HOW CAN YOU JUMP HIGHER THAN MOUNT FUJI?

please leave your responses in the comments.

happy weekend





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THE DREAMER: REMITTANCE

me: this is what i mean, i hate this. i'm in prison. i'm actually in prison. yes. no. this can't be. i didn't do anything wrong. it's just functions, it's just sex, it's just love, it's just fluid. wait, this can't be. i'm actually in the cell. i feel like i've just woken up, but i haven't woken up. i'm in jail. no, this can't be happening, what did i do? please be a dream, please be a dream, please be a dream. my God in Heaven, i believe in You, please look favorably upon your troubled lamb, guide me out of this Hell, land me safely back in Your Arms, in my bed, fast asleep, long ago turned out, not amongst the living, in the death of sleep, what dreams may come, dreams to sugarcoat this nightmare, i'm not in prison...please wake up, please be in my bed, my comfy bed, my beautiful room, the four walls of protection, i'll never curse Your Name again, i'll be a good boy, i want my family, i am a lowly cog in a small machine, but it's my machine, my tiny wondrous machine, i love everyone after all, i don't hate anymore, give me one more chance...

Doctor Lysander: it's okay, i'm touching your arm like i did that day, it's me, it's Lysander, your doctor, your friend, you are in my office, safe and sound, happy, alive, talking to another being, making progress, learning from your mistakes, you're not in jail, you're here with me forever.

i wake up red-faced and sweaty and the first face i see is not my cellmate's butt or the warden but precious Lysander, my lifelong friend. relief is too short a word, i gasp out all of my world trepidations and fear of evil and angst and fright. i return his arm in kind, i shake the good doctor's hand in friendship, reverence, and awe. thank the Lord i am not in jail, there's still hope. my arms soon go spaghetti all over the floor and i collapse in my mind from the stress and exhaustion.

me: see?

Lysander: i get it. it's a very powerful nightmare, a scary scene. you in prison represents the lowest of the low for you, the utter lack of control, for when you are jailed, you lose your right of self-identity, of being free, of having a stake in the world. you're no longer a person, you are a number. you are not the master of your own domain, of your own fate, you're not steering the ship anymore, stranger grimey longshoremen are.

me: the worst part is that it's so real, so damn real. that's good when it's a sex dream, but not here. slamming, yes, slammer, no. how can you learn to tell if it's a dream or not?

Lysander: you can't. because dreams are real, they are actually real, made up of real stuff, you go to that other realm when you dream, that other realm which is a real place. when you die of course, when everyone dies, you return to that dreamspace permanently, that is our real home, that's where all us souls live.

me: now i understand. homegoing, not funeral. but i am still of the living, so i need a roadmap for this realm.

Lysander: how about some water instead.

Lysander sprinkled the top of the waterline in the fishbowl beside his chair into his fingers. the fish swam around swimmingly. he dabbed his fingers into my forehead, making the sign of the triangle.

Lysander: you aren't healed (he chanted), but you're getting there.

me: thank you. i feel refreshed, comforted. you have no idea how good it was to see your face. i feel confident again, that a lot of my stuff is just a nightmare. i can stand on my own two feet again and take over my life. i have the authority again, the permission to pursue my dreams. i've retrieved my agency. i can be anything i want to be. i can fulfill my boyhood fantasies of how i thought my life'd turn out. i want to be a writer, the most famous writer in the world. i want art to pour from every pore of me. i want to write scripts, act in them, not produce them cos i'm bad with money, and ultimately direct them, naturally. i want to be the next humble one in line to continue the traditions of Spielberg, Lucas, and Henson. i want to rule the world like Madonna and Gaga.

Lysander: you can't.

me: huh?

Lysander: son, take out your green notebook.

i did, it was underneath a pile of shit in my raggedy backpack. i didn't usually take my favorite notebook to the sessions but i did today.

Lysander combed back his three strands of wild white hair on his bald head with his hand.

Lysander: son, do you ever remember going home after our sessions here in this office?

me: of course. i mean, well...no. i always go to the exercise room after being in your office here. and then...um, well, i always somehow end up back in this office for the next session.

Lysander: there are three compartments to this building, three rooms: this office, the exercise room to the left and my private study to the right.

me: yeah, you always go to that private study after our session and close the door hard. what's in there, anyway?

Lysander: i'll show you.

Lysander took me inside his study. it was a painfully small room with just enough room for a bare desk. on top of the barren desk were two items: an eraser and a picture of a boy.

Lysander: that's my boy. he's eight now, i think. i haven't seen him in ages. i come in here and lock the door because i don't want you to see me cry. this is my place after the session for me to sit down and think and deflate on the situation, decompress and work through our predicament.

me: what predicament?

Lysander: you have trapped us here in this three-room building. you nor i haven't left this space in a very long time. your green notebook is magic, or rather it's evil. whatever you write in that notebook becomes reality. if you write that you're happy, you will be happy. if you write that i'm sad, i will be sad. if you write that you're the President, you're the President, though i don't know why you'd want to be President in this economy. you don't remember what you wrote in your notebook that day?

me: no. i seem to be having blackouts again apparently.

