Not a Great Dream... but at least not a nightmare.

This morning I had a very vivid dream.

There was a spaceship going to another planet. We all decided that it was the best thing to go on the spaceship and live on the new planet, and were given a rendezvous point and a time to meet. We met the first one, but I decided that I couldn't go on that one because I /needed/ to see Tristan before I left. So Stephen went, and Ashley stayed with me. Our rendezvous was rescheduled.

I went to see Tristan, and when it was time to leave, he didn't want me to go. He clung to me, saying he wanted to go with me, but was being pulled back into the house away from me. I stayed with him until I was so late that I couldn't be sure that I would make the rendezvous, and left him screaming my name. I could hear it all the way to pick up my stuff.

I woke up before finding out if I made it to the rendezvous point on time, but I felt bitter and sick inside. I know what my brain is trying to sort through. But I would like it much better if it would not do it right when I have to get up and thus set up my day to start by feeling a bit dead inside. Just sayin'.

At least it wasn't a nightmare - unlike the time when Tristan was 1 that I dreamt I cut the head off a cow with a pair of scissors (it was a mercy killing) and then discovered that it wasn't a cow, it was Tristan - and I held his head telling him I loved him and was sorry over and over until he died. I woke myself up crying with that one. Nice one, brain. Nice.

New Street and Memory Lane.

Update: We are moving.

We have been looking for a house to move into for a while, and it was getting pretty close on time. I was starting to get pretty worried that we were going to have no place to go. I started having dreams about houses being taken away from us at the last minute, and being homeless. Classic anxiety dreams.

As of yesterday, we THINK we have a house. It is smaller than what we are in now (that's good) and a lot less expensive too. Not too far away from where we are now. So it is easy to walk everywhere that we need to get to. Closer to my work, actually, though further from the Universities and Ash's school.

I actually slept last night without having dreams that involved houses. Nice.

Notice on the sideboard my little map. I'm quite excited to see where all of you are. If you click on the map, it will take you to a larger version, and from there you can even get more detail and see more accurately where everyone is. I have wanted a map on the blog for quite a while. Stephen-the-Computer-God made it happen. He is a nice man. I think I'll keep him for another day or two, anyway.

An old friend found me via Classmates.com. A friend whom I think a bout every now and again, as he was my first date, and my first dance. The 5th grade dance. I have a picture of the two of us at that dance. If it weren't packed, I would scan it in. Maybe later.

Anyway, talking to him led to his wanting caught up on all the time since 5th grade. That, and the letter from Linda Marie to Kelli that I found in my correspondence box. As many of you know, I don't have very many happy memories of those years. So this is a bit of a warning: the rest of this post is going to take a meander down my memory lane. It is most likely a little unpleasant. You don't have to read anymore if you don't want to. I won't be offended.

My only memory I have of my mother from when I was a child was when I was 5. She had the Carpenters on the phonograph in the living room. It was morning, and I got out of bed and went looking for her. I couldn't find her, and started to get scared. But then I saw her through the window in the backyard. She was cutting flowers off of a bush in the backyard. Small fragrant white flowers. She brought them in, wrapped them in a wet paper towel, and wrapped the paper towel in aluminum foil. She was going to take them to work. I remember the maroon carpeting. It was still thick then.

My first memory of me interacting with Linda Marie was of her throwing me against the chalkboard that Daddy had hung for Kelli and I in the hallway. I don't remember what I had done wrong, but I remember being shocked that she had hurt me. I still didn't know that children were for hurting.

I remember Kelli washing the dishes. I remember that she wasn't doing them right - she didn't have her hands completely under the water. It was too hot. I remember her crying. I remember Linda Marie throwing her on the ground and straddling her and punching her over and over again until I couldn't stand it anymore and I though I was going to explode. I remember that I screamed at her "STOP!" It was the only time I ever stood up to her.

I remember being told over and over that I was stupid and worthless and that I couldn't do anything right. It didn't matter what I did. I was a waste of space.

I remember the knot of sick that my stomach would twist into on Saturday's at about 5:00 pm. I didn't even have a clock. My body knew the time. She would be home at 5:30, and 5:00 meant that I felt sick and terrified, huddled on the couch holding onto myself. I have never been so scared as that since.

I remember not brushing my teeth well enough, and Linda Marie reaching across Kelli to slap me across the face to get me to do it better.

I remember not getting dressed fast enough in the 7th grade, and having to go to school in my pajamas. I hid in the library. The boy I didn't want to talk to and hated because he reminded me of me tried to ask me out on a date as I hid.

I remember a trip to the park with the family, in which we were supposed to fly kites. I had to go because I couldn't legally be left home alone, so I was not invited to participate. We had chicken, and I remember eating friend chicken on the blanket while the rest of my family played and flew kites in the park.

I remember the gun. I remember the broom. I remember telling Kelli that everything was ok, go back to sleep, don't come out. I remember hating that she had a half-door at that moment. And I remember that his telling me that I was his good girl after might have made what he was doing ok. Especially when no one believed me when I told anyway.

