I'm feeling a lot of trepidation right now concerning... Well, I think I've just decided to move my blog here to MySpace. No one seems to be around here anymore. Looking for Wilson Bateman on MySpace will get you there.

Okay, so I had another - the wierdest dream ever last night. It started with Robin Williams and I walking down a cobblestone street somewhere in Europe. I was an older gentleman and I was a bit crazy. My hair was doing that white, fly-away-wizard type thing. Thing is, I was riding some sort of ball through the air. It was my thing. I had been practicing forever. Then, in front of a restaurant I finally got it. Needless to say Robin was delighted for me.

Well, then we went inside the restaurant and, somehow, I became his young daughter. He doted on me and we had this understanding because I was still me but I was a little girl. Therefore I was devilishly clever for a young girl, and I used it to my full advantage. Then, as we walked through this fancy restaurant, I was suddenly me again, but still Robin's daughter. Anyway, he was sardonically commenting on the food. He was talking about the lack of variety. "Oh, and you can go and get yourself a sausage with a side of... sausage!" I looked around and indeed, there were pans full of wursts on about every available surface. During this time looking around, I was imposed upon by some skinny, young, blond-headed boy. Those of you who know me know that this is the "type" I despise. They just make my skin crawl. Anyway, he was all over me - "in love" and so I fended him off.

We were then out in front of the only gas station in my hometown. Then the army pulled up. They came in these long trucks and were hauling some kind of scaffolding/silo type things. The first group that got into the station had one guy of their group unload by himself. He did so with very little trouble, even though these things were about 30 feet tall. The other groups pulling up had to have more people help when they unloaded theirs. Then, one fell and one guy caught it and put it gently down. "Wow, he's almost as strong as Bateman." Bateman, I wondered, and assumed that either there was a different Bateman or that they knew my brother. I walked among them and announced "Yup, Batemans are generally pretty tough." No one heard me.

Then I was at home. I woke up at about four o' clock and I thought I was awake for real. I was wondering whether I should just get up when someone walked up the stairs. Suddenly I realized that I lived with four other men and a women. I sat and talked with the straight fellow, who had come up the stairs. He, as I, was unclothed (I sleep in the nude). Anyway, we chatted for a bit and then someone else entered the room, also naked - but this was a boy I met about three months ago and had no interest in whatsoever. He sat on the bed and joined the conversation. Next, my nude (I don't really know what to call him - he'd be my arch-enemy if he were worth the time) "person-I-value-least-in-this-world" walked in and also sat on the bed. At this point, I realized that there was someone next to me under the covers. I had woken earlier that night and found him there, but was too asleep to really noticed and had fallen back asleep... It was the horrid skinny blond kid! I was utterly repulsed. "You do not enter my bed unless I invite you to my bed!" I told him, as sternly as one can tell these types of things. He gave me a look like "geez" and crawled out - also naked. I then had a conversation with the woman in the house, who was shirtless for some reason.

Anyway, this wasn't a sex dream, it was just wierd. Everyone was naked. The Robin Williams part was the best though. Somehowe I managed to be related to him in just about every way possible in one dream. Kudos to me!

I think I stole your good mood - sorry.

After all my moping around I finally sat down and wrote myself a  little schedule. I still have ample freetime, but I have some definite requirements set up for the time that I do have scheduled. This morning I woke up at six and jogged up to school. Or at least tried. It's only about a seven-minute jog, but uphill is uphill even if it don't look it. I then lifted, went to work, skipped my class, and worked on NURBS modeling until noon. Then it was home again for two hours of games and then the dishes and then up to an Allies on Campus meeting. Finally, I'm back up here at work. Day's almost done. It's astonishing how much energy working out gives you. I haven't even been tempted to be in a bad mood today.

Of course, I consciously avoided chatting online. I've decided that I'm actively not dating - a sensational choice because then I don't have to put any pressure on myself to date. I don't have to be nice to people that bore me, I don't have to browse through a thousand profiles that only serve to make me body conscious, and I don't have to chat! It's so strange that our society puts such enormous pressure on dating. You never really realize it until you decide that, hey, you don't like dating - and you know what - you're not going to date. Ever.

