Another day, a bunch more satisfied customers. But my throat hurts. Thanks boss. We told her to stay home. Today is Day 2 of the New Xpress reports and so far all the customers are happy! Minor issues, all with answers. In the immortal works of Hannibal from the A-team ‘I love it when a plan comes together’…Anyhow…

I went to lunch in the Bldg 6 cafe today. I am wearing a black baby doll dress, my sherpa hat including long simulated black braids and black and white over the knee socks. They all stared at me. As they do. It’s my relaxing Friday outfit.

My best friend tells me that even though I have a scratchy throat, I have to go to the gym. And since I was 1000 calories over my max yesterday (Burger King for lunch, Thai for dinner) I better get going. Now that I don’t speak to my dad thus can’t get free medical advice, it is great to have best friend that reads lots of fitness mags. Thanks Christine!

Happy Friday.

i flew at the gym today. i was on the treadmill and a song came on, something from the sneaker pimps and i just flew. i felt so strong, even with my cold. actually i don’t think it is a cold, i think i am allergic to the office. because at the gym, on said treadmill, i felt great. strong and fast. i am trying to think of other words to use, not zone and such. i was definitely different up there.

tonight i was accosted, ok he was nice about it, by a security guy. it was at sports arena. he asked if a room had been mine and i said no but he thought i said yes and he found some tags and a sensor in there. he asked to see in my bag. i laughed. said sure. we offered patrick bag too. he said it was his job, i said ok. first time that has ever happened. i felt bad for him that someone had stolen something though.

tomorrow i fix the hair. going with a pixie and pink hair. dull eh?

now i shall sleep. my head will hit the pillow and i will be out…

just going over my eating habits for the week. on thursday, when my process went live and i had burger king for lunch and thai for dinner, i went over my receommend calories by 1600. while in my get fit, lose fat process i try to eat only 1100 calories a day total adding any more for any excercise i do. on thursday because i was so exhausted i didn’t excercise and because i was so hungry i had grease for lunch, i consumed 2700 calories. to put it in perspective, if i weren’t trying to lose fat i would only consume 1900 a day. so still i would have been over by 800 calories. it felt good though and i have no guilt. still for the whole week i lost half a kilo (about 1 lb) which is good.

patrick doesn’t understand why i am so unsure about my body. he thinks it’s great and looks around and thinks it is great compared to most. but i am not in competition with other people (except elle mcphearson’s thighs), i am in competition with myself. 2 years ago, i was perfect. shapely arms, near perfect thighs. i know i can do it and it frustrates me that i let it go. HUM will do that to you though…

now i just have to decide whether to go to the gym today or not. i am congested and have phlem (love that word) in myh chest. of course on friday i felt kick-ass at the gym. hm.

i have noticed recently that all the terrorists that have been picked up, have been in pakistan. also they have been of kuwati, pakistanian and saudi arabian decent. not iraqi. so where does dubya get off saying that iraqi is harboring a bunch of terrorists? yeah, ok, we don’t have ‘normal’ relations with the country so we don’t have ‘agents’ working with the gov’t to arrest anyone, but if iraq were such a hot bed of terrorism why are such high level people being found in pakistan? i wish dubya would be honest about what his real beef with iraq is. i think he just needs a war and control over some more oil. oh and then there is the PNAC. this is a think tank full of bush admin members who have an agenda specifically to increase military spending and US military presence around the world. i have a problem with our gov’t being run by a one-track think tank. i have written my congresspeople about this topic just today.

it’s sunday and i have completed my sunday ritual. changed the towels, the sheets, flossed, moisturized, went to subway. all feels complete. now i shall surf and take some practice tests in my gmat book. ah.

dinner guests tonight. we are having an altered version of chicken enchiladas (cause there was no enchilada sauce at the store, it is german you know). i invited them because, well i like them, and we always have so many enchiladas.

i am reading aldous huxley’s ‘a brave new world’. it’s weird. humans are manufactured and programmed to fill roles. this is necessary for social stability. i understand the theory but just like in ‘demolition man’ (yes i am comparing a famous, classic and well-read book to a stallone movie) it is the freedom and diversity that make like worthy. isn’t that sort of the problem though? i mean if freedom and diversity are where it is at, then by definition you need those less-fotunate. to make up the bell curve. or maybe not. i really think it is all about balance. i mean here, in germany, the idea is to reduce the extremes on the bell curve through tax. i don’t believe you have the uber wealthy like you do in the states. but who gets to draw the line? and who will give up their hard earned cash to support the others? my goal in life, though incongruent with my desire to go back to school, is to, by age 40 donate 1/2 my salary to charity. i really don’t need that much. not as much as i could make. but if i am a student again, i’ll still be paying debt when i am 40. that is the key, out of debt into charity. you can remind me of this on my 40th b-day if you want. anyhow, back to the book. i think the difference with this book, is that though you have social castes/classes, all are important. no is less needed, just a different job. yes a simplier, dirtier job as you go down the castes (alpha to epsilon). i guess it says something about caste societies in general that you don’t get to choose, just like those in the book, which is unfair. it is taken to the n-th degree in the book. you are programmed to your caste which, i suppose, makes it more fair, sort of, i mean at least you aren’t being held back, i mean after they have made you semi-moron in a test tube. i’ll keep you posted on what else i discover.

