Sleep Study

Last night I took part in a sleep study. Almost every inch of my face and head were hooked up to wires. I felt like I was entering a science fiction world. A camera recorded my every moment and a nurse talked to me via some electronic device. The room was very white, the sheets and bedding were off-white, but the place was far from a sterile hospital room. More like a hotel room but without all the perks. I had hoped to record a dream, yet with my skin all stickered up with wires and what-not, it was hard to concentrate. Luckily I brought with me a deck of Tarot cards and just meditated on the Strength card to get me relaxed enough to sleep. Before long I forgot I was hooked up to machines. Forgot I was being videotaped. I had hoped that when I woke I'd be told that I talked in my sleep or got up and walked around in a trance, something interesting like that. But not me. I did, however, remember vaguely a dream about walking with Katy Perry through a faerie-filled woods. For some reason she had on big fluffy white bunny ears and she talked a lot. A lot a LOT. Chattering away like a chipmunk on crack. The smell of strawberries and lavender made her fade away and then a crackle of the nurse's voice from that electronic machine woke me up. She told me to try to sleep on my back. I don't like sleeping on my back, but the doctor wants to see how well I sleep on my back. So I did so and couldn't easily fall back to sleep. I damn well tried, however. And just as I was about to fade away into another dream -- a dream I hoped would be worth writing home about -- the pain in my lower back and neck made me fidget. The nurse told me to go ahead and sleep back on my side. I'm a side sleeper and love to hug a pillow, but in that hospital room I didn't have my huge pillow collection from home surrounding me and made do with clutching the blanket. The blanket was thin, not fluffy, slightly old-fashioned looking, but not as comforting as a granma-type quilt like the ones my Aunt Madge would've lent me when I used to sleep at her house. Thinking about my Aunt made me a little sad. Sleep overs at my Aunt Madge's house were interesting and strange sometimes because I usually found myself surrouned by family hand-me-downs and antiques. Aunt Madge had a country house, her kitchen walls were lined with collections of decorative plates. After she died last summer, I inherited her bedroom furniture -- a faux French Provencal vanity dresser set from the 1950s that suites my tastes well -- thinking about my Aunt Madge's old bedroom with its rose pink walls had me sighing, homesick. And just as I thought of Madge, I thought of my mother. Sleeping in the hospital room made me remember how times were like when my mother lived in the nursing home. I never thought her hospital bed looked very comfy. I wanted to shower her with blankets and pillows, but she already had friends from church who donated her a lot of those, some I still have but I don't snuggle up to them. My mother's handmade blankets and pillows are relics now, still too infused with her perfume and presence, and I'm still not completely used to her being dead. As I fell back to sleep, I remembered the way in which my mother was hooked up to oxygen and machines, shrinking away in her little hospital bed as she died. I couldn't help but dream of how that must've felt. I started to feel afraid, worried that my sleep test results would reveal some kind of deadly disorder that would foretell my own death. But, no. I woke up and the nurse told me I showed no signs of sleep apena or any other kind of sleep disorder. This is good news! Now I can be home and fall asleep, safe in the knowing I'm close to normal.

A Funny Dream Happened While I'm Healing

While I've been gone from this blog site, an impacted wisdom tooth on the bottom right side of my jaw chipped and became infected.  I had it extracted on the 13th of April.  Yet before then I lost some very dear friendships.  Healing from both things has proved to be harrowing, but I'm managing to get better.  I think from now on this blog site will feature just a log of my dreams.  Now... back to recording this weekend's most twisted dream!

Yesterday the right side of my cheek and jaw were swelled up so much, I felt like I was turning into a hamster. Yeah. Imagine that, me a were-hamster! I couldn't sleep or rest my head very well, so I ended up spending much of the day watching reality-based medical mystery dramas while leaning my cheek on a pillow of ice. Now. Watching medical shows that feature autopsies was not really the kind of entertainment that makes me comfortable while healing from surgery! Yet, nothing else was on on a Saturday afternoon. I was feeling pretty damn miserable and worried that my swelling was a sign of further infection. I was happy, however, to re-read my take home instructions from the dentist and note that the worst of the swelling was supposed to be experienced on the third day after surgery anyway. Anxiety aside, I finally did get to sleep while watching ghost stories on Bio channel and had some very adventurous, mood-altering zombie dreams. Yeah. I dreamt of zombies! Some people may think that zombies are the stuff of nightmares, but I have a fondness for them. Sure, if I saw a reanimated dead person in real life I'd freak out like anyone else, but cinematic zombies I enjoy.

