The Dog Farm

So you know how when you're a kid and you see a stray dog and your parents stop to pick it up but then when they find out there's no collar on the dog they call animal control to pick up the dog because they've told you every time that, "No, we can't keep this dog" so then you start imagining what you're going to do when you're a grown up and one of those ideas pops into your head like the end of one of those 101 Dalmation movies where you tell yourself you'll make a million dollars and buy a huge plot of land so that hundreds of unwanted and lost dogs can roam happily and freely without a care in the world?

Well, my uncle pretty much made that dream come true for him. He lives in Colombia and moved out to this semi-remote area where he could have a larger plot of land so he could keep every stray street dog he found. I think his current count is something like 27 mutts roaming on his property out there. This ain't no rescue organization (although if he comes across a puppy that someone want's to give a forever home to, he'll help out) he's literally taking dumped dogs off the street and giving them food and shelter. People have brought him dogs and he doesn't turn them away. He's no dog whisperer either... all he gives these dogs is lots of love and they're all happy as can be.

I thought these pictures were pretty cute, so I figured I'd share.

A Case of the Mondays. On Wednesday.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, layoffs at my office have forced me to take on a few receptionist duties for part of the work day. I have a new appreciation for receptionists. They filter through a lot of crappy people and I've learned some things that I'm sure people in customer service or in a receptionist type role can relate to. In general I have your average office related rants but maybe my time in reception hell has only exacerbated my irritation particularly with people who call in. So. Time for a vent.

1. Say "please" - I don't care who you are and I don't even care if you say it in an angry voice. Even through your angry tone, I can tell you are trying to suppress your inner-hulk when you say please. I appreciate it. I will go out of my way to try and hunt down the person you're looking for or try and figure out some way to help you.

2. Never call me "sweetie" or "honey". EVER. You don't know me you condescending bitch. Don't think that just because I'm directing your call I don't know what your talking about. As a matter of fact, I could probably help answer at least part or all of your angry question, but the minute you talk down to me I'm going to let you squirm and wait for someone else to call you back. If you do this and you're actually looking to talk to me, I'll pretend I'm someone else and put you into my voicemail with a note saying "condescending bitch" and call you back at the very end of the day. And you old guys who think you can call me "sweetie" or "honey" because I sound young and you're old and fat... you can suck it. My husband and friends don't call me sweetie or honey so you sure as hell can't.

3. Have your shit together. Who the hell calls some place of business without having any of the stuff they're asking about in front of them? Did you think I would just magically know who you wanted to talk to and who your call was supposed to go to? I'm picking up the phones, not reading your mind.

4. I get why you're pissed and actually it really is all your own fault.

5. Be extra nice. Please is great - it goes soooo far. BUT if you're that caller who is cheerful and patient despite your crappy situation, I'll help you out first. In the same vein, don't tell me to do something for you "now" and don't threaten me with "or else" because it actually makes me not care about what happens to you and I'll want to help you out last.

6. Listen and follow instructions. If I tell you to leave your name and phone number and property address, we need all three. So when you get a call back and you have to wait on hold for a few minutes while we look up your data because you didn't leave the requested information, that's your fault. When I ask you what state your property is in, the correct answer is not "Lake Elsinore" (state of disrepair, state of mourning... all those would also be acceptable answers if you were a smart ass... you would make me laugh, so you'd get a bonus point.)

7. Be nice in your voicemail. If you're rude, I mark it "rude," "angry bitch," "jackass," "asshole" etc. Typically I return calls in the order they were received, but if you get a mark like that on your voicemail note, you're bumped to the bottom. I also mark people who are really really nice... and call them back immediately.

8. Being angry doesn't help. Really, it doesn't.

9. Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Get it together. I'm not a doctor. You can't call me on my cell over the weekend and I'm not going to respond to your e-mail after I go home. Don't leave me angry messages and multiple e-mails on a Sunday telling me you needed the information yesterday. The recording says our office is closed (please see item #6). That's what you get.

10. I do call everyone back and I do respond to every e-mail. I promise. Now take a deep breath.

I've Been a Bad Bad Blogger

Ok. I've been bad. I missed Friday AND Monday blogs in June. Fail. I'll have to make up blogs in blog-cram-school over the weekend.

Plus, this blog is going to suck because I forgot what I originally wanted to write about so I'm just filling up space hoping it will come back to me.

It won't.

