TRANSformation

I stopped writing, not because there hasn't been lot on my mind or because narcolepsy is leaving me alone, but rather because there's been a shift of my priorities for the last month or so. There's nothing like someone you love going through a lot to take you away from thinking about your own problems.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned on here that my girlfriend, who I'm going to refer to as J, has had depression problems for most of her life. Since I moved in with her a year ago I've been working on helping her figure out the root causes of it, since I've also had it most of my life and have found my own fairly effective ways of dealing with it. Basically I'm there for her to talk to about anything, and I bother J to talk and write through things she's feeling. So far it's seemed to open up a new world of thinking about herself for her and she's discovered many things about her identity since we started. The latest of these discoveries surprised us both and turned our mental worlds upside down, while at the same time not changing a single thing about J or our relationship.

It started a month ago when we had been talking about sexuality. It's a weird issue for both of us. On the surface we are defined as a lesbian couple, but neither of us feels comfortable calling us that. Our gender roles are very clear-cut- she brings home the bacon and I cook and clean. It's almost maniacally traditional, which seems weird because neither of us have very traditional value systems. We had been talking about it on the weekend, and then J took our big dog for a walk, and when she came back she had this sort of shell-shocked expression on her face. When I asked her what it was, she said simply, "I think... I'm a dude."

We stood there and looked at each other. I felt like I was seeing her for the first time as a whole cascade of ideas fell into place. The transformation in my head went something like this:

OH!!!
unfounded depression --> gender dysphoria
gay couple --> straight couple
masculine "quirks" --> male personality
weird about clothing --> accidentally cross-dressing
girlyness --> overcompensating
bisexual --> wants to have male body + is straight
uncomfortable at work --> forced to playact being a woman
hates her body for some unknown reason --> IN THE WRONG BODY
Does this change how I feel about her? --> NO.

And then I really looked at her face, imagined her with short hair and told her I thought that she could pass as male if she wanted to. And started laughing and gave her a hug. I was/am so proud of her for figuring out the missing piece. She says that the realization for her came with a massive sense of relief.

We were both brain-crashed for the next week processing this. It wasn't that anything was different between us, or even about J. We just kept thinking of more ways in which it explains everything that either of us have been wondering about her. We're still coming up with things and it's been a month.

We found a great transsexual resources forum, Laura's Playground, and it's been a really good source of information since neither of us knew much about being trans before this. We decided to go look for clothes and got a bunch of things from the men's department for J. I've gone shopping with her for women's clothing a lot, and she was always dissatisfied while trying things on. She might find one thing that she could stand (and that fit well) out of ten things. The first time J tried on a guy's flannel shirt, she was smiling, it fit her, and it seemed essentially her somehow. I also cut her very long hair into a short and fairly androngynous style and it looked and felt much better to her.

At this point I'm going to switch pronouns on you, because saying "she" and "her" is driving me nuts. But I wanted to make it clear that I'm still engaged to my soulmate, the same one as before, and that I haven't switched people on you, it's just that my "girl" became my "man". Though "became" isn't the right word at all.

J has a gender therapist appointment for two weeks from today, and I'm going with him to provide moral support. I've been his unofficial therapist over the last year, and I seem to have done a reasonable job, but transpeople have unique challenges to face internally and externally and I feel out of my depth. So we'll see how that goes. J says he doesn't plan to start hormone treatment or get surgery, but if he changes his mind I'm supportive. I figure it's my job as the woman here to make sure he's taken care of. :) I've been doing that all along anyway... I think J's hoping they'll scan his brain to see if it's structurally almost male.

So the whole thing adds a new dimension to the interestingness of our life together. At least I'm not the only unusual one anymore. I don't know if I'd call us even though. It's hard to beat me, the hallucinating sleep contradiction, even with a man's brain in a female body. XD I'll just call us odd instead.

RV Living

Want a new way to save energy? Try downsizing your floor space. :D

Before we relocated for my girlfriend's job in August, we were living at her parents' place, a lovely two story house with a pretty large upstairs that we had completely to ourselves. When I moved in, I put myself in charge of keeping the two large bedrooms, connecting bathroom, two walk-in closets, stairs and loft area clean. Being a genetic neat-freak who actually enjoys things like sweeping and dusting made this part of my life fun rather than a chore, so most of the time I didn't actually mind. That doesn't mean it wasn't a challenge however- we had two dogs and two cats upstairs with us, constantly shedding hair, plus my girlfriend who is like a tornado on the weekends. She likes to collect her things in what we refer to as "chaos piles", and anything within ten feet of one is in danger of getting sucked into the vortex, to disappear for days or weeks until I have time to go in and put things away. So while cleaning that place was fun, it wasn't easy, and sometimes it would get nasty if I was sick or busy or just plain tired for a couple of days in a row.

Then, in the span of a week, the whole situation changed. She interviewed and got an offer a week before the school year was going to start and we found ourselves scrambling, trying to find someplace to live in a state neither of us had ever even directly visited, in a small town with nothing posted online. We ended up borrowing the family RV and living at a campground for the first month while we looked for a place to rent via word of mouth. We took the dogs with us but had to leave the cats in the care of the in-laws for lack of space.

I have to admit I was skeptical of the whole RV thing at first. After all, the last experience I had had with an RV was camping on the beach with grandparents when I was little in a very cramped, old and only partially functional one (if I remember correctly, the shower didn't work at all). But this thing was pretty fancy, with a separate bedroom, a pretty nice little kitchen and comfortable furniture. And I came to appreciate the lack of space- I got so much more art and relaxing done, simply because I had hardly anything I was supposed to keep clean. Because of the close quarters I got to know my girlfriend's dog a lot better and we really developed a bond. The dogs also liked the campground because there was always so much to smell, and walks were positive challenges for both of them because of other dogs and children. I gained so much confidence walking them there. It was so easy to just go outside with only three stairs instead of a whole flight in my way.

It was pretty interesting to watch our neighbors come and go, even after just a night sometimes. I thought having so many people parked so close would be harrowing, but instead it was just fun to watch their interactions. Everyone was really relaxed for the most part- after all, they were on vacation- and just having a good time. There were a couple of boisterous weekends around Labor Day that were a bit much, but expected. Once I even saw an RV hotel. o.O I didn't even know those existed. It was like a bus and had a bus full of people inside it.

I also really liked having a ridiculously tiny kitchen. I didn't have to walk to get to anything, lol- you just reach up and there it is. And I loved the fact that we could easily open the place up- it was mostly windows- and we were practically outside. In August the weather was right up my alley, even though in September it got a tad chilly sometimes, but the RV's air conitioning and heating worked really well and quickly. Another advantage to small living spaces.

Even so, we were all getting ready for a change when the time came to move out. The weather was turning chilly and the campground was going to close for the year by the time we had arranged to rent our house. The dogs played victory fetch in our new large living room and celebrated having a yard all their own to claim. We humans were excited by the prospect of having the ability to actually fit a whole meal's worth of pots on the stove at once. A couple of months after we moved in, my in-laws came to visit and brought the cats with them, so our family was reunited. And I do like our house. Sometimes, though, I miss the RV (like when the entire house needs vacuuming XD), and I would live in one again without hesitation.

Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere, USA

I may have said when we were living in Wisconsin that we were living in the middle of nowhere. At the time, compared to my hometown of Houston, I was right. There were several sizable towns nearby, but my inlaws' house was in the middle of farm fields on a big slab of land. In Houston, going around the block was the shortest walk I would take with my dog, while in Wisconsin it meant my girlfriend taking the dogs out for hardcore exercise (a distance of over 3 miles, which would take nearly two hours for them to walk). It took quite a bit of driving to get to any form of civilization and there were days when you might see ten cars on the way. In Houston there's traffic getting out of the driveway, and I could walk to three separate shopping centers if I had the energy.

That was all before we moved to Iowa. No offense meant to the state or its people, but it seriously must be one of the least populated states. This place defines "the middle of nowhere". Some things about this are awesome. For example, there are way more small businesses here, run by families rather than huge faceless corporations (with Walmart as the main exception). The local pharmacy isn't a chain store, the grocery store is employee owned, and there are lots of cool little thrift, antique and gift shops around, including a little coop. There's also a cool little main street, like many small Midwestern towns have, with the old architecture and so forth. The downside is that there's a lot you can't get within two hours of here (the nearest city is about that far away). Our big dog is allergic to most grains, and there is literally no grain-free dog food being sold within a hundred miles; we have to order it online. Now that it's winter, there are fewer than ten vegetables at the grocery store, and most of them are usually sad-looking. We're lucky if we can find three that are fresh every time we go and we're starting to get tired of the same ones. Whole Foods? What's Whole Foods?? This also means no sushi for me; I doubt the people here have even tried sushi, and they're all blindingly white anyway, so not exactly about to start a sushi restaurant.

That's another thing; I thought Wisconsin had a lack of racial diversity. My girl had her kids (the high schoolers she's teaching English for) make video projects about themselves at the beginning of the year, and I watched them with her to help her grade them. Seriously, these kids all look the same. They all have exactly the same skin tone and their hair comes in two colors. o.O I was getting them all confused within five minutes. But having grown up in a city where whites are the minority number-wise, it doesn't surprise me that it's difficult to understand such a white town. There's exactly one Asian girl, and she's half. My girlfriend is also finding this a little bit trying at times. She's been teaching To Kill A Mockingbird, and the kids are mostly ignorant about racism and are sometimes actually racist. Most of them have never even met a black person. Luckily we're white ourselves so it isn't something that gets directly in our way.

Though I'm sure we're causing enough chatter among the townsfolk anyway, being lesbians. Like all small towns, everyone knows everyone else, and there seems to be a pretty conservative undercurrent. My girlfriend hears about it more working at the school. She hasn't come out to her kids (though her co-workers do know about us) so they don't hide their homophobic comments around her. Two of the other teachers are also a lesbian couple, though they're older than us, and the kids make all sorts of comments about them. Naturally, she tries to educate them about tolerance, but it's pretty clear that their parents are just as close-minded and are passing it all on to their kids. Fortunately, the principal and several of the other teachers are openly supportive of us and really nice about it, and our sexuality hasn't compromised her job in any way (her boss has said that he hopes she'll stay on next year, and be with them for a long time).

For the most part, we've met a lot of really nice people here. One thing I like about it is that there's a thriving art community. The landscape itself is beautiful no matter the time of year, so it's not surprising that so many painters and ceramicists live in the area. We've gone on several weekend outings to studios and seen some really terrific work, including teapots, stained glass and several varieties of landscape paintings. I've made a couple of friends, and even gotten a drawing lesson from a local painter. It's awesome talking to people who have the same passion as you do for something and can look at your work with fresh eyes.

Right now it's a classic winter landscape outside with the snow building itself up. I'm having a lot less trouble adjusting to the cold weather this year because my body was allowed to adjust gradually throughout the fall. This place is beautiful, and we enjoy having our own place, and getting some income that isn't from parents, though we are still relying on them, too. We have a neat little house that is (more or less) functioning now (that's another story), we have our cats with us and our dogs, we have each other.

How Many Narcoleptics Does It Take To Do Interior Decorating?

Hi again! It's been ages, I know. But before I launch into The Life Summary Of Stuff, I feel like I should explain the title.

You'd think I learned from the whole lightbulb experience, but what can we say. My girlfriend (now fiancee) and I have a rented house now, and me being my artistic self, I always want it to look interestingly decorated. Her being her, she gets tired of having the furniture the same all the time and has tons of fun finding new ways to rearrange everything as often as possible, which then gets me rearranging everything on the walls to match.

Most of the time I manage just fine with tacks: I have unframed paintings on canvases that can just sit on them, and lots of dreamcatchers that tacks are perfect for. But every so often I do have something more complicated than that.

And so, I find myself precariously perched on a stool and an armchair, swaying dangerously, trying to hold up a framed drawing to the wall to see where I should put in the nail. Of course it's the kind of frame that has a little notch in the middle of the back that you are expected to (somehow) fit over a nail in exactly the right way so that the thing doesn't fall off on you. I figure out where I need to put in the nail, which I have ready in an attempt to only have to get up on the stool once (a somewhat dangerous operation in which I have to arrange feet and weight properly), so I go ahead and put it in. Now somewhat tired from holding up a hammer over my head, I sit that down and get the frame. I hold it over my head, which is difficult because it's heavy, and attempt to peer into the space between it and the wall in order to carefully slide the slot over it, which is pretty hard without depth perception- I can't tell where anything is unless it's right in line with the angle I'm looking at it. I try this about ten separate times, only to have the frame slide off each time. By now my arm hurts. Then it occurs to me that I probably nailed the nail in too far so it doesn't catch on the frame like it's supposed to, so I pull it out more and keep trying. Several minutes later I realize the nail itself is too small- it isn't going to stick out far enough. So I get down (now exhausted and sore) and go get a bigger nail.

This time it works as soon as I get the nail in, fortunately, because it's all I can do to hold up the hammer and the painting each one more time. Sometimes I can be pretty silly about wanting to finish something in one sitting...

So the answer is, one Narcoleptic, but you'd think she'd learn to take a nap in the middle.

Well, a lot has happened since I was here last. My girlfriend got hired for a part-time high school teaching post in middle of nowhere, Iowa. She drove out on a Thursday (it was seven hours away), got interviewed on Friday, was given the offer at the interview, which she accepted, then drove back that afternoon, knowing she was starting a week later. And then insanity ensued, eventually ending up with us here the day before she was to start inservice days, in a borrowed RV with our two dogs, living at a campground until we could locate someplace to rent.

Several months later, it's all settled down, just like the snow, which is currently blanketing everything and looking spectacular. Part of my reason for leaving this blog was that I ran out of stories for the time, but now I have a whole bunch lined up again. So I'm not going to spoil them all in one post. :D I'm doing fine, though, better in some ways then others. Overall life is good.

Stay tuned... XD

My (ex-)Neurologist Is a Jerkface

So, like I said, I got an appointment with a new neurologist for August. My girlfriend, being awesome and helpful, agreed to call my old neurologist's office and tell them, plus find out how we could get my records- we agreed we want our own copy in addition to giving them to the new doctor. So several weeks ago, she did this for me. The receptionist was helpful and wrote it all in my file, but told us that I would have to come in person to pick up the records, which I was halfway expecting. We asked if my mom could come in and get them (since she is, you know, in the right state and we aren't), and we were told that she couldn't since I'm over 18. Several weeks later we were going to fly down to get my car and more of my stuff and to visit anyway, so we figured we could come get the records then.

