Only in dreams

I stood in the middle of the room with a bucket in my hand while everyone else ran from one room to the next, covering their heads with their hands and crouching to avoid something that I couldn't see. They would point and yell, then run into the next room to escape. Each time they pointed I would look, but by then it was gone. Everyone kept pointing and shouting, "Look, look, look!" but when I looked there was nothing there.

They all ducked together to avoid the apparent swooping flight of the bat, but no matter how hard I looked or how many lights I turned on, there was nothing. I thought I could hear it squeak, but amongst all the noise it was difficult to tell. If I listened closely, I could hear the rustling of wings, or maybe I was listening too hard and imagined it.

A lamp hit the floor as they ran into the kitchen, looking back over their shoulders to the living room where I stood. It must be close. I stood up on a chair to be closer to the ceiling and then maybe I could see or hear it. I put my arms out to try to block its flight and keep it in the living room. By waving the bucket, I hoped to knock it from the air. The curtains might have moved, so I turned my attention to the window. Just then, shouts came from the kitchen and I realized it was not in the living room at all.

I put the bucket down. If I couldn't see it, I couldn't catch it. I swung open the front door and propped the screen door open. Suddenly, everyone cheered as nothing flew out the door and left us alone.

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I also had another weird dream about trying to help our cat escape our house and gain her freedom, but I don't remember much about that one except that she kept coming back. She would, too, that cat is really dumb.

Looking forward

Looking back on 2012, it was a year full of variety on Rekelekt. Photos, poetry, renting a studio, playing guitar, trying to stop bullets with a laptop, planning for the end of the world, and of course more wacky dreams than anyone wants to hear about. I'm still getting the hang of blogging and I imagine there will still be gaps here and there in 2013, but I plan to post more.

I'm really looking forward to 2013 and I hope to accomplish a lot this year. My resolutions for this year include building my photography business, writing more, and procrastinating less. That last one I keep putting off each year, so we'll see how it works out this time!

Who killed Laura Palmer?

It has been way too long since I lasted posted on here, but I have been so busy. Too busy. I sort of feel like I'm drowning, I can't keep up with it all. It's not a good feeling.

A montage of dreams:

• I went to a wedding shower (which traditionally exclude dudes) and it turned out to really be a shower. We went into a large room with water spouts on the ceiling and everyone started taking their clothes off. I've always been sort of curious about wedding showers and now I am not.
• I posed as a realtor and tried selling homes to people without the owner's consent. All I did was walk the streets until I saw a house that looked nice and then I would wait for someone to come along so that I could give them my impromptu sales pitch. It was pointless, but it worked surprisingly well.
• There was the dream where I couldn't close my eyes no matter how hard I tried. That was disturbing. A 20s or 30s cartoony guy smoking a cigar would show up and start laughing each time I tried to close my eyes. He looked a lot like some old drawings I've seen of the man in the moon.
• In the most recent dream, I stood with a group of people at the top of a long wooden stairway looking down. None of us wanted to walk down the stairs for some reason, and we all stood around trying to convince each other to go first because we were all too chicken to take the first step. It was a dark stairway with a red carpet runner and we couldn't see the bottom. I finally realized that if I didn't go, no one would, so I took one step. Once I took that step, I discovered that I wouldn't be able to stop or go back, so I had to keep going. That's all I can remember from that one.

Also, I got out the guitar and played for a while last night. Ah... guitar. It's been so long since I actually played it, aside from Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings. It felt great to play whatever popped into my head. No one was home, so I cranked the amp and played it like it's meant to be played.

So there's my post for now. Don't that beat all? (another great old timey phrase)

While I was sleeping

(I'm re-posting this one since I had to delete the original post because it was drawing a lot of spam. Someone from Russia was trying to use this post to promote dental implants.)

