It’s just a dream

February 1, 2013 1 Comment

Wow, I just crashed hard. I was tired after today and feeling defeated so I went up to bed to watch a movie or something and couldn’t even keep my eyes open. Slept for over two hours. It’s now 10:30 at night but I’m awake so I guess it’s time to write.

I thought that writing would be a lonely profession but I’m actually finding it quite comforting. It’s not simply a matter of being alone with my thoughts. It’s quite different. It’s like giving the thoughts in my head a friend. It’s letting the thoughts in my head play with my fingers. Reading is also like this for me. A book gives my brain someone to play with.

Dreaming is different. I’m not sure exactly what dreams are but I like to think of it as my brain playing with itself when it thinks no one is looking. Kind of like masturbation for the subconscious. I don’t usually remember by dreams but when I do I try to hold on to as much as I can. I feel like they are important, that they can give some insight into what is going on up there in my head.

I did some pretty hardcore dreaming during my little nap. Most of it has already slipped away but I do remember the final scene before I woke up. It took place in a large inner-city high school. Things were pretty out of control, violent and chaotic. This one kid, not that tall, about my height but significantly overweight, was totally losing his shit. He was knocking other kids down, picking them up and throwing them around and generally causing a huge commotion.

I came in and picked this kid up over my head – I’m very strong in my dreams. I’m carrying him away from all the other kids when a school administrator starts yelling at me, “Hey, what the hell are you doing? Put that kid down!” I put him down and tried explaining to the administrator that I wasn’t hurting the kid, I was just trying to prevent him from harming other students.

Then another student gets up in my grill. I put my hand on his shoulder and say “It’s okay, I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I’m just here to help.” At which point he lashes back at me, “Get your hands off of me you faggot! You can’t just go around touching people. Who the fuck do you think you are? You some kind of pervert?!?” I was really taken back. I was trying to show compassion and understanding to these kids but they were incapable of receiving it. I began to imagine what it would be like to never feel love, compassion and acceptance.

I turn to the chubbier kid, the one who had been tossing students around and said to him, “You are clearly very upset about something. What is it that has got you so angry.” To which he replied, “Man, you don’t know what it’s like around here! We don’t even get no fucking popcorn anymore. We suppose to get popcorn on Fridays. That shit only costs like 25 cents a bag and those bastards took it away!”

Yeah… I understand loss. It can feel worse than never having anything to begin with. It can leave you feeling really pissed off – pissed off at the whole world. So I start asking him more questions about the popcorn and before we knew it we had a group put together to make popcorn of Fridays and sell it to the students as a fundraiser.

Okay… it’s just a dream but the feelings are real. Situations involving these feeling happen all the time. It’s very challenging to be a kid, to not feel loved, to not feel in control. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to comfort them and you certainly can’t control them. Sometimes all you can do is find out what they want and work WITH them to get it in a constructive manner.

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Blursday

February 1, 2013 Leave a comment

I seriously don’t know why I ever plan anything for Thursdays. I always think, “Oh, I’ll be fine. I can do that.” Nope, not likely. Wednesdays tend to wipe me out and I need a day to recover. I need a day to be extremely unreliable. So all in all I feel pretty damn good about what I did manage to do yesterday.

Hell, I wrote 1,500+ words. Don’t know the last time I’ve done that. I’ve been wanting to for quite some time. I spend a lot of time thinking so it’s about time I started writing down those thoughts in my head. And that is something I really need to do. Get thoughts out of my head. I also need to write down what I do everyday because I just can’t remember this shit. I can’t tell you what I did last week. I mean maybe I could if I though really long and hard but my past starts to get really fuzzy really fast. Most of it I don’t miss but it can get frustrating. If I can manage to take an hour out of each day to document my life I can see this being of great benefit to me. If I share it, who knows, maybe it can even be of benefit to someone else. At the very least it will hold me accountable and I want to live my life with honesty and integrity.

