alternate1985

I had two nightmares last night. In the first one, it looked like I wasn't going to graduate high school because I couldn't pass any of my math classes, no matter how hard I tried. All my friends were going to graduate without me. But then, while in denial and trying to convince myself I just HAD to pass despite my grades, I started looking for reasons why, and realized I had college memories, so I must have already passed. Then I realized I was in a dream and woke up.

The second one was terrifying. 8( I had crawled through a doorway that led into a desert. I was with a few other people, one of whom was my little brother, who was like 6, probably. There was nothing anywhere in sight except sand and dunes. I reached down and lifted up some big clumps of sand and saw there was another layer underneath that looked and felt like raw hamburger. On the "hamburger", there were pictures of eyes. I started to point this out to everyone else and then realized the eyes, which were totally two-dimensional, were blinking. I didn't think that was possible, because they were only pictures. But then everywhere, eyes started sprouting out of the sand and blinking, three-dimensional now. I could see the doorway above a big dune and told everyone we needed to run NOW, this place was EVIL, and we needed to get through the doorway and seal this place off ASAP! I scooped up my brother under one arm, like I was holding a doll under his arms with his back to me, and started running, assuming everyone would follow behind. I somehow climbed up a huge dune, brother in tow, and crawled through the doorway, with him still under my arm. Now it looked like I was at the window at a doctor's office. I was screaming that we needed to seal the doorway, that I didn't think the others had made it. I had barely gotten through with my brother and something had started taking them....

Then I realized that my brother had been oddly quiet and unresponsive for the longest time. With a dreadful feeling, I turned him around to face me, still holding him, and saw his eyes had changed to look like those evil ones in the sand--and not only that, but now he had a third eye in the center of his face, as well! He was grinning at me like a damned Chucky doll. I screamed and turned him back around quickly, thinking if I couldn't see his face, he couldn't see me, so I should keep holding him away from me. He tried to turn around and I held my hand on top of his head so he couldn't face me. This all happened in seconds, so I woke up still screaming.

I realized I was in my bed screaming and stopped, and then heard the words, "makes your blood run cold" in my mind and realized that was exactly how I felt--like I was cold INSIDE. I thought, "Oh, now I really, fully understand that phrase", like I'd never had chills before. :p But I was obviously only partly-awake because I wasn't totally sure I hadn't just dreamed those things into being. I was terrified to turn in any direction but face up because I was afraid they'd sneak up behind me. And I just wanted the Doctor to come save me. 8( I tried to tell myself I COULDN'T dream something into being, but even if I COULD, maybe I could dream the Doctor into life, too. Because, while lying there half-awake and in total peril, that was the only thing I could think of to help me sleep again. :p

I waste too much time. Here are some (free) things I could be doing instead that actually have a point to them:

http://freerice.com On FreeRice you can answer easy questions about the English language and have grains of rice donated to the United Nations World Food Program.

http://duolingo.com DuoLingo is supposedly like Rosetta Stone (though I've never tried it, so I don't know), but free to use.

http://www.memrise.com Memrise has tons of things to learn on any topic.

And here are many other suggestions by Redditors, as well: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13tku0/i_waste_roughly_6_hours_a_day_in_front_of_my_work/

Make yourself useful, self.

Last night I dreamed about an event I had totally blocked out of my memory due to trauma. We were in a plane crash when I was really young, and the survivors were later given permanent free passage with that airline. So when I woke up I immediately called Mom to ask if that really happened or I just dreamed it, and she said, "Yes. Yes, that really happened."

I said, "And you didn't bother to tell me that I could have been flying for free for all these years!? Hell, I could go to Europe next week! We ALL could!"

She said, "Hm. I guess I just never thought to mention it."

So my next move was going to be to contact the airline to see if that still applies (which it should, since they said it was permanent). But then I had a tiny piece of a flashback to us being stuck on an island with a bunch of really weird stuff happening...and I thought, "No. No, that can't be right. That's LOST!" But it felt SO real. Again I questioned Mom about the event, and whether or not we'd been stuck on an island with a bunch of weird supernatural stuff happening. She told me that yes, we had, and that was how I realized I was still asleep. But I figured I may as well still contact the airline, anyway, since now I knew I was in a dream and I needed to find something to do.

Then as I was (for whatever reason) walking along a really long dock by a foggy lake that could have been somewhere in England (I guess I got free passage after all?), Spike suddenly appeared out of nowhere and I got distracted and forgot the plot.

Well, that's not quite how it ended. Actually, I saw a group of like five guys following behind me, and the guy in front was Spike. I waved, because apparently we were friends, and he waved back...and then they got closer and I realized he was not Spike, but someone who knew we were acquainted and had dressed like him and bleached his hair to trick me so he and his friends could assault me or something...and then he grabbed me and the real Spike jumped on him out of nowhere to save me. And unfortunately, that's when I woke up.

