An update on Mr. Laguna Beach customer rep - I sent him another email today, and he emailed me back something about fear but that he was interested in seeing King Tut with me. And I emailed him back saying fear is natural, but like in Dune to remember that "fear is the mind killer". I told him I was just following the synchronicities and that he should do the same.

Then he called my cellphone and we chatted. So it turns out the customer service rep from Laguna Beach is like Mr. Scientist. Customer service rep guy actually works with the doctor who invented the device I’m wearing, and edits the guy’s books. He took courses at MIT, and worked at big pharma companies like GlaxoSmithKline. We decided that August would be a good month for me fly to LA so we could see King Tut together, and then he wanted me to call him over the weekend. We talked about everything and anything like the first time, and he promised to send me 8 pounds of books written by the scientist he’s working for. And I was like this is nice because now I don’t have to buy the books.

I am tempted to send him what I wrote about him on my blog, but I don’t want to scare the poor guy. Instead I sent another email thanking him for calling me and included an article by Harlan Ellison on the butterfly effect, and babbled on about quantum physics and then said maybe we were experiencing a "bioentanglement" . That should rock his boat enough.

I bought the book "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" by David Bohm years ago, but never read it. The book jacket reads:

David Bohm develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence, including matter and consciousness, as an unbroken whole.

The other day I was listening to an interview about the Princeton Eggs (google it to see what these things are) given by Dean Radin, and he talked about Bohm's theory and book.

So now I guess I have to read the book.

Rest in peace, Shelby Foote. You were the best civil war/war of northern agression historian and storyteller ever!

So I decided I am in sore need of a fun summer flirtation, and emailed the customer service rep in Laguna Beach. I gave him all my phone numbers, told him I really enjoyed talking to him, to give me a call sometime, and hinted about the King Tut exhibit in LA.

I think it would be so much fun to fly down to LA on a Saturday, have the guy meet me and take me to see the King Tut exhibit. What are friends in LA for anyway, right? Besides, now I am dying to know if this guy is cute or not. He's probably way too young and has tatoos, but I've never had a tatooed young-un before and I am willing to give it a try.

So the guy emailed me back today and this is what he wrote:

Brenda,
I really enjoyed talking with you last Friday. The time just flew by! Have you ever got off the phone and wondered, “What did I just say?” I was that comfortable.

No nightmares as yet, just a strange buzzing sensation, source unidentified. Kinda weird, kinda cool.

We do seem to have a lot in common. You’re easy to talk to. I would like to give you a follow-up call if I may. In the name of research of course.

Peace, M

And I was like so excited! It's so fun to be mentally infatuated with someone. And I'm like thinking if the guy has red hair, and I so moving to LA.

So I wrote back and said "Please do call!" and then said "Maybe if we get to know each other a little better, we could see the King Tut exhibit together. Egyptian stuff is very, very cool!". I also mentioned that I was "in awe" at how comfortable we were together on the phone.

That "Grease" song is going through my head ... summer lovin' had be a blast, summer lovin' happened so fast.

