Jesse in the new year.

     I feel older this year. It has only been a few weeks and already I feel older like this year is going to be quite a learning experience. It has been a while since I wrote here. I have few if any readers, and that is ok. I have a hard time sharing my thoughts and feelings with people. I can talk about random crap all day long, but my feelings are different than those surface thoughts.
     I need to get it out of my head though. So I'm going to write about it. I'm going to tell you about last year. It was 2013 and I learned some important lessons. The year started with a blackout night. I drank way too much on the New Years night. I spent most of the following day recovering. I think Josh and I got donuts, but that might have been a different day.
     My girlfriend Amber moved to Portland to follow her dream, but it didn't work out and she moved back a few months later. During this time I was working as "The Cart Guy" at the golf course in Tumwater. I listened to books on tape, like "Mastery" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I spent a lot of time listening to music too, but some of the best times were spent listening to some guy tell me about the importance of some or another human trait.
     At this time I lived with someone who I thought I knew. It was almost a full year at that apartment. It was a cool spot, one of the only places in this city with a Parking Garage. From our balcony you could see a shape in the parking-lot outside that looked like a tear-drop. We were pretty sure that it used to be a pool. There were some good times at that apartment, then somewhere along the way things changed between him and I.
     He had his own life and I had mine, but at some point I could tell that things were different. Peter and I had similar lives as kids. Not exactly the same, but still similar. He was someone that I felt that I understood, and I felt that he understood me as well. In every human to human relationship there are little things that get in the way of the enjoyment. I guess for him there were just too many things between he and I.
      One day his hostility could no longer be contained and it revealed itself. An awful friend breakup ensued. I left him, but he had told me he wanted me out. I could have handled it much better I'm sure, but at the time leaving as quickly as possible felt like the best choice. Why prolong the suffering? The principle behind ripping adhesive bandages off expeditiously.
     I moved in with Amber again. At the time her and I were having a rough patch. When she moved to Portland I told her I did not want to be in a distanced relationship because I don't believe they work. When she came back I told her that I didn't want to get right back together because I thought it would be a bad idea. I still loved her, but I wasn't sure if it was smart. It has been tough at times, but I have learned much and it has all been worth it.
     One of my co-workers at the golf course sold me a scooter for very cheap. It is a pretty dependable machine, and I am very fond of it. The scooter has allowed me to get a job a bit further away from where I live, one with benefits. Many people have had the job that I have now as outsourced customer service, and have had pretty awful experiences. My experience hasn't been so bad.
     I'm learning to play by the rules for the most part. It is a bit of a struggle for me, because there is something inside of me that urges me to rebel. To rebel against basically anything that I'm supposed to do. I don't really know what that is all about, but there it is and there it seems likely to remain.
     I get some type of health benefits. I'm not really sure what I'm paying for, and I haven't used any of it yet. Its pretty intimidating to me. I have a fat stack of envelopes with information about stuff that I have no idea about, and I'm supposed to read it all and learn how to go to hospitals and doctors and have them tell me what is wrong with me. It all gives me anxiety.
      I don't like stress and anxiety. They are hard to avoid though. Very hard to avoid. At the golf course my life was for the most part stress-free.
     I don't really know what else to say about last year anymore. Except that before June 2, my life was a lot simpler. I feel it all could have been a lot easier if I had been better at communication with people. I may not have had to lose a dear friend, who I must admit was quite nasty and rude to me after the gloves came off. Its not always easy to watch your tongue, but he was deliberately offensive to me.
     If I had communicated to him my concerns earlier, or perhaps just stayed better in touch with the way things were actually going between the two of us I may not have had to move and get a stressful job, but then I wouldn't be where I am now. It also seems to have left an air of separateness between me and my other friends. I don't know if they see it, or if I only see it because I'm the one who is carrying it around, but I feel the distance. I feel it growing.
     I don't know if it is something that can be repaired. I want it to be, but at the same time I'm not totally sure if anyone is reaching out to me or just pushing me away. Am I being dramatic? I hope not. I don't really know if I am. I'm Simply trying to sort it all out.
     The long and short of it all is that relationships are really hard. They are really really ridiculously frustratingly difficult. You can never really know what someone thinks, so even when you think you really know someone you might just be wrong. Having one person you were close with totally turn their back on you is painful, and it has a heavy price. The price is trust. With every such event one can find it harder and harder to let people in.
     The question becomes whether or not it is worth it. What is the point of letting people in when they will inevitably leave you and hurt you? I don't know the answer to that question. I guess that's part of what life is about: unanswered questions.

