I have completed my first week at work. It was all training this week but I think I will do pretty good there. The job is interesting at least and I just love the people there. Everyone is so nice that at times I am a little taken aback. I have already made a few friends and they are always willing to help me out since I am so new and am not yet familiar with the whole system.

On Saturday, a few of us went up to Ventura to see Gomez. Yup that is right after such a long time I finally got to see Gomez live for the first time. First off I have to give praise to the opening band. The Zutons were so good I went out and bought their cd the very next day (as did everyone else I went with I soon found out!). I usually do not get any kicks out of seeing opening bands, but I had heard good things about The Zutons and for the first time in a long time I was shocked at what I saw. They are this funky fresh new band that have the musical ability of some of the greats.

Now for the Gomez set. The first time I ever heard Gomez I fell in love. It was a rare case of love at first listen and this concert just made me understand why. What I saw was over two hours of pure genius in the music-making department. It was one of the greatest shows I have ever seen and they all looked so happy to be there. Their stage presence (especially Ian and Tom) makes everyone want to just BE THERE. I have no real words to describe the show, just warm good feelings inside when I think about it.

To the casual observer it would seem that my writing skills are not of the caliber it would take to achieve the type of achievement in the written word, as I would like. Since I am starting my new job next week and I figure I will only be able to "read one non school book a week" (clueless reference for those of you who just have no idea, I better catch up on some reading before hand. So I read about five books this week that I have been told to read for the longest time and had yet to read. Besides the fact that a couple of the books I read completely changed my way of thinking about things, these few books I read this week really changed the way I think about my writing.
I wanted to catch up on books of the "different:" variety and I felt like I was hitting a deadline. Countdown to the new job and there goes my hours spent reading and delving into these other words I so desperately loved. Reality starts next week and I felt like I was saying goodbye to the fantasy world of literature for a while (or at least on a daily basis).

Ever since I met Ray Bradbury at a place where I was among many hard-core Bradbury fans I was told to read Something Wicked This Way Comes. Ray has always inspired me and the day I met him he told his audience two things one needed to do to become a writer. The first was to write a million words, meaning just sit and write and write and write and write. The second was to get ones mind out of the way. The mind muddles things up he said. Stop thinking. Get it clear and then the ideas will just flow. I didn't really know what this could create until I read this book a few days ago. Ray creates new worlds. He creates worlds that seem to be impossible and yet so realistic at the same time. No one is like him and everything he does is not only original but it says something underneath the fantasy. It says something besides the standard good vs. evil standard theme one usually finds in a fantasy novel (or any novel for that matter). Technically there are only five main story lines one can create a story from. So to be original is a lot of hard work. This book was not only amazing but it told me I have none of that. I don't have a world in my head ready to be put on paper. I don't know yet how to clear my head and reach out and create this whole new world that is not only original but also impeccably crafted and has the ability to change ones way of thinking about things. This is what I want to create. This is what I know I have to create. I just don't know how to get there.

I hope one day I will be able to write a new world. I have no idea what this world will be. I just have to figure out how to turn sand into gold. Until then I will do what Ray tells me to do, write a million words and stop thinking.

Grant Lee Phillips was on Thursday. Before the show I was sitting there talking to Brendan, trying to keep him entertained, because I am so boring, when he mentioned he is pretty certain that Bush is going to remain in the white house for another four years. Now I am leaving for London in January so if this happens I will miss the first six months of the god-awful chaos that might follow. The problem here is what will I be coming home to? If Bush stays I have a feeling this country that I hold dear will just go down the drain. I might just have to stay in London and finish out my degree there. I figure there is no better time in my life than now to live somewhere else. I have no attachments. No one's life here will go into chaos if I move away. This I the only time in my life I am replaceable. It is defiantly something to think about.

By the way...Grant was in top form. I can never get enough of that guy.

There are all those signs and sayings...Never Forget. We will never forget. In memory of.... Never forget 9/11. Never Forget WTC.
Well I almost did forget. I woke up Saturday morning and just went about my day. I went to my computer to continue my work on my essay on Kubla Khan by Coleridge. I proceeded to cuss at my computer because Coleridge was on opium and I am not, and I am not convinced to fully write an essay on that poem one needs to also be on opium.
I then put on a DVD for some background noise and my day was just like any other day. It was not until I went though a drive through to get a diet coke that I saw a flag at half mass that I was reminded what the day was. It was September 11 and I forgot about it. Did this make me a bad person?
Three years prior I sat in front of the television most of the day completely void of all thought and emotion, not because I was heartless but because I was in shock. For an entire day I did not know if my uncle or a good friend of mine were ok and I just could not comprehend what was going on.
I went to New York a week after the attacks and even saw the aftermath of ground zero. I could smell the decay in the air and felt the eerie death that hung in the air all around me. Three years later, I have forgotten. So has most everyone else.
No one is any different. People are still in pain. People are still divided and in fact they are probably even more so. I remember after the attacks artists went on the air saying how fighting was just not worth it; hate was just stupid. We still hate. The world is not "united against terror" or even united together. Everyone still hates everyone else except those they never hated to begin with. Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but there is defiantly a lot of judgments and disliking and anyone who says they judge no one is lying. It is human nature and I wonder how much of it is really healthy.
An ex friend of mine (this is partly why he is an ex friend of mine) claims the way to get rid of terrorists is to bomb the whole country where he lives. Who cares if the babies die, it would teach them a lesson, he says. They would never attack us again, he says. Terrorists would stop right there, he says. The first thought that went through my head was that the reason he said this was because of the social conditioning of the country he originates from. Judgment.

I have no doubt people judge me: friends, co- workers, and passerbies. What do they see? Do they see a regular American girl? A Jewish American Princess? There are so many labels I have heard when one has talked about me; I venture to guess it just makes it easier.

Regardless, whatever I am, I forgot what Saturday was. It made me feel guilty for a minute. All these people were mourning and I was stressing over Kubla Khan because I need to be the best. I only felt guilty for a minute. It was like a flash of insight into my head and I went straight back into my emotionless void of existence. Whether this was the way I cope or just the way I am. I guess a label would tell me that.