A dream

I dreamed that Julie and her sister got undressed and put on thong bikinis.  It was very embarrassing for me, because in the dream I had to watch because everyone else was watching ME to make sure I watched.  Then my brother said, "You have to go get her now.  You better go get her!" And I told him to shut up!  I was extremely self conscious and awkward.  Everyone was looking at me, expecting me to go up to Julie and take her for my own.  She was practically naked and I was embarrassed.

A dream - space-life-time

Oh man the craziest dream.  I was in an old ramshackle house, and a sniper was outside, trying to kill me and my brother.  It was impossible to move around, because the windows offered vantage points, and there were only a few spots on the floor next the the walls under the windows where we could hide.  We just laid there in the house like that for hours.  It seemed like hours passed in the dream too as we lay there motionless, just talking about what it was like yesterday, when we were able to move around.  How we took just being able to stand up, walk around, or even just open the front door for granted.

Then it got late, and my brother said, 'enough of this' and he got up to leave.  I panicked, but as I followed him out the front door, I realized that were on an alien planet, researching the life there.  We had giant supercomputers set up, which were going through the DNA of the alien creatures we'd found.  They looked like fuzzy dogs crossed with deer, and the backs of their heads were triangular shaped and open, so you could see their brains, but there was a clear protective layer, and several horns protruded from the back of the head.  They kept getting in the way of our research, so we had to keep petting them to distract them.  Then the supercomputer had some kind of a breakthrough, and it showed a representation of the hyperreality of life and spacetime as they were combined to form the universe, one depending on the other, and it was a long braid that wrapped around itself and went inside itself, made out of a series of twisting connected cubes that formed long tunnels, and as I followed one of these braids as far as I could I could see it twist and spiral around, and I was able for just a second to see how it looped around through hper-space-time-life to connect back with itself, and I was filled with the most awesome sense of wonder and knowing, and just ok-ness.  It was almost like having your brain exploded, but completely painless, and not violent, and not messy, and instead of the whole thing exploding, it was more like each atom exploded but stayed right where it was.

Then the supercomputer created this large silver ball, this big packet of the space-time-life, that it referred to as toporgic.  It went floating through the air, and it got close to my brother Matt, and he SLAMMED his fist into it, and it shattered into hundreds of little silver balls, some as big as your fist but none bigger.  They flew everywhere, and we ran around picking up little pieces of it, and as I held one in my hand, it was like holding a ball of firm gelatin.  I could squeeze it, and the more I squoze, the more it vibrated, until it seemed like my whole being was vibrating with its energy.  Then it burst into littler balls, and they flew everywhere, and I watched them float through the air in all directions, little marbles of the space-life-time.  Then my brother and I just started walking, looking at the alien life, and we passed a humanoid creature.  I tossed a little ball of toporgic at it, and it caught it and said, "Hey, what's this?"  "Space-time-life!" I shouted back.  "You're drunk!" said the humanoid, laughing, as he squoze the little silver ball between his fingers, and it exploded into little silver marbles, and he ran around catching them.

Fear

I was watching a video of a guy who was addicted to skydiving. He only lived for that moment when he was free-falling, and he described his obsession with skydiving as the result of living in darkness and trying to fill himself with something. Now I think of my life, and I realize that this is the case with myself - but even with this realization, there is no accompanying epiphany, according to what seems to me should be an obvious succession of events, to introduce a solution for this persistent state, of being lost and cut off from God - despite all of my efforts. Instead, I realize that I don't even have the first clue as to what anything means, or how to do anything at all. What if I die tomorrow? What if I don't have time to learn? And this is the topper. What's all this worrying about ME for anyway? Is that my only motivation for trying to find this... state of being? Because I'm worried about me? Why should I be so important, anyway? It seems like a pretty worthless thing for me to worry about, from my perspective, when there are other people to worry about. The only thing I think I know for sure is that prayer is the center which leads to the result which finally makes sense and isn't bad. But I don't even know how to do that. And jeez, doesn't all this sound self pitying and self serving? I thought I began writing this with a better intent. I'm just lost, lost, lost. I don't know anything.

