"Hypnopomp" is a cool sounding word and something I'd like to incorporate into my daily vernacular, as in, "I had quite the hypnopomp this morning!"
To be honest, I do experience the hypnopompic state rather often (more often than hypnagogia, though the context I am using implies they are opposite and apparently, they are not -- it has to do with brain activity.. ANYWAY). The most frustrating thing about these experiences is grasping something in a dream -- a key, a chain, the hand of my soul mate -- waking, feeling so fervently the thing IN MY HAND only to watch it dissipate and vanish before my very eyes.
Why?! WHY!!! God DAMN YOU! Why must you play these games with me, you stupid, broken brain of mine!
Back in November of 2013, I was living up north (SLC area) and I had to drive down to Cedar for a funeral. The deceased is insignificant to my story but very significant to my life. I could not miss this funeral, despite the huge storm I would have to drive through.
The trip started out okay enough, but as I headed south, the skies grew more ominous and dark. It was near Beaver where the blizzard hit me the hardest, blacking out the sky as if it were the middle of the night. The roads were icy (my car was icy!) and treacherous, but I continued on. I remember hitting the summit and coming up the 'ol raspberries dimly lit though right in front of me. An officer was pulled off to the side as far as he could go and was motioning with his mag light to slow down, proceed with caution. A little while further up the road, there was the cause of the commotion: a state transport van standing on its nose, straight up in the air. It was as if someone had simply placed it there. The blizzard carried on, unaware of or apathetic to the horrific moment. The moment slowed as I passed by, my gaze fixated on the wreckage. Clumps of snow fell elegantly and softly downward as another officer, flashlight in hand, peered into the black, empty windows, in a scene that would terrify anyone who happened upon it.
The interior of my car was warm, but I still felt cold.
I looked up to the night sky, blanketed by thick cloud coverage, and asked myself... What more could this trip bring me?
There was a faint glimmer on the horizon and I wondered what fantastic beast of machinery could possibly be producing that level of light (out here). As I continued onward, the glimmer grew like a wildfire with my forward motion, there, on the horizon. It was around Parowan when I came around the bend that I realized what I was looking at: daylight.
Confused and bewildered, I look at the clock on my dash. It was barely past 4 pm. It. Was. STILL daytime!
The sky was clear, minus a few clouds here and there, by the time I reached my destination. It had rained in town, leaving Cedar smelling fresh and looking beautiful. A couple other mourners at the funeral complained about having to drive up from Vegas and the rain over Blackridge they hit on the way. "Mofos," I calmly stated, "I drove through the dark in the middle of the day AND in the middle of that dark, I drove through a nightmare!"
Next time maybe we could talk about dogs.
Saturday, March 10, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
can we come for a visit?
Whenever I see "V" as a middle initial, my first thought is the first and last names are dueling.
Roe V. Wade
Oh wait, that's not a name..
I have this fantasy of mailing postcards to random addresses across the country. If I could access some sort of database of everyone's name and address in the entire United States, I could literally just scroll through them and stop. There, that person: Charlene Wattsmen at 70 Bowman St. South Windsor, CT 06074. Done.
[I just made that up. How weird would it be if she were an actual person and that was an actual address?]
The postcards would all be pictures I created. Maybe they would be drawings. Maybe photographs. Maybe they would be my power bills cut up and glued back together. Ooooo.. I could shred up some dried leaves into a fine, fine dust, then mix in some sort of glue or liquid adhesive, press the mixture onto wax paper on a cookie sheet, let dry, cut up. Yes. I am "crafty" like that. I am willing to put that level of dedication into this project. I even have some stamps and an ink pad so I could totally add a flower or ghost figure to the "card" once completed.
Every Sunday I read the post secrets on the website by the same name. Every Sunday, I think about what my secret would be. What would I write about? Whom would I write about? Who might see it..?
A long time ago -- like over a decade ago -- I sent a postcard with a secret to post secret. I wrote my name, repeated over and over into a pattern, and used it as the background for my card. That way, I told myself, if I saw it in one of the books they publish or on the website, I would know it was mine (you know, in case it was years later and I had forgotten about it). About 12 years later, I saw it on the website. It took me 4 months to realize it was mine. I showed my sister, "Look! This sounds just like me! How weird!" She said, "Is it you?" It took me 4 months of mental debate to come to the conclusion it was mine. At least, I am pretty sure that was my postcard.
