lost in the supermarket

this dream, like many others i've had, jumps around from "scene to scene". none of it makes any kind of sense in how it links together. i met up with a few of my coworkers at a waffle house that served pretzel sticks before they gave you waffles. one friend of mine took on a waffle challenge in which he had to eat a stack of ten waffles in ten minutes. he admitted defeat shortly thereafter and when the waiter came to take our plates away he scolded my friend for making such a mess and not even finishing his waffles. we all go outside to take a look at a brand new jeep i purchased. somehow i suddenly snap into a kitchen where i was cooking a meal for the same group of people from work. one was crying, the other taking bits of the meal and throwing them on the floor. i say i've had enough of their shenanigans and get into my brand new jeep. i start driving down the road and it's night time. i drive up to a house where i see a lot of men in jumpsuits revving up their motorcycles. i get out of the car and ask them what they're doing and they say their ice cream truck is on its way. they ask me if i want to tag along and i agree to. we arrive at a grocery store where they unload and storm in. it becomes a hide and seek and destroy whatever you can lay your hands on type of game. all of slipknot decided to ravage the store, and soon they turned on me. it became a goose hunt, me being the hunted. so after being tarred and feather with ice cream and crushed waffle cones, i woke up- feeling bullied and sullen.

need a second opinion

i woke up at 9 in the morning today and stepped out to the hallway to get to the bathroom to brush my teeth. before i got there, my mom abruptly stopped me and said the words i never wanted to hear. "there's something very wrong with your dad. we need to get him to the hospital. i think he's having a heart attack." i don't think i ever got dressed and assembled so fast. i methodically went to the bathroom where my dad was slumped on the floor, clutching his chest and looking more helpless than i ever thought he could. i hoisted all 233 pounds of him onto his feet and rushed after my mom to the car. we made it to st. francis hospital in what must be a record breaking 15 minutes flat. i stayed silent the entire time. i didn't know what to say and knew if i started to talk, all that would come out would be anxious ranting. i kept my eyes on him and kept repeating his medications and dosages in my head, over and over. we got to the ER and i took my dad in while my mom parked the car. we had to check in through a security post first. "what's the reason you're here?" i don't think i answered his question. i just shuffled my dad through the double doors and asked a nurse where he should go if we think he's had a heart attack. he was taken away from me pretty fast by two nurses. they saw that he was responsive and able to breathe on his own and was hooked up to an EKG immediately. after admitting him, he was moved to a bed in the ER. his blood was drawn and he was scheduled for a CAT scan of his head and abdomen. he handed me his change, claiming he counted it and he better get all of it back. he also gave me his chain with a cross and pendant on it. i put it on. i hated seeing him in that hospital gown on that bed, hooked up to machines. my sister came as fast as she could and my dad then had the most important women in his life surrounding him, worried but not showing it. tara and my mom pulled a lot of strings to get my dad seen fast. his episode passed, it was mild. he looked a bit more comfortable while we waited for the CAT scan. finally, they came by and wheeled him away. i asked my mom for an honest answer. "what do you think this means? what do you think this is?" she told me the truth. my dad had lived an unhealthy lifestyle for a long time. he just recently started to lose weight and keep it off. he's had episodes like this before, but nothing like what my mother saw that morning. sometimes, the damage that you do to your body is irreversible is what she said to me. about a half hour later, he was brought back to us. he did really look better and much more like himself at that point. he started to whine about being there so i knew he was feeling better as well. another 20 minutes passed and the doctor came by to tell us what the CAT scan had said. he started with the fact that my dad did indeed break his 7th rib from a previous and recent fall off his bike. he then went on to tell us that he saw liver cysts in his belly. there was no internal bleeding, which was a huge relief. he told us that there was a decent amount of plaque build up around his heart. the doctor said the blood test results showed high levels of troponin, affirming that my dad had a heart attack. he suspects that the stress of the pain from the broken rib triggered a high heart rate and made my dad's heart work much harder than it should be while he was resting. beta blockers would help prevent another episode, but he needs a full work up from his specialist. my sister, mom, and i were relieved and happy to hear he could come home with us. this relief turned to a sour feeling quickly. the doctor wasn't done telling us what was found through the CAT scan. his head was scanned as a precaution because of the fall a few days earlier. the doctor called it mild atrophy of the brain. it's a pre-indication of alzheimer's. we were silent. "what does that mean?" my dad was visibly shaken, maybe angry at the results. my mom's face crumbled a little bit and my sister's did as well. i just listened. he told us that it's not devastating, but we should look into preventative treatment in another 3 years or so. i was devastated though. i am devastated. my dad more so. the doctor said to take it easy and see the specialist as soon as possible. my sister drove me home while my mom and dad drove in another car. i knew what was happening in that car. my dad was asking a slue of questions. "am i gonna be demented, sha? i don't wanna live like that." i have to stop myself from thinking about the conversation in their car because it breaks my heart too much knowing how scared my dad was and how unsure my mom was answering his questions. we all met at home and laughed about how we were stuck with him still. i saw his eyes and they were red. my mom looked exhausted. i felt exhausted. my sister left to go back to seaford and the three of us- my mom, dad, and i sat in the den and took a nap. i woke up an hour later and quietly moved to my bedroom. i sat on my bed and went over the day. i laid down and i cried as silently as i could. i cried for about an hour for my dad, for my mom, for myself. he's terrified of losing his mind. "i know i'm not as sharp as i was at 33, but i don't think i'm losing my shit. am i?" this was the question i kept thinking about that made me cry so much. my dad is not an unsure man. he's stubborn and confident and knows everything there is to know, even if he doesn't actually know. to see him question himself was a shock. to know that the day before he was joking and laughing and cursing at my sister's house, making all of our friends crack up made me realize how quickly things can and do change. that alone is terrifying. it may be down the road and i may not have to worry about it now, but to know that alzheimer's could very well be in my dad's future shakes me. it rattles every nerve i have and breaks my heart. i know he feels the same exact way. i want to give him something, do something that will erase that prognosis. i want to make it better and i can't. i feel helpless and useless in this whole situation. i hate taking things as they come, and that's all we can do. if nothing else, i just want to take his mind off of it- but how can i do that when it's on my mind too? i'm happy he's home. i try to keep thinking of how happy i am that he is home and with us. if i can hold onto that thought, i may be able to focus on just making him feel better. i don't know what else there is to do.