I remember having to apologise to him and his parents for lying about him. And watching him smirk at me as I did.

I remember Social Services' coming meant that there would be cookies baked. And that I would not get any of them.

I remember the baby bird I brought home. I remember hearing the squeal as it died in the middle of the night. I remember knowing that she had done it.

I remember her throwing away my Cabbage Patch Kid. Its name was Ruby and it had glasses and brown hair like I did. I loved it too much, so it deserved to be trash.

I remember being locked out of the house for 12 hours a day. I remember being hungry. I remember that 8 glasses of water at one time will make you sick, and that water really does not taste good.

I remember her screaming at me in the middle of the night, standing beside my bunk-bed, light on. I had not washed the knives right. I pretended so hard that I was still asleep. I prayed that she would not know that I was awake. She threw the knives in my bed so I would sleep with them and told me that I deserved to be stabbed to death while I slept.

I remember playing in the sandbox that Daddy built for Kelli and I in the backyard. I played cooking shows. Leaves and sand and locust shells became many things, all narrated for a live studio audience.

I remember growing maggots. I caught the fly, and kept it in a film canister. The maggots ate the body of the fly before they died, too.

I remember being told that my mother hated me, that she didn't want me, and that her family was evil. I remember being told that my mother had burned all of my baby pictures. That I was not important enough to be loved.

I remember being called a liar over and over by the people I told.

I am 33, and she still hangs around in my memory. I still don't know if I hate her or not.

Have Yourself A...

First of all, a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends and family. Even though I didn't do anything, really, but study... I was with you in spirit. Imagining Anna's pumpkin cheesecake, Dar's turkey... my pecan and pumpkin pie. I miss you, my family and friends.

There was, of course, not enough time or fundage to call everyone that I wanted to call, or talk as long as I wanted to those I did call. But my thoughts were with each one of you.

There are still 4 projects left on my plate... and they are all due next week, so this really is crunch time. Last night I dreamt about not getting them all done in time. That I was trapped doing them forever and nothing was actually getting done at all, and that the clock was pressing down on me, crushing me. No wonders what I have been thinking about, right?

There have been so many changes here...

The Christmas lights are turned on in the High Street at night. It is amazing to me how something so simple really transforms the whole street. The trees look as though there are will-o-the-wisps floating in them, the whole street glows, and there is an air of Christmas. It makes me excited for the holiday.

The weather, while still cold, is far less cold than I expected. I still freeze, it is still at least as cold as the deep winter in New Mexico, but there has been no snow, and only one day when I walked outside and swore my face was going to fall off from the bitter frost. It has been raining a lot... which I still haven't gotten used to. I still LOVE the rain so much, seeing it grey outside makes me happy.

The river here is SO sensitive to the rain. When it doesn't rain, the river is low. The ducks and moorhens walk around on rocky patches. But the day after a rain, the river runs deep, and if you see a duck at all, it has attached itself to a glob of waterplants to avoid being swept away. It often amuses me that the ducks are so graceful when they swim, while the moorhens have to paddle like crazy and still get swept downstream. That is the joy of not having webbed feet. Poor moorhens.

Speaking of moorhens, the babies I watched from the time I got here have finished growing up and have moved away. Occasionally Stephen and I see one that he says is one of the babies, but I have no idea how he can tell. They all look the same to me anymore.

The one change that I am not happy with involves the sun. It gets really dark here, really early. By 5:30 it is midnight black. The sun is setting at 4. Stephen tells me that by the deep of winter, we will walk to work/school in the dark, and walk back home in the dark. I can't really imagine that yet... and wonder how I will respond. I hope I am not someone who needs the sun in order to function. I have never not had the sun before...

There are changes in us, too. Ash has taken to going out wandering with her friends, and occasionally she wanders out past when I am comfortable. In her defense, my comfort level has nothing at all to do with time, but with how dark it is... so I feel like she is out WAY too late and it is only 6pm. She is so good about coming home when she says and letting me know when she is going and with whom. For the most part, anyway.

I am ready to be done with this degree. I feel as though I am most productive when I don't have to interrupt what I am doing in order to go to class. I spent a few days at one of the local schools, focused on behavioural disorders, and I enjoyed it. I miss being in a classroom. Next term I will spend 6 weeks in a classroom, and I am looking forward to it. I never wanted to be a teacher because of the studying... but because I love being in a classroom learning with the kids. (Though I find that there are some specific classes I really want to take right now... physics, for one. And something math-y.) I miss Tristan so much that it hurts. And I made an apple pie that was so lovely... including the pie crust, from scratch. Yay me.

Stephen is enjoying his job; at least as much as I suppose it is possible to. He has lots of opportunity to direct his own tasks. He likes that. Gaming happens at our house, which I like, because I can pretend that I am involved even though I'm not... and it makes me a little more ok with the fact that I simply don't have time to do fun things like game the way I want to.