Dating is just plain a bad idea. You are immediately forced to spend time with a person that you may or may not like. Then, if you're like me and actively dislike anyone who's trying to get you to like them, most dates end up an absolute waste of time. Much better to like a person before dating them - doubly so with the penchant gay men have for sleeping with each other on the first date. That's also out the window. People can just stuff having sex with me.

Oh - and what I started this blog to say, is that I've discovered a super-constructive way to keep arguements from turning into fights. Well, we all have problems with each other and sometimes we adress those problems. Most often, unfortunately, this happens when we are riled already. When this is the case, we forget that the person causing the problem and the problem itself are two completely separate things. Thus, we attack the person, who we may love, instead of the problem.

This happens on the recieving end too - so often! We're trained to argue by attacking the person rather than the problem so it always sounds like we're attacking the person even when we're not really meaning to. The receptive person has a choice. They can either take the attack for what it is - an attack focused on them because the other person views the problem as a part of who they are - or the receptor of the attack can realize that the problem Isn't Part of Their Identity, and realize that the attacker is only talking like it is. Then, the receptor can either bring this fact to their attacker's attention, or just let it slide and be understanding.

This is what I learned from talking to Kalli that one day a few blogs ago. We accept our mistakes as part of our identity when they're really not - that's why we get defensive when someone adresses them.

Oof. Well, that's all for tonight. I still have about three hours of sitting around to do, but I'd really rather not ramble on forever. Take care ya'll, and Good Night!

I hate online dating - there's no better way to come away from a day hating yourself. No one knows how to start a conversation online. "Hey." seems to be the standard - scratch that - "hey" tends to be the standard. And it's understandable! How do you start a conversation with someone when all you know about them is the their 6'3'? Might as well just go as follows.

hey

Hey.

so you're 6'3" then, huh

Yup.

cool

Standard! I hate it. I'd be more likely to continue a conversation with someone who opened with the line "I want to eat your eyeballs for dinner!" At least they seem to have something they want to talk to me about. And of course your comfort zone never lets you start a conversation with anyone - as if you have anything to say other than "hey".

So, no one you want to talk to initiates with you and you don't initiate with them. The few people that do start conversations with you are generally the dregs of the chatroom and you feel obligated to make small talk with them because they made the effort and you know what it's like to make the effort. Still, they all die down after about five sentences, leaving you feeling like you have nothing to offer the world - you can't even hold conversations with "the dregs". So, at the end of five hours spent "chatting" you log off feeling unattractive, stupid, and raped.

This is one of my less interesting blogs, I know, but I feel the need to keep up with ShrinkingWoman. How fair is it that I got to enjoy two(!) new blogs today and she get none?

Okay, so I'm moving out of the summer of glorious approval.

This is the third week of the semester and what do I have to show for it? Well, I've beaten Jak&Daxter and modeled a stud-without-a-head. And I know a bit about what womens' lives were like in Ancient Greece. My alternator is still hovering around in the underbelly of my car, I'm out of soap, deodorant, and milk, and my account balance at the bank is at... well, it's at $649 but my landlady hasn't cashed my two-months'-rent-and-three-months'-utilities $885 check yet. What delight. Two of my professors have been avoiding looking at me because they're afraid to ask about the projects I'm working on for them. One person showed up to the Gamers' Guild meeting last night. I haven't applied to even one grad school yet.

There's something to make your head spin. I hope they're all going at different times for you like they are in my browser.

I think our lives move in cycles. We get going, get good (or bad), learn a lesson, and then we start from even again. Or we start from a moderately higher place - but still lower than the peak of our last cycle. That's where I am now. I'm at that trough just waiting for my next peak. I think I've about maxed-out school accomplishment cycle for now, which should make for a comfortable and easy next few years in that respect. Maybe it'll be work or relationship based. Maybe physical, maybe spiritual. I suppose we'll see. Maybe organizational. I could use that.

I have this chest at home that's filled with just about everything I've ever written or drawn. I rarely open it, but it gives me a good bout of nostalgia when I do. All my old homework assignments are in there too - from way back when I remembered how to do calculus.

What I'm getting at is that I need a better way to keep track of my accomplishments. Ha! That was a good transition - but seriously, keeping track of all the kick-ass things I've done, jobs I've held, presentations I've given; I've forgotten most of that. I'm not even sure I remember all the jobs I've had. I wrote an application letter to a grad school and totally forgot to say anything about my two semesters as a Teaching Assistant.

