Despite all of my philosophizing and soul-searching, I have managed to keep busy this year. Very busy! Several project launches are scheduled for the coming month of September, and one took place back in June: the new on-line store for POINTWC Paris.

You may already know about POINTWC if you've ever found yourself on the Champs-Elysées with a terrible need "to go". This cute little shop tucked away in the shopping center at 26, avenue Champs-Elysées is the chicest spot in the city to pee. For 1.50 Euro, you can use one of the four stylish stalls which also serve as a showroom for the designer Japanese toilets and elegant accessories.

On-line, POINTWC sells their complete collection of designer toilets, sinks, faucets, accessories and gift items: www.pointwc.com

I have recently been accused of bush-beating and stand guilty as charged.

"Why aren't you happy?" asks Guillaume. I thought I could get away from a direct answer when I said in Can of worms, "My breakthrough is realizing how much the question I have been asking is linked to my difficulty in answering it." But I guess that wasn't good enough, depsite the truth in it.

Luckily many things have happened since last November, including bouts of happiness - even random outbursts of absolute silliness (of which I am a true believer). But that fateful November Sunday I was sticken with a sense that I had no purpose, that my work was meaningless, that I was over-worked and underpaid, under-appreciated. I felt lonely and isolated. I felt like I was getting nowhere, treading water. I was feeling like I had no future, that I was wasting my time in a dead-end career. For the first time I started to want to see farther ahead. For the first time I started to feel like I could shape my future. But how?

I did a telephone interview last week with the English company that contacted me for the post in Paris. The gentleman on the other end of the line was very sceptical about me as a convert into the corporate world after so many years of independent work and entrepreneurism. I explained that I was looking for change. I explained that I didn't set out to work freelance nor to be an entrepreneur. I said that I was an opportunist; that I am where I am today because I simply stepped through a series of doors that opened themselves to me at various points in my life. I explained that I had never considered myself professionally ambitious before this point, that I had foremost been a survivor.

Last year, during one of my stints in Mexico, driving home in the car with Daniel after a day trip to Mazamitlan, or maybe just a dinner somewhere in the village, I was venting my anguish at having to field the outside influences that inevitably came with selling my parent's house. After cleaning everything out and selling off ten years of their lives in a series of garage sales, I was exhausted and ready to leave it all behind me to get back to my life. But every time anyone would come in (I often had spontaneous visitors, especially after the for sale sign went up), the reaction was always the same, "Wow, what a beautiful place! You should hold on to it...really, I would." And every single time I heard those words, it was a subtle but painful stab in the heart. Ultimately no, I didn't really want to sell it. What I really wanted was to scoop the whole place up, gardens, jacuzzi and all, and take it with me to Paris. But that just wasn't possible now was it? Yes, I was torn. And I was pissed at all these people butting in and making the whole experience harder than it already was. This place had been more of a second home to me than than my parent's last home in California before we all went our separate ways. With what right do they tell me what I should and shouldn't do? Do they know what I'm going through? Do they know the complexity of my situation and the responsibility involved? Damn them! I was tired, and maybe I'd had a little to drink, and I just needed to bitch a little and have a soothing ear to listen to. But Daniel wasn't sympathetic.

"It's sounds like you really don't know what you want." I burst into tears.

It comes down to me. I against I. Me with my doubts, me with my limits, me with my weaknesses, me with my bad habits, me with my choices, me with my education, me with my fear, me with my pain; me not saying as a kid, "I want to be a ballerina when I grow up." I suppose I had a phase or two. In young years I had a vague phase of wanting to be a psychologist. Then I got to high school, took my first psychology class, discovered that our teacher was pretty much a jerk, not to be trusted, and into dating very young women and got immediately turned off to the whole idea. Then I had my I-want-to-be-a-dancer phase. I joined the School of the Arts program and then continued taking classes once I got to college. But at one point my mom ever-so-gently pointed out that the only way I could expect to make money dancing would be as a stripper (she later denied having said it). Needless to say I quit dancing, and went for a major in journalism instead. Lastly, fresh out of college with a degree and a hangover, I decided I wanted to get into video. That quickly seemed unattainable so I switched to photography, thinking it was more accessible, but still in the vicinity of what I was looking for. That's it, I want to be a photographer. That idea followed me all the way to France and even into a photography school in Lyon, but quickly died out just like the rest. I never once in my life said, "Oh, I want be a web producer." And yet, here I am all these years later.

What would make me happy? What do I want to do? Who am I if not a psychologist, a dancer, a photographer or a web producer? If I had a big white canvas, what kind of door would I paint for myself next? Or is it simply my fate to follow the path as it unfolds, rather than trying to map my route?