So one day you’re on the phone talking to the customer service rep who’s been emailing you because your just purchased very expensive product that is supposed to improve your health is actually making you nauseous. And you’re talking to him and trying to find out why you’re having adverse reactions, and in the midst of friendly chit chat you realize you have so much in common with the stranger on the phone. That your bodies react the same way to drugs and that he’s done several of the things you’ve done, plus to boot the guy played college football at home state school and as an 18-year old you always fantasized about dating football players from the home state university. But you’re at work and you’re in a cube farm where everyone can hear you, and he’s at work and answering the phones, and after twenty minutes you hang up because you’re both got a ton of work to do. And it’s not until you’ve hung up and go back to the spreadsheet you’re working on, that you realize that the guy was echoing back qualities you’d written down in your wish list of a perfect man when he was innocently telling you about himself. And at that exact moment of realization you feel your heart skipping a beat because you start to think that maybe Mr. Perfect does exist. And it isn’t until you’ve come out of a meeting later in the afternoon that you realize that the guy reminds you so much of your ex-husband, and that you haven’t met men like than in years. And then later on in the night as you’re having dinner in Macy’s Cellar before your 8 pm theater show, you realize that the guy who you had a twenty minute conversation on the phone made you feel safe, comfortable and normal and all other men that you thought you loved including the red-haired guy who you pledged undying devotion to months ago pale in comparison to this guy. And as you’re lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning unable to sleep you start to cry because you realize that the twenty minute conversation with the guy was like talking to your twin and you never thought you’d ever meet your twin nor did you ever believe in the twin concept until now. That talking to the customer service rep was like glimpsing a piece of heaven, heaven on earth that every girl dreams about when you meet the right guy. And you spill more tears because you realize how your ex-husband shattered the Mr. Perfect dream when you divorced and you’ve stayed away from guys like him ever since, even though guys like him are the ones you really, really like. And still more tears leave your eyes because you realize that once you’ve experienced a bit of heaven you can never go back and that maybe you never really loved the dozen or so men you thought you loved. And your last waking thought as you are finally falling asleep and the one that really breaks your heart is the right relationship is like having a piece of heaven on earth and the wrong relationship isn’t bad but it so pales compares in comparison to the real thing but you didn’t know it because your ex-husband spoiled it all for you and that it took a twenty minute conversation with a customer service rep who lives in Laguna Beach to set you straight.

And just to set the record straight, I did make myself go and see "Revenge of the Sith" again last Friday. And yes, I did cry at some point when "Ani" descends. I think the saddest part was when Padme tries to tell Obewon that "Ani still has good left in him" but dies before finishing the sentence. And then when Darth Vader asks about Padme, that was sad in a way because it showed he really did still care for her even though he tried to kill her before.

Oh yeah, and younglings about to die, that was sad. After the movie I started to think that maybe love was bad and a path to the dark side, because I'm still depressed, but then I realized that it's not love that's bad, its attachment that's bad. Ani was too attached to Padme, and attachment is a path to the dark side and not love. When you're too attached to an outcome, you end up not doing good things sometimes. Attachment is tied into emotions, and intense emotions like fear and anger are direct paths to the dark side. But not love, at least not love without attachment to results. But who is divine enough to have that kind of love 24/7. I think that's the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. He was all too human and couldn't rise above the level of emotional attachmnents. Plus having intuitions about a bad future coming to pass probably doesn't help.

I love that my intuitions are coming true, but at the same time, it's kind of a pain because there are things that I sense that I don't want to come true. And with my schizophrenic intuitions I don't know which ones are true and which ones aren't, so half the time I'm like thinking "what is the point of having intuition if it's not completely reliable?"

Work has really been tough too. There are some weird political things happening at work, and I don't like it. The guy who I didn't like and thought was going to quit, quit on Tuesday. My intuition on that guy totally came true and that was kind of scary. I never liked the guy and as of March I knew the guy was going to quit.

Of course I was shocked when he did because my intuition is schizophrenic at times, but my prediction did come true. The guy quit because he didn't get along with the woman I have problems with, who is like the senior manager in our department. I don't blame him. The woman is like an insecure junior high cheerleader terrorist who is not very smart, but works very hard at trying to please and kiss ass her bosses, and those types in corporate America tend to do very well. But she is like so disorganized. She's a good project manager, but she's so scattered. She thinks she's smart but she's really not, and it really shows sometimes. Plus she's the type who has to be right about everything and if you do like I did and be stupid enough to challenge her, you're on her shit list forever.

I think the woman positively hates and the feeling is mutual. The problem is she's my boss's boss. I try to steer clear away from her, but it's hard. The woman hates me so much, she never invites me to any meetings that I should probably be attending and someone from another department asked why she never copies me on email that I should be getting. I wanted to tell him it's because she's a vindictive immature bitch, but I just said "I don't know". This guy is new and he's always commenting to me on how scattered this woman is. I always want to agree with him, but I know if I do and she finds out about it, she'll make my work life more of a hell than it already is.