So the several weeks passed. Then, the night before we were leaving to fly down, I find a message on my phone saying that I need to schedule an appointment with him. I was like, no way in hell, thank you very much. I have good reasons to be moving on. When I told my mom about it she got really annoyed. Apparently family members can pick up medical records if they have a signed note, and she volunteered so I wouldn't have to go to his office again. We were also angry because it seemed that he wasn't going to renew my prescriptions, which I just needed for one more month before my appointment with the new doctor. But once it became clear that I wasn't going to come in to be bullied by him again, he approved my prescriptions after all. Which is a good thing because most of the point in going to the new neurologist is to get off of Xyrem safely. Doctors... can't live with 'em...

Meanwhile, we had a good but exhausting visit to my hometown, and then a very long drive back up here. We've mostly recovered and I'm feeling much more moved in. :) I'm hitting new lows in energy level, but what's new. I just hope the neurologist I'm seeing in August is an improvement over the last one. (Not hard to do.)

Creepy Nights

I've officially started having nightmares again... I think it's three nights in a row now. At least there has only been one each night so far. I can remember a time when it was every night, all night, and I'm hoping it won't come to that.

I was in one of the upstairs bedrooms of where I'm living now, and the layout was more or less accurate (not a good sign). I couldn't sleep, so I got up and was walking around the room. I started to get scared because the other bedroom (on the other side of the bathroom) was pitch black and I kept hearing creepy noises. Eventually I went in the bathroom to peer in the other room, and saw minotaurs and a werewolf with glowing red eyes, beckoning me. I ran back into our room, totally freaked out. The creatures followed me and stood in the bathroom, staring. I wanted my girlfriend to wake up and reassure me, but she was so asleep that shaking her didn't work.

In another, I was in the same upstairs, only our bedroom was huge- three or four times the size it really is- so that my lamp didn't even begin to reach the corners. Again, I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. I was extremely creeped out because I kept seeing twisted monsters and rotting dead things in the corners, all staring at me. I figured I was hallucinating, so I went into the bathroom (now the one from our college apartment) and started splashing water on my face. It didn't really help- I was still seeing creepy things twitching and moving around every time I passed a patch of darkness. So I hurried back to bed, with my eyelids trying to close the whole way. I sat up in bed and just waited, and turned on the overhead light. After awhile my girlfriend woke up and I talked to her for a minute. Then she got up and started moving around and put on some really creepy music. I asked her to turn it off because it was making me more freaked out, but she didn't seem to hear me. Then our other college roommate was there, talking about how awesome the music was (which is funny, because she hates creepy music ten times more than I do). Eventually they took it downstairs and I tried to go back to sleep, but I could still hear the music a little because the room suddenly had a balcony over the living room.

And then last night it was tornados. For some reason I've always had lots of tornado dreams. This time I was at my grandparents' house, only of course it was suddenly three stories instead of one and had sliding glass doors, because that makes sense, and there were stairs everywhere. I basically spent the entire dream trying to corral our two dogs into a safe downstairs bedroom as multiple tornados came within inches of various parts of the house without actually doing anything. The dogs were constantly getting away from me and ending up in the backyard, or next to windows with a tornado on the other side of them, or dancing circles around me as I got more and more exhausted trying to capture them. Or the room I was taking them would suddenly sprout glass doors or giant windows, and I would get really scared that it wasn't safe, and suddenly there would be three tornados outside coming closer. Meanwhile my grandparents and girlfriend were going on like we weren't all about to be torn to pieces, standing around chatting or making lunch, lol.

Unfortunately Familiar

And the Xyrem Not Really Working Anymore Saga continues.

Four years ago I got diagnosed with Narcolepsy and put on Xyrem, and it fixed pretty much everything for me. It did what it's supposed to and knocked me out every night, and I got more and more awake as the dose was slowly raised. I felt like I got to experience life again for the first time in six years- colors were brighter, I could see in 3D again, my sense of taste was back. It seemed like a miracle, which it was really. And it continued to work for three years, with the occasional dose changes and eventually adding Remeron. But I guess my body is finally saying no. About a year ago I started a steady drop in energy level that resulted in serious life changes for me. And as that's been happening, once-familiar symptoms are putting in an appearance. My dreams are getting steadily more disturbing. I keep waking up in the night more and more and not being able to go back to sleep, despite feeling extremely drugged from the Xyrem. Random hallucinations have been punctuating my dreams; it was happening maybe a few times a year, and now it's multiple times a month. My mind's eye is getting much busier during the day, distracting me with full-fledged dreams when I'm trying to do something else, like form coherent sentences when talking to people. Meanwhile, my stomach is getting more annoyed with the Xyrem again- I've been nauseated and anxious in the mornings, and that used to just happen on higher doses of Xyrem.

Even so, I've been reluctant to get off of it. I know it's still working a little bit and honestly, I'm afraid. I remember what life was like the summer before I was diagnosed. In a lot of ways my living situation is vastly improved- I have really supportive people who I'm living with who want to help me and respect my desire to be distant from doctors. No one is expecting me to be the next amazing careerperson. I'm sleeping next to someone else now, which also helps- waking up in pure terror with no one there was horrible. But on the other hand, I know what my brain can throw at me, and I'm not sure I'm ready. But maybe I never will be, and at least my blog will get more interesting, lol.

So I've decided it's time to get off of Xyrem. My girlfriend's mom helped me out by finding a sleep neurologist in the area and I've got an appointment for August. She and my girlfriend are planning on coming with me as moral support and backup. So we'll see how it goes. At least, once I'm off of it, I'll be quite a bit less worried about paying for it. So in a way, the timing is nice. And my stomach will be doing a victory dance, I'm sure. We'll see how this plays out, and if I have to get on something else. I'm hoping to at least test life without drugs and see if I can do it. It's time to give my stomach a break.

Accidental Buddhist

It might have been coming to terms with Narcolepsy that did it, or maybe moving to the country. It might have been partly a result of living in Tokyo for ten months during a time when I was feeling very vulnerable and looking for a new direction. It might have been various books I read out of my girlfriend's library when I was trying to figure out how to deal with life away from my parents making me plan everything. But one thing is certain: it snuck up on me.

I started out stressed out about the future. Like, really stressed out-- how was I going to make it in the real world, being so tired I can't see straight? How was I going to afford health insurance and my medication? Was I ever going to move out of my parents' house? During that time, part of me was annoyed at how stressed out I was. I would yell at my dog and feel terrible, but if I didn't yell it got pent up. I was also an anxious mess in a lot of ways, because there were no easy answers to my questions. I was more or less trapped. I didn't know what to do with myself. Then I found that my parents leaving for two weeks allowed me to relax a bit, and it felt right. I tried to carry it over to when they returned, but it was impossible. The tv was always blaring; someone was always complaining about work. The city outside was so loud that being in our tiny yard wasn't restful. Everything was too fast-paced for me and so even running errands was something that was supposed to be rushed. Only then, I would be back home again, still with nowhere to escape the tension.

I did find one place I could go to relax: I would take my dog to the park. The main areas were usually crowded and I'd end up having to talk to people, but there was a Japanese garden that had quiet benches where my dog and I could sit and soak up the trees and grass and sunshine. It was heavenly, but I had to drive there, so by the time we got home again I was a tense mess. There was nowhere like that within walking distance of my house.

