No Rest for the Wicked

The river and harbors have breached their banks. There are floods filling up the roadways, the sewers so full that they backup into the streets. I run along the sidewalks just out pacing the flow of the rising waters. The stinking, chunk-filled liquid laps at my heels. I race up the stone steps into the long-abandoned convent, through the halls to the stairwell that takes me up to the roof. Water rises to the gables. I stand on the parapet, my toes curling on the edges, holding on with a talon-like grip. I take a deep breath and leap out into the air. Wind whips around me, blowing my hair into my fave, the tips poking me in the eyes causing them to water. I blink to ease the pain and block the view. I don’t want to look down but I’m drawn to the vision of whirlpools and waves demolishing the buildings of brick, cement and steel below me. Uprooted trees float like corks upon the aqueous turmoil.

Thermals lift me higher and toss me about disorienting me and making me dizzy. I no longer know which way is up. Or down. I fall, tumbling feet over head. My fingertips brush the wet rage engulfing the world. I take a deep breath expecting to plunge into the abyss when I find myself in a cardboard box. I collapse in relief, my fingertips gripping the damp edges. I’m whisked off over the edge of a cliff but unlike the coyote, I don’t drop down and go splat into the dry desert. Instead I go higher, across the canyon and above the opposite edge. I come to a soft landing in front of my old elementary school. I finally feel like I can relax until the 1930’s style gangsters show up in their Cadillac V-16 with their Thompson Sub-Machine guns and aim for my heart.

I start running and they give chase. The dirt road is filled with little, sharp stones that bruise and cut my feet. I run so fast that I kick up a cloud of dust that blocks the vision of the hoods trying to reach me. They start firing blind. Bullets rain all around me but I’m protected by my white sphere of light which lifts me into the air like Glinda the Good Witch’s rainbow bubble. Only my bubble is made of bullet-proof glass so I escape and end up in my special place.

The moss is as soft as cotton. A brook babbles next to my head. Spring-green leaves dance overhead in a light breeze. A spotted fawn lies beside me and keeps me warm. The alarm goes off. The bowl of salt water on the side table didn’t absorb any negative energy. The dream catcher over my head didn’t catch any dreams (at least, not before they got in my head.) Starting the night with self-directed dream scenarios didn’t keep my thoughts on a more congenial path.

I groan. There’s no wondering why I wake up exhausted.   

The Calling

Jason stood before the window staring out at the still dark lawn in front of his house. The view was hidden by night and his own reflection. His black hair was darker in the glass. It stood on end from the hours he spent crushing it within his worried hands. He needed a shave.

He had no idea who had sent him the turkey. The ruined carcass of the roasted bird lay all over his kitchen counter. Bits of its flesh sprinkled the olive green linoleum like meat confetti. The unorthodox stuffing he pulled out of the bird was hidden in his freezer. Normally, turkey would put him in a pleasant stupor but he hadn’t slept in two days.

He wanted nothing more than peace. Instead, the voices in his head clamored for attention. The loudest voice told him to take his find to the university’s archaeology department and let them deal with the repercussions. He spent years dreaming of making a world-shattering find like this. Beware what you ask for. He choked on his laughter.

Another voice suggested he find a buyer, get rich and go hide for the last few days until the end came.

The quietest voice, the most timid of the three and yet the most persistent, kept telling him to do something to prevent the inevitable.

The option to hide and do nothing seemed the easiest. Except he couldn’t sleep. And he hadn’t been able to go back into the kitchen once he hid his prize. His stomach grumbled but food was out of the question.

He leaned his forehead on the glass, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d start with an easy decision. Do nothing or do something. Something or nothing. Nothing would require he sit down and atrophy in the same space with that thing. A jolt of adrenaline kicked off a panic attack.

The freezer door hit the wall. Jason grabbed the brown-paper-wrapped bundle. He jammed it in his jeans pocket and ran out the door. He hit the damp grass face first after only three steps. His leg cramped and burned from his hip down. Smoked wafted from his pant’s pocket. He smelled the paper burning. He slapped at the flames until the package hit the ground. The fire poofed out with a pop.

The note said it would know if he tried to shirk his duty. It would know his true intentions. He stared at it. The rising sun hit its edge and blinded him for a second. That stab of light cleared his mind. He rose to his knees. He reached for the box. Its metal was cool on his fingertips. He got up and limped back into the house.