I cried a lot watching a movie tonight. I cry easily watching movies. I'm not regularly a crybaby but movies or TV can really get me. I totally shut down the outside world and give in. It doesn't matter if it's a terrible movie or a great movie... tug at my heartstrings with the right formula and I'll cry. Usually this involves some sort of uplifting or tragic parent-child moment... or a dog getting hurt... or a dog getting his feelings hurt. Also, if I cry, the movie can still suck big time... so my emotional involvement doesn't necessarily mean I like the movie. (Case and point "Harry Potter and The One Where That Kid Dies and His Dad Cries." That was the official title, right? Hate that movie.)

Tonight I watched "Ma Vie En Rose" (not to be confused with "La Vie En Rose") about a seven year old kid with a gender identity crisis growing up in a very loving family that just has no idea how to deal with his issues. It was portrayed so realistically with characters that you could easily identify with. Anyway, this isn't a movie review but it moved me to tears and I still liked the movie.

There are movies that make me cry so much that I can never watch again (The Green Mile, Dumbo and Glory. If you need me to explain, I will.) There are movies that I'm embarrassed to admit they made me cry (Anchor Man) and movies I cried in that I'm bitter I wasted my tears on (probably too many for me to list.)

So, tomorrow, I will have puffy swollen eyelids - which will suck. I love how red and plump my lips get when I cry... why can't they stay like that for a day after crying and my eyelids go down to normal? So lame.

Procrastination Person... FTW!

Late blog today.

I'm having one of those days where I have so much stuff on my list of things-to-do that I don't even want to start on one of them because the thought of having to go through the rest of the list is just too overwhelming to even want to break the productivity seal. Not that anything on my list is very difficult to begin with.

This I suppose is the real heart of my blog. Procrastination. There's nothing I would like more right now than to take a nap... even though I could be finishing up a long list of busy work I've been putting off. Once I get home, I have to clean the house and take care of a number of other tasks... and I am already thinking about how I really should play on the Wii first. Because I have one.

I even procrastinated when it came to writing my blog today. And now, I'm using my blog as a means of procrastination. It's a vicious cycle and it results in pointless blogs. No one likes that.

I need to figure out a way to use my procrastination skills for good. If I was a superhero named Procrastination Person, I'd have a really cute outfit and cute hair and my nails would be really cute with some kind of cute design on them... probably some bows and sparkles and such. These are important features for Procrastination Person because it shows that I have obviously taken way too much time to focus on my cute appearance instead of my super abilities.

Lame you say. Procrastination can't be a superpower.

Lame your face.

Procrastination Person can save the world through procrastination by using her super procrastinating abilities to convince bad guys to do their bad things some other time.

Imagine aliens came to invade Earth. The world governments would send me, Procrastination Person, to the front line to meet with their leader who (having seriously underestimated my procrastination abilities) would be prevented from ever even landing on Earth by my convincing them to Google their names, sign up for Facebook and reorganize their spaceship drawers. Sure, I might not be able to take them out by force, but I could buy enough time for the backup special forces to arrive.

Lets say a mugger was attacking a little old lady - I just use my procrastination powers to get the mugger to go home so he can watch some TV and deal with mugging later. Hug the little old lady. Once bad guy is at home watching Rock of Love Bus reruns, we call the cops. Busted!

One downfall of Procrastination Person would be that she procrastinates. SO it's important for her to have a day job so she can procrastinate by saving the world instead of having her day job be saving the world (because if that were the case, she would put off saving the world by, I don't know, setting up ringtones on her phone.) She also should work best within a team of other superheroes with the ability to kick butt when needed. Including hers. This all makes sense, yes?

I need to get my ass on Stan Lee's SciFi show - Who Wants To Be A Superhero. Procrastination Person for the win!

SPAM. A lot.

I don't get SPAM.

We'll I get it.

I just don't understand it.

Does anyone actually make money off SPAM e-mails? Does anyone actually buy anything they get in a SPAM e-mail? This stuff is ridiculous and who actually goes for it?

I don't have a friend named "Nina" who wants to send me an e-mail about that "thing we talked about last night" and the "pills that will help." And even if I did have a friend named Nina and we talked about a thing and the pills, wouldn't she have given me the info over the phone? At least the name of the pills over the phone? And if I was friends with her and she was selling me this crap, wouldn't she come over to my house to show me this stuff and maybe hang out for a little bit? Isn't that what friends do? Maybe she lives out of state, you say. Fine. I suppose then she could e-mail me the info about the pills and the thing since she couldn't come over and she probably didn't have the details with her while she was driving home from work when we talked last night.

