A lot of people who know I am writing books ask me, “So, do you think it is going to be any good? Well, do you?”
It is hard to tell how successful or good anything will be. And, to be honest, it makes me a little nervous. That is why I decided to do the ooooooooonly rational thing: go to a psychic. I mean, what is the use of putting in a lot of hard work if the book is going to be a flop? I could better use my time doing other stuff, like becoming a professional ballerina or flossing my teeth. The first psychic I went to wasn’t that good. I went to a student psychic. It was this little place in a mall between a video store and a frozen-yoghurt place. The psychic name was Chris. He first said to me, “You are at a crossroad and confused. There are many questions you want to be answered.” “Well, yeah,” I said, “that’s why I am here. Why else would I go to a psychic?” I should have gotten suspicious when he said, “How am I supposed to know?”
Chris said “Ooooooooo” and raised his hand in the air every time he made a prediction. I guess he thought it looked like he was communicating with powerful entities in the spirit world, but to me, it looked like he was auditioning for some talent show. I knew he was bad because he wouldn’t say anything without first consulting his book on unexplained phenomena.
His predictions were kind of vague, to say the least. “I see you’re pouring some kind of liquid into your mouth out of cylindrical objects. This object, it’s made of….. glass. After your pour the liquid into your mouth, you will no longer be thirsty.” “There is someone important in your life whose name starts with either the letter E… C… B…..F…. or M through W.” “You have a brother or a sister. Either that or you are an only child.” I told him I had a brother and a sister; he seemed proud of himself. “Your brother knows how to drive.” As a matter of fact, he does. Who doesn’t? My brother is almost allowed to fly a small plane but he didn’t mention that. I asked him about my past lives, hoping that I had been Cleopatra or, at the very least, someone who once had lunch with Cleopatra. He told me that once I had been a monkey, but that in my last life I was a spring roll at a Chinese restaurant. Now that is ridiculous, even though it does explain a recurring nightmare where I am held upside down over a dish of hot mustard sauce.
The student psychic finally admitted that he wasn’t very good. He was, however, able to predict where I would find a good psychic. The session wasn’t a total waste because he gave me a dollar-off coupon for a frozen yoghurt at the place next door.
You could tell the woman he referred me to was good because she opened the door before I rang the bell. Then she said, “You must be Daniela.” Well, that was the point I liked. Because Daniela is my name and all. Sure I had an appointment, and she could have been looking through the keyhole, but I prefer to think she had finely honed psychic powers. The psychic knew that I was nervous about writing my book. This might be because the first thing I said to her was “I am nervous about writing a book.” She looked me in the eye (or possible both eyes, I don’t remember) and without raising her arms or saying, “Ooooooooo,” she made her predictions. The good news, she said, was that my book is going to be on bestseller lists for over twenty-five years and win a ton of awards (literally a ton; they’ll actually weigh them at one point). The bad news, though, was that I was going to have to sit down and actually write the book. I was kind of hoping that elves would come in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and write a best-seller for me; the psychic told me that though it wasn’t impossible (she claimed one or two of Danielle Steel’s books were written this way) in my case it was highly unlikely. Bummer.
Then she took out her tarot cards. She wasn’t able to get a very good reading, so then she took out a deck of regular cards. An hour and a half later she had won $190 oo of me playing rummy. So you can see, she is a very good psychic, even though what she really wants to do is deal blackjack in Vegas. The good psychic would pick up the phone before it rang. Of course, it is possible there was nobody on the other line. Once she said, “God bless you.” I said, “I didn’t sneeze.” She looked deep into my eyes and said, “You will, eventually.” And, damn if she wasn’t right. Two days later I sneezed. It felt eerie. Not the sneeze, just that she predicted it.
When I was driving home, the phone rang. This was weird in itself because the psychic had predicted that I would get a phone call later in the day. As it turned out, it was my psychic calling. While we were chatting, I got a phone call from my turtle psychiatrist. A turtle psychiatrist isn’t an actual turtle; that would be ridiculous. He is a human psychiatrist who dealt with my turtle’s problems. My turtle’s name was Speedy. You just call him up on the phone, tell him what’s bothering your turtle, and he tells you how to deal with it. He is a bit cheaper than an actual psychiatrist so sometimes I call him up with one of my problems and pretend that is one of former turtle’s problems. Actually, I don’t even own a turtle anymore. Speedy passed away.
So, I called the Turtle Psychiatrist. “Well, my turtle is thinking about starting a new relationship. The problem is that this other turtle reminds him of somebody else, somebody who had hurt him in a previous relationship. My turtle had been rejected and didn’t take it well. He drank a lot of fermented turtle food and didn’t go out much for a long time. And when he did, he took out his pain on other turtles”, I said. I continued, ” Speedy had an interesting dream recently. I sense the dream. I know him well enough to pick up the dreams, but not well enough to actually help him. That’s why I called you. He had this dream that he was being held upside down and dipped into a dish of hot mustard sauce…”
The Turtle Psychiatrist responded, “Oh, I see, he probably was a spring roll in his a past life.” I put on the answering machine, so I wouldn’t get any more phone calls. I felt content. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that I have a good feeling about writing my books. That’s what you asked, right?
