Tag Archives: garage talk

Cleaning the Garage

August 12, 2010

QandAStanding on my elbow
With my finger in my ear,
Biting on a dandelion
And humming kind of queer
While I watched a yellow caterpillar
Creeping up my wrist,
I leaned on a tree
And I said to me,
“Why am I doing this?”

~ “Standing” by Shel Silverstein

Thursday. Garage Talk. But I have a to-do hitlist on my wall, repeated on a sticky on the laptop, and I think of it more than a pregnant woman considers labor in her ninth month. I have shit to do. So, I apologize, but I didn’t come up with a question this week. Instead we’re going to reverse the roles. (See now, I could have just said I haven’t done this for a while, but I’m all about truth in advertising!)

Ask me anything… unless you’re coming to Horrible Saturday. In which case, you can ask me Saturday.

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None of this is real

August 5, 2010

Nightmare“It was a dark and stormy nightmare.”
~ Neil Gaiman, “Sandman”

I have this neat trick. I don’t lucid dream (oh but don’t I wish!), but I can wake up. The second I realize, or think, or say “none of this is real” or “this is a dream”, I ‘m instantly awake. Of course, I wish I hadn’t said that during the Johnny Depp dreams of 2007 but alas, I did. Which is only mentioned to point out that it works on good and bad dreams. Well, and because it’s Depp. It would be nice if I had more control. If I knew that saying that would wake me. I don’t. It sucks. But in a good way when it’s a nightmare.

I had four nightmares last night. Back to back. I kept realizing there was no way this was happening and waking up… and then going right back in. Now, mind you, not back to the same dream or same spot, though I’ve done that accidentally in the past. No, I mean that I went back into that negative world. The characters were the same. The outcome the same. But how we got there each time was different. It was like a special edition DVD with alternate middles instead of alternate endings. And each time, I got a little further into the horrible end before my brain put the brakes on and screamed “I don’t think so!”

So, since it’s Thursday, and this week’s been nothing but remnants of Monday masquerading as its siblings, let’s talk dreams—good, bad and ugly. What do you do? Can you wake yourself? Can you go back in and pick up where you left off? Can you control things going on, or people and places? What tricks does your nocturnal mind have that it’s not sharing with your conscious?

Entertain me… I could use it this week!

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Due North

July 29, 2010

moralcompassAs is the case with many blog entries lately, this was spurred by a chat in the garage. It’s a place of deep conversations and highly emotional rants and gigglefests of pure speculation. Last night it ranged from religion to the gas station and back again.

Apparently, I have “an extremely high moral compass.” Seems if you want to give back the incorrect change the clerk gave you, or any of the other things listed to me, you have a high moral compass. But the conversation turned, and it wasn’t about the compass anymore. It was about the points on the compass. Or rather, who they point to.

Fine, I have a high moral compass. Blame my mom, I do for almost everything anyway. I’m comfortable with it. It’s kept me out of trouble on countless occasions, including a few I clearly remember wishing it didn’t exist for. But it’s MY moral compass. It’s what points me north or south, right or wrong. It’s there to keep me straight, not judge others. And it has shocked me (a few times in the past) to find out that “fear of my judgement” because of my “high moral compass” is possible. Really? This is me. Everyone talks to me, tells me secrets, confides—because above all else, I’m loyal. And shouldn’t that loyalty automatically mean I won’t judge? It’s not my place to judge—it’s my place to love.

Oh wait… Thursday… there should be a question. Sorry, I got all rambly there. I could do a whole blog on judging, which turned into it’s own conversation and moved locations and oy… Hmmm… Ok, how about this:

Do you have a compass? Nah, that’s a given, even if it’s a little broken one, you’ve still got one. Ok, how about: Where’d you get it from? Does your moral compass come from your upbringing? Your faith? Your experiences? Your desires to be a certain way? How did you come to the morals that you hold yourself by?

I guess I answered before I asked this week. I got them from my mom, but also from experiences. There are certain things I will never ever evah do, because they were done to me. They hurt on a level that can never be properly expressed and I would never want to a.) be responsible for making someone feel like that, b.) sink to the level of those that did it to me. My compass is part mom, part me—but sorry, no pink elephant. I personally don’t think an invisible entity threatening my afterlife is a good enough reason to behave in this life. I live the way I do because before I die, I have to live… with myself.

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And then I died

July 22, 2010

crowgrave

“…an eagle came and swooped me up
And through the air we flied,
But he dropped me in a boiling lake
A thousand miles wide.
And you’ll never guess what I did then–
I DIED.”

~ Shel Silverstein’s “True Story” from Where the Sidewalk Ends

I posted True Story in it’s entirety once, I only needed a tidbit for this entry. Basically, I only needed the last line…

Have you ever had the fleeting thought that you actually died at one point in your life and all of this is just you dreaming in your coffin? Or your afterlife? Or that millisecond before death and you imagined all this is what would have happened? Not in a morbid, gothy-whiny sort of way, but in a more elusive, disenchanted, disconnected and possibly surreal moment kind of way. And for our purposes, without the use of drugs to get there. Have you?

I have.

And I’d always thought it a bit odd. One of those strange thoughts I have that I keep to myself for fear of being locked up. But, as a little moonlight and a lot of tequila have revealed, I am not alone in this thought. It’s fleeting and not at all suicidal, it’s more of a “what if” situation.

And so, I drag it into the garage for this Thursday’s question. Never mind if you have or haven’t had the thought, I wouldn’t want to out those of you still protecting yourself from the encumbering styles currently available in high-end straight jackets. Rather, for giggles, let’s pretend you all have… now tell me when you died. What moment could have been your death? That near miss on the highway? That accident that didn’t happen on the farm? Whatcha got?

Me? I drowned when I was six. I was swimming with the daycare away group in some shallow rapids and hit one of those soft spot drop-offs. I remember going under, hitting bottom way over my head, springing up and gulping air, and then going down again. I did this several times before… Before I died, and dreamed the rest of this life I’ve had =)

That was my moment. When did you die?

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Billy Jim Joe BOB

July 15, 2010

tms1-38Nope, this isn’t a blog about the hippie. Rather, it’s a blog about all the other bob’s in my life.

AND it’s kinda sorta maybe a question, so we’re calling it garage talk, since it’s Thursday. (You like how I’m magically posting this from the road on my way to Necon… sneaky aren’t I?)

My life has always had bob in it one way or another (Yes, I get the irony):
Bob’s Chop Suey (see this post)
Doctor Bob (see image)
“Do it yourself, Bob!” (old commercial my family will never forget)
Dear God Bob
Bob, bob, bob…

NOW the boyfriend, too?!!

I need a new generic name. I figure if religion changes throughout the years and their gods change, I can change the name of my generic bob… I kinda like Henry. Henry is a nice strong name, but Dear Henry? hmmm, I’m reminded of the song:

And, as much as I love my Sesame Street memories, I’m not sure I can say “Dear Henry” without “there’s a hole in the bucket.” I need suggestions. I need help. The hippie is too easily confused with and by this strange habit of mine.

Mostly, it’s to replace “god,” because even though I’m a dirty rotten atheist, I don’t like “Dear God” or “Oh my God” because it’s blasphemous and I try and respect belief, even when it’s not my own. I’d go with Steve and borrow Nugget’s new “everyone name,” but it just doesn’t roll off the tongue quit right, and I promised someone I wouldn’t use that particular name for anything outside victims of brutal deaths, accidental and otherwise, in my fiction.

Damn it.

Suggestions? I’m open to just about anything…

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