My sister found a video that is the most accurate portrayal I've ever seen of my dad's behavior! I have to share it here. It's hilarious and only about a minute and a half long. Observe.

It's pretty damn funny, right? Now, imagine you're those two guys on the couch, living in eternal fear of their roommate and these outbursts. They're already afraid before he gets home because they know he's on the way and how he's going to react. And now imagine that he reacts this way to everything--not just because it's his turn to do the dishes. In fact, imagine he does this a few times a day. Eggshells.

And now pretend that guy is your father, a figure you're supposed to be able to look up to, whose approval you seek, especially in your early years.

That's our dad. That's how I grew up. It's, like I said, the most accurate portrayal: The volume he reaches, the way his voice starts cracking because he's shouting so loud for so long, the inanity of some of the random comments, like, "WHO BOUGHT THIS RED BOWL!?" His body language, the way he leans way over to shout even closer to their faces. The expression on his own face.

The roommates are very like us, too. They sit staring blankly straight ahead, because the slightest reaction could set him off even more (somehow). They're frightened. The blonde guy is obviously trying not to laugh, but actually, that happened every now and then for us, too. I mean, from afar it's pretty funny, and sometimes we saw that. But mostly we sat there in fear. Multiple times. Every day. We never knew when to expect it, because, like I said, it could happen at any time. Sometimes, like in the case of the dishes, maybe it was our fault. Maybe we should have done the dishes. In fact, I've seen pretty much that exact scene happen I have no idea how many times. Normally it had nothing to do with us.

It frequently ended with him breaking down into tears, seeking our sympathy and understanding of his abuse, and saying, "This isn't who I am! I'm not really this angry person! This is who you've made me!"

This was almost every day of the first 20 years of my life. My mom has now lived with this for 38 years. My sister is still living with it. My brother was smart enough to escape as soon as possible.

It's affected everything about me. I was "trained" to be afraid of anger. Other people's anger, I learned, is my fault, and I'm a terrible, terrible person for making them reach that point. I should feel ashamed. I should sit there and take it in silence so as not to make it worse, and because that's what I deserve, anyway. After all, I made him that way. Even sharing some good news when he just happened to be in the wrong mood could set off one of these attacks, which taught me that I didn't deserve to be happy--I deserved to feel like shit when he wanted me to feel like shit, regardless of anything else.

I avoid confrontation. I have dark, dark thoughts about myself and my worth. I don't have the right to feel pride about anything.

For the first several years after high school, I escaped this mindset. I was a totally different person. I was cool, I didn't take shit from anyone, I spoke my mind, my friends considered me the bravest person they knew, I stood up for myself, I was fun to be around. I was totally awesome.

Things changed, with the introduction of a new lifelong illness and psychotropic medications. I lost what I had gained and became the person I was raised to be. I don't know how to ever get back the person I was, the one I loved. In a way it even destroyed my marriage, the only truly happy years of my entire life. When I became completely passive aggressive and started hating on myself, my husband couldn't take it anymore. And occasionally, then and now, even my father shows through and I have an outburst like his.

Last week at work, a co-worker was slightly annoyed with me for a minor mistake, and she raised her voice (slightly, nothing like my dad) and told me what she felt, and it was over. For her. For me, I couldn't get over it until partly into the next day. I felt shame. I looked at the photos in their frames on my desk, one of my grandmother, one of me with my brother and sister, and seriously considered hiding them away, because after letting someone down, I didn't deserve to feel any sort of pride, even for something like the fact that I have loved ones. I felt that, and instantly knew this was, yet again, my father's training showing through me. I had a wonderful, happy life for a short while, and it destroyed it. It continues to block every attempt I make to find that person again.

My mom is afraid to disagree with anyone for the slightest thing--the latest example I remember was when I told her how much I enjoy How I Met Your Mother. She said, "Oh, I didn't really like what I saw of it, but I guess I was wrong." She's like that about everything. And how could she not be after so many years of abuse?

I'm not looking for pity, I'm just looking for people to understand.

I'm in a hurry, so I may add more later.

Well, go figure--two days after I posted "The Dahlia's Incident", Josh finally decided to make an appearance. Just a coincidence, since that was an entry he does not have access to. Out of the blue last night, he texted me, "Hey." Here's how the rest of that conversation played out, up to right now. First of all, I made him wait for 14 minutes before I replied. I waited a month; he could stand to stress over my replies for a bit.

( Read on. )

Here's a freaky dream I've been meaning to write about.

I had another Heath Ledger dream. This was the night Becky and Manny and I were watching the episode of Smallville where Lex's baby brother dies and you see what a terrible mother he had. Lex's mother is freaking out, refusing to hold the child, refusing to acknowledge it at all, and I said, "That's what I would be like as a mother. I would resent it for destroying my life. I know that's terrible, but...that's why I'm not going to be a mother. I'd be horrible at it."

