Last Week

The Week That Was
(my day-to-day life)

For today’s installment I thought I would share with you some of the events that transpired in the last week of my life. The occurrences I am about to reveal are an indication of the bizarreness that is my life. These entertaining little gems are actually quite tame compared to a normal week, whatever normalcy may be. Believe me, I have lost sight of it a long time ago.

You see I live in one of North America’s, hell, the worlds most spectacular cities Vancouver, British Columbia. Some say it is a boring city. I say spend a day or two with me and you may instantly change your views. So sit back, relax and enjoy a week in the life of the Seed. You may notice that a recurring theme runs through the events of the week. I don’t understand it. I have trouble accepting it. I seem to just live it.

Thursday February 24th

My typical day consists of an early rise, around 7 am and the long preparation for the horrific commute to the office to start my day. After a quick brush, the splash of some invigorating refreshing water, the morning constitutional, I head for my vehicle of choice to hit the road to the office. It just happens that the vehicle is “my legs.”

Twenty seconds (roughly) and fifteen steps later, including a slight detour to the remote control to turn on CNN for some background noise and a stop at the oh-so-empty company fridge for a glass of juice, I am at my desk and my work day begins.

My daily ritual currently consists of the blasting off of Press Releases and Ads regarding my book Seed’s Sketchy Relationship Theories. Being an entrepreneur and an author without the assistance of a major publishing house, myself and my co-author “Euro Seed”, are responsible for all of our marketing efforts, every aspect of our journey and success falls directly upon our shoulders. We virtually wear every hat.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t look good in hats. My heads disdain for head gear is one of the reasons I had to forgo a promising baseball career in my youth. Mirrors don’t lie. Ahh the shallowness of life. Potential for earning millions was outweighed by my worry of the opinions of others regarding my lack of a hat friendly cranium.

Back to my typical work day. After spending the first 3 or 4 hours of the day going through the tedious task of cutting and pasting our stellar press release “Press Release: New Book May Help To Reduce 50% Divorce Rate” into roughly 200 to 300 emails targeting the media, book reviewers and anyone whom we so deem as possible enhancers of our pursuits and goals, I usually break for about 5 minutes to heat up whatever food may be left in the fridge to consume. After-all part of the literary journey requires a period of time to starve as authors. Mac & Cheese and Ichiban. Yummy!

Next - hat switch - now it is time to work on the business model, financial forecasts, more marketing and whatever else we can think of. Oh yeah, I almost forgot a little time (actually far too much) is spent looking at the numbers the various booksellers provide us with. It is hard not to obsess, even though these numbers provide little information. They mostly provide hope and illusion. “Must stop looking at the ski’s”. That is the only way we will stop falling.

It is now around 1 pm and I have been slaving away at the empire for approximately 6 hours now. “Must break away”. After-all that would be the healthy thing to do. So, it is off to the gym.

Well not right away, must obsess some more, 1 more hour passes and finally I find away to trick myself to leave. I think they are offering free appetizers at the gym today. At least that is what I have told my brain. The micro-waved pocket lint I had for lunch doesn’t seem to be cutting it.

Damn it! I lied to myself, there are no appetizers at the gym, that would be ludicrous. Chicken wings and squats wouldn’t make a great combination. My workouts are intense, they consist of about 40 minutes of weight training and 30 minutes of intense cardio. Really intense! My lifestyle regimen conflicts from time to time, however, I seem to have developed a discipline for fitness despite injuries and surgeries and a whole gamut of other calamities that would render most with a truck load of excuses for being unhealthy, unfit slobs.

“I have a bad knee,” is not an excuse.

Twelve surgeries later, with seven of them being on my left knee, trust me I am the epitome of a bad knee.

About an hour and a half later I am back in the office, and after a couple of more hours of alternating obsessing and productivity later, I usually decide to go on a bit of a mind clearing stroll. For me the stroll usually has a habit of stoking the creative side of my brain and leading me to the land of bizarreness. This land is where the fore-mentioned, unsolicited, almost unbelievable, always entertaining events have a habit of transpiring.

Now on this particular glorious afternoon I headed down Davie Street to do some banking, a quick stop at my bank and then off to another to pay off some financial obligations, or shall I say to juggle some obligations, the financial challenges of being an author can be a tad depressing from time to time. My trek consists of about 2.5 kilometers and passes English Bay (the corner of Davie & Denman), one of the truly spectacular and gorgeous corners on the planet. Pristine. Crisp. Beautiful. Complete with a Starbucks. Which is pretty meaningless to me as I am a cola not coffee fan. I love my walks, I have lived in Vancouver for 15 years and it is wonderful that it has the charm of a small city, yet, it is large enough to allow for anonymity. Rarely do I ever run into anyone I know on my strolls. I like that.

