Normally, I don’t blog about dreams, namely because no one cares.

But, since I’ve been under the weather and am fresh out of blog post ideas, well, we have to dig down deep. And, since I’ve, in the past, turned some dreams into short stories or such, why can’t I turn a dream into a blog post?

Seriously, the only other idea I have is a discussion on “under the weather” and how far can I take that, really? I mean, no matter how we feel, aren’t we always under the weather? Maybe if you’re in a plane, you might be in the weather, maybe, but most of the time, you are under the weather no matter how you feel.

Except, of course, if you are on the International Space Station, in which case, you’re above the weather. And, in which case, you’re probably not reading this blog, so it’s a moot point anyway.

So, anyway, many moons ago when I was still school-aged, I had a dream where I was in school. The bell rang and I headed for class. Then, I realized that this is summertime and I’m not in school! This is a dream! This is what is known as lucid dreaming; that is, you realize you are in a dream and can pretty much do whatever you want.

Which is what I did. I decided I wasn’t going to class. I would go elsewhere. But, what about all those kids crowding the hallways? No problem. I will just walk through them.

And so I did.

That was, of course, until I walked into a vampire, who was convinced he was real.

Yeah, you can’t make stuff like this up.

I don’t know what you call that. I guess a regular dream became a lucid dream which became a regular dream again. I suppose. Who knows?

Anyway, that was many moons ago. And, my encounters with vampires in my dreams have come a long way since then. Apparently.

Before getting into last night’s dream, I should probably preface that by mentioning that the last blog post I read (saw, remember, etc.) yesterday was this and the last thing I watched before going to bed was Sanctuary. And, being that last night’s episode was about vampires, well, you can add two and two together and see where this is going…

So, anyway, in this dream, photographic evidence was uncovered of a vampire that looked just like Speedy. There were all sorts of old photos of Speedy with fangs, showing that, indeed, this vampire had been around for a long time. But, instead of realizing the best thing might be to just keep that sort of thing to himself, Speedy decided he wanted to expose this vampire to the world.

Mind you, going around saying there’s a vampire that looks just like you isn’t probably a good idea to begin with because people will just think you’re nuts, the other thing is that it pretty much paints a big ol’ target on your back for the whole vampire community that wants the world to continue to believe they don’t exist.

At this point, I should also mention that I tried on new gloves yesterday too. Don’t you just hate it when the fingertips are just a little too long and they sort of bunch up when you press on something? It’s so hard sometimes to find gloves that fit, well, like a glove. So, gloves were apparently in the back of my mind too. The importance of this will become apparent later on…

The gloves were all black, by the way. I like black.

So, anyway, since Speedy was intent on exposing the vampires and since this would no doubt result in his death, I decided I had to protect him. So, I wiped out the vampires.

All of them.

In the world.

With a thought.

Yeah, I’ve come a long way since that vampire that wouldn’t let me walk through him since he was convinced he was real.

So, that was that. For that dream, anyway. In the next one, I was 16 again and back in school.

At the mall.

Yeah, times have changed. I was 16 again, but knowing all I know today, like one of those movies where you have a big meeting at work and you wake up and your mom’s yelling at you to get ready for school. So, anyway, they were teaching school at the mall. And the teacher was probably only a couple years older herself, if not 16 as well.

And, instead of textbooks, we had printouts. Dot-matrix printouts on pin-feed paper. Figure that one out. So, I’m flipping through this thing, which has class schedules and stuff, but very little in the way of actual stuff that would be in the textbook. Thinking I’m not paying attention, the teacher calls on me to answer a question. Since I wasn’t really paying attention, I look through these pages to find an answer, only nothing makes a lot of sense.

At some point I realized that I graduated years ago. I didn’t need to go through this again. So, I left and I caught an elevator with some slightly older kids. I told them I’ve done all this before and I was tired of hanging out with 16 year olds.

This elevator was kind of funky too. It had tools on display behind glass.

So, anyway, we reach where ever we were going, and I tag along with this group. Except that they are there to rob the place.

Well, I can’t let that happen. So, I think I grab the lead guy’s gun and put it to his head. As the tip of my black glove scrunched against his head because the fingertip of the glove was longer than my finger, I realized I didn’t have his gun but was instead making a gun with my gloved hand and putting it to his head.