Plus, I haven't gone to work out once this semester. I've gone to water polo twice, but I don't really count that.

The point of all of this is that I need better organization. I don't think that it's so much being busy that gets things done, but the fact that when you're busy you have to have everything scheduled. Last semester I had Saturdays and Sundays completely unscheduled. I think I'll stick with that. It's time to put the rest of my life back into little boxes though. I need another job as well. Hmm... there are interesting possibilities there.

Okay well, I've gotta get to work writing this stuff out. One-two, one-two. Tootles!

It's amazing how not having anything to do can make you lazy. I suppose that work is a habit just like anything else. Now that I only have two classes, I'm pretty much on easy street - I'm just not so sure that I like it. It seems that if I don't have work to do I can't blog. No one wants to hear about how long I played video games in one day or what book I read.

I really enjoyed your post today ShrinkingWoman. I think I know the feeling that you're talking about. Most of my life I've been a lazy person. I've essentially lived by the philosophy that I was good enough to do anything and, ironically, this kept me from ever committing to anything for fear of proving myself wrong. This was until I first fell in love (well, after Eric - of course ). Because, as I've posted earlier, I committed and got flattened.

Strangely enough, it was really this that got me going. I suppose I just learned how to like myself even with failure. After that I could actually try - and trying got me where I never thought I'd go. I've gotten that same feeling (as ShrinkingWoman's) while walking home from school after talking with professors and realizing that they respect me and my abilities on a professional and personal level. It helps me understand my Dad too - which seems off the wall unrelated, but it's true. I had a latent him sitting inside of me that's secretly addicted to this feeling of joy I'm discussing. It's kinda like wanting to explode because there's just too much inside of you. Sometimes you can't help but laugh with joy.

Oh, and our proposal won. 10 points. I'll really try to be by more often everyone. Take care. Love!

Okay, so I can't really write today - I've tried three times and only come up with sentence fragments. That's what I get while trying to type while in euphoria. Well, not euphoria exactly, but I'm listening to some good music and it totally broke this block I've had for the past week. It was really bad - it's the week before finals and I couldn't focus enough to write more than a few lines per hour. My lack of productivity this week has truly been horrific. And talk about stressful! I have two huge projects and three finals next week. This has really not been the week to suddenly become distracted.

Perhaps it was simply that I had too much fun this weekend. I got stoned and we wandered on over to this bar I had never been to before. It was perfect! It was like realizing that I'd been searching for this bar my entire life. Maybe it won't be so great to go back to sober, but I really enjoyed myself - even though I was babbling the entire night.

It was great Eric. My friends asked me something about some word and I totally went off. I explained to them that in order to truly understand words you have to realize that every word carries an entire world of sensations with it. We build up such strong associations of sight, smell, and sound with words that words have wierd power over us. Kind of like names. We tie our identity in so closely with our names that it's no wonder some cultures believe that names hold power over us.

They do. They hold a wicked psychological power to instantly trigger the belief that the person using our name actually knows us. Think about it. Try it. We all know how to use each other's names. Watch how we do it. We naturally alter our tone and intent to wield people's names over them.

Anyway, I'm getting a little wide from the world again, but I know what I know.

I hate not being in the 99th percentile.

I just took the GRE and only got a 1430.

Next semester I'll be living it up over in the graphics lab, actually, and I have a ton of fun there. Plus, I'll be being making twice what I make now. I'm so happy...

Anyway, I'm blogging today to inform the world of the incredible dream that I had last night. It was just so fun.

We were driving to pick up my little sister's friend to go see a play. When we got there (to the play), I realized that it was being directed by none other than Mary-Kate, Ashley, and Jennifer Aniston (who was, consequently, the same age as the twins at that point). Anyway, we sat down in our seats and the play started. It was Peter Pan, and my gorgeous friend Vanessa got the part of Wendy. She came onto the stage and then took to the air on wires in the most beautiful and graceful display I have ever witnessed. She was clothed in some kind of billowy, diaphanous cloth that followed every movement and flew behind her in trails that sat on the air. He toes were pointed and  her legs... She flipped, she spun, she glode. I was completely wowed, stunned by the beauty of the dance - and by her bravery - to do all that while twenty feet in the air. She seemed just fine, though, even serene, which made the whole thing even better.