He got a bottle of water. He sat in his favorite, worn out recliner. He opened the water bottle. He opened the silver box. He took the stone out and placed it on his tongue, took a swig of water and swallowed. Let the world’s redemption begin.

Tough Love

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A slow start yesterday. My mind did not want to write at all. And I was a bit thrown off my game because QV is back at work and it’s the night shift so our schedules are changing again. I decided to clean out and organize all of my current writing materials.

My How To Think Sideways binder is cleared out of unrelated items and streamlined so it’s not so heavy. My notebook is all up-to-date through Lesson 5 with notes, annotations and indexes. The worksheets have all been noted on the lesson contents sheets. I have done every part of the new Ultra lessons and picked out the Quick Fixes I will use more often.

I did two maps which you can find HERE. The Middletown map is for the series and the Hallton map is for TSLBoM. I kept them loose so I can find surprises that my Muse, Fiona, can play with. I have some cool things worked out for my three main characters and worked out a key plot element that I couldn’t seem to solve before.

Today will be a writing day, especially since now I am one day behind when I hoped to be one day ahead. I do have ideas written down to jump start the day’s writing so I should be able to catch up easily.

I have to go grocery shopping for my father’s non-birthday party on Sunday. Other than that, I won’t be going anywhere. In between writing, I’ll take cleaning breaks. I hate housework and I have to trick myself into doing things by breaking all tasks down into fifteen minute jobs. I look at them as ways to get up off my ass so my butt cheeks don’t atrophy. Got to keep the circulation going. Need the oxygen in my brain and it won’t get there if it gets stuck in the bend of my lap.

Last night, I dreamt I hung out with gamers and I kicked their asses which is pretty funny since I don’t generally play any kind of games and I’m really bad at video games. I lived in a dorm with a bunch of guys. We were housed in the backroom of a restaurant. I got stuck in a mini-toilet room sort of like an airplane toilet but smaller. After that I ran around through the restaurant and weird space age hallways with a stick that I used to hit people over the head. I was the best stick hitter in the world and people considered it a good luck thing if I hit them. I always had a bag in my left hand (the stick was in my right hand) but I have no idea what was in the bag. I just knew I had to keep it with me wherever I went. The bag went with me from dream scene to dream scene but the stick did not. I did a lot of running in my dreams last night and woke up exhausted. Does this count as exercise?

507

Scared Happy

Yay! I completed all of the tasks on my list yesterday, especially my 1,667 words on my novel. (I got the number wrong in yesterday’s post.) It was a struggle to get those words down because I kept trying to make them perfect. Not good. But I did get them done. And all in between taking care of QV (got him to eat and drink and take a shower while I changed all of the sheets), did laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and put away the Easter decorations.

I stayed up until 22.00 last night. Since I got laid off, I’ve been going to bed at the same time I used to when I worked, around 19.30 most nights (sometimes I did stay up until 20.30but not often) and then sleeping until 07.30 so that’s like eleven hours a night. That’s a bit too much. At first I needed it, but then I found I was waking after about six hours of sleep and staying awake an hour or two and then sleeping again. So, too much. I haven’t stay awake until 22.00 in years. I used to be a night person before I had my daughter and went to work every morning.

It took me about an hour to wind down last night. I was quite agitated. I thought I was having a panic attack. I looked at the feelings instead of trying to suppress them (my new behavior) and I discovered that it wasn’t fear I was feeling but excitement. I haven’t felt excitement in so long that you can understand my confusion. It took me awhile to figure it out because I couldn’t understand why I was afraid or why I could be afraid but since fear has been my constant companion for a good ten years now, maybe even longer since it came on so gradually, I couldn’t conceive of it being something else. This looking at myself is an interesting experience and contrary to what I used to believe, I haven’t died from the examination.

One of my dreams last night was particularly disturbing and very different from any I’ve ever had before. I was watching a group of kids for some reason. Three of them went off to play near a brick townhouse with a front stoop. Two of them carried the third back. He wasn’t moving and they brought him to me so I could fix him. His head was completely smashed flat and they thought I could blow on him and inflate his head like a balloon. Somehow I knew that the two boys had flattened his head with a big rock but they insisted they didn’t know how it happened. I can’t get the image of the pancake head out of my head.

I am going to meet a friend for breakfast this morning. Another thing I haven’t done in ages. I’m excited about that. We’re meeting at the dinner up the street where I have not been yet.

