Fish Perch

Keeping Track

2009-10-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

When one's sleep schedule gets off-kilter, it's easy to mix one's up and down, one's days and nights, the order they come in and where exactly you are in the grand scheme of things.

This is not a good place to be in while looking for work.

So I've been kicking my ass back into some semblance of a normal sleep schedule, somewhat succeeding last night by getting to bed at six at night and waking up at four in the morning. Hmm. Well, perhaps normal for the extremely elderly. Perhaps I should get a Hoveround and start hanging out at my local buffet. In order to keep track of where I am and what I'm doing, I've been reduced to filling out a little form every day just to make sure I do everything I have to:

Date:
Wake-Up Time:
Exercise(s) Performed:
Food Consumed:
Jobs Applied for:
Time Spent Writing:
Went to Bed at:

I think that once I get into the habit of filling this out, it'll be a little easier for me to lead a life based on pattern, despite my unemployment.

It's funny how without going to school or having a job one ends up in this sort of free-fall, and it's so hard to get out of once you're there. I'd rather set myself aright again by going to school, then adding work to that, but alas, we can't always get what we want.

On the bright side, though, Glen Ivy again in a week or so. A post-birthday, post-wedding soak in a nice mineral bath followed by sun-warmed mud and exfoliation! Pure joy. Hell, that may be all I need to get back on the right track. It's odd, talking about myself this way. I don't normally discuss the mundane day-to-day doings of myself online. I don't think anyone cares. I don't even think anyone reads this blog, but it's good to get this stuff out from time to time.

And so we got married.

2009-10-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

It was very lovely.

Photo by Andre Nguyen - takenbyandre.com

Where are my mugs?

2009-09-05T01:22:00.001-07:00

Final (hopefully) Update: 9/17/09 - I got my replacement mugs today via UPS, and they were nice enough to send me eight mugs to replace my two missing ones, so I have a few extras now just in case. Thank you, DiscountMugs.com, for fixing my problem - I just hope that nobody else has to experience this in the future. I also hope your customer service personnel have learned a lesson in handling customers from this experience.

Original post:

I'm pretty frustrated at this point. I ordered 96 mugs from DiscountMugs.com as wedding favors. My initial shipment of 96 mugscame in two boxes. Problem was, though, that I only received 60 of my 96 mugs split between these two boxes. Two 12-packs in one box, 3 12-packs in another. I waited a few days, just in case more boxes were coming, before sending in a ticket to DiscountMugs.com's customer service department. Within 24 hours I received notice that they were rushing an order through for the remaining 36 mugs for me.

I finally received the rest of my mugs two weeks later. I set aside some time to go through all the boxes and checked for damaged mugs. Unfortunately, I had not taken the time to go through all the boxes from the initial shipment before I received the rest of the mugs. This was a problem, as I found a serious issue with one of the 12-packs in the initial shipment:

Two mugs were missing out of one of the cases from the initial shipment of mugs and had been replaced with packing material! In my mind, shorting me once could have been an honest mistake. But having done it twice? Not just in missing boxes sent to me, but by deliberately hiding that some mugs were missing? There was absolutely no mention of these missing mugs. No note in the package, nothing to indicate I was shorted two mugs.

Damage happens. I understand that! I wouldn't have minded receiving a few chipped mugs. I would have been okay with it if there was a note in the package saying "Oops, sorry, two of your mugs broke during packing!" I haven't even brought up the one chipped mug I have found in my messages to customer service. I don't really care about that. But outright not delivering the item I ordered? If you're not going to give the customer the product they ordered and paid for, you need to make it right by either giving them what they need or refunding them.

Adding fuel to the fire was this response I got from their customer service about my issue:

Comment By : Johanna
Bel, Incorporated
6905 N.W. 25 Street
Miami, Fl 33122
Discountmugs.com

Comment : Note that this was done in order to avoid that the glasses would shift during shipment and cause the entire case to broken.

Do you have any other issues with the order received or if it was received in good condition.

We apologize for the confusion.

No comment on the fact that had the two mugs that were supposed to be there been in that box, there would have been no need to fill it with packing material. No apology for the fact that I was shorted on my order. That's just terrible service.

I sent them a response to this ticket six days ago asking that I either receive my missing mugs or that I be allowed to speak with this rep's supervisor. I sent them another ticket today informing them if I don't receive my order in full, I will be issuing a chargeback.