Lysander: it was a session like any other. we were discussing how unusually sullen you had been that week. you said that you had a falling-out with your cat. it was summertime and you switched blankets from a large heavy woolly one to a light airy bedsheet because you were so hot at nights. your cat usually climbs up on top of you. you don't feel his claws because you are asleep and because the heavy blanket shields your body from potential scratches. the sheet, however, is so thin that the cat can easily slide his claws through to your stomach and back. you woke up in a startle one night to pain and blood on your body. of course your cat loves you and is innocent and doesn't know he is hurting you, but your human reaction was to flail your legs and arms around and shout out in agony. the cat got so scared he leaped from your bed and raced out of your room like a cat out of hell. the next morning you tried to comfort your tailed beast, you tried to find your cat and pat him on the head and tell him everything was okay, but every time you approached his head, the cat dodged your hand advance and scurried away. it had been like this for three days, the cat didn't greet you in the mornings like he normally did, he was forever in hiding. you took out your green notebook that day and though in a zoned-out zombie state, you started writing in front of me. you wrote:

three days, no comfort, no forgiveness. my cat hates me. my cat was the only being in the world i had left. i have no friends. this is the end. i wake up now thinking that i have two more years to live. only two more. so anyway. so you tell me, what's the point? why dream? why live? the dreamer is the lifer, the lover, the one who loves life, the one who gets out of bed not worrying about death but tempting fate and believing that he is immortal, that he has all the time in the world to create his dreams. the dreamer is a dream for me. i am not the dreamer, i am the waiter, i am dead and buried. two more years...

that was when i stopped your writing hand from writing anymore with my hand. i glanced at what you had written intently. the damage had already been done, it was written in the green notebook and was already reality. because i touched you, i was part of your wish. i was suddenly given the death sentence of two years to live like you. this is where we are now, we are trapped in this nothingness bubble because you wanted it. we will live here the remaining two more years, waiting to die, fruitlessly, without friends, like you said.

me: i had no idea. i'm sorry, i am so sorry. but how long ago was that? how much time do we have left?

Lysander: time has become staid in this place.........


.............not fluid, so it's hard to say. the clocks don't work anymore. the fish don't care either way. i'd say though with just my internal clock that we've done this back-and-forth for about two years now, it's getting close to the end.

i thought about this. it blew my mind. but i realized i didn't have time to realize how crazy it was. it was just what it was. i had to deal with this, it was happening whether or not i wanted to believe it, much like God. i could also choose to not deal with it, just let myself disappear into the ether, but...my dreams! my fucking dreams! and poor Lysander, what did i do to my only friend? oh what a terrible person i am!

me (dumbstruck): i don't know, i dunno what to do, what to say.

Lysander: let me see your notebook.

i let him examine it in his doctorly way. it was an ordinary notebook, worn sides, frizzy pages, obscure shapes and symbols on the front, clasped by a golden snake. it was a diary that would win out. oh how powerful the thoughts of man when written down in permanent ink. words heal, and they hurt more than any action, they form spells and incantations which can change the very reality.

Lysander: try ripping out the pages, ripping out that one page, maybe that will quell the spell.

i did, but not before Lys and i both covered our eyes because who knows what ripping out pages from a spellbook will do? nothing.

Lys: that is both a relief and a panic. it seems what is written cannot be unwritten. only further writing will do.

i thought about it some more, pondered it with the remaining moments that were left.

me: maybe this is for the best. maybe it's fate. it sucks for you, but it's a relief for me. i don't have to think anymore, i don't have to live, i just have to let go and let Curse.

Lys: what are you saying? are you crazy?! don't answer that, sorry. what about me? i didn't ask for this! i want to see my son again! i want to be the father to him my father wasn't to me! i want to visit my three boys at the monastery again, i want to counsel them through their difficult solitary spiritual journey. i still have good work to do! i live for my family and my patients, that is my identity! let my identity help discover your identity! this only happens if we both live! DON'T BE FUCKING SELFISH!!! but despite everything, i'm still willing to help you. there are three things in my desk in my study, you didn't see everything, there's my ipad mini inside the drawer there. i'll help you become famous, i'll help you get a million followers. there is only one app on it now, everything else was erased with the spell, i can't use it to call anyone, it only has the one Twitter app, your Twitter app, only you can send out tweets, only you have the password. i took the Hippocratic Oath to help people no matter what. hell, i took the oath as a human being to help others, that's what people do for each other, that's what life's about.

i had never witnessed Lys so impassioned before, never heard him utter any vulgarity, or maybe i wasn't paying attention. this wasn't a game, this wasn't Hungry Hungry Hippos, this was real. i saw him as a fellow human being for the first time, a man of blood, sweat, and tears like me, who had struggled his own struggles, not my own specific kind but not any less valid. he wasn't my doctor anymore---just some cog designed to help me---he was his own entity, his own machine that, for fuck sake, needed MY help this time. what were the odds? this is what it meant to live, to help other people, i couldn't escape that anymore, i couldn't be a loner forever, i had to extend my hand to another, break my solipsism and do the right thing for once, not the sulky thing. be the one who donates blood, not the time-vampire. he was Lys now, not The Doctor. he was my friend, not a character.

me: Lys, i hear you and i honor you. i'd never want to take you away from your son and your three sons. but i'm scared of dying alone, i'm scared of going to Hell for my sins.

