People drive me nuts. Everybody wants something from you, whether they’re entitled to it or not, doesn’t matter. There are few times in life when people surprise me and just give or help, because it’s right. Not because they are busy bodies or want something in return but because it’s the right thing to do. Take today for example, I got a phone call this morning after I got home from working all night. The guy says that he added a day back into my vacation entitlement because I should have this day off for working last night. He left me speechless for a moment. I figure his mom must have taken her job seriously and raised him ‘right’.

By the way, it’s still Monday here in my corner of Canada.

So today at the gym, I found a very young weight lifter doing it all wrong. This kid was about 12 years old, maybe 13. I have this new policy that states: I do not help people cause they thank me by kicking me in the teeth. In the middle of my iron pumping session, while watching this poor kid work on injuries to his too young self, I decided that children were the exception to that rule. I watched as he tried to do calf lifts with his feet shoulder width apart and his knees bent. Mother of God. I couldn’t take it anymore and went to offer a little know-how. He said thanks and I moved off and left him alone. He was also trying to calf lift 260 lbs. Gotta give him credit for effort I suppose. Now you ask where was the adult that should be with him? He was there, working on his own body, oblivious to what the poor lad was doing to himself. Good parent.

I came home, raided the fridge and found only celery, peanut butter and grapes. What I wouldn’t give to be able to go round the corner to the fish-n-chips place. Ah well. Tomorrow I must go to the market or it’ll be roast cat for lunch. That makes me wonder, how do you get the fur off the cat?

Tomorrow is also the day I pick up my new sneakers - happy thoughts. And wouldn’t you know it? My mp3 crapped out this evening at the gym, in the middle of my routine. More money. It just died and no amount of cursing, wishing or begging would restart it. That’s ok, I’ve been wanting a new one anyway. They don’t hold up against sweat too good. Or maybe I shouldn’t have put it in my bra, as I don’t have a holder for the thing.

Today started with the beep beep of the alarm. Now why the alarm was set for a Saturday, I have no idea. I think the cat set it so he could get his breakfast on time. He’s probably tired of waiting that extra two hours of snooze time that I get on Sat and Sun. No more sleeping in for his slave.

I passed the morning with a few cups of joe and a lot of smokes. After some internet time, I set off for the sports store. I love the sports store, all their stuff is sporty. I feel like I’m doing something important every time I walk in there. So I laced up my old runners and hit the pavement, in search of new foot gear. After asking the very young helpful sales girl every question I could think of about footwear, I further tested he mental stamina by trying on every pair that struck my fancy.

She was great, I now understand the difference between walkers, runners, crosstrainers and hikers. And then I left the store without buying anything. I don’t get money until Tuesday, so she put the last pair of those walkers aside for me. I’ll go back in a couple of days and them babies are mine. $100 before tax, I hope they last a year.

I always buy runners, cause you never know, I may feel like breaking out into a run. Well, that’s never happened, so this year I decided on walkers. As I always say, “unless there’s a wild beast behind you, why run?”. I understand the running thing, runners get in the zone and they get this runners high and yeah, it’s not for me. My body was built for comfort not speed. And then there’s the extra weight I have, that would break my knees and lets not forget the boob bounce. The girls don’t like a lot of bouncing, without a bed beneath them.

So, that was Saturday.

Today I spent my last day at my office. I am being transferred to another office, for different work and a completely different staff. I hope change is good.

I was tired and hot and sweaty today, the price of the summer heat around here, so I didn’t make it to the weight room until 4pm. I did my new weight lifting routine that the weight training guy put together for me. Now it only takes me 45 minutes to torture my body. I used to put in 2 to 2 1/2 hours on weight training, three days a week - apparently I have been overdoing it.

On the upside, there were a whole new selection of muscled male bodies to oogle. But they were all kids, average age of 20, so I didn’t oogle much. I met a new Pink Top. What’s with the pink workout gear? Are women trying to say, “I may lift weights but I am a girl”? Makes my black attire look manly - good thing I got boobs.

Miss Pink Top #2 was very helpful, she gave me some advice on using the ab machine. Some times people are good.

