Dream Journal

Ok, I'm out of boxes of macaroni so I need to do some shopping, but before I forget:
Last night, I was hanging out with Morgan Freeman and I was Andy Duphrain, only Shawshank looked more like high school with a cafeteria and hallways and such. We still all wore the same denim prison outfits though. Some of the guys close to Morgan Freeman knew that he was about to bust out of prison. For some reason, we had seen it on a movie before, but nobody said anything to him even though I wanted to go up to him and be like, "Hey Morgan, hatch any good plans lately?" Instead I just said, "Hey Morgan, you're looking strange today..." Wink wink. What a terrible friend! And then, immediately after saying that, I suddenly remembered that I was the one who was supposed to bust out of prison that night, so I had better get to it!
Then we were all in the cafeteria and my friend Richie from the mission/EFY was there and his family was visiting him and I was thinking, "Oh man, it's got to be so embarrassing to be in prison when your family still cares about you!" And then I hoped my family never showed up. In fact, I was hoping they never found out that I was ever wearing denim prison outfits. Then the movie started on the big screen which actually was the reason that everybody was gathered in the cafeteria for in the first place. And then this hefty lady in a satin red dress started dancing and singing (not in the movie, in real life... sorta) and I thought "Man, this is supposed to be entertainment? PSssssshhhh... Prison sucks. Where's Morgan? Did he bust out yet?"

My alarm then went off and I got out of bed to face the feels-like-negative-nine weather outside and I started wishing I was in a warm prison somewhere hanging out with Morgan Freeman. Have you guys seen that Lego's Movie trailer yet? It actually looks really funny.

Reason to stay a bachelor for life number 88: You can eat chili mac for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and not have to worry about holding in the explosive gas around ladies or children.

Dream Journal

Last night, probably at the very hour that daylight savings quit, I was having the cutest dream!
Gross. I can't believe I typed "cute" on my blog.
Anyways, it starts out with me inheriting a "prize running kitten." It's like a prize running horse, but it's a kitten, right? A little gray kitten actually. And what did it run? The 400 (you know, that event in track and field when you sprint a lap). Who did it run against? Puppies. All kinds of puppies.
So we were there all staggered for the beginning of the race. I was standing next to the little gray fuzzball and in all the lanes around us were puppies and their owners. I didn't think we would do that well, because I was the only guy on the track with a kitten instead of a puppy, but once the gun went off I just started jogging along the side of the track and the kitten kind of bounded along next to me. Before I knew it, we were way ahead of the rest of the pack, which was weird because it didn't feel like we were going that fast--almost like a "Woops, we're winning!" I guess the puppies were very slow or very blind. Anyways, we were just leaving everyone  else in our dust so much that we were about to lap this old person with his bulldog puppy--which is incredible because it's impossible to lap anyone in the 400. Somehow, the owner stepped out to the left or something and stepped on the kitten's paw which made the poor little guy just collapse. I tried to encourage him to get up and finish the race, but eventually all the puppies were passing us up as the kitten was curled up in pain and mewing in a way that would make your heart just melt. So, I decided to pick him up and take him to the vet.
The vet's place was more like a newspaper stand run by a guy in a white coat, but he took the kitten and looked at him and declared him ok. He then set the kitten down and the little guy started bounding about like nothing ever happened. I was wondering if I had put too much pressure on him to win that race; he was just a kitten after all.
I then woke up thoroughly disappointed that reality hasn't yet caught up with my dreams of kittens-vs.-puppies races or puppies-dressed-as-cats races. It's just so adorable when they run! Eccckk... what a gushy post.
Notice the kitten never really got a name. What's that all about, Freud?
Anyways, I had this other cool dream a few weeks ago about how I did that thing that you only see in the movies or in the tv shows, you know when people are talking about you and all the sudden they turn around and there you were where there was nobody just a second ago. Like a Batman or a Rumpelstiltskin kind of trick. I felt so cool when I did it, because I saw one of my friends and his wife sitting at a table next to a fountain in some sort of mall and they were expecting me and they were debating whether or not they should even wait for me and then they turned away from the fountain and I jumped/glided down from the upper story I was on and landed quietly enough right on the edge of the fountain that they turned around and there I was just sitting there with one leg over the other and a smug look on my face thinking, "OH man, I just rocked your world!!!"
And that was the whole dream. Not  a whole lot of substance to it, but I can still say it's one of the best ones I've had in 2013. Probably second after prize racing kitten.