I think my boss knows and I can't stand her, and tries to make sure I'm not involved in projects with her but it's hard. My intuition is telling me that she won't be around in August because of some other political stuff going on at work and I hope my intuition is right.

The woman has three kids and only is in the office two days a week, and works from home three days a week. My company just laid down a policy that if you have direct reports, starting on August 1, you have to be in the office five days a week. The woman I can't stand is trying to get an exemption, but I don't she'll get one. I know the guy who is quiting is the vindictive type and he'll like totally blast her in his HR exit interview. She's already had three employees quit who worked directly for her in the year I've worked there, and all for the same reason - because she's hard to get along with and very disorganized.

That's the thing I've learnt in my experience in corporate america, no one is indispensible. You think you are but you're not. And not especially at my company where they've let go at one senior executive a month since December. My boss's boss might think she's indispensible but the VP for our division axed his right hand man two months ago. Now if he can do that, I don't think he'll have any problem getting rid of other people. But I'll have to see.

Yes, I'm still around but I haven't felt much like posting or writing for that matter. I took a seminar in Monterey on Saturday June 11 called "Creating the Love of your Life", and I'm like so depressed now. I took it with a friend of mine and she's depressed as well.

It's kind of like I feel so let down. Like, I created this huge list of what I want in a relationship and I think I'm depressed because I don't think I'll ever find this guy. Never mind that the womwan who created the seminar has an 85% success rate and that the woman who recommended the seminar to me is now married to a guy who she says fulfills 95% of the things she wanted in a guy and in a relationship, I'm like so what. Maybe that can happen to them but not to me. I think I'm just detoxing from all my issues about love and relationships.

Of course, silly me decided after Monterey to go and see "Revenge of the Sith" on Sunday. That was a mistake. I couldn't get my butt in gear so I ended up on Muni at the last possible second thinking I have half an hour to get downtown. But as luck would have it, stupid Muni train breaks down so I miss the first 10 minutes of the movie.

And I was so not in the mood to watch "Ani" descend into the dark side, that I just walked out of the theatre in a daze. Then I decided I needed to a friend's housewarming party in the Haight, which of course was happening during the middle of the Haight Street Fair.

What a zoo that fair is! There were no good bands, and just a bunch of wannabee hippie types milling around. My last experiene of the Haight Street Fair was years ago when I happened upon it and there was this fantastic blues band playing at 10 am. I was my usual dancing self and dancing right in front of the band, and was ignoring the band guy who kept gesturing for me to get up on the stage and dance. The music was great and I wasn't about the join the rest of the flower chicks trying to dance on stage.

But it was great to see my friend since I hadn't seen in her in weeks and wouldn't be seeing her all summer since she's off to Costa Rica and then New Jersey for the summer. But after about 1.5 hours I was dead. I just wanted to go home and process my seminar and lie in bed and wait for depression to come.

Check the article out below ... it's pretty revolutionary but scary.

FDA panel to consider approval of race-specific heart failure drug

An FDA panel this Thursday will consider whether NitroMed’s BiDil, a drug found to significantly improve survival among African-American patients with moderate to advanced heart failure, should become the first drug intended for use by a specific racial group, the New York Times reports. After being rejected for general approval in 1997 because of “inconclusive evidence” in clinical trials, BiDil in 2004 was called one of the year’s “top developments” by the American Heart Association after a study of 1,050 African-American heart failure patients found that the drug “significantly reduced death and hospitalization” by widening participants’ blood vessels. Industry analysts say that if BiDil is approved, NitroMed will be able to use the drug’s “racially specific indication” to extend patent protection by an additional 13 years; they add that the drug’s annual sales have the potential to reach $825 million. However, although NitroMed maintains that its decision to test the drug solely in African Americans is based on “solid science,” some medical ethicists and scientists worry that “race is too broad and ill-defined a category to be relevant in determining a drug’s approval.” For instance, a researcher who last year reviewed BiDil in the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics said that the drug’s approval as an African-American-only drug “would give an official ring to the discredited idea that race is a biological category.” In addition, many physicians contend that BiDil may also work in patients of other ethnicities and say that tests are needed to determine whether the drug is more effective in African-American patients. The Times notes that if the FDA panel recommends approval of BiDil, it would “go well beyond where it has in the past in using race as a category to evaluate which patients respond to drugs” (Saul, Times, 6/13; Daily Briefing, 11/9/04). For more information about the results of the trial investigating BiDil in African-American heart failure patients and the debate about ethnically targeted therapies, please see the Nov., 18, 2004 Cardiovascular Watch.
*****