I have to work on Sunday but then I’m on vacation for the next 3 weeks. Yahoo, I could use a break. Not going anywhere, money is the issue. I will stay here with the cats and suffer the summer heat and work out at the gym. I just won’t have to punch the time card for a while. It will be a good time to go see some of the new movies that are out. It will give me time to sit in coffee houses and drink coffee, while I glare enviously at women eating cheesecake. However, my salad with chicken and olives will shrink my ass and my boobs.

Uh oh, shrinking boobs! I may have to buy some pink workout gear……………….

I never made it to the gym yesterday, I got caught up in work and didn’t have the time. I even had to take work home with me and that has happened in a long time. So today I hit the eliptical machine in the cardio room with a vengence. I was working it pretty hard this morning, an hour of huffing and puffing and sweating. I passed the time as usual watching the tv screens which hang from the ceiling. As I turned my head from side to side, to catch the various channels, a guy came in and took up the machine next to me. I noticed that every time I turned my head left to see the sports channel, he peddled faster. Men.

I love the gym.

Yesterday, as I passed Max’s desk, I eyed the candy bowl, and stupid me picked up a tootsie roll. Today I payed for that treat, I could barely breathe and my stomache kept turning over. What I wouldn’t give now for the ability to eat a piece of cheesecake. New York style with cherry sauce, my favourite. But those days are behind me. At work, I’ve caught people watching me with envy, at lunch time, eat salad and chicken as they chowed on burgers and fries. Everyone wants to eat better, they just don’t want to suffer through it. If they only knew. I’d trade places with them in a second for a slice of New York or a bowl of Ben & Jerry.

But that’s the way life is now. On the up-side, I’m 30 lbs lighter. I guess it ain’t all bad.

That’s what my brother demanded to know of my father when he stormed into the house that summer evening.

I can’t remember which summer it was, I was in my mid teens, I think, my brother being a year older than me. We were living in my uncles cabin on the shore because my father had taken a job in the area for the summer. All seven of us, crowded into that tiny little space for three long hot summer months. There wasn’t any elbow room but I had my own bedroom because I was the only girl. No electricity or running water - we roughed it. There were black bears, weasels, mosquitos and black flies galore. You were taking chances with your life if you went into the woods for a walk. But as bad as the threat of bears was, the mosquitos were worst. I think they would have eaten you alive before the bears did.

That day my brother had borrowed the boat and gone to visit one of the families that lived on the other side of the harbour. We were all sitting around the black and white 12″ tv watching whatever CBC had on, which was either news or sports. We had a generator that only got turned on at dusk, for lights. The tv was my mothers demand, she told my father that he either got one or he could enjoy his summer alone.

My father wondered out loud about the whereabouts of my brother and his boat. He didn’t trust him fully not to do something stupid and sink the thing. A moment later we heard the boats engine close in on the dock, my father relaxed and we turned out attention back to CBC.

About 15 minutes later my brother burst into the house, full of spit and fire, demanding to know what the hell was wrong with dad. It was such a weird outburst that we all stopped what we were doing and stared at him. CBC was forgotten and my father had a completely confused look on his face.

The story goes, that my brother saw my father standing on the dock and threw him the rope so he could tie up the boat while my brother got the anchor ready to moore the thing for the night. When he turned round after he finished with the anchor, the roap was floating in the water and my father was nowhere in sight. He said he had to use the boathook to get himself to the dock. And so why had my father just walked away and left him on his own?

No one had any idea what he was talking about, my father had been in the house for the past hour with us.

Truth is, no one could have been on the dock that evening because there were only four houses in the area and we knew everyone. If anyone was near the house they would have stopped by, said something or tied up the boat for him. People were just like that. But I know who my brother saw, it was the ghost of the man who hangs out in the old shed near the dock. That rambshackled old shed was used by fishermen years ago to store gear and now my uncle used it for his own storage. We were using it that summer to store, among other things, food. Everytime my mother wanted a box of pasta or a can of tuna, she’d send me to the shed. I hated that shed, I always felt myself being watched while I was in there. It was a scary place anyway, all those old nets piled up on top of each other, they smelled. And there were things in there that I didn’t recognize, bits of anchors, pieces of metal in odd shapes, all rusted into an old brown color. On the second floor I felt him the strongest. I don’t know why he lingered there, I don’t know what he wanted. The air in the shed was musky and still, like nothing ever moved and it was dead quiet. Even the sound of the sea gulls outside were muted within those walls.