Anxious

I want to go back to school, but something keeps preventing me from taking the next step and making it happen. I'm letting that something stand between me and future success. I don't know what it is. I assume it is fear. Fear of what? Fear of effort? Fear of failure? Fear of going back to something that I already failed at?
I'm not sure. I don't know what going back to school will mean. That's not entirely true though. Going back to school will mean seeing old faces. Potentially seeing people that I don't want to see. Seeing people that I have wanted to see. People that I wanted to see badly in the past but now are only a reminder of what I have had and what I have lost.
My ex girlfriend is going to be at the same school as I am this year. I have never had this experience before. I was a late bloomer and never had any girlfriends when I was in highschool or middle school, so I have never had to share space with a former lover. I dread this. I shouldn't let that be the only reason I don't go back though. Maybe I'm just more comfortable procrastinating progress. I don't know.
I have to do something though because this part of my life is on a downward slope and I need to find some uphill direction. I need to do something now that will pay off later on. Something that I can set up a foundation for a new life upon. I don't know exactly what that means however.
I heard recently that Human Resources is a good area of work. Stable, and perhaps beneficial. I wish I had a clear path set ahead of me, but I know that no one does.
I always thought that my life goals would one day be illuminated by some thing or someone. One day a light would click on inside of my head and I would instantly know what it was that I wanted to do. It has never happened, and I'm aware of the fact that it never will.
I've also accepted that in my life I have lacked courage. Courage to try, courage to succeed. I have courage enough to fail, because I have known much failure in my life already. It is one thing that I know quite well in fact. From my failure I have gained wisdom, but never any power.
Courage wisdom and power are the three forces which make up the Tri-Force in "The Legend of Zelda" video game series. It is only a video game, a piece of fiction, but one can take wisdom from anything and the idea of the triforce is one that many people have latched onto. I always wished that I was courageous. Pretended in my brain that I was willful and brave, but I have realized that I am not.
My life never lead me to be courageous, and I never wanted power over anything. I wish that I had sought after more power over my own destiny in the past but the past is gone. I am left with wisdom, but what good is wisdom? What do I gain from wisdom? More wisdom?
Where I sit now is a kitchen, in the nicest place that I have ever lived and I fear losing it. Thoughts of what I must do make me anxious, nervous, afraid. I am confident that I can do what it takes to maintain, but I'm nervous to take a step forward. At my age failure seems like it will hurt much more than it has in the past and though I am wise enough to know that I can survive failure and pain, I am afraid of going through it. I don't have to go through it alone, but it doesn't make it any easier to move forth.
What will I do next? What lies ahead? I don't know. Hopefully it is something that I will enjoy and something that I can gain more wisdom from. I don't know what else to say really.

The funniest dream I've ever dreamed.

    I had a dream that I was in a haunted house with all of my friends and people I knew moving about shooting at each other as though it was an arcade shoot-em-up. I can’t fully remember where we started, but it was like a goofy haunted house type place. It resembled Centralia Washington, or at least parts of it. Specifically the home of my oldest friend Ryan. His childhood home to be specific.

    We were all dressed in random assortments of costume bits. I’m not sure what my costume was, or anyone else’s for that matter, but I remember them all being pretty random.

The first portion of the dream that I can recall clearly is walking near the outskirts of Chehalis into Centralia. There was an old pet-store which sold only birds there when I was young. I was walking by that place. The next thing I remember I was going through doors shooting imaginary bullets at people who, when hit by said imaginary bullets, dropped to the ground and played dead.

    In Ryan’s house there were all sorts of random things on the walls, and many  colored lights illuminating. I picked up a hand gun, and one of my companions, it might have been Jon Lussier, picked up a big plastic assault rifle. We came to a large sealed blast door, and after trying a few buttons we got it to open. Here is where my memory is most full.

