Finally back home. My trip was so short, it feels like I commuted to North Carolina for a couple of days. It's a very weird feeling.

I heard some of the people in the seminar talking about taking the coffee mugs from the seminar home. They're nice big blue coffee mugs that say Washington Duke Hotel and Golf Course. I decided to join the crowd and slipped one into my bag. Such a typical tourist ... stealing the hotel mugs. I've got pencils and pads and pens from the other hotel as well.

I got wanded at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. This is the first time I've been wanded since 9/11 happened. TSA took me aside and said the airline had designated me to be searched and wanded today.

They made me take my shoes off so they could examine them. Then I had to stand and let some woman wand me and pat me down. My stupid underwire bra kept making the wand go off. The TSA people went through all of my carryons and even inspected my laptop.

I wasn't mad, but I did feel kind of like a criminal only because people stare at you and look at you and wonder if you're a terrorist. Either you're a terrorist or you're too stupid to follow the rules they have for getting through security. It's either one of the two.

At airport I bought a magnet that says North Carolina only because it had a red cardinal birdie on it. I used to see red cardinals in Hawaii all the time when I was growing up. Now I rarely see those birds here in San Francisco.

I can't believe tomorrow is only Wednesday and I have to go back to work. It kind of felt like I was away for the weekend.

I saw the cutest guy waiting in line to get on the plane at the Charlotte Airport. He was a Steve look-alike only he was a blonde. He was tall with blue eyes, and he had a tan which was cool. Nicely dressed as well, good shoes and an expensive dress shirt. He kept looking back at me in line.

He got on the plane before me and was sitting in first class. Then I had fantasies about him the whole plane ride. What if he was the one? What if I missed my chance and was supposed to talk to him in line? Why can't I be more friendly to totally cute strangers? What if he was my true love and I was just too stupid to talk to him? Wouldn't our son look so cute? I had visions of us going to church together. It's so sad! I don't even know guy, and probably have no chance in hell of meeting him, and I'm fantasizing about showing up at church with the guy.

I was kind of hoping he would be there at the baggage claim so I could stare at him some more, but he had carried his suitcase and probably even parked his car at the airport.

I wished I checked his ring finger. But isn't that rude that the guy might have been married and was staring at me like that in line? If he was my husband, and I knew he was checking out girls in line at the Charlotte Airport I'd be upset. He was really, really cute though. He had such a nice smile. Pretty eyes too. A little on the thin side, but at least he was tall.

In a seminar all day at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club. Then my co-worker and I came back to the hotel, and I checked work email and needed to work.

I leave tomorrow at 2 pm. What a short trip. We didn't even get a chance to see anything. The Washington Duke gift shop was so disappointing! Maybe I'll shop at the airport for souveneirs.

We made a trip to Eckard's in Durham, and there wasn't anything special there. Chain stores are the same all over. I watched the Durham news WRAL news on TV tonight. There are gangs in Durham North Carolina. Who knew? Maybe all towns have the same problems.

In Durham North Carolina at a different hotel off the Duke Campus. The seminar expensive hotel was sold out. Too bad. We drove by the place and it looked great. This alternate hotel is just your typical boring ugly chain hotel. Oh well. I wish we were on the Duke Campus.

I'm exhausted. My flight left at 6 in the morning, and the shuttle came to get me at 4 am. I didn't even sleep. I lay down for a bit, but couldn't fall asleep. I managed to sleep on the plane to Denver, and on the noisy crop duster plane to Raleigh Durham, but I feel tired. I hope I sleep well tonight. I'll be sleeping through the seminar if I don't.

We're going to a welcome reception tonight. I'm starving. I hope they feed us. It's not like I haven't been eating all day, but I'm tired so I'm hungry. I'm becoming a cranky traveller.

I wonder if this is true. Just heard on the radio that John Kerry is going to offer the VP spot to Richard Gephardt. Hmmmm.....

There's something about my aunties.

My aunties are sport nuts! On Saturday, my aunties insisted on getting back to the hotel so they could watch ESPN's Sports Center.

My oldest aunty was talking about how she was a huge Boston Redsox fan in highschool, and supposedly had an awesome baseball card collection. She said she even had Ted Williams' baseball card. She was lamenting the fact that my grandmother had thrown her collection while she was in college, and if she had held on to the colleciton it would be worth a fortune right now. My aunt still follows baseball, but she's not an intense Redsox fan anymore.

My other two aunties told me they watch more sports on TV than their husbands. They bragged about how they drag their husbands to sporting events. My aunties were all over the NBA basketball final, and wanted to watch ESPN Sports Center so they could hear more analysis about the series. They're betting money on the championship. One of my aunties is rooting for the Laker, the other aunty is rooting for the Pistons and can rattle off the stats for every player on the Pistons team. The other aunty can rattle off the stats for all the Laker players as well, so they're evenly matched that way.

