July 2001
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So I fell asleep last night without getting online because my parents were using the computer and I couldn't get online so the boredom overcame me and I slept through the night waking up around seven in the morning. The sad thing is that Devo logged in overnight and she had told me she wanted to see me this weekend and I reckon I missed the only window of opportunity I had to hang around her. This was accompanied by cursing the fact that I can't get online from my bedroom, lots of swearing and pounding the desk once. Fuck.
Another thing that pisses me off is the fact that I contacted people asking them if they could help me on the weekend and one of those folks was Buddha. I really should've known better because every time I've had something going on here at my place and I asked him along he doesn't come so what's the point? He says he's my friend but I reckon I'm more of an aquaintance. I really wish that people could understand that there are certain things I expect from folks who declare themselves to by my friend because I set high standards to maintain if I say I'm someone's friend. If they're unable to meet those standards then just refer to me as an aquaintance. Friend, like love, to me is far too strong of a word to use casually. And fuck them if they can't handle my hang ups or insecurities because if they can't handle it they're not my friend in the first place.
DMV stuff has to wait until Monday because the DMV is closed on Saturdays. Fucking hellfire, do they expect people to cut out of work to wait in line for a half hour then dick around for an hour and a half waiting for the drones to complete the forms. So I have to wake up early on Monday, drop the keys off with the mechanic, go to the DMV, get insurance for the car and confirm the fact that I will have a truck waiting for me on the seventh.
Speaking of moving, here's the rough schedule for my journey to Colorado. The timings are set up to coincide with motel checkout times which are usually around eleven.
- Monday, leave at 7 a.m. and drive for 12 hours.
- Tuesday, leave at 11 a.m. and arrive in St. Louis 4 hours later.
- Wednesday, leave around noon and arrive in Tulsa around 7 hours later.
- Friday, leave at 11 a.m. and arrive in Colorado 12 hours later.
- Saturday, unload truck.
- Sunday, unload truck then return truck.
Pretty simple. Might leave St. Louis a bit earlier to arrive in Tulsa around five or six because Brian's grandparents go to bed quite early, around 8:30 p.m. at the latest. Of course there will be an extra hour or two because of poop stops, food and filling gas tanks. Just hope that there will be all night gas stations along the way to Colorado after leaving Tulsa since we'll be driving fairly late at night.
Makonan_Guest helped me interpret runes today. I pulled them in regards to my future, my move and how I fit with other people.
/\ |> |>
\/ |\ |>
Those are the runes I pulled and here's what Makonan_Guest saw in them.
Blue_Guest says, "berkana, raido, and... shit"
Blue_Guest says, "what's the O?"
Now pasting to spivak and Blue_Guest.
[Type lines of input; use `.' to end or `@abort' to abort the command.]
-----spivak----- first second third /\ |> |> \/ |\ |> -----spivak-----
Pasted to spivak and Blue_Guest.
Blue_Guest says, "there's no O"
You say, "ING"
You say, "that's the name"
Blue_Guest says, "OH"
Blue_Guest says, "inguz"
spivak is going by this book he has for the names
You say, "i haven't read the books"
Blue_Guest says, "i use the germanic names"
You say, "aye"
Blue_Guest says, "was raido reversed?"
You say, "no"
You say, "It looked like a letter R"
Blue_Guest says, "that's a really interesting reading"
You ask, "why's that?"
Blue_Guest says, "cause it's all about journey and rebirth"
You say, "i see"
You ask, "what does inguz mean?"
Blue_Guest says, "inguz represents the completion of a new beginning"
spivak nods.
Blue_Guest says, "you read them from right to left"
You ask, "raido?"
You say, "oh"
Blue_Guest says, "did you do this with any particular focus?"
You say, "in regards to relationships"
You say, "obvious inferration"
Blue_Guest says, "ok"
Blue_Guest says, "cause i was starting to interpret it in regards to your move to CO"
You say, "that's definitely part of it"
You say, "i'll be closer"
Blue_Guest nods.
You say, "but the move looms big in my life"
You ask, "what's the B called?"
Copper_Guest teleports in.
Copper_Guest sighs loudly.
You say, "I take it the B is the journey"
Copper_Guest says, "no"
You ask, "no what?"
Copper_Guest says, "b is berkana"
Copper_Guest says, "no it's not the journey"
Copper_Guest says, "it's your situation"
You say, "ok"
You ask, "what does it stand for?"
Copper_Guest says, "a birch tree"
Copper_Guest says, "a form of fertility"
You say, "and metaphorically"
You ask, "rebirth then?"
Copper_Guest says, "it's concerned with the flow of beings into new forms"
Copper_Guest says, "yes, exactly"
spivak hushes and listens to the expert
Copper_Guest giggles.
Copper_Guest is no expert.
You say, "you know more than me"
You say, "you know runes like i know tarot"
Copper_Guest says, "what it calls for is going into things deeply, making sure to be careful and aware"
spivak nods.
Copper_Guest says, "clean out any dark corners and make sure your motive is correct"
You say, "aye"
Copper_Guest says, "it's the 'be patient' rune"
You nod solemnly.
Copper_Guest says, "raido represents the action to undertake"
You ask, "What about the middle one, raido?"
spivak nods.
You ask, "And the action is to move?"
Copper_Guest says, "which incidentally enough represents journey and communication"
spivak listens.
Copper_Guest says, "raido is concerned with the ultimate reunion of two things, in order to unite them as one mind"
spivak nods.
You say, "oh dear"
Copper_Guest says, "it also focuses on attaining this through a journey, be it metaphorical or literal"
Copper_Guest says, "what?"
Blue_Guest has disconnected.
The housekeeper arrives to cart Blue_Guest off to bed.
You say, "if i was more mystically inclined i'd twist it into "WOW TWO SOULS REUINITING INTO ONE"
spivak laughs at himself.
Copper_Guest grins.
Copper_Guest says, "the journey however should focus more on self-healing and change"
You say, "okay, i have deja vu that you did this for me already"
Copper_Guest says, "raido doesn't believe in strength in numbers and advises that you try and stand alone during this time, because this isn't a journey where all aspects should be shared."
You nod solemnly.
Copper_Guest begins a drumroll
spivak grins
Copper_Guest says, "inguz is all about intuition and the sphere of personal relationships"
You nod solemnly.
Copper_Guest says, "it embodies the need to share, be desired, and seek similarities"
Copper_Guest says, "this is your new situation rune, by the way"
spivak nods
Copper_Guest says, "it's a very powerful rune, and its focus is on completion, or freeing yourself from a rut"
You say, "i hope so"
Copper_Guest says, "it's akin to an emergence from a chrysalis state into a big ol' purdy monarch butterfly."
You say, "ooooo"
spivak flaps his wings
Copper_Guest giggles.
Copper_Guest says, "was that helpful?"
You say, "actually my therapist said that once i get out of here i'll be a new person"
You say, "so i can see it"
You say, "yes, helpful"
Copper_Guest says, "good."
You say, "thank you"
You kiss Copper_Guest.
Copper_Guest says, "i aim to please."
Copper_Guest says, "too bad miss cleo doesn't do rune readings"
My father.
Sigh.
So today I expressed confusion in regards to how my father will be aiding me in whatever capacity with my move. Ended up with confusion that I was expecting one thing and he said he would be helping me (this is mostly with my car insurance) which got cleared up and I was cool with how things were going to be handled. An hour later I was able to get online and he comes downstairs and hands me a check which completely confuses me because I thought things were already set in stone from that discussion. He goes off on how I listen to him for only a few minutes then shut him out and carry on with my merry life. I go off about how he's mercurial and how I'm always on the defensive thinking everyone's out to fuck me over.
