ove life update: After Hubert and I parted, I continued to meet men via the Internet personals until the day I walked out my front door and saw a man sitting up in the tree next door. He was trimming the branches, so I asked him if he was a gardener. "No," he said, "I'm a housepainter." Turned out he was my neighbor and had been living next door to me for two years. I'd never met him before because I'd been too busy staying inside my house with the shades drawn, trying to meet men via the Internet.

That was a year and a half ago. After Jack descended from the tree, I hired him to paint my front steps, one thing led to another, and we've been together ever since. I've even gone against my grain and ventured into the great sunny outdoors with Jack. Last month we went to one of the sunniest and most outdoorsy places on earth: Death Valley. If you want to experience a wonderfully surreal, other-worldly "romantic getaway," go to Death Valley in the springtime. Walk across the sand dunes, look for wildflowers, go through Mosaic Canyon, look out over the hills from Zabrinski Point, and try to catch a performance by Marta Becket, a 78-year-old ballet dancer who performs at the Amargosa Opera House (book a room at the Amargosa Hotel)

My relationship with Jack has had a good, calming effect on my writing life, which consists of running a business, The Writing Salon (a school of creative writing located in San Francisco), teaching personal essay writing classes, and doing my own freelance writing when I can squeeze it in. Most recently, my erotica has appeared in two anthologies -- Best Women's Erotica 2003 and Ripe Fruit: Erotica for Well-Seasoned Lovers; and my personal essays have been published in Salon, Babycenter.com, The Sun, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Recent Favorites:

Favorite Obsession: Leopard prints (purses, blouses, jackets, pillows, car trash baskets, eyeglass cases, whatever)

Favorite Song: I Love You, by Asie Payton (from the soundtrack for the movie Big Bad Love; great soundtrack if you like blues)

Favorite TV show: What Not to Wear - BBC version (I love seeing women transformed and made happy by the transformation)

Favorite Movie: Adaptation (wouldn't any writer love this movie?)

Favorite Food: Wasabi mashed potatoes (especially nice with saki)

Favorite Quote: "Know that you don't know: That's superior." -- Lao Tzu

Favorite Quote for Writers (from Eric Maisel's book, Write Mind):

WRONG MIND: "I don't deserve to call myself a writer."
RIGHT MIND: "I can call myself a writer or a mongoose, for all that matters. The only important thing is that I write."

You can contact Jane Underwood at jane@writingsalons.com.

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