Dream Journal

This is all I can write about anymore that is in any way interesting. The edge of my life is dulled by monotonous hours of work and cartoon watching.

So the other day I had a dream that I was engaged to get married. Yup. Big knee slapper there. Anyways, I just had that feeling like, "Oh yeah, I finally did it!" and even though I didn't know who the lucky lady was (she could have actually been way more attractive than me, which would then make her unlucky?), I had that surreal feeling you might get when you win first prize in front of a huge crowd of adoring people and fans--and when I say huge crowd, I'm talking Marriot Center with standing room only.
The thing is, I was just walking around in the church building with a few of my acquaintances and feeling a little bit of stress on top of that elation. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I had to be at some sort of welcoming party, like a reception but before the actual wedding. But even though I knew it was supposed to happen that night, I just kept meandering around and putting off getting ready for the whole shindig until I finally asked one of the oblivious acquaintances, "Hey, aren't I supposed to be at some sort of party tonight?"
He replied with something like, "Don't worry about that, man, it's too late anyways." Hmmph. So the stress was gone at least... but so was the elation.
Now, you may want to look more into this than you really should; see some kind of message for me or all the  stagnant bachelors in the church whathaveyou. Before you do that, let me give you one disclaimer:

 in this dream, I was actually Bilbo Baggins.

Dream Journal

I got home from work the other day and sat down and fell asleep. Those late afternoon naps can produce some pretty trippy dreams.
This time it was... wait for it... The Hunger Cat Games!!
Oh how cliche, right!?
Tell you what, I don't recall the visuals of this one, but it came with this really catchy/annoying R&B song that  had the rap portion like, "Here's a little ditty about two little kitties who got together one day and played heroes in the city..." and then the singing chorus was like "Cuz it's the hunger cat games!! It sets the city a flame! So best remember these names! And watch the hunger cat games!"
Of course this means nothing to my readership without the melody, which is playing in my head and is phenomenal.
Speaking of melodies that I can't translate onto this blog...
Last night I had a few dreams. The first one was about being at a waterpark with some old high school friends only to have the power go out. And here comes a really tough visual so let's see how I can describe it... Imagine your typical rec-center pool with ceramic tiles and poor lighting. Make it big, like RB multiple pool big. And all the patrons of this indoor water park who weren't walking around with me were just chilling in these tiny one-person hot tub like things until the power came back on. It was like a bunch of people in a people-sized sea turtle farm, if you've ever been to one of those and know what I mean. Anyways, I decided to play billiards in this pool house--a pun which I failed to catch in the dream--and I was sorting through all the different billiards balls with a bunch of strangers before everything switched over to a dance club.
This is where the music comes in... later on.
So I was being really kinda mean and foul-mouthed in this dream, plus I had red hair. And I was talking to somebody when this chubby black kid got in front of me in the line for whatever it was we were lining up for. I got mad and may have called him a fat bleep. But keep reading!
He ran off crying.
BUT I felt so bad about it that I tracked him down after that dance class thing and found him walking through the building with a bag full of McDonalds.
The first thing I did was apologize. The next thing I did was take his bag of Mickey D's from him. Poor kid.
Can you believe there were six hamburgers in there? Plus a large fries!!! Not to mention the soda he had in his hand. Man, I was ready to do this kid a favor.
So I let him eat a few more burgers, and then I put the remainders on a bench and got out my lighter that I always carry with me cause I'm a red-headed bad A. I got up on the bench and lit the lighter underneath a sprinkler just like on the movies, and then told the kid, "Now watch what happens when these things get wet." And the sprinklers rained on the burgers and they just melted into brownish goo that made that poor kid and me in real life never want to eat McDonalds again.
And that's when the music started. I worked with that kid, from feeding him salads and tuna tetrazzini to switching his video games from Grand Theft Auto to NBA 2k13, and the music was like, "Step into tomorrow!!" and it showed him on that Biggest Loser montage thing go from chubby black kid to husky Native American teenager... weird.
Then I woke up feeling only slightly vindicated by the happy ending and much more worried about what I am watching on TV these days.