I know it's just two mugs. If it had only been these two mugs and not the prior issue shorting me 36 mugs, I probably would have ignored it. But this is ridiculous. DiscountMugs.com, get your act together.

UPDATE:
I finally received a response to my customer service ticket today:

Comment By : Nimet
Bel, Incorporated
6905 N.W. 25 Street
Miami, Fl 33122
Discountmugs.com

Comment : I believe that it is more clear that what you have stated is that you are 'missing' 2 glasses..

We will replace the missing items immediately at no charge to you.

Note that there are no notes on the account stating that the order was shorted '2' items..

We are very sorry for the 'shortage'.

Sincerely

Cust Svc

Date : 09-06-2009 08:57am

Wow, nice of them to send me a response now that I'm threatening a chargeback. I like how they rub it in that it was 2 mugs, as if to say, "Well, it's only two mugs!" That's not the point. The point is that I was shorted product not once but twice. That's unacceptable if it happens once. Putting 'missing' and 'shortage' in quotes like that make it seem like they don't give a crap about the fact I was not given the product I paid for. Maybe they should have put 'Cust Svc' in quotes too, it's barely that.

Still, it's good that they say they will be sending me replacement mugs. I'm not going to count my chickens before they've hatched, though. I may still not get the mugs. I'm still pissed about the way my issue has been handled (or rather, not handled for so long).

A Musical Adventure. Act One, Scene One.

2009-08-13T03:10:00.000-07:00

Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi!

Translation: If I fall in love with you, you best watch your ass.

I used to sing every day. I sang in choir in school at various levels, traveled to China to sing in a vocal jazz combo. Beyond hanging around with one of my friends who sang a bit of opera and trying out a few of her arias, I have never been an opera singer.

These days, I find myself not singing nearly as much as I would like that. I've decided that all that is going to change. I'm going to pick up singing again, and I'm going to do it by poking out into a realm of the voice that I have only ever feared and respected. I'm starting with watching a lot of videos of singers doing what they do best. It began with some Mozart, specifically Die Zauberflöte, as my first excursions into opera as a child under the influence of my mother's taste in music. Therein lay vocal acrobatics that I'm fairly certain I will never be able to perform:

I am not so crazy as to jump right in and tell the world how der hölle rache kocht in meinem herzen, but I do want to set for myself a goal that will push me a bit. I just want it to be, y'know. Doable.

And so, the Habanera! Properly, it is called "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" or "Love is a rebellious bird". So, what makes a good Habanera good versus a bad one? I'm not a trained musician, and I don't have the experience an opera critic does. That being said, here is the one I consider to be the best of the bunch:

This is the yardstick by which I measure the other renditions of this aria. Maria Callas, called La Divina by her admirers, of which I am certainly one. She is so expressive - her breaths seem to be little exclamation points in her singing, she pulls out little nuances in the notes that just tug at your heart.

In my wildest dreams, I am half the singer she was. And so I begin to practice.

Sleepless

2008-08-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

This is not my normal insomnia, in which I am tired but something will not allow me to settle, and I spur myself on until I am utterly exhausted and collapse on the bed. No, I am wide awake, and it is now 9AM. My man has woken up and is now in the shower, preparing for the new day. My insomnia normally afflicts me in times of depression, when I lay about all day and do nothing, I find my sloth has lead to a guilt that keeps me awake. Yesterday was a good day, though - I was busy and did quite a bit around the house, took a nice walk to the store in the rain, and didn't spend a lot of time larking about on the computer. When I lay down to go to sleep, I found my eyes open and my body restless. I read for a while, got up and fixed myself a snack, read some more, then gave up at about 7AM or so and got on the computer to check the morning news. It is 9AM as I write this.

There's only two things I can think of that are keeping me so buzzed. The first is that I had some coffee earlier, and though caffeine used to have no effect on me, I have been unintentionally avoiding it for quite a long time. However, this was just a coffee-flavored beverage, really - a frappuccino from Starbucks hardly qualifies as real coffee, and on top of that I finished it off at 4:30PM.

