I really dont know what i'm doing typing on the blog right now. I cant' really do anything put put it into words right now I guess.
Typing around my sister wasn't helping. I've got her calm enough that she doesn't need to be in my lap at least. I suppose I shouldn't rely on a nine year old to tell me what the fuck is going on if she even knows.
Basically Mel wanted someone to sleep in her room. I volunteered; mom's still in less than ideal straits and Jerry needs proper rest. They don't know it, but the pill popping knocks me right out so it's not much of an imposition to sleep on a cot in a brightly lit room for a few nights. Mel was catty about what it was; just says the dark 'reminds her of things' and if someone was between her and the window she would feel better.
I don't think there's enough space in the world to put between the window to make her feel better.
This happened... I could have sworn it was midnight, but the clock says it's after two. Spent an hour curled in a ball with Mel trying to convince both of us the hallucinations were back, I thought, but must've been more.
The night started fine. I asked her about her reading, got a cursory response and a comment she just wanted to go to sleep. I waited until I thought she was asleep, took a couple of pills, and said good riddance to consciousness. I woke up a few hours later to Mel kneeling by the cot.
"What?" She wasn't paying attention; she was fixated on whatever was outside the window.
"You're not still afraid of the window, are you?" There was the whole instance with the dog the first night she got here, so I thought maybe that had sunk its claws into her. "There's nothing out there - nothing worse than Lando, anyway."
I sat up and flung my feet over the side facing the window. There's a tree right about 15 feet outside the window, one of the few oaks still on the property. I stared out the window for a minute before looking back; she was still transfixed. "You need to sleep."
"Look." Her voice was flat, yet strained. Perplexed, I turned back and leaned forward. I was scanning the yard, not seeing anything. The light didn't exactly help my nightvision and that only illuminated so far outside. I was about to give up when it clicked.
I wish I could say I spotted it, but my gut tells me that's not what happened. My perception changed. What hadn't been there moments before was there then.
At first I wanted to scream. There was a man, a big man, dressed in a suit and staring motionlessly into our window. Someone was trespassing, and trespassing very very creepily. But that was wishful thinking. It wasn't a man, but something masquerading as one. It wasn't big, just tall and lanky, it's proportions were all wrong. The hands were turned at an awkward angle, palms outstretched even though the arms were at rest. And the hands were even with the portion of it's leg that I can only assume was the knee.
I had plenty of time to take this in because I was paralyzed. I want to say it was just the flight or fight response kicking in, but that wasn't it. I was literally unable to control my body - that little switch that tells your brain it's still dreaming had kicked on. Then I made eye contact. Or it should have been eye contact - the other had a pale white irregular oval for a face, like a mannequin with the suggestion of a head, but no actual features to speak of. The man-thing had no face.
But 'he' was smiling. I don't know how I know, but there was a wave of emotion that wasn't mine, a sort of mix of elation, relief, and terror all at once.
It approached. I can't say he walked because that is not what it did; it just existed closer to the window in regular increments over the course of an eternity. Before I could really grasp what was going on 'he' was practically pressed up against it. At that point my brain decided it could flip the switch back and I reacted.
I wish I could say I threw a meaty fist at it and scared it away, but what I got was some cross between a backhand and a high five that didn't even have enough force to rattle the window. But 'he' was gone as soon as I touched the window. It hadn't existed away or anything; it just stopped existing.
That was when I realized how numb I was - like I was fighting my way out of sleep paralysis again. I started clenching and unclenching my fists and worked into swinging an arm; as soon as I thought I could stand I rolled across the cot and grabbed Mel. She was actually animate now and immediately clutched me and wouldn't let go. I waddled over to her bed, picked her up, and sat down beside her. .
I stared at the window long enough to ascertain the man-thing wasn't coming back. Then we both assumed the fetal position.
I know what I saw this time. At least, I know I saw it. It wasn't a hallucination. Or if it was, Mel saw it too.
I guess I was right; there was more to this than I ever wanted to know.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Mel Update
She's gone from nightlight to 'the light must be on in my room'. She hasn't been on the X-Box in a while and she hasn't been telling me about Par and Col Shannara's journey across the whatever-the-world-in-that-series-is-called.