Lys: what sins have you committed?

me: i've had sex. CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

Lys: sex isn't a crime, son, only sex crime is.

i got more and more exasperated as Lys got calmer and calmer.

me: when i'm not having sex, i'm masturbating all the time.

Lys: not a crime, not a sin, healthy in fact, don't let anybody tell you otherwise. fuck religion, fuck the media, fuck psychology. i'm not your psychologist, i'm your friend. friendship is all that matters in this world.

me: more sins, more sins, i commit them daily. i'm a sinful person. i'm sinning right now.

Lys: bullshit. what have you done?

i took out a shiny lighter from my backpack.

me: i smoke.

Lys laughed in a way i never heard from him before. it was a guffaw.

Lys: hahahaha, son, i'm here to tell you as a certified professional that smoking is good for you! don't believe the lies. smoking develops good hand-eye coordination. in what other practice does one practice moving their mouth in such a way as to form rings? better-shaped smoke rings equals better jaw mechanics later in life. you'll thank me later when you're eighty and still chewing your food while your fellow rest-home retiree is sucking his through a straw. thank God for smoking and smokers like you!

my panic attacks were a counter to my blackouts. every so often all the stress in my life would bubble into an energy ball which would become smaller and smaller inside my body until it burst through my ribs and i convulsed and shivered and became a nervous man of uncertain direction. it was not a pleasant experience, but the one good thing, the only good thing, was that for a brief moment in time, i would have a clear image of an important event or person in my life, a clarion call tracking my memory back to who i was, what i did, and who i am now because of it. it would come and go, but my brain was smart, diseased but smart, and the instant it flashed across my mind, i always knew what it was, what it meant. right now i am having a panic attack. Lysander is smart to let me have it. Lys is refereeing the incident but he's letting me go through with it, letting me cope with it, instead of artificially stopping it and rendering any data gained in my head an incomplete fragment...........i see it........i see him, Scratch with his century eyes and knowing smile. i finally remember.

i took a breath to settle down. i am proud i was able to ride the event's wave from beginning to end for the first time. Lys was with me but not, with me in spirit. he didn't hold my hand this time, but i held his. i took his hand into mine and we clasped our fingers together to form a large fist against the world. he held onto my hand as that hand wrote in the green notebook. i didn't know if any of this would work, but i wrote the following in thick black Sharpie marker on the last remaining empty page:

let Lysander be free of this. it's not his fault, none of this is, he's an innocent bystander. i offer myself in tribute, if that's what you want. let me be the sacrificial lamb, better a martyr than a nobody. let Lysander live forever to care for the sick. let it be known throughout the world that i was the man who saved Mother Teresa.

i knew Scratch would love that last little line of pride. it was fully coming back to me now, my blackout was whitening, clearing, things were coming into focus: buying the green notebook from a man dressed in black calling himself Scratch and looking decidedly not like Johnny Cash, the certificate i signed in a rush without reading it, the promise of power and fame, the cat incident wasn't my lowest point, it was this day i strolled the countryside after i purposefully fell into the river. i knew my fate was sealed on that day, a deal for the ages, sealed like a snake clasp on a book.

how devilish. i was too sick to enjoy this unlimited power. my next blackout would always come before i had a chance to wish for no more blackouts. i couldn't wish myself well, much less rule the world. thank God for my panic attacks, they were my conscience. i was never meant to rule the world, only love it.

i flicked my lighter on and the fiery flame spread fast and furious onto the pages of the green notebook. the flame formed flames, and through the flames i could see Doctor Lysander's cherubic face light up. i had to smile, too.

"but Doctor," i said, "i thought you always told me to believe in magic."

"i know, son," Lysander responded through a field of ash, "i'm sorry, i am so sorry."

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TMIT: THE PEANUT IS NEITHER A PEA NOR A NUT, DISCUSS.

1. what is the first thing that pops in your head when you see an attractive person? i've often led with my head instead of my heart, that gets me into trouble.

2. what is your idea of a dream date? describe the person and the dream experience. they say that this life is the dream of a butterfly, so i'd like to meet a nice lepidopterist-next-door, the marriage kind, salt-of-the-earth woman, good people, a luscious lustful lusting lascivious lepidopterist. we'd go to the butterfly museum and fuck in the bathroom.

3. how many serious relationships have you had? were you in love? zero. yes.

4. how many casual sexual relationships have you had? they were so casual i don't remember.

