Weirdly

Last night I was walking home just north of University Dr. on Sherman near TWU, next to the Christian Academy, when a guy approached me on a bike with a headlight.  He stopped near me, and I stopped to regard him.  He said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were lost."  I said, "No, I'm not lost, but do you need directions?"  He said, "Oh, no, I'm ok."  And he rode off, turning north on Locust.  Weirdly.

After I'd crossed Locust, I saw a bike with a headlight coming south.  I thought it was the same guy, but when he got closer, I saw that it was a different guy.  He rode down almost to University, stopped and turned around and came back in my direction.  Then he turned around again and rode towards University.  Then my sister tells me about this guy who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted near UNT two nights ago, and these two guys pretty much match the description of those two guys.  I'm not afear'd, I have a vicious punch with a pair of cuticle clippers, and a laser that will blind somebody stupid enough to get close to me.  But I thought the situation was decidedly odd, and warranted an observation.  Oh, here's the article.

article 

Emily Howell

I came across this on YouTube, a computer composer 'named' Emily Howell.  I thought it was pretty cool, that a computer had written this music.  I got excited and showed it to my sister Chey, to listen to.  Her reaction was pbbbttthhhht.  Oh well, you can't please everyone.  Here are some snippets though.

Walking and talking

Synopsis:  just what the title says.

Talking to God

Is it ok for me to tell you that God spoke to me tonight?  That it's only when I'm crying out with utmost pain as I pray that I hear Him?  This happened tonight, and it's the third time I've felt God speak to me, and this time it wasn't just God but the Theotokos.  I had a bare, very dim glimpse of her, after I was praying in anguish, while I was walking home, for Jesus to please, please please tell me what to do to give up my will and to let Him take over, because I don't want it anymore, and I'm just clueless as to what to do.  After about 30 minutes of this constant crying out, I got an answer, and it felt like it was from the Theotokos, telling me what I had to do.  Answering me, directly and clearly.  And that it was that I have to give up substances to prove that I don't want my will anymore.  This was very clear.  I asked, and I was answered.  It doesn't get clearer than it was tonight, and the very very vague presence I felt was of the Virgin Mary telling me this.  Is it ok to tell you this?  I don't know if this is supposed to be private, but I want to say something.  I feel so blown away, happy and also completely devastated that the answer is something that is so hard, that it will require such suffering.  But nothing compared to being crucified... my selfishness again.  I feel despicable when I think of how weak I am, that I quail at this prospect. 
Anyway, I don't know.  I'm afraid.  I don't know if this is something I should talk about.  I'm still so entirely screwed up, and that's part of the problem, that I should believe that, because it's what stops me from going forward, that belief.  Talking to God is hard.
It was a beautiful thing tonight, walking home through the quiet wilderness of north Denton, a rare spot, there in a wide space bordered by trees and water under the moonlight.  It was just the beautifulest thing, lying on the cold ground with a fish eye view of stars, the cloud shrouded moon, and the heavens above.
Good night.

My other blog

Here's my other blog:

That Hideous Dream Journal

I found an old collection of dreams that I'd typed up, dating from back to 2002 and up to 2008, which I had thought was lost forever.  I found them as an attachment to an old Yahoo e-mail that I'd sent to myself back in 2008, and so I decided to post them all there. There are a couple of hundred in all.

All of the more recent dreams since 2008 are posted too.  Dreams, dreams, dreams!  Most of them are really f'ed up.  There are still about a hundred more dreams from January 2006 up to September 2008 that I haven't posted yet.  I'll get to it.


There are also a lot of recurring themes to my dreams.  Here are the most common ones:
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I can float, usually by lifting my legs off of the floor and placing them in a cross-legged position.  It is often a very pleasurable feeling and I'm quite proud of myself for doing it and want to impress other people with my ability.

My dream will take place in Russia or Mexico, or some other foreign country.  The location is the only thing consistent with each recurrence, because each time the dream is unique.

I'm either floating by myself or in an aircraft of some type and I am worried about coming into contact with power lines.  If I'm in an airplane, it's usually the takeoff that worries me, that we won't gain enough altitude to clear the power lines.  Sometimes I am floating in the sky and am surrounded by power lines on all sides and there is now way around, above, under, or through them.  I hardly ever actually come into contact with them.

