that took me to Oklahoma City for a week earlier this year, where I was so miserable that I finally decided to change my life in a major way with respect to work and where I live. I am proud of my accomplishment and my client and colleagues are delighted with it as well. The win does not affect my desire to reach for something different and more fulfilling, but it does help fend off the self-doubt that has been gnawing at me so badly in recent days.

That's all for now . . . going to bed early as the first step in the new "Do Not Sabotage Thyself" plan.

Emptiness

Do you ever feel totally empty and paralyzed? I feel that way right now.

I want so desperately to reach out and cling to that new life that embodies all of my hopes and dreams. I want it so badly that I can practically taste the happiness I will feel when I find fulfillment. I can picture it. I can imagine its effect on all of my senses. However, instead of grabbing this happiness, I hobble through each day, forcing myself to focus at work and succeed in a way that no longer fulfills me, hating the person I become in the process, then coming home to drown my fears--of change, of failure, of ridicule for not measuring up in the career I have had so far--in a glass of Chardonnay.

I'm not sure how much longer I can go on this way. I am scared. I feel weak. I feel pathetic.