5. what will ruin a relationship for you? me :(

bonus: what is your definition of sexy? you. also, anyone who is too sexy for their shirt or their cat.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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OBVIOUS CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend

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THE DREAMER: RECOVERY

me: it's happening again. is someone there? i hate this feeling. help.

Doctor Lysander: i'm here. remember, this is normal, this is what we talked about, your body is still asleep but you are fully conscious and awake. it's a damnable situation, quite, you are trapped in your body, you try to move but can't.

me: i try to move, but can't. i want to move my head, which is in an awkward position on my pillow, to the other side. oh my neck hurts! feels like it's gonna snap. i want to move but i can't. this is hell.

Lysander: not yet. not yet. soon it will be. soon you will move it, just relax and try to go back to sleep. maybe your body will realign, slip back into working order, and you'll wake up naturally.

me: oh i'm awake. oh sweet relief! what happened there? suddenly i lost ten minutes.

Lysander: you went back to sleep, took a ten-minute catnap, and your body, mind, and soul adjusted. the ottoman is bent all to hell, but whatever. let's tackle these three dreams one at a time. first, the box on a stick.

me: you seem well-prepared today. you aren't even using any notes.

Lysander: once you accept, my child, a great burden is lifted off your shoulders. gone is excitable, unused energy and what dawns is energy used efficiently to get shit done. still have your green notebook?

me: of course, but not with me. don't think so anyway. i'm still having blackouts and panic attacks. i lose a lot of time, temporary amnesia, wake up and don't know where i am, though i always seem to be here in your office.

Lysander: all normal symptoms...usually. you haven't torn any pages out of that green notebook by any chance, have you?

me: don't think so. why?

Lysander: nothing. so i worked on these last night while i was in the adjacent room there. the one where you're high up in the sky in a box and the box is precariously teetering on the tip of a huge pole that's fashioned to the ground speaks to your loneliness. you have always felt alone, you never had any friends, right?

me: not a one, real one anyway, except my cat.

Lysander: except for me, permanently. but anyway, blurred lines, not the song, the doctor-patient lines, getting back to my work, which is your recovery: the reason the box shakes to and fro with the wind and clouds and you have an overarching sense of fear is that your scramble to get to the top by yourself is a precarious way to live life. it's never steady, it's always on the verge of falling to the ground and splat! ending. it's overall a very shaky way to live. better to go through life with friends.

me: easier said than done, but you're right. even a loner needs a friend once in a while.

Lysander: it's interesting that the giant pole's tip is facing into your box rather than on the other end, down, piercing the soft mud in order to stay upright and secure. speaks to more insecurity, things are not what they should be, things aren't normal, in fact your quest to be alone is directly affecting your health. the reason the pole is so long is that it's the accumulation of your life-long quest to be alone, all the times you ran away instead of confronting people and making friends the hard way, it's so far away from Earth, where the normal people live. you are high high high up, separated from everyone. the sharp spear of the point of the pole is poking into your basket, your box cannot stand like this much longer, it's being holed like swiss cheese, it's anything but measured and sure and balancing gracefully, it's ready to come apart with you in it, the center cannot hold, your belief system is flawed, your chosen lifestyle is untenable.

me: are you my mother or my therapist?

Lysander: how is your mother anyway? it always comes down to your mother in the end.

me: she's fine. she clothes me and feeds me and i love her. no, not this time, it can't be that easy. she's my only friend, but she's my mom, so she doesn't count.

Lysander: she counts more than you know. she counts forever. thank god for family or all of us would be a collection of isolated sad wanderers scouring the earth for home and meaning. families are instant meaning, instant tribe, instant connection. you didn't ask for them but they are there. sometimes that's a bad thing, but it's a thing, rather than no thing.

me: not all who wander are lost.

Lysander: but most are. watching anything interesting lately?

me: just my normal anime, Death Note and stuff.

Lysander: i'm afraid that title escapes me. my son is still in the kid-cartoon stage, not the adult cartoon one. i understand, though, it was the same with me with baseball cards. son, just promise me i won't ever see you at a convention donning a pony costume.

me: deal. never wanted to be a brony, only a bro.

Lysander: friends are important. they are in fact the most important things in life. not even sex comes close, and i do mean come.

me: this is true. masturbation really starts to lose its bite as the Green Day song so eloquently explains. even biting doesn't help. sex gets more and more perverse. like a drug, you have to keep doing more and more bizarre things to maintain that initial high you felt. when does sex go from a mutual pleasure to you just using the other person?

Lysander: nobody has figured that out yet. it's a very fragile balance, much like a man in a box on a pole. many of the greatest minds have tried to tackle this subject. Lars von Trier's Nymphomanic was a great film.

me: i'm not familiar with him. i'll write that name down, in my green notebook so it's permanent.

Lysander looked sallow at the mention of the notebook. every time it was spoken of his face grew whiter and whiter to match his white hair.

