Monday, February 27, 2012

A Glimpse Into The Madness 27Feb2012

It's 11:30.  Normally, I'd be sound asleep by now.  Ironically, I had all the electronics and I was pleasantly reading a book and texting a friend of mine.  Oddly, our conversation stirred up some very deep, painful issues of mine.  To help me sleep, I'm going to be blogging about it here.

For the past eight months, I feel like I've been slipping slowly into a kind of madness or into a state of numbness where I don't feel anything.  I've found myself in a frenzy, moving from one activity to the other, like I was trying to run away from something.  Other times, I found me trying to bury myself in video games, or books to read, or endless Facebook updates, trying to ignore or numb away something I'd been feeling.  Sometimes I've turned to more potent numbing agents, like masturbation.  All of this to try to avoid feeling one thing.

Pain.

Working backward from right now, where I do feel the pain and the sadness.  I can see that my actions lately have made me feel like I'm slippy closer and closer toward acting out sexually with another man.  I can see that I've been putting myself into increasingly more compromising situations.  The cycle is very slow, generally every few months.  I feel like I've been getting very close to a breaking point of sorts.

The root cause? Last year I was in a very close friendship.  I shared a lot with this other man.  I struggled with having romantic feelings on and off.  I started to become very overdependent on him for getting my emotional needs met.  To make a long, painful story short, the friendship eventually fell apart and I had to distance myself from him.

Since then, I don't think I've ever fully recovered from it.  I've withdrawn and isolated my heart to being hurt further.  I've taken steps to numb myself from the pain, which only seems to make the pain feel even worse.  I've noticed that it's been difficult to feel like I have and friends, even friends that are close.  I've felt like there is no one that I can trust.  I don't even feel like I can trust myself, or my own motives.  I feel like I've been playing more and more with fire, and that eventually I'm going to get burned by it, unless I can find another solution.

Pain has been a reoccurring companion for me in my life.  I remember crying myself to sleep at nights when I was younger because I didn't feel like anyone liked me and that I didn't have any friends.  The feeling has continued with me as I've grown older.  I realize that my perceptions are horrifically tainted and twisted by the beliefs I have about myself: that I am unlovable, and not worth the notice of others.  Sadly, I've turned this belief against others.  Many times, a friendship has taken root in my heart, only to later be blasted by my anger and by my inability to love the other person.  I've often felt like my heart was a lonely, desolate place where no one else was.  Many times, it's been like Tumm has rampaged and destroyed everything, only to ultimately curl up in a ball in the center of the blast radius and go completely numb.  I honestly feel like the cycle of destruction and attempted rebirth has gone on far too long in my life.  It would be nice for a friendship to grow, become strong, and stay alive in my heart.  Sometimes I think my heart just isn't fertile enough for it.  I've always thought that friendships were hard to form.  Now I'm beginning to think I may be the difficult person to be a friend with.

The pain is often frustrating for me.  I have tried to pray many times for it to be removed.  I've even tried to surrender it.  I feel like I need to give up on both.  Neither has made the pain stop.  I find myself praying increasingly more in order to have the strength to bear the pain I've been given to bear.

At the root of the madness are number of competing and fighting ideas and desires.  On one hand, there is a part of me that so desperately wants to be loved.  On another, there is a part that wants to be free from pain and suffering and that doesn't want to hurt any more.  The part that desires freedom from pain says that in order to have love, I will have to open up and risk being hurt.  The same part decides to keep me guarded and isolate from others.  The other part cries out so desperately to feel loved that it often comes out in ways I can't control.  Sometimes that part of me starts to listen to the lie that the only way I will be loved is if I am loved sexually by another.

I can see but one path that may lead me back to sanity.  I have many safe places to embrace vulnerability and let my pain be shown.  Perhaps there, I can finally step into my pain more fully, and allow myself to feel truly loved again.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Music That Speaks To My Resolve - Give A Reason

I've recently finished watching an anime series called Slayers (I watched the original, Try, Next, Revolution, and Revolution-R, basically everything on Hulu).  Each of the episodes has an opening and closing song.  I thoroughly enjoyed the series.  The characters seemed have a life of their own.  Each one kept on fighting (sometimes with some encouragement by their friends) despite the odds or the tragedies that happened to them.  Overall, it was a powerful story on the triumph that can come when someone keeps fighting.

