my brain is trying to subvert me

know what i get tired of?
making a willful, concerted effort at trying to put burdensome, distracting, saddening things out of my mind all day...keeping busy to avoid idleness...praying and reading at night until i can't keep my eyes open to keep from dwelling on said things (which, at times, takes hours)...only to have them permeate my dreams at night.
so it's all i can think about the next day...as i ponder the multitudes of images and interactions i so vividly experienced while asleep.

maybe i'm doing something wrong. :\


~

wait...what...?

i keep having these dreams that are so real and true-to-life and unspectacular that in the last week or two, i have been having a genuinely hard time separating them from my waking life. i will recall a conversation i had with someone a few days ago and either laugh, or breathe a sigh of relief that i was able to talk to them, or be upset about its outcome, or happy...
...and then about a minute later realize that it never happened.
and i get all confused and frustrated because i had been basing my thoughts and reactions towards that person based on the "interaction" i had with them.
last night i had a dream with literally every single person i know in it. i'm not even joking. there were the sort of "main characters"...my sister, a girl i knew from LCAD named Sarah, Krystyl, Pip, Edan, some of my extended family members...and dozens of others. it was overwhelming.
waking up was overwhelming also.
i had "worked out" a lot of things in the dream...had important talks...experienced real emotions...and i am kind of reeling a little bit because they freaking never even happened!!
but...they kind of did. because i have vivid memories of real experiences.
i don't know if i can really explain it but it's been driving me crazy and having a very real impact on me lately.

okay. i have to go move out of my studio now.

~~~

wow i'm really tired right now.

Saturday i "helped" Pip pack up his room (he's moving). we listened to lots of music and watched lots of youtube.
Sarah and Alec are in Texas, mom is sick, and today i had Chinese food in a B-rated restaurant with GP Floyd, dad, Jeff (who wore his new J Crew tie), and Melanie and Ed and their kids. i got some good quotes.

i drove to Laguna, where i am now, and i've done about a half-hour's worth of work on my painting but i think i'm spent. i was going to do homework...but i think i'll just drive home (Orange) instead.
i always wish i could hang out with people down here more but i'm too afraid to call them. even my closest friends. i'm getting a lot better, though! i am!

i've been having dreams about Grandma and Grandpa, that they are alive and living with us again and i am taking care of them just like i always did. i wake up feeling like i haven't slept, and feeling very bittersweet.
i'm debating whether or not to type up a very strange and unsettling dream i had 2 nights ago. it's pretty intense...

for the first time this semester i'm kind of dreading the coming week of school...not for the old reasons (social anxieties) but because i'm just feeling burnt out. physically and emotionally. i feel like i'm placing my hopes on too many unstable surfaces, relying on shaky support.
i need to rely on Jesus completely.

why can't i...?


~~~~~~~

parlez-vous italiano? si...?

Happy day after Halloween...
I finally got my digital camera back...but not in time to take pictures of costumes at school...but here's me in orange tights.

last night i had a dream in which someone was speaking either french or italian to me...i can't remember which...and i coldn't understand them too well, because, you know, i'm not fluent in either.

but how then do i dream about someone speaking a fluid, rapid language i don't understand?

Lord i'm tired.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jellied asparagus anyone? Perhaps a nice mushy football?

Last night i had a long, winding confusing dream...of which i can recall only bits and peices.

