Old things leave, new things come in

Today was my last day at my current job. It is no longer my current job; it is in the past. I feel nostalgic and sentimental already. I feel like I want to cry from sadness.

I attended an online meeting of Sexual Compulsives Anonymous last night. It was strange. Very cold and distant. I've tried to control my compulsive sexual behavior before, and it usually goes well for awhile, but then I hit a stumbling block, and fall back into my old behavior. The meeting seemed rather strange, because I've just been letting myself go lately, sexually that is. I could relate to what they were saying, but intellectually, not emotionally. It didn't really connect. But I've decided to start trying to become "sober" now, so I bet I'll be able to relate to what they are saying more in a week or two, when the pressure starts to build.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

I am full of hate today, more so than I have been for several months (though not nearly as bad as I was this time last year).

Argh...I must reaffirm to myself that I'm am writing this blog for my own benifit, not for the enjoyment of other people. I can write whatever I want, and not worry about how other people will react. If they don't like it, they can go somewhere else.

Did you ever feel insane? Like, actually insane? I felt like that alot today. It never overtook me completely, but I could feel it at the edges, trying to push it's way in. I blame this damned yellow coat that I have; it's bad enough with all the white snow everywhere, I have to wear this obnoxious coat on top of it.

Actually, I love the white snow. I think what is actually making me insane is the fact that all the students are gone from campus. It's like a ghost town, or a different dimension. I hate going to work every day, 'cause without the students the place seems way too personal. Everyone can see me when I walk by, there is not question of blending in. Thank god I start a new job in a few weeks. Otherwise I could have to cry.

Other than that, there is no real sadness. I don't know why I feel so crazy, hateful, and aggresive. I really don't know. Oh yeah, now I remember; I realized that I was not a perfect person, and that there were a great number of people in the world who didn't want anything to do with me. I knew that before, but I didn't really care. Now I do care, for some reason, and it is really bothering me.

"You'll Dance to Anything by Public Image Limited"

I'm feeling so conflicted today. I feel like I'm compromising my value system. I saw ol' what's his name, the one from the sex dream, last night. He practically ignored me, but when he did talk to me he seemed really fake and nervous. I can't tell if he actually likes me or not.

Here's the really sad part: he looked really good, and really fashionable. The guy he was with was really cool, like some kind of punk guy, or some kind of club kid or something. It really distressed me; I can't compete. So I've been all trying to look "cool" today, seeing if I can do it. Unfortunately, whenever I start to think about my self-image, and start trying to look "cool", I get into this really negative mind-frame, where I start being really judgmental towards other people; like, instead of judging them by their personality I start to judge them by how they look, and whether that look is going to fit in with my look, or if it is going to make me look "cooler" or "dorkier". It's really sad. I don't like it. It makes me feel like a dick (not to say that dicks are bad things, but you know what I mean). It goes against what I believe to be right, and it keeps me from having satisfying relationships (just friends or more) with other people. There are more than a couple people that I remember rejecting in my youth (and yes, in my adulthood as well, even in the past few months), because they were not what I considered "cool", and then later found out that they were really interesting people that would have been fun to be friends with. Like, when I was a teenager, there was this guy, named Pat, who I totally discounted as being below me and my friends, and who I actually avoiding introducing to my friends. Later on though, by methods beyond my control, he did get to know us, and I got to know him pretty well. When I look back on that time of my life, and think about the people that were really interesting to me, and who I actually considered to be my friends, Pat stands out a lot more than anyone else in that group. I actually connected with him a little bit, while almost everybody else in that group seemed like strangers, and later on like enemies. And while I couldn’t care less about what became of the other people in that group, I would find it really interesting to meet up with Pat again and have a nice conversation

