Just A Dream

I have extremely vivid dreams. Depending on what I was dreaming determines the mood I will wake up in. My dreams are completely off the wall. Sometimes they are like a mini-movie in my head with no rhyme or reason. But they effect me deeply. I guess really they could fall more into the realm of nightmares. But whatever!

Anyway, last night I had a bunch of dreams. In one of them I was at the mall shopping at Sears. I had tried to check out at one counter but the sales clerk never returned to the register. Then I wandered around ALL over trying to locate an open register. When I finally did they told me I had to go back to the original department to check out. I was so livid that they finally just let me check out there. Then my Sears charge card was declined. It was discovered that I owed $37,000 on my account. Then they noticed a charge from the day before on my card for a $60,000 diamond choker necklace. I had to fill out these forms disputing the charges and claiming fraud. I then had to haggle with the clerk to still ring up my items and let me pay for them another way. Needless to say I felt angry and frustrated!

Now about this dream....first of all, I don't own a Sears charge card. Second of all, I rarely shop at Sears. Third, how the hell can you charge $37,000 on a Sears charge card? Plus another $60,000?

The next dream was of man that was married but very possessive of his wife. She was like his little slave of sorts. It began with them being newly weds living in a small apartment. Then they had 2 children and were living in this small house. Then after their 3rd child they added on to their home. A few years later the husband gets depressed and tries to kill himself. His family stops him and then on his second attempt he ends up killing his wife and his oldest daughter before successfully killing himself. The guy in my dream was Vincent D'Onofrio. I swear it was like a mini-movie.

Then I drempt that Chandler (you know the character from the show Friends) was entered into this contest where he had to dive into this pool while 2 SUMO wrestlers were fighting in it. He and several other contestants were trying to find this mysterious check or whatever for $10,000 that was hidden somewhere in the pool. They only had so many minutes to do so. No one ever found it. And then at the end, Monica and Rachel are walking around the pool while the contestants are off somewhere getting cleaned up. Monica sees something at the bottom of the pool and dives in. She surfaces with this huge check and jokes that all those people must be blind. A big controversy ensues about who the money belongs to. Ultimately the producers of the show give the money to Monica cause they had a clause in the legal contracts that stated if no one won the money during the competition the producers had the right to distribute the money how ever they saw fit.

Now of course I have extremely condensed the stories of these dreams. Again they all happened in one night, much more detailed and affected me very deeply as I slept. I felt the anger, frustration, fear, excitement...pretty much every emotion that happened during these dreams.

Sometimes when I wake up, the feelings stay with me several hours later. I think it helps explain why I wake up so exhausted some days. The more intense the dream the longer the after effects. The one emotion that seems to linger the most is fear. It is like this unbelievable weight that I can't shed right away.

Anyway, the way I see it is that in this brain of mine I harbor thousands of stories. And since I fail to express them in the written form, they escape through my subconscious. Cause realistically if they do not get expressed in one way or another, I will more than likely go insane.

Which hasn't happened yet, despite what you may think!

Near Death Experience...

When I was in college I purchased my first microwave. Nothing fancy. Just a cheap little appliance to make it through college. Unfortunately, and to the utter dismay of my mother, I have kept that microwave way beyond college. "Let me buy you a new one," my mother kept saying as she looked at it with disgust. I would say no and that it is working fine and I don't need a new one.

So what if I had to microwave my food MUCH longer than the frozen dinner directions said. Or that when I made popcorn I never knew if the 2 minutes & 30 seconds were going to burn it or not pop the popcorn at all. It was mine. It still worked and I had no intention of replacing it.

Well about a month or so ago, I came home late from work and I was really tired and hungry. I put a frozen dinner in the microwave as I booted up my PC to read my email and harass my friends who happened to be online. Next thing I knew there was this stench! I got up to investigate and saw smoke billowing out of the kitchen from the microwave. I quickly stopped the microwave. Then I immediately noticed that the timer showed 20 minutes left instead of 2 minutes. I took the extremely burnt dinner out of the microwave and put it on the patio. I chalked up the incident to exhaustion and made a vow not to cook again while I am so tired.