This causes great fear to well up inside of me.

Shame

There's a certain amount of shame involved when having to explain to the landlord why you're so late with the rent payment, why you're only handing over a little less than half of the amount due, and why you haven't said anything about it until now, 18 days into the month.  Shame is the reason why you didn't say anything, and shame is what finally motivated you to hand over what money you did have, knowing that it wasn't even half of what was owed.  Shame is what you felt in having to explain the reason why you didn't pay rent on the first, like you assured him that you would, which was because the government just happened to chose the beginning of this month to demand a 400 dollar student loan payment.  You felt shame when explaining that you were the only one paying the bills right now because your brother is in Austin, helping your dad to recuperate from surgery.  You felt shame because it sounded like you were just trying to make excuses.  You're ashamed now because you're a grown man and you don't have enough money to live a basic, simple life.  You're ashamed that those reasons have caused you so much shame, because those aren't even shameful reasons.  But the shame persists, and the shame on top of shame, and it doesn't seem like there's a way for it to end.

Memento Mori

I just discovered this band by random accident the other day... a song of theirs was the fade out music (only about 20 seconds of it) for a little CGI film a dude made for a college project back in 2005, but 20 seconds was enough to convince me that it kicks all kinds of ass, up down and sideways.

Memento Mori - Is One Worth the Other?

The songs on Grooveshark aren't in order, so listen to them in this order because some of them blend together:

1. ... and On and On
2. The Texas Furlong
3. Dawn
4. Drifters
5. Words from a friend
6. Eleven/Fifteen
7. Petals Mark the Time
8. Ballad of Luke Hadley
9. On and On

Crying

Last night I dreamed that I was riding somewhere in the backseat of a car, and when we stopped, the door opened and I saw Leah standing there.  Her hair was long, like it used to be when I first met her, and she was looking at me and smiling.  As she got into the car she reached for me and pulled me close to her, enfolding me into her arms.  She rested her head on my shoulder and whispered into my ear, "It's all right.  It'll be all right now.  You're going to be all right now.  I'm here, it's all right."  For a long while we stayed like that in a kind of silent repose, sharing a desperate embrace.  The feelings of joy and relief and comfort as I held her in my arms felt simply to good to be true.  Then I realized that none of it was real, and that it was all just a dream.

I woke up then with such an empty feeling of loss that I couldn't help breaking down into silent sobs.  I felt that same, God sized hole right in the center of my chest again, feeling as if the pain from almost two years ago hadn't even begun to fade at all.  It's not unusual for this to happen when I wake up from an emotional dream, so I knew that the feeling would eventually go away after I'd gotten up and around and started going about my day.  At that moment though it was almost unbearable, and I sat up and cried into my bunched up sheets for a long time.  My nose got so stuffed up that when I tried to lie back down on my side, my sinuses would drain and clog up my ear with that ugly imbalanced feeling.  Sometimes when that happens, one of my ears will get locked up in that 'low pressure sucked in state' - which really sucks, as anyone who is familiar with it knows.  After I'd gotten over my bout of boo-hooing, I felt around for something to blow my nose with.  I didn't have anything handy, and it was dark and too dadgum cold to get out of bed just for some tissue, so I blew my nose with a towel that was lying on the floor next to my bed.  I sat up for a while longer waiting for my sinuses to get back to normal, and after I was all dried up, I turned over and eventually went back to sleep.

I started dreaming again almost immediately, and this time I was at Leah's house in Michigan where her parents live.  It was early morning and I was bundled up in some covers on their couch, watching TV with her family like we did a couple of summers ago when we drove up there to visit.  I looked around for Leah but she wasn't there.  I felt like crying again, but I held it back and just sat there snuggled up on the couch as we all watched TV.  In my dream I drifted off to sleep, and in that dream within a dream, I cried the kind of epic crying that I can only do in dreams.  For a long time I let it all out in great, wretched, noisy sobs, until finally I felt a hand gently shaking my shoulder.  I woke from the dream within a dream and saw Leah's mom sitting next to me.

