I saw two movies this weekend. I haven't been going to see any movies at the theater because I've been so busy and because I started getting depressed while I was in the theatre. Even when I was supposd to be seeing a comedy, I'd get depressed.

I'd be watching the movie and really getting in the story, and after awhile I'd think to myself that watching this movie was just an escape for me and afterwards I'd be going back to my horrible life. This thought would make me so depressed because I couldn't even enjoy watching a movie without my horrible life intruding on the experience.

I came to this same realization about drinking awhile back. I used to drink to escape my life, until I realized one night that once the high of being drunk wears off you're still stuck with your life.

The night that experience happened I was out partying with friends, and drank what I thought was a ton of booze. I came home, drank some more and then lay awake in bed unable to sleep. As the booze gradually wore off, the awfulness of my life started to hit me. I got so mad. I mean, what was the point of drinking if the high was so short and at the end you were back stuck with your horrible life? I felt so damned cheated, especially because of the volume of alcohol I had consumed.

Booze is such a slavemaster! In the beginning it doesn't take much for you get tipsy. Then little by little, you need more and more, and high of drinking gets shorter and shorter. Soon you're drinking a ton and not getting much out of it. Then after awhile you have to drink to maintain your blood alcohol levels, because if you don't maintain your levels you get cranky. And the crankiness gets totally worse on the third day if you go without alcohol. If you don't watch out you become a slave to heartless bottle of brown or white liquid in the bottle. Slavery to inanimate objects have never been my thing.

After that night, I started cutting down on my drinking. It seemed so pointless now. Now I just drink when I'm out with friends, at parties or when friends come over. I rarely drink when I'm by myself, although I still like to keep a very well stock liquor cabinet for company and just in case I have the urge to have a drink.

Anyway, enough about my boozaholic history. The two movies I saw was "Shrek 2" and "Troy". I wouldn't have gone to see Shrek 2, but "The Day after Tomorrow" was sold out, and Shrek was the only movie available when I was at the theatre on Friday.

Shrek 2 was really, really funny! I'll probably rent it again because I'm sure there jokes that I missed because I was laughing so hard. The theatre wasn't very packed, but other people were laughing so it must have been funny to other people as well. At one point, we were all clapping as well although I don't quite remember when that happened in the movie.

I wasn't going to see "Troy" but on Friday, I listened to Skip Bayless' review of the movie. Skip Bayless, a sport columnist for The Mercury news, was guest hosting The Jim Rome show on Friday. Bayless reviewed the movie "Troy" and tried to make a connection to sports by talking about Brad Pitt.

Bayless kept going on and on about how Brad Pitt's upper body was just amazingly well built, and how Pitt had trained for six months to achieve his upper body look. Bayless tried to make a connection between Pitt and Barry Bonds. Bayless said that people couldn't believe how much Barry Bonds built his upper body a few years ago, and so attributed Bonds' upper body strength to steroids. Bayless said that if Pitt didn't take steroids to achieve his muscular upper body, then it must be able to be done without drugs. So maybe Barry Bonds just trained hard like Brad Pitt, and didn't take drugs to do it.

Bayless then further reinforced his point, by saying that Brad Pitt's legs looked way too skinny, and faulted his trainer for not working on Pitt's legs. But if Pitt was on steroids, his lower legs should have also been built up even without him working on them.

So of course I had to see "Troy" on Saturday if Skip Bayless was raving about Brad Pitt's body. And yes, the boy was ripped and had the kind of back muscles you just want to run your tongue over to feel every curve. And I'm one of few women on this planet who doesn't think Brad Pitt is all that attractive either.

But never mind Pitt's upper body and skinny legs. What about the boy's bottom? The movie had a ton of shots of the Brad Pitt's bum! Like OH MY GOD! His bum was amazing! What is that expression? So tight he was bouncing off the wall. Like the filmmakers don't know their female audience. There were so many shots of Brad Pitt walking around naked in the tent, and the camera was just a stitch above his crotch that you couldn't help but wonder what was just below the camera line.

I knew there were probably women there squinting to see if there were pubic hairs getting into the shot. You could totally see his front hip bones. I'm not a Brad Pitt groupie, but even I was quite fascinated by his hip bones.

When I saw those Pitt body shots, I sat in my chair wondering if this was going to be like that stupid movie "Legends of the Fall" which my friend made me sit through just so she could oggle Brad Pitt. But thankfully, the "Troy" filmmakers put in some scenes for the men as well.

"Troy" had some great bloody, bloody battle scenes with blood squirting all over the place. There weren't any body parts flying around the screen like in "Braveheart", but I think that was because the weapons weren't the same. In "Braveheart", the men fought with long broadswords. In "Troy", the weapon of choice was arrows.

But there were some great arrows in legs and arrows in other body part scenes. I would have loved to see an arrow go straight through some guy's head, but this event probably doesn't happen that often. The few hand to hand combat scenes "Troy" provided great sword play, and the cuts that people sustained looked very blood and real. I would have been really bummed if the fighting wasn't gory and realistic. What's the point of watching a movie about a war without seeing blood squirting all over the place and tons of dead bodies?