Lysander: the hour is running out. let's get to the epic one. i know the details but summarize it again for me.

me: oh, well, first i'm inside a dank staircase. it's an apartment complex. i notice how beautifully spirally the staircase is, so brown, so ornate. i get myself to a glass case protecting the list of the names of the residents, names on white sheets of paper and their buttons to the right to contact them. then, i'm suddenly thrust into this battlefield. i see all manner of soldiers all gilded up in their military garb, the epaulettes, the hats adorned with felt feathers and strings, they look too pretty to get stained with blood, the swords all gleam silver in the pale moonlight, i even see some strange creatures, green aliens and purple blobs also fitted with their wartime gear. i don't see any battling happening, it's just a rolling panaroma from left to right of all the soldiers of all the countries fighting, well preparing to fight at least. i hear the noises of war---gunshots, bomb blasts, boats sailing on the river---but i don't see anything, don't see smoke or fire or the river. the pervading feeling i have witnessing this spectacle is that it is so so grand, so epic in scale, it's like i can see the entire battlefield of dust and dirt from a perspective in space, from a satellite, and the battlefield is the size of China, and i can see it all in one sight, one site, though i am not in space, i'm on the ground with the soldiers. this war, it's an amalgam of all the wars which have come before and future wars, i see a little American Revolution in there, a little Civil War, a little WW both numbers, and of course WWIII with the aliens.

Lysander: first off, thank god for such an experience. most dreams are flits in the darkness that are forgotten the moment one wakes up. the fact that you retained this big tapestry in your memory is a blessing. secondly, maybe this doesn't mean anything more, maybe it was just one hell of a fucking cool dream.

me: i'm not letting you off the hook that easily. doesn't that diploma encased in glass on top of you mean anything?

Lysander: as far as i'm concerned, i already earned that flimsy piece of paper by my years and years of toiling and going to school. if i actually help anyone with it, that's icing. let's see, the bigness of everything speaks to you wanting to be larger than life...i'm making this up as i go along...

me: i thought you came prepared. larger than life, Backstreet Boys, right? Backstreet's back, alright?

Lysander: points for knowing that. my young son gives you the points. this is such an inexact science, you can't really be prepared, patients like you will always challenge your theories with poignant observations. it's not math.

me: hey, even 2 + 2 = 5, nothing is exact.

Lysander: how Orwellian of you. but i suspect you've heard the whole hopeless thing before. i need to come up with something better, something uplifting, to keep you from killing yourself.

i smiled but Lysander didn't.

Lysander took me by the shoulders and said: look at my eyes. i'm serious now, son, look at my deadly grim eyes as i tell you this: never kill yourself, don't ever do it, not for any reason. if you kill yourself...i'll kill you.

i smiled again.

Lysander (exasperated): why doesn't that ever work with my patients? nobody ever takes me seriously!

me: maybe cos you're an adorable short little elf of a man. you're cute and cuddly. threats from you don't take.

that made Lysander smile finally! he had a nice smile.

Lysander: my stature, well that's something i personally have to work through. see? nobody's a finished product, ever, not me, not you, there's always.................................time. but the dream speaks to you wanting to be a big man, to be legendary, to be among those whose names are inked in the history books for stopping evil across the land, for stopping the spread of destruction, for glittering freedom and hope from above. you want to be a somebody, not a nobody on an apartment residence listing. you want to be a leader of men, a soldier for the cause, part of something bigger and good. i'm making this up as i go along.

me: i know. i could get this stuff from a book at Borders.

Lysander: Borders went out of business.

me: story of my life. not the One Direction song, i am directionless. as i said, i come to you for the fatherly disposition, the scintillating conversation, the Cobain priceless advice, the cheerful face, though you haven't been cheerful lately. what is it about talking to people that calms one down?

Lysander: humans were built in such a way as to seek connection. we are not meant to bottle our emotions inside, it makes us sick. we must let go and breathe ourselves to others, for validation, for a sense of kinship, to join our spirits together. lonerism may be romantic, but it's not healthy.

me: what about loserism?

Lysander: that, my friend, is universal.

me: you know that this good will you're gifting me here is temporary, right? i'll wake up tomorrow with great anguish and no energy to get out of bed and a feeling that there is no progress and life will always suck for me.

Lysander: you won't get out of bed cos your body will not wake up with your mind again. your consciousness is forever in flux. life does suck, son, always will. life is temporary, all of it, so you might as well enjoy the brief moments of glimmers of happy sunshine, however short. it's only fair to your body to balance out the impending doom with a ray of positivity every now and then. think of it as a bandage to patch up the tattered floor of your box.

the egg timer rang. the hour was up. Lysander convulsed and fell to the floor in a spasm.

me: bro, are you alright? i'm the one who has panic attacks, remember?