The second and more likely cause is that earlier David Bowie's 'Five Years' came up on my iPod as I was walking home, and I was struck with a memory I never experienced myself. It was a story told to me by my mother and sister after my father died. They visited him in the nursing home he would eventually die in, and brought with them a CD player and a copy of 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust'. My father, mostly incoherent and unable to remember much of anything at the time, bobbed his head along with the rhythm and even tried to sing along, though he garbled the words a bit. I can see it, hear it as if I had been in the room with them, picture the pained look on my father's face as he tried so hard to sing along -

'And all the fat, skinny people
And all the tall, short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so
many
people'

I see him in a hospital gown, the kind that ties in the back - it is a light blue and patterned in little clusters of four dark-red circles that form the corners of a square turned onto its side. Only one tube coming out of his arm this time. He is whithered and shrunken, as he was the last time I saw him. He is in bed, but the bed is tilted to an angle closer to sitting than laying down. A thin blanket a dustier shade of blue than the hospital gown covers his legs, along with a white sheet. He is not wearing his glasses, and his hair seems so thin. His hands form loose fists, and he looks on the verge of tears. Though he can't quite make the right words, he sings along with passion. I have been haunted by this image, the sound of my father's voice as he sang for the last time. He sang for the last time, and I wasn't even there to hear him.

I resolved to write about his illness and death, perhaps as a semi-autobiographical work with names and situations changed to protect the innocent participants and bystanders in my life. Besides, it would have to be fictionalized, because even if my mother or sister told me I had gotten the scene I described above wrong, I would have to put it down as I see it. Sometimes here I will fabricate something entirely because it helps.

2/28/2006, 3AM: I wake up sick. I stumble, still half-asleep to the bathroom. As I am violently ridding myself of the offending toxin, I hear my phone ring. I only halfway register it. Once it stops ringing I realize that there is only one reason someone would call me so damn late, and I check the message. A voice I do not know says, "This is the nursing home, please call us back right away." I already know what happened, and it is confirmed when I call the unfamiliar voice back. Seven years from now, when he loses his mother, he will think of all the times he told people they had lost their mother, their father, their daughter or son. Maybe he thinks of this call. I call my mother, who has already spoken to them. We sob incoherently together.

My boyfriend at that time holds me and strokes my hair, saying nothing, which is exactly what I need. A few months from tonight I will leave him though he's done me no wrong, but tonight I can't even fathom that possibility. After he goes back to bed, I play Katamari Damacy in the living room and cry. Sometimes I can do nothing but cry. I call in to work, tell them I won't be there. In less than a year, they will fire me for missing so much work, but I don't care right now.

Coming back to the here and now, I am approaching 33 hours awake. I have come back to this story bit by bit throughout my day, adding a little here, changing a bit there. I have yet to have the urge to sleep, yet I know I ought to. I will wait for my man to come home from work. I will have a lovely dinner ready for him, and he will smile. But first I know I have to finish this story. How will I know when it has ended, or what it will be called? When I first started typing, I called it 'Sleepless', just to give the computer something to remember it by, a mnemonic device that is not its true name. I will find it and the end of my story somewhere along the day, which flows past like a swift-moving river, and I hardly noticing. My internet connection has been shoddy all day, and earlier, my keyboard broke. Perhaps my computer is telling me something. But no, no, I am not yet finished and I must not, I cannot stop.

It is evening, it is 7:30PM and the rain has stopped for now. Earlier the sky lamented and tore itself apart, but now it is only gray. Earlier, as I was facing the morning, the bugs buzzed in their trees, dry and active. Buzz buzz bugs, buzz bugs buzz bugs bugs. Now they are too damp to sing their one-note mating song, they've had their desires doused via downpour.

I left this post as it was months ago as a draft, and now I will publish it as 'Sleepless', despite the fact that the title doesn't quite fit.

Rain

2008-08-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Garbage in hand, I stepped outside and immediately my ears picked up on something odd. It sounded like heavy rain on a tin roof, and it was coming from somewhere nearby. I felt no rain against my skin, and so I assumed it couldn't be raining, though the air hung heavy with humidity as if it could rain at any moment. Looking up, I saw that just across the parking lot, it was pouring rain. Yet here I stood, dry as bone with garbage in hand. I watched, amazed, seeing very clearly where the rain stopped along the asphalt. I came to my senses and dashed to the dumpster, throwing my garbage away. Just as I came back under the awning of my apartment, the rain had moved to my half of the parking lot, and the crack of thunder rolled in from an unseen spike of lightning somewhere far off.