504

Talking to Things

Another recurring dream of mine is getting on the highway (It’s actually 295, a real highway here in New Jersey which means this dream has only been recurring since about the late 1980’s. We used to ride our bikes on the highway before it was opened to traffic.) I have to go somewhere. Last night it was a concert. And where I have to go is usually North. If I have to go South the dream is more ominous. I get on the highway and it is packed with traffic, accidents and construction. Anything to delay me or get in my way. Sometimes I fly over the scene. Other times I drive really fast weaving in and out of obstacles. Last night I had a chauffeur. There were three other passengers in the car. We were very late. The driver backed the car all the way back until we got off of the highway. He took us the way I usually come home, Route 130, which is always very winding and rural in my dreams (it’s not that way in real life.) And we made a two hour trip in forty five minutes.

Last night’s dream suggests I stop doing things in the same old way to struggle to get where I want to be and instead turn things totally around and I’d get there faster and more easily. I could be Freud reincarnated.

I took The MM to my parents yesterday afternoon then went and got my hair cut. My hair was getting very long. I got out of the shower and had the urge to grab it all in one hand and chop it off. I came close to getting the scissors. I knew it was time to seek professional help. I do things to my hair when I get bored or anxious. Once I bought natural Henna to condition my hair. It’s like grass. I mixed it through my hair and piled it on my head. When I rinsed it out I had a big orange spot on top. I have cut my own hair on several occasions. I read where if you lay on the floor and spread your hair out you can trim it yourself. It’s not true. I went to Hair Cuttery this time, right here in town. She did a great job. I will try real hard to go back and maintain my cut. I think it looks cute and my hair feels much better for it. It told me it’s quite happy.

I personify so many inanimate objects. Is that some sort of sign of a mental condition? It allows me to talk to them and they talk back to me. I am the Dr. Doolittle of chairs and plants and toys. I used to do it as a child all of the time. I stopped as I got older because I figured no one else did it. I’ve begun doing it again now that I’m in my fifties because quite frankly I don’t give a shit if no one else does it.

511

Poor Drunk

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Don’t ever let me do that again. I did not have enough fun drinking to make up for the crappy sleep I had. I tossed and turned and woke up repeatedly. I got up at two am so thirsty. I had to drink a huge glass of cold milk. Then I could sleep a little better but it still wasn’t good. I don’t have a hangover which is good because I’m going to be cranky enough as it is over my lack of sleep. I hate when my sleep is not good.

I think too much alcohol makes all of my joints ache more than usual. My right shoulder, right wrist, left elbow, right hip and left knee are all throbbing this morning. I’ll move on from this. I don’t like to dwell on my physical pains.

These were some of the items in my dreams last night: Blue man pinhead ultimate lover, The Codes, superstore, overpacked car, trunk that won’t close, hiding, running, moving, camper, spies, gangsters, cafeteria, overcrowded beach, parking lot, shopping, escape, hunted. I had to write them down in a list so I wouldn’t forget them.

Here’s how they go together:

I was searching for my perfect lover who looked like a Blue Man Group version of Zip the Pinhead. No matter who I met, I would ignore them because they did not fit my version of who I was looking for. While not paying attention to the world around me, people started hunting me.Bounty hunters, spies, gangsters were all trying to find me. I had something in my over packed PACER but I didn’t know what it was. My traveling companion (I think my other self) was trying to convince me to hide but I wouldn’t listen. We went to a crowded shopping center and I double parked my car in a fenced in lot, leaving my purse under the bumper because it was heavy and no one would steal it. A bounty hunter looking for me staked out my car. I went shopping in the superstore, The Codes got out of the car and came in the store. A working said dogs were not allowed. “We have to have some rules.” I said, “I’m almost done and look how well behaved he is and no one here minds so leave us alone.” And he went away. Then I was followed around by a stalker while I bought celery and ketchup and white couches. I took my purchases out, shoved them in the car and the trunk/back hatch wouldn’t close and was holding me up from leaving. Finally, it closed. I shoved the dog in around the cardboard boxes and clothes in my car and we went to a crowded cafeteria which turned into a crowded beach. I was so busy trying to escape the crowds to get to the water that I never saw the blue pin head lover that entered the area behind me.

I wish I had the time to go back to school to study physics but that would be a distraction right now because I do want to write.

521

Flash 55 - Dreams

~ click to make biggerer ~

I dreamed last night. 

I dream every night, in neon colors, 3D, game graphics, extreme sports action quality. 

