Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A valuable lesson

I had this dream the day before yesterday.
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I was in my living room and my sister was playing with a toddler in the loft. The baby was maybe about 1 or 2 years old. They were playing the airplane game and I was watching out of the corner of my eye while talking to a few other people. She then held him upside down over the railing of the loft (still playing). I warned her to be careful and she shrugged it off. She was now holding the baby with one hand and I saw that she began to lose her grip on it's ankle. It fell to the ground about 5 feet away from me, just a lifeless body on the floor. I didn't go over to check on it, I just looked up at my sister. She was on the verge of crying and she screamed frantically "is he dead? is he dead? did i kill him?" I calmly said "It was your fault, come down here and check his pulse and then call 911." I guess I wanted her to learn a lesson about playing recklessly.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

RTFM

All night long I have had an immensely strong craving for semi-pulpy orange juice. I must find some.
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I was in an Avatar-esque video game type of world. There were no monsters or blue people, just humans at a training facility/campus.

It was my job. I was just hired on and was going through my instruction manual. It was as thick as a phone book and I was getting bored with it so I lied and said I had read it all. Next thing I know, I'm on a flying ship and we are still doing basic training. First step, float around in space and learn how to navigate with only your own body. I am so anxious to jump out of the ship that I forget my breathing mask. I jump out with no oxygen mask on and immediately try to swim back to the ship. I hold my breath and try to push my body back. It's too far and I'm not moving fast enough so my body instinctively begins to grasp for air where my brain knows there isn't any. I pass out and see my body (in third person) drift back into the cargo part of the ship.

I wake up back in the training facility. I decide to read more of the instruction manual. I notice a co-worker from my real job sitting next to me doing a higher rank worksheet, or taking notes or studying. I ask him for help and he gives me words of encouragement. He scoots over next to me and helps me understand the manual. Now there is a tour group coming around. I wonder what my commander would say if she saw me next to him and then I decide that I don't care.

I'm now at another obstacle for training. It is a platform with lines and cris-crosses all over the floor. Another trainee jumps and dodges over the lines and I notice that the lines indicate where motion triggered lasers will come down. She dances through them with ease, demonstrating to a far off tour group. I decide to try next, just for fun. I jump over two and then as I'm trying to exit the platform I went too quickly through two lasers. I underestimated how close together they were. One cut my middle finger off and the other made a deep gash through my arm. It hurt, but it was a quick sensation, no blood. The other girl sees this and she suggests I get a new clone before we go on our next training session because if someone notices that I have 4 fingers, they will be really mad. I agree with this and head off to the cloning place.

It's a huge white building, it looks very similar to the White House but it is smaller. There are butlers running around and tediously polished, white marble floors. I try to hide my hand and pulling my sleeve down to hide my arm. A butler asks me where I'm going. I lie and say that my commander asked me to get a new clone. He asks for my permission slip, I didn't have one.

I am overcome with the feeling that I am not good enough and I wonder why I can't do any of the things the other recruits could.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Shinning, Shimmering, Splendid

I just got back to LA from my Houston holiday vacation. I like the airport. People surprise me sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes. I need a new sketchbook.

There was a man who had a Texas themed merchandise cart near the gate I was waiting at. He was stout and waddled with a heavy southern accent. Normally, I've noticed people working at those kiosks look so angry and bitter but not this guy. He greeted everyone as they walked buy, if they were looking or not and smiled happily in their direction. He struck up small conversations with the other airport employees as they went by and just kept on smiling. His enthusiasm made me smile as well. One lady got up from where she was sitting and sat somewhere else. The man noticed a wallet left on the floor and went one by one to everyone sitting around my gate asking if it was theirs, until the lady who was previously sitting there claimed it. People who love what they do no matter what it is make the world a better place.

Peeking through the gaps between airplane seats I saw a girl, maybe 3 or 4 years old sitting in front of me on my flight back to LA. Even though I dislike children, she was adorable, as adorable as a little girl could be. She was watching a Disney DVD on a laptop or something similar, princesses with high-pitched voices dancing around the screen. We started our decent into LAX. She turned for a brief moment away from the princesses and opened the window blind. She said "Daddy! I can see the world!" as her eyes widened, her voice quieted, "I can see it... down there."

On a tight leash

I had two small dogs on leashes. One was white and one was grey. I named the white one "Asparagus" but I kept forgetting his name and calling him "Pickles," he corrected me every time and was getting frustrated. The grey one was named "Pirate." I was taking them for a walk and we got to a big grassy area in front of my house. I told them to pee before we go inside. They were not dogs, they were bunnies and they were hopping around and peeing every time they landed a hop. They were jumping all over each other and jumping around me, I was getting tangled in the leashes. I said "OK Pickles, let's go home now" and he frowned at me and said "Asparagus."
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For some reason I decided to rob a gaming/hobby store. I wasn't doing a good job of being stealthy, since I thought it was a bad idea the entire time. I broke into the store and it was a mess in there, maybe they were packing up or moving, I don't know. I grabbed a box of Magic cards and some card protectors. That was all I took. I looked up in the camera in the corner and really didn't want to go to jail. I ran off. I was keeping an eye on the store from a distance to watch the police when they came. I realized that I had looked directly into the camera and probably left my fingerprints over everything. I still had no idea why I did that and I really didn't want to go to jail. I notice my friend standing outside the store, subtly trying to look for me, I guess he knew I was there. He was going to take out his phone and call me. I wanted him to leave because he looked suspicious.
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I was at a school where we had to wear uniforms. I was walking through the campus watching everyone else walk around or play catch or study.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Swept away by the wind.

I was in class, we were in small groups collaborating on what kind of game we were going to develop for our project. It was either break time, or class was over so everyone was going outside. I walked outside of the building and started walking down a side street. Every corner I turned I was greeted by more of the beautiful Victorian architecture that could only come from one place, Savannah, Georgia. I followed all of the traffic laws while I was walking around, I never went the wrong way down a one way street. It was time to head back so I turned down the corner of the nearest street (going south) and a very strong wind was blowing north. It was very animated, the way I saw myself standing there. I was making a very scrunched face to brace from the wind and I had one leg out at about a 90 degree angle getting ready to take a step. I couldn't take a step in that direction so I had to go around and avoid streets going that way until I made it back.

I was at my house now, or a place I recognized as my house. I think I was playing Warcraft on my laptop, but it was being projected on the wall, to scale. I was kind of in a daze and I moved my monitor (which coincidentally controlled where the projection was on the wall) around until the image was taking up the entire wall and ceiling and was totally distorted. I laid down on my back, laptop still in my lap and just stared dreamily at it until someone started talking to me.

It was someone I knew, a roommate I guess, she wanted to show me something in the backyard. We walked through the back door and she shows me a new wooden play set that she had put together. I was ecstatic! For some reason I went back inside.

A while later, I went back outside to get a better look at our backyard, this place seemed new to me (maybe I had just moved there?). When I went outside this time, everything was moved around from the last time I was here (maybe a few hours ago). There was a new wooden play set in place of the other one, this one was stained with a very dark wood stain. The set I had previously seen was moved to another area of the yard, now with oranges growing on it, oranges growing on vines, vines entangled around the wood. I look at the far end of the yard and I see all of my college friends in swimsuits, eating pizza and playing around on a little kid's water slide (nothing out of the ordinary). I walk closer to the oranges, the taste of oranges forms on my taste buds as I near them. The oranges growing here are huge! As I round the corner of the wooden trellis, the oranges are bigger and bigger. The ones on the far side are nearly a foot in diameter. I ask out loud "How did these oranges get so big?" but no one responded.

I reach out my hand to touch them.