The zombies in my dreams last night were all of people I once knew. We all first started out barracaded in a hospital with a group of children. We were trying to protect the kids at all costs, but somehow a reanimated corpse that had been crushed somehow crawled its way through an air vent and infected the children while they slept. A helicopter crashed on the roof, sending the whole hospital on fire and we all tried to escape into a big white van, but the double whamy of fire and the group of zombies outside proved to be too much. One by one the children were wiped out and only the adults remained. We were forced to go back inside the burning hospital, but by the time we got back a sprinkler system kicked in and all was safe, yet very wet. I thought only one child was left. He had a little smoke inhalation, but doing well. I had not realized he was slowly turning into a zombie until one friend of mine (who ended our friendship in real life) went up to him to wipe off his face. The zombies had targeted the children for a reason and this particular outbreak of undead fever had evolved -- the younger the victims, the better and more pure the zombie infection. As my ex-friend touched the boy, his face began to melt and he cried out. Before I could warn her that she was about to be bitten, his features mutated, his mouth opened up and he sucked at her head. She yanked herself free only to have broken her own neck. As she slumped to the floor, the zombie boy was sucking at a piece of her bloody scalp. That's when my friend Nadine sprung into action and just started bludgeoning the boy into a pulp. When it proved to not kill him right away, I helped her. Together we kept at it and, horrified, realized that destroying the brain was no longer the key to killing the zombies.

There was a stringy mess coming out of where the spinal column was. I figured out that the key to destroying these new kind of zombies was to sever the spine. But the guys disagreed. Even when Nadine and I pointed out that our way of killing the zombies was most sound, they were determined to waste their bullets on exploding some heads. On our second attempt to escape from the ruined hospital and fly off the roof using a small plane, we managed to not get on the aircraft and watched the men battle it out for their lives, only to witness them lose. Eventually even Nadine could not survive. She slipped on some guts and fell off the roof. I raced downstairs and encountered Michelle who hatched a plan to escape underground. She told me that everything in the basement area was cut off years ago and that there should be no one alive or dead there. All we had to do was find the way down.

This is where the dream gets silly. We found a shaft to climb down into the basement, but on our way down, a purple-headed blob-like bodied creature that floated in the air like a giant cupcake and demented smiley face all in one, whistled at us and attempted to seduce us. It had HUGE bloated lips -- like Mick Jagger with a collagen injection if you can imagine that -- and it smacked them, making kissey noises and lude sucking gestures. There was no way to avoid the creature. It took Michelle first, trying to suck her entire body. I managed to get it off her but it took me instead and carried me back into a laboratory. As Michelle escaped, I let the creature basically "rape" me and watched her back. Once she was gone, I grabbed a piece of broken glass and stabbed at the creature but it just kept replicating itself. I woke up in mid-battle rage, my heart racing, and yelped to consciousness.

I can figure out what it all means, symbolically representing the struggles and grievances I've had over my relationship difficulties, plus my anxiety about losing any more friendships. It's not fun to be mourning the relationships I've had for so many years online while fighting an infection in my mouth and healing from surgery. The hospital, zombies, and purple-headed monster are all symbolic of what is going on in my body. I think it's a sign that my mind is telling me I'm stronger than I think I am and that not all is at a loss. Yet I still worry, as any human would, whether or not I've been a good friend. For now, the most healing thing for me is to be a little Hermit and concentrate on getting better.

A full moon in Libra is coming and I'm looking forward to its gentle, emotionally cleansing, relationship-nurturing energy.