Last night, it was the recurring one about school. 

The night before it was the recurring one about a multiple room building. 

Any guesses about the meaning of these themes? 

Perhaps I’ll learn something this time around...

Play with the G-Man and make him happy.

Thursday 13 - Ways to Control Your Dreams

I wake up exhausted every morning because I have the most vivid, exciting, fantastic dreams. I’ve been like this since forever. I love them and I can’t wait to get back to bed each night so I can have me some more, but I would like to get some rest on occasion. Here are thirteen things I’ve tried to calm my dream life. None of them have worked.

Prayers – I pray all of the time and I’m not shy about asking for things I want. Apparently, God derives as much enjoyment from my dream-life as I do. I even get angels joining in.

Guided dreaming – Before you go to sleep, you tell yourself what you are or are not going to dream about. This has worked for some nightmares, but overall it’s not a success.

Dream catcher – You know, the American Indian thing Jacob gave Bella – it didn’t work for me either, but they are pretty.

Bowl of salt water – A Rabbi told me about this over 25 years ago. I last used it 25 years ago.

Sleeping pills – Only if I want monsters with teeth as long as swords. I imagine this must be like what it feels like to drop acid.

Exercise – This tires my body out but doesn’t calm my mind.

Diet – This affects the kind of dreams I might have but hasn’t blocked any.

Journaling – I get everything out in my journal every day and still they come.

Mediation – This calms me and clears my mind so I can some new kind of dreams.

Dream interpretation – Been there, done that and Freud can do something special with his cigar.

White noise – Those wonderful machines that play ocean sounds make me dream of the beach.

New Age remedies – Let’s see – there’s crystals, herbs, incense, candles, spells, pyramids, past life regressions, tarot, etc., etc. Fun stuff. No workie.

Therapy – Some shrink actually told me once that my problem is I like dreaming too much. Quack.

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Merry Meet and Blessed Be

One Shot Wednesday - I'm Tired

I wake up exhausted, the residuals
of the adventure lingering around in
my mind as I try to shake myself
into consciousness, my eyelids
rising like a flag moving up the mast
beyond the half way mark to hang
limp throughout the windless day
no energy, no spark, no caffeine
enough to energize me into mundane
tasks, boring to do’s, the same old
same old people in tan and beige
hours that tick by like minutes as
slow as a watched clock or a
watched kettle boiling away until
the sun begins to set on another
boring ten foot rut that leads in
a straight line from this side of
the bed rolling in and out, out and onto
crisp cold pillows cradling my tired head
filled with a 3D screen and screams
in surround sound, kisses light as
the sighs of a baby rock-a-bye
and good night, sleep to dream

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Merry Meet and blessed Be

One Single Impression - quagmire

action movies filled with romantic situations where i save the dragon from the evil princess and we fly off to Jupiter and Mars winging our way around the Milky Way while dodging flood waters rising in the stone tower and kidnappers in a 1930’s style automobile chase after me as i reach the edge of the cliff and run into the air like The Coyote i fall but i don’t splat i am swallowed by the quicksand of chocolate pudding with whipped cream and sprinkles doing back flips dressed in an iridescent green tutu combat boots and a ruby encrusted tiara while old boyfriends look me up on Facebook to ask if i have their car keys and a favorite pair of socks with the hole in the heel and in their hearts as we dance under the Disco ball spinning me across the stones bridging the river Styx where i meet Hades who gives me a daisy that i use to play he loves me not he loves me passionately with a bow on top

Write a poem on this week’s theme.

One Single Impression

Merry Meet and Blessed Be

The Wild Hunt

The Wild Huntsman, Woden, sat atop his snorting white horse, his knees gripping the beast’s shoulders. The air rocked and lightening shot to the ground each time Ehwaz struck the clouds with his iron hooves.

The old female elf, Slattenpat, naked, wrinkled skin rolling with her movements, darted in and out with her knobbed cane, attempting to gather the dead to her. The phantasmal group behind the stamping steed was herded away from the collector by ghostly hounds.

Ehwaz rose up on its back legs and lunged out at the nefarious fairy. Slattenpat decided to break off her pursuit of the lost souls in Woden’s care.

Long breasts thrown over her shoulders, Slattenpat ran into the swirling mists to escape her pursuer. Woden threw a thunderbolt that struck his quarry in the ass and cracked her into millions of pieces.

I woke in the bright morning sunshine to find shards of crystalline snow covering the earth.