I am currently trying to discover which of two popular sayings is true: Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Or is out of sight, out of mind?...
On Tuesday December 21st, I've come to the conclusion that its the former.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
violent zombie dream #2
From time to time I have very violent and vivid nightmares about what appear to be the end times. This is the second zombie one in the past couple of months.
Setting: My hometown, the house where I grew up. It appears my father has fortified the house by creating an underground bomb shelter sort of thing in the back yard. He has also built up the cinderblock fence to a point where its no longer easy to climb and has lined it with barbed wire. The gate, which was made of wood in my youth, is now made of metal and is geared up with weapons that look somewhat similar to retractable punji sticks.
The house has been mostly ransacked, and my family and I have just returned from a scavenging mission to get more food. We get back to the house to find it fairly destroyed, but our safe-house underground has been completely undisturbed.
So, in terms of the things that we have:
-Underground bomb-shelter/safe-house.
-Stockpile of canned and some perishable food
-lots of guns and knives
-the old house, though the only parts we still use are the living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, and wood shop. The bedrooms are walled off from the rest of the house by cinderblocks.
- 2 working vehicles.
Family jobs:
Dad - builds things, fortifies/maintains perimeter, makes clever weapons, drives the (to borrow a phrase) killdozer (what used to be his blazer).
Amado - steals technology for surveillance of the house, takes care of medical issues, makes clever weapons, fights, works as mechanic, does most of the scavenging because he's fast.
Mom - cooks, maintains equipment, makes body armor (mostly from leather, difficult to bite through), works as mechanic, drives the scavenge-mobile (what used to be her old honda minivan).
Me - builds things, fights, does a lot of scavenging, maintains supply inventory (food/ammo), cooks.
I stumbled into the dream during us trying to come back from a salvage/scavenge mission, which appeared to be fruitful but scary. We appear to have tried to originally go out on foot, but were attacked by a group of the dead. We attempted escape and found a station wagon, which somehow managed to get flipped over in the process of us returning home.
We camped out in the wilderness away from everyone in order to stay safer. The next day we finally get home to find the house even more destroyed than it had been. The windows have all been broken, the rooms mostly picked through, but due to walling off and sealing windows in the center of the house, the livingroom, diningroom, kitchen, family room, and woodshop remain untouched.
We all retreat into the underground after checking over the house and surveillance footage to make sure there are no unwanted guests. The family goes to sleep. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning and venture out to the destroyed part of the house. I go through the things in my room, most of it is destroyed, but I take a few sentimentally charged things to keep with me. As I am doing this the sun is rising outside, and I see the dead face of a girl outside the window. She only has one eye, and so seems to not been able to notice or see me. She passes by and I crawl out through my window.
She manages to cut me off as I try to get to the back yard, and she speaks to me. In this particular imagining zombies are still in possession of human consciousness and speech. I ask her why she's doing all of this, and she only replies that she no longer knows who she is, what she is doing, or why she is doing it. She only seems to know that it is what she needs to do. She lashes out at me, and I "brandish the hell" out of my machete. I warn her what will occur if she continues to attack me, and she tells me that if I proceed, her "friends" are nearby. I take this as meaning others of her kind, and decide to quickly dispatch of her so I can get to the shelter. As tends to be the case in most of my dreams of this nature, it takes a lot of effort to take her down, lots of chopping in order to finally remove her head.
When she is finally dispatched, I return to the house, greeted by Amado telling me how stupid I am for going outside at night. He also tells me that there's a group of people in the area, and the girl I just took down was their "pet." We check out surveillance and discover two people checking out the cars we have in front of the house (there's a jeep in working order, but we don't like to use it as its too easy to fall out or be pulled out). Amado and I speak with them, and the man looks a lot like AG's cousin D. D makes me an offer on the Jeep, but the offer is in cash. Amado laughs at him a bit, as money no longer really has any gravity in a post apocalyptic era. As Amado chuckles at the offer, the group of the zombie's "friends" emerge from the house across the street (used to be the Dillon residence). Amado and I retreat inside as they begin to shout at us.
The friends then begin trying to break down the door. I am holding the door shut with Amado, who orders me to lock all the locks, of which there appear to be about 30 (oh dad, you were always the king of overkill). I lock all of them, only to hear the friends on the other side sawing through the wood on the outside with a reciprocating saw. they begin to make it through the door, and lash out, cutting at my arm with it.
One girl finally makes it in (one of those fuzzy dream details... also fuzzy is where the other girls went, I can assume that Amado takes them on). I fight a pretty dirty fight with the girl, who attacks me with various small weapons such as a pocket knife, butterfly knife, nail file, and at one point even a very small fork. I manage to get all of these away from her and I pretty much just punch her in the face a lot. I finally get her down for the count with a blow to the jaw. I go to the yard, where dad is working on one of the cars, and I brag about the fight. Amado comes out to patch me up and tells me that mom (of course) is talking to the girls in an effort to come to a kind of peace treaty. We're to have a meeting discussing land boundries.