Lysander: i'm okay, i'm okay, no need to help me up, i got it, i'm fine. particularly draining session, that's all. not your fault, mine. not good to schedule these things before lunch. make it after lunch next time. make a note of it on your schedule, write it down in your green notebook to make it a permanent reminder. you won't forget then...

and with that, the frazzled doctor staggered out of the room and into the adjacent one he always went into afterwards, shutting the door, knuckles dragging the entire trip.

me: hmmm, he didn't remind me to go to the treadmill room this time. thankfully, i know the routine. healthy mind, healthy body. deal. physical exercise, i'm up for it today. i feel good, i feel really good. past misunderstandings are in the past, past problems don't weigh me down, just future hopes. i'm excited. i'm cured! i'm recovered! i want to dance!

i entered the treadmill room and turned the exercise machine to full blast. i turned the music in the room on and to full blast also, counter the rules.

me: i don't care. i want to dance on this rolling treadmill today. and i have the exact right song to dance to. i'm heading in the right direction. nothing but sunshine and connective days ahead. i'm ready to make a million new friends! i'm not even gonna bring myself down like i used to with thoughts that this is all just mania. those days are gone! no more voice in the back of my head nagging me with depression and reality.

I PUMPED MY FIST IN THE AIR AND TREADMILLED MYSELF INTO A BODY OF LATHER AND SWEAT DANCING TO THIS, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

TO BE CONCLUDED

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TMIT: PARTY FOUL

my one dream in life came true, i've been invited to my first party. i've finally been accepted for who i am. i'm so nervous and scared i'm gonna yield to peer pressure and start smoking and drinking and drugging and fucking not cos i want to but because i want to be in the cool-kids clique:

1. afraid to lose the address, come early, come late? i ALWAYS come early, wink wink.


wait, i did that wrong. i always come fashionably late cos i'm cool...well now, that moment was ruined, so...

2. afraid to be over- or underdressed? bring the wrong clothing for the right activity? forget your swimsuit? as far as i'm concerned, every activity can be done in my speedo.

3. afraid to drink too much or too little? other people will drink too much? there won't be non-alcoholic drinks there? i shun alcohol like the plague, that stuff tastes disgusting. whenever i hear people say they'd love an ice-cold frosty beer, i'm like why would you prefer the bitter of beer to the sweet of coke? this one time at a Truth-or-Dare circle, everyone was drinking their Natty Lights, y'know, the good stuff, except me. i asked for water. everyone humiliated me with their laughs. they didn't stop, they kept laughing and laughing and laughing at my request for water. what hurt the most was Tina laughing cos i thought Tina was my platonic friend. i became so nervous to save some face i had to swallow down my anti-nervous pills using Tina's beer. blacked out for a year.

4. afraid the food will be too newfangled and trendy? conventional and boring? nothing to eat that you want? actually in reality nothing to eat? i'm a hipster so i only eat trendy food. i'm also a goth so i gravitate toward anything with "fang" in the name. the meatballs must be Swedish, sure, but they must come from only a very small farm in Sweden that makes them just right. there is only one of these farms in the world, not on the map cos it's so isolated. i own this farm. only i know about my balls. the minute someone else eats my balls, they cease to be hipster. remember the first internet meme ATE MY BALLS?

5. music: afraid the music will be too loud? no music or you can't hear it? the music will be so indie that it's beyond your grasp of understanding? it will just be boring oldies? afraid of everything: afraid of missing out on the newest Nine Inch Nails track because it's so loud that my eardrums pop. a cute girl will tap my shoulder and ask me if i got that reference in the third stanza of the lyrics and i'll have to plead ignorance because i am now deaf. she'll go on to marry Prince Harry instead of me. they'll have a kid that i'll babysit and that kid will make fun of me for listening to that boring-oldies NIN crap.

6. afraid the party will end too soon? not be worth the trouble? go on too long? technically, raves never end, right?

7. afraid to end up in bed with the wrong person and the sex will be bad? wrong person but great sex? right person but no sex? right person who wants it but you're too tired? i'm afraid of ending up with the right person who wants great sex but is too tired.

bonus: i have a lot of party fears, but this calms me down: CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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HABOOB

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK





happy weekend...if there's no apocalypse first...




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THE DREAMER

me: was it all a dream?

Doctor Lysander: no, don't adjust your television sets. full-time score: Germany 7 Brazil 1.

i squirmed around on the ottoman getting into my cat-comfortable position and quickly turning because i didn't want to focus on a four-year fait accompli anymore, i wanted to focus on what was to be, my favorite part of the session, dream analysis.

me: i hate people. they treat me like an experiment, not as a person.

Lysander: people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. i see you're toting around that green notebook everywhere you go.

me: it never leaves my side. but i have so many notebooks now. they're all on a dirty pile in my room. i did what you said, i started a couple of dream journals. i write down everything in them: ideas, sketches, fragments, character bios, place settings, themes, theories, endings. this green notebook is special to me, though, it's where i write my most precious stories. i have so much power as an author. i can turn all the bad stuff happening to me into a setting i control. i make the bad people bad guys in my stories, and they always get shown for who they really are.

Lysander was bored but professional. he tried to spin himself around his chair but his legs were so short he couldn't quite rotate. instead he passed the time by looking at a far-angled mirror next to the hanging fern. was his bald head getting shinier? was that a gray hair on his mutton chops? since when did he grow mutton chops? it must be a trick of the bad lighting in the room.