Today's song comes from the opening of the Slayers NEXT series.  The title is 'Give a Reason'.  Alas, it's in Japanese, but I'll shared a link to it here:



I'd love to give the lyrics, but alas, they are in Japanese.  I'll share part of a translation here:
Things are moving so fast
The moments ticking by.
I'm running through this city
To me, a savanna.
Like it's struggling
Trying to break free
I wanna test all this power.

I know that "The Answer"
Is out there someplace.
The answer that everyone looks for
From the day they're born.
When all looks lost and there's no escape
I turn to my dreams!

I'm not afraid of getting hurt
But I'm not strong, either.
It's just that I can't stand
Just doing nothing anymore.

Here we go, go!
I'll just run on
And let nobody stop me know.
I wanna find the me in the future
And give her a reason for life!
(Translation was taken from the close captioning for the series on www.hulu.com).

I love this song.  It has a lot of energy and is very enthusiastic.  It reminds me of a recent realization about myself that I've had: that I'm resilient and much more durable than I used to think I was.  I've been through a lot, and I've yet to lay down and completely stop fighting and struggling.  Even when I fall apart, I somehow find the strength to keep going through.

I had a really discussion with a friend about the fact that I've come out publicly on this blog.  I realize that it was really risky situation.  When I made the decision, I realized that I was tired of hiding behind masks, and that I was tired of doing nothing.  I wasn't so much afraid of being hurt further, as I was of continuing to live in pain and shame.  I decided that I was going to stand up and fight, even if it meant possibly drawing more challenges and grief into my life.  As the song lyrics state, I just couldn't stand by and do nothing anymore.  On a related note, I gave my friend a piece of advice.  He's been struggling and I said that he could take some advice by how video game characters react to struggles.  They take time to feel their emotions, work through things, talk about them, and then they keep on fighting.  They always keep struggling.

On a related note, sometimes the struggle I have is to let go and let Heavenly Father step in to help with my life.  Sometimes the struggle is to stand up for myself, even if it's something I haven't done in the past.  Sometimes the struggle is to step into situations that are risky and unfamiliar.  Sometimes it means battling my own thoughts to have thoughts that are elevated and uplifting.

On a personal note, things have been difficult lately.  The procedure that I was worried about was far more pleasant than I imagined.  I'm a bit sore from that.  Outside of that, I've been fighting off the tail end of a cold.  It also feels like I've been challenged in spiritual ways as well.  But like I said before, I'm going to keep on fighting.

On a Slayers related note, my favorite character from the series is Xellos.  This could be major spoilers.  Technically, he should be a villain but often helps the heroes for his own reasons.  He is very powerful, but likes to act via manipulation.  He is very knowledgeable but he doesn't always share everything he knows with the heroes.  One of his iconic lines is 'That's a secret'.  In the later series, the characters start to say it for him.  Hilarious!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Worries - 20Feb2012

Worry is quite the interesting beast.  He's been paying me visit very often lately.  There's been a number of things that I've been worried about.  It feels like I have a huge long list of things that have been on my mind lately.

1) I'm worried that I'm in some sort of deep numbness.  I've been actually received some healthy touch lately, and I noticed it hasn't felt quite the same way.  It's almost like I'm walled off against it.  I know I may have some unprocessed trauma around it.  It isn't something I'm willing to post up here in public.  Part of this worry is that I know touch is a very important thing for me.  I still feel like I want it, yet it doesn't seem to help when I do get it.

2) Related to item 1, I noticed that my emotions have been very muted lately, especially ones related to bonding and connection with other people: feeling loved, happiness, peace.  I have felt some strong feelings of happiness, peace, and anger.  Sadness seems to be oddly absent.  I think the last time few times I remember feeling strong emotions was at the therapist and when I was at the temple.  This could possibly be a by-product of being sick.  Or it could just be a pattern of me detaching from myself.

3) The big worry in my sights right now is a medical test that I am having this week.  I can't remember if I posted about the chest pains I've had while working out, or sometimes even while resting.  I performed a heart stress test, and my heart is fine.  The doctor said it was probably heartburn, so I've been taking a medication for that.  Still, the pain has persisted, along with other strange things.  I can feel food get 'stuck' in my esophagus. Sometimes my throat will seize up, or go into painful spasms.  So, I'm going to get an EGD.

