The Worst of My Nightmares

It’s been a really long time since I’ve done a post with the visual aids, so here goes…

I have nightmares. All the time.

Sometimes they’re really bad and serious, but we aren’t going to spend time on those. I present to you images of nightmares that are really scary when I’m asleep, but puzzling or humorous after I wake up.

Nightmare #1 – The teeth falling out!

This nightmare never has a start to it. I’m always just all-of-a-sudden holding a tooth in my hand, wondering why it fell out.

My brain, of course, takes a trip back to the crazy, elementary school safety lessons when they told me to keep any teeth that fall out because the dentist may be able to stick them back in… they also told us to keep other body parts like fingers if they get chopped off. Therefore, my subconscious priority is to keep from losing my teeth. So inevitably, more teeth than actually reside in my mouth start to fall out.

And even more teeth fall out!

Then, the teeth inexplicably begin to split into pieces, and I think, The dentist would want me to keep all of the pieces! AAAAAHHHH! That’s when I really start to panic and usually end up on my hands and knees trying to keep all of the pieces of teeth organized while more teeth keep falling out. There’s also an unfortunate sliminess that makes the teeth slip out of my fingers and slide across the floor.

I read somewhere that this teeth falling out dream comes from a feeling of helplessness and chaos in life… like I can’t keep all of the pieces together and organized. Of course that’s ridiculous, though. I’ve always got my crap in order!

Nightmare #2: The Throw-up Monster!

I don’t know how old I was when I had this dream… judging by the house we lived in at the time, probably seven or eight. Basically, I heard one of my parents call to me from the back yard, so I went out to see what he/she wanted.

Then… Everything takes a turn for the worst!

Then, it gets really bad, because I’m so grossed-out by the monster that I throw up, making him bigger and more powerful! Oh no!

Nightmare #3: Velocoraptors on the Roof!

You know that convenience store in the movie Tremors? In the movie, there are these crazy, enormous worm things that come up from the ground and eat people, so everyone in a tiny town ends up on top of their roofs.

That movie is really scary, by the way – as is Jurassic Park.

Therefore, my final scary dream is a combination of those movies.

There are always people with me on the roof, but they are faceless and I’m more concerned with how the roof is shaking from the Tremors trying to figure out how to get us. See how my arms are out, aiding me in my quest for balance?

Okay… so the raptor doesn’t actually say anything, but I get the impression that’s what he’s thinking. Then he eats someone… usually my sister.

Most of my other nightmares involve me trying to keep Annabelle (my deceased Beast) alive under unfortunate circumstances. Sometimes there’s a mountain of snakes. Sometimes there are sharks in my bedroom. Every-once-in-awhile, I’m trying to carry her up a ladder to the top of a building that’s so tall, we’re above the clouds.

What do you have nightmares about?

 

I WIN… sort of.

Way back on August 19, 2010, I published the following blog post. As I’m in North Carolina right now, I thought it might be nice to revisit the things I wrote more than a year ago, in my first few months of blogging. In case you were wondering, the offending chair lives. It was mended and still plagues my mornings. Enjoy!

………………….

I woke up yesterday feeling really tired.  In the past, I’ve been the stick-in-the-mud person who goes to bed exactly 8 hours before she has to get up, but this year is going to be different.  I have roommates who like to bond late at night, and I just miss getting to stay up late.  That being said, it probably wasn’t necessary for me to debate gun control and September 11th conspiracy theories until midnight… but hey, it happens, and I think we all enjoyed our conversation.

So when I woke up yesterday morning, I was a bit drowsy.  I dragged myself out of bed and did my morning routine (including the new stuff like putting mousse in my hair in an attempt to be more girly), and I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of Banana Nut Crunch.  I sat down at the kitchen table, and the chair I was sitting in made a suspicious noise, but I wasn’t at my most alert just yet, so I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it.  Big Mistake.

Now, before I continue, I’d like to say that this particular chair has been around FOREVER, and Alix has glued it back together at least twice since I moved in with her 6 months ago.  I will be the first to admit that I weigh a lot… but I don’t weigh THAT much.