UFO's will appear in the sky.  They are usually very large and spectacular in technical appearance with many different colored lights everywhere.  I am always overcome with the feeling of knowing that this is real, that I'm actually seeing this UFO and that it's not a dream this time.  I am always yelling to other people, showing them the UFO in the sky.  I am always very scared of the UFO.

Matt and I are involved in some type of very hurtful conflict.  Matt shows no regard for my feelings and sometimes is physically violent with me.  It is very depressing.

Charles and Darwin, sometimes both, sometimes individually, hate me and want to do me harm.  Occasionally it is Clint. 

Jeff Archer is present and I am usually intimidated in some way by his success compared to my seemingly failed life.

I am back in high school or college.  I've skipped a class all semester and it's time for the test and I know nothing about it.  Sometimes I have to go back to high school and go through my senior year again, even though I know I've already graduated.

I am riding in or driving a school bus.  Sometimes I am in high school band going to a football game.  A lot of the time I am riding home to the old house in Omaha.

I'm in the military.  Usually I'm either fighting a battle, or presented in a parade rest formation in front of civilians.  Sometimes I am regretting that I have joined and am looking for a way out.

I'm either married to or in a relationship with Stacey Hagan.  I feel very close to her and our relationship almost seems forbidden.  Sometimes I am in bed with her and we're having sex.

Christy Page is my long lost girlfriend and we are finally together again.  I'm always very happy.

I am married to Tammy Jernigan and sometimes we have a baby.  Occasionally Tammy is not present but I am the father of a newborn baby.  I am always filled with anxiety at the prospect of being a parent.

I look up into the sky and a spectacular cosmic vista is displayed.  Sometimes I am aware that it is night time but the sky is blue with daylight.  I can see planets in the sky and nebulae and huge tracts of glittering stars, even in broad daylight.  Sometimes I am looking through a telescope and witnessing these vast displays.  I am always awestruck.

I am working at DuPont again on a probationary basis.  I am usually afraid that I've missed a scheduled day and will lose my job again.

Tornadoes.  They are always very scary and spectacular and very close to me.

I am living on Mars, or viewing it from space.  It is almost always in some stage of being terraformed, and I always feel good when I'm on the cold surface.

I am in the bathroom and can't get the door to stay shut and it won't lock.  I am always very anxious that someone will walk in on me.

I am living at the old house in Omaha.  Sometimes it has been worked on and being rented out and I am out of place there.  Often I will go to grandma's house in dreams like this and grandma will be there, but she will be crazy.

Sometimes grandpa will be alive but it is as though he is cheating death, and nobody can mention the fact that he died years ago or he will have to return to the grave.

I am looking at a huge cityscape.  The buildings are all many times larger than anything in real life, and their staggering size is immensely impressive.  Sometimes I'm flying over it, other times I'm driving towards it.  Usually it is a skyline that stretches across the horizon, rising into the sky and dwindling with perspective, dwarfing everything by its presence.

Martians tripods from The War of the Worlds are invading.  I am always running away from them, trying to hide, always in imminent danger of being captured.

I am skating on rollerblades and I can really skate.  I feel so free while I'm skating.

I am shooting someone over and over but they won't die.

I am in an elevator and it is moving erratically.  Sometime it goes upside down.  Sometimes it falls.

Wonderful, vibrant green landscapes and vast, blue undulating oceans are prevalent.

I am aware of getting older.  I look back on the years of my 20's and grieve for my lost youth.

I am mucking pills from grandmother.

There is a lot of activity in the sky, due to comets and meteors.  It is usually spectacular and prone to change quickly from a harmless display into a foreboding danger.

I have parked my car, usually at high school or college.  I am wandering through the parking lot looking for it.  I never find it.  I am always filled with strong anxiety and am afraid that it has been stolen.

I am crying.  There seems no end to the tears.  It usually feels very good to cry, as if I am releasing some kind of pressure which has built up inside me.  At the same time, I am filled with sadness and remorse.

I'm on the moon.

I'm at school and dialing the combination on my locker.  I'm always afraid that I'll forget it.  Somehow I always get the door open, even when it seems that I've forgotten the combination.

There has been a nuclear war.  It always seems very real and I always say to myself 'this time it really happened, it's not a dream'.

