Weird Dream

Alright. I'm not much of one to put stock in dreams. Other people get to have the fun flying dreams or the scary falling dreams (neither of which I've ever had), but I always have dreams that are long, complicated stories with numerous characters, plot development, and unfortunately, virtually no resolution. Damn you, alarm clock. Damn you.

Now, I'm not saying that the stories end up being realistic. For instance, in one dream I had in college, I was the hero of the story and was crusading against an evil fairy king who was turning people to stone with an enchanted bag of barbeque potato chips. It was a powerful and moving story, because my friends, one by one, were succumbing to the delicious curse. I woke up just as I challenged the fairy king to a duel in his mushroom-covered cave-lair.

In another I had a few months ago, the books on my library's shelf in my den started jumping off the bookcases and hopping around on the floor. I couldn't step on any of them (because it would have killed them), so I had to use my lasso to move furniture around in my flat. Yes, I had a lasso. Who doesn't? Anyway, then I had to jump from furniture to furniture to get to the door to leave. But when I reached the door, I realized that I had left my keys on my bed and had to return to get them (of course, the furniture had moved itself back to its original position while I was at the front door).

Well, last night, my dream topped all of them. I was back at KU, only with all of my new law school friends there, in a class on Ornithology. Mrs. Marcia Dentist was arrested by two police officers who were walking somewhat strangely. As they escorted her out of the room, I noticed that they had tails. Then I realized that they weren't police officers at all, but were dinosaurs dressed up like police officers (funny that I wouldn't have noticed that earlier, I suppose). So the rest of us all underwent a strange quest to break into the dinosaurs' police headquarters to bust MMD out of the pokey. Kansasgirl was our getaway driver and hung out in the semi trailer truck we'd brought along while Mindspewer and I tried to find MMD inside the building. Once inside, we were ambushed by the dinosaurs and got separated while we fled down the suddenly labyrinthine hallways. As I wandered through the maze of walls, I suddenly found myself in the Labyrinth from the movie Labyrinth. Hoggle was there. And so were the creepy red muppets that could take their heads off. When I realized where I was, I discovered that I was the Goblin King, turned myself into an owl, and flew back to class (Ornithology class was still going, apparently). When I got there, all of you were back in your seats as if nothing had happened, and as I asked you about how MMD had gotten free, I woke up.

So if you want to have really bizarre dreams, apparently the right combination of foods to have for dinner is: a handful of dried apricots, a jar of maraschino cherries, and a slice of cheese.

Surreality

Well, there must be a new cult going around. That, or some bizarre affliction leaving several dozen middle-aged to older ladies colorblind. On my way to the Capitol building this afternoon for my class on legislative activities, I encountered a group of women so large, it may properly be considered a 'gaggle.'

Aside from the unusual circumstance of a large grouping of older women congregating in the Capitol rotunda, one thing in particular caught my eye. Every one of them, from the first to the last, was wearing purple and red. I'm willing to pass judgment here, because I'm obviously a fashion god. Red is an acceptable color to wear. Purple is an acceptable color to wear. Wearing both simultaneously tells me that you got dressed in the dark, that I stepped through a portal into the 1980's again, or that you are functionally colorblind.

And even weirder was the fact that they were all wearing hats. When is the last time you saw a woman, even an older woman, wearing a hat casually out on the town? It doesn't happen all that often in Kansas anyway. Finding several dozen of them all at once in the same place was a bit on the odd side, to be sure.

Perhaps we need some kind of investigation into some new religious cult activity among our state's elderly. I'm concerned for their well-being if there is some charismatic leader ordering them to wear disastrous outfits.

Good things about today:

1. Spats were ended.
2. Friendships were reforged. "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology."
3. I got coupons in the mail for products I might actually use.
4. 3 hour naps rock. Hardcore.
5. Dreaming about ninjas, and riding on pterodactyls over a big rain forest.
6. Getting an e-mail from an old high school buddy telling me that he saw a jock who bullied me in high school bagging groceries at the price chopper this weekend.
7. Professor C. pretending to be drunk in class and claiming to have polished off a fifth of Mountian Jack whiskey.
8. I dropped a half-pound in the last 2 days.
9. My new vacuum cleaner works great (and it is my favorite 2 colors - purple and grey)
10. Stalker-chick said yes.