I never saw the man, just sensed him and felt him watching me. I don’t understand why my brother was able to see him, he doesn’t have a psychic bone in his body.

And I look forward to tomorrow. Because of the time differences around the world, my tomorrow is already today.

Tuesday wasn’t a good day, but now it’s over and gone into history. Good bye Tuesday.

Tomorrow the sun will rise again and the world will continue. I will be changed however, to hell with them all.

Yesterday will not be explained, it isn’t worth the words.

Today I was mistaken for a 32 year old. I love that guy right now more than I love my cats my shoe collection. He said that it was his birthday, that he turned 40 today. I said, “welcome to the club”, and the conversation went on from there.

It’s moments like that when I’m glad I spent so much of my time at the gym, most of my time eating well and too much of my time thinking about sex. It all keeps me young looking - apparently. But there’s more to me than my dirty mind.

There is my desire to be a writer, which is my retirement plan. I shall travel and write when I leave the 9 to 5 world. There is my love of rain, and I can’t explain it really, I just love rainy days. And it’s raining in the city today. I love cities, huge mazes of concrete, one way streets that drive most people crazy and coffee houses on every corner. I love long summer evenings, sitting in the back yard with friends and alcohol, the BBQ fired up. And that’s probably the only thing I like about summer.

I like a friend you can count on, someone who just rolls with the punches and always seems to have an extra $5 in their pocket when you run out of coffee money. I like people who give a shit about their pets. I like colors in life, although I only wear black. I like staying up all night cause the party went on that long and I like waking up in the morning when I’ve had enough sleep.

I love an encounter with a stranger, as long as they aren’t creepy. There it is, a new soul to savour, it’s like a present without birthday candles.

The rain just stopped, but it will start again soon.

Seriously.

How about a blow job?

This all got me thinking last night when I realized that I was out of ciggies. I thought if only I had $8.10 because this is the price of a cheap pack of smokes in Canada. I remembered the $14 I had spent last week on magazines for a friend of mine. I bought him a muscle fitness magazine and a Penthouse. He’s gone overseas and before he left he asked me if I had any pictures of our last business trip together. He had found himself a little girlfriend and in his drunken state he forgot to get a picture of her. I snooped out one of the girls that had taken some photos and as luck would have it, they were still in her camera. They cost me $6. It took me some doing to locate his address because giving them to his wife to send over, well they would have probably been accompanied by divorce papers. Anyway.

The money I seem to throw away, it only bothers me when I’m out of smokes.

The poor guy, his sex life is abysmal, and I know this because on a different trip, drunk as skunks, he told me.

He says, “I don’t understand, what’s wrong with a blow job? You’d think she’d (the wife) be happy to do it”.

He went on to explain further, “She says she doesn’t know if she’d do it right”

His final words on the subject were, “You know what? The thing about a blow job, even when it’s bad it’s still good”

Poor guy.

And then I thought, what if there were a school, what if there were a school for sex? What if we could take lessons on how to do a blow job right? Would that not be a good idea???

Oh, that reminds me, tomorrow is gym day. Back to the weight room.

We were all standing around that morning at work, having coffee and chatting before the day began. The boss walked in quietly, no one paid much attention to him, except me. As he walked by I checked his head because the energy coming off him was intense. He was mad, livid even, he had had an argument with his wife that morning about something they were trying to decide upon. She started the conversation just as he was headed out the door. He didn’t get his way in the argument, she refused to compromise. He wanted it to have gone his way because the alternative his wife  proposed would have left him feeling like less of a man. Like a pushover. It had something to do with the neighbours. If you were standing, facing his house, they were the neighbous in the house on the right. He really didn’t want to look like a pushover and it was killing him. He was fuming, whoever crossed his path first that day would have gotten it, and I didn’t want to see that bomb go off. When 8 o’clock came everyone scattered to their desks, I went to his desk and said good morning. He returned the same, quietly and politely. I said, “so what’s got you so riled up?” He looked at me for only a second and then told me all about the neighbours and their ridiculous idea and how his wife was just agreeing with them. That was over 10 years ago and the details are lost to me now. I chatted with him for about 30 minutes, he let off some steam, and we went about the day. I think all he wanted was his side of the story to be heard, and his wife just wasn’t listening. No bomb went off that day.