At this point in time you must be wondering what are these events that were mentioned earlier? You know the ones, the ones that peeked your interest to begin reading in the first place. Well, I am getting to Event #1 shortly, I just figured that laying some groundwork would enhance your reading pleasure. Really, that is the sole reason for the delay. Actually not the sole reason. I also thought it would be important to provide an outline of the working life of the Seed. That way I will only have to do it once if you become loyal readers.

Event #1

Transpired on the return portion of the journey. You see I am pretty oblivious to glances of others while I am on my strolls. I don’t spend a lot of time people watching. Instead I am usually deep in thought. That was actually pretty fun to type. My thoughts aren’t really that deep, they usually consist of some abstractions that I must pass on to others to free up some space in my brain for more abstractions. And, I am blind in one eye and I think it happens to be the eye that most others would use to people watch. Damn - I want to look at some people.

About 3 blocks after my visit to the second bank and the freeing up of some pocket space, I found myself strolling past the Starbucks I had mentioned earlier.

“Hello” resonated from my right.

I looked to see who this greeting was directed at. Sure enough it was meant for me, so I politely returned the greeting. Two normal looking guys, probably in their late 30’s or early 40’s, very professional looking asked if I had a moment.

I said, “sure what can I help you with.”

To which one of the two responded, “did you enjoy your walk.”

This made me question how they new I was on my daily jaunt. Could they be stalking me? I was told that they had noticed me on my first pass by. As mentioned earlier me being oblivious to humans around me, their observations caught me a little off guard. They introduced themselves to me (I will leave the names out of this story), informed me of their vocations, complete with an offer to show credentials, one was a pilot, the other a doctor. Next they suggested a proposal for me. Fortunately, I have experienced strange requests before which have rendered me almost unshakeable.

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Urban Jungle!

These two individuals with absolutely no hesitation, no uncertainty and with absolute confidence said, “We will pay you $1,000 dollars to do a private underwear showing for us, no touching, no cameras, all you have to do is parade around in front of us in some CK underwear for ½ hour and you will receive the money. Actually we will pay you up front. Hell - we will make it $2,000 if you shower for us as well. We are totally serious, we think you have a spectacular ass and a great body and it would be a treat for us.”

After 5 minutes had passed and I had picked myself up off of the ground and was able to contain my hysterical laughter, I realized they were sincere in their proposition. Many thoughts were racing around in my head such as: What vibe am I sending out? I am just wearing jeans and a normal shirt. How could these two be so bold? It is after-all 4 PM, we are not in a club or a bar; What if I was homophobic? I think a lot of people may have responded with a punch or a profanity. Actually this event is pretty tame compared to some that have taken place in my past, like, shoe shopping turning into shaving, but that is a whole other story. Fortunately for me it has equipped me with the ability to roll with the flow and not be shocked or offended. When it comes down to it, as creepy as it was, it is astonishingly flattering.

A couple of more blips of time passed and it was decision time. Two-thousand dollars, or keep walking. I think I may be an idiot, I calmly indicated that I was honored to be considered for such an exhilarating event, however, I politely declined and carried on my way.

Really - I may be a fool. TWO-THOUSAND DOLLARS, and they were even going to buy me the underwear.

Saturday February 26th

Event #2

Occurred after I had completed my daily work ritual in pursuit of my passion. I had headed off to the gym to get in a vigorous hour or two of sweat. I immediately headed over to one of the shoulder press machines and loaded on a substantial amount of weight. Ok - it really wasn’t all that substantial, I just wanted to sound macho for this portion of the story.

Once the weights were firmly in place, I went to get into the machine for my first set. Now you see this particular machine has levers that hang down in front of it and in my haste I swiftly smashed my head into one of the levers almost knocking myself out. The sound could be heard throughout the gym. Another concerned member came over to ask if I was ok. I already had a golf ball size lump forming on top of my head.

I simply and calmly replied to his concern with, “Yeah I am fine, that was just my first set. I usually like to start of my workouts with a few sets of concussions.”

A dazed look crossed his face. He was trying to figure if I was sincere or not, ahh - the beauty of the deadpan delivery. The truth is - damn it, it really hurt.

I highly recommend not bashing your head into solid steal, unless of course you are trying to make the dripping water sound that they made in Ferris Buhler.