"You were crying," she said.  "Were you dreaming about Leah again?"  I wiped my eyes and looked around and remembered waking up after embracing Leah in the back seat of the car, and how it had just been a dream, and then waking up again on the couch at Leah's parents' house, and all the dream-sobbing that followed, and finally being awoken by Leah's mom and knowing that this part was also just a dream.  I answered, "Yeah," and started crying again.  Leah's mom moved close to me and wrapped me in her arms.  She rocked me back and forth, and as I was falling asleep again, she whispered in my ear, "Shhhhhh... don't cry, everything is going to be all right.  You're ok now, you're going to be ok.  Everything is just fine.  It's all right.  Don't cry, everything is going to be all right."

And I went back to sleep in that dream, and I didn't dream anymore dreams within dreams, or any kind of dreams after that.

Memories

I've only got a couple of minutes before I have to head out the door to work, but memories wash over me like music, and I miss you.

Nightmare

I had the worst, most godawful nightmare last night.  I was standing at the top of a tall spiral ramp, and I could look down and see it as it spiraled away, and the end of the ramp led into a dark tunnel.  Two people, a mother and a child, I think, were fighting and they fell down the ramp.  They tumbled down it all the way to the tunnel, and as they struggled down there, dead bodies began to fall down the ramp.  They piled up on each other as they fell, and some were walking and stumbling, and falling over the other bodies.  I tried to turn away and leave, but I was paralyzed.  I looked to my right and somebody was holding me still, so that I couldn't move at all, and it was some unidentified woman.  She held me and forced me to look as the bodies engulfed the two struggling figures, and she said, "Bloody dead."  And I woke up scared shitless, didn't know where I was, and was still paralyzed.  If you were watching me, I'd probably have seemed quite calm lying there with my eyes open and expressionless, but I was frikin horrified.  I was finally able to turn over and go to sleep again, after about 5 minutes of lying there unmoving and muttering "I'm scared, I'm scared" to myself, over and over.

Pain

I've been puking a lot lately in the early morning small hours.  Yesterday morning I almost threw up my guts.  This morning I did it again.  I missed the Royal Hours yesterday, and almost missed the liturgy celebrating the Theophany this morning, but Dax texted me and woke me up.  I was feeling better by then, so I got up and got ready and went.

I had forgotten that it is three years ago almost to the day that I first visited St. Maximus, and we were singing the Troparia of Theophany a lot today.  When I was reading the hours before the liturgy, when I got to the the troparion it caught me by complete surprise, and all of those memories came rushing back.  I choked up pretty good and had to stop reading, and I'm sure everybody noticed and was thinking, 'Oh shit, why is he choking up?  What's wrong with him, is he going to start crying?'  It was embarrassing, and later during the liturgy, it happened again when we were singing the troparion, and everybody was watching me, so that made it even worse.  I wasn't ready for it.  The reason why it affected me is because today marks the beginning of my experience at church, back when Leah invited me for the first time, and that troparion in tone 1 was the first thing I'd ever heard there at St. Maximus.

Then my stomach started to hurt again, and after the blessing of the water, I drank some Holy Water and had to double over with pain.  I pretty much rushed right home, and again I'm sure everybody was thinking, 'What the heck is up with him?'  I guess I'm not holy enough, and that's why it hurt.

Weirdly

I had a dream about Julie last night.  Most of it was unmentionable.  I haven't had a dream like that in... don't remember when.  I wonder what happened to her.  She disappeared from FB a few months ago.  Anywho, hey Julie, wherever you are.

That dadgum tuning fork

Here's an example of how I seem to have an inbuilt mechanism for screwing things up, despite the best of intentions.