I enter the house to find the group of "friends" now all cleaned up, outfitted in mum's body armor and getting ready to have dinner with us. I shake hands with the girl that I kicked the shit out of and we begin to discuss the lay of the land. Dad makes it clear that we intend to stay separate and as far away from the action as possible. We will go in for supplies from surrounding stores from time to time, but apart from that we don't intend to contact others. Seeing as the "friends" are mostly nomadic to begin with, we offer to fix up one of the cars in the area to get them set for travel, and also offer them a safe haven when they are in the area.
The final memory I have is talking with the girl I fought and comparing our fight wounds. It's one of those things when you begin waking up in pieces and can still feel the injuries you've sustained in the dream.
Setting: My hometown, the house where I grew up. It appears my father has fortified the house by creating an underground bomb shelter sort of thing in the back yard. He has also built up the cinderblock fence to a point where its no longer easy to climb and has lined it with barbed wire. The gate, which was made of wood in my youth, is now made of metal and is geared up with weapons that look somewhat similar to retractable punji sticks.
The house has been mostly ransacked, and my family and I have just returned from a scavenging mission to get more food. We get back to the house to find it fairly destroyed, but our safe-house underground has been completely undisturbed.
So, in terms of the things that we have:
-Underground bomb-shelter/safe-house.
-Stockpile of canned and some perishable food
-lots of guns and knives
-the old house, though the only parts we still use are the living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, and wood shop. The bedrooms are walled off from the rest of the house by cinderblocks.
- 2 working vehicles.
Family jobs:
Dad - builds things, fortifies/maintains perimeter, makes clever weapons, drives the (to borrow a phrase) killdozer (what used to be his blazer).
Amado - steals technology for surveillance of the house, takes care of medical issues, makes clever weapons, fights, works as mechanic, does most of the scavenging because he's fast.
Mom - cooks, maintains equipment, makes body armor (mostly from leather, difficult to bite through), works as mechanic, drives the scavenge-mobile (what used to be her old honda minivan).
Me - builds things, fights, does a lot of scavenging, maintains supply inventory (food/ammo), cooks.
I stumbled into the dream during us trying to come back from a salvage/scavenge mission, which appeared to be fruitful but scary. We appear to have tried to originally go out on foot, but were attacked by a group of the dead. We attempted escape and found a station wagon, which somehow managed to get flipped over in the process of us returning home.
We camped out in the wilderness away from everyone in order to stay safer. The next day we finally get home to find the house even more destroyed than it had been. The windows have all been broken, the rooms mostly picked through, but due to walling off and sealing windows in the center of the house, the livingroom, diningroom, kitchen, family room, and woodshop remain untouched.
We all retreat into the underground after checking over the house and surveillance footage to make sure there are no unwanted guests. The family goes to sleep. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning and venture out to the destroyed part of the house. I go through the things in my room, most of it is destroyed, but I take a few sentimentally charged things to keep with me. As I am doing this the sun is rising outside, and I see the dead face of a girl outside the window. She only has one eye, and so seems to not been able to notice or see me. She passes by and I crawl out through my window.
She manages to cut me off as I try to get to the back yard, and she speaks to me. In this particular imagining zombies are still in possession of human consciousness and speech. I ask her why she's doing all of this, and she only replies that she no longer knows who she is, what she is doing, or why she is doing it. She only seems to know that it is what she needs to do. She lashes out at me, and I "brandish the hell" out of my machete. I warn her what will occur if she continues to attack me, and she tells me that if I proceed, her "friends" are nearby. I take this as meaning others of her kind, and decide to quickly dispatch of her so I can get to the shelter. As tends to be the case in most of my dreams of this nature, it takes a lot of effort to take her down, lots of chopping in order to finally remove her head.
When she is finally dispatched, I return to the house, greeted by Amado telling me how stupid I am for going outside at night. He also tells me that there's a group of people in the area, and the girl I just took down was their "pet." We check out surveillance and discover two people checking out the cars we have in front of the house (there's a jeep in working order, but we don't like to use it as its too easy to fall out or be pulled out). Amado and I speak with them, and the man looks a lot like AG's cousin D. D makes me an offer on the Jeep, but the offer is in cash. Amado laughs at him a bit, as money no longer really has any gravity in a post apocalyptic era. As Amado chuckles at the offer, the group of the zombie's "friends" emerge from the house across the street (used to be the Dillon residence). Amado and I retreat inside as they begin to shout at us.
The friends then begin trying to break down the door. I am holding the door shut with Amado, who orders me to lock all the locks, of which there appear to be about 30 (oh dad, you were always the king of overkill). I lock all of them, only to hear the friends on the other side sawing through the wood on the outside with a reciprocating saw. they begin to make it through the door, and lash out, cutting at my arm with it.