An EGD, or esophagogastroduodenoscopy, is basically where they stick a camera down the person's thraot.  I've never had one before, but I've had plenty of horrifying fantasies about it since I first heard of it.  I was feeling very nervous and terrified when I first heard about it.  Oddly, it's isn't so bad since I learned they will put me under some form of anesthesia.  The big worry about it now is paying for it.  I don't have money problems frequently, but when I do, it usually causes me to panic.  Oddly, I feel very detached from the feeling of panic, but I still find myself trying to calculate how much the procedure will cost and how I'm going to pay for it.

4) On top of all of this, I keep finding myself engaged in what I call 'deviant' behavior.  It can be anything from fantasizing about a man, obsessing over them, finding myself looking for triggering pictures, avoiding people that I feel attracted to, or trying to hide myself from the world.  It's basically a set of unhealthy behaviors that lead me to not feeling connected with the people around me.   This deviant behavior is paired with an obsession over friendship and not feeling like I'm close to anyone.

When I take an honest look, I think all of these things I'm worried about are connected.  The fear and worry over the procedure could be shorting out my feelings.  That makes me feel like I'm not close to anyone, and leads me to seek that out.  Because my feelings aren't working properly, I don't feel like I'm connected and I'm driven to the unhealthy behaviors to try to feel something.  Sadly, I'm not quite sure how to break out of the cycle.  Thankfully, I have a visit with my therapist tomorrow.  Hopefully he can help me sort out parts of it.

I would also appreciate your prayers for the procedure this Wednesday.  I'm going to need all the help and assurance I can get.  Thank you.

Monday, February 13, 2012

The Woman In Black - Forgiveness

I just barely got back from watching "The Woman In Black".  I really don't plan on reviewing movies in this blog post, but I want to share some brief plot points.  I'll be hiding the next paragraph in a nice 'anti-spoiler' tag.  If you don't mind being spoiled, or have seen the movie, you can highlight the text by using your mouse.  Hitting Ctrl-A also works.  If this is a foreign language, see your nearest computer geek for assistance.

The main plot point for "The Woman In Black" is about a woman, Jannette.  Jannette is deemed to be mentally unstable, and her son is taken away from her by her sister.  Sometime later, the son is travelling with his adopted parents and dies in a tragic accident: their carriage sinks in the mud. Jannette angrily declares that she will never forgive her sister, and that her sister never tried to save her son.  Jannette hangs herself, and comes back as a ghost in black.  Whenever someone visits her house, she kills a child in the local village.  The main character thinks he resolves the issue by finding and returning Janette's son's body to Janette's grave, but ghost has already sworn that she will 'never forgive'.

I found it interesting that forgiveness, or the inability to forgive, played a large part in the movie.  As I drove home, I started to think about two people that I judge I have hurt pretty deeply.  No matter how much time has passed, I always feel like I want to tell them 'I'm sorry'.  I'm sorry that things didn't turn out.  I'm sorry I wasn't in the right place to make our relationship work out.  One of these people is a girl that I dated in college.  The other is a man that I called my best friend for awhile.  With the girl, I kept dating her, expecting some kind of spark to happen in me, and for me to become attracted to her.  I'd rather not go into the other story, far too personal and painful.

Anyways, as I drove home, I felt a great deal of pain.  I realized that I was still struggling to forgive myself for it.  On another note, I also realized I still have a lot of anger due to the incidents directed toward the other people.  That probably extends from the pain of not being able to forgive myself.  Honestly, I feel like a man divided.  Instead of there being two equal pieces, I end up with two shadows.  The scene in my head almost plays out like a scene from a play.

One part of me lie curled in a ball, trying to numb everything out.  He rocks and tries to comfort himself.  He says 'I'm sorry' over and over.  He also says 'I can never forgive myself for what I've done'.  In reality, he is the innocent one.  Standing over him is Tumm.  Tumm is dressed in black, as usual, with blood on his hands.  He is the real one at fault in the situation.  Tumm's duty is to draw boundaries, enforce them, and to understand what is going on with the other part of me, which is lying huddled on the ground.  Tumm is pointing his finger, angrily, at me and at the people around me.  He says 'It's all your fault!'.  He points at me and says 'I can never forgive you.  You're worthless.  It's all your fault.'