from crib to coffin

my neighbor tried to kill his wife about a week ago. he was going to shoot her with his gun in the basement. fortunately, she was able to bring attention to the situation by running outside into the middle of the street. the cops were called and no one died. while one crisis was averted, another is just beginning. a marriage is falling apart, maybe an entire family. i would have never thought that my neighbor was capable of attempted murder. i would have never thought such awful things were going on inside the house next to mine. he was always smiling, mowing the lawn, being a typical suburban sixty-something year old. nothing struck me as odd or off kilter. i've lived next to them my whole life. it drives the point home that you never really know anyone. every single person you meet will have and keep a secret or flaw hidden from you. there will always be something that we all keep from each other. people keep appearances up, smile, nod, and close the door behind them and who knows what goes on. to a degree, we're all guilty of it. no one is ever completely honest with others or themselves. it can be a personal flaw, an addiction, a weird fetish, something in your past, or something in your present- which is worse because that's active lying to the people around you. what forces us to lie about ourselves? for some people it's the need to be liked and accepted. for others it's simply to get through the day without feeling ashamed, a survival technique. then there are the percentage that lie to keep the stasis they've created. they're comfortable with what they have in the now and aren't willing, ready, or able to admit to everyone else that this isn't who they are or what they want. there are people who will die with secrets that no one else knows. it seems like a pretty heavy weight to carry around all by yourself. i've tried to be as honest with myself as possible, but there are things that linger in the back of my mind that i choose to ignore and not confront, and i feel confident in saying that a lot of people function like that. it's a coping mechanism and it works, so why not keep doing it?

every town has an elm street

i've said it before, but i actually mean it this time- weirdest dream ever was had by me last night. nothing in it connects to anything that i experienced or watched the day of and it all means nothing. there's no definite starting or ending point, things just happen.