I woke up feeling like I missed something

2008-03-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream, where we ran into each other after a long time. We talked as if no time at all had passed, as if we were still friends. I told you how worried I was about you, and you nodded sadly, already knowing what I was going to say. We held each other as we once did, as friends, as siblings. Heat of the summer sun, laying back on your bed in your parent's house with the air conditioner on us. We were once so close, I called you my twin. I know that our separation is my own fault, that I am the one who left. I can't help but think how right you were when you finally told me you loved me - how you said you were afraid to take it there, because it might end our friendship. You were right, of course, but what I think we both didn't understand at the time was that our love for each other, though unsaid at the time, would have affected our friendship anyways. It already had. If we never moved in together, if we'd not gone up to work at the Company - things would be different than they are now, to be sure, but our friendship would still have changed. Whether for better or for worse, we'll never know.

I want you to be happy, and I fear for the misery yet to come. I only hope when you hold her, that she makes you smile. I hope that the coming change, though unexpected and even unwanted, will end in happiness for both of you.

In my dream, your hair was still longer than mine, and I brushed it as we talked. I brushed your hair, and we were twins again. I miss you so very much, and I'll probably never get the nerve to tell you directly. I cry as I write this, because I know you'll probably never read it. I'm not unhappy with my man, and I love him as much as I say I do and more. But I miss my friend, and though I know I couldn't have had both, I wish somehow I could.

Does it hurt too much to talk to me? Or do you just not want to associate with me? You probably hate me now, and are too nice to say so. I wish you would call me, though I know if my phone rings, it won't be you on the other end.

IGNORE ME

2008-03-03T14:18:00.001-08:00

Don't pay any attention to this post.

A Message to You, Rudy's

2007-10-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

My man came home the other day, gushing. He had finally found the Barbecue he'd been looking for, he told me. You see, we moved to Austin, TX last week and had visited a few months before, and we'd been told we'd feast on nothing but mind-blowingly awesome barbecue that entire time. Alas, such awesome barbecue was not had until he was taken by his co-workers to a little place called Rudy's "Country Store" & Bar-B-Q. He was skeptical at first - how awesome is the barbecue going to be at a place that looks more like a gas station with a Kwik-E-Mart than a restaurant?

So awesome, apparently.

He took me out the next night to our local Rudy's, on Research Blvd. just off the 183. My first impressions from the outside were the same as his - the hell kind of barbecue am I going to get at a gas station? Road kill? I did find the sign out front claiming to be "the Worst Barbecue in Texas" absolutely hilarious. I stepped inside and it reminded me of home - well, at least a very specific aspect of it. There's a counter where you order your food, and a line leading up to it, with coolers along the way to grab your cold sides and drinks. The rest of the building is lined with picnic tables. It reminded me of this little pie place out in the middle of nowhere, Northern California. Or maybe the pie place is supposed to be reminiscent of this. Whatever, I'm from Northern California, so I'm reminded of the pie place.

When we got up to the counter, my man told our server that it was my first time here - he asked me where I was from, and wished me a hearty welcome that the rest of the staff up front joined in on. Then, I was served a sampler of some of the different meats they serve there. I had a nibble of their dry brisket, extra-moist brisket, smoked turkey and creamed corn. The turkey had a very rich flavor, but I was in the mood for cow. I actually am considering ordering one of their whole smoked turkeys for Thanksgiving, to save me the trouble of cooking one myself, if that gives you an idea of how much I liked it.

Now, the dry brisket was very tasty, and packed a stronger punch than the moist brisket, but I found out the intended eating format is a sandwich, and I thought the dry might make things too dry for that application. However, for those of you who are on a low-carb diet, I'd go with the dry and skip the bread. The meat here is priced by the half-pound (and that's weighed as it's served to you, so after cooking), but you can get any amount you want, so long as it measures on their scales.

All in all, I ended up with the extra-moist brisket and a side of creamed corn, while my man got more of the brisket and a side of coleslaw. Your meat is wrapped in butcher's paper and placed in a soda flat along with your sides and drinks, with more pieces of butcher paper and a healthy helping of white bread. Your paper serves as a plate to make your sandwiches on, and it's got a very picnic-y feel to it. At your table is Rudy's "Sause", a barbecue sauce that's a bit sweet with just enough kick to tingle. You can grab onions and pickles from a condiment stand off to the side to augment your sandwich with, and while I used onions in my sandwiches, they weren't needed in the slightest.