Obviously you know where I’m going with this.

I spooned some cereal into my mouth and Alix started talking about work or something, and with just one more suspicious noise, the chair gave up the ghost.  I used my lightning-fast reflexes to catch myself, but it may have been wiser to let myself fall.  You see, I ended up squatting there for what felt like forever, because I couldn’t quite get up with the table and the wall and the despicable chair in my way, but neither was it appealing to just let myself drop.  I felt like I had salvaged a little piece of dignity (of course I was deceived in thinking that… all dignity was gone), and refused to let myself drop.  Alix didn’t know what to do, so she was no help.  I finally managed to maneuver my way up and then realized that with the chair gone, I had nowhere to sit and I didn’t want to move.  So I sat down exactly where I would have fallen if I had just let myself.

Here is the result of my morning adventures.

So even though my pride is wounded a bit, I still feel like I won.    That chair will never torment me or anyone else ever again.  Hah!

 

The River Wild Lost Pic

I meant to include this picture yesterday when I originally posted The River Wild. It’s actually the picture I spent the most time on, and I couldn’t believe that I left it out. This is the part of the story where the incapable capable-looking man tried to pull me out of the water and failed.

 

The River Wild

Cover of The River Wild

When I was little, I loved the movie The River Wild.  I don’t know why.  It’s actually a pretty creepy movie about this family whose rafting vacation turns into a nightmare because criminal Kevin Bacon kidnaps them and forces them to take him and his buddy down the river.  I still have the VHS if anyone wants to watch it with me.

When I was 16 or so, I played for an 18 and under gold softball team called the Roadrunners.  I’d been on the team for less than a year at that point, and was really excited about my first Colorado tournament for a number of reasons.  The Colorado tournament was nearly always the highlight of any player’s summer because it was highly attended by college scouts, highly attended by those teams with black uniforms who talked a lot of smack and were just asking to be hated, and a thrilling venture into a completely different wilderness than we usually played in.  In addition to those excitements, I was jazzed because it was one of my first far-away tournaments that I got to go to without my parents, and because our coaches had a lot of really cool things planned for the time between games.

I rode in a van with my teammate friends Jen Coffee (I know.  Isn’t that the coolest name ever?) and Amber.  We’d gotten a bit ridiculous what with being crammed into the van together for HOURS, with nothing much to entertain us besides the mounds of sugar we bought at every gas station we stopped at and our goofy, teenage girl athlete senses of humor.  I’m pretty sure we yelled out “HORSE” every time we passed a horse, and thought ourselves hilarious.  Bob, our coach and chauffeur didn’t seem to agree with us.

When we finally arrived at our destination, we spent a restless night talking about boys and wrestling around in our motel room while our adults caught up on rest.  Since we didn’t have any games the next day, we were wired and carefree.  When morning came, we ate a breakfast of pastries and sugary cereal and piled back into our van for a short drive to the rafting place.

Once we got there, we dressed up in bright orange wet suits, and people who understand rafting gave us some directions.

After that, we headed out to the river.  I decided to join the raft of nerdy girls because I was annoyed at the cool girls on this particular trip.  I had an unfortunate tendency to forget who my real friends were when the cool girls wanted me with them.  I was in inner turmoil a lot of the time about it, but the real friends happened to win out on this trip, so I was in a raft with Jen, Amber, V, and Carla.  The raft in front of us was filled with cool girls, and the one behind us was filled with the coaches.  Here’s what the setup in the raft was like: Carla and Amber were in the front, V and Jen were in the second row, I took up the third row, and our two guides were in the back.  The seating arrangements in a raft are actually pretty important, because if someone falls out, it’s the responsibility of the other person on her row to grab her and pull her back in.  Occupying a row all by myself, the guide who was sitting behind me was supposed to pull me back in, which made it seem like I was the safest out of everyone.  The guide behind me was the only man on our boat and being a guide, he was obviously the capable sort.

The first part of the trip was pretty peaceful.  The waters were calm, and we mostly just enjoyed nature. Our capable man guide told us about some caves we floated past, and we made fun of the cool-girl raft a bit. Then we hit the first set of rapids.