Which can’t be good.

But then Little Too woke me up because she had to go potty.

I am going to tell you ten stories from high school. The challenge for you is to determine which ones are true and which ones are fiction. Now, the only person I went to school with that has a blog is Mike; that may give him an unfair advantage if he stops by, but I bet he’s not familiar with all these stories!

I won’t name names in order to protect the innocent (and the guilty).

1. I went to high school with a guy that claimed he went on an undercover, overnight mission in the Soviet Union. After graduation, I heard he joined the Navy.

2. Freshman year, there was a girl (a senior, I think) who drove a truck to school and kept a bed mattress in the truck’s bed.

3. During my four years of high school, we only had two pep rallies. The first was during our Freshman year. The Seniors did something that made the school administrators decide not to do pep rallies anymore. In our Senior year, they relented and we had one. I can say that it was nice not having pep rallies all those years. Always seemed like a waste of time to me. Shouldn’t we be learning stuff?

4. I learned an effective means of suicide from a girl who unsuccessfully tried to kill herself. While she was recovering in the hospital, her doctor told her how she should have done it. She shared.

5. Sophomore year again (I think), the normal gang was sitting around the lunch table. There was a quiz that day; I think it was in Latin. Some people were studying for it. I sat there, quietly, apparently visibly nervous. I couldn’t really focus on the quiz at all. K., the girl across from me who was in my class, said “Don’t be so nervous. It’s only a quiz!” What she didn’t know, and never did unless she happens upon this blog post, is that there was a gun pointing at me at the time.

6. In the same Latin class, we had a Spanish exchange student. She gave us her address so we could keep in touch. Found out the following year that not a single one of us had written to her! I’ve tried to find her online a couple times, but never found her. Of course, I don’t have much to go on either.

7. One time, we had a project that required us to go to the library. We opted to go to the library in the nearest large city downtown, rather than the local libraries including one that was within walking distance of my house. I think there was a legitimate reason for the downtown library, but I don’t remember what it was. A friend, who went to another high school, needed to go to the library too. So, he picked two of us up from our school. Leaving the school parking lot, he cut in front of a bus. He didn’t care; what could they do? Take away his parking permit? He didn’t go to our school! Anyway, nothing happened, except, of course, for the excessive speeds he went down the highway.

8. The guy from the previous story (the one that got picked up with me, not the guy from the other school) once crashed into an ambulance. He wasn’t hurt. The ambulance crew told him he picked the right vehicle to crash into; if he had been hurt, they would have been prepared!

9. On hot days, one teacher apologized for not turning on the air conditioning. She said the air conditioning was centrally controlled by an outfit in Georgia, so the air wouldn’t be turned on until they were hot down in Georgia.

10. Another classmate nearly lost his finger in an auto accident in his garage. He had his car jacked up, and was spinning the tire. The phone rang. Before running to answer it, he tried to stop the tire spinning with his hand, like you would do for a bicycle tire. It nearly took his finger off.

So, there you go. Ten stories from high school. Now, jump to the comments and take your best guesses as to which ones are true and which ones I made up.

1936 Alan Alda
1944 Susan Howard
1959 Frank Darabont
1959 Randi Rhodes
1962 Keith Hamilton Cobb
1965 Lynda Boyd
1968 Sarah McLachlan
1969 Kathryn Morris
1969 Mo Rocca
1972 Gillian Vigman
1977 Joey Fatone
1980 Nick Carter
1981 Elijah Wood

NOTE: If you come here for motivation or inspiration, skip this post. Okay? Thanks.

Maybe this is the cold/flu talking but here goes anyway… I’ve been feeling okay most of the day. And, tonight I started moving things around—heavy things—looking for my sound effects mixer which wasn’t where I thought it was. So, I even looked in places where I didn’t think it would be, and I was right. And, after moving a couple heavy things, a couple of my fingers on my left hand felt a little numb. That’s probably due to the combined effects of general weakness due to the cold, light eating today and leaning on my left arm with my head in my left hand while working on the computer.

But, instead, my mind thinks of things like left side numbness being a sign of an impending stroke. I am going to have a heart attack. I better sit down for a while. Am I going to wake up in the morning? My stomach hurts.