I won't go into the particulars until tomorrow's entry because I'm half-awake at the moment. My rational half is saying that this is my twisted way of saying that I'm important enough that people would try to fuck with me. It's probably right.
The one thing I do want to write about in regards to my father is how he downplays who he is. I came across him in the street and said "How's the most powerful man in town today?" and he replied with "I don't know, why don't you ask him." which irritated me. The man's the head of the chamber of commerce, he's being awarded this month for his community work and his contributions, he's fucking Santa Claus in the Christmas parade, he runs a successful business. The way he downplays himself or doesn't seem to believe it sounds a whole lot like some mafioso saying he's just in the waste management business rather than saying what he really is. My dad has done a lot with his life and I admire that, how he rose above something banal and mundane like working for his father and showed he had a shitload more potential and energy than most people who end up in that kind of position. One of my bosses was a Daddy's Boy and completely lame and irritating. Other folks who have had that lot in life and couldn't cut the mustard. I want to be like my father except have a different kind of wife and more money.
Check out this link, it's pretty keen. Some Italian wrote about sex and it's funny but I don't think it would fly over here in the USA.
The car is in my name now, the truck rental is confirmed and the insurance is squared away. What does this mean? I just gotta get inspected tomorrow (probably about seventy bucks, herf) then take my father's laptop into the shop so it can get fixed because one of the peckers who works for him dropped the machine and the screen shesa no work. I need to get shoes and socks, take care of the trash in my bedroom and hopefully rest on Wednesday.
While waiting in line at the DMV this morning I had an idea that maybe the person I thought was pretending to be a "Natashayas@netscape.net" isn't that person but it might be Nancy Nusbaum.
Much to my chagrin, I think I've packed up my Sinatra CDs. Fuck. Hellfire. Shitrape. I was sitting here minding my own business when I flip on HBO and Wall Street is starting and they're playing "Fly me to the Moon" sung by Sinatra and I started singing along with it and my brain went kerflooey and then there I was needing to play that fucking tune among others that immediately came to mind.
I'm doing the next best thing, listening to oldies like this nifty version of Twilight Time that's a very sixties instrumental (sixties in the square, easy listening, french provincial, covered in plastic sense), I ain't got Nobody and Maybe.
What else? Mars was right underneath the moon earlier this evening and it was a most lovely sight to see. The temperature has gone down quite a bit and it's chilly in such a very good way. I can't wait to stop running around to get life started in good measure.
I hope to hear from Devo via email or in any other regard.
I hope tomorrow night's game will be a good one.
I hope to run across Makonan_Guest tomorrow.
I hope that folks head to the diner after the game. If we don't then I won't care too much because it's typical and I'm definitely getting myself god damned motherfucking godlike buffalo wings with french fries. Damn, just grab my cock and pump it hard while I gorge myself with that.
I hope my car does pass inspection.
I hope life ends up in such a way that when I die I can say "I win" and know that it is the truth. Also at the end of my life that some woman will rest my head in her lap and run her fingers through the spiderwebs that are all which remain of my chestnut mane and tell me that everything's going to be all right.
Woke up this morning.
Smiled at the rising sun.
Three little birds were on my doorstep.
Singing sweet songs of a melody pure and true.
Singing "This is my message to you-hoo-hoo-hoo"
"Don't worry about a thing. Every little thing gone be alright."
Oh yeah. Suffer with the music. It's from the Satin Smoothies Jukebox.
Oh boy.
I'm surprised at this because I really wasn't expecting anything other than just gaming tonight at Diane's place.
Everyone chipped in and bought me bathroom stuff for my apartment. A laundry hamper, some towels, two cups, a little bucketlike thing and a bathroom rug. WHEE!!! Plus they gave me a lovely card which they all signed.
Before the game I went to get buffalo wings and fries which was quickly consumed once I arrived at the game much to my joy. Diane had made goulash which was very lovely and I had myself a bowl because I know Diane's a really good cook also I had it because I always think of Malyss' sweet mother whenever I have goulash.
There might've been times where I poked fun at Malyss' mother's cooking but the thing I always knew and it kept me from going along with my joking is that she always cooked with love. I love that woman and I know that she's up in heaven with Joy conspiring to bring good things to Malyss, her father, Claws and Gilligan.
My parents left at 6:00 a.m. and I saw them last on Tuesday night.
Moving day draws closer. The way I feel right now, really tired and burned out, I'm not too thrilled about the prospect of driving and I'm afraid of falling asleep from boredom. I hope, hope, hope that I do get out there safely and in a timely fashion. Maybe the two nights I spend in Tulsa will allow me to unwind a bit and hopefully I will be able to spend time with Devo. I have a surprise for her and I winced a bit after I told her that I did have a surprise for her and I heard reservation and some fear in her voice. The one thing about not having too much IRL contact with her is that I couldn't read if she was just being goofy or if she was afraid that my surprise might end up being something completely inappropriate personally, romantically or financially.
I'm pooped. I have to sleep. Tomorrow will be a lazy day. There's a good chance I will purchase this bare bones computer which was waved under my nose when I went to drop off my father's laptop which still works but some dickhead jostled it and now the LCD screen doesn't work. It's a 1.4ghz P4 with 128 megs of RAM. Only thing I'll have to purchase is a 20 or 40 gig hard drive and I can install the drives from the big computer into that computer in addition to a CD ROM drive.
Before I wrap this up I do want to express my gratitude to everyone at the game who did get me that hamper, bathroom trashcan, two cups, towels and bathmat. I sincerely hope, among the hopes I listed in yesterday's entry that I do talk with you people on a regular basis even if it is over email that only gets sent once a month because I do want to keep in contact with each of you along with striking up a correspondence with the folks that I haven't had too much contact with like Booner and Diane. For the readers who weren't at the game and are reading now I'll reiterate one of my sentiments.
A bunch of months ago I posted in my diary or my gaming diary that I started wondering if everyone involved in gaming didn't really exist and were just part of the vivid imaginations of these people who are playing an RPG where they play everyday people who get together to play RPGs. I think whomever is playing me has gotten tired of playing me for the past eight years and they've decided to start playing a new character who already has a hook to get into gaming along with having a history to ease the integration of the new character among the established characters. That new character who is taking my place is Chuck and rather than killing me off I'm just "going to Colorado". Maybe the people are having a chuckle and are referring to death as "going to Colorado".
Once again, I'm tired, thankful and I feel alright.
Good night.
Poor Katie.
Independence Night is not her night.
The fireworks were loud and scary and just as they were wrapping up it started to rain with other, more natural, flashes lighting up the sky. There's bound to be more thunder this evening.
The fireworks finale was great and thunderous!!! I could feel the explosions against my face while I watched from the back porch.
Only thing is watching fireworks is kinda lonely. Everyone else seems to have lives or they're ignoring me. Sister's out. Parents are away, thank God. Tim's out doing something probably with Buddha Rob. I emailed Szilvia just for the humor factor and haven't heard back which is typical. Brian's in Delaware. Devo's out doing stuff and won't log in. Makonan's visiting her parents and her friend. Kylie's out doing stuff and getting free food. Jaybird and maribou are in Colorado and doing their own thing and I'd rather not pester them out of consideration for them. I tried calling hhsb twice earlier today but she didn't pick up the phone at work.
I'm too demanding or I'm just setting up my life right now so I am alone. I have no idea.
That's enough of an entry for tonight. You write something.
Fat chance, but the offer stands.
This entry was sent in by Malyss and it's about her mom. I miss her mom.
My mom is dead. I feel rather empty at the moment.