For the fantasy, I would send out a postcard to every state, or maybe a few just in case some got lost or thrown away. Sometimes I think I would put a return address on them with a sort of invitation:
"You have been randomly selected to participate in this interactive art project! Please returned a postcard representative of your state to the following address [insert PO Box I would obtain here]."
I envision taking all the postcards and cutting them into the shape of the state they come from, then putting them together like a puzzle. That would make a pretty cool map, don't you think?
When I was young (like after my teenage years, but before I was legally old enough to drink) my girlffriend and I read about a town in Texas in a National Geographic. I forget the name of the town or why there was a story about it in the magazine, but I do remember the population was extremely low -- like 35 people.
I said to my girlfriend, "We should send them a postcard!"
"How? We don't have an address..." Mind you, this was before the internet was as widely available as it is today -- that or we were just poor.
The solution was obvious, "Dude look. The title of the article is the zip code of the town. The population is so low, we could really just send it to the town itself and let the mailman figure out who to give it to."
About a month later, after we had moved on to some other hair-brained idea, a boring white postcard came in the mail. It was from a saloon in Texas and read, "Got your message! Come on down!" Later that week, we took a road trip to Washington.
Roe V. Wade
Oh wait, that's not a name..
I have this fantasy of mailing postcards to random addresses across the country. If I could access some sort of database of everyone's name and address in the entire United States, I could literally just scroll through them and stop. There, that person: Charlene Wattsmen at 70 Bowman St. South Windsor, CT 06074. Done.
[I just made that up. How weird would it be if she were an actual person and that was an actual address?]
The postcards would all be pictures I created. Maybe they would be drawings. Maybe photographs. Maybe they would be my power bills cut up and glued back together. Ooooo.. I could shred up some dried leaves into a fine, fine dust, then mix in some sort of glue or liquid adhesive, press the mixture onto wax paper on a cookie sheet, let dry, cut up. Yes. I am "crafty" like that. I am willing to put that level of dedication into this project. I even have some stamps and an ink pad so I could totally add a flower or ghost figure to the "card" once completed.
Every Sunday I read the post secrets on the website by the same name. Every Sunday, I think about what my secret would be. What would I write about? Whom would I write about? Who might see it..?
A long time ago -- like over a decade ago -- I sent a postcard with a secret to post secret. I wrote my name, repeated over and over into a pattern, and used it as the background for my card. That way, I told myself, if I saw it in one of the books they publish or on the website, I would know it was mine (you know, in case it was years later and I had forgotten about it). About 12 years later, I saw it on the website. It took me 4 months to realize it was mine. I showed my sister, "Look! This sounds just like me! How weird!" She said, "Is it you?" It took me 4 months of mental debate to come to the conclusion it was mine. At least, I am pretty sure that was my postcard.
For the fantasy, I would send out a postcard to every state, or maybe a few just in case some got lost or thrown away. Sometimes I think I would put a return address on them with a sort of invitation:
"You have been randomly selected to participate in this interactive art project! Please returned a postcard representative of your state to the following address [insert PO Box I would obtain here]."
I envision taking all the postcards and cutting them into the shape of the state they come from, then putting them together like a puzzle. That would make a pretty cool map, don't you think?
When I was young (like after my teenage years, but before I was legally old enough to drink) my girlffriend and I read about a town in Texas in a National Geographic. I forget the name of the town or why there was a story about it in the magazine, but I do remember the population was extremely low -- like 35 people.
I said to my girlfriend, "We should send them a postcard!"
"How? We don't have an address..." Mind you, this was before the internet was as widely available as it is today -- that or we were just poor.
The solution was obvious, "Dude look. The title of the article is the zip code of the town. The population is so low, we could really just send it to the town itself and let the mailman figure out who to give it to."
About a month later, after we had moved on to some other hair-brained idea, a boring white postcard came in the mail. It was from a saloon in Texas and read, "Got your message! Come on down!" Later that week, we took a road trip to Washington.
Monday, January 15, 2018
wabi sabi
We used to gather 'round every Friday night at Garts parking lot. That's where all the cool kids met, don't you know. That's where the hook-ups went down.