So in my dream, I was a mother--somehow it was forced upon me, like I couldn't get a legal abortion anywhere, or some bullshit like that. And I've got this kid (who was really kind of a cute kid, to be honest, and usually I don't like kids at all) who is like one year old. And I was treating him exactly the way I'd said I would, and just pouring hatred on him because he's the thing that ruined my life (because I would have been responsible enough to have an abortion if I had been allowed to, so this was not my fault).

Heath Ledger was the babydaddy. He'd been in and out of jail for bullshit crimes, but I got the impression he probably would have been a pretty good dad, and he really wanted custody of the child. He and I hated each other, though, and I guess I was just so white-trash that I would rather keep this kid I hated than give him to someone who loved him and would take care of him because I hated that person just as much/more.

So for whatever reason, I'm searching for the babydaddy. Probably to get money. And I'm dragging the kid up a flight of stairs, and having trouble holding him, and he slips out of my arms and falls backwards, hitting his head on the stairs, and then just stands back up, smiling as sweetly as before. And I start ranting, "It's not my fault I'm not strong enough to hold him. I knew I wasn't strong enough to carry a kid up the stairs, and I wouldn't have even had a kid, but they forced me to, so fuck it!"

We arrive in what looks like a J.C. Penney's changing room (though I'm not sure that's really what it was--it was probably supposed to be an actual rundown apartment and my mind substituted the department store), where Heath Ledger has a little cot and is apparently living. The two of us start fighting--violently--and he shoves me into a wall, and I grab the back of his head and yank him towards me.

And then suddenly, it dawns on me. None of this is actually happening the way it seems. We're acting. We're in a movie. I'm not this white-trash godawful mother of an unwanted child! What a relief.

But then it also dawns on me that he and I have a secret romance budding. So while I've got his head pulled towards me, I whisper, "What happens when you become attracted to your co-worker?"

He says, "What, you mean like this?" and kisses me.

We're making out for what seems like several minutes before there are calls of, "Cut! CUT!" and the shoot is temporarily over.

Next thing I know, we're on a break and sitting by the cot, where he flips over the mattress, takes a knife, and tears the words, "I love you, Ashley," into the back of it. I tear out the words, "I love you, too," and we make out some more.

This is significant for another reason. By using my first name (since he knew me as Carrington), he thought no one would suspect (even though everyone has just witnessed our makeout scene) that he was referring to anyone other than Ashley Olsen, whom Heath Ledger was dating at the time of his death. Apparently in the dream he'd been about to end things with her.

Apparently some time goes by. Heath Ledger has now died. (Sigh...it always makes me so depressed to think of it.) I'm in the changing room/apartment-place with someone, and go to the mattress to see if the words are still carved into it. Like I'm going to find words carved into a stone wall or something. Surprisingly, there they were. So I had this total sentimental moment, and the friend who was with me (I don't even remember who it was) had no clue that it was not meant for Ashley Olsen. So the friend says, "It's so sad...he really loved her," and I feel even more depressed at the fact that I have to keep my feelings to myself forever.

I woke up sad again from that one.

I guess the really disturbing part is, even though I do feel dreadful about it, that's really how I would feel about having a kid. That's how I would treat it. Damn...what a terrible nightmare.

Okay, so I've got two weird dreams to talk about. The first is from Saturday night.

I dreamed I was at Public School #4, where we did the Catwoman shoot. (This all probably came about because I had been posting photos on my ModelMayhem account before bed. But the school wasn't destroyed; it was apparently before the fire had happened, and students still attended there, and school was in session, and it seemed like a perfectly normal place.

But Dream Me knew that things were not normal. It was one of those rare occasions when I actually knew I was in a dream and was trying desperately to get out of it because I knew things were about to get really bad.

The Joker was there (the Heath Ledger one), except he wasn't the Joker yet, either. He just looked like Heath Ledger. (It's kind of strange how both the school and the man looked so normal, considering what they were to become later.) And somehow, Dream Me knew that he was going to become the Joker and he was crazy and evil, and I decided to get the hell out of the school as quickly as possible.

I was freaked out that if Heath Ledger saw me making a quick escape that he would be suspicious that I knew he wasn't what he seemed. So I tried to escape discreetly. (And I have no idea what I was even doing there, anyway.) I went outside to my car, started it, and stepped on the gas. And it moved like an inch and died. Repeat. So I kept desperately stepping on the gas and moving forward about an inch, over and over. I was barely out of the parking lot. No one (or so I thought) had noticed me leaving yet. (I don't know why it never once occurred to me to just get out of the car and start running. Maybe I was afraid someone would notice me running.) So I leaned over into the passenger seat to get my phone out of my purse. I don't know who I was going to call, but presumably I wanted one of my friends to come and rescue me. I sat back up.