I guess she's bottoming out and I really don't know what to do to make her feel better. Consolation isn't my specialty; escapism is.
I guess she's bottoming out and I really don't know what to do to make her feel better. Consolation isn't my specialty; escapism is.
On Lobbing
Trebuchets are certainly something. The basic idea, like I said, is a catapult; it throws a big heavy rock at something you want to throw big heavy rocks at. Basically there's a counterweight that you cut loose that makes the throwie end throw.
It's all very technical, I assure you. If you're that interested there are other sources.
But as usual this is merely a pretense to lend some background for all the squishy emotional bits I divulge here.
There is a long and sordid tale of how, when my stunning intellect was discovered, I was raised from the spitwad shooting masses of the normal gradeschoolers into the gifted and talented program. The choice was, nominally, mine, but being that I tended to think my mother knew what was best I agreed more or less without thinking about it.
(Also I was in 3rd grade and my entire class was convinced I was going to be Einstein or something. Correcting the teacher a time or two will do that but that was mostly sheer dumb luck, I swear. Either way I might have gotten a bit of an ego. History has, of course, not borne this out.)
But the important part here is that I was raised from the sniveling masses into the elite - here meaning not just smart people, but the privileged few in a community who deserve a better education, regardless of how their intelligence compares to a box of rocks. We're talking about nine year olds who had socialized amongst their own dozen and a half or so selves and almost nobody else. To say that I was unpopular is an understatement. It got better - things do - but, well, that year was awful and it might explain a lot of things about my current state.
The important note here is that I still have class with these people, as they are either genuinely good students or the sort that can get into the advanced programs I'm in just because they're (or their parents are) big fish in a small pond. I will call one of them G, less to protect the innocent and more because it would be rude to name names. To describe him as a little snot is a grave insult to phlegm; teachers more or less freely admit to grading him easy because he's the son of a family who accounts for about half of the school's administration. (I am exaggerating a little bit here, of course.)
Now he's smart and pretty much guaranteed valedictorian (yes, even though we're all still sophomores), but he knows it and he really lets it go to his head. And while I don't think he hates me per se, he is still not a fan (and sees me as some sort of worthy opponent when I am completely and totally fine coasting back here in tenth place).
G, of course, was in on the whole trebuchet thing because he and Mr. Haynes click so well (since he is kind of a math whiz; he is pretty much a year ahead of the people who are a year ahead). I forget what started it but he made some stupid remark regarding my presence as a teacher's pet. I really didn't even have to defend myself here as our borrowed workshop erupted in laughter. There's only eight people in the class; G and I rounded it out to an even 10 students working on the thing. I only really know G and Ash, who given they're on the same grade level as the rest (at least in math) aren't in the same position.
After G embarrasses himself the shit talk naturally starts. I don't remember exactly what it was because I had my back turned and was doing the measuring and marking where to make the cuts, but it somehow comes around to me and the fact I haven't bothered with my driver's license at all. I don't know if they thought they were whispering, if they somehow thought measuring tape was a power tool, or if they just didn't care, but someone asks Ash why she bothers to ferry me around town.
I figured she'd address it as it was; kind of rude. Instead her words were "Oh, he's a friend of the family - just one of those things you're supposed to do, right?"
Naturally I'm shocked, but nobody knows it. The conversation quickly turns to good-natured joshing of one of the seniors who had failed his driving test, and I'm inclined to think they didn't realize how the acoustics of the shop classroom works. I didn't say anything there because I couldn't think of anything to say.
As Ash was driving me home, she apologized. "It's kind of hard to fit in with them. I didn't know what to say so..."
"You came up with the first excuse that came to mind. I get it." I don't think she meant it. But the more I think about it the more I wonder. She is in class with people a grade ahead of her, and she's kind of in the situation I was in in 4th grade - a lot of these people are, as I said, snotty. Maybe I shouldn't blame her for deflecting some of it on me.
It's all very technical, I assure you. If you're that interested there are other sources.