One part consists of a series of events leading me to a picture which is pretty much impossible to describe. I remember i was looking for my dad, who happened to be a tall, rough looking black man (don't ask how i knew this). The sky is grey, and the muted hues of the scenery are in stark contrasts (like some highly stylized fantasy movie).
Coming around a wall on a dirt road, i see something like a large thatched-roof cottage, 20 or so feet high, but with a whole side knocked off of it. It is next to a long, high overhang, and they are attached. Under this overhang there is an explosion of activity. It looks like a blacksmith's shop, there is steam rising everywhere, kilns, ovens, tables, people moving around quickly and determined. The activity spreads out past the overhang and into a shallow lot around which the wall i am passing encircles. I enter the fray, wondering what is going on. Strangely, i recognize nearly everyone i see...noticing that most of them are people from school. And then i realize, surprised, that i have just walked in on one of the classes LCAD offers.
Exceedingly curious, i make my way under the overhang to see what people are making. I observe, all over the tables, various vibrantly colorful objects, sports equiptment, fruit, even a tray of what looks like eyeballs, all fashioned out of the same gelatinous substance boiling and frothing in the cauldrons and kettles all around me. It's not gelatin...because everything has to be kept hot. and it's all kind of lumpy.
People are pouring it, shaping it...i don't know how they colored it. i was immensely astounded and really really confused as to what the point of all this was. i was even a little bit disturbed by it. i remember standing there, in the middle of it all, thinking "what the heck...??" But everyone looked like they were having a pretty good time so i tried to forget it. i remember specifically seeing a pretty convincing banana split...I continued walking around the tables, examining the firey ovens, chatting every once in a while.

i never did find my "dad".


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cast it into the fire!

Is is hot or cold? Raining or Sunny? cloudy or clear...? make up your mind!
i've had very strange dreams last couple of nights. Despite all my best efforts, I can only remember flashes of different scenes...

flash #1: i'm in a small room with windows all around out of which i can see i'm in a beautiful backyard. In my hand i have fake flowers. they look like carnations and they are faded colors of blue and orange and purple, and there is something i'm supposed to be doing with them. i keep looking at an old, gnarled tree just outside the window. there is someone with me but i don't remember who.

flash #2: i'm climbing up a hole in the ground with someone else and we come out on top in the middle of a dirt mound. There is grass all around and lots of people walking. I think there are some buildings too. I see a guy i know and i whisper to the girl who is with me to get down and not to let him see her.

flash #3: i'm in the cracks of doom fighting desperately with Gollum who is trying to stick a needle in me and shoot me full of some sort of lethal poison...i'm not kidding. i try to grab the syringe and it scratches my arm. the needle breaks off and i throw it down into the swirling flames of Orodruin.

it sounds funny now, but it was scary as hell! Oh go ahead and laugh.

That's all i can remember as far as dreams are concerned.

My jaw is killing me. Today i had two fillings replaced, and while the dentist was drilling an oil well in my teeth i watched the Sound of Music in my head to distract me. I must have run through 16 going on 17 about 4 times. It actually worked pretty well!
Now all the novacain has worn off and i feel like i've been suckerpunched. ooowww.

wow...i'm a geek.

YAWN

Last night i had some very strange dreams. One i can only remember in 3 parts...and it might be kind of boring. But you don't have to read it...

DISCLAIMER...the thoughts and/or actions of the "me" in this dream narrative do not necessarily represent the thoughts and/or actions of the "me" of waking life...

I was over at Kristina's house (or maybe she was over here...it kind of looked like her house) late at night and we were talking, maybe watching a movie or something...i don't quite remember what we were doing but we did it for a while.
I finally was getting tired and i told her i needed to go to sleep. She looked at me and said "well what am I going to do? I'm not meeting the people from my bible study for another hour..." I thought to myself, "oh, i guess i'm just a time killer until she meets her REAL friends..." so i guess we decided to go do something.