Later on, after I realized how fucked up I had been treating people (especially after I got treated in the same “you’re not cool enough for me” way by other people) I started consciously staying away from people that seemed like they cared a lot about being cool, and tried really hard to not do things that make me look cool myself. I wanted to identify with common people, regular people. Unfortunately, after trying to make connections with the people that I did not consider cool, I realized that in fact they did think that they were the cool ones; it’s just that they were going by a whole different standard than I was. Obviously, I did not live up to that standard, and I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from them for that. It drives me nuts. What I’ve sort of unconsciously decided is that I’m going to talk to whoever I want, respond to kindness wherever I find it, and blow off all criticism of my style as besides-the-point. Usually this works, because I actually really don’t see most other people’s styles as “cool”, and even though I really like these people, I don’t feel a strong need to emulate their style or worry about what they think of my social status. The problem comes in when I find myself interacting with a nice person who does match that idea of “cool” that I have in my head; then all of a sudden I can’t just enjoy myself; I want them, and I want them to want me, and it feels really pressing. I start worrying about what I’m wearing, how I’m acting (like, apart from just worrying about being respectful, which I worry about no matter who I’m talking to, I worry about acting “cool”). I start obsessing over my public image (“you’ll dance to anything by Public Image Limited” –The Dead Milkmen), and to my great shame I start avoiding people that I like or who I would like to get to know because of what I think the “cool guy” will think of me.

It really makes me sick.

But I like to look good, and I like to dress up. I like to play with my image, and try on different personas. I don’t think it’s bad to look cool, or to associate with people that look cool. There are a lot of people who look cool who also have really interesting personalities. And at the very least they are aesthetically pleasing. I just don’t want it to affect my relationships with people that don’t look cool. I want to appreciate coolness, without having it dominate my life.

Wah!!! But if I don’t try to conform to others, then no one will ever accept me; I’ll always be outside of their system, and no matter how much they like me, they’ll never be able to accept me as one of their own. Wah!!! Eternal solitude!!

Travel Dreams

I had a million things going through my mind, but now they've all gone.

I dreamed I was moving to Chicago last night. I dreamed that I was visting Chicago last night. I dreamed that I was living in a Chicago subrurb untill I got the balls to move to the city itself. I dreamed all three things.

I dreamed I was visiting Sweden. I was swimming through a river, with blocks of frozen ice, and lots of snow floating in it. That's pretty normal in Sweden, to take a swim in the middle of winter. Lots of people were doing it, even little kids.

All the shops in Sweden were really cartoony, with child-like music blaring out of them, and lots of funny colorfull statues. Sweden was for kids. In fact, Chicago, crime-ridden as it was, seemed pretty child-like too. I guess I'm feeling child-like lately (as opposed to childish, which is a more common feeling for me).

I don't think I'd like to move to Sweden in reality. From what I gather, the people there just seem too happy. It would be a headache. Chicago could work though. Not that these dreams mean anything. I would say approximately half my dreams revolve around me visiting somewhere or moving somewhere. Although I've visited alot of places in the U.S., the only places I ever really moved to in reality were Tempe, Arizona, Flaggstaff, AZ, and Columbus, OH. I don't believe that I ever dreamed about any of those places before I moved there. I mean, c'mon, who dreams about Columbus, OH?

Soloman the Manatee

I have a stuffed animal. Some people say it's a dolphin, but I've always thought of it as a Manatee. Its name is Soloman. It's rather large, and I use it as a pillow, or I often put it between my knees as I lay in my bed studying; that's comfortable to me, for some reason.

Anyway, the other night, as I had it between my knees, I looked down at it, and I got the acute impression that it was in pain, or was perhaps angry at being used in such an undignified manner. Its black plastic eyes spoke volumes about its suffering, and I started to feel kind of guilty, or perhaps a little scared. I knew that what I was experiencing was not reality, but the impression was still very strong. In fact, it seemed to get stronger the longer I looked at it. It didn't really bother me, because I knew it was just my mind playing tricks on me, so I sort of enjoyed it; I sometimes enjoy experiencing things that obviously cannot really happen; it makes life seem more magical.

But I realized that the experience of feeling the emotions of this stuffed animal was actually not at all different than the experience I often have of feeling the emotions of people around me. The emotions I was getting from Soloman were actually very similar to the ones I perceived I was getting from Not-Dave the other night. It makes me think that in reality I can't feel other people's emotions at all, and that I'm really just projecting what I believe they are feeling.

I wonder if other people find my emotional projection stifling.