Dream Journal

Since my return to my home state, my dreams have oft been filled with anxieties of eminent papers and deadlines for school, and I often wonder to myself within these dreams how I ended up back in my apartment in Provo with that same life after I could swear that I had finished that life long ago... as a man partaking in full reality, I knew those dreams would happen. Retro-visions, I call them. The ones of being in high school are pretty few and far between, but mission ones still happen quite often, and now BYU ones will surely inhabit my subconscious.

Does this mean that when I dream of being a dark wizard or a space pirate, that it is actually a re-glimpse of a previous life? Cool!

But now to last night... what a doozey! I usually don't recall three from one night, but last night...

The first involved me taking some sort of trip somewhere... a long trip. I was driving somewhere late at night and I couldn't recognize what state I was in because the shape of the state on the state highway signs was totally unfamiliar to me. Turns out it was Maryland... but some sort of bizarre Maryland located where Kentucky should be, being just above another state, Maryland Island. I found this out by looking at a bizarro world map, though it never occurred to me that I was in any sort of bizarro world. I began to contemplate either going back to Texas, which was about a six hour drive or going back to Provo, which was like 13. The math didn't really add up, but that didn't deter me from plotting a course for Texas, even though it was late at night. What was six hours more? So I drove South on this snaking highway which had large chunks of it missing, but I managed to manuever it just fine.

If this isn't some sort of symbolic foreshadow of my unclear future, I don't know what is...

The next moment I was in church in Lake Jackson. My mind was kind of fuzzy, so I somehow ended up going with the high priests for Priesthood meeting. I felt intense embarrassment (I never spell that word right) at the realization, so I decided to try and swim to the exit. Yup, swim. Priesthood meeting was being held in a giant room that was nothing but a swimming pool. There was just a bunch of old, shirtless, hairy men there talking the gospel, and me splashing around in the background. I managed to escape without notice, only to be further embarrassed by being discovered in my swim trunks by the primary kids, being led by an acquaintance of mine from BYU who will remain unnamed here.

And then I was riding around with my trainer from the mission, being actually on the mission... except here we were driving around in some deserted country like Arizona or something, and we were driving an astro-van. We were going to stop by some trashy family which my trainer told me were, quote, "Excited to see us, but last time I went there, they tried to poison me." We arrived to see a trashy family of a father and a few full grown sons. The father gave us a giant avocado, split down the middle and covered in some sort of green sauce, which occurred to me was redundant, being on an avocado and all. My trainer shrugged his shoulders and bit into the giant pit in the middle, but I hesitated long enough to see a huge bug pop out of the pit that split open like some alien cocoon. Gross! So I didn't eat it, and I refused the aspirin that one of the boys offered me, which might have saved us both as my trainer started feeling really strange after biting into that avocado. I managed to get us both back to the astro-van before I had to tell the trashy family off for trying to poison us and loot our van. It felt cool standing up for myself right then, but a gun fight ensued in which I'm pretty sure I got shot in the face, but I won. And then I tripped over some wiry cord which caused this helicopter to spin out of control and explode, and I'm pretty sure it was being piloted by Jamie Lee Curtis... How in the heck did (s)he get in my subconscious?

You know what, I guess this is what comes from a night of homemade lasagna. Perhaps a bit of undigested beef can cause the mind to cheat. Yes, there's more of gravy than of grave about you!

More than anything... where is Joseph and his dreamcoat when you need him?

Dream Journal and Doy! Moment

I once walked in late to Spanish class in high school. When Mr. Langner asked me why I was late, I promptly (and truthfully) responded, "It was the bees!" The whole class burst into laughter. Little did they know that a truck that was harvesting bees from the grass farm next to our house had actually backed up into our ditch and lost the little buggers into the surrounding atmosphere. Millions of bees were now zealously protecting their queen(s) amidst this sudden crisis from everything that moved, including hapless residents trying to simply get to the car in time for school.