I'm directing the choir again this morning, and I only realized at 5:00 am that I left my suit jacket at my sisters house last weekend when I was visiting for Christmas, and the tuning fork is in my jacket pocket.  I have semi-perfect pitch though... I can usually start off a certain Haydn sonata in D major in my mind in the right key, and based on the beginning note - which is D - I can find any note from there.  That is, when I'm relaxed and not a nervous wreck.  The problem is, I'm usually a nervous wreck when I'm directing the choir, which pretty much fubars my mental faculties.  Easy things become hard.  Tones I thought I had memorized fly out the window and are splashed to the four winds.  I second guess everything, even when I know I'm right.  It's an interesting phenomenon... when your hands are shaking and your heart is pumping and your mind is a chaotic mess, how 'right' can suddenly become 'devastatingly WRONG'.

I actually gain a kind of superpower when I'm a nervous wreck, which is the ability to transfer that nervous wreck energy onto people within my sphere of influence; namely the other choir members.  I've also noticed that on the semi-rare occasions when I'm in the middle of just royally making a complete and total mess out of something (as opposed to just fumbling through it), and when Fr. Justin tries to give me a hand (by starting me out on the right tone, for example), some of that nervous wreck energy even transfers over to him, because sometimes even HE gets it wrong.  It's not bad enough that I have to be a frazzled ball of anxiety - I also have to be contagious.

Afterward, Fr. Justin will usually make his way toward me through the smoldering wreckage of whatever service it was that I had just nuked - usually a divine liturgy or an all night vigil - and thank me; sometimes offering a few words of encouragement.  This ain't easy, this thing I'm trying to do - this business of choir directing in an Orthodox church.  There's a lot to learn in just setting up the services, such as knowing which octoechos to use during vigil based on which saint is being venerated.  And then there are all of the different tones that have to be memorized and recalled instantly, according to their particular function.  And I hear that it's also pretty normal to be a nervous wreck when standing in front of a bunch of people and having all of the attention directed at yourself.

It helps to realize all of this sometimes, and to know that I'm not really a retarded monkey.  I understand that part of my problem is the habit I have of beating the shit out of myself when I don't necessarily deserve it - like for not having the tuning fork this morning because I left my jacket at my sisters - which makes things harder than they ought to be. 

But I don't even really need that tuning fork.

Basal cell carcinoma

I've had a sore on my left ankle now for several months that won't heal.  For most of that time I didn't even notice it, but every now and then I'd see it and wonder, 'WTF... why hasn't that healed yet?' and then forget about it again.  Then the other night it hit me... skin cancer.  I did some net research and the images I found for a certain type of cancer, called basal cell carcinoma, look very much like the lesion on my ankle.  From what I've gathered so far, 90% of these types of cases don't metastasize to other parts of the body, so I'm not too worried at the moment.  The main concern seems to be removing it so it doesn't leave a scar.  My mom works at a hospital, and she said I could come down and get it removed, and that the lab costs would be covered.

I suppose I'll have to make some time for that.  I'll probably have to miss church one of these upcoming weekends.

Persistant visits to this blog

My blog has a stat counter that tracks visitor statistics by counting the number of visits each day, what page they visited, whether or not they're returning visitors, etc.  I usually get about 5 hits a day from all over the world from people using Google searches, which shouldn't seem weird in and of itself... but what IS weird is that almost every single one of those visits to this blog is to one particular entry - my write up about the star of Bethlehem as an astronomical phenomenon.  This page:

http://ashfansrejoice.blogspot.com/2010/02/star-of-bethlehem-astronomical.html

Every single day, almost every visit to my blog is to that page.  Visits average about 5 a day, over the course of a month, and they go back 6 months, to when I first started watching the stat counter. Some days it's as many as 20 different page views of just that one page.  My stat counter page is filled from top to bottom with visits to my star of Bethlehem blog entry.  It's weird.