But as usual this is merely a pretense to lend some background for all the squishy emotional bits I divulge here.
There is a long and sordid tale of how, when my stunning intellect was discovered, I was raised from the spitwad shooting masses of the normal gradeschoolers into the gifted and talented program. The choice was, nominally, mine, but being that I tended to think my mother knew what was best I agreed more or less without thinking about it.
(Also I was in 3rd grade and my entire class was convinced I was going to be Einstein or something. Correcting the teacher a time or two will do that but that was mostly sheer dumb luck, I swear. Either way I might have gotten a bit of an ego. History has, of course, not borne this out.)
But the important part here is that I was raised from the sniveling masses into the elite - here meaning not just smart people, but the privileged few in a community who deserve a better education, regardless of how their intelligence compares to a box of rocks. We're talking about nine year olds who had socialized amongst their own dozen and a half or so selves and almost nobody else. To say that I was unpopular is an understatement. It got better - things do - but, well, that year was awful and it might explain a lot of things about my current state.
The important note here is that I still have class with these people, as they are either genuinely good students or the sort that can get into the advanced programs I'm in just because they're (or their parents are) big fish in a small pond. I will call one of them G, less to protect the innocent and more because it would be rude to name names. To describe him as a little snot is a grave insult to phlegm; teachers more or less freely admit to grading him easy because he's the son of a family who accounts for about half of the school's administration. (I am exaggerating a little bit here, of course.)
Now he's smart and pretty much guaranteed valedictorian (yes, even though we're all still sophomores), but he knows it and he really lets it go to his head. And while I don't think he hates me per se, he is still not a fan (and sees me as some sort of worthy opponent when I am completely and totally fine coasting back here in tenth place).
G, of course, was in on the whole trebuchet thing because he and Mr. Haynes click so well (since he is kind of a math whiz; he is pretty much a year ahead of the people who are a year ahead). I forget what started it but he made some stupid remark regarding my presence as a teacher's pet. I really didn't even have to defend myself here as our borrowed workshop erupted in laughter. There's only eight people in the class; G and I rounded it out to an even 10 students working on the thing. I only really know G and Ash, who given they're on the same grade level as the rest (at least in math) aren't in the same position.
After G embarrasses himself the shit talk naturally starts. I don't remember exactly what it was because I had my back turned and was doing the measuring and marking where to make the cuts, but it somehow comes around to me and the fact I haven't bothered with my driver's license at all. I don't know if they thought they were whispering, if they somehow thought measuring tape was a power tool, or if they just didn't care, but someone asks Ash why she bothers to ferry me around town.
I figured she'd address it as it was; kind of rude. Instead her words were "Oh, he's a friend of the family - just one of those things you're supposed to do, right?"
Naturally I'm shocked, but nobody knows it. The conversation quickly turns to good-natured joshing of one of the seniors who had failed his driving test, and I'm inclined to think they didn't realize how the acoustics of the shop classroom works. I didn't say anything there because I couldn't think of anything to say.
As Ash was driving me home, she apologized. "It's kind of hard to fit in with them. I didn't know what to say so..."
"You came up with the first excuse that came to mind. I get it." I don't think she meant it. But the more I think about it the more I wonder. She is in class with people a grade ahead of her, and she's kind of in the situation I was in in 4th grade - a lot of these people are, as I said, snotty. Maybe I shouldn't blame her for deflecting some of it on me.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
We should do this more often.
I want to update this thing, I really do (I have no idea why), and I keep sitting down and then zoning out, crawling into bed and promising myself I'll do it tomorrow. I wish I could say that was because all my sleeping issues have been sorted out and I'm not still drugging myself, but nope! It's only gotten worse.
But it's a funny story, you know. Mom was still feeling out of it at the time and the weekly grocery run had already happened anyway. So Ash and I just went to the local Walgreens after school one day. In my naivete I had thought buying over the counter medicine was something you can do, but apparently being a teenager and looking for drugs means you're some kind of chemistry whiz looking to get high. It didn't help matters that the woman there was one of my teachers from middle school. I don't mean any offense (which of course means I do mean quite a bit of it), but she's a crazy old bag of bones and was quite convinced that I had wandered off the path of a true Christian boy and blahda blah blah.
