I sat there in the plush stadium seating of an AMC or something like that. Red curtains peeled to the sides and red velvet seats with little diamond designs. The movie was on and it was dark and yet I can’t see the characters or really the movie. I only sense it, like a man blind in detail but sightful in shapes and I only could feel the emotion they presented. I could only see in general terms the deceit and betrayal they acted out against one another.

And then suddenly as if everyone knew but I, in the middle of the movie, it ended. Credits scrolled with the title "Bad People" drawn in colored chalk and shifting like every frame was drawn by hand and was changed ever so slightly and people would start standing up and leaving; even my brothers and mother started to get up. The glow of the lights would also start to rise. But I’m yelling at people, telling them to sit down, that the movie isn’t over yet, that we need to see the second half, that the bad people have finally realized how bad they’ve been and now they will make amends and the movie will have a happy ending.

But no everyone continues to get up and leave and I am just about the last person to hope that the movie isn’t over and that there has to be more. And then I wake up.

And the dream I think tells you how I feel about humanity as a whole. Maybe about some specifically as well.

Copyright 2008 DAP All right reserved. all other copyrights and/or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

… Make sure it’s enough."

That was a Dos Equis billboard and its amazing and I think should hit you hard, and least it does for me.

photo credit: pato_garza

 

So it’s been pretty much a month since I last wrote a blog. man I’ve been so busy. But that’s kind of a lie because I’m sure i could of really found the time to write it. I think its because staring at a computer for work really sucks out the joy I get out of a computer, whether that’s building a website, doing some photoshop, or getting some writing done. Even writing that isn’t for fun but for other projects that I seriously need to get done suffers. maybe I should just suck it up and just do it. grow up and do stuff I don’t feel like doing but gotta do.

While thinking about this stuff it dawned on me.

I’m not really the type to do one thing indefinitely to forever. Not only do I think that that would hurt my retirement, it also makes me contemplate about how I would define my existence. If I don’t keep my efforts to something for my life then what is said of me when I’m gone?

I wrote a poem about it awhile ago. It was kinda about it. Like dreams about what a person can be using words to be different things through the words themselves.

photo credit: MShades

And then I think about acting. Its something I know I’d enjoy it as I enjoyed the times I did some acting. I also think it would fake me out. That I’d do one thing that involves doing something different every time.

I dunno but I figure I need to start doing the things I love and start picking up on the stuff I love but haven’t visited in a while. And I know for sure that I need to put away the things I used to love but feel so sick of doing because I’ve done it for so long.

But I’m pretty nostalgic and ending chapters, while a part of my M.O., always breaks my heart.

Copyright 2008 DAP All right reserved. all other copyrights and/or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

The cool air strikes my face and its refreshing to be up this early. The fog obscures everything and the only hints of color glow in a distance I can’t define. I’m driving, wiping clear the condensation from the windows, from the mirrors. Again, I forgot how nice it was in the early morning.

photo credit: JOE M500

I gave my roommate a ride to work and on my way back I’m listening to Kevin & Bean but more so I’m getting lost in my thought and like the fog I only see just a little in front of me. Just enough to make it home safe. The night before I said to myself that I was gonna try to have lucid dreams. My sleep paralysis would come once in a while so I told myself that I should try to control it.

 So I felt the shortness of breaths, I heard the rustling leaves, I felt the presence in the

photo credit: law_keven

corner of the room. But I wasn’t scared, I’ve been through all this before. I welcomed it, I tried to control it, telling myself that when I fall into sleep that I will be in a dream and I know that I will be in a dream. But my eyes would fade and I’d wake. I don’t know why I can’t do it, I’ve accidentally had lucid dreams.

So on my way home I’m thinking about the failure and I pass by the college and its empty parking lot and I see flocks of seagulls. some chillin’, some flying above and I think that its pretty far from the beach. Right there it dawned on me that I’m like those seagulls in the city (or suburb.)

odd.

Copyright 2008 DAP All right reserved. all other copyrights and/or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

I had dreams.

Not sure why I had the imagination. To the ire of my mother, I like to say that as a baby my sitter was where two walls met along with my alphabet blocks and Ninja Turtles.

photo credit: danorth1

I was a quiet kid who pointed and grunted for what I wanted.

"Milk?" My mother asked.

"Uhh," I would reply.

Being the middle kid my brothers always did their own thing which I think now is bittersweet. I’ve developed this active imagination which is the sweet but I never really got to hanging out with my brothers which is the bitter. My little brother would hit me! I would ask my mother to tell him to stop and she told me, "hit him back." I guess that was the advice when spanking was all the rage. So… I hit him back and never looked back since.

So back to dreams.

I don’t remember watching the program, at least in specifics but I remember watching a show on T.V. at my grandmas house when I was around six or seven years old. It was about dolphins and I was very much into nature as a kid. I was into a lot of things as a kid, really geeky stuff. Anyway, I was so engrossed in the show I remember thinking that I had to be a zoologist or at that age, a wild animal pet keeper. So what better way to get into the business? You write a book.