As silly as it sounds, writing it out like that helps me to gain insight into what is going on, and how I can figure out how to heal myself.  Tumm needs to accept the fact that he was also responsible for my actions.  The other part needs to know that he didn't know what was going on, and that he was under a delusion of sorts.  It's like I need to realize I'm both guilty and innocent at the same time.  And ultimately, I need to forgive myself to find a sense of closure.

As an interesting irony, tomorrow is Valentine's day.  On Valentine's day, four years ago, that girl sent me a note and asked me to a movie.  That was the beginning of our dating relationship.

On a lighter note, I'm glad I was able to walk out of a horror movie with most of my sanity intact.  The last horror movie I walked out of, I was terrified of the dark all the way home and for a few days afterward.  The only side effects this movie had were: 1) my eyes constantly looking for the woman in black, either in windows, cars, down hallways, etc 2) me being terrified about the children I live with.

Oh, on another note, I don't recommend watching "The Woman In Black" if you have small children, especially if you're already pretty sensitive to horror movies.  That being said, I will close up this blog post and get some sleep.

The Issue Cycle 13Feb2012


This last week was a really interesting one for me.  Thankfully, none of it involved a tow truck or a police car.  It was just like I was noticing each and every last male that was even remotely attractive to me.  It really bothered me for a good part of the week, especially since some of my co-workers fall into that category.  Thankfully, I took the day off Friday to get a small reprieve from that.  I've also been noticing how often my thoughts have turned to lust, or how often I find myself indulging in fantasy.  I honestly don't know if this is due to an increase of temptations or if I'm simply becoming more and more aware of my thoughts and my attractions.  I do feel like I'm starting to gain more control over my thoughts.

Anyways, I noticed this morning that a different issue of mine was starting to come up.  I felt like I looked at my life and felt like I didn't have any close friends.  I realized that this is partially a lie on my part.  I have many friends that I can talk to, many people who are safe to share intimate and very personal things.  I just don't understand why something like this keeps coming up.  It could partially be to the fact that I have a tendency to push people away, even when they do get close to me.

I then realized that my issues tend to go through cycles.  I've started to see themes and patterns emerge with thing that I 'deal with'.  Similar issues tend to come up over and over.  Each issue tends to take it's turn on the 'top' of the heap.

Here's a small list:

Touch.  This one tends to be on the quite a bit.  I've often felt the desire to be held by another person.  Lately, I've also been getting desires to hold some friends of mine.  I don't know if it's an attempt to comfort them, or to shelter them.  One of my fears around this is that it's an attempt to try to take away their problems.  On a more positive note, it could be a desire to give to other men what I feel I need.  I've had some very positive and uplifting experiences related to touch and holding, so this issue doesn't seem to be on the top quite as much lately.

Nudity/Body Image.  One of the biggest struggles of the past week seemed to be based around nudity or even how other men look.  I found myself wanting to look, almost obsessively, at other men that I found attractive.  It was like part of me wanted to figure out what it was I was looking for in them.  I also found myself analyzing new men to see if I felt attracted to them or not.  In some cases, I found myself wondering what they would look like unclothed in various degrees.  Those sorts of thoughts unfortunately would quickly lead to inappropriate fantasies many times.  This is an issue that I'm not quite sure how to address.  I feel like I have made some progress with this 'issue', yet it is obvious there still is more work to be done.  Largely, this could be boiled down to either my own body shame, or perhaps just a natural curiosity about what men look like.

Friendship.  Friendship is the one that seems to be on the top most recently.  I see two guys walking down the street together and imagine that they're best of friends.  They're buddies.  They do everything together.  I find myself really wanting something like that.  I look at interactions between men at church, work, or in other places and I judge that they are warm and friendly with each other, and I find myself craving interactions like that or interactions with those men.  I've found myself many times looking at all of my friends and not feeling like there was anyone I was close to.  It makes me wonder what I judge a 'close friendship' to be.  There are many men I share personal things with, yet I don't feel close to those men.  It could be a part of my defensive detachment.  I could emotionally/mentally/behaviorally push men away when they get to close.  The defensive detachment could largely come from feeling hurt by different men in the past (whether they intended to or not).  It could also still be some burnout from my last few attempts at establishing a close friendship with another man.