I'm normally a pretty laid back guy, I like to think, but one of my triggers is that special blend of ignorance and arrogance that people like her pull. Add that on to the anxiety and vivid memories of my dream-hallucination-fuckedupperies, and I was about to cause a scene against my better judgment. But Ash, oh Ash, put her hand on my shoulder and stepped in.
"Mrs. Johnson," she said, in a voice that sounded sickly sweet to me but seems to charm adults (or maybe just normal people), "His mom's sick. We're just running an errand for her." There was a whole conversation here I mostly remember as 'blah blah blah' and 'soothing sickly sweet voice', something about how that's nice but it's against store policy and blah blah blah bad people blah blah blah. Eventually Ash stepped back from the counter and said she understood and we were sorry to bother her and so on and so forth.
I do, however, remember the conversation back in the parking lot.
"Well, looks like I've got another few nightmares coming up."
"No you don't," Ash said as she threw her purse in my lap and turned around to watch as she backed out of the parking space. It was at this point I realized what had happened because she never carries her purse anywhere if she can help it.
"You didn't," I said with an incredulous chuckle. And, sure enough, there was a box of over-the-counter sleeping pills she'd shoplifted, somehow, sitting on top of all the girl stuff. .
"I did," she said with a smile as we pulled out. I almost asked her how the hell she did that, but it's probably better if I don't know. I don't agree with the means but it's hard to argue with the ends.
And then the rest of those weeks happened. I dunno how it is other places, but generally the second to last six weeks of the school year is the most hellish and the last six weeks is just everybody (teachers included) coasting. Since we have an absolutely retarded finals policy (you get exempt if you don't have more than an absence or two and have an A or B in the class), the actual 'finals' tend to be the last big test in the penultimate grading period. So I've been busting my ass on Algebra, Chemistry, Computer Science, and helping Ash with her physics where I can.
Speaking of, in the spirit of the last six weeks being a goofing off period, the Physics/Algebra/Pre-Cal teacher Ash and I share, Mr. Haynes, is doing an after school project. He's been wanting to build a trebuchet (like a catapult, only with more moving parts) all year and he figures now is the time to do it. It's technically extra credit for his Physics AP class, but he's willing to give me a little boost in Algebra if I help out. (Grandpa taught me a bit about woodworking and I did pretty well in shop in middle school; I don't actually need to know all that much about the physics because the whole thing is really an excuse to lob projectiles across school grounds).
So hopefully things'll keep going good. The pills really helped, even if they're pretty much contraband.
But it's a funny story, you know. Mom was still feeling out of it at the time and the weekly grocery run had already happened anyway. So Ash and I just went to the local Walgreens after school one day. In my naivete I had thought buying over the counter medicine was something you can do, but apparently being a teenager and looking for drugs means you're some kind of chemistry whiz looking to get high. It didn't help matters that the woman there was one of my teachers from middle school. I don't mean any offense (which of course means I do mean quite a bit of it), but she's a crazy old bag of bones and was quite convinced that I had wandered off the path of a true Christian boy and blahda blah blah.
I'm normally a pretty laid back guy, I like to think, but one of my triggers is that special blend of ignorance and arrogance that people like her pull. Add that on to the anxiety and vivid memories of my dream-hallucination-fuckedupperies, and I was about to cause a scene against my better judgment. But Ash, oh Ash, put her hand on my shoulder and stepped in.
"Mrs. Johnson," she said, in a voice that sounded sickly sweet to me but seems to charm adults (or maybe just normal people), "His mom's sick. We're just running an errand for her." There was a whole conversation here I mostly remember as 'blah blah blah' and 'soothing sickly sweet voice', something about how that's nice but it's against store policy and blah blah blah bad people blah blah blah. Eventually Ash stepped back from the counter and said she understood and we were sorry to bother her and so on and so forth.
I do, however, remember the conversation back in the parking lot.
"Well, looks like I've got another few nightmares coming up."