The idea of not knowing what other people are feeling makes me very nervous. How will I be able to function? How will I know when I've offended someone? How will I know when I'm pleasing someone? How will I know how to react?

I can't look at the world objectively; it's just too difficult.

Not-Dave

As usual, i'm totally losing my mind. This time is a little worse than usual though. Have I told you that I often have paranoid delusions about conspiracies of psychic...revolutionaries or something coming after me? Like, i'm positive that they want me to join their insidious clique, but I resist them with all my might. I guess right now I'm having one of those moments when I feel that presure more acutely than usual.

Perhaps this helps explain my distrust of groups (religious, social, political, whatever). Either this paranoid fantasy is a result of my distrust of groups, or my distrust of groups is a result of this fantasy.

I truly do live my life almost entirely in a fantasy world. Usually I'm aware that it's a fantasy, but that doesn't make it any easier to turn around and face reality.

Oh, by the way, I met a nice guy last night. Let's call him Not-Dave, because his name in not Dave, no matter how much I think it should be. We had a short conversation, and then he came to my room, and we messed around for a little while. It was nice. When he left I was really proud of myself, because I didn't ask for his number, I didn't get all weird and clingy, and I didn't try to make it anything more than it really is (which was just a one night stand type of thing....though somehow that phrase doesn't seem so positive...maybe I could call it "a night of singular passion", which makes it's fleeting nature seem like a wistfull and beautifull thing). So me and Not-Dave had a singular night of passion, and I left it at that, going to bed with the contented notion that I would forget all about him, and go on with my life.

Well, no such luck. As this day is progressing, I'm thinking about him more and more. I don't even know why, really. He seemed nice, but not like perfect or anything. He really reminds me of an old biology teacher I used to have, who always seemed to me to be this really great guy that I could never have, because he was just the epitome of "straight". (And just what is the epitome of straight? Emotions kept very carefully out of sight, focus on the physical world above all else, and lots of blue and grey clothing).

Well, here's the REAL reason that I'm getting so obsessed with him: a few months back I had this dream about this guy who lived in a big expensive high-rise apartment. He wasn't all rich and snotty, but he had a bit of money, mostly from working hard. I went to go stay with him. He seemed really straight, but he would have sex with me, and he kept me around for that purpose. Well, Not-Dave, while not rich, seems quite comfortable financially, at least compared to me, and he owns a condo in a high-rise in downtown Columbus. Also, he has what I consider to be a pretty straight vibe, like, not that weird fakey type of straight vibe that you see alot of men (both gay and straight) adopt, but just that cold distantness that I get from certain guys, which just allways seems to scream "straight". And as far as sex is concerned, he was almost 100% top. He wanted to fuck me, but I only let guys that I've known for awhile and whom I'm real comfortable with fuck me. Instead, he just talked really dirty about fucking me and making me do things, like, fucking me 'till I'm sore, making me suck his dick, and then fucking me again. It was exactly the type of thing that I fantsize about repressed "straight" guys doing to me, using me as a sex object, without regard for my own pleasure. Of course, Not Dave actually did seem quite concerned about my pleasure, but It was both of our pleasure's to pretend that he was just gonna use me.

So he's just like the guy in my dream, the one who I really wanted, but knew I could never get. And here's the really annoying part: I can't remember what the guy in my dream looked like, but I can't shake the feeling that he looked JUST LIKE NOT-DAVE. I want to believe that he actually looked completely different, because then I would be free from this neurotic fantasy, and could go on with my life. On the other hand, I really want to believe that it WAS Not-Dave in my dream, 'cause then I could believe that we are "destined" to be together, and then I could let myself go, into a whole dream-world of me and Not-Dave, living in our high-rise apartment, having dirty, ego-destroying sex.

Sigh....

I hope I don't see him again for a long time.

Sigh....

Man, I got a wicked headache today.

I went to the Asian market, and bought strange things. Mostly instant things. I don't have my own kitchen right now, so cooking is a bitch.

I had a really hot dream about that one guy, the one i've been obsessing about. Though I can't capture the feeling now, right when I woke up i was overcome by the strongest desires. I remember thinking that that was the hottest sex I'd ever had, in dreams or reality.