Lysander: Sylvia Plath once said, "nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing."

me: i love Sylvia, but that was not the appropriate quote for me at this time.

Lysander: oh right, sorry.

Lysander was embarrassed and looked at his notebook, which was also green.

Lysander: pulling up your file here. oh that's right: suicidal depression, feelings of inadequacy when it comes to getting your creativity out there to the world and whatnot. sorry, late night last night. i'll be better prepared next session.

i started to cry.

Lysander: i am sorry for your tears.

me: it's alright, i am an easy crier.

Lysander: i know, knew, a kid just like you. his name was Marcio.

me: hey, you have the same green notebook i do!

Lysander: they may both be green, but yours is very very different.

Lysander started to look very sullen.

me: what? what happened? i can feel you are sad. that is one of the traits, right? extra-sensory empathy of others around you, that's a good side effect of the disease. i'm crazy, but i'm also an Empath like Counselor Troi.

Lysander: great tits on that one. no, no, i'm okay. i've accepted it, i learned how to accept things during my first week of job training when we learned about all the steps. let's move on. tell me about your most recent dream.

me: gladly. my cat was there, and my best friend from grade school was wrapping my cat in brown paper, covering his cute paws. i didn't sense any ill will, he was doing this to protect the cat. i found this particularly amusing because of course my grade-school friend now lives in Italy and has never seen my current cat, so it was nice my brain conceived of such a meeting. it combined my friendships of the past and present purrfectly. see what i did there, purrfectly?

Lysander: very good.

me: and then there's a dutch angle and a strange shift to a show on a stage. i can hear the two commentators commentating about it, but i can't see their faces, much like when i watch tv. it's a chorus on stage, a group of ten boys and girls all dressed in the same black-and-white outfits. when the black kid makes his entrance with the group, i can't hear the exact words of the commentators, but the two of them seem racist to me, they're mocking the poor black kid.

Lysander: FIFA says no to racism, that's good enough for me. obviously the black-and-white outfits stand for the black and white races. i'm sure the commentators were white. many times the words being said by characters in dreams aren't intelligible, but what always is felt by the dreamer are the feelings and emotions that spring forth from the dream scene, the sequence invokes something out of the dreamer, the dreamer senses pain, sadness, Empathy, or that they have a bad feeling about this.

me: Star Wars reference, nice.

Lysander: my nine-year-old. i mean, i'm a nine-year-old at heart. yeah, my college degree is really working out, huh? am i helping you in any way with this?

me: no, it's standard psychology gobbledygook you can read on the stands of any dime-store book shop, but you help but just listening to me and being my father. no one else in the world gives a fuck.

Lysander: i'm everyone's father, aren't i? no kids of my own and yet the world is my kid. let's get back to God.

me: Yes?

Lysander: you wield immense power when you write, especially in that green notebook. you are God with that notebook. you can control the weather of your story, and whether or not your story ends this way or that, the fate of your characters are completely in your hands. they are mice in a cage.

me: despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage.

Lysander: don't know what that is. he's nine, not twelve. at any rate, all i'm saying is with great power comes the Spiderman speech...

me: sure, sure, i get you even if you don't get me. oh, one more thing.

Lysander: the session is over. i've got a late night tonight...

me: one more thing, i fear more than anything in this world forgetting my dreams. that would be my nail in the coffin. my dreams are all i've got.

Lysander: they're all anyone's got. do not dread, i'll teach you how to hang onto them next time, once i learn the technique myself. your dream journal is a good start, though. let me read up on using your brain better to remember. i need to remember to do that, to look up one of my old college textbooks. you never really leave college, huh?

me: yeah, i have four in my grasp now, but they're fading: the one about the glass case and the two brown wires, the one about being high up in the air in a box being balanced at the tip of a long stick, the epic one about looking at a list of residents outside an apartment complex and then suddenly being thrust into the battlefield of a war that looks like the American Revolutionary War but is also WWIII, and the prison one.

Lysander: write them down! write them down before you forget! the glass case one is lame, but we'll tackle the other three soon. i'm especially intrigued about the prison one. well, bye. and remember, when you're doing your treadmill, envision the music you want to be playing in your head so you don't get stuck and scared.

me: i know, that's still a thing with me. it's getting harder and harder to just envision things. i'm not making them happen anymore. i can't make things happen anymore. the only way things appear and stay is if i write them down in my green notebook.

Lysander produced another look of crestfallen acknowledgment on his mutton chopped face.

Lysander: sure, sure, well you do what you must do, but it starts to become a drug, y'know?, a crutch. there is always something to be said for the willpower of man.

me: and what is to be said?

Lysander: something.