"No you don't," Ash said as she threw her purse in my lap and turned around to watch as she backed out of the parking space. It was at this point I realized what had happened because she never carries her purse anywhere if she can help it.
"You didn't," I said with an incredulous chuckle. And, sure enough, there was a box of over-the-counter sleeping pills she'd shoplifted, somehow, sitting on top of all the girl stuff. .
"I did," she said with a smile as we pulled out. I almost asked her how the hell she did that, but it's probably better if I don't know. I don't agree with the means but it's hard to argue with the ends.
And then the rest of those weeks happened. I dunno how it is other places, but generally the second to last six weeks of the school year is the most hellish and the last six weeks is just everybody (teachers included) coasting. Since we have an absolutely retarded finals policy (you get exempt if you don't have more than an absence or two and have an A or B in the class), the actual 'finals' tend to be the last big test in the penultimate grading period. So I've been busting my ass on Algebra, Chemistry, Computer Science, and helping Ash with her physics where I can.
Speaking of, in the spirit of the last six weeks being a goofing off period, the Physics/Algebra/Pre-Cal teacher Ash and I share, Mr. Haynes, is doing an after school project. He's been wanting to build a trebuchet (like a catapult, only with more moving parts) all year and he figures now is the time to do it. It's technically extra credit for his Physics AP class, but he's willing to give me a little boost in Algebra if I help out. (Grandpa taught me a bit about woodworking and I did pretty well in shop in middle school; I don't actually need to know all that much about the physics because the whole thing is really an excuse to lob projectiles across school grounds).
So hopefully things'll keep going good. The pills really helped, even if they're pretty much contraband.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Two weeks!
Wow that's a long time. I keep meaning to post but then I'm either too tired or too trying to be tired to try.
I'll do the boring part first - Mel's getting worse (better?). I'm honestly not sure, but she's been a little more mopey lately and I've largely been free to pursue my own leisure interests instead of airing her out at the park or running interference in Viva Pinata. I've even heard her crying in Mom's room a couple of times which I have to admit was something that hadn't occurred since that first night. Her therapist apparently says that's not completely abnormal, ignoring it for a while and then everything sort of sinking in. It makes sense to me on one level but on the other hand it doesn't. That's why I'm noting it here so future me has something to clue him in.
Also addressed to future me, you should probably make a decision on what series to go with next. She's on Book 4 of the quintet now so that leaves us with the Shanarra stuff (closer to her grade level) or the Death Gate Cycle (different stuff but not quite as dry as Brooks' stuff). Or tell her to use the school library. Or not, that'd probably come off kinda assholed.
As to why I'm posting this so late and for once not too tired. After that last post it started to get even worse. I would wake up with sleep paralysis (which is totally a thing; I've had it happen before and it's apparently relatively normal. Basically the brain bit that makes your body not flip the fuck out in reaction to stuff in your dream keeps flipped on while you're actually awake). Now sleep paralysis is kind of creepy enough but it's pretty easy to get used to once you know what it is, have had past experience with it, and aren't convinced whatever lives under your bed has a paralyzing poison and is reveling in your helpless horror.
It's the hallucinations that started up. At first it seemed pretty normal, like that thing where you hear and/or see stuff while you're going to sleep that you were doing before you went to bed. Then floaty balls, sometimes lit, sometimes not. That's honestly fucked but it's only one sense and glowy balls are pretty low on the list of terrifying things. No, it was one night when I woke up and I could swear my stomach was distended. Not just looking - I reached down, felt of it, and over time it felt like I could actually feel my insides moving. The funny part is at the time I was fairly calm about it. My grandpa had a hernia right around the same area - at family outings sometimes people would make fun of him having an 'outie' belly button. Considering he was a tough old coot who hated doctors he toughed on through it until he was finally put off his feet by it and finally had the surgery. Me having dreams about the condition being hereditary isn't unusual since my family is predisposed to our digestive tracts coming alive and trying to murder us in various upsetting ways. So at the time, like my grandpa, I was just thinking "Ugh, guts acting up, don't wanna miss school or half my routine messed up by pesky surgery."