Here is the dream: I walked into a library on campus (a fictional library on a fictional campus), and he was studying, way over on the other side of a big room. The lights were all this intense and shadowing reddish-orange. I walked over to say hi, but when I got there he was gone; there was nothing but his books and his coat. I figured that he probably had gone to the restroom, intending me to follow. I went to the restroom, and sure enough he was there, standing at one of the urinals. We were the only people in there, but everything was really cluttered and close together. I took my dick out and stood at the urinal right next to him, which was so close our arms were touching. This freaked him out, so he steeped a couple of urinals away, back in a corner, behind one of the stalls. I could see him real well then; he had his dick out, and it was HARD…like, the type of hardness you only get when you’re REAL horny, where your dick is almost pointing upwards. But he had a pretty big dick, and heavy, so it was only pointing up a little bit. He was stroking it, not too fast, but real focused and rhythmic, pulling his foreskin back and forth, exposing then covering the engorged purplish head. You could tell that he was ON, like, about to shoot. I knew he wanted me to keep my distance, but I wanted his cock so badly that I moved closer to him anyway. He was trapped in a corner, so he couldn’t do anything about it, but he didn’t seem to care so much anymore. He just keep jerking that big cock of his. I reached out to grab it, sort of against his will, but when I got my fist around it, I guess it felt so good to him that he gave up his will, stopped jerking off, and just let me do what I wanted. I felt really good in my hand, soft textured, firm, and BIG, really solid and full in my hand. I stroked it up and down a few times, just enjoying the sensation. Then, I leaned over and put the head in my mouth, and started working my mouth up and down on the head, stroking in time with my hand, bringing the foreskin up into my mouth, then back down again. I saw that he had this real pained look on his face. I think most guys would recognize it; it’s the face that a guy makes when he’s totally over-taken by the intensity of the sexual sensations that he’s feeling, and he’s just to the point that he’s gonna cum. His cock worked it’s way deeper into my mouth, almost into my throat, and then he started to shoot; five or six long, intense spurts of thick white cum down my throat. I stopped stroking and just let him cum. It was perfect.

Then I woke up.

I have a feeling that nothing is really ever going to happen between me and this guy, like, in reality. I just have that feeling.

And by the way, here’s my new idea of how to approach sex: Accept it when it comes, forget it when it’s over. That is to say, when I find myself by chance in a sexual situation, and I’m horny, then I’m just gonna let myself go with it (as long as it’s not endangering my health). However, I’m not gonna go looking for it, and once it’s over, I’m not gonna dwell on it. I know enough people that like to get it on that I’ll still probably have sex maybe once a week. How to apply this rule to masturbation is a different matter. What I’m gonna do….is….I’m not sure. How about, when it seems to be happening really naturally and spontaneously, then I’ll let myself jerk off. However, there must be no force. And I feel as though I really must adhere to my fantasy guidelines which I laid out a few entries ago. And really, I should avoid masturbating more than once a day.

Skrargh......

"We have to become willing to tolerate the discomfort of a frustrated impulse"
-Sexual Compulsives Anonymous

This probably won’t make sense to anyone but me, but here goes. I just realized…I was thinking before that…well, not long ago, I made a very sincere and focused attempt to limit the type and frequency of sex that I was having, and it worked for about 3 months. Then, one day, I saw this guy…like…the perfect guy. And he was cruising me, at the public restroom in the building I work at. And I said to myself “I’m not doing this anymore. It’s time to stop.” But he was soooo good looking, like, the type of guy you never see cruising around restrooms. It was easy to not do it when I didn’t even like the guys that were out there, but this guy was different.

Anyway, he’s the guy that I was talking about in thelast entry. Really, I’ve become obsessed with him. I think about him constantly. It’s driving me nuts.

I don’t know how to put what I’m thinking into words here.