And that, except for the stomach ache, gets you thinking about death.

Then, I think about the things I want to accomplish in my lifetime, and how many I’ve failed to achieve so far. I’m not rich. I’m not a successful author or filmmaker. I didn’t really run for President this year. I haven’t built my dream house. And so on.

Some people throw in the towel and give up on their dreams, but I just can’t see doing that. If you give up on accomplishing the things you want to do, why even go on? What would be the point? Thus, I have a certain steadfastness to hold on to those things I want to accomplish.

Of course, as time goes on, reality sets in and there are certain things that become less and less realistic or even possible to achieve.

Herein lies the rub:

“I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life… it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.”
~Walt Disney

And, you know, stuff that I am most passionate about just doesn’t pay the bills. As most people know, you’ve got to pay the bills before you can worry about much else.

I’ve run websites that I was passionate about. I put a lot of time, money and effort into them, and ended up losing money rather than making anything. Follow your passion and the money will come, they say. But, in reality, that’s not the case. And the “law of attraction” and positive thinking and having complete confidence that someway, somehow money will start flowing in just doesn’t work.

For example, I had a site once that I put years of work into. I spent many a night just working on it, trying to make it the best it could possibly be. I saw what others did, and tried to make mine better. I promoted the heck out of it. I spoke in front of groups encouraging people to sign up with it. I think I ended up spending thousands of dollars on it, and maybe I grossed a couple hundred dollars on it, which is to say I lost thousands of dollars.

So I ended up trying other ideas and websites. There are things I’m not so passionate about, but they are things that bring in money for other people, so maybe if I did websites like that, and made money, then I would have the money to do the things I want to do.

Somehow, that doesn’t work either. I have a number of domain names and websites that I don’t care a whole lot about, but I resist letting them go in the hopes that somehow they’ll earn their keep and allow me to do the things I want to do.

Just yesterday, I had another idea for putting a fresh spin on a website I started developing a year or two ago, but didn’t have a “unique selling proposition” for it. I thought about working on doing that and putting it into action.

But, now I’m thinking maybe I won’t. I’ll get burned out and bored with it quickly.

What really calls out to me is #5 on this list. I constantly have new ideas for it and have a good idea of what I want to do with it and have already, in the past, done some work on it. But, I have no idea where I’m going to make any money off of it. Thus, it gets left behind, tucked in a drawer for “someday.”

So, I don’t know. The idea of selling a chapter at a time seems appealing on the face of things but I wouldn’t want to start selling chapter by chapter until the whole book is done. I could imagine that, yes, hundreds of people will spend a dollar to buy a chapter, but, realistically, I’d probably get a mere handful. And, honestly, getting five bucks to write a book is more of a demotivator than a motivator. Oh, wow, I might earn $100 to write a 20-chapter book. Woohoo! But, I’d feel obliged to keep writing to finish it for the people that buy it, all the while taking time away from doing other things that might pay a little better.

Actually, I’d like to do all five things on that list, but, again, reality sets in and I need to pay the bills! And, generally speaking, science fiction really doesn’t. How many SciFi writers do you know have made a good living from it or even gotten rich? Now, compare that to something like accountants or lawyers or whatnot. It’s an uphill battle.

So, anyway, those are my meandering thoughts while pondering death while suffering what I hope is the last vestiges of this cold. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go back and delete this post sometime. But, right now, that’s just what’s going through my congested head.

It’s been real, but I must scream now.

That’s what a classmate wrote in one of my high school yearbooks. There’s something I remember from an episode of Doctor Who, “The Five Doctors,” where the Doctor said that “A man is the sum of his memories….” Is that true?

Evidently.

That was a common response of my sophomore year Composition teacher. Evidently. We all sort of picked up on that.

I see how you are.

That’s something I picked up from a co-worker many years ago.

We pick up these things from people we have known, and they slip into our own speech, sometimes without us realizing it. In that way, they become a part of who we are. We might also incorporate popular lines from TV shows or movies. Many of us probably recognize Hasta la vista, baby! But sometimes we, or our friends, will change such lines into something else that may not be as recognizable to others.

For example, in neighborhood football, the start of the play would be initiated with numbers being called out followed by “hut!” Of course, sometimes you’d want to throw the other team off guard, so you’d do something like: “Twenty-five. Thirty-four. Fourteen. HUD scandal!”