Somehow we ended up in some sort of outdoor shopping plaza thing that was all hi-tech and snazzy, and i wanted to go into a beauty supply store to find some styling stuff for my hair. Now that's weird because i never do anything to my hair. Buuut it's a dream so...
Stina and i walk into the store which is sterile, kind of glowed with a green hue and had high vaulted ceilings. I think the walls were made of glass...it was very "futuristic". The latest in hair technology lined the numerous shelves and i looked around the room. Some guy who worked there walked up to me and asked if i needed help. He was about as tall as me (5'8) and had blonde spiked hair, glasses, artsy-chic clothes and all the jazz you expect someone to wear who would work in a place like that. I explained to him what i was looking for..."something to make the waves in my hair more defined, bla bla..." and he flamboyantly, yet aloofly steered me toward the counter, where behind it were the most recent shipments and he handed me a tube of some olive green gunk that looked like minty foot scrub and told me that it was exactly what i needed.
I decided to pass.
I looked around and noticed that Kristina was gone, so i left the store.
I saw her a little ways off with her back to me and when i reached her she had just finished talking to someone on her cell phone...and she was crying. i asked her what was wrong and she told me that her get together with her friends was cancelled, and she was mostly upset because it was supposed to be at her house that night and it didn't work out. We decided to go back to her house.
When we got there, we went into her room. But it was nothing like her room in that it was very empty...just a bed, desk and rug. There was a lamp giving some low light, making the room feel both cozy and somewhat brooding at the same time. We opened the door that led to the hall to find Stina's sister, Rebekka, and a friend in sleeping bags on the floor. They were bickering and poking and hitting each other. Stina went to talk to her parents and as i waited in the hall Rebekka and i got into a HUGE argument about something. I don't recall it's subject. I just remember i was fuming!
The dream fades after that.
Probably because i suddenly heard a doorbell ring...

I woke up and stared at the wall. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that i actually HAD heard a doorbell ring...it was the sound of my grandparent's call button that they push if they need help.
We're getting wood floors put into their room this weekend, so they slept in my parent's room last night. My mom was sleeping all the way in the living room on the couch and my dad was in the office with the door closed. Good thing our bedroom door was open a crack and i'm such a horribly light sleeper...Sarah and Acacia didn't even stir.
I soon understood that i was the only one that had heard it.
I got out of bed...my mass of hair wild around my head, stiff and dizzy from rising so fast, and walked across the hall to the room G&G were sleeping in.
Just to make sure i wasn't going crazy and hadn't really heard anything at all, i put my ear to the door to see if there was any sound in the room. Sure enough, i heard my grandma calling my mom's name in her feeble voice. I opened the door and asked what was wrong...grandpa had fallen, grandma told me. I looked over in the dark to his bed, and he was snugly tucked in...wondering why i was in the room. I looked at their clock... it said 5:01. Grandma was sitting up on the side of the bed going on about how he slipped, fell, couldn't get up, so she pushed the call button, etc etc...
I went over to him and took his hand...
"Are you okay, grandpa?"
He reached up toward me to see who i was, "It's Colleen, " i said.
"Oh...yes...i'm fine."
After a minute or so I went back to grandma who was trying to stand up to use the bathroom. "He's okay grandma." She turned the lamp on next to her bed...which blinded me for a few minutes.
She asked him about 5 more times if he was alright before he nearly started yelling at her, "Yes I'm FINE! I'm not HURT!!" and to be quiet and go to sleep. I helped grandma use her potty chair and got her back into bed, talking to me all the time. I made sure the bathroom door was open the right amount, that their night light was on, that they were warm enough...and i tucked grandma in.
"Thank you, darling," she said to me.
"You're welcome, good night." I turned out the lamp.
Blind again, i left the room to find my way back to my own bed, tripping over piles of my sister's clothes and stepping over Acacia. I don't know how long it took me to fall asleep...but it wasn't quick! The room was getting light again before i finally dozed off.
Even then, my dreams were even more confusing. Not that that's unusual or anything.

Last night i dreamt...

This morning is the first morning in a long time that i can remember enough of a dream to write it down. Last night i had a bunch of dreams. One was intensely terrifying, another one was wacked-out...this one was just...hmmm.