I was thinking about this guy, and I was acting like…like it was because of him that I started cruising a lot again. Like, I’ve been cruising pretty regularly lately, and I was thinking to myself “I was fine before I met that guy. The reason I’m cruising is because I really want him, but he’s not available, so I’m doing this as a second best option.” And, honestly, I’m not enjoying cruising at all. But the point is that I was acting as though what I was doing and thinking about this guy was all healthy and normal, and that it was just the cruising that was unfortunate. But now I realize that my obsession with this guy is just one part of my whole obsessive-compulsive attitudes towards sex. Like, my way of reacting to this guy is not just because I really like him or something (though he does seem really nice…but I actually barely know him at all!), it’s just a symptom of some deeper problem.

I need to take care of myself first. I need to change my attitudes about sex and relationships before I start trying to have sex and relationships again. If this guy is really the type of person that will be fine hanging out with me for who I am, not just because we might get to mess around, then my…hesitation will not really matter. But if that’s not the case, and all he really wants from me is sex, then he’s just going to have to live with….BAH….I don’t’ even know what I’m saying…In reality I’d probably do whatever he told me to. Fuck it all.

I'm about to go to a job interview. I am confident that I will get the job. I am less confident that I will be any good at it.

I'm very frustrated. Why can I only get-off if I feel as though I'm being abused, or dominated. Or like if the guy doesn't really want me or like me. I need to feel used. On the other hand, If I feel as though i'm just completely using someone else, then I can get off that way too. Anything but real affection and equality.

The reason I'm talking about this is because I met a man that I really like, and unlike with Dolphin (see previous entries), it seems like something that will actually become reality, as opposed to just a dream. When I first saw him, when he was still just a stranger, I was so turned on...it was really heavy. Now...I've met him and talked to him, and he's really nice. I can't imagine trying to dominate him. And he doesn't really seem like the type to try and dominate me. He's very respectfull. I feel very strong emotions for him, partially because he obviously does have respect for me. But even though I can see objectively that physically he is really what turns me on, the power struggle isn't there, and I'm not so turned on by him anymore. I feel really sad about this. My little power struggle fetish is messing up my chance to have some fun sex with a attractive guy that I actually like as a person too.

This actually reminds me of one of my ex-boyfriends, the Suburban Pot-Head. I had the same problem with him. But I found that if I just didn't fantasize or masturbate very often, then I wouldn't need the power struggle; being with him as he was, was just fine, and was actually alot funner than the aggresive, psychologically abusive sex I would have with others. The problem...I would get so weird and needy about sex with him, and if he wouldn't have sex with me when I wanted it I would get really angry. I depend on the pure biological pleasure of sex to keep myself feeling good. I'm addicted to the endorphins, or whatever. The orgasmic pleasure is the goal, and I'm addicted to it in the same way i'm addicted to cigarettes (see yesterday's entry), so I need it all the time. I can restrict myself to only having it every other day, but only if I KNOW that i'll be able to have it. If not...well, i get a little obsessive, and start jerking off two, three, or more times a day.

But i've decided; i'm going to not masturbate or fantasize untill I get to have this guy at least once. I think the pleasure of natural, non-fetishized sex, even if only once, with this beautifull man, will be worth the restriction that I'm placing on myself now.

Statement of Appropriate and Inappropriate Sexaul Behavior

Last night I dreamed that I was arrested, for the second time (in the dream), for having sex in a public restroom. When they were arresting me, it was unclear whether they were arresting me for the sex, or because I was smoking in a public restroom (Columbus recently passed a law that severely limits smoking in public places). As it turned out, they were arresting me for the sex, and I was going to go to jail (just like in The Stranger, by Mr. Camus). I begged them “please don’t send me to jail. If I join a group for sexual addicts, and change my behavior, can I get out of going to jail?”

They never answered. But I do think I have an addiction. I think the fact that my brain was confusing cigarette behavior and sex behavior is a good indicator of the addictive and compulsive nature of my sexual behavior. So today I looked on the internet for groups that help recovering sex addicts. I didn’t find any good ones, but I did read some interesting articles. One of them said that it is important, when trying to change your sexual behavior, to write out a concrete statement of what you consider to be healthy and unhealthy sexual behavior. So here goes:

I consider sex with complete strangers to be inappropriate. I consider sex with people that I actually don’t like, and would not enjoy talking to, to be inappropriate. I consider sex in which I completely objectify other people to be inappropriate. I consider sex in which I am completely objectified to be inappropriate. I consider sex that centers around oppression and violence to be inappropriate. I think it is inappropriate to have sex with someone that you have no positive feelings about (though I don’t think I need to go so far as to say that you should be in a loving, committed relationship with someone if you’re going to have sex with them; friendly, pleasant feelings are enough). Finally, I think it is inappropriate to have unprotected sex with people that I do not know the sexual history of, or to engage in unsafe sex with someone that I know has an STD.

