zen's journal

Fighting over modem time.
That's the only thing happening. Actually, I'll do a quick check-in for mom. She's depressed, and doesn't want to talk to me, or anyone. It's like sh doesn't want to come out of her shell. She isn't working, and has no money for presents for the grrandkids. More to the point, she got in a argument with my younger sister, so now they're not speaking. And H-, my sister, is still mad that mom didn't at least call for her son's birthday.

All of that mess I wholly place on the back of H-'s boyfriend, Michael. He's a punk, and just a plain fucker. I'd gladly throw him down her stairs and not even think about it.

So I got into a slight argument with her the other day over using the car. She said I don't let her use the car except for 5 minutes then she has to bring it back. The thing is that I told her I need to get the video back by 10pm. Here's the thing: she leaves to go to church early, to be there by 6 pm. I say I need to return the video before 10 pm. That's 4 hours!! And if the stupid video didn't need to be back, I wouldn't care how long she was out toolin around. In fact, I'm GLAD when she leaves the house. Frankly, she has no life. Church is the only life she has, now that she's not talking to my sister. And in addition, now she' cast this pall over the house, like a wet dishrag.

I'd tell her that I love her, but she doesn't want to talk; certainly not me. So then she sits in front of her computer, on line (which means I can't do the auction stuff when I need to), playing slingo, or poppit, or pong, or pogo, or whatever the hell it is. For 9 hours straight! But when I need to use the phone line, it's like getting a government grant. At one point she was complaining that she doesn't get enough modem time, even though she knows I'm selling on it. I'm like, "but this is my job." A friend of schweeties used a phrase. Originally I didn't like it. But the more I hear it, the more fitting it is. He said "it's just pathetic." He's right. It's just pathetic.

At first, I was genuinely scared. Or at least I was dumb-founded. I didn’t really know how to react to these nighttime “happenings.” I didn’t know what to properly call them. ‘Sleep-talking’ was the best I could do, but that didn’t quite seem right since it didn’t fit into the traditional definition of talking in one’s sleep. Once I got over the initial shock, it occurred to me eventually that the information that he would impart was valuable.

For a long time, he told me he couldn’t sleep because I snore. I could respond to that only the way that all people who’ve been told that statement respond. “Nuh-uh! Do not!” Now, here was my chance to reply with a half-way decent come-back.

“You snore.”
“Yeah, well you talk in your sleep. In fact, you were having a conversation in your sleep.”
“Nuh-uh! Do not!”

But it wasn’t just saying to my schweetie that he talks in his sleep. What was of valuable was WHAT he was talking about. Again, the content of his dreams was important. It was important the fact that I was part of his dreamscape while it was happening, for the reason mentioned above. Knowing what he was happening was important to proving, at least to me, that this wasn’t a joke. But in the morning when I asked him about his dreams, it became more important. Eventually, where Luke was concerned, it became paramont.

To be honest, I think it was more important to him what the subject and content were when we spoke in the morning. I told him at one point, simply, that he talks in his sleep. He didn’t believe me. Since most of these times were early morning, I was trying to sleep, and simply ignored them. But the case of the leprechaun lumberjack made the hairs on my neck stand straight. After that I just paid more attention to what he was saying.

The morning after he had the dream about the one foot tall man, I asked him about his dream.
“What dream?” he asked.
“The dream about the one foot tall guy.”
He looked at me like I told him that I swallow live hand grenades and shit out diamond rings. Then he started laughing.
“That’s not funny. You told me that you saw a one foot tall guy in denim overalls, wearing boots.”
He started laughing harder. He thought I was making this up.
“You don’t recall talking about a one foot tall guy at the window.”
“What are you talking about??”
“Look, it scared me. Don’t you think it would have me worried when you practically wake up and start talking about a guy at the window, and then you start telling me that you followed him over into the woods?”

His look changed. He looked as concerned as I probably did the night before.
“What?!”
“That’s what I’m telling you. You were sleeping, and then you kinda woke up and started telling me about this. I was scared shitless. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Look, I gotta go. We’ll talk about this tonight.”

He gave me a kiss on my forehead. I could tell he was shaken-up. I knew he was starting to recall the dream. From that point on, he knew that he did talk in his sleep. But he also knew that something changed. His dreams would never be the same.
I don’t know if we every really talked about that, or the significance of it. It might’ve just gotten lost in the shuffle. But we both knew that this was happening at night. Quite honestly it skeeved him out, so we didn’t talk about it much. If I was the one having my dreams rehashed back to me in the morning, I’m not sure how I’d feel. Think about it. How would anyone feel?