When I remembered it the next morning I was just generally shitless with horror at the whole thing. I can still remember it pretty vividly and just how fucking weird it was. Not painful, even, just, well, I'll leave it to the non-existent reader's imagination.
But yeah, after one fucked up hallucination like that, I just decided to say fuck it and start doping myself. Now I'm a complete lightweight so what I mean by dope is literally just over the counter allergy elixir (I think the active ingredient is dyphenhydramine or something to that effect phonetically). All it actually does is get me drowsy enough to sleep, but it's been a week and a half now and generally just the little cup full before bed and/or during a mid night wakeup has kept the vengeful intestines away.
And that's why I'm awake right now; I finished off the bottle, and as usual forgot to put it on the shopping list and it's the middle of the night and I'm just scared of the prospect of whatever my half-assleep mind might drag up.
Tomorrow's gonna suck.
I'll do the boring part first - Mel's getting worse (better?). I'm honestly not sure, but she's been a little more mopey lately and I've largely been free to pursue my own leisure interests instead of airing her out at the park or running interference in Viva Pinata. I've even heard her crying in Mom's room a couple of times which I have to admit was something that hadn't occurred since that first night. Her therapist apparently says that's not completely abnormal, ignoring it for a while and then everything sort of sinking in. It makes sense to me on one level but on the other hand it doesn't. That's why I'm noting it here so future me has something to clue him in.
Also addressed to future me, you should probably make a decision on what series to go with next. She's on Book 4 of the quintet now so that leaves us with the Shanarra stuff (closer to her grade level) or the Death Gate Cycle (different stuff but not quite as dry as Brooks' stuff). Or tell her to use the school library. Or not, that'd probably come off kinda assholed.
As to why I'm posting this so late and for once not too tired. After that last post it started to get even worse. I would wake up with sleep paralysis (which is totally a thing; I've had it happen before and it's apparently relatively normal. Basically the brain bit that makes your body not flip the fuck out in reaction to stuff in your dream keeps flipped on while you're actually awake). Now sleep paralysis is kind of creepy enough but it's pretty easy to get used to once you know what it is, have had past experience with it, and aren't convinced whatever lives under your bed has a paralyzing poison and is reveling in your helpless horror.
It's the hallucinations that started up. At first it seemed pretty normal, like that thing where you hear and/or see stuff while you're going to sleep that you were doing before you went to bed. Then floaty balls, sometimes lit, sometimes not. That's honestly fucked but it's only one sense and glowy balls are pretty low on the list of terrifying things. No, it was one night when I woke up and I could swear my stomach was distended. Not just looking - I reached down, felt of it, and over time it felt like I could actually feel my insides moving. The funny part is at the time I was fairly calm about it. My grandpa had a hernia right around the same area - at family outings sometimes people would make fun of him having an 'outie' belly button. Considering he was a tough old coot who hated doctors he toughed on through it until he was finally put off his feet by it and finally had the surgery. Me having dreams about the condition being hereditary isn't unusual since my family is predisposed to our digestive tracts coming alive and trying to murder us in various upsetting ways. So at the time, like my grandpa, I was just thinking "Ugh, guts acting up, don't wanna miss school or half my routine messed up by pesky surgery."
When I remembered it the next morning I was just generally shitless with horror at the whole thing. I can still remember it pretty vividly and just how fucking weird it was. Not painful, even, just, well, I'll leave it to the non-existent reader's imagination.
But yeah, after one fucked up hallucination like that, I just decided to say fuck it and start doping myself. Now I'm a complete lightweight so what I mean by dope is literally just over the counter allergy elixir (I think the active ingredient is dyphenhydramine or something to that effect phonetically). All it actually does is get me drowsy enough to sleep, but it's been a week and a half now and generally just the little cup full before bed and/or during a mid night wakeup has kept the vengeful intestines away.
And that's why I'm awake right now; I finished off the bottle, and as usual forgot to put it on the shopping list and it's the middle of the night and I'm just scared of the prospect of whatever my half-assleep mind might drag up.
Tomorrow's gonna suck.
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