Wouldn't you know those darn bees did it again? This time, however, it was only in the Freudian sub conscience of my unbroken R.E.M. It was me against the bees again, for they had made three temporary nests IN MY APARTMENT! You'd think that by now my sub conscience would recognize these absurdities and categorize the reality as not, in fact, reality... yet without a thought of how odd things were, I took a double-barreled shotgun and took one blast at the nest in my room. Of course, the bees were furious! So I shut the door to my room, gave it about a half minute, then returned to find the nest destroyed by my unorthodox method of pest control. On to the next few nests, but a few shotgun malfunctions prevented me from completing my quest before I lifted my head from the pillow and realized that my Spanish class had begun... thirty minutes ago.
I don't often miss my class, but when I do, I drink DosEquis. Not really... but I am still thirsty, my friends. Booyah! Quote mixed with shock value, wake up audience!!

Anyways, later on in the day, I don't think I fully had my wits about me yet. I came home from work to one of my roommates watching a home run derby. I sat and watched for a little while and was thrilled to see Lance Berkman wearing an Astros hat. I was like, "Hey man, I guess there's still loyalties there, huh?" And then I was even more thrilled to see Josh Hamilton repeat history with 28 homers, and I wondered why the commentators were not making reference back to that historic outing he had back in 2008. Perhaps I hadn't remembered it right? I questioned my memory instead of my common sense. Anyways, Berkman was definitely an Astro, so I began to be excited about the idea of him being back with the team. Then Morneau beat Hamilton in the final round, and I was thinking Yogi Berra, "It's like deja vu all over again."

It wasn't until I walked to the library and looked on Yahoo!sports and was baffled by how there was no breaking news about this incredible derby when it finally dawned on me... I was watching ESPN classic.
There's your doy! moment for the day.

Dream Journal

I have a dream... but not like Abba's.

The other night, I had this strange one, where I was at some random chapel after some sort of reception or conference and I was playing basketball. Only, there was no hoop, and there were about twelve people playing and the teams were all of them against me. And I was doing surprisingly well, at least with ball handling, because there was no goal in this game of kinda-basketball. Usually, I can't do anything right in basketball... in my dreams. So, after that quick game, I packed some of my things up in this strange apartment that I had never seen before and went outside where my mom was waiting, only the world was perfectly vertical. I watched her walk to the car and wondered how she kept her traction when she should be falling into who knows what, so I took a few steps on this vertical world. I felt the pull of gravity at first, but eventually, I got used to it myself, like Spiderman but only with sticky feet. When I made it to the car, we began driving off, and some time during this period the world righted itself. My older brother and his wife and their recent son were in the car with us, and that nephew of mine (who just had his first birthday) knew my name even though he had seen so little of me. It was at that point that I realized I was dreaming, cause this was too good to be true. Me, good at basketball? Me, going home to Texas? Me, being addressed by my nephew who can barely talk?

Then I got to wondering as I often have. What if I am still in the back seat of that van, only dreaming that I am writing on this blog, only dreaming that I am going to BYU, only dreaming that I am Todd? I have spent so little time with both feet in reality (or what appears to be reality) as it is that sometimes I doubt my existence, and I had these ideas (or premonitions) long before I ever saw Inception... or the Matrix.
What if this life is a dream? Who will know the difference? It is as Joseph Conrad said, "We live as we dream--alone."
Maybe I just want to wake up and be like, "This is a dream," and have some hot elven maiden say, "Then it is a good dream," and then we make out. She wouldn't look like Liv Tyler though, I'd say more like Jennifer Connely from her Rocketeer days.

Dream Journal

I had a frightening dream last night, that I was at some sort of Basic Military Training Camp, but the exercises we took on were not really that basic. In fact, they were quite real and quite deadly. Not only did I have to run a great deal on my bum leg (which was still bum in my dreams), but we were given a task to storm a hill whereon three enemy tanks were lodged. Real enemy tanks. I somehow overheard an officer estimate 70 casualties amidst our troop of 150 recruits. Real casualties. I then had visions of running up the hill with nothing for defense against the bombardment of artillery shells but constant prayer and luck, which I somehow knew would fail me. So I did the only plausible thing and tendered my resignation right there and fled the camp, the whole while wondering, "How on earth did I think I was going to be able to do this?!"