On Sunday morning, my aunties were oohing and ahhing over the sports history shows on West Coast ESPN. They said that their local ESPN channels didn't show the same shows. My aunties were jealous that I lived in an ESPN market with better sports show programming.

So I'm like listening to them and wondering if liking sports is inherited in the family for girls. I know I've been been in relationships where I was more interested in sports than my boyfriend. How funny!

But if sports interest is inherited in the family among the girls, so is shopping. All my aunties are shopping freaks! They insisted on going to Nordstrom Center so they could go to shoe department. They were practically orgasming over the number and variety of shoes at Nordstroms.

One of my aunties, the Pistons fan, bought three pairs of shoes. The former Boston Redsox fan aunty had a pair of shoes shipped to her. The Laker fan aunty doesn't make that much money, so she's not much a shopping freak because of her finances but even she ended up buying a pair of shoes at the DSW Shoe Warehouse. And of course they had to buy clothes and jewelry for themselves, as well as souveniers for the families back home.

And I have their eating habits as well. My aunties all have sweet tooths. We kept having to stop for cookies, pastries and candies. How weird!

I mean, I never grew up with my aunties. My mother was their sister, but I wasn't around most of them growing up. And yet somehow I share their liking for sports, shopping, and sweets.

My aunties were very impressed that I won the office March Madness pool that one year. They've been playing for years, and have never won.

And my aunties are surprised themselves about their similar sports interests because only my oldest aunty was into sports in highschool. They other two only became interested in sports after they were married. The Pistons fan aunty says she doesn't know any other women who follow sports the way she does, and now she's excited to have someone, her own sister in fact, to analyze ESPN Sports Center with.

I supposed I should comment on the passing of former president Ronald Reagan.

I've been politically aware since my youth, and I wore funeral black armbands when Reagan was elected president. That should tell all you need to about my opinion about the man. I was never an Alzheimer Reagan democrat, but neither were my parents. They would never have voted for a republican, no matter how brilliantly the guy played and acted in the role of the president.

Reagan was a good actor. DUH!!! Was there any question that he would play the role of the president, the role of a lifetime for anyone I might add, to perfection. What else is there to say?

I don't know why people got so mad at Hilary, when Nancy was running the country the whole time Uncle Ronnie was in office. Nancy was just too smart to say anything about it, and Hilary, well she had to talk about because she didn't want people think that Slick Willie was smarter than she was. Nancy didn't care. She knew that actually running the country was more important than getting credit for running the country.

If you're into NBA basketball, you'll want to check out ESPN tonight and hear Larry Byrd talk about white players in the NBA. Here's the ESPN link to the interview, For 'Two on Two', It's all Bird.

SFGate.com had an article about the interview as well, Bird chirps: White America wants white basketball stars.

My aunties are such a trip. On Saturday, I took them to the City and made them ride BART. They kept asking me, "are we underneath the Bay yet?"

One of my aunties is this very snobby, hoity toity types, and she insisted we go to Neiman Marcus so she could buy me some clothes. Of course she knows I never shop there but she was trying to impress me and her other sisters or something.

I ended up buying two t-shirts in colours I didn't even want for $85 a piece. I really needed more white t-shirts to wear to work, but they were out of them and I didn't want to try on anything else. At the checkout, I grabbed another t-shirt, which was $45, and made my aunt buy me $250 worth of t-shirts. What a trip!

I really wanted her to buy me some jewelry or a new bag for work or a jean jacket, but I thought t-shirts would be less expensive. And I really needed white t-shirts but they were all sold out at Neiman Marcus and at Macys.

I complained to my other auntie that what I really wanted was a jean jacket, but that I didn't think Neiman Marcus carried any. We were shopping in the City again on Sunday, and the auntie that I was complaining to made me go into the Gap to buy a jean jacket. I didn't really want one, but I thought what the hell, I'll let buy it because I knew if I didn't she'd be mad at me till she flew home.

I have bad work karma. We have an intern starting next Tuesday, and I just knew she was going to get a new laptop. When I asked my bosses for a new laptop, they moaned and complained about not having enough money. Was that a lie or what?

I was so pissed I left at 5:15 pm. Screw working late if I can't even get decent equipment. I'm like whatever.

And that was just the capper on a bad day. I was sleepy this morning, so I had my eyes closed when I felt something touching the left side of my breast. Some jerk was touching my breast with his finger. What a creep!

I yelled at him and asked him what the heck he was doing with his finger, and jerkoff just looked at me stone faced. I was so upset I got up and move to the other side of the train. I was so agitated I ended up telling the two women next to me that the psycho across the way was feeling me up. They sympathized with me, but then said they see it all the time and that the train was full of sick people.