A long time ago I wrote this silly rap song:
"Well my name is jennyb
And I'm on the microphone
And I won't be speakin French
Even though I'm in Lyon, (no)
Why? Why? I'll tell you why...
It all started way back when
A very long time ago, (yo),
In a little village called San Francisco,
She was a rebel, a trekker, a Global Native,
Then one day the wind carried her away
And this is where she landed,
In Lyon..."

If I'm not happy it's because I'm tired of being blown by the wind. Tired of just surviving. I want to build something the means something. But as I stand in front of the canvas, a dripping paintbrush in my hand, the canvas is still clean, white, empty.

Magical Thinking is what Augusten Burroughs called his ability to, consciously or unconsciously, will things to happen (it was also the name of one of his books).

A couple of weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend and we somehow got on the topic of head hunters. I told her how fascinated I was by people who get recruited, cold-called out of nowhere because of their professional reputation or a CV posted idly on a website. I wish someone would come looking for me, I said. Then, last week, the phone rang. A British company had seen my very outdated and almost forgotten CV on Monster.com and thought I was a good candidate for a position they were looking to fill in Paris - was I on the market and would I be interested.

A few days ago I wrote a blog post revisiting one of the 35 resolutions I had made last year at my 35th birthday: sleeping less. I went on about the pressure of daily life to be ultra-productive, wondering how we were supposed to get it all done with only so many hours in a day and concluded by saying I just couldn't do it, that I was basically incapable of getting up early, that I needed my sleep. And for the last few day I'll be damned if my eyes aren't opening all on their own to the early morning light. Not struggling and groggy, but awake. The first couple days I resisted and forced myself back to sleep. Olivier tends to get up early all the time so it seemed unconceivable that I should be up before him. He is my gage. But this morning I couldn't fight it, or rather I decided not to, decided to let myself give in.

Is it the multi-vitamins or is the Universe trying to tell me something? Maybe the one goes with the other: prepare to be getting up early on a regular basis because change is-a-coming.

There are only so many hours in a day, and so much pressure to maximize every minute if we want to be respectable, productive people. Work long hours to be materially successful. Prepare fresh, balanced meals to eat right and be healthy. Exercise to stay in shape. Have a hobby to fulfill needs or desires otherwise unmet in the workplace. Spend quality time with your loved ones. Stay abreast of world events, latest trends, contemporary art and literature to stimulate your intellect. Attend social events to feel connected to the world.

I've seen reports on television about people who get up an extra hour or two early to get in their daily workout before going to work. Or people who start their work day at like 5 a.m. so that they'll be done by early afternoon and have the rest of the day to go sailing, do yogo or whatever. I have a Facebook friend who regularly reports on his status bar the inability to sleep and that he is up at 4 a.m. writing poetry or a script or doing something otherwise artistic and productive before then going off to work.

I get insomnia too from time to time, and have even been known to get up and read or write in those early hours until sleep takes over and forces me back to bed. But then I sleep, and am generally more than a little late for work and not entirely productive the next morning. I've tried, but it just comes down to one simple fact: I NEED SLEEP. I can't do without it. I get cranky. I can't think. 6 hours is just not enough. 8 hours is a bare minimum. I easily sleep from 9-10 hours every night, but not without a certain sense of guilt.

Unfortunately, the fact that I sleep so much does not keep me from being tired all the time. "So, how are you doing?" the common question. "Oh, well, you know, I'm a bit tired, but otherwise I'm alright." the typical answer.

It has been suggested to me that the sleeping so much might be directly related to the being tired all the time. There's a thought, except that, if I don't sleep my wonderful 9 hours, I am not only tired the next day, but verging on dysfunctional.

"Mais tu trouves ça normal ?" (Do you find that normal?) I asked my friend Val over lunch the other day.
"Yeah, I think that's great," she said, "I'd sleep more if I could. I think if you sleep it's because your body reclaims it."

We can only do so much, at least in a day. So I am letting go of the idea of sleeping less, and simply letting my body and the night decide. With my waking hours I will spend them as wisely as I know how, and as my energy will allow. And that will have to be good enough.

And so what happened then, the can of worms opened, squirming, daring to be cast to the water, bait to dreg up who knows what? Where were the answers to those life-long questions; and what, by God, was the real problem if not a question of happiness?

Happiness, like love, like truth, is a big word. And just like saying "I love you," or, "trust me," is easy and ultimately meaningless as mere words, stating, "I'm not happy," just isn't good enough....