The stat counter even shows the Google search terms the visitors used - things like 'bright star of Bethlehem', 'Bethlehem night sky', 'shining star over the manger at Bethlehem', 'pictures of the night sky in Bethlehem', 'star of Bethlehem', 'Bible star', and  'Bethlehem supernova', to name a few.  It's the only traffic my page gets, except for a few rare visits that don't show any referring Google searches.

A letter to myself

I imagine that it's tiring to hear somebody complain about the same old thing over and over again, especially when it's a broken heart. I should have gotten over it already by now. I think I should have... I always have before. I'm tired of it, just tired and weary of it and ready for it to go away. I'm only saying this to you right now because so often I just feel like I need to say something to somebody, and I right now at this moment, alone and wide awake in the small hours, I appreciate you being someone in my life who I feel like I can push a few words toward without the immediacy of actually bothering you. I'm kind of cheating really, because I hate bothering people with my problems, and I loath the idea of being a burden and an annoyance and a nuisance because of the things in my life which are actually such petty little issues and items; things which shouldn't even be worth all of this fuss but for some reason insist on being so painful, and pain is a hard thing to ignore.

If only I knew how to just deal with life like a normal person... I say that, and I immediately realize the folly of that concept, because I'm aware, at least superficially, that I'm not unique, and that other people have problems, and that 'normal' isn't something that exists on the other side of a threshold which I'm barred from crossing. Somehow though, over the past 40 years, my perception has developed so that I'm blind to almost everything except for the idea of 'self'. And as a result of being so selfish and all about me and so oblivious of other people and lacking compassion and just being a selfish jerk, I feel the need to reach out when I'm feeling all of my own personal pain. And at a moment like this... the selfish action of pushing a few words in your direction will help to make things ok for a little while, I suppose.

But with all of that said, I still have an idea that a lot of this way of thinking that I'm describing shouldn't have to be the case, or isn't the case. Maybe I'm only being a jerk to myself. I don't know. I don't know much of anything about most things, and because of that I'm afraid of almost all of the things that have to do with any of those things, which is just about everything.

'Stink think', as you've put it, is second nature to me and has been for as long as I can remember, and it's a hard habit to break. I guess I had a crappy childhood and my brain was programmed pretty brutally back then. Poor me, right? But the result in my adult mind is that I see failure as the most likely result of any attempt to actually take part in life in a way that matters. I never noticed that before now... that is, before the last couple of years; before I met Leah and discovered Orthodoxy, because failure wasn't something I ever actually contemplated as a possible thing that resulted from an action. It was just something that WAS, and it was natural, and I didn't really know that, because I had never tried at anything before; not really, and not at anything that I really believed mattered. And this matters... all of this that I've become involved with. I realize now that nothing matters but this.

But constantly imagining myself in this new place, at church with normal people, and especially in the position of... doing something in front of the choir that other people kind of notice, and that might actually mean something to a lot of people, and make a difference in the quality of their experience at church... this seems debilitating to me most of the time, and when I push through that feeling and actually DO, it's almost painful enough that I want to yank myself back, like the reflex of jerking your hand away from a hot frying pan. And that reflex makes things even harder, because it's something I have to fight, and it makes every resulting action clumsy and sometimes ugly, and a lot of the time wrong, and the resulting chaos is hard to turn back into order. All because of that stupid reflex.

And the cause of that reflex... waking up, getting out of bed, focusing my consciousness towards the activity of getting ready and stepping out of the door and pointing myself towards the direction of the church and actually making my legs take those steps down that same familiar path that I've walked a hundred times, to face my fears head on - that seemed a lot easier when Leah was with me. Everything seemed easier then. Life was easier and more hopeful. Things that seem impossible now felt possible then. I felt like anything was possible then, back when things were good with us, for that short while throughout most of 2009. And I don't understand why that should be wrong, but now I feel like I was cheating back then, and that doesn't seem fair... that the only time in my entire life that I had ever felt hopeful about a secure and happy future, an unbelievably awesome fairy tale life where I'd actually found a way to believe in God, and it was all because of this beautiful woman who loved me, and that there was this life waiting for us together in the church, and maybe even a family... it didn't seem fair for all of that to turn out to be against the rules, moot, null and void. Cheating.