I looked up some some guy and he was just grinning, like he was just enjoying watching me get molested like that. What a freak! I should have just punched the guy out, but it was too early in the morning. God, that made me so mad I could feel my blood pressure rising! If I ever see that psycho on the train again, I'm going to punch him out.

I've never been felt up on the train before. I should never have closed my eyes like that. That was dumb!

Then I had my weekly meeting with my boss, and she asked if I could help out with a project that I knew the rest of the group was working on. I've been hearing them talk about it for awhile, and my boss said they needed help. There were three people working on the project.

So I get an email from one of the guys at 10 am, and he asks me to research two competitors for the competitive analysis that they were doing. But then when I looked at what they had done, I saw that between three people they had only managed to do four companies. I couldn't believe they were asking me to do two companies by myself. I was so mad! I'm like, what they heck where these people doing for the two weeks they've been working on the project.

So I emailed everyone back and said I only had time to do one, but then my boss emailed back and asked me to do one today and one tomorrow. I'm like whatever.

Then the guy who was supposedly running the project comes over to my desk and start explaining the project to me like I was really stupid. He didn't know that I had already starting working on it, and when I showed him what I had started he stopped talking.

At 3 pm, I finished the one company that I said I would do, and I could hear them saying how quick I was. I felt like screaming over the cubicle that I got it done so quickly because I work hard, and don't complain and moan all day like they've been doing for two weeks.

I couldn't believe those people had two weeks to do this project, and it still wasn't done. I would have finished it in one week by myself. Maybe I haven't seen all the work they did, but what the guy sent me didn't look it would take more than four days to complete.

Those three people don't even stay late either. They clock in and clock out on the dot, and then copmlain about how much work they have to do. I take that back. One guy stays late alot, and so does one woman occassionally, but the other guy jets out of there at 5 pm.

I think my boss had me do it because those four people were just dragging their feet on the project. I don't know. I'm pissed my boss made me work on the second company, but she knows I have the time.

I should stop complaining myself because I know I get paid double what the three people make, but still! That doesn't excuse bad work habits. I probably make triple what the damned intern makes and she's getting a new laptop. I hate that. I just totally hate that!

I bought some stocks over the weekend. After being out of the market for several years, it feels weird to buying stock again. I bought 200 shares of Silicon Image (SIMG), the company that makes the chips for high definition TVs.

My favorite Wall Street stock picker was very bullish on the stock and picked the stock up 3 months ago. I hope this stock tip pans out.

I would be happy if I doubled my money, but we'll see.

It's been a fast flying short week at work. I'm taking Friday day off to be with the family. My uncle is still in ICU, and I think everyone is fearing the worst. My uncle won't calm down and they say he's fighting all the things that are happening to him, and this is not good for his healing.

He's a stubborn guy, and I'm sure he's totally in denial about what's happening to him. The hospital has to keep him heavily sedated to keep him from thrashing around in his bed. He's either fighting or he's really scared and freaked out, and every time he wakes up he starts trying to get out of bed.

It's a trip having the family here. I found out one of my cousins graduated with honors from Texas A&M University.

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.

I continued by japanese film festival this weekend, and rented Throne of Blood by Akira Kurosawa and Zatoichi 2: The Tale of Zatoichi Continues by Kazuo Mori.

These were two great samurai movies, fully of bloody fight scenes, great samurai costumes, and lots and lots of great swordplay.

Throne of Blood is Kurosawa's adapation of Macbeth done in feudal warlord japanese history. The ending is great and very, very horrific. Kurosawa's ending scene makes Tarantino's violence in Kill Bill look very tame.

Zatoichi is just fun to watch because he's blind and still a yakuza and a great warrior, and women are always falling in love with him and telling how great he is in bed. That's so funny to me.

It's take me forever to read "A Thousand of Acres". It's hard to read a book where the characters are doing stupid things just because they can't help themselves. I have that running conversation about my own life, so why do I have to read out people doing it in their lives?

I'm reading all of Octavia Butler's books. I just finished reading Clay's Ark by Octavia Butler. Her books are much more interesting to read and much more thought provoking for me. But it's science fiction and I'm finding it's just more fun to read than regular old human drama, the kind of stuff you see as a movie on Lifetime TV.

I had such a lazy, lazy weekend. I didn't leave the house at all on Saturday. I stayed in and cleaned and puttered around the house. I was planning to go out, but then it felt so go to be leisurely and be a bum. I did clean up and get things picked up, so at least my day wasn't completely wasted.

This morning I meant to get up to go to church, but the temptation to sleep in was just too much. I finally roused myself in the afternoon, returned my videos, went to the library to return the books I read and pick up more books that I had requested and had come in, and then did some grocery shopping.

I cooked all the food that was in the fridge, and I now have lunches prepared for four days this week. I like not having to think about what I'm going to bring or buy for lunch every day.