Then I had an incredibly huge stroke of luck and found out that my best friend was, in fact, in love with me, too. So I left that place and came here, to the middle of nowhere, to live with my girlfriend and her parents. This place is not perfect, of course. It gets very cold here and there are stairs between me and the dogs and the outside world. But it was this place that taught me how to be still and quiet and relaxed. Here, I can step outside and come across no one who I don't know well- no pressure. The background noise is the sound of birds, ground squirrels, and horses, plus very distant traffic. Here you can really listen. It's the perfect place for meditating- though it took me awhile to figure out that's what I was doing.

Living here, life is determined by what the animals need- our dogs, cats, horses and donkey have various chores attached to them that happen throughout the day. Animals live firmly in the present and it rubs off on you as you care for them. It certainly rubbed off on me. So I ended up not planning my day out. Instead, I wait and see how I feel and what needs to be done, and then I do what feels right. I went from the "tomorrow at 2 PM" mentality to the "maybe we'll do it on Thursday" mentality, if that makes sense. And as I became more firmly rooted in the present, the past and future began to bother me less. I started to recognize their importance without attaching so much fear to them. I started to think calmly about what needed to happen that specific day instead of freaking out about how I'm going to be feeling in ten years. I'm still slowly thinking over what I'm going to do about health insurance when I'm no longer covered by my parents, but it's far enough away that I'm not afraid when I think about it- I'm just calm and thoughtful and able to think clearly.

And this is how I ended up accidentally a Buddhist.

Not Moving After All

After lots and lots of fanagling, endless planning and unplanning, and generally trying to make things work, we've realized the best thing for us to do is to put off moving for awhile. On the one hand, this made us both feel much better immediately. We really do need more time and more money before moving becomes practical. My girlfriend went from tense and worried to smiling and laughing within about ten minutes of making the decision, which is really, really good to see. We had been worrying over this problem for over a week since finding out that we were mistaken about how much my parents are willing to help us financially, and it was taking a toll on both of us. I also relaxed quite a bit. And I should mention that it was mostly my idea that maybe we should stay here before I go on. After all, I do like it here. I enjoy the lack of people in the middle of nowhere. I adore having all of our animals, especially the horses, closeby. I have a wonderful relationship with my future mother-in-law; I can actually talk to her about things that make sense to both of us, because mentally we're from the same planet (and I can't say the same about my own parents). She pays attention to us and helps out in a way that isn't at all intrusive. I love the property that we have out here, with a creek for my dachshund to get muddy in, trees to climb, fields to stroll in and explore with our big dog. And the countryside around here is beautiful.

But it has its problems, too, like any place. It's difficult to get good fruit, even after winter is over. It's still a bit chilly for me and I have to wear layers, which I hate. There might end up being one month of the year when I'm comfortable outside without confining my body in sweatshirts and feeling mummified by fabric. The house has stairs, which are getting harder for me to deal with, and the dogs downstairs don't get along with ours, making everything really complicated when trying to put them outside. And intellectually I do know there will be a few cons to any place we ever live, especially with my physical problems. But I did have my hopes up. I was so excited to be going home, to take my girlfriend (who means everything to me) back to where I grew up. I'm incredibly homesick, which is something that I didn't figure out until I realized that we weren't going there this summer. I went from stressed out to really depressed in that same ten minutes.

Part of it is that I miss my family and friends there. But mostly I miss the place. When I'm there, I feel so connected to the land. I'm not sure how to describe what I mean without sounding a little crazy. It's like there are roots growing down out of my shoes, through the asphalt, down into the earth. Every species of wildflower feels like a part of me; every azalea bush, magnolia tree, taloe, oak. The ocean is always there in the back of my mind, comforting me, whether or not I ever find time or means to go to the beach. Even the power lines and pigeons and smog are old friends. The people are my people; they have my accent and various amounts of Spanish and skin of many different colors. These are the things I miss the most— daily life things, existence things.

We are still planning to live there at some point. Maybe in December, if we can afford it, missing most of the winter here. And I'm hoping we can visit this summer for a week or two. In the meantime I'm going to try to wrench myself away from thinking about what might have been and try to go back to enjoying living here. But it does smart a little.

Parental Misunderstandings

A month ago exactly, we flew down to my hometown to visit my parents, go to a job fair in the hopes of improving my girlfriend's chances of getting a full-time teaching position, and to look at a promising apartment. The trip went really well. My parents were extremely supportive about our back-up plan for my girlfriend to work part time jobs, like substitute teaching or teaching karate, if she doesn't get hired to one of the positions she applied to. My mom went so far as to say they could help us with rent until the school year started and we had income. Feeling pretty good about things as a result of my parents being so supportive, we went ahead and agreed to go for the apartment. My mom wanted to pay our deposit and first month's rent because her dad did that for her when she first moved out, and we figured we were set and asked her to go ahead and sent them the deposit. We sent in our application shortly thereafter and proceeded to get really excited because we really, really like that apartment.

Last week I got an email from my mom saying that they were really worried about us being able to afford the apartment. I got pretty alarmed because I know my parents and when they say they're worried about something it generally means that they're really freaking out, and that usually doesn't bode well. So we talked to them on skype over the weekend. My dad kept talking about it like we were being irresponsible for moving in before we would be sure my girlfriend will have a job, and that part-time work wasn't good enough as back up. We explained everything again, exactly the same way we had before. Our plans were exactly the same as a month ago, when my parents seemed to like them, only now they seemed to disapprove. It was especially frightening because my dad seemed to have switched from offering to help us by allowing us to take on our own expenses slowly one thing at a time as we can afford them, to wanting us to be completely on our own as soon as we move. Our plan to take the apartment was dependent on that help- otherwise we wouldn't have said we would take it.

Now we're very confused and unsure what to do. We thought we had a plan that everyone had agreed on, and we thought we had financial support that we may not have after all. We don't want to give up our apartment if there's any chance we'll be able to afford it, but my parents are trying hard to convince us to move back into their house, which is insane. There's no way we would fit and it has twice the stairs as even this house, plus a list of about ten other reasons why there's no way it would work. Our conversation on Saturday ended in a kind of stalemate because we were caught completely off-guard. Now I'm thinking I'd better call them this week and clarify exactly what help they are willing to give us so we can figure out what on earth we're going to do. The problem is that I'm kind of chickening out. I want to know what happened, but I don't want to sound like I'm accusing them of flip-flopping or misleading us. I'm thinking I'll take the angle of we totally misunderstood and that's why we thought everything was fine. But it will be challenging not to sound like an especially cushy rug has been ripped out from under me, leaving me incredibly confused.

Part of me wonders if we did just misunderstand, or if my parents thought that my girlfriend has money saved up, or if they thought I meant moral support and not financial help. It's a very dicey situation and I'm worried about misstepping and making them angry. I love them and I don't want that, but at the same time I'm feeling a little betrayed. It would be different if I hadn't perceived, from things they said, that they were going to help us a lot. I mean, it's not like when I've thought about moving out in the past I expected them to pay all of my bills. But to offer help and then accuse us of being irresponsible... that kind of hurts.