That was probably just us. But you can see how things around you help make you who you are today. And, those things I’ve described are more or less neutral in nature. They aren’t good or bad; they’re just what they are. They’re just little quirks or things that have worked their way into being part of your being.

Of perhaps more impact are those things that were positive or negative influences in your life.

You may have positive memories, like family get-togethers or playing with your friends. Maybe a favorite stuffed animal or a book. Maybe going fishing with your grandfather or working with your dad.

And, you may have negative memories as well. Maybe you were spat upon. Or maybe you were in situations where you knew the people around you didn’t really want you around. Or maybe there were minor misunderstandings that turned into major disasters.

At any rate, all of the people you have encountered and all of the things you have experienced have gone into making you who you are today. On top of that, throw in your genetic differences, and there’s no one exactly like you. You really are special and unique.

So, don’t fall victim to the herd mentality. Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by the hive mind. Be yourself. Think for yourself. Take responsibility for yourself. You are bits and pieces of all those you have encountered; you are the sum of your experiences and memories; but, most of all, you are you.

Have you ever seen things just vanish into thin air?

When I was a teen, one or two of my neighbors and I were talking on my front porch. An unfamiliar van drove down our street. Moments later, we asked each other, what happened to that van? Our street dead-ends, and no one saw the van leave! Yet, it was in no one’s driveway, nor was it parked anywhere on the street. It just disappeared.

Of course, there is probably a logical explanation. Maybe we just weren’t paying enough attention to have noticed that it drove away. Or, maybe it parked in someone’s garage. But, of course, talk turned to black holes and portals and such at the end of the street, where the van may have just driven off into another dimension. Perhaps it was returning to its home dimension.

Maybe it was something in the water. Years earlier, a neighbor claimed (and later denied) that she saw a unicorn in her backyard. Now, recently we’ve seen deer and it’s possible deer were strolling through yards back then as well, but a unicorn? And, it wasn’t one of those things where the person admitted later that she was just pulling the kids’ legs or something. No, it was denied in its entirety. Never happened. Okay…

Perhaps I played some small role in creating that type of environment. I recall one time where we were sitting by the ditch between my and my neighbor’s yards. He and I were talking, and, in whispers, he starts talking about so-and-so’s daughter. One of those “No one is supposed to know…” things. And, before saying anything, he’s kind of prodding me to see if I know, although it was probably more of a case of trying to build up the secret he was holding so it could be like he was in the know and might let me in on it.

Now, back then, there were only two things I could think of that would be considered something you would need to speak of in whispers. So-and-so’s daughter was either doing drugs or she was pregnant. I had a 50/50 shot.

“She’s pregnant,” I said.

Incredulous, my neighbor replied, “How did you know!?”

“I’m psychic,” I answered.

My “psychic powers” were further solidified when I convinced one of the older kids, who was naturally more skeptical, of the truth of my power. He was shooting free throws and, before he would take a shot, I would announce whether or not he would make it. I think my accuracy was about 80%.

What he didn’t catch on to was that I waited until he was about to release the ball before making my call. Of course, he didn’t catch on as I was putting on the appearance I was straining to see the future. A nice delaying tactic that allowed me to see the position of his hands before (and sometimes right at the start) of his throw, and it was that little hint by which I could tell whether or not the shot would be going in.

Then, there was my ability to hide in plain sight.

One day, I was avoiding my next door neighbor. I don’t remember why, but I just didn’t want to play with him that day. So, when he came by my yard, I climbed up the peach tree to hide. He never learned to climb trees and, consequently, never expected people to be hiding in the trees.

While he’s going through my backyard looking for me, I realize that my mom might get worried that something happened to me. So, as she’s looking out the window and my neighbor’s searching the backyard, I’m shaking the tree so that my mom would see me. She did. He didn’t.

We used to have a Douglas Fir pine tree in the front yard too. There were times that I would climb up the tree and sit up there. The branches grow in nice layers, like an artificial Christmas tree, so you have a relatively flat space where you can sit. I think I’d either read or listen to music. Anyway, it wasn’t a good place to hide, as there were a lot of openings where you could be seen. It was pretty much wide open. Still, I’d watch as my neighbors came over and rang to doorbell to look for me. All the while, I’m watching them from above.