A dream - Grief

It was like it used to be back in the fur days, when Matt and Mom and Ed and myself were all working together.  Chey was working with us too, and we were all stationed on an island, in a similar situation as to the way it was in Ketchikan, except we were all billeted in barracks.  As I was trying to sleep one night, I heard Leah's voice outside, near the door.  I woke up fully and listened, and heard that she was talking to Nick.  I discovered that they had both come to the island to work.  As I lay there I grew more and more anxious as I listened to them talk.  Their conversation became an argument, and at this point I decided that I didn't want to be near their situation, so I got up and got dressed for a walk.  As I was stepping out the door, Nick walked off quickly and Leah looked after him with desperation on her face.  She looked at me and smiled this sad smile, and stepped towards me.  I said to her, "I can't do this again.  Do you know how that makes me feel, when you come to me for comfort in your heartache, knowing that you're in love with him, that your heart belongs to him?  It feels like your hand is inside my chest, squeezing my heart and crushing it down to nothing."  I walked away from her.

The next day, mom and Ed and Matt and Chey and myself were walking to work together.  Our path cut across the island through some very pretty woods, kind of like the path in Michigan on Mackinac Island.  As we walked, I got weaker and weaker as my grief increased, and I began to stumble.  Mom was there beside me, holding me up and helping me as I hobbled forward.  Ed and Matt and Chey were way ahead of us, and finally we were so far behind that we were alone.  We kept going though, and I wept silently.  We finally got the the place were I was supposed to work, and mom let go of me and stood there looking at me.  She asked if I was going to be alright, and at that point I collapsed to the ground and began crying uncontrollably.  It was all back again, the old grief I felt when Leah left, just as sharp and clear and ubiquitous as it had been back when it was fresh.  I sort of stepped outside of myself for a moment and saw myself crying, and as I pictured myself there in my sadness, I thought that there would never ever be enough tears to cry it all away.  I lay on the ground and curled up in a fetal position and cried, "Mama, mama."  She came over to me and lay there with me and held me.

In other news

A Denton cop gave me a ride home the other night at 4:00 am when I was out walking and reading, right before it started to rain.  He knew me from the store because he comes in all the time, but I didn't recognize him immediately because it was dark and his flashlight was shining at me.  He had stopped his cop car halfway off of the road and onto the sidewalk, effectively blocking my path, shone his flashlight at me, and said, loudly: "What are you doing out this late?  Turn off that flashlight!  Come over here.  Turn that phone off.  Get over here now!"  Shit, I thought.  I walked over to him, and he said, "Hey man.  What's up?  Just kidding, you aren't in trouble.  You need a ride home?  It looks like it might rain."  I of course recognized him up close, so I didn't shit the imminent brick which I'd been preparing.  He gave me a ride home, and wouldn't you know it, I wound up leaving my phone in the cop car.  What happened was this: when the next cop on duty brought my phone back to the store (I dunno how he figured out who's phone it was and where I worked, my name isn't anywhere in that phone), everybody at work thought I had been mugged or kidnapped or thrown in jail or killed.  It was a real hoot.

Lets see... in other news, I banged my head so hard the other night in the cooler at work I saw stars for a second. On the way home from work I walked into a telephone pole. That was the second time I banged my head. My skull has served the purpose it was designed for.

Oh.  And I broke my hand a few weeks ago when I fell while I was out walking and reading at 2:00 am.  Just a hairline fracture though, and it's almost back to normal.  I still have to wear a brace though, because it hurts like the devil with I put the wrong kind of pressure on it.  Oh, and I broke my brand new e-reader too when I fell.  I was more upset about that than breaking my hand.

Uh... what else.  Um... oh yeah.  Pinback finally came out with a new album.  Thanks, Pinback!

A dream - The official ale of Gondor

I worked at Kroger, and this guy bought some beer and left. The person after him commented about how it was crappy beer. She was bald, and looked like she was maybe getting chemo. She didn't look happy. I said, "But Guinness is great beer!" And she said, "It wasn't the Guinness," and then she left without explaining what she meant. Then ano

ther employee handed me an empty bottle and said, "This is the beer he bought that she didn't like." I looked at the bottle. It was very hard to read, but I finally made out, Valemir. I held the bottle high before me, and said in a mighty voice, "Valemir, the official ale of Mordor! I mean... Gondor!" The other employee looked at me like I was retarded.

I read the side of the case the bottle came in, and it turns out that Valemir is a beer that goes along with this game, some kind of role playing game, and it was explaining how Bort Nansky (Bortniansky?) had even bought the game board that goes with it, for the really hard core players. I thought to myself, what makes this Bort person special, that he should be recognized for buying the board? Unless he's the only one who bought the board, ever. And if that's the case, what if it's a crappy game that nobody buys?