And I was having a lot of fun.

The rapids were just rough enough to get the adrenaline pumping, but not enough that you ever thought you might die. And then it was peaceful again, and I was pretty confident that my rafting skills were way above par.

My confidence, however may have been a bit premature. You see, we hit the next bit of rapids…

And they were a bit rougher than the first set. And even with my excellent rafting skills, I evidently couldn’t handle it.

Because I epically fell in. Normal people tend to tip over into the water… but not me. I definitely flipped completely over before becoming lost in the depths of the river (wild).

I held onto my oar, though. It’s pretty much the only thing I did right, but dagnabbit I held onto that oar!

And as I was dragged down river through the terrifying rapids, the completely capable man guide who was supposed to rescue me, failed just as epically as I had when I flipped over.

He was at an odd angle, but come on.

He grabbed onto my vest, and tried to pull me up but couldn’t. Evidently he wasn’t as capable as I’d originally thought.

So he tried again, and failed again.

And a really sad thought entered my mind.

Jen looked back and cracked up at seeing me exit the raft with such a flourish. She did notice the sad look on my face and later asked me about it. I told her about the sad thought I was thinking at that moment and she cracked up a bunch more, because she knew how ridiculous it was to think that his inability to pull me in was due to those extra few ounces from breakfast.

I thought she was laughing at my flab

I was pulled along by the incapable, capable-looking man guide… for a really long time. Of course the rapids I fell out on were number one of seven in a long succession of increasingly rough rapids with no intermission. So I bumped my knees on rocks and choked on gross river water, but eventually they got me back in the raft and all was well.

And when I took a moment to breathe and felt the oar handle still grasped tightly in my hand, I smiled in myself at having managed to keep a slice of dignity in the face of such danger.

 

Ten Minutes

I don’t have any ideas about what to write right now, so I’m going to time myself and just give you whatever comes out for ten minutes. I know of some other bloggers who’ve done this, and while I may generate a bunch of really bad writing, there is also a chance that I’ll come up with something surprising and awesome that makes me famous.

• I’m sitting in Starbucks right now, and there’s a guy sitting in front of me who just opened up his laptop. His wallpaper is a really big picture of a gorrilla and it reminds me of Cocoa. Cocoa was this adorable creature some lady taught how to communicate using sign language. My sister and I had a book about Cocoa when we were little – with big pictures that made me really happy.

• A long time ago, I promised to give you a new narrative with visual aids, and I want you to know that I feel completely sad and sorry that I haven’t done it yet. My excuse is that the pics are really time-consuming and not at all as fun as you’d think they’d be to create. But I’m still working on it and will post it for you soon. Also on my mind for future post topics: Bette Midler (my favorite from age 7 – 14), Annabelle (because I love my beast a lot), Shane and Beth (my cousin Shane is sincerely one of my heroes. Also, I’m pretty sure Beth has subscribed to the blog and is next in line for a narrative), Eucalyptus Biscuit (because she’s an amazing roommate who I love), and something about the sovereignty of God (because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately). Unfortunately, I don’t have much energy right now to write about any of those things. I’ve obviously lost all of the momentum I previously had going with being more than a day ahead on post drafts, and now I’m having to resort to ten-minute freewrites that aren’t even edited before being published.

• On the fiction front, life just keeps kicking my behind, and I think it’s about time that I give up on a timeline for the book. I’ll finish this round of revisions whenever I finish. I’ll send the manuscript to Reader Mike and finalize my query template and stalk agents a bit . Then I will revise again while sending out queries. Whenever that happens, it happens. No more pressuring myself. I think I’ve driven myself into insanity with working full-time, meeting with friends and ladies from church, keeping up with the blog, and revising the manuscript every day. Oh yeah, and I was training for a half-marathon. Tonight, I think I’m going to do yoga in an attempt to exercise without being exhausted.

And my ten minutes are up.. three minutes ago.

So thank you for checking in. I love you all very much and love so much how you’ve commented and supported me in recent distresses… even those of you who’ve never met me in real life have been AMAZING!