The extra-moist brisket is, of course, wet and flavorful, and works well with a small amount of "Sause" and onions in the sandwich, though all of the meats I tried were strong enough that no such augmentation would be required to make them enjoyable. The creamed corn is very sweet and the corn still has a bite to it - unlike most creamed corn, which has the homogeneous texture of snot. I'm not normally a fan of creamed corn, you see. It needed with a few dashes of pepper to give some kick to counter-balance the sweetness, but I can see why it doesn't come with that pepper already in. Some people don't like everything they're eating to bite back. The coleslaw was pretty standard - tasty but not incredible, but definitely a nice cooling side dish along all the heat being tossed around.

All in all, Rudy's real is the Barbecue we've been waiting for - sure it's not a gourmet format, but it was most definitely good eats. Rudy's has locations across Texas and New Mexico, with one in Oklahoma.

Where's Pac-Man when you need him?

2007-09-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

As I walked home from work yesterday, I looked down at my feet and saw a tiny, round candy.

A few feet away was another candy, identical to the first. And then another not much farther down.

I wondered where the trail would lead, and if I was going towards its objective or away from it.

I continued walking home.

Singing to the Void

2007-07-06T15:57:00.001-07:00

Singing to the Void
---
I continue to sing into nothingness
A voice to go unheard.
These scraps of melody
Not meant for anyone
Drift slowly into nothing
As I fade to Black.

Perched
---
Finch on curled branch
as if asking me the time
tilts her tiny head

The Time?
---
"I'm afraid I don't,"
I shrug an apology.
She flits off, annoyed.

Warmth

2007-07-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

At first, she wondered why she was always so warm. She was far too young to have hot flashes, wasn't she? She had lost two children in the womb, it drove her husband away and she was so alone. Always so hot! She held ice cubes and they shattered in her hands from the heat. She thought she was dreaming when she dropped a cube in her hand one day and it disappeared, a puff of steam coming up from where it should have landed.

Later that day she accidentally sautered the door shut by touching the hinge. Suddenly, the loss of her children made sense. She'd baked them in the womb, stifling their life before it had the chance to begin. Her husband's complaints about how hot she made the bed. She cried and it smelled of sulfer.

Meeting the Weavers

2007-07-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

I found out today that I was not the only one who could do this. I turned down a narrow alley and nearly ran into her. I knew she couldn't see me, but she knew I was there. Her skin was an unhealthy white, as if she'd never seen the sun, and over her eyes there was a bloodstained scarf. She held the loom like those frescoes of angels with harps in the heavenly chorus, and turned her face up to mine, an unsettling smile spreading across her face. She began weaving.

I pulled out the paper I had pre-written in case of emergencies. It read in my neat, even script a single word, "Sword." I reached through the paper and pulled out the one-handed, simple but sharp sword that lay in wait within, just in time to block a wicked-looking trident from goring me. I hadn't even seen the woman reach through her loom, but I knew what she had done. I stepped back and took a deep breath. This would be one hell of a fight.

I'm So Tired

2007-06-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

It's not that I am losing interest, or that I am not attracted to him. I'm very attracted to him, I'm incredibly interested.

[│Treble-Clef, lots of flats ¾ When I first come home │ I want more than anything │ to jump him then and there │ But he's so tired │ And then it gets late and he is awake │ and oh how he wants me │ But I'm so tired │ Last night he asked me │ if I was no longer attracted to him │ and I cried out │ "No! That's not it!" │ I don't think he believed me │ I come to work │ and I'm so very restless │ Lonely a lot │ Bored │ I'm often the only one here │ I find myself thinking of him │ and how I miss him! │ And I come home and ׃║ ]

…the cycle of longing begins anew.

But it is the weekend now, and our cycles will not be in conflict any longer. I cannot wait.

Geek Heritage

2007-05-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

My father was a very talented musician. In eighth grade, he wrote a symphony. He could hear a song on the radio once and play it back for you on the piano. He played keyboards in a number of different bands; I have a picture of him in a cape, white bell bottoms and platform boots performing onstage. My dad was one of the first rockin' geeks. I bet he'd love MC Frontalot and Optimus Rhyme if he was still around.