I also saw bodies with lots of realistic bruising, which is really nice to see in a war movie. Usually the bruising parts gets skipped or I just don't notice it. But there was excellent bruising and bruising marks in this movie.

I also liked the guy who played Odysseus, and thought his characterization of that legendary figure was done very well. I hope they make a movie about Odysseus with that actor playing him; he'd be perfect.

Eric Bana of "The Hulk" also did quite a good job. Poor Mr. Hulk. Why did the filmmakers of that movie make The Hulk looke like the Jolly Green Giant from the frozen food packages? The Hulk even had the Jolly Green Giant's purple pants. Orlando Bloom just wasn't as attractive as he was in The Lord of the Rings. He should go back to being a blonde elf boy.

I liked the movie "Troy", but since I know the story I wished the filmmakers hadn't taken so many liberties with the story. Oh well. It's just an adaptation. With all the special effects moviemakers can do currently, you can't help but wonder when you watch a movie like "Troy" if those people you're watching on screen are real or just movie special effects.

In any battle scene, you might be able to safely assume that the first five rows of soldiers are real people because you can actually see their faces and their expressions. But after that, I don't know. I think they're just computer generated especialy if I can see a face or an expression. I spend the whole movie wondering which effects and people are real and which are fake. It kind of takes away for me some of the enjoyment of the movie, but I can't help but do it.

It's been a busy and eventful weekend, and I haven't been in a mood to write. So many things have happened in such a short time.

First off, my uncle is in the hospital in an intensive care ward in Oakland. I spent this Memorial day keeping my aunt company for three hours and just talking to her about what happened. They dont' really know what's wrong with him, other than the fact that his lungs are bleeding. They sort of ruled to tuberculosis, but they just don't know.

My aunt said my uncle had a lung ailment for three weeks and was short of breath. She kept telling him to go to the doctor but he didn't want to. On Thursday he practically fainted at work so he agreed to go see his PCP on Friday. The PCP rushed him to the emergency room so he could go to the hospital for tests. On Saturday he was talking but still short of breath so they put him on oxygen and did a TB test, which turned out to be negative.

Despite the oxygen, he still had trouble breathing, so they put him in ICU on Saturday night and stuck tubes down his throat and put him on a respirator. My aunt finally started calling people on Sunday night, because the doctor said people should come now because his lungs were filling up with blood and he was close to renal failure.

My uncle's illness came as such a surprise. He seemed to be in good health, and other than the lung ailment seemed fine. I wished my uncle wasn't so stubborn and had gone to the doctor when he first starting noticing his lung ailment. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be sitting in the hospital now if he had only gone to the doctor.

My aunt said the timing of my uncle's illness is not that great because he was thinking of retiring from work next year. They even have plans to go on a cruise to Alaska at the end of June, which my aunt doesn't want to cancel yet in case my uncle gets better.

The doctors have absolutely no idea what's wrong with him and they've got him on steroids and strapped to his bed so he doesn't thrash around and yank the tubes out of arms and mouth. My poor uncle. When I was there they decided to keep him sedated to keep him calm to stop him from breathing so hard.

The medical staff are afraid to give him morphine because of his blood pressure and because they haven't ruled out that he might have a heart attack that triggered his lungs to bleed. I think he was thrashing around because he's in a lot of pain. Thankfully one of the nurses decided to give him some vicodin, which I don't think helps his pain at all because my aunt told me my uncle takes vicodin for pain at home for his gout.

My family is flying in from all over the country to see my uncle. I'm going to spend most of my time with them this week and over the weekend. Hopefully the doctors can figure out why my uncle is so sick.

I don't think I'll ever be happy in any job I'm in. I'm convinced of this fact now. Now that I've been at my job for a couple of months, I haven't met anyone who feels very appreciated for what they do. That's sad isn't it? I kind of thought this company would be different, but it's turning out to be more of the same.

Whatever. My fatalist sense tells me that I needed to have this realization so I could get my life back in balance. After all, if I was happy with my job and worked 60-80 hours weeks when would I ever find the time to write?

But I had the realization. I worked hard all week on this important project, and I wasn't thanked, people weren't grateful and at one point someone got mad at me because they thought I did this one thing. Of course I didn't do it, but it was really galling to be treated that way after the way I worked this week. I'm still kind of upset about it, but I know that will pass.

It was really hard this morning to be calm, but I told myself that I couldn't stay mad all day. Staying angry at work just isn't worth the emotion and energy. Short of quitting, there's really nothing I can do about my situation right now.

So I put my headphones one and listened to Jim Lampley the boxing analyst, be the guest host on the Jim Rome show. Once I did that, I felt transported and very faw away from all the dramarama that was going on in my department.