So then I was at home, looking at that bottle, and I saw that it didn't say Valemir, it said Vunemusko! WHAT? Well, it had been hard to read. So I held it aloft, and said in a mighty voice, "Vunemusko, the official ale of Mordor!" I mean... Gondor!" And that didn't sound right. So then I said, "Domo arigato, Vunemusko!" to my sister as she walked into the room. She looked at me like I was retarded, so I did it again. I wouldn't leave her alone with the Vunemusko thing, and I was bowing like a Japanese lunatic, and my head hit her head as it was bowing, and she said, "OW! that hurt, you know!" And I said, "Yeah, I have that recorded too. I think I'll save that one."

The most kickest-ass shirt in the known universe

The end of a long shift at 3:00 am at 7-Eleven, wearing the most kickest-ass shirt in the known universe. A customer gave this to me after I told him that the one he was wearing was awesome.

Dead president in the muddy water

Tonight as I was walking home from church, I stepped over a mud puddle.  One of dozens.  Anyway, I happened to look down as I was stepping over this particular puddle, and I saw a vague, kind of blurry, barely visible thing that looked like a 10 dollar bill submerged in a silt saturated mud puddle.  It was like looking at... remember that scene in The The Two Towers when Frodo looked into the water when they were crossing the dead marshes near the Dagorlad battle plain and saw those dead faces?  It was like that, except the face was Alexander Hamilton.

Secret sickness

I've got a secret sickness.  It makes me radioactive.  You can't see it or smell it or feel it, but it will infect you if you get too close to me.  You won't even know what it is.  The easiest explanation would be, well, insanity, but that's not true.  I'm perfectly sane, and everything I do is according to the utmost logic.  It's just that you don't know the secret.  My life is a lie.  A big fat ugly lie.  Well, there are parts of it that add up to a big fat ugly lie, anyway.  A lot of it is good, but there is that secret part, like cancer, that isn't visible.  Not until it's terminal and time is measured in days or hours or breaths.  It's not terminal yet, but there are symptoms... but that's whats so great about the secret sickness.  The symptoms are kind of befuddling to the casual observer, easily explained away.  It's easy to read about the secret sickness, and sympathize, and say, 'Oh, ok, yeah, I understand, if I were involved I would be compassionate'.  But it's not that way.  It's more like, 'What the fuck is wrong with you?  It's your fault, you're wrong, you you you, it's all you, you did it.  You didn't get infected with the secret sickness, you went out and searched for it, so you're guilty.  I hate you for it.'
 

Sometimes

Sometimes late at night, when I get home after work and I'm tired from the walk, and I'm just ready to sleep, and that's all that matters to me at the end of the day is lying down and watching cartoons on the insides of my closed eyelids... sometimes, when I get home, after I've unlocked the door and walked through the kitchen, and taken my shoes off in the hallway so they don't squeak on the floor, and filled my water cup in the bathroom, and stand before the closed door to my bedroom, sometimes I imagine that my life is completely different right at that moment, and that I actually got married like we'd planned, and that when I open the bedroom door my wife will be in there, either sleeping or sitting up reading or doing something on her laptop or watching TV, and an imaginary feeling of happiness will congeal and last for about a second.  It never lasts any longer than that.  I figure that we get just about exactly a second to experience the happiness of our imaginations.  It's not enough by a trillionfold to be real, but somehow it's enough to power a sadness that seems like it could last forever.  Isn't that kind of stupid?

Doesn't it seem like I just harp and harp about this?  The girlie heart breaky thing?  Won't I ever shut up about it?  It's just on this blog though.  I'm allowed to, as long as it's just on this blog.  It's my blog, and I'm just talking to myself, and I have these thoughts anyway, so I'm not hurting anybody by kind of hosing down the inside of my skull and spraying the scummy residue onto this page.

Bad

Do you just ever feel really bad?  Really really bad?  Just bad?  I feel like that now.  Bad.  I feel bad.  There's an underlying wrongness in my life, with me.  I hate it.  I'm ashamed that I still feel heartache.  A real man would have gotten over it by now.  I feel yucky because I'll never not be an addict.  I'll always always always have that thing in my brain, my soul, my self saying that you need drugs to be worthwhile.  To be normal, like everybody else.  Isn't that ironic.  I just feel bad.  I was thinking, earlier today, when I was joking and playing around with my sister, that I felt perfectly normal and happy.  Doing normal stuff with people I love.  Just living a normal day.  But behind it, at the same time, I thought as all that normal happy stuff was happening... I thought, this is just a facade, not the foundation.  This sucks.  I'm normally able to ignore this bad bad, but that's all it is.  Ignoring it, because it doesn't really ever go away.  It taints everything.