my sister and i were out east and we walked passed two older women leaving a house in a rush. they were holding a a black garbage bag and a gun. they ran to their car and drove off, leading my sister and i to believe that some wrong doing had just taken place in the house they left. we went inside without calling the police. there was blood on the floor leading out to the deck of house. we saw a head of a blond man with a face that looked similar to brad pitt's. obviously shocked, we just stood there. my sister then kicked the head into the water off the deck and i yelled at her for destroying evidence and this man's head. she said we had to cover up the murder because now that we found the head, we would look like the killers. not wanting to abandon my sister on this plan, i went along with it and we left the house like nothing happened. when we got home later that night, we were both tense and anxious. i put the news on and i see the top story of the evening: man's head found attached to an octopus in the water. i ran upstairs and whispered to my sister that the head had been discovered and that we were totally busted. all she said was that she didn't want to talk about it. i was frantic and got in my car and continued to drive to police headquarters back out east. i told them everything that happened and they said that they needed to bring me and my sister in for questioning. that's when david spade stepped in and told the officers that they could not question me or my sister because the head was found on stolen property- yes, the octopus was apparently stolen from someone's backyard water enclosure. in my dream, the law was that if you find evidence on stolen property you can not use it in the court. therefore, my sister and i were off the hook. at this point, i drove back home and told my sister the great news and we were both ecstatic.

my parents then told me we were moving, and magically, we were there on our new street. my family and i moved to new orleans for seemingly no reason and we were living on a block with five bars. in the town we moved to, there was a race war going on between asian people, black people, and the aryan brotherhood. i was most afraid of the brotherhood. a group of them lived on my block and would stare at me with extreme hate in their eyes. why they would hate me, out of all people, i don't know. my mom had left for work and my dad was leaving to meet a friend of his. i begged and pleaded with him not to leave because i was terrified of being raped and killed by the brotherhood. he told me to go to the pizza place around the corner and that antonio, the owner of the restaurant, would let me stay there and make sure no one started any trouble with me. my dad left and i started walking to the pizza place and i walked into a parade where the three groups demonstrated their pride. i quickly dodged the crowd and ran into the pizza place and introduced myself. antonio was a nice older man and said i could take a seat where ever. the restaurant was pretty crowded so i just sat behind the cash register. once i was starting to feel at ease, around five guys came in and started punching and pushing the customers. adorned with swastika tattoos, i could tell who they were and hid under a table in the back of the pizza place. as the fight continued, a fat man from the AB pulled me out from under the table and started taunting me and tugging at my hair. i tried to throw a few punches and kick violently but the crowd of five members grew to thirteen and i was highly outnumbered. one of the waiters broke a glass over the fat man's head and loosened his grip, allowing me to get away. as i left i saw antonio and he told me to go to the other pizza place on the other side of town. i sprinted as fast as i could go and noticed i wasn't wearing any shoes. i ran barefoot all the way the other side of the town. when i got there, i was crying and out of breath and couldn't get a word out at all. a group of four spanish girls were working at the restaurant and kept trying to get what happened out of me. when i eventually calmed down i told them about the huge fight on the other side of town. they said they weren't shocked at all but that it hasn't ever been this bad. i started asking them where the police force was during all of this insanity and they told me they were across the street. as i looked toward them, all i saw were a bunch of men in uniforms hanging out and sitting on the hoods of their cruisers and it became apparent that they did not run this town at all. it seemed like they were just as scared as i was.

the spanish girls let me know i had to leave because they were closing after their last customer, who in fact was david spade. he was wearing a black hawaiian button down shirt and bright red pants with white ked sneakers. he was a detective in the town and was very angry at the slow service in the pizza place. he told me to suck it up and stop crying, to get used to the fact that the town was a horrible place to live.

variations on a theme

'tis the season, december is here. for some reason i don't feel the holiday cheer at all. it's not that i'm unhappy, it literally just does not feel like christmas time. i suppose my cookie baking spree will change all that. a lot of people have grown to hate christmas because of its increasing gimmicky qualities. i can understand the frustration and dread of the constant holiday music and impending money dropping on gifts for family and friends. it's an onslaught of everything red and green, elves, santa claus, and wasted calories. what i can't understand is the hatred of the whole holiday. how can someone other than the grinch hate christmas? you really have to be a miserable person to dislike christmas. it's a special time of year and it's the only time during winter where i actually enjoy the season. no other month can make snow and freezing temperatures tolerable. in any other case, i hate seeing my own breath in front of me.