I made a book; binding, covers, and all using yellow yarn, red and green construction paper, and that kid post-consumer brownish-gray solid and dashed line paper you used to practice cursive writing. And I wrote book complete with illustrations.

Excerpts include:

"Dolpins are mammals."

"Dolpins have blowholes."

"Dolpins eat fish!"

photo credit: pinhole

 

And I showed my uncle who was in the kitchen this little 5×6 inch book that I made and watched him read it and look at the pictures of dolphins jumping out of the water into the air. I looked at him I’m sure with eager eyes waiting for his comments; and he said, "Dolpins? what are dolpins?" with a laugh. He then handed it back to me. As I think back to it I feel like I was thinking, "jerk." But in reality I was probably heartbroken.

Now at the ripe old age of.. ahem… 24 I continue to write, anything, stories and articles and here this nifty blog. I know at the time I was probably ready to give up and look forward to a life accounting or something but I realize now that there will always be people who put you down, who tell you with words or actions that you can’t do something you enjoy, even love. Those closest to you will do it as well and from them it will hurt more but the final defeat comes when you yourself says that you can’t do it.

I wish I still had that book on "Dolpins" If only as a testament.

Copyright 2008 DAP All right reserved. all other copyrights and/or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Anyway, really other than me being back from Orlando, there isn’t much to say about it. I got a bottle of Johnnie Walker red label from a rookie referee. I guess he learned a thing or two from me and thought he’d be gracious. Thanks Jim.

What I really wanted to share was this trippy dream I had when I was in Orlando. It goes kinda like this (my memory plays its tricks and it wasn’t exactly like how I’ll describe.):

I can see a crowd of people off in the distance maybe a mile or two away, and they gather around an object and as I get closer I make out its shape. Its a flying saucer, a spaceship, iconic and classic it spins on the ground and just as the crowd can lay a hand on it, it shoots up into the sky becoming some sort of boxy helicpoter.

I find myself on a grassy hill watching the boxy helicopter like alien spaceship being chased by news helicopters and the military helicopters. suddenly I find myself aboard the alien craft. It looks to me like a diving board towards the clearest pool and its all white. there are no distinguishable attributes. I suddenly find myself falling paralyzed into the liquid. It smells like plastic and rubbing alcohol and I breathe it in as I sink but it doesn’t hurt. I close my eyes.

I then open them and find myself floating in the air, flying if I may, and there I see the others who fell before me, I see some recognizable faces. there’s Philip, a fellow referee, and there’s Garren, my scorekeeper. We fly around with new found powers of flight obviously, and super punches and invulnerability. We fly around punching each other and laughing. then we meet the dude driving the thing and to my surprise he isn’t an alien species but a Mexican (maybe he is an alien?) and he hands me a little red book with gold trimmed pages. I think of it as an alien bible. we all then lose our powers. I feel sad but I come to terms with it.

I find myself walking through a parking lot and I come across Morrissey, yeah that Morrissey, and he tells me that the alien spaceship thing was a hoax. He told me to look in the book and I would see. So I did and i saw a pen sketch of some odd things but I noticed my last name, Philip’s last name and Garren because I can’t ever remember his last name. So I dunno where Garren is but Philip and i investigate this lead, which turns out to be something with our ancestors so we go to the grave yard and find the headstone of Philips great aunt, Anne Arnold. We look at her tombstone and see that its littered with trash, beer cash, boxes, what not and I move some trash over with a stick to see her name and maybe some more details when all of a sudden a purple or maybe a blue Cadillac comes zooming through the graveyard. Philip jumps out of the way and I kinda do but hit the windshield. i see the driver and its that damn Mexican and well I think he MexiCAN’T kill me. Just then he runs into a tree. Philip and I go over to see the damage and we sorta climb through the windows to see the man, but then suddenly he grabs both of us.

The Mexican pulls out a can of mace and sprays us both in the eyes and we scream but then I’m able to rub out the mace and I grab his head and I slam it into the steering wheel until he can’t carry on anymore, then Philip and I open his eyes and spray concentrated amounts of mace into his eyes, and he screams unbearably into the sky. He has been put down. finally a lady cop in tan comes and takes him away. seems this whole alien thing was just a ruse to get back at us for something our ancestors did. Oh wells

So then i find myself in a building, ready to play paintball it seems and I can’t remember if she, Kaarin I mean, is on my team or against but I remember her get up and green and black beanie. The production value is amazing for this game with fog and lights and the announcer calls the team name as well as those playing and I run out and see the announcer and its Morrissey and I run up to him and tell him I fuckin’ love him and he just nods and i tell him that I was the one he warned about the hoax and thanks and then I told him seeya later, I’m gonna see how I do on this game.