Wouldn't it have been nicer if Nina at least spelled my name correctly - I mean, we are friends, right? Or maybe she could at least have written an introductory paragraph about some of the other things we talked about and about how much she misses me and that she wishes she could move back to California and that she's sorry she forgot to call me on my birthday AND THEN get into the link and the pills that changed her life.

It might also help if Nina had a better grasp of my gender and realized that I don't need these pills. Maybe she's thinking Mike needs them - but isn't that kind of offensive? I mean, sure, we're friends, but Nina doesn't know Mike that well and he doesn't need those pills, but even if he did, it's not something I'd be comfortable talking about with her anyway. We aren't that close. I feel like she's being too invasive. I would never click on her stupid link. And I think it's about time I ended this toxic friendship.

Marked as SPAM. Beat that Nina.

Then there's that guy from my class who is always e-mailing me about the change in times for my final exams. Thank goodness. What a nice guy to let me know about that stuff. Who isn't stressing out about final exam times!? I need to check that stuff out ASAP.

WOW! There's no info on the test time but you're telling me that my final is about JLo's naked butt? Sweet. I'm going to totally ace this test! All I have to do is click on this link you sent me here... wait. Wait a second you sneaky snake... I graduated from college about 6 years ago! You almost got me! Almost!

Stupid stupid stupid.

How is it at all possible to make any money with stuff like that? How does it make any sense? Who comes up with these ridiculous e-mails (and maybe I should get a job there - because I can be pretty ridiculous)? It's a thousand times worse than the paper equivalent. Your paper junk mail at least attempts to look official and trick you into an unnecessary purchase. These SPAM e-mails don't even try.

All I can say is thank goodness GMail has a killer SPAM filter.

Ok. Rant over.

The Bigness of Hope

What a strange day it is today. I feel like after yesterday, everything should still be on pause. Life doesn't know the word "pause." My body and my emotions continue to move on despite my desire to just freeze for a moment. I suppose it's meant to be that way. How else are we expected to ever move forward? How long of a pause is long enough? Despite feeling like I couldn't laugh yesterday, I laughed. Despite feeling like I wouldn't think about it today, the thoughts move without me. Despite feeling like I shouldn't work today, I'm able to do my job. And I'm OK. Thank goodness we're built this way.

I think I have to get at least one more emo blog out before I'm back to normal though...

As a Catholic, we're offered theories on the afterlife that Church theologians present based on their studies of scripture and their understanding of the nature of God - all with the mini-disclaimer that no human can be 100% positive about precisely what happens once our physical bodies die. Believers are able to hold tight to the Catholic ideas that make sense to them - be it as clear cut as an actual plane of existence known as heaven or as vague as a complete spiritual unification with a universe called God... and then debate amongst themselves which idea is the most correct (haha). My dad is an Atheist and for as long as I can remember he would say that when he dies, he would turn into worm food and that was it. He seems to be fine with that. While I admit that his belief is a very logical possibility, it's not one that I subscribe to exactly.

I remember reading a long time ago on some website or maybe in a magazine, an essay written by this guy who claimed to be an Atheist since his childhood who had an experience which changed his life in a very unexpected way. From his youth he fully embraced the idea that the physical and present was all there was and it was all he needed. He raised his own children with the same ideas and of course, they were completely normal, happy, well adjusted kids. There was no gaping hole in is life or a feeling as if something was missing. He had been living his life happily without a god figure.

He continued to write about how he had been riding his bike one day (like he did on a regular basis) when a car coming full speed and with no intention to stop came crashing towards him. The second he saw the car he was positive that it would be a fatal hit. He wrote that in that moment, his life actually flashed before his eyes - he saw his wife, his children, his parents, his childhood and adult memories all flood in and out in one quick second. In that same split second before his body hit the pavement he remembers the calm in suddenly knowing that his existence would not end with the death of his physical body. He ended up being critically injured and if I remember correctly he was in a coma for a while. Once recovered, he was unable to get those last moments out of his head. Having been raised an Atheist and never really concerning himself with thoughts of the afterlife he was struck with how bizarre his last thoughts seemed to him. Like some people take comfort in the idea of a place called "heaven," he had taken a great deal of comfort in the idea that his time was fixed, finite and attached to the physical plane. In that moment, he didn't have an immediate sense of God or of what would actually exist for him when his physical body died, but the shock of suddenly understanding that it wasn't all over was enough to give him pause. After much consideration, he decided a more appropriate belief system for him would be Agnosticism rather than Atheism (and I think that after many more years he ended up choosing to go down some faith based or road to enlightenment type path but I don't remember specifically how that went.)