Then my little sister's snotty friend, who had this uncanny knack for drawing people to her side, decided that she wanted to fly like that as well - and that she wanted to do it immediately. We tried to settle her down, but she insisted. She stood up and adressed the directors (in the middle of the play, no less). I must say that May-Kate, Ashley, and Jennifer handled themselves very professionally, but as the crowd backed her whining more I left the crowd and basically became the sentient camera for the play, which was now real. Wendy was so excited to be on her way to wherever the flight was taking her, much as Margarita was to reach the lake, and Satan. Wendy's brother, however, wasn't so sure he wanted to, and grabbed a branch as he started to be lifted away. His enraged father then grabbed his arm and broke his grip, sending him into the sky after Wendy.

They didn't go high into the air, but they went fast, and the most exhilarating chorus accompanied them. It was a choir singing the song of sheer joy and adreneline. It was loud, cacophanous, but so exciting and not the least bit muddled. I felt Wendy's joy as I followed her through the dark marshes, knowing that her brother was close behind. We dipped and dove and stretched ourselves into the wind. spinning our way between the craggy trees and dismal mist.

Eventually, we happened upon our way station, where I - for a moment - assumed we would stop. Only for a moment did we pause before strectching ourselves back into our journey. Excited, I raced on ahead, covering stretched of land so fast that I only saw them as sensations of shape. Then, the day came, and I slowed at our desitination, the marsh had turned to desert, and I rushed ahead of Wendy and her brother into the harsh yellow light. I settled down in a long, square box, set on end, with an open top. Inside the box was none other than Nicholas Cage.

For that moment, my viewpoint became his, or I felt that I was sitting atop his head. I watched as our captors lowered the lid and then bolted it. As it is with movies, I was aware that time had shifted, and it was suddenly several years later, and someone was opening the lid! As they opened the lid, I left, aware of pushing off a bare skull in my escape. I looked down as I left, and I saw that the box was now, aside from the skeleton, filled with dead leaves, twigs, and scarab and rhinoceros beetles. I left faster.

I felt queasy for that second, but much better when I was out, and I hovered around the box.One of the scarabs followed me out, and was then addressed by a voice belonging to I know not whom (I could not see them). The voice asked whether the beetle had eaten him, and the beetle replied (with the exact voice of Mr. Saladfingers) that it had, and was sorry.

"I did, but I'm very sorry..."

"Sorry that he's dead or sorry that you ate him?"

"Both, actually..."

And indeed, I could sense that, though this beetle was twisted, and thought nothing of eating Nicholas Cage, that it was, indeed sorry now that it was being questioned by the voice. Apologetic for its very nature, it seemed.

Anyway, the dream continued later, in an old house, but that part is foggier, whereas I can still hear that chorus, singing up a storm of excitement, and Mr. Saladfinger's voice apologizing for the beetle. It's all very clear. Thank you.

It's interesting that you should bring that up, 'ric. I was actually just thinking, about twenty minutes ago, that I should like to be buried. Just imagine how safe and comfortable it would be. You wouldn't have to worry about other people because you're in the ground and no one knows you, you wouldn't have to worry about achieving anything because you're dead. Plus, I can imagine that the earth all around you would probably be very comfortable.

It's just that I have a test today. In a class that I actually have to study for. I studied for four hours for the last test and came up with a 64%. Needless to say, that's not something that happens to me often. In fact, this is about the first time. I actually moved to the front row, stayed awake, and even started taking notes. I can't afford to fail this class psychologically, temporally, or monetarily. If I have to take it again next semester I will shoot myself.

Speaking of next semester - I'll only have 2 classes. That's one class a day for fifty minutes. That either means that I'll have a ton of freetime or I'll be extremely bored. I probably won't be bored long, though, because I'd get another job. Then I'll still have three. Maybe I'll actually make some money.

Everything is due as soon as I get back from Thanksgiving Break. As a matter of fact, I probably will take Thanksgiving day off in order to visit my grandparents and that's it. I have a Physics test on the day I get back, I have the GRE on the day I get back, I have my print and electronic portfolios due on the week I get back, as well as my teams' presentation and proposal for redesigning the department website. The week after that is final's week, which means studying for three finals. Needless to say, I won't be having much fun for the next little while. This week alone I've spent 15 hours on campus every day. That means that, when I leave at 10pm this evening, I will have spent 75 hours at school this week.