On the 26th of June, I wandered home to visit and to go grocery shopping with her. Things seemed fairly normal. We sat and chatted for a bit, about what I do not remember. I think that we may have discussed cremation and such along with other things. My parents are quite elderly (mom:71, dad:83) and I wanted to get them to work on their final arrangements. She was diabetic and had been having trouble keeping her blood sugar up, so she had a peanut butter sandwich before we went out since we were going out late. Shopping was fairly normal. At one point, I found her holding onto a chair display and worried that I had tired her out a bit. We went home and dad grilled steaks for dinner. Things seemed happy. I had potatoes and eggs boiling in pots on the stove. I was going to make a potato salad to have for the next few days.
We sat down to dinner. Things seemed fine. My dad had done a fine job of grilling the steaks. My father sat at the middle seat and my mother and I were at opposite long ends of the table. A few minutes into dinner, my mother jerked suddenly, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she started falling to her left. My father and moved very quickly for an old man and a fat lady. We caught her before she could hit the ground and repositioned her on chair. After a few moments, she came back around and we asked her what was wrong. She took out the bit of steak that she had been chewing (she did not seem to be choking), placed in on the table and stated that she had experienced a dizzy spell. Dizzy spell hell, that was far more frightening than a mere dizzy spell. I was kneeling by her with my arms around her to steady her and to keep her from falling again. I was upset and told her that I loved her and that I was going to call 911. She told me that I did not need to and before I could get up, she had a second attack and we never heard from her again.
I called 911 and the lady attempted to help me. I tried stressing to her that choking was not the problem, I did not think to say that it might be a heart attack. Things just happened too quick and I was desperate for help. I handed the phone to my father and tended to my mother, tried giving her a couple of breaths. Dad said that the lady on the phone wanted me to lay mom down on the floor and to administer CPR. I lifted my mom by myself and hurled the table across the floor out of my way. I started CPR to the best of my ability while on the phone with the lady. My dad had handed the phone off to me. I ordered him to go outside so that he would be out there to flag down the ambulance and to tell them what door to go to.
I desperately worked on giving my mom CPR. I did my best to tilt her head back, but it was difficult to do. I worked and worked. Giving CPR is exhausting, but I did my best. Even so, she still was turning blue and when I looked down and noticed that mom's bladder had given out, I knew that she was dead but I kept on going. I had no choice until the ambulance arrived. Going by the way her face was so blue and her eyes were glazed and rolled back into her head, I just knew she was gone. But the ambulance arrived and the EMTs & paramedics took over. I was pushed into the next room.
The professionals were there and there was nothing more that my hysterical self could do. My father was outside standing with the neighbors and I was pretty much alone. I called my boyfriend and work because I just needed to latch onto someone. I sobbed on the phone and he comforted me. In between sobs and listening to him, I had to answer questions for the one EMT who was taking down information. I could not see what was going on in the next room and whenever I asked the guy for information, he could not/would not tell me anything. That just made things feel worse. I mean, I knew that things did not look good but I wanted information. The medical crew shocked mom 2-3 times and finally got a weak but steady pulse going and then they prepared to take her to our hospital of choice.
I told my boyfriend that I had to get going and thanked him for being there for me. The pots that I had on the stove were still boiling away and I had enough sense to turn them off and to grab my crochet bag. I had a feeling that it was going to be a long night and I needed something to keep myself busy with. I followed the ambulance and paramedics car. My father stayed at home to call our relatives to let them know that things were not good. I was sobbing and screaming hysterically in my car during the drive. I felt helpless and pounded my right fist into my right thigh.
The lady in the emergency room office was nice when she helped me to sign my mother in. I sat in a part of the waiting room separate from the main waiting room. One EMT (the ambulance driver) came up and confused me. He asked me if I had called Cathy yet. I could not imagine what he was talking about. I could see no reason why I would call my former friend Cathy at a time like this. It turns out that he thought that my mother was the lady who lives next door to us and Cathy is one of her daughters. Then, a lady walked in and asked me how I was doing and if I wanted her to call Shannon to come sit with me. Okay, I was confused again. This lady did not look as though she was related to my former friend Shannon, and I could not think of any reason that I would want my ex-friend to come sit with me during this time. Insanely out of my mind, I had to ask her who she was. This lady was the stepmother of one of the ladies from the parade committee that I am on. I declined her kind offer and continued waiting alone.
The doctor got my mom stabilized and she was moved up to a room in the ICU. Her regular doctor met with me and informed me that she was not brain dead, but that she had suffered extreme brain damage and that the prognosis was not good. I sat up with her in the ICU, afraid to leave her side because I did not want her to die alone. I worked on my crocheting and kept talking to her...telling her that I loved her and telling her where she was, etc.
There were a couple of scary times throughout the night. My mom convulsed at one point and this gross black stuff started coming out the right side of the ventilator mouthpiece that they had in her. I frantically called the nurse, not knowing how bad of a sign this was. I was worried that it was stuff from my mother's lungs, especially since she had been a smoker for over 50 years. It turns out that she had only vomited. She vomited once more before they finally put a tube down her nose to suction out her stomach.
At 4am, I could no longer keep my eyes open and I had to go crash in the ICU waiting room. I felt bad about leaving her alone, so I left a gray granny square on her lap so that she would have something there that was a part of me. I had trouble sleeping in the waiting room because the nurse told me that if things changed, that she would come and get me. The double doors to the ICU were right outside the room and every time that they opened, I feared the worse. I managed to get some shuteye.
Finally, at 6am she came to fetch me. My father was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. Relatives were coming down from NY and such. He came out to see her that morning and we spoke with her regular doctor and a cardio pulmonary specialist. Her regular doctor was straight with us and said that although she was not brain dead, her chances for any sort of recovery was extremely slim considering the massive amount of brain damage that she had. Any life that she had left would be lived as a vegetable. In order to take her off of the respirator, the regular doctor and the specialist would have to be in agreement. The specialist warned us that she had been occasionally taking breaths on her own and that once removed from the respirator she could carry on for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hours or even days. Dad and I were both leaning towards taking her off of the respirator, but decided to wait and confer with the relatives when they arrived.
Another option was to contact the Gift of Life people to come out to access her situation to see if she would be eligible to donate any organs. Although protective of my own bits and pieces, the idea of being able to donate some of mom's organs was comforting. I had been unable to save her and it would make me feel better if some good would be able to come from this situation. Later that day, we met with a representative from Gift of Life after she accessed my mother's condition. They would have been able to use her liver and kidneys if mom had met their one critical criterion, the donor has to be brain dead and she was only the next door neighbor of brain dead. We were now faced with the option of taking her off of the respirator and letting her pass on, or letting her remain on for another 24 hrs to see if her condition would deteriorate enough for her to be declared brain dead. My mind was set on the new option because I really wanted to donate her organs.
After our visit with the Gift of Life rep was complete, my father and I ventured home. Mom's condition was stable enough and we had to prepare for the company that was coming down to help out. I finished up the potato salad that I had started, but felt uncomfortable in the house when the 6 o'clock hour approached (that was when my mom had her attack that Tues.) and I had to go outside for a bit. I went back, finished the salad up and soon the relatives were there. We barbecued some hot dogs and hamburgers and then sat down to dinner before going to the hospital.
I explained our two options and let them know which one I was leaning towards and the relatives seemed to agree with my stance. When we arrived at the hospital, I met up with the Gift of Life rep again and she said that after reevaluating my mom, that the chance of her condition degrading rapidly enough was slim and that she would understand if we opted to take mom off of the respirator that night. I explained this to the relatives and we decided to take mom off of the respirator and allow her to die with dignity. We gathered in her ICU room around 10pm and a nurse came in to say a prayer before the respirator tech. person took removed the equipment from mom. Nothing really changed. Mom's body kept on chugging along. We stood and waited and waited. Her vitals stayed steady. Hours passed. Dad was up past his bedtime and I was exhausted. The relatives decided that they would stay so that my father and I could get some rest.