His near-death story stuck with me and somehow brings me comfort in ways that other stories about the afterlife, heaven, reincarnation, angels, and near-death visions don't seem to be able to and it has nothing to do with judgment or salvation. For me, there is tremendous hope in the broad suggestion that there is something - anything - that exists as us after our last breath. The grandness of hope in the limitless possibilities following the brief moment we call life completely dwarfs the despair of a physical death. To try and put that ambiguous hope into a neatly shaped container and label it with descriptions my human brain can comprehend is somehow not doing it enough justice. Am I really only as alive as my body? Am I then only as alive as my heart? My brain?

I think that what I felt yesterday was sorrow. What I feel today is hope - this strange calm from knowing nothing at all. My comfort is in the mystery. In hoping that those who have passed before me have begun an adventure in discovery that the rest of us can only guess about and the hope that the possibilities are even greater than I could have ever imagined.

The Magic Man

I'm oscillating wildly right now. One moment I'm calm, centered and accepting and quite literally in the next moment tears cloud my vision and I can't keep them in. My thoughts flat line and nothing comes out. I can't decide if I'm supposed to be more sad, more overwhelmed, more angry than I actually am or if this is what sorrow actually feels like. Right at this second... ?

My parents were both immigrants to the United States. I didn't have biological grandparents that we'd visit on holidays or that would come to our special school events or that would send us Christmas and birthday gifts. 3 of my biological grandparents had passed away by the time I was 2 and my paternal Grandmother lived thousands of miles away in Iceland (we visited her in Iceland and she came and visited us here in CA before she passed a few years ago.) In the absence of close biological relatives, my parents' friends became our grandparents and aunts and uncles. Some of these pseudo-family members drifted out of our lives as my parents' friendships faded or changed. Many of them didn't.

The closest people we had to grandparents were Ben & Gigi. My earliest memories of Ben are in an unfamiliar garage, maybe at my parent's first house. At that time, my brother and I called Ben "The Magic Man." He'd keep us entertained with slight-of-hand tricks that would astound us. My dad is a mechanic and he had a specific clientele of Citroen owners who trusted him to fix their unusual cars. Ben owned a few Citroens and was one of my dad's regular customers so he frequently came to our house for tune ups. Even as we started getting older and figured out his magic tricks, we'd still run out when he stopped by to see what neat trick he could show us this time.

As we grew up Ben & Gigi became an important part of our American family. They came to our important events - musicals, concerts, recitals, dinners (they even sat through the 4 hour madrigal feast each year - for my brother AND me - that's 6 years of that stuff!) Ben & Gigi (and my Godfather) were the closest people I could imagine to having physical Grandparents like many of my friends did.

In doing the planning for our wedding, I read about the significance and traditions of the "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe." The "something borrowed" was supposed to be borrowed from a happily married couple to act as a good luck charm for happiness in your own marriage. There was no question in my mind that I wanted to borrow something from Ben & Gigi. Gigi lent me a ring of hers that I wore on my pinky the day I married Michael. They had been married 64 years. We danced together on our wedding day - the longest married couple in the room and the newest married couple - sashaying across the dance floor to the sound of Glenn Miller's Orchestra playing Moonlight Serenade.

Ben met Gigi in Belgium during World War II. He was serving with the American army and Gigi was a pretty Belgian girl secretly working with the resistance. Gigi had described some of the awful things she remembered during the war, hunger, death, entire neighborhoods of Jewish families disappearing overnight. When the Allied forces came in to liberate Belgium, her mother volunteered at their church to take in some of the servicemen for a weekly dinner. Her mother used up her savings to buy a chicken off the black market and roasted it for her guests' dinner. Ben remembered it being the best meal he had had in a long time and of course thinking that chicken was regular fare at their home, showed up a few times more for dinner and hoping for another moment with Gigi. The rest was history. After the war, Ben traveled the world with the army but set up home base in Laguna Beach where he retired and they became fixtures in the community.

With everyone's busy schedules, the last time I saw Ben & Gigi was in March. Ben had been diagnosed with cancer and was scheduled to start chemo the day after we visited, so we wanted to visit before things got really tough for them. We were getting ready to go off on our Japan trip and since Ben had been to Japan a number of times and loved it, we spent the afternoon listening to his great stories from his visits from right after WWII to the 80's.