Going first (or second, technically, whatever)

I had left my car keys in the choir nook last night while confession was going on.  I'd already decided that I wasn't gonna actually go to confession, because there were so many other people waiting, and I just wanted to get my keys and leave.  The reason being, I was in my mom's car, and I wanted to get her car back and so I could visit with her, too.  Mom came up for a surprise visit :)  So, I was standing outside in the little book store nook, and I suddenly blurted out loud, "I'm not gonna go to confession tonight.  I don't have time.  My keys are in there, so I'm just gonna grab my keys when Debra is finished."  The reason I even announced this to begin with was so that everybody waiting would know that I was just going in to get the keys, and that I wasn't trying to usurp the next spot in line.  And Mike said, "Go next!"  I had to stop for a sec and absorb this foreign concept.  I'm almost always the last person to go to confession... I dunno why, it just always works out that way.  I'm always last.  I think everybody sort of knows it for some reason, on a subconscious level... or maybe that's just me.  One time Nancy said to me, "I know you like to go last!" with a big smile.  Well, it's not just an awful thing going last, and I normally don't mind.  And the last person usually gets to hang out for a little while longer and talk to Fr. Justin a little more than the others, so there's that benefit... so anywho, Mike said to go next, and I thought, no... no way.  I can't go next.  Then I said it out loud.  It just popped out automatically, I dunno.  "Go next!"  Mike said again, and at that time, Debra came out, and Mike ushered me in, motioning with his hands, and I sort of wandered in, a little dazed and in a mild state of disbelief.  I remember kind of half giggling and saying to Fr. Justin, "They're letting me go first!  I just needed to get the car keys... but they're letting me go first!"  I dunno why it was so unbelievable.  I don't ALWAYS go last.  Still, it was quite a thing.

A dream - trolls and turtles

I'm at the house where I used to live on Sena St, on the back porch.  It's night, and very dark out, with low lying mist obscuring visibility to about 100 feet.  Chey is out there with me, and she's about to go back in when I see see a line of what I at first think are children marching through the back yard, past the fence.  They are hard to make out, but they seem too stocky to be children.  They cross over Gober street and head into the yard of the house next door.  They're dressed in raggedy robes, and a few are holding small flickering candles.  I realize that they aren't kids, but trolls.  I urge Cheyenne to go inside, and try to hurry in with her, when the trolls see us and come into the back yard and onto the porch.  Then they really become children, and they are armed with long, metal whips, like antennae wires.  A few of them start beating me with them, but it doesn't really hurt.  It's just an annoying attack from kids.  I take away one of the long rods and order the kids out of the yard, but then Chey says, "No, they can't go!  Look!" and the house is surrounded by churning water.  We're all stuck on the porch now, and dad is there.  He gets the idea to fish with one of the rods, and does so, and I take one of the rods from a kid and start to fish with it.  There is a dead gopher tied to the line as bait, and I pull it through the water to try to make it seem as if it is swimming.  I see another gopher go after it, then abandon it when it doesn't want it.  Then a really huge turtle swims by, and dad urges me to swing the gopher close to it and to catch it.  I do this, and the turtle bites onto the gopher.  I ask dad what to do, and he says, "Pull it up when it bites onto it, and I'll catch it!"  So I do this and the turtle bites it, and as I start to lift it out of the water, it falls back in.  "Give it another go," my dad tells me, so I do.  The second time, I life the turtle completely out of the water.  It is extremely heavy, and I can barely hold it, and then  my dad reaches down and takes the turtle by the shell and pulls it up onto the porch.  When he does this, the turtle emits this horrible groan of distress, just the awfullest sound.  Dad gets the turtle all the way up onto the porch, and I look around for something to kill it with.  I have a smaller turtle that I was going to use as bait for the next catch, and I hand it to my dad.  He takes it and beats the large turtle in the head with the shell of the smaller one, until the turtle's head cracks open and it dies.  I imagine how long we will be able to survive on that one big turtle, and if it will taste good.  I'm vaguely horrified at the prospect of eating it.