Wishin' on a Star.

I saw a shooting star last night and for the first time in my entire life, I wished for money. I always swore I'd never be one of those people obsessed with making it, having it, spending it, or worshipping it but the one thing I know (right now) is that I'm miserable without it. Why does it have to be so stressful?

My roommate is moving out on Saturday so I've been spending the past two weeks trying to find a new roommate...the problem is...that the people who own the house I'm living in haven't been paying the mortgage and now the house is in forclosure. I can't move someone in knowing that we'll probably have to move out within the next couple of months. I'm trying to figure out if I should even pay my rent on March 1st. Isn't part of my rental agreement that I pay my rent every month (on time) based on good faith that the home owner is responsibly paying the mortgage which, in turn, provides me with a stable living environment?

The NOD (Notice of Default) was filed February 18th and it will probably be a month or two before it goes to auction. Once the house is sold I know they have to give me 60 days notice to vacate the premise but should I stay that long or should I move? I don't want to move. It's expensive to move and I drive a Beetle convertible...there's no way I could fit my California king bed, sectional sofa, TV cabinet, chest of drawers and loads of other crap in my teeny tiny car. This means I'd have to hire someone to help me move. Where does that money come from? My property management company won't give me my deposit back if I break my lease and move out early. I gave them a $1500 deposit...I need that back.

So that's one of my problems right now.

Then there was the botched lasik eye surgery debacle...my parents flew to San Francisco and while they were in Northern California I got my mom an appointment to have lasik done with the same doctor who did mine. They were only going to charge her $1,000 for both eyes. Great deal. The problem was that they were only able to do one of her eyes because she had a soft cornea in her other eye...but they didn't discover her bum eye until after they had cut into it. So basically, only one of her eyes is done which means she has to fly back out here in May to get the other one fixed after it heals. To make a long story short...it hasn't been the great experience I was hoping it would be for her. And let me make this clear: It wasn't the doctor's fault. There was no way they could have predicted that she had a soft cornea prior to cutting into her eye. That being said, I feel partly responsible for the discomfort she experienced while she was supposed to be on vacation. We spent the whole time they were on vacation going to and from the doctor's office, Lens Crafters, back to the doctor's office, back to Lens Crafters...we did this for three full days.

I came back to Sacramento this past Monday and started a second job. I work with a group of at-risk high school students in the afternoons and we're doing a program called the California Voices initiative. My students have to make a 4-6 minute documentary about a hero in their community so of course, they want to do their project on Kevin Johnson (the Mayor). This is turning into a very time-consuming second job. I have no idea how to use Movie Maker and all of the other video editing software so I've spent over 20 hours trying to get caught up. The good news is that I've been pulling every string I can to secure some time with KJ because if my kids are doing a project...they're going to do THE BEST project. What's so cool about the documentaries is that coming up in May, we're goign to have a big screening at The Crest Theater to show all of the projects.

And finally, I'm going to leave you with a picture of Moxie taking a bath recently...it makes me smile...and yes, I was in the tub with my dog. Is that weird?

Oh yeah and I decided to enter my screen play in two different contests. It's a longshot to win because they are both international competitions...but I paid a little extra to get judge's feedback. If I understand everything correctly, the judge's will take extra time to hand-write me notes about how I can make it better.