So I'm like thinking if they have the technology to make racial specific therapy drugs, doesn't this also mean they have the technology to make racial specific biological weapons or disease as well?

The conspiracy theorist in me is coming out!

I'm starting to become interested in what jury will say about Michael Jackson. The legal pundits have said that if the jury deliberates for this long, then it's not good news for Jackson. I'm starting to think they're right.

I stayed at this amazing hotel in Vancouver years ago, and for the life of me I couldn't remember the name of it. I was searching for another hotel today that I'm attending a seminar at tonight, and when I googled the hotel website I noticed they had a hotel in Vancouver. When I clicked on the Vancouver hotel, I saw the hotel I stayed at all those years ago.

Check it out - Pan Pacific Hotel - Vancouver. We had a great view of the bay, and I loved that the hotel looked like a yaht. Vancouver is such a great city to visit ... it's so clean and very, very beautiful.

I woke up this morning feeling good for the first time in a very long time. I was having a small health issue but it resolved itself this morning, and I’m starting to wonder if I was more than a little worried about what was happening.

I’m going to see the great Robert McKee on Thursday night, screenwriting guru made famous in the movie “Adaptation”. McKee is hosting his famous seminar in San Francisco this weekend and I would have signed up, but I have plans for both days. The seminar in pricey anyway, and it’s just not in my budget to spend that much money right now.

What else? I saw a Japanese adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” called “The Kyogen of Errors” on Thursday June 2. Kyogen is a type of Japanese theater. Below is an explanation I found on the Net on what Kyogen is:

Kyogen evolved from a form of indigenous theater called Sarugaku and reached the level of popular entertainment among the common people during the tumultuous Muromachi Period (1380-1466). During the Tokugawa Period, kyogen subsequently gained the acceptance and support of the ruling classes. At this time, for aesthetic reasons, it was paired with noh. While noh and kyogen are performed on the same stage, and there is a part for a kyogen actor in almost every noh play, they are two separate theater arts. Kyogen dialogue is a somewhat stylized form of the common spoken language of the Muromachi Period while the language employed in the noh theater is highly literary in style. While noh is historical and tragic, kyogen plays reflect the habits, customs and lives of ordinary people in short comic sketches. Short ballads (kouta) were popular among the common people in the Muromachi period, and a number of these songs appear in kyogen plays. Kyogen relied heavily on improvisation and it was not until the seventeenth century during the Edo Period that the oldest still extant plays were put into written form. Once many manuscripts of these plays had come into existence, there was a tendency not to expand the repertoire and there were also no substantial changes in the way the plays were performed. Kyogen plays are divided into several categories, depending on the type of character designated as protagonist (shite) or the overall theme of the play. Today some 300 kyogen plays are known and about 200 of them are still performed, but unlike noh, not even a single name is left to us of those who composed kyogen.

The performers wore these masks and they looked like cute little goblins on stage. They kept uttering this phrase throughout the whole play “ya ya ko shi ya”, which in Japanese means “It’s all very complicated”. The performers were all men, and two of men who were supposed to be imitating women wore the most beautiful kimonos. I saw this play at Shakespeare in Golden Gate Park a few years ago, and they used boy/girl twins in the role.

It was amazing how the performers were able to translate a Shakespeare play into a very old form of Japanese theater, and that as an audience member I could still recognize the play as what I remembered.

Here’s the Chronicle’s review - "Errors" does Shakespeare right.