To speak more of the friendship, I realized last night that I give some men great power to be able to hurt me, to make or break me.  I find that I can grow very dependent, in a sense, to men that I am attracted to.  If they interact positively with me, then everything is great.  If they interact negatively with me, then the world is coming to an end.  The whole thing is not a very healthy thing for me.  It often leads me to feeling hurt.

On another note, I think that friendship is largely based on reciprocation.  I know of many people, both male and female, that have tried to interact with me and share about themselves.  For whatever reason, I have felt like I don't want to share on the same level back.  On the other hand, there are men that I want to share about myself with them and be close to them, but I've felt like they don't want the same thing back.  Even though I realize that it's probably not meant to be personal, I often find myself resenting the man.  I feel hurt, bitter, and angry for a time, and then I find myself trying all over again.  It honestly makes me afraid that seeking out a close friendship with another man is a fool's dream.  Or, I'm afraid that there is something wrong with me that leads to these men not wanting to be close to me.  Maybe there's something about the way I act and share that scares other men away.  Perhaps my expectations are too high.  Perhaps my idea of a close friendship isn't an accurate one.  Or maybe I just keep pushing men away before they have a chance to get close.  Maybe I move too fast and share too much.

I don't know the answer to the friendship thing.  Relationships are complicated, because there are two different people involved.  All I know is that it's the issue that seems to be on 'top' right now.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Feeling Off 5Feb2012

Yesterday, I received an interesting e-mail from Innergold Weekly Boost.  At the begging of the e-mail was this quote:

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way.  Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid.  Then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."  -Fr. Alfred D'Souza

I read the e-mail before church and I was thinking about it as I sat in Sacrament meeting.  For the last few mornings, I've been waking up feeling tired and with a nasty headache.  This morning seems to be a repeat of the same trend.  Perhaps part of my exhaustion is related to some odd dreams that I've had lately.  Both of these occurred on Saturday night.

In one dream, I friend of mine that I know for a few years was saying critical things of me, over and over and over.  I got tired of it, so I slammed a door shut on him.  That same friend had posted something I thought was really annoying that previous Friday.  I hid the post and then lowered my subscription level on that friend so that I wouldn't see as many of his updates.  Another friend posted something about him hanging out with his 'BFF'.  I hid that post because it was simply to triggering for me.

In another dream from Saturday night, a girl had caught a hold of my finger, and would not let get despite my protests.  Yesterday in Sacrament meeting, the little girl that I live with always caught a hold of my finger and was using it to point at the words as she read.  It was funny for awhile, but after a moment, I was done with it and tried to pull my finger away.  It took some effort and brief protest on my part.  A similar pattern was repeated in Sacrament and then after church with her as well.

I honestly feel a bit disturbed when my dreams seem to have basis in real life.  I do hope some other parts of dreams I've had lately are not going to come true, although most of them seem to be based in things that have been on my mind.  Body shame and desire to see what other men look like has been on my mind a lot.  Probably explains why shirtless men have been showing up repeatedly in my dreams.

What I don't understand is the repeated feeling of headache, tiredness, and upset stomach.  They all seem to be signs of stress.  I have been thinking a lot lately.  Work has been stressful in very odd ways.  Some of it is a different work environment.  I used to work on an LDS Church site and that is very different from the current place that I work.  I also don't feel like I have very many friends at the current work site, or at least people I feel comfortable talking to besides my account manager, who is a very busy man.  The co-worker that sits next to me bothers me in a few different ways.  I find many of the other men I work with attractive but also distant.

There's also the stress about trying to figure out how to get my needs met healthily, live a life in the gospel, and still manage my feelings of attraction.  I've been feeling quite a bit of frustration in that department. In the past when I've gotten healthy touch from guys, my feelings of attraction have literally vanished.  Even though I received quite a bit this last weekend, the feelings are still present, and still bothering me.  I also worry that this drive to receive healthy touch is leading me on the road to acting out.  I find myself thinking that the touch I got wasn't 'enough'.  I worry that will lead me closer and closer to doing something that I will regret later.