Oddly enough, I'm perfectly happy - aside from intermitent pangs of loneliness. I think I'll throw a party tomorrow night. Why not?

Hi Shrink, sorry for being neglectful. I suppose that I'm not finding a whole lot in my life interesting right now. I often don't. I wonder whether my life is particularly boring or I have higher standards than others. Probably a combination - I've seen a lot more than a lot.

It's been such a beautiful day today. It started out with barely a sprinkling of rain, then the snow fell, and then the wind blew - one of those bitter, bitter winds that come in powerful pulses that leave you gasping with relief everytime it dies down and you recieve any respite whatsoever. I know it's crazy, but I think the wind likes me. I've run tests and I can call gusts of it - just not consecutively. One good push and that's about it. Kind of like how this flock of crows follows me around as I move. Crazy, I know, but I've never not had the crows since Switzerland. If I move, they show up a month or two afterwards.

At least I don't drive small animals insane anymore. I think coming out helped with that. I was so repressed and so depressed that the pressure was expressed in them. Poor, poor them. I think the cats were immune. Cats are like that.

I'm sick of having to tell people what they're thinking. Don't you think that, for once, someone could just come right out and say it? No, I have to go rooting around in their bloody skulls and explain to them how things are. One-sided conversations with two opinions are challenging, but ultimately futile. If you realize someone else's thoughts for them, they have a harder time acting on them, I think, because they equate you with other people and other people with fallability and forget that the thought originated in their own head.

Yes, I know I'm yandering hopelessly through the occult. I think anyone with a knowledge of the scientific method notices this type of thing. If it's repeatable, it's a theory 'til it's disproved.

As a side-note, I hate the word "proved" - proven sounds so much better.

So much righter.

Oh yeah, so "boyfriend" turned out to be a flop. He likes me but not enough to make the kind of time for me I expect. So he's gone. Nice fellow, though. Maybe if he were a bit older, a bit more experienced, and a bit braver, things could work.

And people wonder why I only date older men. So many - even of them - are still little boys. Insecure and inexperienced. Too many are afraid of getting things right, I think. Too afraid to work at something that's going wrong UNTIL it goes right.

We're too quick to give up.

If you want something, fight for it. Fight for it. Fight for it!

Don't let looking like a fool get in the way until there's no place left to stand.

Ignore me.

Never underestimate the dirty-rotten tricks your body will play on you in certain circumstances. A couple posts ago I might have sounded that the only way out of depression is mental - not true. Your body takes you for loops - and you have to take care of it in order to avoid them.

Anybody who has hypoglycemia will know exactly what I'm talking about. How half an hour can take you from on top of the world to wondering how the world even holds itself together. Suddenly sad things just seem to fall into your head - and mean so much more. Plus, you're all alone - somehow. That's low blood sugar for you.

Sometimes it makes the world beautiful in a cold, still sort of way.

Okay, I just opened the newspaper today... $7.1 Billion for the bird flu!!!? I hope I'm not the only one in this country that's starting to realize the only disasters the government under Bush is capable of dealing with are the ones they made up.

Alright, so, after taking a moment to breathe, I have to admit that I know enough about Biology to realize that the bird flu could be a big problem. Flu viruses are basically the fastest mutating virus out there (thanks in a large part to our systematic selection pressures for more resistant strains). So, could it wipe out millions? Yes. How likely is it? Not so likely.

In order for this flu strain to become more easily transmittable to humans, thousands of base-pairs of these viral DNA will have to change. Not just change, but change in a manner that would allow for specific proteins being made to protect it from harmful surroundings outside a host. Not very likely.

Maybe - just maybe - a virus out there will get part of a bacterial DNA spliced into it, along with whatever gene-coding regions that piece may have. Maybe that gene will allow for a protein that will protect this virus. Again, not very likely.

Anyway, my main gripe is how the Bush administration is getting away with murder (literally, at times) by keeping everyone's attention from what going on here by bringing in these big ole phantom-scares. Aren't there other programs that could use 7.1 billion dollars? Say... anything? Plus, once we're all stocked up (in 2009) - we'll only have 20 million anti-viral courses. That leaves all the poor people in the country exactly where the Bush administration has left them for the war... and the hurricane... DEAD.