This post has been sitting in my "drafts" folder since July 23, waiting to be written. Today, the Warrior of the Light newsletter showed up in my inbox. This month's topic : When angels talk.

"Nobody is courageous all the time. The unknown is a constant challenge, and being afraid is part of the journey.

What to do? Talk to yourself. Talk alone. Talk to yourself even if others think you have gone crazy. As we talk, an inner force gives us the security to overcome the obstacles that need to be surmounted. We learn lessons from the defeats that we are bound to suffer. And we prepare ourselves for the many victories that will be part of our life."

I would take this thought one step further to stress how important it is to talk, period. Maybe because unlike a lot of people I know, I am not someone who talks easily. Here, Coelho says, when there is no one or when some one won't do; talk to yourself, talk to your angel (talk to God). But what happened to me last November, despite my deception of the answers I received ("who's happy?"), was that I started talking, and to anyone who'd listen. This magnificent dialog was born, and maybe I might as well have been talking to myself, because it's true too that, whereas I am of course influenced by people's input and reactions to this ongoing subject, "I'm not happy," finding words to put to these feelings and ideas, reformulating them, perfecting them, playing with their meaning, is, well, huge. And it's new to me.

Why open this can of worms, here, in public view? I think on the one hand I really felt a need to fill the gap in the timeline during all these months of writer's block and copying/pasting horoscopes (only the pertinent ones of course). Sort of a, bringing-things-to-date before moving on. But the real reason is because it is such an important part of this dialog that I am having - with "you" as well as with myself.

Talking out loud is liberating because it is spontaneous and raw: ideas often come out "uncut" and sometimes I find myself amazed by what comes out of my mouth. Thoughts I had never verbalized before are suddenly taking shape and becoming real before I have a chance to think otherwise. It just happens, for better or for worse.

Writing, just as liberating, is neither spontaneous nor raw. It is measured, calculated, edited, analyzed and rewritten.

I have never had a pseudonym. I have never written anonymously. I have never had a protective identity from behind which to explore the intimate details of life in written or any other form, either in my personal or my professional life. This fact is both my choice and my burden. A lot has happened since declaring "I'm not happy" in November of last year and the moment I published it here on my blog just a couple of weeks ago. My breakthrough is realizing how much the question I have been asking is linked to my difficulty in answering it.

As those who know me are aware, I didn't end up firing myself. Quite the contrary, work seemed to come at me from every direction just at that moment that I was dreaming of hitting the road with no more than a backpack and a credit card. Instead of getting fired, I ended up getting a promotion.

Here I am coming up quickly on the one-year anniversary of "I'm not happy" Day, coming full circle, and welling up with all these unanswered questions and vague feelings that were pushed aside these last 6 months...and an answer is born: I'm not happy because I don't know why I do what I do. I'm not happy because, pseudonym or no, I have nonetheless been hiding behind something, not facing the true questions and all the while running from the answers.

"Your thinking is slowing down a bit -- but getting quite a bit more intense! You may need to spend some time alone with your mind, just trying to get to the bottom of whatever problems has been bugging you lately. "

Sometime back in November of 2007 I decided that I wasn't happy. This wasn't the first time that I'd thought it. It was not the first time I'd felt it. But, it was the first time I'd said it out loud.

"I'm not happy."

"So why don't you quit?"

"You're right. I'm gonna do it. I quit."

And that was a good start. I felt immediately relieved, even if I had no idea what it all meant nor what I was to do next. Because it's easy to talk about change. It's tough to do anything about it.

When I decided to quit smoking back in 2002, I didn't tell anyone. That, and an Irish coffee everyday at 2pm for a week, was the key to my success. I knew what I wanted to do (quit smoking), and I knew that nobody could help me. If I failed I would have no one to answer to, and while I was suffering through it I certainly didn't need anyone's sympathy.

But deciding to fire myself wasn't as clear cut a choice. I knew I wasn't happy, but I didn't know what I wanted to do, what I could do about it. So this time, I decided to talk about it. This time, I needed help.

Why wasn't I happy? What wasn't I happy about? If I was going to create change, these were the questions I needed to answer.

"I'm not happy."

"Who is?"

"Are you shitting me?"

I was surprisingly getting no sympathy. And worse, no encouragement. People seemed to think it was normal. Everyone around seemed to be miserable in their work to some extent and to have accepted that as their fate. I was intrigued and ever the more determined not to be like them. I conceded that of course there are elements to anything we do, even for our greatest passions, that are tedious, boring, exasperating, annoying, or all of the above. That wasn't what I was complaining about. That's when I realized that I didn't mean to be talking about "happiness" at all. You can't actually talk about happiness as an objective because it is fleeting. And because people just won't let you get away with it. Denis Leary said it best when he said,

"Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to fucking work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of fucking list!"