INSERT DRAMATIC CHORD HERE. Heath Ledger was standing right in front of my car, staring at me with a neutral expression. I screamed bloody murder.

He came around to driver's side, where, for some reason, I had the window down (which I never do in real life). Never changing his facial expression, he leaned in the window and said:

"Why so serious?"

Then I woke up. Holy fuck.

Let me take a moment here also to say, I'm still really sad about Heath Ledger. It's kind of ridiculous; I mean, it's not like I actually knew him. But for some reason that particular celebrity death haunts me more than most. Maybe it's because I sort of grew up with his movies, at least from middle school to a few years ago, and he was so young, and such an amazing actor. I keep thinking one day soon he'll just appear in another movie and be amazing, that he's just been taking a break for a few years, but he's still out there. It doesn't feel real to me. I still get chills thinking about when I heard of his demise. I guess most people do. What a weird story. Looking back, I don't know how much of what I heard about it was an urban legend and what was real. I was telling someone the story the other day, someone who had somehow never heard what happened, and thought it's such a bizarre tale that maybe what I was told wasn't really true at all.

Anyway. I was only supposed to focus on dreams here.

Two nights ago I dreamed that I moved to Washington, D.C. to have an affair with Bill Clinton. I think it was during his pre-President days (even though I was still my current age, or maybe only slightly younger). He was very romantic, but for some reason the entire time I had a strong suspicion that he was only using me for some political publicity stunt and didn't really care about me at all. He was the one who convinced me, in the end, to actually move up there, but the entire time I doubted. I woke up still doubting. I don't know. It was weird.

I told Josh about it yesterday, and he said, "Oh, lord. You have a thing for Bill Clinton, too?"

"Well, I didn't."

I guess he caught the implication and heard the naughty smile in my voice, because he repeated, "Oh, lord."

Josh thinks I'm too easily starstruck and have too many celebrity crushes. Well, he's right. Actually, here's a link to my "Guys On Whom I Crush" Pinterest page. See if you can detect any patterns, and figure out my "type". (And by the way, it's far from complete.) There are only a few on here who I wouldn't immediately look at and say, "Ooh, he's hot!" but I find attractive because they're really talented or something of the sort. Most of them I would definitely consider my type off the bat.

This is just a quick post before bed to say my new job is awesome. Way more than I ever expected it to be. And I am very grateful for it. Also, my schedule is getting back to normal so I will update again soon! And I'll finally get around to Work Art Challenge #3! Plus details about the new job. Thursday. I'm going to commit to Thursday as my next update day. Can I buckle down and actually do it? Find out Thursday.

In this post, I am embarrassed to present to you the first Work Art Challenge. But first, a bit more back story.

One day I decided to draw a spiral. I don't know why; I was probably pretty bored. After I showed it to Mike, he said it sort of looked like a lollipop. So I added a stick. And then I added a completely horrifying face with a massive tongue. It was supposed to be the face of an innocent kid, but already we can see that when I attempt to draw something, it just doesn't really come out the way I see it in my head.

Then Mike noted that the spiral also kind of looked like a snail, so he drew one.

I don't remember why he decided to draw this random face, but I assume it was because we were making fun of the hideous thing that I had just drawn.

But after all of that, I still felt like drawing, so I decided to draw something--from memory--that should have been easily recognizable to everyone. I guess just to demonstrate to them the mysterious disconnect from the picture in my brain to the pen in my hand.

So here it is, Challenge #1. Put your guesses in private messages, please.

Does anyone create Heroine Addict icons anymore? (Like the one I currently have as my icon.) It was this whole trend back in my LJ days of taking heroines from various movies and putting a little "HEROINE ADDICT" bar at the bottom, in celebration of, well, heroines! Lovers of literature (which describes many LJ and DW users) would appreciate such a thing. My current icon is left over from my LJ days.

Learned on The Colbert Report today that Stephen's sister, Elizabeth "Lulu" Colbert-Busch is running for Congress in South Carolina. Awesome! Will definitely have to learn more about her.

Well, I'm very excited for the Catwoman shoot I'm doing on Saturday. It's with a new photographer I only worked with once in a group shoot, so we had no one-on-one time. This photog, Bobby, is also a painter, so he's going to paint some Gotham-ish murals. We're going to Public School #4 because it has lots of ledges that could look like the roofs of buildings--especially when Bobby replaces the backgrounds with his murals. This shoot's going to be fantastic.

Here's my portfolio as it stands currently, by the way.

I also have this idea to start trying to recreate some of the portraits by Jack Vettriano. I really like his work (even though I feel it's a little cliche to admit that because everyone likes him).

And of course, anything fantasy or pin-up is always on the list.

I'm about to fall asleep so I'm going to go ahead and do so.