I think this problem I have, this persistent sadness, exists in direct relation to my persistence with the church. Surely there's a breaking point somewhere or at some point, that the sadness will have to give up, the fear and pain will burn up and turn to smoke and dissipate, and the new life will begin?

I think maybe that getting over Leah is so hard because... it's kind of, like... the admittance fee for salvation. I never would have known the church without Leah, and Leah was the reason why I started going to church. Then, when the church became 'just' important enough to me that I wouldn't fall away from it and collapse completely without Leah, she was taken away from me. That was the payment. That's a crude way to put it, and not altogether accurate... but it makes sense that I would have to give up one item of priceless value for another. However, the funny thing is that I don't even understand the value of what I got in return, and what a bargain it was... an actual CHANCE at Love and eternal life, vs. this selfish desire for the illusion of personal happiness for a few decades... maybe.

When I back up and try to look at myself objectively and not through a lens of self loathing, I marvel that I haven't given up yet. And sometimes, just occasionally... like right now... I realize that the even bigger marvel is that none of the credit for the persistence I've shown is even mine at all.

An odd thing that happened the other night.

The other night after work I was looking for my flashlight so I could walk around and read, per my modus operandi.  After several minutes of fitful searching, I couldn't find it.  The only other possibility I could think of was that I had left it at work, so I walked to the store to see if it would turn up.  Stephen and Saqib and I searched all around the registers, and I searched the cooler because I use it in there when I'm counting in inventory in preparation for ordering, but it was nowhere to be found.  I finally decided to give it up as lost and to head on home.  On my way out I stopped to shoot the breeze with Stephen and Saqib for a few minutes, and as I was standing there near the counter, a couple of regular customers - a guy and a chick - stumbled in, whoo-hooing and laughing, obviously somewhat drunk.  Upon espying us, the two of them immediately tottered over and greeted us loudly and with celebratory enthusiasm.  Then the girl - I think her name is Theresa - turned to her friend, and this is what happened:

Girl - Oh!  Well, now's my chance... I've always wanted to do this, and now I think I'm just drunk enough to actually do it!

Friend - What's that?

Girl - I gotta run my fingers through his hair!

Stephen and I exchanged a kind of WTF look.  Both of us have long hair, but I'm sure that neither of us knew who she was talking about.

Me - Who's hair, mine or his (referring to Stephen)?

Girl - (She turns to me) So, can I?  Can I run my fingers through your hair?

Without waiting for my permission or any kind of response, she immediately started to luxuriously stroke my ponytail with her palms, and to slowly run her fingers through the length of it.  As she was doing this, she emitted little sighs of pleasure and squeals of glee.  I was a too surprised and shocked to do anything else except to just stand there as this girl 'oohed' and aahed' while stroking and petting my hair, like it was some kind of royal fabric of utmost quality.  Finally she stopped and performed a wobbly little pirouette while laughing out loud delightedly, and threw her arms around me.  She hung onto me for an inordinately long time, until finally she unlocked her arms from around my neck, slid them slowly across my shoulders as she pulled away, and gave me a very light push against the chest with the palms of her hands to complete the separation.  Then she laughed again and turned away from me quickly, possibly a little bit embarrassed.  After buying some beers, she and her friend left, laughing loudly and cutting up on the way out.

I have to admit to having been taken completely by surprise there.  I'd been seeing that particular girl come into the store for years, and although we had chatted a little and exchanged a few pleasantries, we'd never actually 'talked' to any real extent, and I'd never interacted with her in any way other than as a customer.  To me she was just another face, albeit a quite pretty one, who I recognized as one of the regular customers at the 7-Eleven where I work.  Turns out that all this time she was harboring this secret desire to run her fingers through my hair.  Huh.  Just... huh.