President of both chess club and the student body, he dated a cheerleader in high school, yet looking at pictures of him, you can tell that even for the times he was a nerd. He wore Coke bottle glasses and had a big grin, and his talent with music probably made the ladies swoon. I wonder if by that point he'd started using? I'll need to ask his friends.

He thought it was so cool that geek was becoming chic. Dad was proud of my geekocity. He'd really wanted a son, but didn't have one until much later. When I was raised, then, my dad took me camping and fishing and of course, to the arcade. He raised me as a tomgeek, encouraging my nerdy habits. We'd watch cartoons together, and they'd be things like Voltron, Dominion Tank Police and Robotech (Macross). While my dad egged me on in computers, anime and video games, mom got me reading the classics from an early age and watched art film with me.

My momma is a geek for words. She enhanced my vocabulary and gave me the unquenchable thirst for books that I have now. My favorite story that she'd read to me at bedtime was the Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. She encouraged my love of British comedy on PBS, and would discuss movies with me on an in-depth level. She never just asked if I liked a movie, she'd ask what about it I liked, and we would critique parts of the film together. Also, Star Trek. She watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, then Deep Space Nine. We had Klingon dictionaries and Enterprise design schematics scattered about the house.

She's a very supportive nerd momma, too. She's gotten behind my geeky habits and even gotten involved. She started playing the text MUD I was addicted to, and even volunteers at the same SciFi/fantasy convention I do. I /almost/ got her playing World of Warcraft. We geek out over Firefly together. I still talk film and literature with her, and she encourages me to keep writing.

On Artistry

2007-05-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

I honestly wish that I was an artist. I consider myself a hack. I'm mediocre at best at what I do, but I do a lot of it. Drawing, painting, writing fiction/non-fiction/poems/plays, sculpture, sewing, singing, cooking/baking/mixing cocktails, dance, acting on stage/screen, playing the guitar/piano/ocarina/kazoo, costuming, pottery, collage, woodworking, engineering, I've dabbled in all these things but not a one has taken root in me and exploded like a weed throughout all else. Some of these I feel I'm better at than others, some I've forgotten how to do completely. In some I've been patted on the head and told how good I was, but I believe it was meant only as encouragement.

What is missing from all my work is the ability to convey emotion. I was telling this all to Tim the other day, and he said that all artists suffer from a feeling of miscommunication, that their audiences almost never grasp the artist's true intent. This, however, is not my problem. My problem lies in that I simply don't communicate anything.

I wrote a book of poetry when I was still in school that my teacher praised, and I wish I'd progressed at a steady rate from there. I don't believe I've grown as fast as I should have. I get the feeling that I've let down a lot of people who had very high hopes for me.

The Crossing Guardsman

2007-05-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

His uniform is the same every day; blue gloves that look more suited to snow than a California spring, a bucket hat that seems snatched from a fisherman's head, sunglasses, a flourescent vest and his red STOP! sign. Sure, the shirt and pants may change, and maybe even the shoes (not that I notice shoes much, mind you), but he looks the same every day, wearing the same glowering expression on his ancient face. He grudgingly assists anyone with children in crossing, but if you are a lone adult, he will not only not help you across the street, but turn around and face away from you, even deliberately ignoring you if you smile and wish him Good Morning.

When I walk past him, I just want to shake him and tell him that the world can't be as bad as he seems to think it is and dammit, it wouldn't kill him to return a greeting or at least smile once in a while. Instead, I just keep walking and think to myself about how much I dislike him. Maybe I'm afraid of turning out like he has, old, untrusting and filled to the brim with a sort of tired hatred.

A Dream of Home

2007-03-14T08:07:00.000-07:00

I was acutely aware in this dream that I was just visiting, but the setting was so familiar, it felt like coming home. We were at the house I grew up in. The only person I saw in the house was my mother, but I knew that my sister and father were both there. This is strange for a few reasons. Firstly, my father is dead. Secondly, we moved out of that house when I was in high school. But for some reason, there we were.