So as this blog is starting to take form what I see it being is a fairly comprehensive documentation of my life, the highs and the lows, the trials and tribulations, from the mundane to the magnificent. And then shared with the world in the present day, not as a memoir of the past but as it happens. I don’t know if that has been done before. I don’t know if anyone will find it interesting but I think it has the potential to be. This is my art. This is my experiment. What it becomes is yet to be known. Of course I have to make sure that I have the time to do the living part or I won’t have much to write about. Yesterday’s post took nearly four hours to write. I guess one of my fears is that becoming a blog writer will turn me into a boring person. Oh well, sometimes I am kind of boring.

After yesterday’s writing session I ran off to meet my friend and pick up the chowder she made for me. I didn’t even take a shower. I just threw on the clothes I was wearing the day before and ran out the door. I didn’t have that far to go but I drove anyway. In part because of time constraints but mostly because it was too damn cold out and even I won’t bike under certain conditions.

My friend was getting some work done by Miss Kitty at Live Fast Die Young Tattoos in NE Minneapolis. For someone who doesn’t have any tattoos I sure do love them. And there is something really magical about a tattoo shop. It was a fun time. I enjoy watching people get tattooed and my friend is one hell of a story teller and she had some good ones to share yesterday. BTW, I’m just referring to her as “my friend” because I haven’t decided whether to use people’s names in this blog. I may find that I have to. It may get too confusing or become too awkward not to but in the meantime I will try to protect my friend’s anonymity. It may turn out that people will just need to accept that if they interact with me parts of their life will be publicized.

After that I ran to the tobacco store then home to eat the chowder before my daughter got there. Fantastic chowder by the way! Really hearty, creamy and rich. Other than a few peanuts, that wound up being the only thing I ate yesterday.

My daughter was dropped off by her mother around six. Usually I would have picked her up but she had an after-school class so plans got a bit screwed up. I was actually quite grateful for this. I certainly could use the time and I did not want to go back out in the cold.

I had a wonderful evening with my daughter. We played two games of chess. I haven’t played in a long time but my 14 year old daughter is just learning. She is a remarkably brilliant kid but I still managed to beat her both games. We’ll see how long that lasts. I don’t believe in letting kids win but I did let her know what my strategy was and helped her not make suicidal moves.

After that we watched Rango. I do love me some Johnny Depp and chameleons are bad-ass! After that my daughter went to bed and I returned to my room to watch The Daily Show. I wanted to go have one more cigarette but was simply too tired to move and I faded off into dream land… well almost. I did get a phone-call at 12:54am that woke me up briefly after which I turned off my ringer and was out.

I have much to do today including much that I had hoped to do yesterday. So here we go…

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A Big Day

January 30, 2013 Leave a comment

I guess any day you start something new is a big day. I’ve actually been dreaming of this day for many years and to be honest it is nothing like I dreamed. My dream was much bigger. My dream was much more involved. But every dream begins with a single step and I’m excited to see where this simple little step may lead. Considering how many days I’ve struggle to accomplish anything, considering how many days have gone by when I didn’t take this step, I am proud of myself for finally doing so.

While not nearly as noteworthy as starting a new project there is still more to this day to report. Today is Wednesday and that means the day my work week begins and ends. Okay, I do many other things throughout the week but this is the one “normal” job I have. On Wednesdays I deliver City Pages, a weekly news and entertainment newspaper. I love this job. I’ve been doing it for nearly 7 years now which makes it the longest job I’ve ever held.

Granted, it’s only one day a week, but still, that’s something. It’s a very solitary job. I spend most of my time driving from stop to stop listening to the radio, lost in my thoughts. The 80 times a day when I do stop to deliver papers are brief shots of human joy; exchanging smiles, kind gestures of door holding, pleasant expressions of “How’s it going?” and “Have a nice day!” And on top of that, I get paid! Having five Wednesdays in January was certainly appreciated after draining my bank account yesterday to get my brakes repaired.

Ah yes, and then a trip to the pet store. I was totally out of cat food and litter. I sure hope Didit likes the cat food I got her. I usually get Orijen cat food but since they had a fire at their plant a while back finding it on the shelf has been very hit or miss. The new stuff is from Wisconsin, so if she likes it, I will probably stick with that. Nothing against Canada but I like to buy local and Wisconsin is modestly closer.

Probably the best part of my day is yet to come. Tonight begins rehearsal with the band for our upcoming show in Arizona. We haven’t played together in over a month so I’m super excited to turn it up to 11!

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