I think it was, perhaps 4 months after that point that Luke appeared, seemingly from nowhere. Not really nowhere, he was from the place dreams are made, and people tripping on acid flash to. Or some realm inbetween; perhaps the "ecology of souls" that Terence Mckenna talks about. We never were quite sure where Luke stayed when he wasn’t visiting, but I’m ahead of the story.

I can’t remember why, but I had just given schweetie the single best, most relaxing back rub in his life. I’m good with my hands like that. It was probably because his back was, as usual, giving him a world of trouble. I was happy to oblige. I always include this in telling the story of Luke, as a type of qualifier. I’m not sure if his appearance ever had anything to do with it, but I’d like to think it did. I can then turn around and tell certain people, “I’ll give you a massage that’ll make you see God,” and actually mean it.

He was tired. I went to sleep pretty easily. What seemed only moments later, he starts, and wakes me up.
“He says you’re nice.”
“Who said that?” I reply, waking up.
“The guy” Here we go again.
Sigh.

“What guy?”
“The GUY.”
“WHAT guy?” God I hate this shit sometimes.
“The guy that came in earlier.”
Of course, there was no guy. And of course I gotta pull the information out of him.
“I didn’t let anyone in."
I ask more CLEARLY than loudly, "WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” .
“You’re stupid.”
Sigh.

“No. I didn’t let anyone in the house. You’re sleep-talking. Go back to bed.”
“But he wants to talk to you.”
“Go back to bed sweetie. You're just had a dream,” I say, not knowing if it's advisable to tell a sleep-talker he's sleep-talking.
“No he’s here.”
Fear or concern now rising, I have to ask, “Where, sweetie?”
“He’s right here.”
Does my sweetie now have x-ray vision? I can’t see a dam thing except him.
“Right here?”
“Between us,” he murmurs.
Sigh.

This doesn’t make me feel any better. Apparently there's a “guy” laying between us. I don’t care who this alleged person is, or how he allegedly got there. I just want to go back to sleep which, at this advanced point, is not forthcoming.

“What does he look like.”
“You can see him.”
“I can’t see him. It’s dark down here.”
“You’re just being stupid.”
Sigh.

“Alright, I’m stupid. But I can’t see him. I can just feel him. Anyway he’s your friend.”
“You let him in.”
Exhale to the count of 5.

How on earth do we manage to get into arguments over things that do not actually exist. This has got to be a new one for the books. I feel like I’m arguing with a religious guy over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. So I start to guess, without being obvious about the guessing. As one can imagine, this technique didn’t get me too far. It did get me a bunch of “stupids,” however.

Eventually, I find out that this guy has a really funny haircut, like they used a sharp rock to cut his hair, and his jeans, shop worn and thin, have different length cuffs. And he’s tall and thin, yet muscular. Oh, and he has a funny accent. It would seem that his name was Luke, but I can’t remember if we found that out in the morning, or that night. Luke was from a different century. Apparently the one when they used rocks instead of metal for scissors. It would be a while before we found out when Luke existed while he was a living being on Earth.

I was able to find out only an approximate time because he was never too specific about mundane things. At the very least, he had the decency to let me ask him myself. In its turn, the most freaky thing to ever happen, probably ever will happen to my schweetie, is when he became a medium for Luke, the spirit.

How does this story best start?
My schweetie, Rich, talks in his sleep. Sometimes, like most who do that, it’s jibberish. Then there are times when he makes sense. On more than one occasion, he’s held conversations with me while he’s been sleeping. Granted, what I’m calling conversation and what others would, may not be the same thing. In fact, I might be stretching it a bit to call the exchange a conversation. Perhaps put another way I might say my schweetie talks in his sleep, and he can hear and respond to my answers. Generally his responses sound like they’re coming from a drunk, slap-happy, whino but I can make-out most of the words just the same.

Perhaps he’s playing a prank on me. That’s possible. Not likely though. I think that there are two ways that I definitely know, at least for myself, that he’s not screwing with me at 3 am. Actually five ways, altogether now that I think about it. First is that at 3 am, he’d just as soon be sleeping. He’s the type of person who is going to get 7 and 1/2 hours sleep every night. From nearly the moment his head hits the pillow to the alarm clock goes off, he’s sleeping. Personally, I don’t know HOW one could do that, or is able to do that, but I’ve heard there’s lots of people like that. My schweetie included.

