hmmm... should I go back to school next year? should I study documentary video? I'm doing really well in the HIV consulting field and am just getting to a good place with it... keep going? If I decide to go to school, it's a bummer to move now and sign a one-year lease starting in December... on the other hand, I'm not crazy about staying in this place for another 9 months and I could save for school by moving... or I could pin all my hopes on Berkeley and move to the East Bay... aaaarrrghhhh!

At least I'm clear that I have to start doing more in the world of documentaries. Nice to have one thing clear. How I'll do it is a little murky, but that's the next phase of planning.

And I'm paid to be a planner, right? I'm supposed to be good at this...

The FDA has approved the "rapid testing" HIV kit! The possibilities here are mind-blowing. There's a lot of work to be done to make this successful. There's the potential for major impact on what we know and how we handle this epidemic. I'm reeling trying to figure out what we have to prepare for. Phew!

This morning I'm sick and I'm listening to election results. Not a great combination for my mental state, I'm sure. I'm feeling a little hopeless about the future of this country in the short-term -- worried about the impact of the next 2 years on the long term. My work, helping agencies prepare for major changes and strategically plan out their future, becomes quite in demand in times like these. Oddly, my personal job market improves as the outlook is grim. I'd rather have the opposite happen, and be called in to figure out the best way to improve services, not save services. Between the Republican control over the federal government and the passage of Prop N here, I'm very very worried about the increased strain on our service sector. I'm afraid of more people not getting the help they need to survive. I'm feeling a little escapist right now and may curl up with my tissues and book in my bed for a while -- before coming back out and trying to do some concrete work.

One really concrete thing you can do: Help an adult learn how to read. Low literacy is a major contributor to so many other poverty-related problems. Even if you don't have any money, if you have a little time, you can help someone gain confidence and skills by teaching them to read.

OK. Time to go mope for a while.

Got back from La Boheme a little while ago. Loved loved loved it. I may not be the most impartial judge, though, because I have an art crush on Baz Luhrmann... meaning that I'm completely crushed out on the art, but not on the artist. (A distinction I have learned to make through life experience, particularly with one painter -- also called trial and error). I also happen to be not much of a purist or preservationist and so am a big fan of trying to update classics, especially when it's done to make a piece more relevant and to bring in new audiences into the art form. So if you don't agree with that for starters, I understand how his work might not work for you. For me it's all a spectacular spectacular!

Paul sent me this article on the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and I'm delighted to know that "ass-backwards" has made it in, as well as "spokesmodel" and "dilithium crystal." I'm not sure how I feel about the phrase "body dismorphic disorder," but I guess it's an outcropping of our "identity politics" movements (a phrase I know very well). I am curious about the story behind the phrase "bunny boiler" (a woman who is vindictive after having been spurned by her lover)... on second thought, maybe I don't want to hear that story. But nothing beats the fact that "up to eleven" is now in there! Spinal Tap will live on!

--cianna, who's now waiting for the inclusion of the phrase "as if" because she's interested in hearing the definition