I don't remember if there was anything that led up to this, but all i know is that suddenly i was in Andrew's USC apartment...except it was Sarah and my's bedroom; and it was bigger; and there were art supplies and little weird watercolor paintings everywhere. The paintings were of simple figures, dancing on muted backgrounds with slashes of paint strategically disrupting the mellow colors. As i fiddled around the room, I tried to write some music on a program on his computer that, very strangely, featured Homestar characters as the program hosts or mascots or whatever. Maybe because Sarah was looking at Strongbad e-mails last night...
Anyway, for some reason or another, i went over to the sink (yes, in my dream there was a sink in the room). It was extremely dirty with paint and shavings and the like, and i searched the small shelf above it where i saw one of those paintings of a girl in a long dress twirling against a soft rusty orange background with streaks of olive green splashed onto it. Next to the painting there was a flyer, i'm assuming, for one of those AGO get-togethers. The only part of the flyer i can remember is a small section where, for some reason, someone had written some Morrissey lyrics. Not real ones, of course, my brain made them up. It was remembering the lyrics when i woke up that made me remember the dream. I can't even remember all of them. I only recall one section of the lines, and so it's a bit out of context, i'm sure; but here they are:
Will Jesus be there?
I've lost another Jewish Ramone.

I reeeeally wish i could remember the rest. Anyway, that's all. I thought people would find it at least a little bit interesting.

Nice Dream?

I was staying in a hotel with a whole lot of people... my friends, my family, some people from my church, and him, which was weird only to me. It was a gorgeous spot. In the mountains somewhere and very green and clear and woodsy. I wish I could remember the whole thing, but I can only recall short bits and shadowy images...you know how it is, I'm sure.
I remember in particular two instances from my dream...

1) I'm in a bed, and there are a bunch of people i know in the room and we're all talking and having fun. Well, at least they are. I can only sit and think of how stupid I must look to the person I admire. Suddenly, he looks at me and points to the foot of the bed, and says that there is a spider, a mouse and a snake in my bed. Then everyone else sees them too, and I freak out and roll out of the bed and onto the floor. I soon see that the snake is only a baby garter snake, the kind I had growing up, so I wasn't freaked out by it. only the spider; I hate spiders.

2)Me and 3 of my very dearest friends, Pip, Kristina and Andrew are out on a hike on some overgrown and dark trail at night. Every once in a while, there are lit areas, as if from some unseen lamppost somewhere. The ambiance was very adventurous, and we were running along the side of a deep crevice, which, as I bent down to look inside of it, was actually a huge pipe that had cracked open at the top and I was looking down into it. It had been that way for a long time, I could see in the dim light that there were vines going up its insides and dirt and leaves caked onto the bottom. Just as I was thinking about how frightening it would be to fall into it, a noise to my left made me look over just in time to see Pip slide off the edge and down into the pipe. I yelled for Kristina and Andrew to come over and I tried to see inside the hole and call Pip's name. He woudn't answer. My mind reeled between thinking that he was dead at the bottom, or probably fine and just playing a joke. But it was so deep, I knew he couldn't have fallen without getting injured. Then I saw him. He was laying, barely visible, close to the wall. I knew someone had to get down to him, and somehow (this part gets fuzzy) it was me. The 3 of us found some big peices of cardboard or something, and I asked for Kris and Andrew to hold them while I was lowered down. For some reason or other, Andrew had a hard time cooperating and Kris had to yell at him before he would help. As I was being lowered in, I could hear other voices a ways away coming closer, and I couldn't tell if I was happy, because maybe they could help us, or apprehensive, because we would get caught. I finally reached the bottom, and I looked over and I saw him lying there, unconscoius. As i ran over to him, he began to wake up, and I could tell he was in pain. I helped him up I looked to my left to see a step ladder going almost all the way to the top of the crack in the pipe. I had to push him up the steps as he made his way up because it was so hard for him. When we got out of it, we all decided he had a sprained ankle, and it was really sad because now he couldn't play ultimate frizbee. Long story.
There's more, but I can't remember it well enought to type it. Weird. My dreams are so strange.