Lysander went right to his door and i went left to mine. ugh, exercise, the bane of an artist's existence, and the worst part of the session. i often wondered if it was better to get this over with before the talk or leave it 'til after.  if i do it before, i can leave the session with good vibes. but i usually come to the session so wrecked and whacked out of my mind i simply wouldn't have the intestinal fortitude to exercise cold at the start like that, i need the talking to ease me through the process. whatever, this sucks.

i turn on the mild button of the treadmill and start power-walking. no music is allowed in this place, it's considered a hospital, no noise pollution, so patients must conjure up the music in their heads. not exactly a motto to be placed in big letters on the walls of a mental ward. more silently understood.

let's see, what sounds are rumbling in my head? what can i use? what have i recently watched? shows and commercials. it came to me, the wrong song:

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

i hated this song! hated it! it reminded me of being in the repressed '50s, though i never lived in those times, with the public faces hiding private alcoholism. government programs designed to help everyone become cookie-cutter muscley Mr. Universes, to weed out the useless nerds, the lifelong virgins, and the fatties. no, no, there must be something else to counteract that. i thought of Mr. Humphries, and how vicious the world was, and my new favorite show came to the fore. but it wasn't enough, i was getting the song not stuck in my head enough, i needed something more. without stopping the machine i reached for my green notebook and in mid-sprint and not holding onto the safety bar was able to write in my journal about a character who loved the PBS show Vicious. it entered my head and stayed, getting rid of all traces of chicken fat:

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

to keep it afloat in my mind, i accompanied my story with a crude drawing of a stickman dancing to the irrepressible beats of this second track. i imagined myself on the dance floor with those in the video, and i was there, the treadmill's rolling mat became a danceboard illuminated underneath and overhead by a disco ball. my mind was no longer in the same room with my body. that's when i knew i'd get a good workout, when my body could do what it wanted to itself without me knowing.

thank God for my green notebook.

TO BE CONTINUED

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TMIT: THE DILEMMA OF THE GOTH SCIENTIST

i am a goth, so the sun is my sworn enemy. however, my favorite show of late was Cosmos, where i learned about the immense beauty of the chemical reaction of the sun and how it stays afloat and churning, and how it is the source of all Earth life, and how one day it will destroy the Earth, so i gained respect for it and give it its props. hence the dilemma.

1. skimpiest summer outfit you'll wear in public? see above.

2. what summer outfits on others turn you on? i'm typing this to you from a nude beach...

3. summer and sex are both hot! does summer weather lead to hot summer sex? no, World Cup Fever does. there are gonna be so many babies created during this month that nine months later will be named Messi and Tim Howard and Neymar and Brazuca and Grass. James will never be pronounced James again, it will go into the dictionary as Hames.

4. summer oysters are off the menu---or are they? wink wink---but what are your summer aphrodisiac foods? the Taco Bell quesarito, the Chipotle quesarito, and that Dr. Pepper Vanilla Float, that was good. also, lots and lots of mild sauce. nothing says hot like mild.

5. what is your favorite summer alcoholic drink? Summer Ale. that was easy. but now i have a problem with it...i drank an Autumn Ale by mistake and was kicked out of the nude beach. i had to wear clothes again. i took the shame.

6. two destinations to beat the heat are the mountains and the shore. where do you rest your tired soles and souls? mountain monastery, perfect. the monks up there have a nude beach, too. that's why they stay.

7. ROAD TRIP!!!: i don't have a car. even if i did, i'm too nervous to drive. i play a lot of Pole Position in my room. i squeeze my joystick on those sharp video-game virtual turns.

8. summertime is experiment time. what are you gonna do this summer that you've never done before? last year i got to two minutes. i'm feelin' good about three this year, maybe four if i keep staring at my four walls and don't think about anyone exciting.

9. bugs, wildlife, heat, lightning, summer is hazardous. what summer threat do you fear the most? winter. winter is coming. i don't fear lightning. if i get struck by lightning, i will become Lightning Man. i will wear a cape emblazoned with a tri-forked symbol. you mock me, but i will in fact be Lightning Man...in Heaven.

10. how far did your summer fling go? never blossomed into a romance. there was this babe with poofy hair at college summer school. i wrote her a note which read thusly:

WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?

and then two unchecked boxes, YES and NO. i crouched down at the top of the street as she was walking down the street. i made it seem like it was an accident, the wind, as i dropped my love note in front of her path. she stepped on it and patted me on the head. she thought i was a street bum. she gave me 5 cents. in honor of that moment, i never washed the head she patted again. i let my hair grow poofy.

bonus: what summer festivals will you attend, seafood and whatnot? i love the Garlic Festival though i'm a vampire. the dillemma of a goth foodie. living life this way is hard! how does Luis Suarez do it?

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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THE FATHER OF ALL COMMERCIALS

this Murica's Birthday, let Dad have the day to himself. let him fiddle with his oversize ipad above and wear that silly white I HEART SPIT ROASTS chef's apron he likes to don when he grills pineapples. he was busy providing for his family on Father's Day, he missed out, so the 4th of July becomes Father's Day Two Too Redux. let Dear Old Dad breathe free and be Papa Bear.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

happy weekend

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