Mom stayed steady throughout the night. It was decided that she would be moved to a private room. When I arrived at the hospital, she had not yet been moved to it, so I waited with a couple of relatives in the ICU room with my mom. The hospital was considerate and put her in a room on a hallway where there were very few other patients and there was a waiting room with a couch, chair, TV and a table with four chairs across the hall from mom's room. We reassumed our vigil. The guys would play cards and we ladies would sit with mom. She was finally put on morphine to help make her more comfortable.
On Thursday, I did big girl things. No one else was making the move to make my mom's final arrangements, so I did it. She had expressed to me that she had wanted to be cremated, so I made an appointment with a local funeral home to have this done when the time came. My father had been told that he could wait until she passed and that the nurses would make the phone call. That did not seem logical to me. It seemed like it would be better to get in touch with the funeral home prior to the death, because that would make things easier and it would give them a heads up to make sure that they would not be too busy and such. Making the arrangements was easy and I picked out a lovely green cultured marble urn for her cremains. We had already decided that she would be buried in a family cemetery up in NY and that the services would be held up there as well, so I only needed to arrange for the cremation. The fact that NJ has no laws regarding the handling of cremains, we learned that we would be able to transport them to NY ourselves.
The waiting was agonizing and went on for days. Saturday night, I took a break and went home to my boyfriend's house for the night. It felt good to be with him, for life to seem semi-normal for a few hours. On Sunday, my relatives informed us that they had to return to NY soon. They had to get back because they were running out of their prescriptions and they would be leaving Monday. So, Sunday night I went to my home to sleep because once they were gone, I would be the one pulling the all night vigils. I really did not want my mom to die alone. Early Monday morning, I woke up in a panic because I could no longer hear my mom breathing. After a little bit, the phone rang. She had passed around 5:15am...around the time when I had panicked.
So now, the relatives are back in NY doing the easy things...making the arrangements. I did all of the hard stuff. I performed the CPR, signed mom into the emergency room, signed the Do Not Resuscitate order, signed the form to have her taken off of the respirator, made the cremation arrangements, etc. Mom's cremains are in the back of my dad's mini-van. She will be laid to rest on Saturday in a family plot on the land where she grew up.
My boyfriend was almost unable to go with me. I would have forgiven him had he not been able to go, but it would have brought me down more to not have his strong shoulders to cry on. Having him there with me will be a great comfort. I had to threaten one of the little twerps that he works with into switching hours with my darling. Luis, the fellow, was either kidding around or was not too interested in switching his morning shift for David's evening shift. I offered to take Luis out to the parking lot to discuss things with him. He seemed unwilling to go and soon relented. Another guy, John, switched his 11-8 shift with Luis so that Luis would not have to close. John is not too bright, but he was nice and gave me a hug. He offered that if I needed someone to talk to, that I could get his number from David. A day later, he even invited us to a 4th of July barbecue, but David declined his offer on the grounds that he did not know how I would feel about going to a barbecue considering that my mom was recently cremated. John declared himself and asshole and beat himself about the head with his fists for a bit and profusely apologized to David for his insensitivity. I laughed when I heard about this. It would not have bothered me.
A week before my mom had the heart attack, I had a 3-card (past, present, future) tarot reading online. The past card was Judgement. The present card was The Tower. The future card was the Two of Cups. Spivak warned me that the Tower card was a very bad omen, no matter how much the website tried to dress it up and not make it seem so bad. Oh, the focus was on love and the question was essentially whether or not I was in the right relationship...something along those lines.
So, basically this is what all I have been going through. It has been tough, but I have been strong except for the few times that I broke down screaming and crying in my car. I still tear up from time to time, but I am worried that I might be handling things too well. I am almost afraid that I might worry my relatives with how well I am doing. Then again, who knows? I might break down once we finally get to NY for the funeral. I think that the finality of the situation has sunken in, but it may hit me more up there.
As for today, I gave up. Plus got some phone call from someplace marked private and no voice mail.
Here's a better picture of Pinky.
My car's entirely legal now being inspected, insured and registered. Now that it's legal I'm sure cops will pull me over like crazy unlike the times I've driven around without insurance, inspection or just driving around without the appropriate documents the state thinks is necessary for driving.
I've had this little quote going through my head lately.
"You'll always have the poor but you won't always have me."
Yes, I know the quote's Jesus poking fun at Judas' false concern for the poor so basically putting it here is meaningless and empty because it's out of context and purely superficial like how some mass media outlet will use a quote out of context.
Anyway I think it's the only joke in the entire New Testament and quite possibly the only time where one could imagine Jesus laughing, even if it was under his breath. It's John 12:1 - 12:8 if you're interested.
I came across this on a search of Google. It's from De Amore by Andreas Capellanus.
- Marriage should not be a deterrent to love.
- Love cannot exist in the individual who cannot be jealous.
- A double love cannot obligate an individual.
- Love constantly waxes and wanes.
- That which is not freely given by the object of one's love loses its savor.
I don't get number three. A double love meaning polyamory?
Doesn't matter.
When I was talking with Kylie earlier today I had a realization about why I seem to be so fucked up when it comes to Devo. Either I'm forcing her to say what I want to hear and I already realize that what she's saying is forced and isn't coming freely from her or something else I can't wrap my brain around despite the fact it's been working overtime in general. Am I just projecting all the anxiety I have for the big move onto her because it's something I can handle? I'm just wanting Devo to be something she isn't? I just don't feel like myself, I'm disliking it something fierce and it's getting me to the point that I think for my own sanity I should just leave Devo alone and not even try to have good thoughts or dreams involving her.
She has her own life. I'm superfluous and disposable.
What are you still doing here? Go away.
Fuck off.
Stuff's loaded. Waiting and waiting. Clock's running out.
Just a long day that was made longer because when I went to pick up the truck they had to send someone out to another location to bring a one-way truck to that outlet. Fucking hell, it took TWO hours and I ended up having to pay in cash because the credit card I had was declined much to my dismay but I had the cash on hand (776 bucks with insurance and after everything's said and done) and later on I went to the bank and closed out my account leaving me with five thousand dollars in my hot little hand.
Tim and Chuck were very helpful but things were packed up really quickly leaving my room a mess of stuff that needs to be sorted for disposal, storage and packing so it can come with me to Colorado. Chuck had to run to some event in Philadelphia but while we were waiting the two hours we talked and caught up on stuff like when we went to dinner that last time and I apologized for the fact of how shit went down and after getting back together I have to be running along so very soon. By the time it was just Tim and myself we ended up watching the Yankees vs. the Mets which was a decent game that was 0-0 until the tenth inning when the Mets hit a home run ending it all. Oh yeah, the driver's side window on my car went off track and I had it fixed up PDQ and Tim went home.
I reckon I'll be going out tonight to eat at the diner then going to see A.I.. I don't want to stay out too long since I feel beat to shit and want to recoup some of the lost sleep from the wasted waiting time.
Oh yeah, pictures.
This is interesting. I didn't know that Kinja was still reading the diary in fact she proved it by expressing her condolences to Malyss for losing her mommy. I found this out when I was cleaning out my room and came across a copy of Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters that hhsb sent me and written on the back cover was the number to Kinja's cell phone and I decided to give it a try out of morbid curiousity. I felt it was strained and I just simply wanted to say "I'm moving to Colorado on Monday morning" and leave her be but we talked a bit and that was that. Still I'm surprised that she still reads this, I figured she stopped using the internet because she found someone.