The second way I know he’s not screwing with me at 2:30, or 3 am, is that at that time of the morning he’d just be too tired to hold an elaborate running gag like that rambling for the half-hour to 45 minutes that these bouts can run. Now this isn’t a constant half hour to forty-five minutes. Most of that time is dead space filled with his snoring. I just can’t see him talking for 5 minutes, snoozing for 3 and a half, snoozing for another ten minutes, then blurt out again more of the scenerio that had been established. This just is not his style. It might be mine, not his. He’s more of a short-spoken, quick-witted, rapier-thin rejoinder kinda guy.

More to the point: during waking hours, the middle of the day when I’m talking quite lucidly with him, where there’s no doubt what the conversation is about, he easily looses track of the thread of conversation. Ten minutes worth of snooze during normal conversation, and he’s lost. (And I’m simplifying things, but for a good reason.) I have to remind him of the point we were talking about. This is only a mild critism of my boyfriend. But the point is that he’s “Forgetful” because his mind is constantly working and bouncing on to the next, new topic. So when he’s discussing a “scenerio” (examples of which I’ll mention in a bit), and in between snores, snoozes and babbling, he’s on track for 45 minutes to half and hour later, something gets my attention. If it were the middle of the day, honestly, I’d think something is wrong.

Mostly, I don’t think that these early-morning conversations are the end-product of him fucking with me for one very important reason: the content. They require a type of imagination that he doesn’t normally have; that few have, truth be told. The type of imagination and illusion that comes only from dreams themselves. Essentially, he’s telling me about his dreams—as they happen. I recognise these sequences because I have decent dream recall myself. But more than that, when someone describes his/her dream, we just know that it’s a dream. I think this is a universal thing. This is the most fascinating part of this whole mystery, that the person I’m sleeping next to is sharing his dreams with me, literally. He knows I’m there and includes me in a conversation that he might be having with another party, which is, of course, not in the room. I’ll say at this point that these “exterior” dreams essentially stopped since Luke made his presence known.

How one of these “scenerios” might play out is like this: he’s sleeping, or at least snooring. I’m just on the verge of sleep, at 2:22 am. He says something aloud. It jolts me awake. I say, “what?”
“Did you see him?” he’ll mumble, a few minutes later.
“See who?”
“The man at the window,” he slurs.
“What?!”
“Yuuh, there was a man at the window just a few minutes ago.”

This was the first of these conversations I had with him. Wouldn’t be the last. This one bolted me up arrow-strait and scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know what to make of it. This is a hell of a thing to say to someone just as they’re getting ready to go to bed. And DAMN, wasn’t this dude JUST sleeping?! How the fuck is he going to see someone at the window. And more to the point, we were downstairs at this point, and none of the windows are visable from the bed. And even more, it’s totally dark down there. There’s no way he can see the windows. So I think he’s fucking with me. But this isn’t his style. When I’ve fucked with him like that in the past, he’s gotten pissed of, and he’s not one to do that to me if he hates it so much. And generally, he doesn’t kid that way.

So now what? Ask some more questions to sleeping beauty.
“What did the man look like?”
“He’s wearing overalls”
Now I know he’s fucking with me. “Overalls? How could you see that?”
“I saw him when I went out to take a piss.”
“Yeah, what the fuck did he look like?” I asked, getting noticably upset.
“He was wearing overalls I told you.”
No, what did the man himself look like?”
“He was a foot tall.”

And yes, there was silence.
“A foot tall?”
“Yuuh, he was looking in the window, he didn’t see me, then ran into the woods.”
“So then what did you do.”

Pause.
“He didn’t see me, then I followed him into the woods.”
“When was this?”
“I told you”
“I forgot”
“You’re just being stupid.”
“No I’m not, you know I can’t remember things.”
“When I took a PISS.” He replied, noticably upset.

But then I knew he hadn’t gone outside to take a piss, being that we’re living in suburbia, 100 feet from the nearest house. I knew he went out to smoke, but he never said that. And then he was adament that he “chased” the leprichan into the woods at midnight. How much bullshit is that. Even though one part of my brain says “this is bullshit,” the another part has me thinking maybe he DID go over to the woods cause he hears something, or something. And I was concerned.

It would be at these times that I’d recall the advice to never wake a sleep-walker, or a sleep-talker. He’s starting to get pissed at me. He thinks I’m asking stupid questions because I was there at the time the whatever event took place. I’m asking him dumb questions I already know the answer to because I was actually there going through the same thing that he was. Who wouldn’t be frustrated at the questions I was asking. I was part of the event in his mind.