On another occasion, we were playing Bloody Murder. For those not familiar with the game, you have one person go hide. Everyone else goes to the base and counts. Then, you go out looking for the person. When you see him (or her), you scream “Bloody murder!” and everyone runs back to base. Anyone he tags has to go hide with him the next time out. This goes on until the last person is tagged, at which point the game starts over with that person hiding.

As you might have guessed, this is a game best played toward the end of the day, after the sun has set and before it gets too dark that your parents start calling you home.

It’s also a good time of the day to take a walk in the summertime, since it tends to be the coolest part of the day.

One time, we were playing and there were a number people out walking that evening too. It was my turn to hide. I did at first, but after they started looking for me, I went for a walk. There I was, right in the open, walking down the street as they all wandered about looking for me.

They never saw me, until, of course, it was too late when I had positioned myself near the base, allowing me to pick many of them off before they could get on base.

So, maybe, just maybe, I had some small role in creating an environment where vans might appear to vanish at the end of the street.

Then again, maybe not. Could that portal have followed me to work? The thing that got me thinking about all this is that, right before sitting down and writing this post, I saw a car going through the parking lot at work. During normal circumstances, I would see the car drive past the window and then past the door. Bear in mind there is a wall between the window and the door, so I see the car going past the window, then nothing as it is behind the wall, and then the car again as it goes past the door.

A white car went past the window, but I never saw it go past the door. It didn’t stop. It didn’t backup.

It just disappeared.

Continuing from yesterday’s Blast from the Past, today I present Mix Tape B7. As always, I try to find official videos where possible and link to those.

On to today’s mix tape!

SIDE A
“What a Wonderful World” - Louis Armstrong
“Cabaret” - Louis Armstrong
“Dream a Little Dream of Me” - Louis Armstrong
“Bad Boy” - Miami Sound Machine
“I Don’t Have the Heart” - James Ingram
“Take Me Home” - Phil Collins
“Together Forever” - Rick Astley
“I Can’t Stay Away from You” - Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
“Something Happened on the Way to Heaven” - Phil Collins
“Runaround Sue” - Dion
“The Heat is On” - Glenn Frey

SIDE B
“She’s Like the Wind” - Patrick Swayze
“Something Happened on the Way to Heaven” - Phil Collins
“Holding Back the Years” - Simply Red*
“Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car” - Billy Ocean
“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” - Wham!
“Footloose” - Kenny Loggins
“Hold Me ’til the Morning Comes” - Paul Anka with Peter Cetera
“New York Minute” - The Eagles
“Make It Real” - The Jets
“The Search is Over” - Survivor
“Sad Songs” - Elton John

Feel free to share your memories of any of these songs in the comments.

This concludes the mix tape series. That’s the end of them! Actually, there are a couple half-finished tapes, so perhaps I’ll post about those sometime. One of them is completely unmarked, so I’ll have to listen to see what’s on it!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Blast from the Past!

*The version on my tape is not the extended version.

Continuing from yesterday’s Blast from the Past, today I present Mix Tape B6. As always, I try to find official videos where possible and link to those.

First off, yesterday’s mystery song was “I’ll Be Over You” by Toto. Here is some link love for the 0 people that took a guess: _______. See what you get for not taking a guess? That’s right. Nothing!

Anyway, on to today’s tape!

SIDE A
“Bye Bye Love” - The Everly Brothers
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” - Billy Joel
“The Way You Make Me Feel” - Michael Jackson
“Do You Remember?” - Phil Collins
“The Club at the End of the Street” - Elton John
“Everything She Wants” - Wham!
“Will You Still Love Me” - Chicago
“Piano Man” - Billy Joel
“King of Wishful Thinking” - Go West
“Hold on to the Nights” - Richard Marx

SIDE B
“If Wishes Came True” - Sweet Sensation
“Songbird” - Kenny G
“Get on Your Feet” - Gloria Estefan
“Taking It All Too Hard” - Phil Collins
“The Greatest Love of All” - Whitney Houston
“All I Need is a Miracle” - Mike & The Mechanics
“Unchained Melody” - Righteous Brothers
“It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me” - Billy Joel
“In the Air Tonight” - Phil Collins
“Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire” - David Foster
“Rhythm is Gonna Get You” - Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine

Feel free to share your memories of any of these songs in the comments.