patrick is adding the book to his cconspiracy list. he is convinced the gov’t had these books dog eared and use them to set policy or at least motivate policy for themselves. it is sort of creepy the similarities…

my friend minturn said this. what a clever, smart guy…

‘President Bush told us on Thursday night that the worst action was inaction

. . . . I bet the 52% of the American people that didn’t vote in the last

election are thinking about that right now.’

burned too many calories today. how can that be you say? well see i had burger king for lunch (uli, stefan, robert and emmanuel were going and invited me!). so i felt guilty. so i went to the gym and over did it to make up. i burneed 950 calories in excercise today! i am still under what i am suppose to eat by 182 calories…oh wait…i forgot, i had some pringles before going to the gym. never mind.

everybody say and prayer and light a candle for my boss, ivette. she is having some troubles. just trust me and do it, please.

well i did it. i showed up on the schlossplatz with my candles, and so did about 200 other people. it was brilliant really. i am so very proud. i met a wonderful american woman named laura lane and she translated for me. we talked to lots of germans and i told them all i was american and i loved america but i didn’t like bush, kein krig (no war). i was quized by a lot of older germans but they listened to my answers and i think i represented the US very well. i had no one say anything anti-american to me, though one gentleman, who was part of one of the big peace groups in stuttgart referred to the military base as the ‘center of death’ or something like that. my way to peace is not at civil disobedience quite yet. thank goodness for rosa parks, but i don’t think it works in this setting, at least not now. anyhow, i just feel so wonderful right now. i feel so full of hope. this was a wonderful experience for my faith in man, even if it was only 200 people from stuttgart and the war may still start tomorrow, it was a sign. think peace, be peaceful, write your congressmen/women.

oh, and peace coordinator shoes…clogs, purchased on sale at selfridges in london over the summer. stylish but not pretentious. they gave me comfort and it was all beautiful.

sorry to put these two things together, but they both came to my head this weekend…

when my parents and i live in houston, texas for those few months, i had one of the defining and negative experiences of my life time. my dad lied to me. this was sort of a big one though. it was morning and i was in their bedroom and asked him to read me a book. i really wanted to hear this book. i admit, i kept bugging him. finally he said if i put the vacuum away, he would read me the book. i said ok and put the vacuum away immediately. then i presented myself and the book. by then my mom was in the room. she had been in the shower, i believe, when the exchange took place. i said to dad ‘now you have to read me the book’. mom said there wasn’t time as everyone had somewhere to go. i protested that dad had said, if i put the vacuum away, he would read me the book. [here is where the lie comes in]. we look at him and he says, ‘no i didn’t’. i protested, ‘yes you did’. him ‘no i didn’t’. mom, ‘heather, you shouldn’t lie’. him…nothing. mom said i was now in trouble for lying. my dad lied to me and infront of my mom and now i was in trouble. these were obviously people i could not trust. who could i trust? who can i trust?

i found the way i want to die. no plans to do that anytime soon. i am not seeking to end the misery, as there isn’t any. life’s pretty nice these days. but never the less, it is nice to know how one would want to go out, if it were necessary (like if dubya was going to force me to kill innocent people in their own country (i mean more than he already does using my tax dollars to do it in iraq)) i would want to drive into a stand of trees going 220 kph on the autobahn while listing to the NIN live CD, very loud. as i was driving home from frankfurt today, i was doing something similar (only going 160 kph since i have an a-class). i was flying along, at the flow of traffic, listening to these cd’s and it was the most powerful and wonderful feeling. balance and harmony and strength and those endorphins. all of it pumping through my system. wouldn’t it be nice to end it all on such a high note? much better than what we do to our elderly in the states these days. a bit logan’s run, i admit. and certainly odd. but i have never been one to hide my emotions or ideas. please don’t call the authorities on me though. i am not leaving you. i love you all very much and do not seek to cause you pain or sadness. on this, you can trust me. cheers.