As far as my fantasies go, I have a few regulations concerning that as well. I consider fantasies in which I am abusing or oppressing other people or am myself being abused or oppressed to be inappropriate. I consider fantasies in which I completely objectify someone, or am completely objectified myself, to be inappropriate. Any fantasy which centers around someone being forced to do something, or not feeling like they have a choice in doing something, is inappropriate.

And for masturbation, I think that it is inappropriate to force myself to jerk-off when I’m not overtly horny. I think that it is only appropriate to jerk-off when my body is showing an obvious desire for sexual release, such as a hard-on. Fantasies while jerking-off should conform to the standards mentioned above. If I cannot get off without resorting to activities that are not allowed in this list, than the only appropriate thing to do is to stop trying to get off.

Okay, we’ll see how I do on this.

magic

”Hail son of kings
Make the ever-dying sign
Cross your fingers in the sky
For those about to be.
There am I
Waiting along the sand;
Cast your sweet spell
Upon the land and sea.”

-Jethro Tull, from A Passion Play


I am full of magic tonight…I want it to stay forever…Alas, it will not.

I am in love. The tension I felt earlier tonight, that I couldn’t get rid of…I was waiting to fall in love. I am ready for that again. I am ready to feel things again. I’m ready to be taken into the supreme gentle madness of emotion, to taste the 500 flavors of pleasure.

I’m not ready. I know that. I am not the genius of magnificent experience. I probably never will be. But for a short time, I want to take in the world in the way I used to, before I became sane again, before I rejoined the human race. I want the electric connection between me and everything, but without the pain that is inherent in that. I want to breathe, and breathe free, into eternity.

But I will settle for falling in love with a man. I cannot face fully the three dimensional chaos of life, but through the rough basic pleasure of sexual/emotional connection with a human being, I can catch a quick glance of it out of the corner of my eye.

I talked to people today.

I had a nice day today; I talked to some people. Like, people that I wasn’t forced to talk to, or who I wanted to get something from; Just regular people that I talked to strictly for pleasure. It was nice.

I’m making a conscious effort to only talk to people if I have to, or if I think it will be pleasurable to talk with them. A lot of times I talk to people because I want them to do things for me, like give me a ride home, let me live with them, or give me a blowjob. I think, though, that my relations with others will be healthier and more satisfying if they are initiated purely for the pleasure of having the relation itself, not for some other benefit. And it worked. I had two nice conversations with people today, one a complete stranger and the other a long-time acquaintance.

Speaking of my dreams, I don’t remember any from last night…oh yeah, me and my friend Anna were doing a documentary about Starbucks; not to expose exploitation or anything like that, but just to focus on the people that work there, like some kind of slice-of-life type of thing. After I woke up, I was struck by the pacing of the dream; it seemed to be happening in real time, with the pacing of reality, and with the same sort of continuity as reality. In the past most of my dreams were random images, or images interspersed with pure emotion without object, which were all held together by a theme, but not with a very cohesive story line. Lately though, my dreams have seemed more like movies. I think this denotes a recent change in my consciousness.

On another note, I went cruising down by the river again today. Even though the guy that I ended up being with was actually really hot, and was well suited to my sexual style (he was a bottom), I didn’t really enjoy myself so much, and went away slightly dissatisfied. Strange.

Zombies and Rich Drunk Italians

Last night I dreamed of zombies, again. I was in Ireland this time. A high school class from some European place were there with me. We were in the Irish country side. We were looking at some type of windmill during the day. At night we were all holed up in a little shack. This is when the zombies came out. They were surounding the shack. In the shack with us were these three rich Italians, two men and a woman, along with their servants. For some reason the servants were much more at risk of getting attacked and infected by the zombies than other people, perhaps because they had to go outside so much. However, they had been carefully trained so that if they were bitten they would go on serving, until it became obvious that they were about to turn into a zombie, and then they would let themselves out quietly before they started attacking people.