Back to the thought that started this post.  I sat in sacrament meeting, with my headache and upset stomach, and realized that pain is one of those obstacles I've been allowing to impede me from feeling like I was living life and being happy.  That's when a quote from Princess Bride entered into my head "Life is pain, princess". That simple reminder reminds me that life is mean to be a trial.  I can't count the number of times I prayed for pain, both emotional and physical, to be taken away, and that prayer has not been answered.  I've found myself praying for the strength to bear the pain, rather than for it to go away.  After that, church was very good.  I felt a sense of belonging there that I haven't felt before.  It started to feel like some of the members cared for me.

Even with the realization, I feel off today.  Yesterday, I found it hard to remember something as simple as my address.  I felt slower than normal.  Today, the same headache and upset stomach has been joined by gum pain.  Sometimes I honestly worry that my body is falling apart, and I don't know quite what to do about that.  I figure it may just be a phase, me getting sick, or simply part of the trail of life.  It could also be some lingering shock from having my car towed.

I realize this post today was pretty random.  When I don't feel well, I struggle to organize things coherently.  A lot of it was things that have been on my mind and worrying me lately.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

My Strange Dreams 3Feb-4Feb2012

I drove my car to the end of State and 5300 S and parked in a lot and then ran a race.  When it was done, it was overcast and I was no where near my car.  I needed to find a TRAX station so I started to walk to where I thought the nearest one was, somewhere west of the freeway.  A man I knew started to walk with me.  As we walked, I realized that I had no shoes on.  We climbed up on top of a really old stone building and I commented that this looked like something out of a video game.  The buildings were slanted sideways and very blocky.  We walked to the edge of one and realized that we were really high up, and needed to climb down.  It was raining, so my friend slid down a broken part of the building.  I wanted to follow, but I was angry because he had shoes on and I didn't.  Finally I found a way to slide down.  We had to squeeze around a large car and then we arrived at a friends house.  It was another man that I knew and he let me inside.  I saw his son, who apparently had some kind of mental disorder.  After a moment, I realized that my friend didn't have a shirt on, and it shocked me.  I was asking him for help, and he went off into his bedroom.  I followed him and noticed a tub just to the left that had just started to fill with water.  My friend was coming back out of the bedroom, and I moved back out of the way, thinking he would be angry that I started walking into the bedroom with him.  He came out and I had to help him begin to draw an imaginary map of Salt Lake on the wall.  He then indicated that I was going in the wrong direction.  Another friend of mine came in, and took his shirt off.  I was surprised that he had lost his tan.  My first friend than gave me a hand shake good bye and I went to give the other friend of mine a hug, and he said 'No thanks. I'm not into that.'  I felt rejected and walked outside with my hood up.  It was raining outside and a car had just pulled up into the driveway, and was backing up.  Then there were two more cars.  All of them had open sides and were chock full of people cosplaying as characters from the Lord of the Rings.  I could see a Gandalf, a Frodo, and others.  They were going to honk at the house and try to get the time to put on their car.  I told them that I didn't have a watch on or my phone, so I didn't know what the time was.  I then asked if they would be willing to take me to the TRAX station.  I had to explain what it was, and they finally, reluctantly agreed to take me there, so I got in the car.

Friday, February 3, 2012

My (Mis)Adventures - 3Feb2012

I honestly can't think of a better word for what happened tonight.

Honestly, it started out pretty calm. I went to Jamba Juice after work.  Tried out a banana berry flavor smoothing and came home.  No one was home and it smelled faintly like poopy diapers (probably my imagination).  I turned on the computer and started watching the last two episodes of Slayers Try.  I was planning on meeting up with a friend after he got out of work.

5 minutes from the end of the last episode, the friend calls me up and I'm soon speeding my way to the place where we were going to meet.  I ran into some heavy traffic, and finally arrived at the place I thought was the right one: Ichiban Sushi.  I go inside and I don't see my friend anywhere in the place.  That's when I call him up and realize the location is on the other side of State St.  So, I quickly pop a U-turn and I find the place.  I can't see any parking nearby so I pull into an open spot in the parking lot next to the sushi place we were meeting: Red Ginger.  I walk in, find my friend.  Order, enjoy the meal and the conversation (actually it was pretty one sided because I felt kind of shy about talking about myself).  I walk out with the intention of going to his place to chat with him.

