D-d-d-drugs, they say, are made in California

"Why is the post title quoting Marilyn Manson?" you ask. Well, let me share the truly bizarre (and hilarious) line of dreams I had this morning...

This dream session came in two bursts. In the first, as I am wont to in dreams, I was walking a very long, narrow and dangerous bridge. At its peak, I got delayed due to a police investigation in front of me. There had been jumpers and they were fishing the people out of the water. Turns out this scary woman approached a learning disabled guy and convinced him to kill his brother. She then took him walking on the bridge and was going to get him to jump off, making it look like the brother acted alone and killed himself out of guilt. The LD guy freaked out and grabbed her as he fell, taking both down. Amazingly, both survived. The LD guy talked when they were rescued and the woman was going to jail. Way to suck at a plan, lady!

The reason I was on the bridge, it seems, was to deliver a robot to the military. I got into a combat base and brought the codes for a Wall-E robot type. Turns out this was a defensive robot, which quickly identified a hostile situation and disarmed it. That means, of course, he disarmed US! I had to turn him off and turn the defenses back on, but it was too late. The enemy had used the lapse to break in. (Damn you, Wall-E!) It was my job to aim two guns manually and take out the enemy. This sucked, as enemies from each entrance had a clear shot to me. I took out one, had two bullets barely miss me, and was calling for backup when my brain decided it’d had enough.

(I woke up, took my meds, and went back to sleep to dream some more!)

Dream series two started with a dream where my grandmother was having a party at the townhouse I lived at from age 4 to 8. In this dream, I guess the whole family was rich and spoiled rotten. My mother and her boyfriend entered, both acting spoiled and snotty, and the boyfriend told a story about how terrible it was that he left his scotch back at the cabin. The women compared name brand serving dishes and catering services. (Note: This is about as opposite as you can get for them.) I was quickly pushed from the scene and told to amuse myself. I had a credit card, no supervision, no limit and lots of bought friends. It was time to go nuts and storm my former college campus!

On campus, I ran into Bill Clinton. (I assume he was giving a speech there and not trolling for some tail, but I can’t be sure.) He gave me permission to sleep with Chelsea, saying she needed the attention. I used the excuse on Mandy Moore (seriously? her?), who was playing a Chelsea-like role in a movie that just happened to be filming on campus. The dream got more meta as it devolved into a playful fight between her movie boyfriend, real life boyfriend, movie dad and Bill Clinton. When asked if it was weird to be fighting for someone who was playing his daughter, Clinton said he wasn’t even sure Chelsea was his. All those watching the scene were laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

After the Clinton thing, I joined a rag-tag group of people who were trying to sneak into my old Shepherd University dorm. There were ridiculous antics that would fit the screwball parody film this obviously was. (One guy started a war cry, and kept going so long we had to muffle him. He may have died, since we forgot to un-muffle him. No one cared and we dumped him in the street.) I managed to blow the plan by talking within earshot of the person at the dorm desk. This would have been fine, but then everyone in the group spoke up and argued about the best way to get into this dorm. Each dorm had a different trick and some couldn’t remember which trick matched what. By the end, the entire team exposed itself by talking, so the plan was dashed while we could regroup. I went off to chat with a conspirator and an overweight woman followed us. When she found out it wasn’t about the assault, she joked about doing twice her daily exercise for nothing. She was a good sport and she introduced me to THE TRIPLETS! They were not even identical – also, they were about 60. Dammit!

Plan failed, I walked to the college library, where I heard my friend Courtney talking over the speaker system, giving a soul-crushing speech about the futility of life. It was hilariously thorough, and delivered in the tone of a mother reading her child a bedtime story. I went in to talk to her and found her casually deadpanning into a mic. She decided to talk me up a bit, which surprised me. I was told that what I did put me above the level of amateur and I deserved the promotion. This great skill: Arranging Chrispmas lights into patterns.