On top of all of that, I'm not sure what we'll do if they are going to cut us loose as soon as we move. We don't have any money saved up; my girlfriend's student teaching takes up all of her time and doesn't pay her anything, and she's using a family fund to pay for her teaching license. My parents are paying for our food and my dachshund's needs and my medication. Most of my girlfriend's money from previous part-time jobs has been used up by now (a lot of it on necessities for her animals- it isn't like she's wasting it). I'm getting more exhausted every week and have completely given up driving because it's dangerous. I have the energy for art occasionally, but not in a way that could result in any kind of steady income, especially between now and July, when we were planning to move. Maybe I could help out if I get feeling better later this year, which is possible, but we can't count on that.

So I really need to call them and talk to them. I may put it off a little bit because I'm not sure how to approach this without making them angry or more worried (which is just as bad). We'll see what happens, but the whole thing is giving me one heck of a headache.

Corpse Ghost New Apartment Foster Family

It's been awhile since the last time I didn't have some sort of vivid dream interrupting my sleep, but last night was crazy.

The first one was a nightmare. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before now that dead bodies, especially rotting ones, seriously freak me out- it's like some bizarre phobia I have. In this dream I was still living with my parents, indefinitely, with no hope of moving out, which was an awful feeling I had for the year and a half after college. That feeling made the dream that much worse. So my parents had just moved into a different new house and I had come with them. It was a bit of an improvement- there was more space for me and my room had better lighting. Everything was kind of weird though. The walls were all painted red and had East Asian style details- including a really cool dragon statue attached to the wall between two rooms. The layout was very confusing and didn't make sense, so I kept getting lost even though it was a small house. In the middle of it there was a tiny courtyard with a young tree and a small patch of grass where my dachshund could do his business. At first I really like it out there- a small enclosed bit of the outdoors where I could be outside without being in public. I started spending more and more time out there and thinking this house really wasn't so bad. That's when the visions started- it felt exactly how it does when I'm hallucinating while asleep (which I'm sure I was), only inside the dream it would happen when I was awake and I would have to stop and wait for it to finish before I could see anything again. The flashes of images would come as I entered the courtyard. I started to get really scared because I realized a ghost was sending me memories and I suspected there was a body buried in the courtyard. The patch of grassy area was exactly the right size, and my dog liked to sniff it a lot- it was hard to get him to leave. This totally freaked me out because of my phobia. I started to avoid the courtyard and take my dog to a park instead. This worked for awhile until he started to dig tunnels. I would turn my back for a second and he would disappear underground and it would take yelling to get him to come back out. It's kind of hilarious because the tunnels were perfectly round, as if made by a giant worm, even though it was a dog supposedly digging them. Meanwhile, as the visions started getting stronger, my fears were confirmed- the ghost wanted me to dig up the body so that its murderer could be found, and I kept telling it that I couldn't because I was terrified. It started to get angrier and angrier and my terror got overpowering. I was afraid to let the dog go anywhere near the courtyard now that he was digging so much. It was getting harder to come up with excuses to my parents and they started to wonder what was going on. The dream ended with me trying to get ready to leave to go somewhere with my parents while having a vision showing me the rotting bones while I kept having to run outside and grab my dog because he had somehow escaped out there and was digging. I started to panic and that woke me up.

In the next dream I had, my girlfriend and I had just reached our new apartment with all of our stuff- in the dream we didn't have dogs- and were figuring out where to put our furniture. Our apartment had one room and was a really strange layout- there was a fireplace and chimney in the middle, and so many cabinets on the walls it was hard to figure out where to put furniture. We were really happy to be there and enjoying figuring it out though. I looked out the window at the view- it was really high up over a city at night- and it was amazing so I walked over to the sliding glass doors to see how the porch was. It was a tiny porch with really flimsy-looking railing. I made the mistake of looking down over it to discover we were about 100 floors up. I got serious vertigo and a stab of fear. That's what woke me up.

The last dream was interesting- I was a teenage boy (lol) who was meeting his foster parents for the first time. They were a really nice couple with a very strange house and really cool furniture. The man was big and gangly and bald, and really sweet. His wife was short and incredibly smart and had flowing reddish-brown hair. They were very welcoming and my thoughts (as the kid) were that this really might not be so bad. The house was really weird- there were windows (without glass) in the inside walls, including my bedroom, so even if I locked the door I didn't really have privacy- but neither did anybody else. The bathrooms were both really bizarre; one of them had a giant marble tub raised up in it, with a toilet literally hidden underneath a lid next to it. The other bathroom had two toilets and two sinks randomly without stalls or anything- just in the middle of the room. The main room of the house had random stairs everywhere and was a crazy shape- the walls were at weird angles and were varying sizes. The place was filled with ornately carved furniture from all over the world. I spent awhile admiring everything. There was a glass case full of shiny little statues and a mobile made of origami cranes, several really old-looking round tables, and tons of chairs (no two were the same). I ate dinner with my new parents and several of their relatives and then went to bed watching the tv in my bedroom. That's when I woke up. What a night.

Totally Drained

What a crazy weekend. My girlfriend and I flew to my home state of Texas so she could go to a job fair for teachers there. I don't know if I've mentioned on here (since I've been neglecting my blog horribly) that we've decided to move there in July. We made that decision based on a number of things, including the fact that if we stayed up north for another winter I might freeze into a human popsicle, but also because she's ready for somewhere new and different to live. And my hometown has the advantage of lots of connections (I have a huge extended family), parental support, and lots of school districts for her to apply to. So far we've found one summer school and five full time job openings there and she's applied to all of them. We were a little worried about when we could start apartment hunting since we may not know if she's hired until the summer, until we looked things up and crunched some numbers and realized that actually she could support us by being a substitute teacher if she doesn't get any of the other jobs. We would still rather for sure be okay, however, so we went down for the job fair, figuring it might give her an edge on her first choice full time position.

We left on Friday and said goodbye to our cats, dogs and horses. My girlfriend's mom looked after them while we were gone. The trip there went fine and we got to catch up with my parents (who I hadn't seen since January). It was really, really good to see them. On Saturday my girlfriend went to the job fair, which was pretty intimidating but went well. Apparently it was packed with people. She left her resume with a bunch of schools, even though only one in that district was hiring for English, so if something opens up they might remember her.

Right after that we went to look at an apartment complex that we found online. It's affordable but really nice and has great outdoor spaces for the dogs- and us- to enjoy. We liked it a lot and found out they had the perfect apartment available. It's exactly the right size for us and the perfect layout- it even has a well-lit space for my art desk. Plus it's on the ground floor, which was important because stairs are exhausting for me. They only allow two pets, which at first made me unhappy. But my girlfriend made the point that our cats could stay with her mom until our third college roommate could take them. She's their favorite person on the planet, and loves cats more than anything. So I think it will work out. The more I think about it, the more I realize that being in charge of two cats and two dogs during the day has been pretty exhausting. As much as I love them, I think our friend could take better care of our cats, leaving me with more energy to enjoy being with the dogs. The apartment has been put on hold for us and we're filling out the application tonight. It's very exciting and takes a load of my mind that we have someplace to live lined up.

After that we went and visited one of my high school friends briefly, then went out to dinner with my parents. By the time we got back to their house we were both flattened. Even though I slept in during the job fair, I still way overdid it on Saturday. But it was worth it for how much we got to do and it was our only day there after all.