    The blast door slid open, it was big and heavy, and had many red and yellow designs on it which were scratched and dented away from combat. In the room behind the door there were several stacks of crates and tires, all brightly colored with red and yellow light. A man jumped up from behind the crates and threw something the size of a football at us. It was diamond shaped, and had a large lightning bolt on it. The whole thing was brass colored. Jon and I, now joined by many other people that I recognized but not fully, jumped out of the way and the strange object went sailing past all of us. We all knew that it was a bomb, and that the rules were if it hit the ground near us and managed to become still it would have “exploded” and that we would all be dead. This was a game after all.

    The first bomb missed the lot of us, we all fired our weapons at him, but he ducked down. Some of us were convinced that we had hit him, but he was playing along as though we had all missed. He jumped up and threw another “bomb” at us, this time I punched it bare-fisted away. He pointed and shouted “You can’t do that! Bombs are metal and really heavy!”

    “Ow, my hand is broken then!” I said in response, shaking my hand as though it hurt; which it did not at all. I shot at him again and hit him directly, but he again ducked down and acted unscathed. Then he lobbed another bomb high through the air. It landed between all of us. We all knew that the bomb had gotten us, so we flung ourselves down to the ground with exaggerated cries of anguish.

    A moment later we were all back on our feet. The bomb thrower jumped back up to toss another, but this time we all lit him up with our imaginary weapons, someone even threw a hammer. He went down for good that time. We moved into the room and fanned out. The next moment I was basically alone in the same room, as though I had gone in by myself. I saw a tall skinny guy in a weird vest with a beautiful parrot on his shoulder with vivid purple and green feathers. I knew him, but can’t remember who it was. I looked at the parrot again but now it was a large chameleon of the same colors. It looked very real and appeared to be in high definition.

To my right I noticed another parrot, which at that moment was the size of a medium sized dog, biting at my jacket. When I looked fully at it, it morphed into a chameleon and began climbing up my body. It shrank to the same size as the other chameleon.

    The man standing in front of me held out his hands, one empty, one holding the other chameleon. “Let me show you something.” He said, and took the other lizard from my arm, Its little scaled feet grasping at my sleeves as he pulled it away.  He held the two chameleons close to one another and their small green feet grabbed one another. They held each other tightly, and the man began moving them around and blowing on them. With each movement their colors changed. So too did the colors change as he blew upon them. My gaze was transfixed by the spectacle. It was very vivid, it looked so real. I could see nothing but the two entwined lizards.

The two hands placed them down upon the bared chest beneath. They lay upon the right of two massive boobs. The tall skinny man had been replaced by a large round woman who was much shorter than the man had been. I recognized her as two people at the same time, though the proportions were off.

    The chameleons were again purple and green, and they were lying on the bared breast of this woman, but they were no longer chameleons. They melted into a strange blob of substance and color. My vision zoomed in, and I watched the color ooze away, only it didn’t simply ooze. The reality of what I saw is very difficult for me to find the words with which to describe the scene. It was like millions of hairs, or tentacles were touching and merging with her flesh, and then pulling back and separating from it as it oozed away. It was a truly strange sight to behold, and when it was done I just stood there looking at her breasts in amazement of what I had just witnessed.

    Ryan and the rest of them came running up from behind. “What the hell is going on here?” A look of suspicion on his face, for it was his girlfriend who now stood before me. Though in truth it was also Stephen’s girlfriend, she was two people at the same time in my eyes. Both of us faced him, and explained that she was just showing me something and her shirt happened to be off. As this was in fact the truth he believed us and we moved on to the door which was behind her.

    Another blast door. This time we had to hack through it using some strange device which I knew about, but never actually looked at. It was all happening off-screen. Jon hacked the door code, and it opened, revealing the front room in Ryan’s old house. In a chair facing away from us, there sat a mystery individual. I approached cautiously and it turned out to be Amber West. She was wearing a strange red and white corset dress and a grey tutu, on her head sat a red top-hat with a glittery band around the middle. Her face was made-up to look like something between the mad hatter, and the joker. It looked pretty cool.

    She sat motionless, and looked like a ventriloquist dummy. I kissed her on the cheek and she began to slowly turn her head. She looked at me and said “I’m forever never blond.” I’ve forgotten what I said to her after that, but I left her there and moved on. The group of people with me had grown again, and now everyone was there. I moved over to the hallway, and then started up the stairs to the second floor. I could see from where I stood halfway up the stairs, that the door to Ryan’s mom’s room was open, and that the bathroom door which was at the top of the stairs was closed. I was about to continue going up, when I saw something which froze me in my tracks.