I managed to arrange a city scene, which promptly faded into the real setting. I was on a ridge overlooking the city, with some maintenance building on the ridge with me. It was something government-related, but I’m not sure what. I watched a plane fly by and drop some banners, which were caught by the wind and blown over my head. They were army recruitment banners, saying the military would pay for your college education. The last banner hit a flock of birds and came in too low. It crashed into a security guard’s vehicle, which was driven by Marilyn Manson. As he got out, pissed off over getting struck, a eagle holding a Navy banner flew overhead. It dropped the banner on a guy dressed as an angel, who was ALSO promoting the military. (I must assume the marines, as they do love to die in combat.) I went up to Manson, who was still upset, and we joked about calling it in: “Sir, we’ve been attacked! The US Military hit two people with recruitment banners. One was dressed as an angel. One was Marilyn Manson. Both were working for the government at the time -- OH FORGET IT!”

And that was just what I can remember. The question is… can I make art to go with this?

Presenting: The paint sketch of “Model City” – a painting based on looking out on my former city of lights! (Canvas is 48"x30")




Edit: Here's a shot of Model City, step two:

Skeptical Cat is Fraught With Skeptism

"What do you mean, 'let's go run errands and do dinner'? Do you not realize it is 4pm on a Friday? In DC? During the holiday season?"

In a related story, I am now traumatized for life... which is impressive, since it's hard to find a part of me that hasn't already been traumatized for life.

(Original LOLcat.)

Cranial Concrete

What a way to start November, huh? My mind has been so blank these past few days I couldn't even put up FILLER in good conscience. This has been highly frustrating.

Me and productivity rarely coincide as is, thanks to my brain being wired in an amazingly specific way to negate all my best qualities. Oh, and I'm also hardwired to struggle mightily with any alternate (er, normal, that is) life paths. Basically, I'm wired to fail. Pure force of will alone is how I made it as far as I have. (Have I made it anywhere?) Problem is, I have to actively fight to keep myself even mildly useful - which leaves me vulnerable when life gets fuckly bad. Recent events have worn me down to nothing, which is quite frustrating.

My house is a construction site, which is detrimental in several ways. The constant banging has brutalized my sleep pattern, which is never good for anyone. The lack of a kitchen means I am living out of a microwave now, which sucks. Having the only working appliances as well as the utility stuff nearby means constant invasion of my personal space. (Let's face it, I'm borderline agoraphobic, so this stuff is a big deal.) I cannot get peace here and the constant invasion of people and sounds is starting to severely affect me.

This blog is very useful because the post-a-day goal forces me to have visual proof that I did something positive. Recently, I've been focusing on my writing. I want to create a thorough outline of Maquette so that, if I die unexpectedly, there will be enough there for someone else to take my story and complete it for me. (Note: I am not planning on dying anytime in the next millennium, but I need *something* to force me to put stories that exist entirely in my brain down in real form.) By working on painting in addition to the writing, I had something to show off!

Well, the environment and creative block finally set in with painting. Without something to show, I am just this delusional wistful artist wasting his life on a project no one will ever care about. To make matters worse: My crappy painting skills extend to drawing. For years I would sketch for hours a day. As of late, sitting down to draw feels absolutely foreign. I'm going to chalk it up to the environment finally getting to me, because if my brain was imploding for good that would be far too depressing.

Anyway, the goal of this post was to apologize. I'm not apologizing for my lack of posting her as much as I am apologizing for being a crappy person in this past month. While I've struggled to create, I've increasingly isolated myself. To all my friends I've ignored in that time, I'm really sorry. I've been a wretch and you are so awesome that I'd hate to bring you down with me. Here's to hoping this whiny dirge has been enough blather to get the frustrations out of my brain.

The subconscious is one's worst critic

OR, how to start one's day in the most inauspicious way possible!

The culprit this time was a dream. Usually I have dreams of brain-numbing repetition or ones where I'm continuously hunting for candy. (Thanks, shameless sweet tooth!) When stress or gluttony dreams aren't in the rotation, it's usually mind torture in the form of anxiety dreams - where everything goes wrong for me. As noted before: My brain hates me.