Isn't anyone else just fed up with this weasel's scare-tactics? It's the game he's been playing every since he first stepped foot into office. Let's focus on America. Let's get our shit together before we go out chasing 7.1 billion dollar ghosts.

Hi Darren,

 I know this is essentially just hot air coming to you now, but I suppose that I'm just trying to save you some time. Of course, things like this you simply have to learn. Maybe hearing it enough will help you learn it faster.
 

People base their self-esteem on a whole lot of things during their lives. The only problem comes when they base it all on one thing. Then, when that one thing fails, they have nothing left to support their esteem. Yes? Well, the trick comes when you find several things to base your esteem on. Maybe you have a boy, but you also have your friends, and you also have your singing, and you also have all your other talents, hobbies, and ambitions. What happened to those? You can't let getting a guy be the beginning and ending of your life because you'll end up letting his affection for you substitute for your lack of self-confidence. Then, when he leaves, you won't have any self-confidence.
 

Being gay and getting a man shouldn't be your only focus in life. That way you'll only ever find temporary satisfaction. You have to build yourself into other things - your involvement in the community, your relationships with friends and family, and doing well at the things you like to do.
 Do you realize how selfish you seem to your friends when you are man-centric? You don't act like you care about what they're saying - you're just waiting for the next time you'll get your chance to complain about never finding somebody. I know it's hard, but do your best to talk about something else. Complain about school instead. Talk about music. Ask Questions About Them!
 

Friendship is a two way street - and you generally get more by giving more.
 

Anyway, talking about and dwelling on certain issues is actually a kind of mental addiction. As you focus on it less and less and increase your interest in other things, you'll feel better about yourself - even while man-less. Even ask straight people - they got through the same thing.
 

Anyway, I know this is just a whole lot of noise right now, but people like to date people who are self-confident, so that's something you have to establish Before you can find someone to stay with forever.

***Eric, you probably laugh while reading this. Do you remember how I used to be? How there was nothing else but being gay? I can't believe all the time and energy I put into being depressed. It's not worth finding somebody if you haven't found yourself yet, people!

The step out of depression is such a subtle shift. Sometimes we even escape it all at once - one realization and we're free of the fog that we've been dwelling under. WE FEED THAT FOG, PEOPLE. We get in ruts of thinking and we think specific thoughts in order to make the fog denser. It releases chemicals in us that we like, definitely an accuired taste, but we feed our depressions in order to get more. We hope that someone will take pity on us and free us from the fog, but no one can move it but us! Stop reminding yourselves of the bad things and remind yourselves of the good! You might even have to rewrite what you remember of your history. There were good times and you know it. Take hold of them and ignore the bad things. Train yourselves to think how you want to think. It's possible.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

So don't sweat the small stuff.

I have a crush on Getchen Grundler. Something about girls with overlarge, oblong heads really gets my blood pumping.

Actually, I think it's her overwhelming nerdiness. Her enormous glasses and front teeth... I love nerd-girls. I especially love nerd-girls that are unsure of themselves. There's just something about power before it's realized that amazes me. Presence, I guess you'd call it. That invisible knowledge of a mighty soul - the type of person that stands out to those that are aware. Not everyone has it.

I'm not talking about become rich or famous - or even smart, per se. I'm talking about having the raw material, the guts and the grist, to reform yourself. You can tell a person who will never stop becoming greater from a long way off if you're looking. I don't care whether someone's awesome at Football. I don't care whether someone can do cartwheels for a mile. Some of those people have it, yes. Most don't.

Nerd-girls have it in a higher concentration than most any other group. I've found that just about any nerd-girl you'll encounter has the proclivity toward being a Presence. Why? I think our society weeds them out. Nerd-girls that persist in being nerd-girls have to resist the incredible societal pressure toward priss and pout. It takes a girl that's strong in herself. More importantly, it takes a girl that's strong in who she can become. So many girls are trained out of their potential since... a long time ago.

That isn't to say, of course, that men aren't trained out of it as well. Too many are content to reach a certain point in their lives and then cease bettering themselves - or even believing that they still can become better. Yes, they might keep accruing more and more stuff, but stuff can't counteract endless nights of watching crap-TV with a beer in your fist.

Oh well. I'm whining.

Believe in yourselves people. You have so much more to offer than you can even guess at. Never stop learning!