    

    A green Teletubby began to slowly walk from the right across the top of the steps and toward the open room on the left. It bobbed up and down as it walk, pausing between steps to allow two beats, then it would take another step. Music began playing:

   

Dootadootadootadootadootadootadootadoota

Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot

    It was the strumming of an ukulele, in what I think was C or G. The pace of the strumming halved, then eight beats later doubled, then again halved over and over. The music repeated again and again.

    In the middle of the face of the teletubby costume was a hole, and in the hole was the face of my older brother Aaron. He had a goofy look on his face, and he did not change it at all. He made his way from right to left, and then disappeared into Molly’s room. The music kept playing, and I did not move from my spot on the stairway. I wasn’t sure what to make of this yet. Then I heard lyrics begin over the music:

“Cooome with me! Cooome with me!”

    The lyrics played again and again. A moment later my brother, The Green Teletubby re-appeared. He poked his head out of the door first, his face still in that goofy suprised expression. Then he came fully back into the hall. In his left hand was a tan bag. Still he bobbed up and down to the music:

Dootadootadootadootadootadootadootadoota

Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot

    His right hand reached into the bag and pulled out at twelve inch red teletubby doll, which he then made dance back and forth in the air. He set the bag down and with his left hand pulled out a yellow teletubby doll. Now the two dolls were dancing back and forth in opposite directions, as the Aaron the green teletubby bobbed up and down to the beat and swayed side to side with the words:

“Cooome with us! Cooome with us!”

    At this moment my nerve broke and I started quickly down the steps. I looked over my shoulder and that creepy green bastard was rushing down after me. The music still blasting throughout the house:

Dootadootadootadootadootadootadootadoota

Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot

    I ran as fast as I could but he kept up with me. I was running down a hallway which had many things on the walls, hubcaps, garbage can lids, car hoods, and many more other things. The lyrics of the song now changed:

“Ruuun from me! Ruuun from me!”

    I kept running, and ran into a room. It was the second TV room of Ryan’s old house. Suddenly in front of me was the yellow teletubby. I didn’t see who wore that costume but I kept running. Now they were both behind me. The green teletubby still held the two dolls in his hand, somehow all four of the teletubbies which were following me moved to the beat of the music.

Dootadootadootadootadootadootadootadoota

Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot Doot

    I was running as hard as I could to get away from them. Everyone else who had been with me was gone. There was no trace of anyone at all. Not even Ryan or Jon. But as I ran I figured soon I would run into the purple teletubby, and that the face in the middle of its purple head would be none other than that of Jon Lussier.

“Ruuun from us! Ruuun from us!”

    The lyrics repeated again and again and again. They were following me closely, and I couldn’t lose them, but I was not afraid at all. In fact I was laughing pretty heartily. I woke up then, still laughing. I woke up laughing so hard that there were tears in the corners of my eyes. The song continued playing in my head until I went back to sleep a half-hour later.

    That was at 2:12 am 08/03/2013. The most hilarious dream I’ve ever had.

November 2012

     It is almost November and that means Nanowrimo. I have a few Ideas for stories to write, but I don't know exactly which one I'm going to start with; and with November less than 24 hours away that is a pressing issue for me. With that in mind I'm a bit anxious currently. I need to just decide what I'm going to write about, but the truth is I don't know where to begin. There are three possibilities, two of them tie in with one another I think; and the other is a totally different story altogether.
     I guess Disney bought Lucasfilm today. I hope they don't buy Lionsgate.

My imaginary friends

Over the years, I've made up more than a few fictional characters. Most of them have been inspired by other fictional characters, some of them are original - though even those ones are probably influenced by other works - they are all my imaginary friends. Not in the sense that I interact with them or that they have some effect on my life, but I think about their lives, and wonder what is going on with them. I wonder what has happened to them, and try to hammer out the details.
     Two Novembers ago I took part in Nanowrimo for the first time. The second time around I was much more successful. I created two new characters for that story, and since then they've been sitting around in my head. The final moments of that story burned into my inner eye. I've been wondering what happened next. What else happened in the time of the story that I wrote that I didn't write about. What parts did I miss? Who are these characters really? Who is Walter? Who is Blondie? What is next for them? Where are they going? What will they become? And again, who the hell are they?