I lived right around the corner, so it was not uncommon for me to show-up wrapped in a blanket and park my ass in the back of a pick-up. Other times, my attendance would merely be to meet someone and leave.
An older guy came around a few times. He seemed out of place -- probably looking for jailbait. He and I struck up a conversation but he didn't like what I had to say: "You really need to get your teeth fixed. That lisp is annoying."
I was taken aback. Had I a lisp?! How long has this been going on for?! And why has no one told me! 5 years of speech therapy wasted.. My parents would be so disappointed.
"Oh well.. yeah, you have a lisp." One of the guys within my age group comforted, "But it's really cute and part of what makes you unique. You don't need to do anything about your teeth."
It was a nice sentiment but didn't change the fact of my newly discovered flaw. I never truly sought perfection, but I did want to be an effective communicator. Regardless, I was determined to rid myself of this small embarrassment of my speaking skills!
Just the other day, I passed the lot where Garts existed however many years ago. I remember when they tore up the very spot we all gathered, to make room fir a new office building. Hollywood Video and Graywhale CD were long gone at that point, too. I don't expect any of you to remember the time I won that Formula One trickboard from Graywhale, broadcasted live on the local college station -- Thunder 91 back then. I traded that trickboard in for a Sector 9 longboard -- was never any good on the half pipe, but loved surfing the pavement. The icons of my yester-youth have all but vanished, completely living in memory now.
I never heard anything about me having a lisp since -- unprovoked, that is. If I ask, they stop, listen, and find it. I have since stopped asking. Who wants to go around asking for proof they are flawed? I'm no Clark Kent! I'm the alter ego daydreaming about what a life as a super hero would be.
I post random, meaningless thoughts on craigslist every night. What's your super power?
These days, I am more often asked about my 'accent.'
"Where are you from?" they question."That's an interesting accent."
"I'm from here. I just have a different way of speaking due to my speech impediment." It is true. I consciously change my sentence structure to avoid words I cannot pronounce. I never did do anything with my teeth. The sweet friend at Garts parking lot was right -- it's better this way.
Wabi sabi: the beauty of imperfection.
I lived right around the corner, so it was not uncommon for me to show-up wrapped in a blanket and park my ass in the back of a pick-up. Other times, my attendance would merely be to meet someone and leave.
An older guy came around a few times. He seemed out of place -- probably looking for jailbait. He and I struck up a conversation but he didn't like what I had to say: "You really need to get your teeth fixed. That lisp is annoying."
I was taken aback. Had I a lisp?! How long has this been going on for?! And why has no one told me! 5 years of speech therapy wasted.. My parents would be so disappointed.
"Oh well.. yeah, you have a lisp." One of the guys within my age group comforted, "But it's really cute and part of what makes you unique. You don't need to do anything about your teeth."
It was a nice sentiment but didn't change the fact of my newly discovered flaw. I never truly sought perfection, but I did want to be an effective communicator. Regardless, I was determined to rid myself of this small embarrassment of my speaking skills!
Just the other day, I passed the lot where Garts existed however many years ago. I remember when they tore up the very spot we all gathered, to make room fir a new office building. Hollywood Video and Graywhale CD were long gone at that point, too. I don't expect any of you to remember the time I won that Formula One trickboard from Graywhale, broadcasted live on the local college station -- Thunder 91 back then. I traded that trickboard in for a Sector 9 longboard -- was never any good on the half pipe, but loved surfing the pavement. The icons of my yester-youth have all but vanished, completely living in memory now.
I never heard anything about me having a lisp since -- unprovoked, that is. If I ask, they stop, listen, and find it. I have since stopped asking. Who wants to go around asking for proof they are flawed? I'm no Clark Kent! I'm the alter ego daydreaming about what a life as a super hero would be.
I post random, meaningless thoughts on craigslist every night. What's your super power?
These days, I am more often asked about my 'accent.'
"Where are you from?" they question."That's an interesting accent."
"I'm from here. I just have a different way of speaking due to my speech impediment." It is true. I consciously change my sentence structure to avoid words I cannot pronounce. I never did do anything with my teeth. The sweet friend at Garts parking lot was right -- it's better this way.
Wabi sabi: the beauty of imperfection.
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