Every night I have dreams and often those dreams are very vivid. In my dreams, I can feel texture, smell odors, and after I wake up I can remember the most miniscule details. Most mornings I can remember details about my dreams, such as the location of light switches in a room, the color of someone's eyes (someone who doesn't even exist), whether the air was warm or cold, the food that I ate, and countless other fragments of information. When I first wake up, all of this stuff is very clear and sometimes I lie in bed for a moment trying to get my bearings because I'm not always sure at first if it was a dream or if it really happened. Dreams can leave me extremely uneasy sometimes. Especially when I have a dream that something bad is about to happen and it's so clear that when I wake up I still think that something is about to go wrong.

The other night I had a dream that I was the manager for some Japanese punk band during their U.S. tour. Does it get any weirder than that? Yes, it does. They were a bunch of hipster kids who barely spoke two words in English. They also insisted on having apple pie after each show. Their favorite restaurant was Perkins and they liked to throw things at me when I wasn't looking. The bass player developed a liking of country music. This apparently caused some sort of rift in the band and they had a big falling out. I couldn't understand what they were talking about (because I don't speak Japanese), but it must have been serious because the rest of the band took off with the tour bus leaving the bass player and I stranded at a truck stop. Then my alarm clock went off and I woke up.

I sometimes wonder if I should document my dreams because they are so strange and so clear. They fade so quickly from my memory as the day goes on, but they leave such a powerful impression on me that I keep thinking about them throughout the day, even as the details begin to grow dim. I wonder why we dream? Do they sometimes serve as some sort of warning? Why do they fade so quickly? And what English-speaking person has dreams in Japanese?! How messed up is that?

A sinister smile in every aisle

Last night I had another dream that has stuck in my head. Most dreams fade quickly after I wake up, but this one won't go away. To give you some background, I have a strong dislike of Hy-Vee. It's important to understand that, or much of the significance of this dream will be lost. It's not even a rational feeling of animosity. It's sort of like the feeling you get when you are about to visit a new dentist. Of course that dentist isn't going to tear your face apart and pull all your teeth out. We know this. But he could.

Loathe, detest, abhor, despise. These are words that come to mind when I try to describe how I feel about their stores. The people who work at Hy-Vee are great, and they are all professionals. Except for a few who aren't. The problem I have, is that roughly 50% of the visits I've had at a Hy-Vee (not just one location, or even in the same city) have ended badly. Once I waited in a long line with all my groceries as people ahead of me argued with the cashier. When I finally got up to the counter and all of my groceries had been rung up ("rung up" sounds very old-timey, but who cares), that's when the dude at the register decided to tell me that the debit/credit card reader was not working. And I didn't have my checkbook with me. Or $64.00 cash. No wonder everyone ahead of me was so mad. Then there was the time that the lady in the bakery refused to wait on me. I still have no idea why. She waited on everyone else, but flatly refused to wait on me. There was the time that a grocery item wouldn't ring up. Instead of figuring it out, they asked if I really needed it. Sure, I just brought that up here for kicks. I didn't really need that lunch meat. Once in January or February I went out to Hy-Vee late at night to pick up some hot chocolate for Cynthia. They didn't have any. See how horrifying this is? Anyway, about my dream:

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I had to run to the store to pick up something. I could go to Walmart, but that's twice the distance as Hy-Vee and almost as bad. In this dream, I decided to go to Hy-Vee. As I walked across the parking lot toward the store, it was sunny out, but as usual there were ominous black storm clouds above the store. ONLY above the store. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as ghost-shaped plastic shopping bags blew past in the wind. The automatic door opened with a haunted house-like creak and I could hear a loud cackling echoing from somewhere in the store. The air was unnaturally cold when I walked in and for a second I wondered how badly we really needed another gallon of milk.

Suddenly, all of the Hy-Vee employees ran to the front of the store where I stood and sprang into song. In a carefully choreographed routine, they danced around and sang some show tune about friendly smiles and how much fun it can be to shop at Hy-Vee. It was a Hy-Vee musical! I couldn't tell if this was better or worse than my usual experience. They tap danced on the conveyor belts and even clambered up into a giant human pyramid for the finale. Colored confetti rained down from nowhere and colored lights swirled patterns across the floor.

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Then I woke up. How's that for weird? (Not the waking up part, the dream part.) Trust me, if I posted half of my dreams on here, no one would want to talk to me anymore.