My Cloak Sewing Experiment

Every now and then I have to give myself a challenge. If any of you have been following my blog for some time now, you know that I draw and paint well and I'm a pretty confident artist. But could I be a good seamstress? I don't know. I can sew things together like pillow cases, sachets, scarves, ponchos... yet I have no clue how to sew from a pattern and have never learned how to use a sewing machine. Hence I have no sewing machine. I sew from hand. I don't trust sewing machines anyway. Why, you ask? Because I had a bad experience when I first attempted to use a sewing machine... I accidentally sewed (or sown?) thread into the tippy-top skin part of my right thumb and it hurt like crazy. Let me re-phrase what I just wrote: I don't trust myself with a sewing machine. I make crazy miscalculations all the time. I don't think like a seamstress or a craftsperson, I just get an idea and do it until I'm beating my head into a wall! My latest planned disaster-for-now? I decided to creatively recycle two old patchwork skirts of mine (they were torn and not even good enough for Goodwill but the material is so pretty, I couldn't throw them out, even after 15 years!) and sewn them together, cutting the top half of them into a hood, and made something like a cloak.



I often like the idea of a challenge more than the attempt at making it an actual goal, and sometimes I sign myself up for a goal that is "too big for me to chew" but I hack at it anyway, determined to make a mess into success. My attempt at sewing a cloak has become an epic experiment that has proven to be a big headache as mid-way into executing the project I realized that a rectangle does not match a circle pattern... The old mid-1990's style skirts are circular and flare out on the bottom. The velvet I picked for one side of the cloak was cut a rectangle and did not flare out at the bottom and therefore did not cover the lower half. I had to cut V-shaped parts out of the velvet and had to cut the velvet rectangle in half completely. So now, after two days of hand-sewing the garment, I am left with a lop-sided, sloppy-looking cloak that needs a helluva LOT of work. My idea can still work, but I am going to be left with a different-looking cloak than I at first imagined I'd make.



I knew it wouldn't be that simple to make, and that I was taking some chances, especially working without the consultation of any friends who are more handy with sewing projects than I, but I WILL make this look somewhat decent. I still have plenty of material to work with and may add some black lace to flare out from the velvet. What I have yet to do, too, is make the hood more sturdy and sew the skirts better to the velvet to keep the velvet from sliding around. The happiest thing about this is that this project will keep me busy and distract me from winter depression. I long to make the cloak into something that I can really wear at festivals OR for Halloween. At this point, I have some work to do... and I've only just begun.

Check out some of my results below and let me know what you think:



Notice the little "spirit orb" near my face? Neat, eh? Maybe it's a sign I'm going to need some divine intervention to finish this project!







In the last photo here you can still tell that my cloak is basically two skirts sewn together over bits of wine-red velvet. I'm not sure exactly how this will turn out or where I'm going with it, all I know is that I'm going somewhere... and hopefully at the end of my experiment I will have a nice Gypsy-esque-Steampunk kind of garment. Stranger things of mine have been created out of whimsey.

Regarding the Fine Art of Eating MY Own Foot

Watch what you say? Believe it or not, I do all the time, but most usually AFTER I've said something! I've spent countless hours, days, YEARS remembering the things I've said and what someone else has said that I didn't mean, or that they didn't mean, or remember, but the difference between what I remember and what was said/written in a blog, or in a few lines on Facebook, is that the latter can IMMEDIATELY come back to haunt me. What is posted in a few moments of heated passion can bite you back in the ass, and keep on biting you for a long while, especially when other people who may or may not know you well, express themselves just as heatedly back at you. It may seem some people's common sense is impaired when they, time after line written in anger, forget that (to quote my friend Michelle) "the internet is open ended" and have their angry words echoed back to them on a platter of verbal backlash with a side order of embitterness.