     I got side tracked and lost my train of thought...

     There are other characters that I haven't written about anywhere too. I guess I'm worried that once I write about them I can't unwrite their story, but that's not entirely true. Hmmm...

Denial

     I think we are all in denial about something. I wonder at the things which I may be in denial about. We all like to believe that we are special, that we have some specific purpose, that we have some attribute that others do not posess. We long to feel that we have a meaning and that our lives have some ultimate goal.
     I'm beginning to accept the fact that this may not be true. Perhaps I've watched too many movies, played too many video games and listened to one too many stories, but I've always thought my life would turn out to be some amazing adventure. I'm 25 now, closer to 26 than I was yesterday, and now I'm closer to being 30 than I am to being 20. My life is still as boring as it was yesterday. Nothing amazing will happen to me tomorrow, not to say that I don't enjoy what things do happen, but I won't be encountering any alien robots, or help thwart some plot to destroy mankind as we know it. I'm just a plain human like you.
     I'm sure everyone goes through a point in life where they face their mortality and the mundane nature of their existence. I've faced my mortality a few times, once when I was almost too young to remember, once when I was a bit older in a river, and again later one when I was hit by a truck. Until now though, I've never really considered the fact that I might just be another peasant, another mortal.
     If I were to die tomorrow, what would I be remembered for? Being a son, a friend, being charming, riding a cool bicycle, and leaving a bunch of stuff for my friends to plunder. There wouldn't be anything for bards to sing of, no great deeds to pass on through the ages. I don't even have any children to carry on my absent legacy. No one even reads my blog.
     I'm not bitter about this, I'm simply stating facts. I don't know what it is that I will end up doing, but until now I've been in denial of the fact that I will die a feeble death some day, and the number of people that mourn my loss wouldn't fill a single theater auditorium.

My friend the beaver.

The other morning at work I met a beaver. It was four in the morning, and I was mowing the greens on the second hole at the golf course. I see him off in the distance. Like a log dragging itself along there was this huge beaver, walking toward the man-made pond on the other side of the grass. I have no doubt that he was going there simply to scoff at its shoddy human design.

I decided that it would be a good idea to steer over to him, and harass this strange creature with my bright shining headlights. To him I was surely a huge prick. He stopped dead in his tracks and gave me the "are you fucking kidding me?" stare. My good ideas seemed to be coming rapidly that morning, because then I decided to dismount my mower and get a closer look at this beast.

At this point I think it is a good idea to point out that a beaver is bigger than the pillow you sleep with at night, and has the attitude of a mean-ass rat. Imagine the rat that bit you at your friend's house, and you thought that thing was mean and stupid but you never put your hand back into the cage. That rat is the size of a banana, maybe. This thing is like godzilla compared to that rat. Did I mention they chew down trees for fun? All of these things failed to occurr to me then. Retrospect is great that way.

To my credit, I was prepared for anything and never let my guard down, after all this thing was pretty beastly. It was also rather majestic. I knew I was disturbing his morning ritual, and he probably hadn't even had any coffee yet either. As I approached him cautiously, he turned his body and came a half step toward me, hissing in his beaver language, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I couldn't understand anything he said, but the message was clear. I was suddenly aware of the fact that beavers eat trees, and that I am a creature which stands upon two of them. My mower was a much better place for me to be.

I got back on my mower and he performed his same intimidating leer. "Now get back to work you stupid-ass!" once more he hissed angrily in beaverese. It isn't a language that many humans know but it is a pretty straighforward language. I rode off, and soon he disappeared into the pond.

I'm glad that I was careful enough not to get my legs chewed off. I would hate to have ended up a part of a beaver's damn someplace although I must admit, he would have earned it. I once heard a story on the news of how some guy got his fingers bit off by a beaver I laughed. Now I totally understand why. Beavers look big and cool and badass. I saw that beaver and wanted to befriend him (beaver-end him?) but he is not simply some cool looking water-loving badass. He is a big amphibious mean-ass rat, that is looking out for number one, and not my friend.