His problems and what ever else was in his mind were none of my business. I just didn’t want an explosion at work, so yes, I can be selfish.

So, a different day and the same boss, as I’ve had a few different jobs over the years. He came in to work walking slowly, taking his time. The effort that took was exhausting him. His mind only registered pain.

So, once again, “hi boss, how come you’re in so much pain?”.

Boss, “My back is killing me”.

Mind reader, “do you want some muscle relaxers?”.

Boss, “you have some?”

Mind reader, “of course, I’ll go get them”.

Boss, “thanks”.

About an hour later the boss is moving around just fine and it was another good day at work.

In a different year, at a different job, with a different boss and more supervisors than you could shake a stick at I found myself the object of a witch hunt. Nice. Let avoid long involved details and get to the point. I was in the way of one of their ‘favourites’ getting a course and a promotion at work. The Old Boys Club was alive and functioning. I saw every move coming, detected every lie they told me, knew who was up to what, hell of a fucking conspiracy they had going on. So, being one step ahead of them, I played them, I made the right comment at just the right time to steer them further into their deceit. I gave them bastards enought rope to hang themselves, I even had paperwork to back it all up. I watched them squirm for a couple of weeks and then I went to the Big Boss and presented my case. He had me transferred and they were left to explain themselves.
This didn’t go well for them. They created a snake pit and then found themselves in it. I walked away to a better place to work and avoided the burning at the stake.

In a different job, a few years earlier to those times, I found a young man whose mind was getting more and more depressed every day. He was lost and falling further into the big black hole of depression. His mind said that no one cared about him at home and no one had any respect for him at work. He didn’t feel like a person or a man. I have found that this is very important to men, they need to feel ‘like men’. The poor guy was courting the idea of suicide and I was getting alarm bells. I took a look at the minds of all the men in the department he worked in, trying to find a person who would be good for him to talk to. I, a woman, just wouldn’t do. It me a couple of days to go through all of them because I didn’t see all of them every day. I finally located someone who would be perfect for the job. I do this by playing the conversation out in my head and then looking at their reactions. I didn’t want to alert someone who didn’t care about their co-worker and end up having him sent to the shrink unnecessarily, and losing his job and ruining his career. So I did find a guy, I told him what I suspected, and said that I was afraid he might entertain the idea of ending it all. I said that I thought he might just need someone to talk to, someone to unload on and not feel so alone. He said he would talk to him. I checked with him a few days later and the report was that the guy had been feeling alone and miserable and talking seemed to help him. I know that the next time I saw him, his mind was relaxed, cheerful and looking forward.

No, I’m not God, but maybe God is busy enough.

And then there are times when people just get pissed off at me because dealing with me just isn’t fair. I have a friend who refused to look at the answer to the question when we played Trivia Pursuit, until I answered it because she realized I was reading the answer out of her mind. She called it cheating and I laughed. It didn’t do our friendship any good.

Then there was the time I played Cupid. My friend had tried everything to find a suitable man, everything from bars, to blind dates to some internet dating site. She was still single. She used to be fat but thanks to a diet and some fierce determination was now skinny. She was also tall and very attractive. She had a good career and was climbing the corporate ladder nicely. Her personality was good - there was no reason really not to have found a nice fellow. But she didn’t. She came to town a couple of years ago for a conference and we got together. She told me about her husband hunting woes over coffee and we laughed at her dating stories. She got up at one point, put down her coffee and said she had to make a call. She was calling an old boss she had when we worked together years before. They chatted for a few minutes, arranged to get together before she left town and we resumed our girl talk. I detected something from her mind, some lingering thought, some question mark. Lets call her old boss Jack, cause I like that name. I asked about Jack and why she wanted to hook up with him again, 12 years after we all worked together. She said that everytime he was on the west coast he called her up for coffee and a chat. I began to see things a little clearer. She went on to say that she was returning the favour out of courtesy. My mind was now ahead of hers. She said that she was considering dropping by his work place the next evening to say hello. I said I would go with her. The next evening at 7pm we found his building downtown and he buzzed us in. And
there it was, written all over his face, no need for a psychic here people. He was in love with my friend like Prince Charming with Cinderella.