On Sunday I woke up with no energy whatsoever. My mom drove us to the airport in the morning. I spent the wait for our flight in a total daze, and my girlfriend wasn't any better off- she had eaten something at the restaurant that bothered her stomach and felt nasty the whole way home. Even after sitting on the plane and napping for most of the three hour flight, I was so tired I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other when we got off the plane. Then, to make things even better, we got lost looking for the train. It took most of a Starbucks tea to wake me up enough just to walk. Eventually we found the train. I slept. We got on a bus to the parking lot where our car was. When we finally reached it we still had over another hour of driving to do to get to the middle of nowhere where we live. My girlfriend needed caffeine in order to drive because she was so tired. We made it back after a stop at the grocery store (since we had no food at home). The dogs were in the front yard and very happy to see us. We went to bed early.

Yesterday I didn't feel any better. I was so tired I couldn't do any cleaning- I just read a book all day, or slept. I didn't feel up to doing the stairs, but my girlfriend's mom helped me by putting the dogs outside. I fell asleep on the table several times. The cats didn't mind; they were very clingy because they were happy I was back. I stayed upstairs all day.

Today I'm definitely still recovering. I've been able to do some cleaning, though, and I haven't been falling asleep when I'm concentrating on staying awake. I can do the stairs again, just not quite as much as usual. I'm looking forward to living somewhere without stairs. Hopefully I'll be back to my normal amount of lack of energy tomorrow.

Vampire Attack Technology Fair

I've been dreaming a lot lately, but it's been pretty fragmented. Most of the dreams I've had the past couple of weeks could be reduced to one or two lines. But last night was different- back to the usual intense, vivid experience.

I've been reading a fantasy novel about vampires sneaking up on people, so my first dream isn't really a surprise. It started out really fun, actually- I was one of the vampires and I had cool powers and I was running around feeding on people. I could see perfectly in the dark, suddenly appear or disappear and run really fast. I was also pretty high-ranking, so I had a couple other vampires under my command. I could manipulate them any way I wanted. That part was entertaining because I knew I was dreaming, so I knew I wasn't actually hurting anyone. Then I woke up from that dream. I was in the bedroom of my old house- the one I grew up in and where most of my nightmares take place. I sat up in my bed, thinking about the cool dream I just had. Suddenly I realized my leg hurt really, really bad and felt wet. It was literally throbbing with pain. I pulled off my pajama pants and looked. Right in the inside of my thigh was two round holes, bleeding profusely. The blood was intensely vivid red. It hurt so bad and I was terrified. I knew vampires didn't exist and I had only been dreaming, so I concluded that someone had seen me reading a novel about vampires and decided to sneak into my room and stab me while I was asleep (much more plausible, right?). So I started peering out my large windows, trying to make sure no one was out there, waiting for me to go to sleep again. I couldn't see anything, so I tried closing the blinds so they at least wouldn't be able to see me. Of course it wasn't working and I was having a hard time with my vision all of a sudden. I groped around trying to make sure I was still alone in the room, lashing out if I saw movement in case someone was about to grab me. Evidently I was the only one in the house, so I couldn't call for help. I got very scared until my neck froze up and struggling to move it woke me up into reality.

After being held for awhile and another dose of Xyrem, I did get back to sleep. This time I had a much more entertaining and fun dream. I was at some sort of technology fair where people were playing with trampolines that were video games. You would bounce and push different parts of the trampoline with your feet and hands and it would light up in different colors. Some trampolines had maps on them and you could bounce from place to place to score points. Many of my friends and relatives were there, from my dad to high school friends to people I barely knew in college. I spent most of the time playing with the games and being surprisingly not self conscious for being in so large a crowd. After that we went to a cafeteria for lunch and I realized I didn't have any food with me. Luckily I managed to locate quesadillas that happened to be gluten-free and a sandwich I could take the bread off of and just eat the inside. In real life contamination issues probably would have gotten me, but in the dream it turned out fine and I was proud of myself for being so social and adaptable. And I want one of those trampolines lol.

Grocery Store Fiasco

I had a very amusing dream last night. Not amusing in a ha-ha-funny kind of way; more like amusing in an oh-that-just-figures kind of way.

I had just arrived at one of the local grocery stores after being in a class apparently, and I was completely exhausted. I felt like I was going to fall over, so I was holding onto the cart for dear life. As I grabbed the few things I had come to get, my eyelids kept closing and then I would wake up suddenly, still clutching the cart, with no idea how much time had passed or what I had been doing. This was happening more and more and I was beginning to feel panicked, so I took my cart over to check out, figuring I'd better just get home. I put my purchases on the belt and was looking at them. I blinked and examined a box of tea more closely to find that it was clearly labeled "soy tea" (I'm sensitive to gluten and soy and can't eat them in any amount without feeling awful). I shrugged and figured my girlfriend would drink it, but then I noticed that it had "now with meat!!" written on the front (my girlfriend is a vegetarian). So I told the cashier that I didn't want the tea and she took it out for me. I looked back at the things I was buying and suddenly spotted some chicken kabobs that were clearly breaded. I took those out and examined everything else, but kept finding things neither of us could eat. Then after awhile it was time to pay, and the total was $10.45 (cheap haha). I pulled out my wallet but couldn't find my card- I was having a really hard time focusing and every time I dug in there things changed around and I found somewhere else to check, but it wasn't anywhere. So I got out my cash- I had two tens and two ones, and my mind was moving so slowly that I couldn't figure out what to give the cashier. By now I was explaining to her how tired I was and that I was sorry this was taking so long and generally feeling like a total moron. She was pretty nice about it, but I could see that she thought I was really strange. I gave her the two ones, but then realized that wasn't it, so I just handed her all of my cash and she gave me change. Then I ran out of there.

There was a time jump and I was at the vet's office instead of going home. I was still so exhausted I was having trouble walking straight and reading the signs telling me where to go. The place looked way more like a hospital than a vet's office- it was huge. Eventually I found where my girlfriend was with our dachshund. The vet was saying they needed to do an x-ray of his liver, but apparently this involved poking a scope around inside it to feel the lump that was next to it better. It literally made no sense and I was just really worried about my dog. I woke up before anything else happened and grossed out my girlfriend with the meat-and-soy tea thing, hahaha.

Soapy Arm Neon Barn Night Picnic

I've intentionally slept in for a couple of days in a row now. On Monday this worked really well and I felt great- way more refreshed than if I'd gotten up when I normally do. I think I needed the extra sleep after having a busy day on Sunday, plus recovering from being sick last week. So I figured I'd try it again today. Well, it didn't exactly go as I was hoping. I basically just ended up dreaming like crazy.

In one dream, I was in my grandparents' house using their bathtub (only it was the one that was there when I was little- they've since remodeled). I had hurt my arm- I couldn't move it and it hurt, so I'm assuming I had broken it- riding my bicycle the wrong direction down a busy street. As I recalled this, the dream took me there, and I dreamed about dodging cars and looking for someone I was supposed to be following, for some reason into oncoming traffic. Suddenly I jerked back into the bathtub, where I was sitting in extremely soapy water while fully clothed, trying to clean my broken arm for some reason. It was really slimy soap and I could feel it soaked through my jeans. I dipped my arm into it and slipped- I fell forward suddenly and got a face-full of soap. I shut my eyes but it went in my nose and mouth and I couldn't breathe for a minute. I sat up carefully and tried to rinse off my face, but I was using my really soapy hands so I just made it worse instead. Then I fell forward again. I don't remember anything else from that one. I could literally feel the sliminess and wetness of the soapy water, though.