There was a bar in the shack, and the three Italians spent all their time at the bar. The one man and the woman were drinking the two alchohols that go into martinis separately, like the man was drinking one and the woman was drinking the other. The other man was drinking something called "aquavit". I don't know if that is something that exists in reality. They were each drinking these liquors because they would compliment and enhance their separate personalities. You could tell by looking at them that they each had a separate over-riding characteristic which they exemplified. It was important for these three rich Italians to get drunk, because when you’re drunk you can run away from and fight the zombies much more easily; like you won’t notice the pain, and you’ll never be able to rationalize to yourself that the running and fighting is hopeless; you’ll just keep running and fighting until you physically can’t do it anymore, and probably have an almost fun time doing it too.

I woke up before anything really scary happened, though I was still a little tweaked out.

I have no idea what the Italians or the Europeans are all about. I think that the significance of the Italians was less their nationality and more their economic class, i.e. rich. They were looked down on by me during the dream. I thought of them as escapist and pretentious, like they were in an Ivory Tower, ignoring the reality of the situation. However, by the end of the dream I well understood why they felt the need to get drunk; it wasn’t a perfect situation in everyday life, but when the zombies start to come after you, you’ll thank your lucky stars that you’re numb and slightly irrational.

I’ve had a lot of dreams about zombies, and zombies usually seem to represent the part of me that feels completely out of control, or mindless. They also have an element of conformity about them, of having no separate will, just an instinct. I believe that in this dream it was not so much about conformity, or feeling attacked by a mindless society. No, I believe that this time they represented the madness in myself that I always keep suppressed. I am often afraid that the madness will take over (in reality, not in dreams) and I concoct various methods of making sure I keep myself under control. For example, over the past year I have become quite dependant on over-the-counter sleeping pills. I only take one or two a night, but even that small amount goes a long way towards making me feel like a normal, functioning human being. I’m not saying that I do feel like a normal, functioning human being while I’m on them, I just feel more like a normal, functioning human being. But I also often analogize my addiction to sleeping pills to that of an alcoholic, and indeed, the feeling I have while on them is vaguely reminiscent of being a little bit tipsy. Obviously, this is the situation that this dream was commenting on. But it didn’t seem negative. It seemed understandable, and perhaps the best solution for a fucked-up world.

And even though I looked down on them a little bit, I would still rather be a rich Italian than myself.

whipped cream punk girl

Last night I dreamed that I was lying asleep in a comfy bed pushed up against the wall in a dark room. This punk girl sneaks up to me. She has a pie crust and a tin of whipped cream. She’s going to play a trick on me; she’s going to put the whipped cream in the pie crust, and right when I wake up she’s going to throw a pie in my face. But I’m too clever for her; I’m sleeping with one eye open, and I can see what she’s going to do. Before she has time to assemble the pie (and she’s really taking her time about it for some reason) I quick grab the whipped cream and throw it in her face. Hu-ha! Take that, punk girl!

Then the scene switches directly to the other side of the wall, which is outside on the top of a grassy hill. Me and her re-enact the same scene over, only she is more prepared this time, and she gets me a little bit, though I get her worse. The whipped cream feels warm, soft, and tickly.

Now, I know where the girl came from; she was a political punk from Minneapolis, who I never really knew personally, but who I shared a lot of common acquaintances with. She taught at a private school called Second Foundation whose philosophy was that students get to do whatever they want. It was mostly attended by young punks who wanted to drop out of school, but who were too young to do so legally. I had already dropped out of school illegally, and had already paid the legal price (8 hours of community service and a short class about…drugs? The importance of school? I don’t even know) so I had no use for the school. But I had acquaintances who went there. They told me the punk teacher had taken them to some botanical garden, and had told them that the beauty of flowers were proof that nature had intended humans to have psychedelic experiences, or something like that. Later on, when I was in my early 20’s, I was taking a high school level math class at the local community college, and the punk girl was enrolled in the same class. I found that odd, and amusing, but I wasn’t actually surprised.

