Remember Books?

I’m old fashioned already. I’m going to grow into an evil curmudgeon someday.

Today (and everyday) I’m taking the subway to work like I always do. I’m ready at the door to get off the train and walk directly out the turnstile without any pausing to cause a traffic jam. Today (and everyday) when the subway car doors open and we are trying to exit the train, we are greeted by a sea of oblivious people blocking the doors. Every single one of the oblivious herd is looking down at some handheld device that is so important they don’t realize they have blocked us in. Now I can’t get off the train and you can’t get on the train. Today (and everyday) I have to shove you out of my way so I can go to work.

The worst part is that I look like the crazy person not for shoving my way through a crowd but because I’m holding in my hand something unheard of. A type of object that doesn’t require a charger. You may remember them from your youth. I don’t want to age myself here but it’s true, I carry a book with me. A real one! It’s made of that stuff you might recall from before the world went “green”. That stuff they make from trees? Yeah paper. Just a few years ago everyone on the train had a book. Now I feel like it’s equal to carrying a boom box on my shoulder. Okay maybe a cd player.

All I really want is for everyone to stop staring at Words with Friends long enough to enter the train or cross the street safely. If you aren’t paying attention and you run into me I’m warning you now I’m going to punch you in the head. I can’t hold out any longer. On a similar note, you don’t need to “check in” at every block. If you make it that easy for people to stalk you I just might start doing it. I’ll show up everywhere you are. It won’t be pretty.

It’s my Blogiversary!

Four magical years ago on 2/16/07 I appeared in blog land and proceeded to share my torturous ways with each of you. Looking back now I realize I’ve maintained a pretty solid level of sarcasm, depression, and obnoxiousness. Even on day one I started with over sharing my entire life story. Oh, and I briefly pretended this would be a blog about jazz artists. That was so damn boring I went unconscious writing it. Instead, I have made it my personal therapy lounge and memory keeper.

This is me when I started blogging.

This is me now.

So what happened to me in such a short span of time?

Well, I started the blog 23 and newly single. I was working in the advertising field and was generally doing well. Exactly one month later I was posting about my first seizure. Will it be a seizure blog?

One year later I was seriously obsessed with blogging. I was back with my ex and we had a trip planned to the Bahamas. I still worked in the evil empire of advertising. The epilepsy is still the only health issue and life was pretty good.

Two years later TO THE DAY my boyfriend was having major surgery on his back. It was scary and I was in a bad place mentally. You can tell by my posts. A short time later we broke up. Yes, I understand that makes me a horrible human being but I promise it had nothing to do with his back. Within a week I was laid off from my job. Nice one, KARMA! I kind of went into hiding and wasn’t heard from much in 2009.

Three years later I’m starting to notice the trend that I always get very depressed in February. I had a lovely new boyfriend. I was unemployed. I was doing a lot of drinking by myself. I know at some point in the year I was working at a theater with my boyfriend and doing a lot of creative stuff but I can’t find any proof I wrote about it. I’m starting to wonder if any of that really happened….or am I losing my mind?

TODAY- Four years have gone by. I’m doing a long term temp gig and generally like the atmosphere. My boyfriend is on tour doing children’s theater and I won’t see him for four months. (Seriously, no sex for four months. What did I do to deserve this cruel punishment from the universe?) I still have epilepsy but it took this long to finally come to terms with it and I’m lucky that I had my blog as an outlet. I met several people that were willing to talk with me about their own personal battles and it helped a lot. I feel like I lost touch with many close friends over that time. I made new friends. It doesn’t make up for it. I kinda became a bit of a nudist. Just seeing if you are still paying attention. I sang a lot. A whole lot. But never enough.

Now I wish I had something to aim for next year. I need something to keep me going. But what?

Sheesh, I’m depressing. Happy Anniversary to my blog and to all of you that hang out around here on occasion.

Bad Dreams

The other night I had a very vivid dream and when I awoke I couldn't seem to shake it. It started out being my normal confusion of a dream where who I am with keeps changing at random as does our location. I was North of San Francisco for some reason and I needed to find a zip car (rental car) because I had a performance later that night. I was in a huge rush and was very anxious in my dream. While I'm running out to find a car I am in New York. Somehow in my dream this makes complete sense to me. We (I have no idea who I was with.) were running up to a building that we thought might be the correct location to find the car when suddenly I hear a horrible loud boom in the distance. I look up and the skyline is suddenly mushrooming up in an explosion of smoke and fire. It was enormous. I stood there looking at it in shock. Then it was like a wave of heat from the fire hit me and I realized the whole island would soon be ablaze. The person I had been running with pulled me into the building we were headed towards in an effort to find safety. Inside we found an empty area of cement floor and walls with stairs to more of the same. There was nowhere to go and I came to the realization that we were going to die there. This is when I forced myself awake. I don't die in my dreams. I often wake up and force my dreams to go another way but for some reason I could find no solution and in this story in my head that is the only ending I have. Sure now that I'm completely awake I can think of any number of things that could suddenly happen. I should go running for the river and swim to Jersey. It's too late though. I needed to dream it. Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have dreams that are so troubling you can't get past it?

Once my mother called me at an odd time and said she just needed to know I was okay because she had a dream I killed a man and boiled his head to hide the evidence. Yes, I said my mother had this dream. I had a nightmare as a child that an alligator ate my brother. I woke up crying and wrote a story for school about it. Why are the good dreams so hard to remember comparatively?