Their home had been filled with evidence of their world travels and they were never seemed afraid of what the daily news told them they should be afraid of. They were a calm, patient and jovial couple. They were always laughing with one another. Normally I'm uncomfortable around adults not of my own generation - I never felt that way with Ben & Gigi. I just liked listening to them. I didn't have to be a part of their conversations, I just enjoyed the world they painted for me as they talked and laughed and ate guavas off the trees in their back yard.

Today I found out that Ben had passed away. They had anticipated a rough recovery but he didn't make it this time around. He passed away holding Gigi's hand in their den.

I can't really describe what I'm feeling right now.

I actually found an article in their local paper where they were quoted back in 2007 on a story asking what Laguna Beach residents would like for Christmas:

“I have everything I want,” said Gigi Blount, pointing to her husband of 61 years.
“There is nothing we want very much, except more time together,” Ben Blount said.

I think I would also love just a little more time.

Making Babies in October

June is ridiculous. Including only close friends and immediate family we celebrate 7 birthdays in June. Seven. Add on the summer bridal showers and baby showers that all seem to happen around the same time and it makes June really expensive. Mike and I aren't planning on having kids for a little while, but I think I need to make it a personal goal to not have a baby in June. Maybe something magical happens in October for people (Oktoberfest?) but jeeze-oh-pete, June is a boom.

Or maybe I'm just friends with a lot of Gemini and Cancer signs because I'm a Pisces and supposedly I get along fine with crabs and duplicitous twins. Reputably, I'm not supposed to get along well with Sagittarius - which is funny because I think my Father-In-Law is a Sagittarius and we get along fine. I hope. haha. Is anyone else a Sagittarius? I guess I don't know too many Sagittarians... maybe because I'm a Pisces. Oooo...spooky!!!

I'm not really all that into astrology but I sometimes wish I knew more. I remember back in college I went to a couple of parties at the home of a guy who directed a couple of movies you've definitely heard of, but probably wouldn't have seen unless you had kids. He was a really nice guy (despite wearing sunglasses at night). Some of his parties would just be about 20 people in his den and some of them would be so big I'd never be able to guess how many people were there. In either situation I'd always find that it would be really hard for me to talk to these Hollywood-types. I was a college film student and they were all working in film. You'd think I could have come up with something. If I had realistic networking skills (which I don't) and if I was really good at selling my own sh*t (which I am not ) I probably could have worked my way into the biz at all these parties I had the opportunity to go to. (I just felt like a leech even talking about my writing and jobs in those situations... maybe I should have tried harder to get a writing agent... then they could have been the leech for me.) Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

At one of those really big parties where he didn't have the time to play host to me the entire night, I ended up wandering off to a corner with a couple of girlfriends. A woman sitting near us was left alone as her date went to go pick up another drink. On his way, her date tripped (or did something awkward like that) so he deflected the awkwardness by making a funny comment directed at us so we were all laughing together for a split second.

Normally, after a moment like that I try to have a quick light-hearted follow up comment with the strangers involved and then turn back to my familiar group and continue conversation in a desperate attempt to avoid eye contact (see...that's how good I am at social situations. Nice.) Well, the woman (who was gorgeous) introduced herself to us (she was good at social situations) and we all started talking about how we all ended up at this party. That conversation lasted maybe 5 minutes and I began to fear the awkward silence and the well-it-was-nice-to-meet-you-but-we-don't-have-much-to-talk-about-so-we're-going-to-go-over-there-now moment, when she suddenly asked my friend and guessed correctly, "Are you a Libra?"

As her date returned with her drink, she proceeded to tell us how she could tell that my friend was a Libra and all the personality traits and compatibilities. I asked her if she was an astrologist and she explained that she didn't even really believe in it for horoscopes or anything, but knowing personality traits related to astrology was her hobby.

We ended up talking with her for a long time about personalities and compatibilities until another party goer pulled her away to introduce her to someone else. We had something we could talk about without knowing anything else about one another and without having to share a common interest in music, film, ideas or people. I would have never thought that astrology would be a useful hobby to someone who had no interest in horoscopes but here she was able to talk to complete strangers about something we had serious knowledge about - ourselves. It's an instant go-to conversation piece.

The rest of that night was kind of a blur. We met back up with a few of the other girls that came along with us to the party to discover one of them had taken full advantage of the open bar that night and was currently stumbling down the steep windy driveway leading to the house telling people she couldn't believe she actually got to go to a Hollywood party. Yah. It was embarrassing. I think one of us actually ended up having to put a hand over her mouth to get her to stop yammering.