Mmmmm………I feel the need to interfer.

I crawled through his mind anyway. He is 23 years older than my friend and felt that he would prefer to be her friend rather than declare undying love and risk her never speaking to him again. Worshipping her from afar was better than not knowing her at all. He thought she would think him too old for her and find the thought of them together repulsive. He thought this was as good as it was going to get for them.

We left the building and I said, “he wants you.”

She, “really, do you think so?”.

I said, “he’s everything you want in a man, he’s just two inches shorter than you”.

So that started a long conversation. The short of it is, I told her if anyone would know what was in his mind, it would be me. So, for the remaining days that she was in town I worked on her.  Telling her what he thought and how he was worried about what she would think of him, about the age difference. Finally they did have ‘the conversation’ and found that he has been in love with her for years. They’re married now, he followed her to the west coast and they’re also expecting a baby. She did tell him of my interference in their lives and they credit me with them getting together. But he wonders how I know so much. She remains silent on the subject, just shruggs her shoulders and gives him a blank stare.

Then there are the times when you hear things you would have rather not. Like the time we were all in a bar, drinking, singing and having a rousing good time. I met a guy who was very into me, the evening was looking good. At some point in the evening some of his friends came by and seeing the lot of us crowded around a table in the corner, they decided to rescue their singing friend. I watched as they pulled him aside and told him that the woman he was sitting with, me, was fat and he didn’t want to go there. So they pulled him out of the bar with them and we continued our merry making without him. Sometimes, mind reading is not so much fun. But the truth will not make a fool out of you down the road. I still know him and we get along. I also made a point of getting to know his friends, now I am a person and not just a fatso. I don’t get mad at the truth, as I said, it will not make a fool out of you later.

Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and what we don’t know won’t hurt us. I don’t argue that that’s a great way to live, unfortunately, I don’t have that option.

Who I am and what I do is me, I have no apologizies for you, just the truth.

Enough of the gym, although Pink Top was there today. It’s story time.

I can’t remember the year, then again, I don’t even know if the passing of time was counted in years then. But I do remember Atlantis. I remember being on steps, long, wide, grand, light colored steps. They led down from the temple or they were part of the temple itself, it was all one connected, gigantic area. There were a lot of us, we were all dressed alike, in long robe-like dresses. The men dressed as the women did and we had a rope-like sash tied around the waist of these outfits.

When you looked out over the wall that surrounded the temple you could see all of Atlantis. I remember that it was overcrowded and a lot of it had dark areas, areas where people weren’t happy. You could see the bright green that covered the hills and you could also see the ocean.

I don’t get the impression that I was born there or that I grew up there. I appears that I just arrived in the adult form from the beyond.

I was young, new, and a little foolish, it seemed. I was giving my hand to the less fortunate, to those people who came asking for something. What they sought could be anything from help conceiving a child to the promise of a healthy yield from the harvest that year. I had the ability to affect things and I passed this on to those who came seeking, through my hands. I just had to touch them, it was so easy. So easy that I laughed at how the poor people sought something that came so easily to me.

A man stood up from where he was lounging on the steps with the others, in front of the temple and he came over to warn me about the drawback of what I was doing. Again I laughed because it seemed harmless. This man, I recognized him, it was in his eyes who he was. He is my oldest brother in this lifetime, and what’s even funnier is I’ve never liked my oldest brother.

The next scene in this memory is of myself lying on the cobbles, dying from my injuries. The area was laid with these blueish black cobbles, they were cold and wet and I was alone, waiting for death. I had been attacked by the people I had tried to help. They were angry because something hadn’t turned out well for them and they blamed me for it. I realized later that this was the drawback of helping these people that I had been warned about.

Too bad I didn’t listen.