So, if I wasn't ultimately talking about happiness, what was the real problem?

"You must break old habits and be able to take a fresh approach to the challenges that face you. You must have the courage to make a change, and the changes needed have more to do with HOW you do things than WHAT you do. This is a time to find greater sincerity and meaningfulness in your life and work."

If you haven't read it already, run out right away and find yourself a copy of Petite Anglaise - a wonderful and romantic read, just in time for summer. I knew vaguely what I was getting into even though I'm not a regular follower of Petite Anglaise the blog, having heard about her story and her reputation as a riveting author. Not only is this true story of a young English woman and her romance with Paris completely captivating, but the style is seductive and makes every page a delightful discovery of life, love and, of course, Paris.

Where it may not have cured my writing rut, it has got me reading again. Another big thank you to Kelsey at Spiegel & Grau for the gift.

The mid-April snow had turned into a chilling, intermittent rain. I made my way toward the quay from the rue Agar, my face bent out of shape against the cold.

"Take your winter coat," he had said that morning, "it's going to be freezing out today."
"No way," I grumbled back, "I'm sick of wearing that damned thing!"

I sat down on the bench under the cover of the #70 bus stop on the Pont de Grenelle, wondering why I hadn't taken his advice. Next time I'll listen to him, I thought, no matter how much he sounds like a nagging grandmother.

There were four of us huddled under the shelter, silently cursing the wait. Up in the distance, just off to the left of the Eiffel Tower, the faint shadow of a rainbow managed to pierce its way out of a dense, dark cloud, and brought a warming smile to my face. I sat there grinning and wishing it could be contagious. I had the urge to say to the others, "Look, did you see the rainbow?" with my big dorky, naive smile. But I didn't, either by my own self-consciousness or the disbelief that they would have appreciated it as anything other than mundane.

So I sat there ginning and feeling a little warmer. The bus still didn't come. A few more people gathered around. Then, instead of the bus that we were all expecting and hoping for, from around the corner came a woman, on foot, wearing a rain slicker with a bright yellow hood, leading three saddled ponies. The rain continued to fall. My grin widened. She stopped in front of us for a minute to adjust the bridals in preparation of crossing the bridge. I turned to the woman next to me and said, "Now there's something you don't see everyday!" She smiled, but didn't say anything. We all watched with curiosity, my smile now a permanent fixture, the woman's next to me had faded like the rainbow.

Finally, the bus arrived. I was the only one smiling.

ÉCU 2008 is rapidly approaching! The program of film screenings and the calendar of events has been posted, so quick, go check it out and make your RSVPs asap. Film trailers can also be viewed on ÉCU Interactive to help you choose among the more than 100 independent films from all over the world that will be shown over the weekend of March 14-16 at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

For programs and events : www.ecufilmfestival.com/program.php
To view film trailers : www.ecufilmfestival.com/interactive/

Entry is free, but you have to reserve seats in advance. See you there!

"Yes, all this waiting is probably making you absolutely crazy, and yes, you're due for the universe to toss you just one tiny bone. Now, stop whining. Nothing happens until it's supposed to happen, and no matter how hard you try, you can't change that. Deal with it."

You are a slacker. You call yourself a blogger, poised in secretary-style tortoise-shell glasses behind your MacBook, but in reality the bubble remains blank. You blame the holidays, followed by tendacies toward poor time management for your lack of productivity. You have fallen off the wagon once again; is it possible that you have given up?

Me? Give up? Never! Where's that damn wagon!? Blast that bubble! I'll show them...I mean, me...

You are fair, honest, and logical. You are a natural leader, and people respect you.
You never give up, and you will succeed... even if it takes you a hundred tries.
You are rational enough to see every part of a problem. You are great at giving other people advice.

You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.
You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.
At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.
You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.
You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in.
You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising.
You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

"J'ai pas un kopeck," is a French expression for, "I haven't got a dime."
"J'ai même pas un roupie (rupee)," would be even worse, as in, "I haven't got a penny," or, "I'm really bloody broke." That is until today, now that even India is rejecting the dollar and demanding that all tourists pay entry to sites such as the Taj Mahal in rupees because they were losing money in the exchange. How embarrassing. Olivier is laughing, teasing me saying he's gonna hang a sign around my neck, "For Sale. Cheap." And the French will soon be saying, "J'ai pas un dollar."
Sniff. Oh where oh where can it be?