I walked to where my car was and had to do a double take.  My car had...transformed?  No, it was missing.  There was another Prius nearby.  Did they move my car?  No, it wasn't my beloved Synthia.  That's when I realized my car may have been stolen.  I called up my friend (who thankfully hadn't left). And I searched the parking lot and found the small towing sign that said something to the effect of 33rd Plaza, towing by so and so towing company.  The sign was no bigger than my license plate.  Now, I've been to that plaza many times and I've NEVER seen that towing sign before.  NEVER.  Anyways, I call up the tow company, in a panic, and figure out where they are and how much I'll have to pay.  $246.50.  Borderline basketcase, I get in my friends car, talking a mile a minute.   At this point, a man approaches the car asking us for some money and my friend obliged.  We drove to a nearby ATM, went backwards through the lane (so that I could reach it), and I managed to extract the money without losing my debit card (it's happened before!).

Then we went to my friends place and had a very pleasant and interesting chat.  Finally, it was time so I went back to the tow place.  It was a bit of an adventure to find because the building they had wasn't right at the streets edge.  We had to drive through the parking lot of a different tow company in order to find the one that had my beloved Synthia.  I got inside, and there were about 3 people waiting for cars in front of me.  Seriously, the one people kept asking questions and I about had an aneurism.  At this point I realized again how grateful I was that I had paid Synthia off last December.  Finally, I paid the money, signed all the forms, and got back to my car.

I can't quite explain the feeling of relief at sitting in the driver's seat.  And the comforting, familiar feel of the seat against my back, and the feel of the shifter.  I was pleased.  I wanted to inspect my car for any possible damages, so I pulled out onto the street, called up my friend to tell him, and got out of my car to check it out.  Everything looked good, and the tail light that randomly shorts out was even on (I've been pulled over for that 3 times in the last year).  I walked up to my friend, and gave him a pat on the shoulder and thank him for his help.  He put his car in gear, and it made me nervous because he didn't seem to quite know which gear he was in (he was in a rental).  At this point, I jokingly ran off to go hide in my car.

My friend drives off.  I reach over to tweet one last time how happy I am to have my car back, when the police lights started to shine in my rear view window.  I was seriously reaching to shift into drive when it happened!  The officer asked me what I was doing.  I said I was just about to head out, and that I had just retrieved my car from the tow company.  The officer said he saw me hand my friend something and then run away.  I told him I had just patted him on the shoulder.  After showing him my license and my tow company paperwork, the officer thanked me for my cooperation and then let me go.  At that point, I decided the best thing to do was leave the scene as quickly as possibly.  I got home without event and managed to fuel up my car.  As I pulled out of the gas station, I had to pull in behind a Sheriff.  At this point, I was begging the Sheriff to ignore me and pull someone else over.

I feel so many feelings over the course of the night. I felt rage, anger, sadness, shock, fear, numbness, and tired.  I also felt contentment and safety with my friend.

I am grateful to have passed through the school of hard knocks relatively unscathed.  I will not be visiting that little plaza at 33rd and State for a long time.  I'm grateful that I had a great friend that stuck with me and helped me not go crazy.  I'm also grateful that I paid my car off.  In short, I'm grateful that Heavenly Father placed that friend in my life at that time.

In short, I had an adventurous night.   One that I hope is never topped in a looooong time.

My Strange Dreams 2Feb-3Feb2012

I was on a ship, and we needed to infiltrate an island.  There was a walkway/base of sorts that was built up in a spiral around the island and I needed to take out all the guard without causing any attention.  They gave me a gun, and I thought it was really stupid.  I swam over, careful to avoid being seen by the first guard, and then started to sneak up a ramp, using a giant shoe as my cover.  Then I took aim and tried shooting the guard in the head, but he dodge out of the way.  Then I shot him a few more times in the body before hurrying to the next guard.  I took him out but he was harder.  Then the third one was too hard for me to hit with my gun, and he was shooting me.  I was using my arm to deflect the bullets.  Finally, I decided it was too rough, so I decided to flee.  I jumped down into the water and was expecting to hit the bottom.  I started to get a horrible sinking feeling and panicked.  I needed air, so I used my magic to shoot myself up through the water where I could finally breath.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