So Jake, if Mr. Freud had anything to do with this, you are more of a man than I am.

Dream Journal

I had a dream the other day that I was a wizard, like one from Harry Potter. I was in a chapel somewhere, and I just kept avada kedavraing everybody. I was one wicked sweet evil wizard, probably still haling from house Hufflepuff. In fact, one specific instance, there was a girl who came in and saw her friend lying dead in the hallway (courtesy of yours truly). She was so distraught that she sat down on the couch in the lobby, just across the room from me. I offered to take her pain away with the magic, and she closed her eyes in submission. I could only point my wand right at her temple, and whisper... "Avada Kedavra..."
Then this crazy music started going off and everyone was under a spell to dance like in that old Disney movie Hocus Pocus with the talking cat. I was dancing too, and my dancing was way cooler and slightly more evil than everyone else's who wasn't dead yet. I was just thinking, "Man, it 's so cool to be EVIL!"
After I woke up in a cold sweat, I had to stare at myself in the mirror for like five minutes. My hair was uncontrollably long, and my eyes were sunken from broken sleep... and I wondered, was this dream a freudian slip of my dark side? I guess I've just been reading too much Poe lately... or maybe the fee's too pricey for them to realize my disguise is slipping; everything's slipping, away, so...

Dream Sports Journal Corner

So I read Lindsey's Facebook status about her childrens' night terrors. Strange... I still have night terrors. In fact, I had one last night. It's always the same yet progressively worse--there I am, having a good time, and then I remember that my teeth are rotting away, and I find that there are now three teeth on my bridge and they keep falling out. Poor Waylon... he never was happy in his home. Then my bottom teeth start to rot and fall out. All a man can do in such a situation is cry, and then awake in the morning in a cold sweat, checking with your tongue that they're all still there, and let the vivid sensation of despair slowly ebb over a few hours before I can return to normal activity.

Phil Jackson joined the bandwagon for saying that the Rockets' championships were tainted by the absence of Michael Jordan. Can you say "Sour grapes"?! Wow, for a while I kind of respected the simian man for his humor and lightheartedness with the media, being a minorly respectable person on one of the nation's most disrespectable teams. No more. Now the zen master can keep his title, but only if zen means surrounding yourself with the biggest egos in basketball to bring you championships.
And as for all you morons who want to downplay the Rocket's championships because Jordan decided to go baseball those years or whatever, guess what... You don't know if it would have turned out any different. Jordan didn't play, and the Bulls didn't win. The Rockets did. And that first championship over the Knicks in 94 was done with but one superstar on the team and a bunch of role players. Who else can claim that, besides maybe the Pistons? Phil Jackson certainly can't with any of his teams.

If I were to agree with your assumption, Phil, (and we all know what happens when we assume) that the Rockets would have lost should Jordan have played, and the wins were indeed tainted... then perhaps your game seven victory against the Rockets in the 2009 playoffs was tainted because Yao didn't play that game... and perhaps your ensuing championship was also tainted because Kevin Garnett was out for that post-season, as well as Jameer Nelson for the Orlando Magic. I mean, maybe they can't be compared to Michael Jordan, but you just never know what sort of difference they could have made. You just never know... and there's no way you could ever know.

Dream Journal

Wierd dreams lately... and a wierd spelling of wierd.

So, I dreamt last night that I was back in Texas and playing soccer on my bike with my nephews. This was a really long dream and it deprived me of a good night's sleep. I was feelin all nostalgic.

Then, I had another dream that I got pulled over in the back roads of Provo by this blonde cop, who gave me a citation for driving ten miles UNDER the speed limit, and then another one for stopping in the road when I saw a cop pulling me over. Both citations would cost me $190 combined. I was furious! I remember being so furious with the system and their 'performance standard'! I don't think I've ever been that angry in real life.

Then I had a dream last night that Waylon fell out again. You know, Waylon, my tooth. That means I have about 6-15 days left before that vision comes about.

So every night I've had these vivid and random types of dreams, and it leaves me to wonder... is it something I ate (like spaghetti sauce seasoning that expired in 2007), or is the Lord trying to tell me something... hmmmm....

Gotta go, peer review time.