I've never seen a Diamondback Rattler in the wild - even though Utah is supposedly crawling with them. Heha. The odd thing is, however, that I've been one. Not just once either, but two times that I can remember. Now, we can't truly tell that what we feel in dreams is anything even remotely approaching what reality would be; however, I'm convinced that our brains have a sufficient grasp on what it feels like to have our certain body parts to emulate what it would be like to have those body parts removed - or altered. I think a big part of that is the fact that we never actually consciously feel our parts from an inside perspective (well, rarely). Thus, when they are altered in dreams, we needn't really feel the difference in our bodies in order to experience life through that body.

I know, I know, it's lame to write about experiences that occured in dreams. Well, I disagree. I think it's our dreams that makes us the flexible machines that we are. Have you noticed how all the intrinsic physics of your dream-worlds are constant for the most part? What better way to learn new things than to have your brain running simulations all night, during which you can mesh people, thoughts, and occurances into a "realistic" environment and see how they react?

That's what flying is, in dreams. I can't even begin to express how many different ways I've flown in my dreams. It seems that every time a new idea comes along, I integrate that into my method of flying.

When I was about five the Care Bears taught me how to fly using breaststroke. For a long, long time that's how I flew. I even remembered when I woke up that if I didn't jump high enough to give myself a good strong push on that first kick, I'd fall back to the ground. If that's not a flight simulation, what is?

Then, for a while (about 2 years) I had a slew of telekinetic dreams, during which I would levitate myself and feel a strong pressure on my forehead while doing it. My mind essentially calculated how I would need to feel and react to flying and integrated it into my dream using a complicated web of assumptions from my day to day life such as: mental energy comes from the head, energy must be expended to do work, if I stopped concentrating, I would fall, I had to lift from my feet, muscle contractions correspond to mental exertion. See? Just a simulation with basic assumptions from my life - some of which had changed since I was younger. For example, that I didn't require physical movements such as kicking my legs and that I wouldn't be able to lift myself mentally.

Currently, I glide more often that fly. I kind of fall forward in the direction I'm going and sort of drift that way, at about a 60 degree angle, with my feet barely of the floor. Kind of like riding one of those things with a zillion gyroscopes in them.

Anyway, have fun with your dreams, because the crazier they are, the more creative you'll be when you wake up. Allow yourself to be open to all possibilities, because new ideas are born from mixing the old and the outrageous.

Sleep well.

I guess I'd better start out by apologizing to my loyal fan base: sorry 'ric, sorry Shrinkingwoman.

Whoo, now that that's out of the way. I think this blog is up for some fresh air. For those of you that get a kick out of reading the advertisements above every blog, I suppose it's an indication of how lame my last one sounding. The headings of the ads were all things about depression and getting laid off.

Anyway, I'm not depressed and I don't think I really usedtowas. I was just taking some personal time. I've just been so busy that I'd degenerated into a mode of only doing what I absolutely had to and letting everything else fall by the wayside. I should have plenty of time to heal this weekend, after the dishes are done.

You see, I didn't really get a weekend. On Saturday I had to clean my house from top to bottom, buy supplies, buy a couch, and move a couch. On Sunday I had work and then fell to the duty of hosting my Birthday party. Needless to say, Monday's tequilla headache didn't much help my lack of vim this week.

In penetance, I'm going to write two more blogs today, just for the hell of it. One will be about... snakes: diamondback rattlers in particular, and the other will be about... varying methods of flight.

Class time now, but make sure to check back later in the day for exciting new blogs!

I'm only writing this blog out of a sense of duty. I have no burning urge to access the world today.

Let me just say this "...

Ugh! No more talking.

Eric, I just read an article this morning about a young man who reminds me a lot of you - far from perfect but with a knack for believing in himself and getting others to believe in him.

His name was Joe.

Eric, the power to change things doesn't lie in you, but in your ideas. As I was saying earlier, symbols are the power of humanity. A unifying person and/or idea is the only force to be reckoned with in today's world. As smart as you are - as hard as you work - you'll never be able to do everything necessary to change the world - alone.

This has always been true mentally, that ideas can hold groups of people together and can create change by those people acting on the idea - by doing - but you're aware of the recent evidence that a group centered on an idea is able to alter the world physically simply by being unified in their belief.

Talk to someone about your ideas, Eric - make them your own legally and then begin sharing them. You've already started gathering people around you here. People are always searching for something to unify around.

Give them that.