I had to open all the windows and doors to air out my apartment. It seemed to take forever for the odor to dissipate. I used febreze and plug ins and any other air freshener I could think of. It only seemed to make matters worse. Eventually the odor disappeared and I continued on using my microwave.

Well, about 2 weeks or so ago another incident occurred. This time I was fully awake and I knew for SURE that I only put my item in there for 2 minutes. Again I was sitting at my computer and smelled a stench. I quickly ran to the kitchen and saw the smoke. I stopped the microwave and notice the timer still had 10 minutes left. I pulled out my plate with my burnt snack on it and placed it under running water. The snack was burnt so badly that it ruined my plate. I ended up throwing the entire plate away.

Again I had to go through the same routine of airing out my apartment. This time I picked up the microwave and took it to the dumpster. Two near death experiences was enough for me to realize it was time to replace my appliance. And I knew if I did not throw the microwave away right then, I would have talked myself into continuing to use it.

So here it is 2 weeks later and I STILL do not have a microwave. What's the hold up? Well, I don't think about it until I go to use it. The other night I was going to watch a movie and thought some microwave popcorn would be great. Whoops! I ended up eating saltines instead. Another time I went to eat my left overs. I had no microwave to warm them up so I ate them cold.

Tonight I finally looked at several microwaves at Wally World. I saw a couple that were pretty cheap and then came across a couple that had all kinds of bells and whistles. I did not have the time to really compare the items, but I knew that I wanted to buy something a little better than one just to get me by.

In the meantime, however, I got a shit load of microwave popcorn and a freezer full of frozen meals. I guess I better not wait too long. There are only so many cold left overs a person can stand!

Degrees of Love

Love is used a lot to describe someone's feelings towards certain objects, places, things, people. And in its easy and frequent ability to be used, it has lost its luster and true meaning. I look forward to a different word being created to express the intense emotions that love is supposed to represent. Until then I choose to use something else: adoration, deep affection for, intensely enjoy... Okay. I'll keep working on it.

Anyway, the point of this blog is to discuss my latest obsession. As you guys know I love music. I have my favorite bands. This past Tuesday (Aug 9th) one of them released their latest album. When I found out I ran out to buy it. They have played one of the songs in heavy rotation on the radio lately, but I have found a song that has really touched me. It has even inspired me to write what is called a songfic.

Who is this band? Staind.

I instantly connected to the band when I first heard their song "Mudshovel." It was on their Dysfunction CD. My friends could not understand my obsession with the band. The lead singer, Aaron Lewis, has the ability to express his angst with not only his lyrics but his pain staking yet wonderful voice. I can totally relate to him. It is like salve on my soul some days.

It wasn't until Break The Cycle and 14 Shades of Grey came out, that people finally started to really notice the band. And that is pathetic to me. They were great long before the commercial success of those CDs. I had one guy argue with me that Staind had never had any albums before those CDs. Uh, hello? Just because you failed to notice them before everyone else did, doesn't mean they did not exist before. Stupid fucker!

And even before my discovery of them, they had another album. A self released CD called Torment. As soon as I discovered its existence I purchased it. Can't be a true fan if you don't have all the band's music.

I remember feeling the same way about NIN (Nine Inch Nails). Pretty Hate Machine was a moderate hit with "Head Like Hole" but there was so much more on that CD. But again it was not until The Downward Spiral that people really began to take notice. "Closer" gave them chills and all of a sudden everyone seemed to be singing Trent's lyrics. But what about their Broken album? "Wish" is an awesome song. Such anger!

I'm the one without a soul...
I'm the one with this big fucking hole...
No need for me to stay...
The last thing left I just threw it away...
Put my faith in good and my trust in you...
Now there's nothing more fucked up I could do...
Wish there was something real...
Wish there was something true...
Wish there was something real...
In this world full of you....

But then I guess that is what makes us different. The fact that I can see beauty where others see something disturbed. Where I listen to the lyrics of a song, others are busy listening to the beat (or noise as some of my friends have called my music). But I know if they would just listen to me, they would see it too. They would experience what I experience.

They are stubborn, and refuse to admit that I am right about most if not ALL things. That's okay. FUCK 'EM! I'll just enjoy the moment when I say, "See I told you! You dumb ass mofos!"