Showing my age

I always used to think that I was mature for my age. According to my mother, I started speaking earlier than I was supposed to. I never went through a particularly rebellious phase, and my childhood was marked by trying to be an adult. Teachers were always impressed with how nuanced my thinking seemed compared to those at my age (until I reached law school of course, whereupon I became mediocre).

Even though I've always tried to be a "grown-up," mentally, I never before realized how much my age mattered to me physically before, though. My heart has never been what I might call in tip-top shape. Once, when I was a sophomore in college, I went out for a run around the neighborhood on a nice fall evening. I ran for about a half-mile and then stopped because I was feeling strangely. I could 'see' my heartbeat. Literally. My vision pulsed with my heart and when I checked my heart-rate, I measured it as being 244 beats per second. Yes, you read that number correctly. Even now, when I go jogging, I'll check my heart-rate and find it around 160-180 after a block or two.

For the past 2 or 3 years, I've been experiencing periodic bouts with a dull ache in my chest that a computer medical program I have diagnosed as angina. This (potential) condition has given me a reason to become more healthy, but as if to give me a new incentive to ensure that I lose weight, this afternoon while waiting for my old high school friend to show up, I experienced a bizarre sensation.

I don't really have many words to describe it, but imagine if someone could tie a rope to your heart, and then give it a sudden jerk, causing it to jump forward in your body for a second. Now accompany that with intense chest pains over your heart and a rapid heartbeat for a few minutes right afterward.

I'm hoping it was nothing, but I sure wish I could afford health insurance right now. At 25, I'm too young to be having heart problems.

Lousy Keys

Alright, I can't complain overly much about my apartment. It is spacious enough for a single fellow on his own (could be larger, but it's decent enough). I can't complain about maintenance, either. Crews regularly come through to check furnace filters and coils, ensure that smoke alarms work properly, and replace burned out lightbulbs outside on our shared walkways. I haven't seen but one bug in the apartment since I moved in on January 1, and I'm pretty sure that bug flew in while I had the door open.

While there are a few things I would like to see improved about the complex, overall, it merits some appreciation.

The biggest problem I have with the complex, though, is the keys. I don't know where they have their keys made, but the key-making people need to seriously consider making keys out of metal that is a bit tougher. I've dealt with some metals before in my science classes, and they run the gamut from being so soft you can scratch them with a fingernail to so dense that they stop bullets mid-flight. Our keys seem to be made from something toward the former end of the scale. On my first day moving in, when I first got my key, it broke off in the lock as I tried to enter my apartment. I laughed it off and got the office to give me a replacement.

Tonight, I came back from having coffee with an old friend and my old high school English teacher (the three of us spent an evening discussing Dostoevsky). Wouldn't you know it, my key broke off in the lock again. This time, though, the office wasn't open. I had to find a neighbor who had a flashlight and a pair of needle-nosed pliers to pull out the piece, and then I had to drive to my parents' house to pick up the spare key I left with them. I'd have used my own tools (my dad must have gotten them for me for a reason), but they were inside my apartment.

Seriously, keys aren't supposed to break off when you put them in the lock and turn them. What's the deal?

It wasn't about you, I swear.

I have scars.
I have a beard.
I'm a pretentious ass.
I'm passive aggressive at times.
I own a large number of really awful CD's.
I'm self-centered and egotistical.
I have delusions of grandeur.
I am mediocre.
I suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder.
I am a manic-depressive.
I'm afraid of being forgotten.
I'm afraid of being alone.
I fill my life with fancy objects because it hides the fact that I'm empty.
I make the 'sucky' list.
I'm a coward who trys to buy friends with cookies and sweet words.
I air offenses/slights online instead of initiating a confrontation face-to-face.
I can read the subtext between the lines.