I know what you’re thinking. Wine is expensive, especially if you want to class it up with something a step or two above the obligatory Two Buck Chuck. And I happen to be a huge proponent of local wine, which isn’t (nor should it be) cheap.

That said, people really need to get used to spending money on the value of good wine AND supporting the local industry. But what if you have the same brilliant idea that I have and want to give bottles of wine as gifts?

Well, since you’ve already copied my brilliant idea, you could just do what I did and buy a case from the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op.

I already knew that the Co-op had the wine I wanted: Real Deal Red from Boeger Winery. Regardless of my bias, at $9.99 a bottle, this is an incredible bottle of wine for the price.

But I didn’t know about the bonus: 10% off when you buy a case. Also: the wine manager informed me that, as long as she can get your wine of choice from one of her regular distributors, she can arrange for special orders. Good to know.

Every time I read Penelope Trunk, I get one-ounce more empowered with some of the ideas that I have for writing.

And that’s simultaneously awesome and frustrating. Because basically I want to be Penelope Trunk. Well. OK, not literally. But I aspire to be the woman writing fearlessly so as to inspire other women to lead fearless lives.

Problem: I am not fearless.

When an idea comes to mind and I think, “Oh, I should write about that,” depending on the subject matter, the next immediate thought is, “What if Dad read it?” followed by an unending list of names: or Tony, or Sean, or Scott, or Ryan, or Ryan…

Wait a second. All those names are men. What the eff does THAT mean??

I guess that’s gonna have to be a blog post.

For now the point is that there does exist a host of people whose reaction I worry about. Example: faith. Or politics. What if I write stuff that contradicts the way Dad raised me and then he reads it? Then what? Then I have to face the harsh reality that I’m a 30-year-old woman still seeking Daddy’s approval. And what does that say about me? Or, another example: sex. What if I had to write about sex? Penelope writes about sex all the time, but SHE’s Penelope.

Penelope also writes about how her fiance’s (or ex-fiance?) family prints out her blog posts and mails them to each other. How does a woman even show up at Thanksgiving after that? And then proceed to write publicly about the very family that prints out her blog posts and mails them to each other? I mean, how does a woman continue to write fearlessly after that?

I haven’t even figured out how to write fearlessly without any reverb. But considering that my post from yesterday got a mere 3 comments, I guess the only people’s reactions I have to worry about are James, Matt and Suzanne’s. I just might be able to handle that.

Confession: when I sit down to write a blog post, I do not think about you, my readers, whoever you are. (Bad Janna!) It’s completely contradictory to what I teach my students about writing. I am forever beating the audience-message-purpose drum with them — all. semester. long.

Yet, when I write here, I am mostly writing for the audience of one: me. It’s kind of a release in some ways. And, as you know, I often forget about important stuff that’s right in front of my face. Or, I should say, I just don’t make time to blog about important stuff that’s right in front of my face.

Perfect example: the $2/day eating challenge I participated in over the last two weeks. The challenge ended yesterday, and did I write about it at all? Nope. Well, I introduced the challenge, but that’s it. Nothing about my personal experience or my personal struggle.

If you’re wondering, it was a little bit of deja vu for me — for Lent this year, I abstained from alcohol of any kind. And if you know me, you know how much I love wine. Needless to say that another 2 weeks sans wine was, well…not fun. Not fun because I missed drinking wine, yes, but more so because it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that I’m spoiled. Flat out spoiled. Even when I’m making only $1,100 a month sometimes (like this month), I’m still spoiled in the grand scheme of things. And what do I do now, with that realization?

But I digress. The point is that I’m working on a personal plan for 2010, and one thing that needs to be worked into the plan is blogging. Only I don’t know where to go with it. So for once I am considering my audience and asking the questions:

Who are you?
Where are you?
Why do you read my blog?
What do you like and dislike about it?
What would make it more interesting?
What do you want me to write about?

Do you ever stop to calculate how much you spend on food in one day? What about for one month? Considering that we live in a culture of consumption and convenience, the answer is probably a resounding “no.”

Thinking about what I consume even beyond food is a journey that began for me about two years ago. It was part circumstantial, part spiritual. And I don’t believe in coincidence, so I would say that even the circumstances were divine.

At the end of 2007 and into the beginning of 2008, there was a period of about 6 months where I wasn’t working. I chose to not work while finishing grad school, but I didn’t expect to not find work right away. I payed bills with credit cards (which I’m still paying off), but beyond that I didn’t spend money on anything that wasn’t an absolute necessity.

Those circumstances forced me to critically analyze the word “necessity.” It forced me to ask the question, “How much can I do without?” How many things do you categorize as “necessity,” that are actually luxuries? How many things do you categorize as “necessity,” that are actually conveniences? A fancy $4 espresso drink that you buy every day. Pizza to-go for lunch. An iPhone. Your car, even.

As it turns out, we pay a lot of money for luxury and convenience. As it turns out, I can do without a lot of things, including a car (which I’ve been without now for almost 2 years).

Fast forward to now.

Some friends of mine and I are participating in a challenge: to eat for 2 weeks on only $2/day. We will then collect the money we would normally have spent on food during those two weeks (grocery shopping or eating out) and give it to Empowering Lives International, an organization with the mission to empower the poor and oppressed in Africa. We’re giving our money specifically to feed starving children that attend one of ELI’s schools in Bukavu, DR Congo.

For two weeks, we choose to eat less to provide food for starving children. As it turns out, you can buy a lot of food for $2. But it’s not convenient.

Debt sucks. And I have a lot of it. I try to not talk about it as much as possible because, well, it’s just damn depressing. More than that, I don’t want to sound like a whiner. (The only person who hears me whine about money is my boyfriend, and sometimes my family.) I take full responsibility for getting myself into this situation, and I have to get myself out.

But can I just say how incredibly demoralizing it is to be taking care of stuff, setting up automatic payments, getting on payment plans, cutting my expenses to the bare minimum and yet still feel completely helpless when something happens like what happened today:

I own a townhouse in Cameron Park, which is where I used to live. It’s currently in foreclosure and I’ve applied for a loan modification. The payment has to be paid by certified funds, and December’s payment was due today. No problem. I walk to Rite Aid, where they have Western Union. Problem: can’t pay for a wire transfer with a personal check. Problem #2: because I do EVERYTHING online, I don’t have checks or an ATM card for the house bank account. Problem #3: the closet bank is at least 10 blocks away; I don’t have a car; and the scooter won’t start.

Deep breath.

Call the bank and wait on hold for 15 minutes to find out if I can make a wire transfer over the phone. No. OK, can I make it online? Yes. Back to the computer. Log in to bank account. Click to make a transfer. Have to set up an outside account to receive the transfer first. Click to do that. Need mortgage company’s bank account info. Call mortgage company. Get bank info. Back to online banking. Session timed out. Re-log in. Enter info.

Error message: Account suspended from transfer service.

Call bank a second time. Another 20 minutes on the phone only to find out that they can’t lift the suspension on the account for 5 business days.

Frik. Frik. Frik.