There's a small change in the collage above and it's because someone was included in the collage because of my assumption on Rebeka that if she wasn't in the collage she wouldn't stop talking about why she wasn't in the collage.
Both hhsb and Rebeka haven't been exactly communicative over the past months (or year) but I hadn't been that communicative with them but there's a difference.
hhsb had that intervention with me back in June and the simple fact that she did extend herself, even though some if not all of her motive was aggravation, she was still fair and it had an air about it that she was also talking as a friend. It was productive and not coddling.
Rebeka is a sweet girl and during the time she was offline I was thinking to myself, "Gee, what's up with her?" and it was cool to hear from her on the phone that one time. Once she was back on LambdaMOO she'd page me with "You don't talk to me anymore." I'd say "hey" figuring she had something to say or talk about and I eagerly waited for a conversation hook. Nope. This one time that bothered me was when I was talking with Makonan_Guest and in the background I was talking with Rebeka but she was asking some strange questions about Makonan that I thought were a bit rude and that eventually tapered off and I continued talking with Makonan_Guest.
Out of the blue she's begging me to play a game of Scrabble even though I made it abundantly clear that I was talking with someone. When I used to stay up late talking with Rebeka and folks would be like "C'mon here" and stuff I wouldn't give them the time of day either. I'm forging a friendship with Makonan and I wasn't about to cut things right there.
This isn't to say I wouldn't just up and leave on folks because if Devo logs in all bets are off because she's on so rarely nowadays due to IRL responsibilities that I want to join her and spend what little time I do have with her online since she's far away and sometimes I feel she's fading into the background or worse. Fuck you if you think it's pathetic but I love Devo.
Anyway, I changed the pic for those reasons and the fact that after the haitus from talking with hhsb I've realized that I had a bit more to talk about with hhsb that isn't god damned fucking weepy diary spivak shit.
I don't think I'll have that little PHP script written up for the diary so there's a semblance of an update to the page but I shall endeavor to do right by you, gentle reader.
Um...
For some reason I've been high maintenance lately. It's counterproductive and self destructive. I've lost my capacity to trust and I don't think there's much that I can do to get that back and I reckon there's very little that anyone could do to engender that in me.
So let me fester. Either I'll rot off like a gangrenous member or it'll clear up and I'll have yet another scar. Part of me, the childish part, doesn't care who loves me or how they love me because I don't want people to see me this way.
Road Trip Itinerary
Leaving New Jersey at 7:00 a.m. and driving 12 hours out west.
Driving the remaining four hours to St. Louis.
Leaving St. Louis in the late morning or early afternoon. Arriving in Tulsa about six or seven hours later.
Leaving Tulsa and driving twelve hours to Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Final destination. Unloading the truck.
Returning the truck.
Brian returns to New Jersey around noon.
If I am able to upload entries written on the road or at the motels they will appear in the former gaming diary entry column. I make no promises.
After being offline for a considerable amount of time I've realized that I can adjust to life away from the internet. The internet is a means of communication and not a means of socialization. I do know that I have my own faults that are evident online as well as offline but offline they seem to be manageable. The immediacy of the internet only serves to lower my patience and make me something I am not.
No pictures until tomorrow or later. The more I get pestered the longer I'll take to post the pictures. PPV with the Birds was nice, the Bra and Panties match was lame and far too quick. Jaybird said that there were sometimes bare boobies on PPV but there weren't any this time around. maribou was helpful telling me all about the stuff going on and keeping me from getting lost from the savage ballet that is sports entertainment.
I'm finally back online and I have a working telephone even though I have to shove a pencap into the phone socket to get it to work correctly. Been reading a whole lot, playing Tomb Raider II and Pokemon Gold which I might restart with a better team so I can beat the Elite Four at an earlier level than 37. Maybe not.
Hopefully this stuff is pretty new to you and not just rehashed bullshit. As I remember more about my two thousand mile journey across this great land of ours I'll post it here and probably collect it under http://heptapod.org/colorado so those who are inclined can peruse the entries without being distracted by regular entries.
Finally I heard that Rocco misses me and he's been sleeping in my empty bedroom which is being converted into something else (yeah, let's get rid of every vestige of spivak) but the dogs are doing alright but my sister says the dogs are a bit mopey.
Time for sleep. Gotta be up around ten a.m. tomorrow. Hopefully I can get Brian to write an account of the trip. That'd be neat because he usually provides a decent counterpoint to my intensity and how judgemental I can be. Just depends if he can get near a computer at his mother's place or at his girlfriend's place. Still I'll hassle him even if I have to transcribe something he hand wrote.
Also I'll transcribe some of my posts from *stonecutters since they convey stuff that I didn't have time to post here because SOMEONE isn't going to be online tomorrow.
Long day, I reckon.
Talked with Kylie on the telephone last night and did House Beautiful by describing my apartment and told her about the neighborhood and after she hung up about ten minutes later Makonan phoned because she had a rough night because some cops hassled her thinking that she was drunk when she wasn't and the breathalyzer test proved it. So I just sat and listened to her and told her stories until she seemed like she was gonna sleep and I hung up.
Four hours later I get a call from the boss in NYC in regards to changes on the website that I was supposed to get yesterday but they didn't give it to me because the president wasn't in and he wanted to talk to me personally. So I get the changes I have to make and the guy running the Spanish division of the company doesn't fucking email me the information I need to make the updates to the site. So I update the English site and leave the Spanish shit for later. I made up an email just for them so I don't have to futz around with one email getting mail that needs to be filed and filtered. What made me cranky and even more tired was the fact that my new ISP was being complete shit and I couldn't check mail or send mail or check the web or upload to the job site so I just gave up and succumbed to slumber.
So I go back to sleep after I make the changes I can make and wake up around 1:30 p.m. where I get online for a wee bit, catch up with a few people then log out to play Tomb Raider II. Time marches onward, me in my dark apartment, I send out emails and then I talk with my father on Yahoo Messenger just to see how things are going then I decide to head on out to Wooglin's to get dinner. I ordered a burger, a soda and a brownie and when they serve me they forget the brownie and I reckon that they'll realize the mistake but no and after I eat my burger I get up and ask for a brownie. The college stoners look at me like I'm trying to scam them but I get my brownie then leave. Left me with a bad taste in my mouth, metaphorically, so I reckon I'll only go there during lunch hour since they seem to be more on the ball.
Anyway.
Have I mentioned that the mountains are fucking beautiful? They were especially beautiful this evening with the sun right behind them and the low clouds filled with light doing a classic atmospheric perspective effect which brought out more detail of the mountains than I had seen in daylight. Sure in daylight I can see the trees and paths and buildings that creep up the sides of the mountains but tonight was just gorgeous. Pikes Peak was shrouded in clouds and it was almost the same color as the clouds and each mountain that was closer was a darker color until the small mountains which are closest to Colorado Springs were almost black. Just the silhouettes are amazing and gave me a whole other sense of scale that these are mountains. I can almost imagine the feeling I've had described to me of a feeling that at night something's out there to the west and that something is the mountains even if you can't see it or don't know if there are mountains.
This is definitely something that I want to show Devo and see her reaction in person when she sees the mountains just like how I want to take her to the Smokey Mountains in June to show her the place where the fireflies blink in unison and it's oh so very bright that you can read by the blinking bug tummies.
It's probably more important to me that I give someone an experience that is their first and something that will make them always think of me because of that one experience than to the person who I show stuff to and it's because I reckon I'm selfish and care way too much what my friends think of me. I reckon it's not me wanting to perform for someone and I was talking about this with Makonan earlier this evening that I realized I truly like making people laugh and I've come to realize it has nothing to do with wanting an audience but throwing caution into the wind and making myself laugh and seeing who follows just like how they used to make Warner Bros. cartoons in the forties. If the animation team laughed at the cartoon, it was good.