I eventually lost touch with the director guy (ok, really, I just felt awkward talking to him after my girlfriends all told me I was dense for not being able to tell that he was trying to be "more than a friend." I think it might have been Jessica who pretty bluntly said on the car ride home, "Dude. He wants to do you. Big time." See, I had a boyfriend at the time but this guy would randomly call and e-mail to say hi and invite me up to his house when he was having friends over for dinner. Being about an hour away, I usually had to turn down his last minute invites but never really thought much of it. For some reason, at that time, I assumed that when you tell someone you have a boyfriend they know better than to try and hit on you. I also assumed all his friendliness was just because he wanted to actually be my friend. Apparently when my friends saw him interact with me in person they could see a whole different side of the story. His side of the story involved some sort of funky sexy time.) BUT the point is that I still remember that woman and I might even recognize her if I saw her on the street now.

So. I learned many valuable lessons that night. 1) Astrology can sometimes be useful. 2) Don't bring drunk girl #4 to cool parties. Ever. And lastly, 3) man-penis-brain is sneaky.

Lessons learned.

With My Feet In The Air & My Head On The Ground...

In the last year, my company, like many others, has had to lay off a few people to cope with the economic downturn. Most recently they laid off the receptionist so a few of us have had to step in to fill in for reception duties when needed. I end up sitting at the front desk for a little while during morning meetings so when clients come in and out there's someone there to give them their parking validation. Believe it or not, I'm not a front-desk type of person. I've been doing this for about a week now and it still stresses me out.

This stress manifested itself last night when I had a dream about parking validation.

Really, some might consider it a nightmare. In my dream, there were 4 people needing validation all at once and I couldn't read the timestamps on their parking tickets. So I just started guessing. I arbitrarily put stickers on their stupid tickets as they made comments about how poorly I was doing my job because I was moving so slowly. As I handed the tickets back their timestamps became clear and I realized I had given them the wrong validation amounts... so I had to get the tickets back and add more stickers... to the point where the backside of the ticket was covered in incremental validation stickers. I was like a crazy person mumbling as I handed their tickets back and trying to explain that the reason I was so terrible at parking validation was because it wasn't my normal job.

So. Yes. I had a dream about parking validation. AND it prevented me from having a lovely night's sleep too.

I think we all have work related dreams. I haven't had many since I've been working in an office (maybe because daily work life is usually so predictable) but when I used to work at Disneyland I'd have them all the time. Really really weird work dreams when I worked at Disneyland. Maybe it was the costumes? (Marci - you do stage costuming... do you have weird work related dreams too?)

If you didn't already know, I worked as Snow White at Disneyland in college. When you're "on set" it means you're out in the park interacting with the guests in character. When I was working there, Snow White didn't have a fixed location like the princesses do now. I generally did my sets out by the Wishing Well or around the castle and more often than not, did my sets without a host to help with the lines and crowds so you got really good at reading people's watches and working a crowd so you could get backstage for a break on time. In that area by castle there are a lot of birds - ducks, sparrows and two swans - which I would point out to the kids acting like I could talk to the birds like Snow White would in the movie... even though the birds would fly away as soon as they were done eating the popcorn on the floor.

Anyway. I had one dream where I was on set like any other day out by the Wishing Well in front of the castle when it suddenly hit me. I HAD THE POWER TO CONTROL THE BIRDS!!! I was like freaking Aquaman of the air. So, I spread my arms out and did my little bird call (which of course, in my dream was the high note that Snow White sings in the dancing scene with the 7 dwarves and the animals in the cottage... even though I couldn't sing that if my life depended on it) and the sparrows came and landed on my arms and the swans crawled out of the moat and the ducks waddled toward my feet and gazed at me in all my bird control glory. Even the killer hawk that was known to take out the ducklings around the castle stopped his murderous spree and landed on top of the wishing well to do my bidding.

The crowd around me gasped, whispering things like "oh my gosh, she's the real Snow White" (because apparently in my version of the Snow White movie, she was a superhero with the ability to manipulate birds) and I spent the rest of my set showing the crowd how awesome my bird control skills were. No one needed me to sign autographs or pose for pictures with them (which should have been evidence enough that this was a dream) they were all content to watch me make the birds lift my cape or bring me a rose or whatever crap I made them do. Within minutes, management got wind of my ability and wanted to take advantage of it sending me off to do shows and special events involving birds.

