Donald Duck Doesn't Care If You Die

I had the strangest dream last night. Normally I don't dream at all, or at least I don't remember the dreams if they happen. But this time was different, and I'd like to set some of it down before the whole thing fades away. A lot of it is already gone.

The first thing I should mention was that this dream was like a TV show. I mean, it had drama, special effects, subplots and even theme music, but it was also real. It was like I was a character in a show, and the show was my actual life. Everything was solid, and things had textures and smells. At the time I had no memory of "real" life, and I thought the dream was real.

I was in this big library. I think it was a part of a university, because there were connecting corridors and big stone entrances and people walking around in the corridors who looked like students, but I don't know anything for sure. A lot of the early part of the dream is gone now, so I can't remember much about how I got there (Bart Simpson and Homer were part of it, I think), but I ended up in this library.

And I'm looking at the books, and suddenly someone says that my Mom is in the hospital. And I freak out. In real life my Mom has been dead for almost twenty years but in the dream it's like that never happened, and I start to freak out. How can I get to the hospital to see her? It's like I have to go to the hospital, that's all-important. Nothing else matters, because she's in trouble.

Then this black guy and this fat librarian with glasses start to calm me down (each one of them has a separate voice in this very detailed dream), and then it's okay because my sister is there. She blonde and cute looking, well dressed (in blue jeans and a green sweater), and she understands exactly what I'm feeling because she's going through it too, although she freaks out in a more dignified and restrained manner. And I'm telling the three of them that I have to go to the hospital now! But at the same time I'm so glad sister is there, because it's so good to share these feelings of panic with someone. Then she gets a call that says mom has passed out and we freak out some more. I ask her for the phone, and she comes up close to me to pass it over and I swear I can still remember the feeling of contact as the two of us bump into each other. I felt her hip against my leg, and she felt so solid and real. It was darn erotic for someone who's supposed to be related.

But the thing is, I don't have a sister. Never did. And even in the dream I finally remember this. Then the three of them tell me that I've been hallucinating. In the dream I've been hallucinating.

It's the darn library. Apparently all you have do is pick up the books, and they speak to you. Sort of. What they actually do is fill your mind with hallucinations, and the more contact you have with the book the more it draws you into its world. If you open the book and start reading the process is inevitable, and if you check the book out of the library... Well, then you're pretty much stuck because the book is in charge and it takes you along on a ride. At that point you've got to figure out what the book wants and help it happen because that's the only way to find your path back to reality.

So like an idiot, I start to browse over the books on the shelves. I've still got this irrational urge to get to the hospital - but it's dream logic, y'know what I mean? Suddenly the books seem really fascinating. So I'm looking at the shelves, and I find this door that's covering half a shelf. I pull the door open and there's just bare metal shelving there, and something written on an index card. I lean forward to read the card... And the black guy pulls me away. He closes the door again and says that's not allowed. It's forbidden, or it's too strong or something like that. I can't remember.

So I get three books. A true crime book (which is funny, because I hate true crime books in real life), a science fiction novel (Wherein my former "sister" is a character. I think I touched it earlier, which started me hallucinating about her.), and a horror novel. (Again, I hate horror. But for some reason I wanted it in the library.) Then there's a lot of weird stuff I can't remember, but I think it had to do with me hallucinating monsters. These three people get the horror book out of my hands and the monsters go away. For some reason I don't have the science fiction book anymore.

Then I'm looking outside at the steps, and I see these parents with their little girl going into the library. And suddenly this creepy balding guy just materializes behind them. He's stalking the little girl in this exaggerated style, like a mummy or vampire from an old horror movie. They go inside, and I realize that they're hallucinations of real people. (The book tells me this, somehow.) They're a real family at the bus station, and this girl is really going to get abducted by the creepy bastard behind her, and I'm the only one who knows this. It pisses me off, because I don't want to go to the bus station. But I was dumb enough to pick up the true crime book, and now I've got this responsibility. Somebody has to save the girl. I really want to go the hospital, but I've got to go to the bus station first. I work this out in a conversation with the librarian, the blonde woman and the black guy, all of whom seem quite unconcerned about the whole situation, like they know what I'm going to do anyway and it's just a matter of me realizing it. They were a lot more agitated when I had the horror book, but kidnapped kids don't seem to bother them.

So I say my goodbyes and check the true crime book out of the library. The fat librarian gives me a gun. Then I'm walking down the steps and out onto the lawn when I see the librarian again, over by some bushes. (Don't ask me how he got there.) He asks for the gun back, then tells me that he indulged too much in some fantasy when he was my age. I can't remember what he said exactly, but it had to do with eating a lot of fantasy chocolate that was full of MSG. It destroyed his liver. Now, in his words (and for some reason I actually remember this part) it was "time to blow the kit to kerboodle." I try to convince him that life's worth living, but it's no use.

I don't want to see him commit suicide, so I walk back to the library steps. And there's the black guy and the woman who was supposed to be my sister, lying down with their backs flat on the stone and watching the stars. They're very cheerful.

I look back at where the librarian is, and suddenly all these Disney characters come out of the bushes. There's Donald Duck and Goofy and Mickey, and some others I can't remember. They walk right past the librarian like he's not even there and come towards us, going up the steps. I reach out to touch them, and just as the librarian is blowing his brains out I touch Donald's head and neck. He's cold and hard, like rubber. Like something that can't be alive, but somehow it is. He's moving, and talking to the two people lying on the steps. (Ignoring me just like he ignored the librarian, even though I'm touching him.) The three of them say something pleasant to each other, and then I wake up.