I'm a very outspoken person and very emotional, I tend to express myself loudly all the time and, no matter what, people react just as loudly back at me. Sometimes they don't react right away and let their angry back lash brew until they pop a vein and spit their veniom at me when I least expect it. I don't mind a healthy back lash, but some people need to back off and just let someone spill their guts if they want to. Even though I realize the internet is "open-ended", I still relish my freedom of expression and will speak loudly, perhaps even more daringly so than I usually would offline, online. In my experience, I have discovered that whether what I write is nicely and politely said or not, someone out there is going to take offense or make unfair judgements upon my character based on what I say as easily as they would offline. Except when what I say is written down for everyone to see online, I am inadvertantly inviting anyone and their mother to react just as loudly to me online, and they will, especially so when they misinterpret what I have said as an attack. With the advent of the internet, people are safe in their own homes on their laptops to let their opinions fly out and let their ignorance and hatred show more so than they ever would let out in their lives offline. It's also extremely easy to hop on the bandwagon of opinions and "gang up" on whomever voiced the most unpopular opinion. The more passionate and stubborn the voice, the more tenacious the protest against that voice. But don't forget -- sometimes the outspoken person has something to just get off their chest and, even though it may prove to give a knee jerk reaction to someone else's nerves, it is just their opinion based on their feelings, right or wrong -- you can't force someone else to think or feel the way you do and we have no control over what they will think about us. What is the most important thing is what we think and feel about ourselves, and once you find your confidence, you will revel in the freedom you have to speak your mind and heart, and NO MATTER how much everyone and their mom hates what you have said, they can't hurt you.




Even though I have been unfairly bullied by the opinions of others, I will never trade a day of silence, never go back to the times I let others make decisions for me or talk over me -- the uncomfortableness I feel today when even the closest of friends disagree with me over what I believe is NOTHING compared to the pain of suffering in silence. It is a good thing to express yourself openly and brutally honestly than sit back and let other people speak for you (or speak all over you if the case may be). If someone is feeling angry, or has hatred in their heart, or are depressed, they will find it easiest to let it out online; but the freedom to express yourself comes with a double edge to it, speech is like a sword -- what we say can cut others down just as easily as it can cut through the clouds and clear the air. If you don't know how to use your sword, you'll end up cutting yourself more and getting it stuck in the ground when you use it to just randomly attack anything out there. To use your sword correctly, you have to take the time to really think before you speak, really polish and sharpen it... We also have to realize when NOT to pick up the sword -- that we just as easily have the freedom to ignore what someone else has said and to let it go if we don't agree with what is said because sometimes no matter what you say, nothing will produce a positive change.




Over the years I've been accused of taking things too far or going over the top with my words, but truth is, it is only MY opinion that proves to be unpopular and I don't shut-up or "behave" when others disagree with me (maybe this is why I'm accused of being so difficult). I'm stubborn and passionate, but at least all my friends know what time it is with me. I am quick to speak up and protest something, especially when I feel that someone is being unfair to me or someone else. Occasionally I have been wrong in my assumptions of others and I have expressed "sorry" to them, because usually I'm being misunderstood. When you live what you believe and feel "out in the open" your views will be questioned, protested, and taken the wrong way. I'm used to having to fight for any love and acceptance I can get; sometimes I forget to be softer, more gentle towards others. I'm not always prepared for the negative reaction I recieve from people who do not know me well. And even if they DO know me well, I can taken off guard when a friend lashes back at me. Even though I don't like it, I can be proven wrong, it's just when they don't stop to really listen to me and attack me out of a misunderstanding, I am forced into a corner. I don't back down easily because I've learned that, when I do, I get stomped on! I invite people to disagree with me, but there comes a time for us all to shut-the-fuck-up, listen, and then ask for clarification. Too often we're so busy getting out what we think and feel, we forget to take into consideration what someone else is going through -- I'm guilty of that, too. It hurts no matter what side you're on!




I've long tortured myself over the way some people have reacted to what I say, and I'm not giving in to that anymore. I have realized that I have no control over what other people will think about me, but I can put it out there that anything and everything is open for discussion with me -- equally and doubly so on the internet. Just don't hit me upside my head the moment I say something you don't agree with. If you're going to "fight" with me, I invite you to do so in an intelligent, peaceful, adult manner... even if the subject we're disagreeing on is stupid -- especially so if it's stupid! Because a disagreement over something stupid is not worth the loss of a friendship.




I've put both feet in my mouth occasionally, and have the lingering bad taste in my mind to prove it, and I don't mind admitting when I am sorry. I just don't think some people are prepared for the onslaught of negative opinion and reactions they will get when they post their inner most thoughts online for everyone to comment on. And...