So...
I had a lovely surprise this evening when I was closing up Tomb Raider II after coming back from dinner, Devo called to tell me about how she's playing this game called Majestic and all the fun she's having with it. I caught her earlier in the evening on AIM while she was playing. Anyway when I did she didn't know how I found out her AIM screenname and I felt weird for a sec thinking I might've violated a Devo zone where she's just herself when she's being DivinyDistant (and it's Diviny not Divinity, damnit) and needs Devotime but that was just me being stupid.
Now I gotta feed Pinky, think up ideas for layout of the extra Colorado stuff I'm going to put into my diary chronicling my cross-country journey (which is just a shadow of the trip I do want to take across America) to my new home. Strange calling it a home because I've only been here since the 13th and calling this apartment home is like calling some chick I had a one night stand with my fiancee. Dig?
Tomorrow I really should do laundry, shower and go food shopping lest I starve. Plus I gotta turn down the fridge because all my seltzer is starting to freeze in the can and when I opened a can earlier this evening it went kerboom and spilled on the rug but since it's only water and CO2
This dream was between 10 a.m. and noon, it was after I had one of those sleepy half-awake dirty thoughts about someone along with the accompanying masturbation.
My father is out running errands in a rented car with the dogs and I'm tagging along for the ride when we get over to this one bank somewhere in Illinois. Its sign was G^^E where the E is a sigma. We go inside and he conducts his business while I go into one of the back offices to plug in my laptop to play games on the computers. I have a big plastic bag that's full of trash but there are two important things in there, an American Express card and a phone number that I need. I get settled and get down to my underwear doing something on the computer when I decide I need to know some information so I go and ask a teller a question. Every teller I ask gives me the answer of "no" to the point that is all they will say to me. Back on the computer I decide to go online except I don't know what town I'm in so I can log in and get the local dialup access number so the bank doesn't get huge long distance fees.
I'm so nice.
Phoning the ISP's 1-800 number I ask for a local number but the woman on the other end, who was remarkably cheery, asked me where I was and I didn't know so I bounded out and asked where I was. The tellers said "no". Sigh. Outside I looked for some sign that mentions the name or the county to no avail and that's where I see the bank's name on the sign on the building which is just a big glass cube. On the phone I tell the lady that I'm in Illinois if that helps but she tells me since it's Elvis' birthday it means that today Illinois is Oklahoma due to some law that was recently passed. My father comes into the back office and says it's time for us to go over to his friend's place because he has something to pick up so we leave and I leave the important plastic bag behind in the office.
At his friend's place he drops me off and says there's a computer in the back room where I can dick around which makes me happy. The place is cluttered, small and covered with books and magazines of all sorts. For nameless hours I sit there doing stuff and Dad finally comes back with my mother (they call me from outside) and we go home. Seems that I drove my father's '64 AMC Rambler which wasn't as short as I remembered it in real life and my father still had the huge rental car which was no more than a land yacht. As they were getting into his land yacht I remembered that I still needed to get my important plastic bag from the bank which just closed and the only way inside was through some six inch over-the-door window left open by accident. My parents are pestering me to get in the car so I finally do. I look inside the big car, I think it was a Cadillac, it had a grey velvet interior but the back seats were covered with trash bags because of the dogs. Funny, I didn't see the dogs anywhere.
There's a shift in the dream and I'm being pushed through NYC lying on my back in a stretcher for some reason. The buildings are tall, stretching and leaning and grasping at the sky in various directions to the point that I think at any moment the skyscrapers could collapse. Instead of being made out of glass, steel and concrete these buildings were made out of cement and the surfaces were covered with advertisements which were actually quite beautiful from my perspective looking up at the sky. The ads were mostly text which streamed downward from the top, some strings of text were all one color while other streams of text became lighter colors as they came towards the ground and yet others were simply black giving a zebra effect to the buildings.
The sky.
The sky was very beautiful and gave a strange effect that I really wasn't lying on my back on a stretcher being wheeled through the crowded streets of New York City but I was floating high in orbit over a planet covered mostly by a wonderful blue ocean and the islands were all ice capped and strangely shaped. One was familiar like someone had sawn out the USA's border in ice and left it in that alien ocean to melt a wee bit. Eventually the sky became filled with the skyscrapers and I started noticing the people crowded in the streets hunched over in fear that the skyscrapers would tumble, crush them and being hunched over was their only hope of survival. I looked up again.
Someone grabbed my wrist.
I looked up and there was this ugly homeless guy who was bald with bulging eyes dressed in filthy denim and talking with a loud, raspy voice.
"I can heal him. Just gimme a chance. I can heal him!"
That's when I notice that my mother's been pushing the gurney and I'm trying to release my hand from his bony, knobby knuckled fist. She walks over and sprays him with what I think is mace at first sight but it's this thick green mucus which causes the bum pain nonetheless. I reach over and grab the spray can while she runs off to where ever and I give the bum a series of squirts in the face cursing, "fucking loser don't ever fucking touch me you ugly corpse." This was followed by a bright idea I had to squirt the stuff into the bum's mouth to cause him even more pain and anguish but after I did that he spit it out at me. Thankfully I closed my eyes and none of the green fluid got in me, just on me. Actually I dunno if it would've bothered me because when I went to PPV with the Birds on Sunday I remember we ordered buffalo wings which were "911" assuming that meant their hottest. When the wings arrived we ate them but I really didn't think they were that hot. Here comes the stupid part, for some reason I decided to rub my eyes and my fingers were still covered with the buffalo wing sauce. My eyes stung for a few minutes but it didn't hurt after that.
Back to the dream.
The homeless guy is screaming bloody murder and I'm afraid because I think he can do it. In the great tradition of horror movies I'm running down the darkened streets of New York City which have been lit up with the neon lights and flashing megascreens when I fall down flat on my face. I look up ahead of me and my mother's coming towards me wielding a small shotgun. The shotgun's more like a pirate pistol in size rather than something relatively small but it's most certainly a shotgun. I see her load the shotgun to my delight making me think, "Wow, right on Mom" and when she gets close to me she puts the shotgun to my head as Charlie Brown Christmas music starts playing in all its schmaltziness.
The homeless guy stops dead in his tracks while my mother announces, "You wouldn't think that I would shoot my own son on Christmas, do you? Well I would if you don't back off already."
A staredown begins between the homeless guy and my mother and I close my eyes feeling the twin barrels against my left temple. I begin to close out the rest of reality, in the dream, but I come back up for air and realize the bum got his younger, black son who is a gangsta and drug dealer to come along to provide some malice and to weigh the odds in his favor. I see them approach and little five year old black kids start dancing alongside them holding each of their tiny hands.
The gangsta speaks something about leaving his father alone and how I'm a fool. My mother nudges the barrels sharply against my temple to wake me up since I was looking through squinted eyes and would appear asleep or having my eyes tightly closed. Gangsta guy continues with some spiel that gets my mother to give him the gun as if he's doing me a favor by saving my life from my mother. Before I feel any relief he says, "Bitch, you don't have to kill him 'coz I kill him mahse'f!" and he begins unloading the gun onto my legs. My mother runs off into the night down the rain slicked streets of NYC while the bum, gangsta son and the three little black kids vanish into the darkness.
I check my legs and despite a stinging sensation I can get up and walk upright despite the vertigo I feel from being horizontal for so long in the dream. Angered, I run off in the direction of my mother until I see her across the street from me on one of the bridges of NYC which strangely enters a tunnel. I try and cross the four laned street which is filled with screaming cars and I do finally get across to her side of the street. She runs even faster away from me and I say, "I only want you to look at my legs and tell me if I'm hurt badly!"