One girl finally makes it in (one of those fuzzy dream details... also fuzzy is where the other girls went, I can assume that Amado takes them on). I fight a pretty dirty fight with the girl, who attacks me with various small weapons such as a pocket knife, butterfly knife, nail file, and at one point even a very small fork. I manage to get all of these away from her and I pretty much just punch her in the face a lot. I finally get her down for the count with a blow to the jaw. I go to the yard, where dad is working on one of the cars, and I brag about the fight. Amado comes out to patch me up and tells me that mom (of course) is talking to the girls in an effort to come to a kind of peace treaty. We're to have a meeting discussing land boundries.
I enter the house to find the group of "friends" now all cleaned up, outfitted in mum's body armor and getting ready to have dinner with us. I shake hands with the girl that I kicked the shit out of and we begin to discuss the lay of the land. Dad makes it clear that we intend to stay separate and as far away from the action as possible. We will go in for supplies from surrounding stores from time to time, but apart from that we don't intend to contact others. Seeing as the "friends" are mostly nomadic to begin with, we offer to fix up one of the cars in the area to get them set for travel, and also offer them a safe haven when they are in the area.
The final memory I have is talking with the girl I fought and comparing our fight wounds. It's one of those things when you begin waking up in pieces and can still feel the injuries you've sustained in the dream.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Betrothed
My best friend of 10 years is officially going to get hitched to his lovely girlfriend! I'm super happy for him and his lady. But, on a more selfish note, he asked me to be his "best dude." I of course, cried my little eyes out, because we've been close for so long and I love him like a brother.
Im already starting to diabolically plan their engagement party and his bachelor party. Aww yissss.
Congratulations Ricky and D-Ro!
Im already starting to diabolically plan their engagement party and his bachelor party. Aww yissss.
Congratulations Ricky and D-Ro!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Life
I am going through an interesting time these days. I have a very odd lineup of jobs, each of which present new and interesting challenges and diverse social instances. Really, my jobs run the gamut of cultivating relationships with people from all different age groups and walks of life.
The teaching job (volunteer work with K-2) has me connecting to really young kids and getting to the point where I am so so looking forward to teaching. The Liquor store job really has me working with people my own age and much much older, around the same socio-economic background as I am, but I'm gaining much more knowledge about beer, wine, and fine cuisine from my manager C. and coworker J. The knitting and needle point store definitely gives me perspective from an older age group, and its been especially interesting working with the women. I feel a bit like I'm a surrogate daughter there, and they all mother me a bit, poking at me to eat when I seem like I'm tired, asking me about who I'm dating, all that good stuff.
And lastly but certainly not least is the set painting. I suppose its taught me the most about myself and about my limits. Post college me is slacking off more than I should be. Deadlines weren't really my strong point in college and now that I have this huge project left up to me in a more professional arena than the stuff I did for MIT, there has been a lot of pressure. A good friend of mine who is also working on the show has been vouching for me, both in terms of skill and responsibility, this entire time, and I know for a fact that I've disappointed him. It will all be done soon, though.
I'm glad that things have changed.
The teaching job (volunteer work with K-2) has me connecting to really young kids and getting to the point where I am so so looking forward to teaching. The Liquor store job really has me working with people my own age and much much older, around the same socio-economic background as I am, but I'm gaining much more knowledge about beer, wine, and fine cuisine from my manager C. and coworker J. The knitting and needle point store definitely gives me perspective from an older age group, and its been especially interesting working with the women. I feel a bit like I'm a surrogate daughter there, and they all mother me a bit, poking at me to eat when I seem like I'm tired, asking me about who I'm dating, all that good stuff.
And lastly but certainly not least is the set painting. I suppose its taught me the most about myself and about my limits. Post college me is slacking off more than I should be. Deadlines weren't really my strong point in college and now that I have this huge project left up to me in a more professional arena than the stuff I did for MIT, there has been a lot of pressure. A good friend of mine who is also working on the show has been vouching for me, both in terms of skill and responsibility, this entire time, and I know for a fact that I've disappointed him. It will all be done soon, though.
I'm glad that things have changed.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Regarding Jobs
Life's finally picking up in terms of the growing up part. I had been giving myself a pretty big guilt trip about turning 23 and not having a job, and pretty much as soon as the day had passed, I started getting calls about working.
It's one of those things that my mom used to always remind me of (and I always hated to hear her say), that good things will happen when you least expect them.
On the bleh side of this I appear to have gotten sick again, but that's to be expected as right around this time I get either a cold or strep throat. Stupid body.
Anyhow, these days here's the lineup:
-Starting new position at Knitting store in Boston 11/5
-Painting for A.Y.L.I. to be finished on 11/6
-Starting new position at Wine store in Somerville 11/7
-Continuing After School K-2 in JP
-Making art and stuff.
It's one of those things that my mom used to always remind me of (and I always hated to hear her say), that good things will happen when you least expect them.
On the bleh side of this I appear to have gotten sick again, but that's to be expected as right around this time I get either a cold or strep throat. Stupid body.
Anyhow, these days here's the lineup:
-Starting new position at Knitting store in Boston 11/5
-Painting for A.Y.L.I. to be finished on 11/6
-Starting new position at Wine store in Somerville 11/7
-Continuing After School K-2 in JP
-Making art and stuff.
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