Two neighbors walked past, I knew they lived nearby but I did not know their faces. They were talking about a seminary that used to be down the street. Mind you, in reality, there is no such thing, but I digress. It was a small seminary that was behind a large building. About 120 years ago, a bakery opened up in the large building in front of the seminary. Around the same time, one of the new priests went insane and killed everyone there. His rampage was finally stopped when the owner of the bakery heard the commotion and came out with his shotgun.

After this, my mother and I decided to sleep in her car. It was parked out in front of the house under the magnolia tree. In the morning, I awoke to found one of the back doors open. I was suddenly very concerned for my kittens, who I suppose had been sleeping in the car. I'm not sure why they were there, but hey, it's a dream, right? I herded the cats and brought them inside, thinking how nice it would be to not have to walk or take a bus to the store since my mother has a car. It was then I realized that I was thinking about having to do grocery shopping in real life and woke up.

Dreams of Last Night, 2/8 to 2/9/07

2007-02-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

Tim and I were at some kind of downtown movie theatre that had many levels. They had all kinds of snack foods there. We were with two other people, one male and one female, but I could not tell you who they were. We found a horse-drawn buggy with three rows of seats that could hold about 15 people, and my companions all knew the driver but I did not. We hopped in with the boys in the front row with him, the other woman and I in the second row. While I knew it was a horse-drawn buggy, I never saw the horses. We clipped along at a fast pace, taking in the sights and sounds of the crowded marketplace, until we came to a "guess your weight" carnival game booth which was being run by another friend of my companions. We all got out of the buggy and disassembled it, and I kept gathering loose nuts, afraid they would be lost and we wouldn't be able to rebuild the buggy. The dream ends there.

My father was still alive, and my mother was taking care of him. She was going to an island somewhere as a vacation, and she was taking me. My sister did not go, she stayed with my father, and my half-brother was supposed to come but he decided not to at the last minute. The only part of this trip that I had in my dream was the preparations. We had to get the boat we'd be using, of course. We tried fishing it out of the water, but my mom became frustrated and picked it up and dumped it in the back of the pickup truck we were using, but when she picked it up it looked like a smaller pickup truck. For some reason Jesse, a former coworker of mine, was in this dream as one of my mother's students, and she took him along with us in order to further his tutelage under her. For reference, Jesse is legally blind. My mother had me run in and grab some sodas and snacks for the drive (we were driving to an island?) and I said my rushed goodbyes to my father, my half-brother and my sister. As I left the house I noticed it was the house I had grown up in.

When I came back out, my mother had put up a sign at the front warning people that nobody else could stay at this house without her express permission, and also warning firemen that there were three people and two cats who lived there. This ties in to real life a bit - my dad lived in my garage after my parents broke up with his girlfriend and their son. I think my mother might have been trying to prevent her from coming over in my dream. At any rate, Jesse had gone one street over to grab some groceries (but I don't know why, there's no grocery store there in my dream, just more houses) so we went to pick him up. Once he was in the car with us, mom talked about how we were going to India. This is where the dream ends.

Character Sketch: Contest Winner

2007-02-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

She can finally tell people she's self-employed, and she gets to wander around the house in her bathrobe and slippers all day. Her day begins in front of the computer, browsing the internet for new lucrative opportunities. Then she spends her time watching some TV, hoping a commercial will lead her to success. When she checks the mail, she finds a great cache of goods, tons of envelopes and magazines. The magazines come trickling in all the time; she has more subscriptions than she knows what to do with, and besides, the magazines themselves contain more ways to further herself.

The letters are best of all. Sometimes they contain checks after she's earned some money, sometimes they contain new contests, more sources of income. The ones that tell her she's already won are always tossed, she's not interested in scams. No, she plays with the numbers and goes for the ones she's going to win, even if the prize is not money. She has a teal scooter she's never ridden.

This all started after she got laid off from her prior job as an engineer. She has no husband, no children. Nobody else in her life, not even a cat. She stays inside most of her day, basking in the alien glow of her monitor. She is brilliant but not beautiful. Her eyes are baggy and droopy, her lips long, thin and pursed. She appears to have no chin. Her hair is stringy and always tangled, and she still suffers from acne.

An Introduction of Sorts.

2007-02-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

I will be using this blog to keep track of the scraps I write up along the way to writing...something. A novel maybe, or a collection of short stories? I'm not yet sure how exactly the words will take form, but this is where you can read them.