To the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.” 

I have no peace in dreams anymore. When I was a kid, I kept a notebook by my bed, and I would write down my dreams as soon as I woke up. My therapist told me that's probably why my dreams are so vivid and why I'm able to recall them so well as an adult. Considering the nature of my dreams lately, that's not a good thing. 

I find myself dreaming often about my cat, who died in October.  The dreams vary but the end is always the same: she saves me. Something horrible is about to occur, Freddie comes to me and I pick her up and she saves me from destruction. I don't know what that means except that I miss her terribly. Maybe subconsciously I want to be saved, but in my heart and in my head I know there is no rescue. No one can save me but me, and I don't even think I'm worth the bother. 

I dream a lot about people who have hurt me, who I haven't seen in a year or more, who my brain tells me I'm better off without but my heart still hurts for the loss of them. So much so that sometimes I can't breathe, and I hate myself for having felt so much for nothing. I dream a lot about loss and destruction, and no small wonder - my life is one of regret. I have accomplished very little and I have wasted too many years to seek any sort of redemption for my cowardice.  

I am a cynic and the holidays bring out the worst in me.  Christmas only reminds me of my dad and all those old songs on the radio remind me of everything I've lost and everything I cannot or will not allow myself to have.  Every night I go to work and listen to my coworkers talk about their families, about what they're getting their husbands/boyfriends and kids. I think about everyone I care about and I have nothing that I can give them. 

I find no rest in sleep, no peace in waking. I would give anything to change that. 

“O night in which the stars feign light, O night that alone is the size of the Universe, make me, body and soul, part of your body, so that—being mere darkness—I’ll lose myself and become night as well, without any dreams as stars within me, nor a hoped-for sun shining with the future.”  

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

A few days ago, a friend told me I had an iron tongue. She was telling me about her roommate and how he wasnt really talking to her all of a sudden. She said, "He reminds me of you in a lot of ways. He's got an iron tongue, like you, and he uses it to push people away."

I felt "off" after that. Relieved that she knows how I am and is still my friend; afraid that if I keep this up, she won't stick around. I'm having trouble not being how I am. I thought about that a lot on the way home, and when I finally fell asleep, I had an incredibly vivid dream.

I was sitting alone on a high hill in the middle of the night, surrounded by forest on all sides. There were no lights anywhere but the sky. It was a lot like being in the Upper Peninsula, but even more isolated. In the dream I knew I was the only one around for miles and miles. There was no sound at all except for a faint melody, I could barely hear it, and in my dream I knew it was the stars. I sat there reciting constellations and after a while someone started walking up the hill towards me. Though there was enough starlight for me to be able to see the forest around me, the figure approaching me was dark, just a shadow moving up the hill. It wasn't menacing in the least, but I wasn't happy to see whoever this was. I wanted to be alone. 

The figure (still just a moving shadow) sat down next to me and nothing happened for a long time. Finally, I said, "I don't really know anything about stars." The shadow said, "Tell me what you do know about them." 

I told him that the stars are always there. Some are dying, some are being born, but the light will always be there, for as long as I live. No matter how overcast it might get, no matter how much it rains, the stars are always there and I will always see them again. I look up and nothing changes except their position. My whole life, the stars are the only ones who have stayed and will never leave. No matter how dark it gets, there is always that light, and I can always find it. Even if I get lost looking up there, I can still find my way back to something familiar to bring me home. Polaris, Betelgeuse, Castor and Pollux, the Northern Cross; someone is always pointing the way, no matter how turned around I get. 

I stopped talking and the shadow said, "Nothing up there can hurt you." I didn't respond and he continued, "As long as you live, there will be pain. You will suffer. You will be alone, but that will be your choice. There is no comfort in isolation, and there is no hope." 

I said, "There is comfort and hope in knowing that any disappointment or pain or anger or sadness comes from me and no one else. No one can hurt me but me."

The shadow said, "Haven't you hurt yourself enough? Don't you think someone is waiting for you with open arms?" I said, "No." He said, "How can you be so sure?" I responded, "Because no one stays, ever." "Why is that?" "Because I'm not worth it." He asked why I thought that was. I didn't know what to say to him. I started to feel sick, so I lay back in the grass and closed my eyes. I could still see the stars but the trees, the ground, the shadow, everything else was gone and it was just me up there with the stars. It was cold and .... soft, somehow. I felt cradled, I guess is a good word for it. Like I was wrapped in someone's arms, like there was no sadness or hurt or anger or fear anywhere in my heart or in the universe. I could hear that faint music coming from the stars and I turned over and that's when I woke up crying. 