I finally got around to making croutons out of the loaf of country sourdough bread I bought last week. It got really hard, so I popped into the microwave to soften it up and then cut it for homemade croutons. Making homemade crouton is so time consuming, but they taste better than store bought ones.

There's an animated version of The Lord of Rings on TV that I have on in the background. I thought it might fun to watch and compare it to Peter Jackson's movie version. But now I just want to lie in bed, listen to opera arias and read.

For some fun reading ... Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of 2003-2004.

So to make my already shitty week worse, I decided last night I would dress provocatively for my last night of film history class to please the left wing Hollywood movie professor. God only knows why because his politics exclude him from ever having a permanent role in my life, but the nasty part of me that his politics don't preclude him from summer flingie status.

Yes, thoughts about having a wild sexual flingie with my rotund extremely left wing film history professor have been popping into my head again like some kind of dangerous contagion. Like I have no idea if Mr. Hollywood Left Winger even finds me attractive, but that doesn't seem to matter to my diseased love starved brain. Okay, so the guy did come up me to last week and thank me for not being afraid to vomit my ultra conservative right wing thoughts in class, but does that mean the man is desperate to jump my creaky bones?

But back to this morning. So I put on this black knit skirt that a friend said was totally too thigh high and wore my black mary janes shoes with the two inch heels, which I decided in the middle of day are really hooker shoes in disguise. I'm not a shoe person, but I think I have a thing for liking two dollar hooker shoes.

I used to own a pair of ankle high black suede boots with a fake fur top and three inch spikey heels that I saw at a shop on Portobello Road in London. They were dirt cheap and on sale, so of course I had to buy them. I didn't seem them in the states for at least four years, and by the time they were the rage in all the stores here in San Francisco I was already bored with them.

I used to call them my hooker poodle boots or my hooker poodley boots, because the fake fur top made them look shaved poodle legs. They were scary as hell to walk in especially when going down hill, but they were so fun to wear. I even wore them to work once and got quite a few stares at work and walking through downtown San Francisco. One guy I used to date loved my shoes and concurred with my idea that they were shoes only a hooker would wear, or someone who likes to look they wear hooker shoes.

Those shoes reminded me that I used to own another pair of shoes with a strap across the ankle, which is like so hooker looking. Only these shoes didn't have heels and had thick rubber bottoms like platform shoes, so I called them my hook clodhopper shoes. They were black suede and I found them in a closeout bin at the Esprit outlet.

So I'm wearing the way too short at my age and my weight black knit skirt, black tights, my black hooker mary janes shoes with the two inch heels, a white scoop necked tshirt, and of course because I was going to work and I couldn't be too tasteless for TV, a pink cashmere cable sweater. I also had a necklace one and some earrings. But it's the two inch heels hooker mary jane shoes and the totally too short black knit skirt that gets the most attention.

And I was so uncomfortable at work with those shoes. My stride is long and when I'm wearing two inch heels I'm always on a slant and I have to take smaller steps which just freaks me out. Then I kept thinking I got weird looks from people at the office, like they were whispering that I was way too fat and my bum looked so enormous in my too tight short knit black skirt. And those hooker shoes? What's up with that?

I was so cursing myself for dressing to please a guy, something I almost never do normally, except for when I really like a guy and that's only been three times that I can remember: 1) always for Steve, the one who got away, 2) for the soccer player guy from England because he demanded I dress to please him, and 3) for my acting teacher who kept casually stating that he wished women would wear more skirts. And now I can add a fourth time for my portly Ira.

But of course since my week was stressful, today was just as stressful so that by the time I got to film history class I was in very foul mood and in no mood to talk to anyone. I kept thinking I should put a note to him in the envelope we had to give to him to mail our tests back in, which gave him my name and phone number and telling him I'd like to get together.

I mean, I could have done that couldn't I? But of course I chickened out, and rationalized to myself that I wanted to take at least two more classes from him and how would that work if I had a summer flingie with him. So no note, no conversation, and I don't think I even smiled at him because I was stressed. And then me being mad at myself the whole bus ride home because I had worn my stupid provocative outfit for nothing, and now my feet were seriously killing me.

Dressing to please a guy, what a bother! It never works out anyway. Steve, the one that got away, never appreciated it. He never know how I agonized over what I wore when we went out on dates, and how I seriously deliberated whether he would find my outfit attractive. Stupid english soccer guy never thought I dressed sexy enough for him, and stupid acting teacher guy ended up being such a new york city whiner.

And if I don't please to dress a guy, then I get comments like the ones I got from Chris, the hot as hell pretty marina jock guy, who used to obliquely chastise me for not wearing outfits that showed my rack more. And he only said that because as it turned out, the guy liked dating women with fake giant cow udder breasts. At least my rack was real.

So no fat Mr. Hollywood left winger in my bed this summer, and maybe that's a good thing I guess.