My Strange Dreams 1Feb-2Feb2012

I had a dream that I was searching for a hidden item of some kind.  I was running through an area when suddenly I was controlling a character and punching my way past some guards.  I wondered why my character wasn't using his sword, and then he pulled it out to beat up another guard (who looked like one out of the Aladdin Disney movies).  As he beat up the guard, a little percentage thing appeared, eventually going up to 50% and the guard was slammed against a wall.  Suddenly the guard became flat and small.  My character mimicked it, spun around, and suddenly looked like the guard.  Then he went hopping out of the room.  I ran across a big empty room, and realized I would need something else.  I grew an elephant trunk and jumped off a ledge, using the trunk to grab a hold of a round plastic thing that was embedded in the wall.  I was then hanging by both hands from a small hole in the wall.  I had to go to another one next to me, so I reached over and pulled one of the plastic things out.  Then I jumped over to that one.  I did that a few times until I was able to get something.

That's when my family showed up, and they were admiring what I had done with the wall.  My mom wanted to take my pictures and I needed some to show to the family I was living with.  She opened up the vertical blinds out to a porch where she would take my picture.  She stood inside and I went out on the porch.  I leaned against the railing and looked into a the sun, thinking about how epic the picture was going to look.  My mom laughed, and said something about how hard it was to take a picture through the blinds.  She brought the camera super close to my face, and I could hear the camera click a few times.  I turned around, and saw a bunch of people and a wide open plaza from Brazil.  I told my mom we should get a picture from there, although I was worried all the people that were in the picture would want copyright.  I turned the other way to another big plaza, that was empty, and thought that would be a better picture.  I turned back to the populate one, the bus station and started to walk toward it.

I was swimming with another really long fish.  Or as a long fish.  I went up and down, trying to get away.  We came out of a cave, and suddenly there were three sharks in front of us.  I quickly turned.  Then the fish I was with had to go see his mother, but I couldn't come close.  The first time, his mother had been in a really deep, dark part of the sea, and I couldn't see her.  This time, I could hear her speak and could see her.  She looked a bit like a cardboard box labeled computer.  My friend fish was talking about how he and I didn't have very many memories of our mother. I then thought that we may have been created by the computer and given false memories.  Then my friend said that he had to speak alone. He turned into Inuyasha, and used his super long white hair to pick me up and throw me in a room.

Inside the room was Lina, Amelia, and Gourry. We all sat around waiting for a friend. Suddenly he was in the room and had changed his form to look like Zelgadis.  Apparently, we had to fight, so he and I had a magical duel.  We did that so that his mother wouldn't be suspecting anything.  Then we had to walk outside of the room, and his mother was there waiting for us with some guards.

I had gone back in time, and I was in a low tech hospital.  I had to be very careful with the magic I had so that I wouldn't cause any havoc.  I decided I didn't care and started to cast a fireball, when a random Asian guy jumped out of nowhere and used a fireball to counter mine.  Then I pointed my fingers at him and shot some more magic at him from a few of them.  I started to use a Dragon Slave, but I couldn't remember all the words to cast it.  He tried to fireball me, but I shrugged it off with a secret defense shield I had cast earlier and threw my own fireball back at him.

I was coming out of a grocery store to my car, and realized that I had left the passenger side back door open.  Another man was parked in a red car and was watching mine. I realized that he was a stalker and had found me.  I carefully closed the open door, got in mine and took off as fast as he could to my group.  I knew that if I drove fast enough, he wouldn't be able to follow me.

Then I was in a backyard.  I could hear dog barking coming from small wedges in the ground, where a lower level was.  I could hear a man yelling at the dog to be quiet.  Then I looked up, and he came out of a fence.  He was a fat man, with a mustache.  He stalked away. I remarked at how the part of his yard was no where near his house.  I decided to climb up to another area where a horse was standing.  A dog was underneath the horse, sniffing it's underbelly.  That's when I started to pet the horse, or I wanted to.  The horse turned it's head toward me, and I was worried it would bite me.  I wondered how the horses face looked so human like. Then it spoke to me, in a high voice, about how it wanted to give itself a haircut.  It grew a shaggy mane. I then turned back to the horses head and had a fright when an eye was peering at me from the middle of its forehead.  It kept talking, and suddenly it had many eyes in his head.

***

As a post-dream analysis, I've probably been watching too much Slayers (That's where all the magic duels, Zelgadis, Lina, etc come from).  The wall hanging and punching is obviously from Uncharted, a video game. I have no idea where the creepy horse with eyes came from.