you can take christmas however you want. you can make it into a giant nuisance or enjoy it for what it's worth and what it was for you as a child. frankly, i always used to enjoy the challenge of making it on the "good list". that was huge for me and radically altered my behavior for a whole month. writing letters to santa and leaving cookies out for him (and carrots for his reindeer) was a yearly ritual that i got a real kick out of. even church was more tolerable in december. i used to make gifts for my family out of clothespins, cotton balls, tongue depressors, and anything else i could potentially glue together and draw on. my sister was the only one completely unimpressed by my gifts because she knew they were just pieces of crap. that's the point though, my family really never put all the emphasis on the presents. of course there was the discussion of what we really, really wanted but it was mostly about cooking and baking together, watching christmas shows, reading christmas books, and enjoying the lights and sounds as a unit. i feel like the people who hate christmas now were the ones who were only exposed to the commercial value of the holiday season. those were most likely the kids who were told to write down what they wanted and got exactly those items on the list, no element of surprise. that's not fun at all, especially for a little kid. the presents aren't important.

i've always loved gift giving though. i love composing the perfect gift that i know will "wow" whoever it is i'm giving it too. the person this year who's getting the "wow" factor is definitely my mom and she absolutely, 100% deserves it more than anyone else i know. i get the rush of giving from her, too. she's definitely instilled that in me.

christmas should be enjoyed by the masses for more than just the flashiness of what it's become. i suppose i've left all other holidays out of this post, but you get the idea. apply it to whatever you celebrate.

a heart that beats as both siphon and reservoir

a friend of mine told me today that this was jeff buckley's death anniversary. i quickly corrected this friend, who was not even close- his death date is may 29th, 1997 to be exact. it did however get me thinking about him as i sometimes do, considering he is hanging above my bed in poster format. ever since i was twelve years old, i've had a love affair with dead men and their tortured souls. jeff buckley, elliott smith, nick drake, jason thirsk, nick traina- all musicians, all very much dead by their own hand.

i consider jeff buckley's death a bit of a mystery though. he was known to have a history of bipolar disorder and manic depression. most of me believes that he went swimming in wolf harbor river fully clothed with boots on thinking that he could walk on water or breathe underwater. i don't think he wanted to die. i don't think it was his intention at all that evening to drown. i believe he was in the midst of a manic episode. i wonder what exactly he was thinking when he did it. i wonder if he had a moment of sanity where he knew he was drowning and dying or if he tried to come back to the surface for air.

i go through the same motions with elliott smith and the fact that he stabbed himself in the heart. was there a split second he wished he could take it back while he was bleeding out? i'm not sure you're even capable of feeling fear or regret after making a conscious decision to kill yourself. it seems like after you go that far there is no turning back. once you are so miserable, isolated, and numb i don't think you can experience the normal ebb and flow of emotions. with this opinion, i suppose i've answered my own question: they didn't feel a thing.

how to cry in total silence

as it shows in the date text line, it's been a long time since i last posted- the main reason being i couldn't ever remember my password. it wasn't for lack of thoughts, dreams, or opinions.

what exactly is a rut? what brings it on and why do they seem to last for far too long? i feel like i'm stuck in one and i don't see any way out. that's the whole point of a rut. it's hard to snap out of it, to get a grip on yourself. i can see both sides of the spectrum here. i understand the person that has little to no tolerance for "getting stuck in a rut" but i can also very well understand the person who gets caught. i too, have no tolerance for do-nothingism and that's a whole different story. there is a huge difference between someone who does nothing and the person who feels like doing nothing but forces his or herself to be productive in some way, shape, or form. i'm saying i understand the latter. ruts are awful. they make people unsure of themselves in all areas of their lives and relationships. are they good enough? are they pretty enough? are they smart, thin, wealthy enough? are they worth it? ruts make that person answer "no" to each question, effectively destroying most of their self confidence. everything starts to hurt. lying about being fine becomes commonplace. you start to zero in on every imperfection, things that friends and family might love about you. those quirks and specific mannerisms, the sound of your own voice, the way you move your hands and lips when you talk become the very things you just can't stand about yourself. they become things that need fixing or eliminating.

does it sound like i'm carrying on? am i carrying on? i am, i'm hyper aware of that. that's part of the point of this, to be the person no one likes right here. no one wants to hear other people's trials and tribulations. people will say they're there to listen, but in their heads they are checking the time every minute, hoping you'll be done soon. who wants to hear it? i don't even like to listen to people like that. i don't want to be someone's burden, i don't want to be a chore. i want to keep being a productive individual who actively contributes to society, making some small difference and not just being a waste of space. can i keep it up?