Of course my dreams are never that cohesive for long and if I recall correctly, I think this one ended up where somehow I was also approved for character work as Peter Pan because I had the ability to fly. Or that might have been another dream altogether. Seriously. I had the super ability to control birds and fly in my dream and I used it for a job at a theme park. What is wrong with me?

I do have a lot of weird and crazy dreams. If I remember them when I wake up I try to tell someone right away so they become more permanent memories. Maybe I should blog them here too. I've had a few that upon waking make me think "holy balls, that would be an awesome movie" so maybe if I blogged about them, I'd retain the inspiration to write another screenplay. Like Stephen King. Except probably not as scary. And it would probably involve me. And superpowers. Or something like that.

Parasomnia

A while ago, Angela over at According To Angela was participating in an attempt to blog every day for a month. I thought it was a pretty neat idea, but I missed the boat that time around. I think I'm going to give it a shot now since I have to make up for lost blog time. Well, almost. I'm going to try and blog at least once every weekday for the month of June (I think have ADD on the weekends). I wonder if quality will diminish with quantity. Probably.

Last night I woke up at 3 am to a thunderstorm happening pretty much right on top of my house. The flash of lightning lit up our room (despite our "black out curtains") and the thunder grumbled right along with it - no counting between flash and sound. It was so loud I got up in a hazy stupor to attempt to close my bedroom window. It took me about 3 minutes of pushing the window with all my strength under curtains and without lifting the blinds all the way up to realize that the window was already closed.

Once my brain caught up with my body, I pulled apart the curtains and lifted the corner of our blinds to look outside. Now I'm not sure that my vision wasn't affected by the half dose of NyQuil I took last night for a stuffy nose, but everything outside was... pink. It wasn't a pretty My Little Pony happy rainbow cloud pink either. It was this gross watered down blood shade of puke pink. The clouds, the street, the cars - everything was tinted this nauseating pink. The lightning flashed again and for a second everything was super bright and contrast before going back to that icky pink. There was nothing I could do about it obviously, so I went back to bed and talked for a little bit with Mike about how loud the thunder was and how yucky it looked outside. He laughed as we both mumbled ourselves back to sleep.

This morning as Mike was leaving for work, I mention something about how crazy the thunderstorm was last night. He looks at me blankly. "There was a thunderstorm?"

Mike is like the Incredible Hulk. Almost. His Hulk comes out when he's asleep. Luckily Mike-Hulk doesn't have anger issues and is pretty much just like the regular Mike...only generally more confused, more possessive of pillows and aggressive with his bed space. I will have full conversations with Mike-Hulk in the middle of the night with his eyes wide open looking right at me. Usually these midnight conversations will make no sense at all so I know I'm talking to Mike-Hulk, but occasionally there are midnight conversations that flow perfectly without sleepy slurring that make total sense. When that happens, I think I'm talking to the real Mike and we'll chit chat like normal before falling back asleep. It's only when morning comes that I realize I was fooled when I mention a conversation we had during the night and real Mike has no idea what I am talking about. I think the Mike-Hulk is getting wise and is probably trying to glean some kind of useful information off me. There are probably hundreds of sensitive secrets I might tell Mike in confidence that the Mike-Hulk is trying to get a hold of (you know, like my ATM PIN so he could drain my bank account and steal my identity. Darn you Mike-Hulk!)

I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before, but my favorite Mike-Hulk moment was the night of the "mysterious disappearing wet spot". I'm lying in bed watching late night TV next to Mike who has been sleeping for at least the last 2 hours. He suddenly grabs his pillow and throws it on the floor. Puts his face on the bed where his pillow was and starts sniffing. I ask him if he's ok. "The dog peed on the bed" he says. Again, I've been awake for the last 2 hours and the dog has been nestled comfortably (for her) between my legs (why do dogs do that?) so I know she hasn't peed on the bed - much less peed under his pillow. At this point, I'm pretty confident that I'm dealing with Mike-Hulk so I turn back to the TV watch for a few minutes before turning it off and trying to get to sleep. Only a few moments pass before I feel Mike-Hulk pulling on my pillow. I grab hold of it for dear life as Mike-Hulk pulls the other side with full force (a woman knows no strength like when she's trying to keep her side of the blankets... or her own pillow). I ask, "do you want a pillow?" He nods. I pick up his pillow from the floor and give it back to him. He curls up with his pillow - it seems to pacify the Mike-Hulk for the night. Of course, in the morning real Mike has no real recollection of what transpired the night before. After much thinking, he has a vague recollection of the bed being wet... but that's about it.

