Random / Shuffle

Ever feel like your brain is a CD or MP3 player set on 'random' or 'shuffle'? I think that's my primary mental state most days. Perpetual multi-tasker. Gets distracting at times. But it can make for some interesting writing.

More tangibly, Apple has launched their teeny tiny iPod Shuffle. Interesting concept, although I wouldn't buy one. My mental random/shuffle mode gives me quite enough (pleasant and not-so-pleasant) surprises, thank you very much. And I'm much too much of a control freak to like not knowing what song's gonna play next.

Started reading through my first draft of the novel. Not as bad as I thought, thusfar. Lots of green ink (I refuse to use red ink to revise my stuff, too school-like) in the margins, mostly notes to elaborate on sections that I skimmed over in the initial writing. Good nuggets of language and plot development in there, just need to mine them out and spit-shine them a bit.

I'm super-excited about my job lately, especially the grassroots fundraising aspects of it. The idea of ordinary, everyday, just-like-you-and-me folks supporting our own organizations to create real change...yes, I have to say it turns me on. Thanks to the Journal and GIFT and CFJ for inspiration.

Finally allowed myself to buy a copy of O Magazine, Oprah Winfrey's suprisingly smart and intriguing rag. Excellent writing--Elle magazine is also very well-written--which is always nice to find in the world of women's magazines, where the majority of the writing is sappy at best and just plain dumb at worst. Come on, folks, we DO have brains and care about more than how to score our next boyfriend or how to apply three layers of mascara properly!

Had a fabulous Vietnamese dinner with H. at our friend J.'s newly remodeled restaurant , Pagolac. (actually, it's J.'s mom that owns the place--she's also the cook and is a damned great one) We devoured a lotus salad, hot-and-sour soup with prawns, five spice BBQ chicken and a catfish claypot concoction with broken rice. Yum. The place is on Larkin near Ellis in the ever-intriguing Tenderloin in Frisco. Check it out if you're in the 'hood.

And I'll defer from commenting on our "President's" State of the Union address. Suffice it to say that, thankfully, I got to listen to it on KPFA which meant that the commentators had halfway intelligent and progressive things to say about it afterwards.

Hope you enjoy your own random/shuffles,
Rona