In today's dream, I was shipped off the convention for people with personality disorders. The goal was to isolate us from society and teach us how to stop being drains on the world. My group was seemingly the worst of the lot. After all, our "invitations" were done in sinister black. The other defect groups had bright cheery colors linked to their disorders. Mine was black. Like, death and depressing black.

This awful group you see, was the COMPLAINERS! We were the cynics and sourpusses who lose their cool at the slightest irritant. We were mean, bitter and no fun to be around. If we didn't fix ourselves, we'd be doomed to a life of sad ostracism.

Proving the event organizer's point, I didn't take my invite well. I, well, COMPLAINED about being singled out as a bad person and admitted I felt persecuted because the black envelope let everyone else know (people who were just as dysfunctional as me - if not more so) that I was the worst of all! I was being avoided! The told me I didn't have to eat in the cafeteria with the rest of the nuts - I could help myself to candy in the guest room. (Yes, even in this dream I desperately needed a chocolate fix.)

The main reason I was upset was because they organization just didn't get it - there are two types of complainers: Zesty and bitter! I complain a lot, but I do it as a purge and I try to find some humor in it. I think running around proclaiming the sky the to be falling is FUNNY! My fellow black-labeled wretches were clearly on the bitter side. We had the old ladies who had nothing to do with their lives but yell at people for being noisy during their naps. We had TONS of repressed conservatives and Christian fundamentalists - who hate themselves because their values are so strict any deviation from them must make them horrible people, so they judge everyone else harsher in retribution. We had the general sad sacks who were so beaten down they'd lost their sense of humor. Basically, I was surrounded by BAD CONVERSATIONALISTS!

We had a private pool just for us sourpusses, but it was very unfriendly. The old ladies wouldn't get in the water for fear of getting their hair wet. The conservatives all inched dangerously close to each other in the hot tub, filled with sickening tension. The sourpusses would dog-paddle around by themselves. I was the only person to take a leap into the water and make a splash. The rest silently walked into the pool from the shallow area - doing all they could to be silent and keep the water calm. I splashed around and tried to get the people to play a game. No response. This was went I went off to complain about my "peers."

At least my brain was telling me I don't belong on that group. As the dream went on, it became clear I was the star of my crew. My fellow complainers - while still hating each other as much as themselves - all warmed to me and my charming ways. I had become a leader and I was fairly respected by everyone in the reject convention.

The next morning, I got a visit from Dana - who was wearing adorable jammies for some reason. Seems she was taken away too, as part of the "obsessive" camp. We happily chatted about sneaking off to get breakfast away from the rest of the wretches. Conversation then turned to the old lady in the bed beside mine. She was frustrated with inconsiderate people making too much noise as she slept. When Dana asked if I was causing problems - as I'm an insomniac and I toss and turn like mad - the old lady said I was the only one she liked. I was never a problem and I didn't make any noise to disturb her. It was a good self-esteem boost.

Eventually, I found some kin in the complainer group in two women. One was a pushy New Yorker whose tongue was sharp enough to disarm all those not tempered to absorb "New York charm." The other was a tall woman - well over six feet - with a loud voice and a pushy attitude. She seemed like the lawyer type. Together, we decided to write a letter to the organization explaining the two types of complainers. We might bitch and moan, but the others in the program are not our people. Line by line we laid out why they suck and why we are simply misunderstood. At one point, I sat back and wondered if what we were doing was too self-serving or something that would make us far more irritating in the organization's eyes than the wretches we found to be vastly inferior. The New Yorker could see it happening, but the other lady (who seemed less self-aware and probably wouldn't be in our group if there had been anyone else slightly worthy) got a bit self-righteous, claiming truth is truth.