Well, this post is long enough to perhaps make up for a bit of my not blogging as much as I want. By the end of next week, things should calm down. I only have 1 big paper that /must/ be done over the break. The rest of the page long list is simply things to keep me ahead. So I should have more time to keep you all up to date. More soon, then!

In Which Amy Fights the Inner Child... (Myspace Blog)

Sometimes the child in my head is so very annoying... Yesterday, I dreamt that I stuck plastic game pieces up my nose, then spent the rest of the dream trying to dig them out. (which sounds even more gross when I write it down than it did when I dreamt it.) This dream was one of those dreams that is LONG - it felt like hours and hours of digging out the pieces in my nose. The piece I stuck in the right side of my nose was quite cooperative, and came out fairly quickly, but the piece stuck in the left nostril kept moving farther and farther up into my sinuses. Which, of course, meant that my finger kept moving father and farther up my sinuses also. Then, this morning, an hour and a half before I had to get up to go to school, *ting!* I'm awake. Just like that. I woke up so fast that it took me a minute or two to realize that I was awake. I thought that I might have been dreaming that I was awake, but nope, I was awake. And not just awake, but WIDE awake, like I had not been sleeping at all. And trying to go back to sleep didn't help - 20 minutes I lay there and my brain cried and ran and giggled to itself until I could not lay in bed another minute. So I yelled at myself a bit, and when I started whining that I wanted to GET UP and I didn't care that it is SATURDAY and who cares that the SUN is not even up yet and ALL RIGHT ALREADY! I'LL GET MY ASS OUT OF BED! *Sigh* The problem with the inner child is that you cannot send them out to turn on the television by themselves and let you sleep. Or beat them. Or make them get their own breakfast for once, dammit. Or get them to sit down and shut up. Or send them outside to play by themselves. Wait - how is that any different?

In Which Amy Spouts Randomness... (Myspace Blog)

It is 5 o'clock in the morning. I am awoken by a tiny voice in my ear - "Momma-there is a starfish in the window." What? A what? "A starfish, Momma, look. A starfish. In the window. There is a starfish in the window." When I finally manage to pry my eyes open and get to the bedside lamp, I see that my son is asleep, in his bed, talking. "Momma, the starfish needs to come in, open the window. No!! DON'T OPEN THE WINDOW!!!" This screaming wakes him up and he blinks at me, then tells me that I woke HIM up, and to turn off the light. Whatever, wacky child. Off goes the light. 10 minutes later, I have just had enough time to get back to sleep, when I hear a tiny voice in my ear - "Spiderman, spiderman, does whatever a spider can..." He is singing. And THAT was the beginning of my day... On an entirely unrelated note, today it is official that more people have read my blog than have looked at my site. I am not entirely sure how that is possible, but it is true. What a shame that so few of those 93 people that have read my blog say anything about it. Especially since most of them are my family... On another unrelated note, I just have to say that I hate studying. Especially for midterms. And at 2 o'clock in the morning. And ALL the time (which is how it feels...) Anyone want to study for me? I promise that I will not mind.

In Which Amy Finds the Lighter Side... (Myspace Blog)

The nightmare was one of those where I wake up with a jerk, adrenaline pumping. 'Creepy Guy' had hypnotized me and kidnapped me and thrown me into an oubliette, and I knew I was going to die because he wanted to wear my skin, and he was going to skin me alive, and I couldn't get out. An hour later, after writing it all down, thinking about it, and being grateful that it was "only a dream", I was still shaky. Two hours later, sitting in Chemistry, I was struggling to write because I was STILL shaky. And three hours later, sitting in English, the instructor brings in the frog. It is a skinned frog. Skinned and stuffed. It is holding a beer bottle as if it were guzzling it and it has been covered with shellac and I cannot imagine how on earth she can possible stand to touch it. She has named it Fred. I am creepily reminded of my dream... and instantly aware of the fact that my nightmare, at least in part, has come true for this frog. I wonder if 'Creepy Guy' would have shellacked me. She wants us to write about Fred- something funny. She almost sets the frog in front of me and I recoil, then explain the dream to her and the class. They stare at me blankly - maybe I am the ONLY person who has nightmares like this. But she does not set it in front of me after all. I am glad. I have to work to be funny, because I do not see anything funny about this frog... and then the glimmer appears. This is what I write: "I imagine him at a bar - Western. He needs a cowboy hat and chaps. He has been riding hard all day - Ooo... an outlaw! Yeah, shooting innocent women and children. He sidles up to the bar after slamming back the swinging doors. His spurs click as he walks with the bowfoot swagger. "Gimmie whiskey - the whole bottle!" His clothes and skin are brown from the dirt of the trail. He tips the bottle back and guzzles it, draining it dry then slamming it down like a gunshot - he has 2 pistols, 1 at each hip, slung low. He clinks to the poker table and pushes his way in, growling. The cantina girls do not approach, but he grabs the nearest and pulls her down onto his lap - her eyes are wide with fear. He growls to be dealt in. He cheats, a barfight erupts - he throws the cantina girl to the floor to fight." Not bad humour for such a crappy nightmare.