Mike said that as a kid he used to sleepwalk. I read the Wikipedia entry on sleepwalking and it's pretty crazy all the things people can do or have done while "asleep". Neither Mike or the Mike-Hulk are ever the violent or angry types so I wouldn't expect anything as scary as some sleepwalkers have apparently done. I'm not going to lie though, I would love it if Mike-Hulk suddenly got the urge to scrub the bathtub and toilets in the middle of the night and had no recollection of it in the morning. How great would it be if Mike-Hulk decided to retile our bathroom floors and repaint the cabinets in the middle of the night? Supposedly some sleep walkers have the ability to do those things with great skill! I wonder if I could use the power of suggestion during my next Mike-Hulk encounter to get him to do that. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ooo... Look... I made a bloggy.

Ok, there are a few of you who read my blogs over on MySpace and if you read my most recent blog over there last month you'd know I was boo-hooing the rise of Facebook without a full fledged blog feature... ( I poo-hoo on "notes.") This isn't quite perfect either since I can't automatically make my blogger blog private for only my Facebook buddies without sending them an e-mail invite and then having to have everyone to sign up for blogger permissions. Or something like that. I don't know. It's too hard to think about right now. So just pretend it all makes sense.

Look, the point is I need a nap and sometimes I need to blog about it. What am I supposed to do when I NEED to blog and my blog doesn't quite fit in with any other blog I have set up? You know… the kind of blog that would make perfect sense on my MySpace blog, but just looks stupid everywhere else (because it does, trust me.)

Today I happened to need to blog not about my nap, but something just as riveting. Imaginary education... getting a degree in something ridiculous and having a job that would just kick so much ass because I'm sure it's just like it looks on TV. If I had unlimited funds and mega-brains, I would totally go back to school to study (in a very particular order):

1. Theoretical Physics (and by extension...Quantum Physics... duh)
2. Linguistics (as in philology... like @ MIT...)
3. Food Anthropology

Let's be honest. I was blessed with some talents... but I'm no genius and I am definitely no math wiz. At the ripe old age of twenty-something, I've come to accept that math may be my mortal enemy and science is a dish best served in 1/2 hour increments on the Discovery Channel. I know I am not equipped for physics - but for the love of all that is holy I can not get enough of the stuff that is made just for people like me.

Stephen Hawking, I tried to read your ridiculous book and understand what the hell you were writing about. It wasn’t happening. But! Stick your little butt on a panel of theoretical physicists, ask you all questions about virtually anything and I will sit there and listen to your robotic voice for 90 hours. I will DVR every Science Channel special on time travel, parallel universe, string theory, subatomic particles, worm holes, dark matter, thermal radiation, extraterrestrials... whatever. Slap Michio Kaku's name on something, and I’m on it. If I had mega-brains, this would be a non-issue. I'd totally be working on my time machine right now. Actually, scratch that. In an alternate dimension, I do have mega brains, and it is a non issue because I already built my time machine and I'm traveling through dimensions as we speak. Boom! Roasted!

I’m well aware of my mathematical limitations. I have no plans (barring a freak accident which awakens my sleeping mutant super-brain… totally possible) to realistically venture into the world of physics. I don't have much the same excuse for the other two on my list - which is where the whole "unlimited funds" thing kicks in. As a revered and brilliant linguist, I'd probably spend my days doing long hours of research for average pay and eventually with multiple doctorates under my belt, maybe become a professor or lecturer. Not quite the payoff for years of tests and paper writing. Because I do happen to love doing nothing so very much, I can't justify being out of the work force for long enough to go to school to be successful followed by years of working crap jobs to pay back the loans that would come along with the package (I got my BA in Film... so that was useful... for picking movies on my Blockbuster queue... I kid, I kid... I valued my education, etc and whatnot). The same goes for a food anthropologist. I mean there is pretty much one job outside of the academic world for a food anthropologist and that's on Alton Brown's Good Eats... I think the competition would be pretty stiff.

So, I suppose that until I have my unlimited funds and mega-brain I'm content to skim the surface of the subjects that interest me. Who knows? I’m fickle. Ask me again next year. My interests will have probably changed and I'll want to study interior design, 3d imaging and cheese making. Actually... cheese making sounds like a pretty good idea... wait. No, cheese eating sounds like a pretty good idea. That's what I'll do.