Continuing from yesterday’s Blast from the Past, today I present Mix Tape B5. As always, I try to find official videos where possible and link to those.

Only a couple duplicates today, so Pete and Teeni have less reason to complain. Of course, it’s again vintage 80’s, which will continue to set Michelle off…

More so than the other tapes, this one reminds me of work. Back then, we had a big collating job. We did it in the basement of a bank. It was used for meetings and stuff, so it wasn’t in constant use. So, we could use it sometimes. We’d set everything up. My friend and I collated the stuff, which on one job was spread across two tables. Long tables. We had a system. He went on a skateboard, and I had roller skates. So, we just wheeled down and around the tables, collating. Often racing to see who could finish a book or stack of books first. And, we’d have the radio playing. Or tapes. We both had tapes that we played. This one reminds me of that more so than the other tapes. Don’t know why. It just does.

SIDE A
“Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” - Milli Vanilli
“I Wanna Be Rich” - Calloway
“Don’t Want to Fall in Love” - Jane Child
“The Living Years” - Mike & the Mechanics
“Was It Nothing at All?” - Michael Damian
“Power of Love” - Huey Lewis & the News
“I’d Like to Put Manuel Away” - ACN*
“St. Elmo’s Fire” - John Parr
“Oh Yeah” - Yello
“Devil Inside” - INXS
“With or Without You” - U2

SIDE B
“Satisfied” - Richard Marx
“Say You, Say Me” - Lionel Richie
“If You Don’t Know Me by Now” - Simply Red
“Please Please Me” - The Beatles
“Heart of the Matter” - Don Henley
“Vision of Love” - Mariah Carey
“Can’t We Try” - Dan Hill & Vonda Shepard
“Release Me” - Wilson Phillips
“Crazy for You” - Madonna
Mystery Song**
“Can’t Fight This Feeling” - REO Speedwagon

Feel free to share your memories of any of these songs in the comments.

Gee, no Debbie Gibson songs on this tape. Well, to make up for it, here’s “No More Rhyme,” which, incidentally, I used in a video for Physics class back in high school. It was on time. Rhyme rhymes with time. Oh, these things lose something when I have to explain it.

*This one’s funny. Not available anywhere. Sorry. Many moons ago, I tried (and was rejected) to write for funny radio skits. This was one of the songs on the demo tape they sent. Funny stuff. Too bad you missed it.

**Sorry. This one’s not marked, and I don’t have a tape player handy, so it will have to remain a mystery for now. Take your best guess in the comments. One day I’ll look at up and we’ll see if anyone was right, or even close.

Continuing “80’s Week” or whatever. Anyway, continuing from yesterday’s Blast from the Past, today I present Mix Tape B4. As always, I try to find official videos where possible and link to those.

Only two duplicates today, so Pete and Teeni have less reason to complain. Of course, it’s still vintage 80’s, which will set Michelle off…

And, fresh on the heels of Teeni’s comment yesterday, guess who the first song is by…

SIDE A
“Who Loves Ya Baby” - Debbie Gibson
“Vogue” - Madonna
“Seeds of Love” - Tears for Fears
“Touch of Grey” - The Grateful Dead
“At the End of the Line” - The Traveling Wilburys
“The Glory of Love” - Peter Cetera
“So Happy Together” - The Turtles
“Sound of Silence” - Simon & Garfunkel*
“For the Longest Time” - Billy Joel
“Let It Be” - The Beatles
“Next Time I Fall” - Amy Grant & Peter Cetera

SIDE B
“Doctor Who - Mood Version” - Mark Ayres**
“Doctor Who - Terror Version” - Dominic Glynn**
“Doctor Who - Latin Version” - Keff McCulloch**
“Panopticon Eight - Regeneration Minx” - Mark Ayres**
“Doctorin’ the TARDIS” - The Timelords

Feel free to share your memories of any of these songs in the comments.

*You might enjoy the Gregorian version too.

**Sorry, these aren’t available on YouTube. But, take my word for it, they’re pretty cool. I have them on the world’s first square CD!