And man, was that weird. For a few seconds I'm a bit confused about what's dream and what's reality, and I still feel this really strong urge to get to the bus station and save the girl. Then I realize it was all a dream.

Freaky.

Hit my head today...

... and I'm writing about it here, because it was something I'd never experienced before. Or at least, not to this degree.

Early this afternoon I bent down to pick something off the floor - and BAM! I slammed my forehead into the corner of a wood desk. It's probably the hardest I've ever been hit. The impact left a gash on my head about three or four centimeters long, maybe a millimeter or two wide. And you know what they say about bleeding scalp wounds? It's true. That sucker bled for a while. Not a lot of blood overall, but it was this dark red trickle. Kind of scary.

But the worst part is how I felt after. It was like... being dizzy, like my head was a million miles away from my feet. Or maybe punch drunk, like in the cartoons when somebody gets hit and they see a bunch of little stars and birdies flying around their head. I didn't hallucinate anything, but I sure wasn't thinking straight. I spent twenty minutes just staring out the window for no reason, then set up a movie for my Dad to watch (he doesn't know how to use the VCR or computer, so I have to do it for him), then stumbled off to buy this week's comics. And once there, I had a really weird conversation with the guy who works in the store. I was asking him about Mouse Guard and he was telling me about Maus, and it took me several minutes to realize we weren't talking about the same thing. God knows what the other costumers thought of this guy with dried blood on his head, stumbling around the aisles. But I did end up buying four comics, so it was a good trip.

Anyway, it took about five hours, but the symptoms seems to be mostly gone now, and my head is firmly located back on my shoulders. No more dizziness, thank goodness. I just hope the gash heals over without scarring.

Peeing In The Pool

You know the moment. Everybody's having fun in the pool, splashing and laughing. You get in slowly, a little intimidated by all the loud cheerfulness, wishing you had a better pair of trunks. Then somebody notices a yellow tinge in the water near the wall, and every head swivels to look straight at you.

I feel a bit like that now. Despite being on the Internet for many years, I don't have a lot of  friends here. So it seems a little presumptuous to start up one of those personal journal blog things, particularly since no one is going to read it. I mean, why would anyone here care if I've had a bad day and need to vent, or if I'm proud of something and want to crow a bit? But what the hell. The bright side of anonymity is that no will laugh at me either, so I might as well give it a try.

I've wanted to start a journal or something for many years, but I always abandon them after a few days. It just seemed... pretentious, somehow, to scribble away in a book about this and that, writing down all those disconnected thoughts no one else would ever read. Spending five minutes staring out the window and thinking or spending an hour writing in a journal accomplished pretty much the same thing, except that staring out the window didn't make me feel foolish afterwards.

But there is something about the written word. It has real power, and that's no joke. I still remember how it felt to discover Internet message boards for the first time. It was so wonderful, taking the kinds of thoughts that I'd normally ramble on and on about in conversations with disinterested friends and actually write them down on the screen, then post the message to a board. Presto! Suddenly my ramblings became concrete sentences and paragraphs that actually existed out there in the world, real as cheese. And people sometimes replied to me! Jesus Christ, that felt good. To go on and on about science and fiction, tv shows and movies, politics and philosophy, just like always, but then instead of someone saying "Uh huh" and switching the subject, other people would reply right back with just as much intensity and passion, and everything would be saved up there in the thread so other people could follow the conversation and jump in whenever they wanted to. Those message boards were like crack to me. I'd sneak away from my university classes as quick as I could, and go off to the computer lab to write more lengthy essays about the reality of global warming or a wonderful explanation of the Casmir Effect that I'd found in a book, not caring a bit about the homework and studying I was supposed to be doing.

This blog probably won't be that good. That part of my life is gone now, and I don't think it will ever come back. You can't step in the same river twice, and so on. Blah blah blah. But I do hope that some fun will come from it. If nothing else, it's kind of therapeutic to think in complete sentences and paragraphs again. The Internet is a place that encourages sentence fragmentation and abbreviations, and I think I've acquired a few bad habits over the years from participating in all that cyber culture. My prose has degenerated into a kind of Net-standard bogspeak, so maybe this blog will help get some zing back in the old writing muscles.

No promises here, gentle reader. I know you're deathlessly hanging on every word, waiting with bated breath for the next installment of my glorious thoughts. (That was sarcasm, by the way.) But there might not be any more posts. Or I might keep it up for a few days, then drop it like all those old failed journals of the past. Or I might update this blog from time to time, writing on whatever. We'll see.

Oh, and if I did it right, the blog should now be called "Threat Or Menace?" That's a reference to an old Lee/Ditko Spider Man comic book story, in which J. Jonah Jameson proudly holds up the front page of the Bugle to display the headline "Spider Man: Threat or Menace?" You just can't improve on perfection like that, so I'm stealing it. Google says there already is a blog called Threat Or Menace, but screw it. If that pussy has a problem, he can come find me. And it's not like anyone will ever see this.

So that's it for now. Time to hit "Submit" and send my words out into the world. Fly, my monkeys! Fly!