She stops and inspects my legs that I hold out which allows me to see my legs for the first time since I got shot and there are a few pink spots from blood, a hole in the knee where some fragment tore the denim and entered my leg. Overall I was fine. My mother ran off into the tunnel up ahead.
The tunnel up ahead ended the road abruptly much to my confusion since cars were driving at 70 miles per hour into the tunnel rather than slowing down and stopping like they should've because five feet into the tunnel were two staircases. One was a staircase that went up into the ceiling and ended there and the other staircase was a spiral staircase that seemed to go up into the ceiling as well. I climbed the spiral staircase since it turned and twisted and went around corners so there might've been some logic there that said if I made one of the curves I'd see the secret entrance that led even higher up the staircase.
No dice.
Eventually I figured out that the spiral staircase's bannister was missing a rod or two in a certain point and when I thought about poking my head through it I could see in jumping distance was another staircase that led outside to daylight once again.
My final thoughts in the dream were "Jesus, I can't wait to get this written down in my diary" thinking it was entirely real.
Of course I woke up and realized that it was all a dream so I scrambled to the head of my bed, got the computer and wrote it down over the course of forty five minutes.
Whew. That's a "Whew" of accomplishment rather than being happy that the dream is over.
I pooped blood for two months a few years ago. I never went to a doctor about it and it cleared itself up eventually. I'm sure a doctor would've told me "You've got ass cancer" or something and I had five months to live. I think cancer is just something made up by doctors to rid the world of people they consider undesirable. Cancer is a natural part of life and if you don't get a doctor to look at you and stamp an expiration date on your body you can live for quite some time with cancer.
The insidious thing about doctors and their cancer is that the cure is worse than the disease so they're going out of their way to make you feel miserable to cure something that's supposedly deadly as if they're taking out their anger on you before you kick off. Or they decide the patient really isn't so bad and remove some part from the patient out of spite even though they say that it was necessary. Can you imagine it now? Doctors rolling around on severed limbs, excised organs and such laughing hysterically that they mutiliated someone they considered undesirable?
Of course doctors deny this and act aghast at such things being said about their profession and they go off on tangents with their religion of science and use their logic that they are correct.
In a nutshell, ignorance is bliss.
Plus if doctors really cared about people, they'd involve themselves in that person's life rather than just order people what to do in order to get better. You have to heal the whole person, not just the body.
Anyway, here's some more wisdom. There are two kinds of people you never invite into your house: Vampires and Policemen. On duty or off duty, never invite them in.
What is the etymology of "tossing salad" in regards to eating someone's ass out? I know it was posted on *stonecutters and had something to do with prison but I don't buy it. And why would anyone want to lick, tongue and mouth fuck someone else's ass if it hasn't been soaked in listerine for a day and liberally swabbed with alcohol for cleanliness?
You could get cancer doing that.
Today wasn't much of anything. More Tomb Raider II, reading quietly and doing house stuff that doesn't get done by itself. My father phoned twice but I was asleep despite the fact my answering machine message says that I'm out and I'll be back soon which is much better than just saying "I'm sleeping or screening my calls. Leave a message anyway."
So I went out to look for someplace to eat this evening but every place was too loud for my tastes. When I'm alone and out on the town I can't handle loud places. Next time I should force myself to go in, even if it is just for a drink. The noise bothers me because it's loud and the fact that I usually like to talk and hate having to raise my voice unless I'm angered or someone's requested me to raise my voice because I'm speaking too softly. One thing I hate is back in New Jersey when I'd get comfortable with folks and I'd start talking folks (like Brian, damn it) will shush me because I'm being too loud. At least now I'm on my own I can do whatever I want. Back in New Jersey I allowed people to have too much control over me because I didn't think I was worth any better.
That's how I feel with Devo because I think sometimes she's too good because she fits the things I look for in a woman.
Anyway.
So every place was too loud, I was down on Tejon between Bijou and three blocks south of there, so I walked back and ordered pizza and a meatball sammich and settled in for the night.
Still it's a beautiful night. I can't wait for the first full moon so I can see how the moonlight plays upon the face of the mountains. Despite whatever Kylie or Benny says about California's Rockies, Colorado's Rockies can kick California's mountains' asses. Plus Jaybird made a good point too, our mountains aren't gay.
Woke up to my father phoning me around 1:17 p.m. and we spoke for a wee bit, I told him that I had a dream involving my mother. Not so much a dream but a nightmare like the previous dream. I reckon I should use a different color scheme for nightmares because I know I've posted a few plus it'd be good to see the ratio.
I'm somewhere that is supposed to be where my parents live except it's not New Jersey nor is it Colorado (I think). I'm going back to my bedroom feeling upset when my mother comes in and sits down on the edge of my bed giving me the impression she wants to hear what's up and why I'm upset and she asks me what's going on. I start talking about my feelings whatever they were in the dream because they weren't the same as real life and my mother kept cutting me off without hearing me through. My breathing became labored and I would start up again where I was interrupted when she interrupted me for the last time, "Do your fucking friends put up with hearing you whine and go on and on about your troubles?" to which I replied, "Well I..." and was interrupted again with "Oh, my hamster died and I'm all heartbroken."
I lost it and leapt up at her punching her face furiously telling her what a terrible human being she is and then clambered over my bed into the hallway and made the hallway grow three foot spikes on the floor behind me. My mother looked out my doorway and then down onto the floor. I informed her that these are Tomb Raider IV spikes meaning they're deadly and you can't use walk + forward to navigate them without being hurt and I left her behind, trapped.
I ran across my father and he told me how he was hanging around the KKK with this guy who is his customer at work and started going off on how it's not everything it's cracked up to be because he's just a tertiary member, he's given them about two hundred dollars and when he does go to meetings he just sits in the back making sure that their golf clubs aren't being stolen while the other KKK guys play poker. His KKK friend came over and was talking about redecorating the house for free but he needed a compass to find out where north is.
My therapist showed up and she was much younger, like in her mid thirties, when I had gone into a closet and discovered that my father was keeping the ashes of her parents in there. She walked in and started telling me about how when she was a little girl her father died and the doctors didn't want her to come to the hospital and realize that her father was dead. Her father was badly burned and the doctors frizzed up his beard and a nurse hid behind his corpse and when my therapist walked into the room the nurse moved the corpse's head and said "Hey. How ya doin'?" then lifted his arm making his fingers do piano wiggles at her. While she told me about this event in her life I could see it all happening and it was quite scary. She told me that she knew that he was dead because he had short Jewish fingers rather than long, regular fingers and his short Jewish fingers were only good for poking. After she was done poking my eyes she sat down and her wig fell off showing she was bald but not bald in the maribou sense but in the cancer sense.
She proceeded to put her index and middle fingers together on each hand and started jabbing them in my eyes to show me what she meant and it really hurt.
Stuff faded around there and what seems to be a long time later I woke up to the sound of my father starting to leave a message on my answering machine.
Finally the soundtrack for this dream was The Monkees' Pleasant Valley Sunday. That fucking song was playing either softly in the background or quite loudly in certain parts and when I got up I realized I was humming it. Grr.
A brief interlude with a ribald pokemon joke: What drugs does a male charizard take when he's having trouble breeding with a female dragonite?
PP UP!!!
My father told me that he had a strange dream the other night where he was walking around Taylor Park in Millburn when it started raining really hard and it was warm and steamy. The part he was walking around was like the boardwalks in Venice and it dipped down and up and the boardwalk went underwater and there were snakes swimming in the water. He turned around to go back and he saw the other side of the boardwalk was underwater and there were snakes coming out of the water towards him. Out of the fog, my mother and I came out in a boat with an outboard motor and we saved him and boated away. My father was blown away because he saw my mother and me together and working together even though we weren't talking.