Later on in the day as I mulled the situation around and round in my head, I decided that if wasn't going to be especially appreciated for working hard and staying late then I wasn't going to stay late at work anymore. I'm not going to kill myself to get something done if people at work can't be bothered to say at least thank you for all of your hard work.

I was headed in that direction anyway, and was tired of feeling guilty for wanting to write and work out instead of work. Well, not anymore. Maybe I just needed an external excuse to convince myself, because I wasn't going to be able to make the decision on my own. Well, now the decision has been made and I'm at peace with it. It was meant to happen I think anyway.

Writing, working out and taking care of myself is what I really need to be doing. I have to work as well, but from now on I'm going to be like everyone else and leave when I'm supposed to. It's not like I'm working hard to get a promotion. I'm very content to be doing what I'm doing, and have no wish to move up any more on the corporate ladder.

I need to have time to write and work out and take care of myself. If I don't do it, who will? Certainly not the people at work. It's all good. Writing is what I should be doing, not working like a dog at work.

Today was such a bad, bad, hard day for me. Shocking really, because I didn't expect the kind of siuation to me to ever happen again. But it did, and I'm fine. I can adjust, I'm adaptable, I know how to maximize any situation I'm in to my best advantage.

I sometimes unknowingly pick up people's thoughts or maybe it's just that I'm very, very perceptive and can read situatons really well. Not all the time, but just sometimes. I'd actually forgotten I could do this, but working in an office has reminded me that I have this ability.

I was feeling so jealous last week of that new guy that was getting so much work, and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, I probably make double what me makes so why should it bother me that he was getting alot of work. My workload is heavy enough without wanting more.

But when I talked to the admim assistant for our group, she confided in me that she was feeling some job insecurity because of the new guy who is also a admin assistant like she is. She was afraid that her bosses might like him better, and try to boot her out. Poor kid, and she really is a young twenty something kid.

I think I was picking up the admin assistant's feelings and thoughts, and thinking they were my own. At least now I know why I was having those feelngs.

I wish I was better at shielding my mind but I'm not. It takes me awhile to figure out that I may just be picking up someone else's thoughts, but once I do I know how to rid myself of the other person so to speak. I have enough tools, have taken enough seminars, and have enough books to quickly remove thoughts and feelings that aren't my own from my head.

When I was younger it used to be really bad. I couldn't look at crippled people or people with obvious physical deformities without tapping into their pain, sadness and anger. I still remember that time I couldn't go near the Vietnam Memorial in DC because I was picking up way too many sad, sad, and painful thoughts from other people.

I have an urge to go to New York to see the 9/11 site, but I know in my heart I probably physically couldn't go near the place witout freaking out.

I wish my friend Amy was still alive. I have perceptions but I can't analyze them. I used to tell Amy about the perceptions I was having up, and she was able tap into my perceptions and analyze them so they made sense. Amy said I could analyze them if I wanted do, but I just wasn't used to doing it because she said I ignored them most of the time until they started to infringe on my own mental space.

Amy was always telling me I need to protect myself more, and learn to put up a barrier between myself and other's people thoughts and feelings. Amy said she would literally go insane if she picked up perceptions the way I did.

But I don't how to turn them off because I don't even know how I get them. I just get them. It's an inner knowing. Amy was lucky because her perceptions took the form of images in her mind. Mine come as thoughts in my head, whether their mine or somebody else's.

I'm reading over this post, and I know I'm starting to sound like a science fiction character in one of Octavia Butler's books. Most of her books are about people who have various forms of intuition. I wonder if she's an intuitive.

At least it's not that bad for me. I met a woman in college who could literally tell when things were going to happen. She kept her ability very secret, and I only found out about it because I tapped into her once and asked her about it. She said she never shared her ability with anyone because it was just too dangerous for her, even though she had learned to turn it off. She said she could pass someone by and know whether they were going to die the next moment. She hated it and feared her own powers.

I have some tapes that are supposed to harmonize your brain patterns, and I've been listening to them to help me from picking perceptions up. I'm thinking that maybe if my brain waves were more in harmony, I wouldn't be so vulnerable to other people's thoughts and feelings. It seems be working right now anway. The tapes are also great for relaxing so maybe I feel better because I'm less stressed.

Maybe working long hours at work is starting to pay off. I'm off to North Carolina in June for a 3-day seminar. I love travelling to different states, even if it's just for business. I get to stay in a hotel, rack up mileage on my airline cards, eat out, and schmooze with other people.

I hope I'll have the chance to sightsee but I doubt it. The seminar starts Sunday and ends Tuesday afteroon. I hear Raleigh, North Carolina is a nice place, and I'll be staying at the Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club, which is a Four-Diamond hotel nestled in 300 acres of tall pines and hardwoods and located on the campus of Duke University.

All I know about Duke is that they've got a consistently well-run college basketball team, from my memories of my March madness gambling ventures.

Then in July, I fly down to LA for a conference. It will be a one day trip, flying in the morning and coming back at night. But at least I'm travelling, and that to me is a good thing.