Another dream had me visiting various cousins who I haven't seen in awhile. One of them was living in this gigantic house with a crazy barn in the yard. The barn was like a house by itself- completely finished on the inside and painted in totally crazy neon colors. The rooms/stalls were huge and my cousin was telling me that she was planning on raising massive numbers of cats in them. There wasn't any furniture and so everything we said echoed loudly. I don't remember much more about that dream except that I was telling another cousin about some memories that I had, only they were actually dreams I've had before- some of them years ago. In the dream I was convinced they had been real. In a way it was cool because there were several I hadn't thought about in years.

In my last dream I was driving around with my girlfriend through a dark wooded area on a little road at night. We were on a date and had brought a picnic and were looking for someplace to set it up. We kept passing other couples sitting in all of the good spots, some of them up in trees. Eventually we ended up at a house that was on the side of the road- it looked like it belonged in a suburb, not the middle of the woods, and it had a floodlight that lit it and the driveway with a stark yellowish light. She wanted to go up and knock to see if we could have our picnic on the owner's land, but I was worried and didn't want to. She knocked and no one was there, so instead we found a patch of moonlight down the road and ate our picnic in the car.

Itching to Clean

Well, the double cold ended up looking more like the flu- we were both feeling pretty awful for four days each. My girlfriend didn't go back to work until yesterday (she was still recovering even then) and I was still feeling really miserable. Today was my last day of feeling sick I think, or at least the first day I've really felt like I was starting to recover. Mostly today I was just wiped out. I thought I was exhausted before, but getting sick has given me a new perspective on things. I didn't venture down the stairs for several days, and when I did it this morning- to take Noodle outside to go to the bathroom- it completely flattened me. By the afternoon I felt better, and then the challenge was to avoid doing too much. With both of us out of commission since last weekend started, and with four pets up here in addition to us, things have gotten pretty filthy. My girlfriend recovered first, but she's had a lot to do with work, tutoring and pets; besides that she's really not the cleaning type. Now, my girlfriend and I are agreed on one thing- I'm a little bit crazy. I love cleaning. It's not that I'm obsessive about it being clean all the time or something, though if I'm honest with myself I may have inherited a little of that from my dad (who is a total neatfreak). It's more just something that gives me satisfaction, that I enjoy doing and that I think is fun. Yes, I think sweeping is really entertaining, lol. So today it was pretty difficult to keep myself in check. There's a nice layer of fur on the floor everywhere and the surfaces have food gunk or crumbs on them from having our food near us. Things- like books, DVDs, and empty kleenex boxes, have been migrating around the upstairs. I even found an uneaten clementine in a bag somewhere, forgotten because we didn't bring it when we went into the other room a couple days ago. So I let myself move a few things around and sweep a tiny bit in the worst room. I did a few dishes and cleaned a couple of counters and felt much better about life. I was careful, though, and tired quickly as expected. I think I'll end up doing a lot tomorrow- hopefully feeling even better than I did today- and I can start to get caught up. Did I mention the laundry? We've got about six loads at this point, since we were sick when we usually do it.

And here's a dream I've been meaning to record. I got up in the night to take more Xyrem and go use the bathroom. I was at the house I grew up in, which for some reason didn't tip me off- I was convinced it was real life. I get to the bathroom to find that, once again, the toilet is obviously not working. I sigh and decide I'd better use the other bathroom, so I head in that direction. I reach out and open the door. Bright light shines on me and suddenly I see that there's this teenage girl standing on the inside of the door, looking straight at me with this huge smile on her face. I jump about a foot in the air since I wasn't expecting anyone, especially somebody I'd never seen before, to be in there. She starts laughing and I try to laugh it off but I'm pretty creeped out by the whole thing. Her grin is so big that it's stretching her face unnaturally. I figured out it was a dream at that point, and instead of searching for a bathroom I started trying to figure out how to wake up. I just wandered around the house hoping to snap out of it, figuring I would feel different if I actually woke up. Which I did after awhile, very confused about which house I was in, but also quite relieved.

The Double Cold

Last week my girlfriend had a series of epiphanies about herself and teaching and the difficulties she was having in the classroom, which resulted in her feeling much better about life by the time Friday came along. Friday was an inservice day, so she had to show up but didn't have to teach. Instead she spent the day in activities with other teachers, who kept offering her various kinds of sugary food. Neither of us eats much sugar these days- she cooks us super-healthy gluten-free, soy-free, vegetarian dishes every night. So we're both completely unused to sugar and react to it pretty strongly. She only took enough to be polite, but by the time she got home she was feeling pretty awful. That night she started to get a sore throat. We aren't sure if it was connected to the sugar or the walk we took that evening, or if she just caught it from students and would have gotten sick anyway.

She was feeling pretty bad on Saturday while we were running errands, and by the time we got back I had started to feel a little bit under the weather myself. Usually one of us is sick at a time, but by Sunday morning we were a very sad and stuffy couple of people. We've been basically stumbling around ever since, taking care of whatever is needed either together or one at a time, but mostly lying around trying not to get too bored. She stayed home today and I'm glad. Besides wanting her to feel better, it's nice to have company, even when the company is almost as stuffy and gunky as you are. We both have fevers, though mine is worse at this point. We figure she's almost done while I started a little later so I still have awhile of feeling nasty ahead of me. The poor dogs haven't had a walk in days and the place is getting a little gross since the cleaning one- me- has been out of commission. We were surviving on leftovers but tonight she'll have to come up with something. I've decided one at a time is much easier to deal with, even though it's admittedly kind of nice to not suffer alone.

Dog Wars

Life with four dogs in the house is definitely an adventure.

I know I've mentioned before that we have two dogs who live with us upstairs- a fluffy hotdog dog who moved in here with me (referred to in this post as Noodle) and a great big puppy who I've been referring to as Fang, who is generally big and goofy and was adopted by my girlfriend a couple of months ago. Noodle and Fang get along just fine, especially now that Noodle is over his fear issues and Fang is feeling more part of the family through our efforts of the past several weeks. If only there was only an upstairs to the house, but no, downstairs with my girlfriend's parents live no less than two more dogs: a massive but sweet-natured dog who weighs as much as I do (Hero) and a little, fuzzy teddy bear dog, his faithful Sidekick.

When Fang came to live in the house (before I did), my girlfriend and her mom tried (carefully) to introduce Fang to Hero. They met on leash a couple of times without too much drama, but then during the last attempt, ended up in a fight. No one was too physically damaged, fortunately. But ever since, Hero and Fang have not gotten along. No one wants another fight, so Hero and Sidekick have to be put in the back room anytime Fang needs to go outside (and therefore pass through the downstairs). It used to be just Hero who would be put away, until Sidekick tried to attack Fang seemingly unprovoked by anything other than the fact that he witnessed the earlier fight and wanted to support his Hero. So now both of them have to be lured into the back room with treats to be temporarily shut in. Any time Hero and Sidekick smell Fang being led through their downstairs territory, they let it be known what they think of the situation, as loudly as possible. As a matter of fact, Hero and Sidekick have been getting louder and louder in general since Fang came to live upstairs.