At that point the dream trailed off and fell into the standard surrealism/stress dream stuff, such as me trying to reach the pool on the ground level from my floor and managing to end up hanging off a balcony a few stories up. This happens all the time in dreams, of course. Instead of going into the elevator, I ended up outside it and I had to strategically drop down floor by floor, getting me in tons of trouble for the disturbance. During this, another dream standard was at play: I was trying to travel with a gal (generic hottie) and no matter what I did, we'd be separated. I reached the pool and jumped in, only to find she had made it down with me... but forgot her suit. Once again, the pool symbolized isolation!

Overall, I think the meaning is fairly straightforward. The dream was more of a highlighter and exaggerator of stress than one hiding it in symbols. At least it was creative in handling it. I take it as failure when my brain only offers up cookie cutter dreams. Anytime I'm flying or my teeth/hair fall out, I wake up embarrassed for my brain.

Still, it's rather depressing to wake up after a dream where you are officially labeled a black-level asshole. Hey, maybe something reassuring could happen as soon as I wake up to make me feel better about myself.

I woke up to see a GIGANTIC FUCKING SPIDER on the ceiling directly above me. It waited until it was sure I saw it, before it scrambled into a vent. Thus, this arachnophobe now knows there is a GIGANTIC FUCKING SPIDER in my room that is just WAITING FOR ME!

There is no way this day can go well now.

Kiss them for me, if I am delayed

So...deadlines? What's the deal with those?

I've been treading the fine line between procrastination, idiocy, irresponsibility, mentally deranged and hyper-dumbassery for quite some time now. (It's a very complex line.) Flirting with danger is fun and all - but it's just flirting. I'm apparently looking for a hot, naked sweaty affair with danger as I keep taunting deadlines like a super happy fun ball.

So it's looking like Precocious will not make it's end of July deadline for publication. That sucks, but confidence remains high. Early August is still attainable. The problem is all those *other* deadlines I let sneak up on me... and then let gnaw on my foot... and then let saw off my leg... and then let set me on fire...

Now that I have been engulfed in a fire that burns but does not consume, with some festive dismemberment thrown in, it's time to start thinking about dealing with these problems. I may not be able to bring my allegorical leg back, but dousing the flames is bound to be an improvement to my situation.

Is it time to embrace Zen? Is it time to transform into a person who can structure time well? Is it time to become someone who can just *do* work at a moment's notice? Sure, but me exploding as I type this post is more likely to happen.

My personality is a cosmic joke and we all know it. Whatevs. I'd rather be nutty than boring, so life with chaos isn't necessarily bad. I know that what makes my life a mess is also what makes me interesting. Unfortunately, just knowing (glowing?) isn't enough. Sure, most of my problems are textbook ADHD consequences. I can name that beast, but it's not Rumpelstiltskin. There's not even a sympathy card to play, as ADHD is nearly indistinguishable from Whiny Prick Syndrome - especially IF I BLOG ABOUT IT!

Rationally, I shouldn't have a problem. I am fully capable of meeting my goals. There's just the problem of my head being like an busy airport with no control tower - and all the pilots are drunk. If planes aren't smacking into each other in the sky before they get a chance to try landing, they're colliding as several rush to the same landing strip. The tiny personal planes off to the side can come and go as they please, since they're smaller and less numerous. Those planes can generally move around each other and land quickly, but the cargo is rarely vital. Still, it's very easy to focus on the tiny planes. They may be irrelevant, but at least *something* gets accomplished. Standing at the end of a landing strip with nothing but a pile of crashed jumbo jets can be quite discouraging.

Over time I've learned to manage those simile jets far better, but full mastery is the unobtainable goal. If I let the airport get too chaotic, no amount of control can stop the impending disaster. Maybe it's better to just let the crashing happen and guide in whatever jets remain at the end. If it's too late, it's not worth the stress. Accept it, let the jet crash (or, to mix imagery, let the leg be cut off) and order a new shipment of cargo. Maybe this one will arrive when the airport is less congested.

Holy fuck, that's depressing. All I wanted to do was post some more sketches, but I'm at work so I decided to see if I could write something interesting instead. And now I've blogged all over myself... it's disgusting.