Oooooooh letters! Oh I got letters! I had letters the very first day! Mailman, mailman, mail today? Reach right in and pull one out! BOINK!
My first week here in Colorado Springs I got lots of mail. Firstly I got a package from Devo which had little party horns and a kazoo for me to celebrate my new apartment, a letter (which I read twice), a science fiction story that she pasted up for me into a wee booklet, a little army guy to help protect my apartment (he's living in my magick box) and a whole bunch of balloons. Woo hoo. The next day I got another letter (which I read twice) from her with another wee booklet of a science fiction story that she put together for me. I was very happy to see that they were stories I had read before and they were both stories that I liked. One was a tale about a crisis of faith this priest had while he was associated with an interstellar mission and the other was about how humanity kept creating more powerful computers in order to get the answer to The Question and how everything went full circle in the end. So I found this one story in a scifi anthology I bought at maribou's store which I'll have to xerox and mail out to Devo because I really like the story.
Surprises abounded with the next package that arrived from Makonan! It had some tupperware and in some of the tupperware were cookies she baked except during the journey to Colorado from Iowa the lids had become loosened on the chocolate chip cookies and most of the stuff was covered in melted chocolate chips. D'oh. The sugar cookies were fed to the birds because they were weird and she admitted to them being weird. Also there was a letter inside, clear bic pens with black ink, pushpins (that very day I was thinking to myself that I should purchase some pushpins because they're highly useful and it was cool to come home and see I didn't have to go shopping for one item) and a pitcher. Oh yeah before the package arrived I got four neat postcards from Makonan which show the beauty of Iowa, genetically engineered corn with fangs, a fat sow suckling fifty piglets, her former dorm and a scene along a river that I don't know the name of.
Lastly, days later, I was told that Cthulhu was inside the pitcher she sent. The pitcher had been in the sink for a few days and I had the faucet on a few times, boy was I glad that Cthulhu didn't get damp and mildewy.
My sister wrote me a lovely letter on the back of a card that's a small reproduction of Morning Glories by Suzuki Kiitsu. She wrote:
Dear Haakon,
I hope you made it out there o.k.. Mom + Dad are home. I didn't tel lthem. (Well, they know you moved out, just not to where). Did you call the house on Friday night? If you did why didn't you say anything? It's Saturday night and just so you know, I'm worried abotu you. Then I thought, is he going to check his mail? Mom hooked up the new computer so I'm going to try to set up an email. Then we can talk all the time.
The house is not the same without you. It seems so quiet. I miss the background noise of your laughter. Mom said that you'll probably need help setting up so she was going to drive down to see you. So I asked where. She said "Oh down by 1 & 9." So Im respecting your wishes and leaving it up to you. Mom + Dad are hurt that you left while they were away. So I hope you had a fun trip out there. How do you like it? Is it as pretty as everyone says? Do you miss me? I miss you. So do Mom + Dad. Even Ben, Kate + Rocco seem off.
I hope to see you soon.
hrt Laura
No, she didn't really write "hrt" but she just drew a little heart.
So far I've replied via snail mail to Devo (twice soon to be thrice), a postcard to Shawn (Devo's ex boyfriend and room mate), Makonan, my sister and soon my parents with a postcard I bought and I've been procrastinating about sending because I'm just easily distracted? That's the ticket. I emailed the gaming folks back in New Jersey before I left, not emailing Chuck or Tim because they helped me out and I was able to say goodbye to them in person and make it special rather than resorting to email but I've only heard back from Booner of all people but it was a forwarded joke. I reckon on Sunday I'll just send emails to folks to let them know what's up, how I'm doing and every little thing.
Plus I've been awful bad in procrastinating on making up a page with pictures and more text about my trip from New Jersey to Colorado. Maybe Sunday.
More to come tomorrow.
Working on:
- Coloring dreams into nightmares where applicable.
- Web site work from NYC
- Cooking chili for the week
- Looking for work
- Mailing mail
- letter to devo with scifi story
- short letter to makonan
- postcard to parents
- Cleaning up
If you can think of a better color for nightmares so it's darker but not different from dreams please let me know or just browse through the Webmonkey Color Code Reference Guide.
Today I had a strange little dream when I had a Sunday afternoon nap. I was back in Tulsa and Devo was taking me to visit her friends except she wasn't letting me know that she was taking me to visit her friends because she thought it would be a great, fun thing of discovery for me. We went to this one house where she said one of her friends lived but by the end of the dream I was aware, in that dreamlike sorta way, that the house had all of her friends.
First thing that I remember was Shawn was there and Devo went off to the basement for quite a long time. I was griping to myself that I should've brought my digital camera to take pictures and all that. Lo and behold, I did have my camera on me and the first picture on it was this picture of the night sky that had a strange effect to it as I tilted the camera up and down. I have this program called Starry Night Backyard which lets you view the universe from anywhere in the visible universe and see everything that is visible and one of the neat things you can do is select a star and go there. Going to a star is really neat because the parallax is magnified many times over and you can see the stars leave their familiar constellations and scatter like a cloud of gnats. The picture on my dream digital camera was like that.
I was surprised by someone who introduced herself as one of the Flying Lesbians who leaned over me and said a cheerful hello except she didn't look like the one I saw in this one picture. While I was enraptured by that picture like some guy on mushrooms looking at a blinking DONT WALK sign I failed to notice Devo had come back up and was sitting at the dining room table talking quite loudly and animatedly with friends who were just formless blobs on the periphery of my vision. I reached over to hold Devo's hand from my position (the dining room set up was that you had to take two steps up into the dining room from the living room and I was lying with my back on the stairs) but I couldn't reach but the Flying Lesbian grabbed my hand and placed it in Devo's hand.
That's as much as I remember but as I was coming to the surface of the dream to wakefulness I realized that wasn't a Flying Lesbian but the other half of Devo's personality which she was too shy to show me (no, not the lesbian title. this half was really warm and friendly outdoing how warm and friendly devo is in real life).
And that's my little dream.
Oh yeah, I went out with Jaybird and maribou but Jaybird was wiped out from his week and maribou was quiet because she was tired but still it was nice to eat out with people. I reckon I'll use Monday for going into noisy places even if it's just for one drink.
Thing is that I'm out here alone and getting myself to socialize is like pulling teeth so by the time I think it's time to move again I would have the germ of a group of people I hang out with who are my friends.
Cripes, it's the end of July and I still haven't made my comprehensive Trip to Colorado page or thought about how to put the pictures together in a pretty way for all you folks to gawk at and stuff but in a way that it doesn't detract from the text. Reading is just as important as looking at pitchers.
Anyway since I don't have cable yet I've been listening to KSPZ a whole lot and it's alright for an oldies station. I kinda miss WCBS but they don't have their radio station online. Yeah things are different out here but it doesn't mean that they're bad and I'm not bitching and moaning. You, gentle reader, will know when I am bitching and moaning.
One annoying thing about being here is that I don't know when one of the Birds has looked at my page because I'm on their ISP (and I mentioned them when I signed up so they'll save a few bucks or something. woo woo!).
On the up side, I'm still surprised at the concern and interest people seem to have in regards to me and my trip across country and how I'm doing out here. P7A77 posted something about how he moved from Arizona to California but nobody worried about him but when spivak moves cross country everyone's wondering about his well being and wishes him the best. Definitely something I wouldn't have noticed and for a wee bit it made me feel like George Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life.
Check out my comics section because I added a new comic using MS Comic Chat. I'll probably add more later on.