Later on in my workout I was approached by a guy who asked me if I could give him a spot on bench press. Not that I noticed, but the guy was a pretty big guy, very fit looking, not a gym rookie by any means. He had loaded on 275 lbs on the Olympic bar.

While I was on the way over to him he was doing some stretches and for some strange reason decided to start telling me the story of his weight lifting life.

“Yeah I used to be able to lift a lot more than this.” and “When I was your age, I am 38 now, what are you 31, lifting was a lot easier, unfortunately my shoulder bugs me a bit now, so it is a bit tougher to lift.”

He then continued with, “My second wife left me because……..” and “I think my dog has kitty cancer.”

I am not sure what prompts strangers to tell me the perplexities of their existence, however, it is a very regular occurrence. I used to fight it, now I just accept it.

Once he finished with his story I calmly offered a word of encouragement for him and that word was, “What the hell are you doing this amount of weight if it bothers your shoulder my friend. Keep your ego in check. If you end up hurt you might end up fat and depressed with a useless gym membership. Have you ever tried to cancel a gym membership? Therefore, stop worrying about how much you lift. Nobody cares and it makes for lousy conversation.”

Now most people would expect either a thank you or perhaps offer some disagreement. The latter is what I would do if someone laid that dialogue on me. But no, that would make perfect sense.

Instead my new gym buddy responded with, “You have a great body, have you ever thought about being in film.”

“What kind of film,” I queried, knowing full well what answer was coming.

You see this scenario has repeated itself on at least 3 occasions now.

“Of the adult variety.” Was the answer.

I politely declined, yet, was once again flattered. I don’t get it, but oh well, not even my new head on top of my head from the earlier set of concussions deterred the offer. I guess it is a good thing.

By the way, I kept my age a secret. How dare he suggest 31.

Saturday February 26th

Event #3

Later that night I headed out to meet up with my dear friends Wayne & Shantel. I met up with them at a local haunt because they are leaving in a week to go on a four month tropical self-discovery journey to South America. My friend Shantel is one of those individuals that for some reason we just seem to get each other. She is beautiful, smart, with a touch of OCD for flavor. Somehow we understand that physical presence and constant attention are not a necessity in a good friendship. Ours is pressure less and effortless. Very sweet.

We have great conversation and occasionally she challenges some of my twisted thoughts with a stare or a “Shut Up your being weird.”

Entirely non-offensive and usually accurate. Most people just look confused when I go off tangent - she instead gets me.

This particular evening we were engaged in some riveting conversation when a stranger came up and asked if he could sit next to us. We didn’t care.

This stranger didn’t seem to care that we were in conversation and tapped me and said, “Do you come here often.”

“No” I answered.

I continued to talk with Shantel.

Several moments later came, “I think your hot.”

To which I returned “Thanks”, nothing more nothing less and once again I returned to Shantel.

About 5 minutes passed and then he, with a peculiar level of confidence questioned, “Would you like to hook up later for………”

Very baffling, once again what vibe am I sending out? Is Shantel invisible? Very strange. Very bold. Very risky. Is this type of activity normal?

After about 5 more minutes he got up and slowly sauntered away.

Shantel looked at me and injected, “That was brilliant. What a conversationalist.”

For the next 5 minutes we roll played the continuation of how we felt the conversation may of continued with my our new found friend. We figured it would sort of go like this. “Wall.” “Kitty.” “Paint” “I like gum.” and “I’m taller when I stand up, are you?” Nonetheless very riveting I am sure.

Wednesday March 2nd

Event #4.

I had decided to go visit a good friend Colin at a local watering hole. On Wednesday’s some of the local weeklies are distributed and I like to have a chat with my friend and to take up a stool and digest some of these papers. My reading ritual consists of some time standing, alternated with equal installments of sitting.

After about an hour of my reading endeavors a strikingly attractive brunette girl, about 25 came up to me and I kid you not stated, “You should stand up more often.”

Curious I asked, “And why might that be.”

“Because you are incredibly hot when you are standing.”

Trying to remain humble I quipped, “I’m not hot when I am sitting.”

Blushingly she answered “No you are when you are sitting too, but when you are standing we get the opportunity to look at your fantastic butt.”

Not knowing how to respond to the bold statement, I quietly replied “Thank You.”

And then my friend quietly disappeared into the early evening.

Those are some of the events of the last week of my life, flattering, strange, bizarre, comical, enjoyable, however, not out of the ordinary for my daily life. I don’t quite understand it, as mentioned above, I have learned how to accept it and roll with it. See you all next week.

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