I�m on the up and up, kids! Yay! I just started The Artist�s Way and it has changed things that needed to be changed, seemingly miraculously! No, it�s work but talk about clearing up blocks. That�s part of the reason I�ve not updated my site in quite some time (funny, huh?) because I�ve been doing other things. Dreaming and scheming. It�s going well. Getting back on the fucking horse and riding, sweet mama. Steak isn�t the only thing that�s exciting to me right now. And that�s a good feeleeeeen� to know you�re alive it�s such a happy feeleeeen� you�re groweeeeen inside (I always hated that line). What, exactly, is growing inside me?

Apparently I write with no emotion. How�s this:

FUCK YOU!

I guess it�s also a sin when your older entries page color isn�t the same as your main page. Who knew? I guess I was busy WRITING or LIVING or FUCKING when they told us that bit of important information.

I am Jenn's period.

Maybe Reviewer was intimidated because the picture of the Tinta de Calamar on my older page looks like penises?

Oh whatevs. I made the mistake of putting the thing up for review. The teenagers are doing their best. The kids are alright, huh? They like the rock and or roll music and gyrate their hips to the top 40 sound. Hot dogs make them lose control.

Ok. I�m just airing my censors and �enemies of [my] creative self-worth.� That�s the way to get past it, dewd.

I had a strange and startling synthesis today, not unlike my Am�lie/Dominique Bretodeau moment a month and a half ago. In conjunction with the Artist�s Way I was writing about a censor, one of my main enemies of creative self-worth, my old high school music teacher, Mr. Romains, asshole extraordinaire. I hadn�t thought about him in ages. Long story short, when I told him I wasn�t going to be in the chorus of the musical my senior year (after not getting the lead, blah blah) I said, �I have other things I want to focus on. I�m going to college next year and there�s a lot to do. I also have a band now and I�d like to play with them as much as possible� upon which he retorted,

�Well that�s not going to get you anywhere.� Right, and being in some fucking high school chorus of Camelot would? This was just one thing in a long line of bullshit from him, naysayer to youths and champion of ancient polecats.

Anyway, I wrote about it, went out and came back into the foyer to find a certified mail package from my dad full of great old photographs and on top of it all was a letter to Romains I�d never seen that Dad had written in response to the shitman�s bitchfest of an existence as related to me, dated the day of my high school graduation. He had even written a rather good poem to him about hypocrisy, questioning why adults feel it acceptable to cut young people down, revealing their own empty hearts. It made me smile. He also CC�d the principal, vice principal, and somebody else whose name I don�t recognize. Dad can rule sometimes.

So The Artist�s Way thing has its hippie-dippy aspects but it�s really amazingly helpful. The point of listing the enemies of one�s creative self-worth is so that they�re out there and one can vamoose. It�s amazing the blocks that are caused by these people�s comments. And we all know how much easier it is to spew negative crap at ourselves than it is to say affirmations. So I�ve found it incredibly helpful to jam that crap out.

More funner jobbies next time� je promis.

Word of the Day for Friday September 6, 2002:

quaff KWOFF; KWAFF, transitive verb: To drink with relish; to drink copiously of; to swallow in large draughts.

intransitive verb: To drink largely or luxuriously.

noun: A drink quaffed.

He gets drunk with his guides, makes eyes at the girls and gamely quaffs snake wine. --Pico Iyer, "Snake Wine and Socialism," [1]New York Times, December 15, 1991

If you were patient and kept your nose clean, you could slowly, almost effortlessly, rise from serf to squire and maybe even all the way to knight, in which case you, too, would be entitled to quaff bowl-size martinis at midday. --Charles McGrath, "Office Romance," [2]New York Times Magazine, March 5, 2000

Instead they consume caviar, feed off [3]foie gras, chomp exotic cheeses, and quaff champagne. --"Internet Shopper," [4]Times (London), August 11, 2000

Quaff is of unknown origin.