So now, not only did the one-foot tall lumberjack (he was wearing overalls, plaid and work boots while peering in our window), give me a shock, but then I start getting worried because he’s scaring me with his rising anger and frustration. A few times it was like walking on egg-shells. I never quite knew what to do. After these things would start, I couldn’t just shake them off for a few reasons. One was my curiosity, but the other important reason is the fact that this was now a conversation. I was hooked, and he wasn’t going to let me out of it. So I had to ride the ship, wherever it was going to sail.

The fifth way I know what I know I’ll get into shortly.

This post was edited by zen on Dec 14, 2003.

No, not the book in the New Testament.
Luke is a spirit. At least that's what he calls himself. He was an actual person at one time, about 230 years ago, as near as we can figure. I have the tapes. I need to listen to them again, and start nailing down an actual date, but he was very sketchy about details of his Earth-bound life. He's much happier talking about his current life as a wraith, absorbing the energy cast out by two men who love each other.

This is the first part of the story of Luke, a spirit.

(Due to time constraints at this point, I have to stop for the night. I'll resume tommorrow.)

It is now 1:18.
I'm tired. And mentally exhausted. I have just listed 9 more items on E-bay. This is my new job. I got to dad's shop about 1:00 pm. Worked on pictures and descriptions until about 5pm. Came home, started shortly thereafter. I have been working on it since then.

Of course, I'm going to shout vile curses at their listing software because it takes forever. I now know why my Schweetie used Mr. Lister when he was doing this.

But the time thing isn't really the worst. The worst part is that when I went back to check my photos, they were basically all shitty!! They were horrible. I KNOW as a fact that when they came from the camera, they looked awesome. The problem is that their software compresses the fuck out of pictures. One way around this is to create high-contrast pictures where possible. I realized that AFTER all my pictures were posted, and then I went back to re-re-re-edit these fucking things. Assholes.

Well, on the flip side of this, I have plenty more to take, and perfect. Fortunately, i do pretty thorough descriptions, so I think that I can survive maudlin pictures. Comments anyone?

NAFTA [a.k.a. "SHAFT-US"(r)]
In my opinion, capitalism should never be capitalized. It's like capitalizing collectivism, or religion. Of course certain rogue factions in this country believe that capitalism IS a religion, but they're fucked, and I digress. The dictionaries say it shouldn't, and I agree with them.

Anyway, it actually wasn't the BBC, rather NPR had a segment dedicated to NAFTA; ten years gone, as it were. As part, they had Robert Reich (sp. I know), former chairman of the Federal Reserve talking about the benefits of the North American Free-Trade Agreement. He talked about how NAFTA was such a boon for the economy. Basically, the winners in SHAFTUS can be found in the malls. The consumers are the winners in the trade wars he says. Hmm.

He went on to tell us that if they hadn't started producing parts of the X-Box(c), and assembled it, from a plant in Guatalajara Mexico(tm), it would be too expensive for us in the US to buy. In other words, the US economy NEEDED all those companies and jobs to move to Mexico. [The subtext is they needed to move to Mexico to keep us fat, dumb and happy.] Hmm.

First thought:
Would it really be such a bad thing if there were less X-Boxes(c) being sold in America? What would be a natural, logical progression? The boys (and let's face who mostly asks for these things) without them would do what, read more books perhaps? Probably not. They'd just keep using their old game consoles, or watching TV, or playing games on PC. The point is that there's more than enough media content players to keep our kids amused in this country. So what if they stopped producing more Boxes? Isn't the worse thing in the world, I say.

My second thought:
If these things are so god-dam cheap, how is Bill Bates so god-dam rich? Is this from collecting his pennies of royalties for the name on each Box sold? Perhaps, but how many quadrillion Boxes does he gotta sell to get that much money? Yes i know, he's selling Windows(c) before Boxes, and the question still remains.

No, I think that just about everyone who frequents this site knows how Bill really got his money: unfair trading practices. Basically, he squeezed out the competition. And in the case of the Box where there's more than one "game in town" he's just trying to make it cheaper, to sell more, to starve the other guys. BUY THE -BOX, BILL NEEDS YOUR MONEY TO STAMP-OUT FAIR COMPETITION, the ads should read. Sorry Robert, but it's a "fringe benefit" that they're cheaper. If Bill could find a way to make these things run on air, he would. And ol' Bob would be right there with a compressor.

(Would "Brain Fart" be a suitable Post Type?)

This post was edited by zen on Dec 09, 2003.