If you invite me to give you my most honest opinion, and you don't like what I have to say, you shouldn't feel like you have to end our friendship when we disagree. That happened to me not too long ago... someone asked for my advice and opinion time and time again and I didn't back down, but when I did finally back off and chose to express my anguish online, that's when I was attacked by her and her mother. Next time I will simply ask those who ask me what I think, whether or not they really want to hear what I have to say. I try to be careful about what I say, but I am only human. I've been wrong and I've been sorry yet I will never NOT tell you my truth! This means I may come off intimidating, but this is only because I have the confidence to speak what someone else may not have the courage, or nerve, to say.



Yet am I brave enough to thrust my foot into my gaping, non-stop talking mouth? Sure. As long as these feet are clean.

I Miss Writing

Happy year 2011, all.  I haven't blogged here or anywhere else much lately, partly due to having a lot more distractions in my home.  I remember now why I haven't had cable TV in so many years, and it isn't just simply because I didn't have the income to pay for it, it's because I can turn into a TV zombie.  I'm catching up on shows and news so much, before I know it the day is half gone or it's too late at night, and especially after watching a gazillion news shows, I start to feel heavy, like I'm sedated, totally put into a mood where I don't want to move.  Then as I try to sleep, I close my eyes and keep seeing flashes of faces, a residual effect from watching too much TV, I'm sure. 

The other little problem I've been experiencing lately is that even though I have immediate access to the internet, now that I have a computer hooked up at home (yay!), there are times I just get online to vegitate some more.  I get on Facebook and just play around, take a few quizzes, and before long hours have gone by, my eyes get tired, and then the ennui robs me of my creativity.  I head back into my bedroom and want to draw, but my mind is so tired, so bored out, emptied of ideas, just bleh.  I've given myself a "creative migraine" out of this -- my imagination has pooped out sludge and before long each time I sit down to draw, I just sit there, and to get my mind off it I turn the TV back on or start up the computer.  I log into Mindsay or Blogger and just stare at the blank pages.  It doesn't help that I no longer have the social rapport that I once had here.  Whether or not I blog here, the old friends I once came here to blog back and forth with aren't all here anymore, and it seems like there's a general lack of interest in blogging by others.  I've noticed that in just the last two years, activity on blogs seems to have dwindled.  People like the instant gratification of Twitter or Facebook -- and even I have fallen for it, too.

Writing a blog is, well, about writing.  Journal writing, to be exact.  I keep several handwritten journals at home.  Blogging is public journal writing, so I tend to put more thought and energy into what I want to say for everyone to see.  Sometimes I get online to just react immediately, and even though I don't always write what is the most thoughtful thing to say (and possibly what I wouldn't naturally say in person), I will examine and re-examine what I've written.  In any case, the point I'm trying to make is that blogging, to me, is basically essay-like and can be a kind of chore.  I have to take more time to write a blog.  Checking Facebook is a breeze, but ultimately I don't get as much joy out of it as I do blogging.  Because Facebook is like candy; it doesn't feed my creativity like the good ole ritual of writing does.

I don't often make new year's resolutions, because such promises we make at the turn of a year don't get kept, but this year I really want to channel my energy into writing more.  Not just blogging.  Not just getting online to play with Facebook applications.  Not just to post hundreds of photographs.  I need to get back into the writing, really give myself assignments, really kick out the words I've got collected in the back of my mind, and stop myself from sinking into apathy.

Writing to me is like drawing...  I have a lot of stories to show and tell, writing is just another way to draw things out of my imagination.  I'll always keep a general blog out of my general need for self expression, but I want to stretch out and make writing itself a goal this year.  There are several areas/subjects I want to focus on: write my Witchcraft autobiography, write an on-going online poetry journal, write and revise my ficitional vignettes (I've got notebooks full of them that I could make into short stories), and write a book on Tarot and about my experiences as a reader (amongst many other things that aren't coming to mind right at this moment).  Like the sketchbook goal I made last year (I filled up four sketchbooks-full of drawings), this year I'm just going to let my words fly via keyboard and pen.  The goal isn't about getting my writing published, it's just about writing, just getting the words out, and not necessarily filling up several notebooks or blogs full of my words.  I just want to, and owe it to myself, to get back into writing so I can help myself break the habit of just sitting here and not accomplishing anything.

I want to write just as much as I draw.  Let the words flow...