I know where the pie came from too; that came from a story that my sister had told me the other day. On Halloween she had dressed up as an Evil Klown, and while she was walking home Halloween night from a dance club she ran into another Evil Klown, a male one. That Evil Klown invited her to a party, at which there was nothing but Evil Klowns, all in a big warehouse. I guess the guy who was throwing the party did it every year. He was obsessed with clowns. He even runs a clown-porn website, knottyklown.com (which actually is really bad). At the party they had a female clown stripper. While she stripped, they threw cream pies at her. They had hundreds of pies crusts, and hundreds of cans of whipped cream, and you had to assemble the pies yourself. When you threw them at the stripper, you had to be sure to take them out of pie tin, ‘cause that could hurt her.

That’s the way it was going to be done in my dream too; she was gonna assemble the pie, remove it from the tin, and then throw it at me. So does this make me a stripper of some kind? But I threw it at her…is she some kind of metaphorical stripper? And I was sleeping. It reminds me of something someone had once told me: “Minneapolis is sleeping”, referring to that city’s lack of political and social consciousness. Now that I live in Columbus, I think “Columbus is sleeping”. In actuality, all of America is sleeping. And in my dream, I was sleeping. So maybe I was getting a wake up call. But some kind of sexual wake up call? And by a punk? So some kind of political-sexual wake up call. But then I threw it back at her…am I avoiding being sexually and politically responsible by projecting the wake-up-call to others, pretending that it is them who need the wake-up-call, not me? And why was I only pretending to sleep? I’m not as unconscious as I pretend to be, I’m just casting a farce so to be free from blame. But in fact, I have more of a political consciousness then I admit to myself or others. Really, I’m just afraid of taking responsibility.

That was interesting. Very cathartic.

Oprah and the War

Bah. I’m so sad. The other night I wrote this really nice piece for the blog about a dream I had, but it got erased. Maybe I’ll try again.

The other night I had a very frightening dream. I was at the local gay coffee house here, and I was walking along the grassy promenade that stretches for awhile behind the shop (which doesn’t exist in reality). There were all these other people there, walking back and forth, arm in arm, just like in some French impressionist painting. All of sudden, I see that there are these men in green army fatigues on the other side of the promenade. There are five of them, and they are wielding machetes. They start attacking people with them. I try to run, but one of them, wearing sunglasses, catches me and starts attacking me. I try to get away, but all his buddies join in, all of them attacking me, trying to kill me. It was horrible. It was war. I wake up terrified. Soon though, I go back to sleep. I slip into the same dream, only this time the men have sniper rifles, with cross-hairs and laser aiming. This is even scarier than before, because now there’s no running; no matter how far you go, they can still get you. You are never safe.

Later on, after I had woken up and after I had finished work, I went to the local Ethiopian restaurant and bar to get a little dinner. Their TV’s were showing Oprah, and so I watched while I waited for my food. They were reading the last letters written by soldiers killed in the Iraq war. They had their loved ones reading them, crying hard. It was pretty standard. But then, after the segment was over and they were about to cut to commercial, Oprah said one of the most intelligent and relevant things I have heard anyone say during this whole Iraq thing. She looked right into the camera, and said, simply and without inflection, “War is Real”. She then went on say something about prayers and such that didn’t interest me. But that statement, “War is Real” really stuck with me. I don’t think a lot of people understand this, at least not in America. They see war as a game, as a common fist-fight, an idea, a picture on the TV. We want it for reactionary reasons; it’s a strange compulsion, it’s what our parents told us to value, it’s what you have to want when attacked by someone else. And it is interesting to me that all the people who did call for war were the people who were least directly affected by 9/11, that is to say, the people in the south, the Midwest, the deserts and the mountains. The people who were affected by the war, like New Yorkers, all voted for Kerry, which is essentially a vote against the war. They saw the war. It is not a game, or an idea. It happened to them. It is reality, and they want no more of it.

Well, I have a lot more to say about this, but it will have to wait ‘till later.