It was one of the most lucid dreams I've had in a long time. I'm still surprised I can remember so much of it. I don't need to analyze the dream to figure out what my brain was up to that night; I need to get back into therapy. And I need to stop pushing people away. I don't know how to do either of those things right now, and I'm too tired and empty to care.

What are you doing, Dave?

Had a dream that I went to McMenamins and saw an insanely BAD movie. Afterwards the manager came around to ask what we thought of the film.
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[Me:] How many thumbs are there in the world?
[Manager:] I don't know. A lot?
[Me:] Well, however many there are, I give it that many thumbs down. That's how stupid this movie is.
-----
I ended up winning the grand prize for best movie review. The grand prize? A chunk of the monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

I tracked down the manager, waved my prize in front of his face and asked, "What the hell am I supposed to do with a piece of broken monkey rock?"

----------------------------

 Saw Prometheus the other night.  Good movie. In the beginning, a robot named David is walking around the ship (the rest of the crew is asleep), farting around, doing his genius robot thing.  At one point, the ship's computer says, "Good morning, David."  NOBODY GOT IT. Ugh.

Rise again, little fighter

Come on. It's a good song.

I missed out on just slightly less than 100% of the Olympics this year,which just about killed me. I fucking love the Olympics. Especially the winter Olympics. I got to watch some skiing and some skating, but no hockey. I take that back, I caught the last five minutes of Canada's game against ... someone. I forget who. I didn't get to see Sweden or Russia or even Team USA, though I did get The Game recorded on DVR. Have yet to watch it.

So I made sure to get up early (for a night shifter) and watch the gold medal game. Sadly, the US went home with silver, but that's nothing to fucking sniff at. I know virtually nothing about hockey (the puck goes in the goal, right?), but I know our boys played their little hearts out, and I'm proud of them.

Speaking of proud, the Winterhawks did well tonight with a 3 - 2 win over the Prince George Cougars. Series sweep, anyone? I'm excited about Friday's game, for no particular reason. I haven't been to a Hawks game since early December. I'm hoping to drag my friend J along. She's not a nut like me, but she's from Florida and has been to her fair share of Lightning games. It'll be interesting to see what she thinks of the WHL.

It's no secret that I hate digital photography and its whore mistress, PhotoShop. I realize it's hypocritcal for me to say this because I use a digital camera. However. I use digital for the shit I don't really care about (or for the shit I'm now allowed to use real cameras for, such as hockey games). I've taken some really cool digital shots that I don't give two shits about because they're easy. But I digress. I was browsing an anti-digital group on Flickr tonight. Someone was complaining about the museum mode on digital cameras and here's what someone had to say about it:

I guess what bothers me is that cameras are becoming as submental asmicrowave ovens. Press "beverage" to heat up your coffee; press "museum mode" if you want to shoot a snap inside MOMA. In my mind, photography is supposed to be a craft. You don't dumb down a craft.

YOU DON'T DUMB DOWN A CRAFT. Thank you.

That's all I'm gonna say about that.

I had a nightmare about Tank the other night. It was doubly horrible in that my father was there, too. Not that that's a bad thing. It's just that when I wake up, I miss him that much more.

Anyway, I forgot most of the dream, but I'd come home (to our house in Chicago) and my sister told me Tank had gotten out of the yard, and when they tracked him down, they found him dead in the field. They'd put his body downstairs, so I ran down to see him. He was mostly covered in blankets and when I knelt down beside him, I saw that he was shaking. He kept shaking and shaking and eventually woke up and came over to put his head on my shoulder. When I woke up, I was completely freaked out that there was something horribly wrong with my dog.

Ech. I hate dreams. Been having a lot of night terrors lately, too. That hasn't happened in a long time.

This afternoon I decided to start the Couch-to-5k running program again. I've only gotten as far as Week 3, but I was really dedicated and ran three days a week without fail. Then shit happened and I stopped working out six days a week and turned into a schlub. Ahem. So I was running around the block, listening to the Cto5k application on my iPhone (you can use your own music) when I got a text from a friend:

"thny gotta quit givin me weed man'
i have a golf ball size nuggie that keeps trying to engage me in conversation."

It's actually pretty hard to run and laugh at the same time.

And now for something completely different: a swinging chicken.