Another thing is that big dogs have a lot of energy, and gigantic puppies especially require a lot of walking. Fang came to my girlfriend (rescued from being tied out in a barn with only occasional food and water) completely untrained. She has a natural gift for getting animals to do what she wants, and has no trouble getting horses to listen to her, much less a naturally submissive dog. So he heels very well and is good on leash. The problem is that he's still a puppy, and he's big and strong and constantly wants to wrestle. Therefore, walking him is a physically demanding job. I haven't tried, but I'm pretty much positive it isn't something I should attempt. I learned my lesson during my very short-lived attempt to volunteer at my local shelter by walking the big dogs. I'm not very strong on a good day and run out of energy quickly. So this is why my girlfriend was the only one walking Fang since he got here a couple of months ago.

My girlfriend has carpal tunnel, which occasionally flares up at the least convenient times possible and renders her hands more or less useless. When she started her student teaching a few weeks ago, she was already having some problems which stress made ten times worse. It culminated in her staying home, completely drugged on pain medication, for two days last week. This was a bit difficult from the dog angle because poor Fang couldn't get any of his usual walks without my girlfriend's mom doing it for us. She doesn't have the same health problems I do, but hers also render her tired and weak a lot of the time, so it wasn't an arrangement that could last. We ended up pretty much convinced that we were going to have to find him a new home if walking him was too hard on my girlfriend's hands. We both got very sad about it because things were going so well with Noodle and Fang's relationship, plus Fang's relationship with me was getting stronger every day.

My girlfriend's mom got a good idea to try to come up with a way to walk the dogs without using hands. She got us a bungee cord, which didn't work, but we modified the idea. It took some fiddling, but we managed to rig a belt with two leashes so that my girlfriend can actually walk both Noodle and Fang at the same time without using her hands at all. She turns slightly to give corrections, and there is a dog on either side of her so that she can correct one without confusing the other. We were so relieved when we found a solution because both of us love Fang to death and didn't want to give him up.

So now the challenge we have is to try to smooth out the relationship between Fang and Hero, at least to the point of less barking and no more marking of territory (which Hero has done in the house since Fang moved in, more often at first but still occasionally now). Having watched a ton of Dog Whisperer episodes, I'm trying to get my girlfriend to walk Hero and Fang together because she's the natural leader of the household and I think that will help. She wants to work with Hero by himself first to remind him who's boss which is totally the first thing to do. I wish I could do it, being the one with time and functional hands, but I can't physically control a 60-pound dog on leash, much less one 60-pound dog and one that weighs just slightly less than I do, at the same time and when they may want to fight each other. So we're waiting until her hands recover a bit more. They are already a lot better this week- thanks to the belt contraption and me being her typist- so hopefully we can start working towards peace between the two packs of the house sometime soon.

Dreams and Drugs

Yeah, I've been officially neglecting my blog again, which is fine because I'm actually pretty busy and very happy at the moment. Plus I have plenty of new things to talk about when I do find the time.

My Narcolepsy has pretty much been the same as when I left my parents' house to come live with my girlfriend. Having someone next to me while I'm sleeping has been extremely comforting for me, but besides that I'm still dreaming a lot- like, constantly and very vividly. I had an interesting and kind of fun one last week in which I was this velociraptor who was staying in a motel, lol. It was a perfectly ordinary motel room, and apparently I was this really nice and gentlemanly male velociraptor who had been hired as a kind of guard by the guy who ran the motel. I was wandering around, waiting because I knew of a couple of younger and much less polite velociraptors who were going to come try to eat people who were staying there. I was warning people and encouraging them to stay inside until I had chased off the intruders. I was a little nervous, but did my best to reassure people. They were pretty nice to me and I managed to win them over with my good manners, hahaha. So eventually the other velociraptors showed up, and I totally scared them off really easily and then wondered why I had been so nervous.

Then, yesterday maybe, I woke up from this really weird dream in which I had been watching a series of bad tv movies, lol. Of course I was halfway watching them and complaining about how bad the script was and halfway actually in them, wandering around or being the main character. The last movie is the one I really remember- it started with a teenager with a backpack, wandering towards a city following this ditch along a highway. And then it cut to this really bizarre place where I was wandering. It was a tunnel that was partially underwater, and the walls were made of totem poles that were carved and painted as faces with red, white and black paint. The faces were moving and contorting on their own, and I knew that they were all actually my own people just pretending to be totem poles and that I could turn into one and blend in if I wanted to. Then I saw the teenage boy with the backpack coming towards me, where there was a bench. He was flailing and waving his arms and muttering and it kind of scared me, so I leaned into a blank spot in the wall and turned into a totem pole so he wouldn't see me. He sat down on the bench, still muttering and looking crazy, until a couple of people who I knew were from an enemy tribe came and persuaded him to leave with them. I got worried because I figured that wouldn't be a good thing, so as soon as they left I jumped out of the wall and ran to find help. And then I woke up.

Besides dreaming a lot, I've been pretty sleepy. As usual. So I decided I'd better try Nuvigil again now that I'm basically settled in here for awhile. I took half a pill this morning, and I have been more awake. I've also been a little wonky and my stomach isn't thrilled, but it hasn't completely revolted yet. And I have a minor headache again, which is pretty much the same as a couple weeks ago when I tried it. I think I have enough to take the half pill for more than a week, and then I'll know more and can call my doctor and report. We'll see how it goes this time. In the mean time I'm going to continue to enjoy life.

More Creepy Nonsense

Last night was kind of nuts. Then again, I've been getting more or less the same amount of nonsense every night this week.

I'll start out with my first of three doses of Xyrem. I'll fall asleep, not dream a damn thing and then wake up to my alarm for dose number two. Then I'll fall asleep again, only this time I'll dream something I don't recall much of later so that it seems like I did still get some actual sleep during this chunk of time, even if I dreamed a little. Then I usually wake up pretty confused to find that my alarm went off half an hour ago and I didn't hear a thing. Then it's down with dose number three, and that's when the nonsense happens. Every night this week it's been crazy, visual, complicated dreams that I'm positive at the time are real. They're part cool, part interesting, and usually part disturbing or creepy. Last night was no exception.

I only remember the very end now, but I know there was a lot more before it. I was sitting at a table with my high school history teacher, coloring something with crayons while we watched DVDs on this old television. The room was very plain and kind of dark. We watched something I liked first, but then it turned into this educational thing about dead bodies. It got stuck on the menu with all these pictures of corpses, and the music was really creepy. Everything kept repeating and I was trying to not look at it, but I couldn't tell my history teacher about my rotting things phobia because I was embarrassed. Eventually she took it out and then we were watching a documentary about the history of Middle Earth (This isn't too surprising as I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and have read everything Tolkien wrote multiple times). Most of it was from The Silmarillion, and then my dreams began to twist the stories into new stories, and insert my original characters into them. It was pretty epic and detailed and visually intense. It reached the end of a tale in which everyone died, and suddenly I woke up and realized it had been a dream. That's cool, I thought, as I sat up in my old bedroom- the one in the house we moved out of almost two years ago. I was on my bed, trying to shake off the remains of the dream, and I realized my girlfriend was sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to my mom who was sitting on the floor. My dog came over and licked my hand and I was startled to see that he had shrunk. He was suddenly small enough that I could pick him up with one hand. I think I asked my girlfriend about it, and she acted like it was normal for dogs to shrink randomly, so I figured it was no big deal. Meanwhile, the two white yorkies from my last dream were running around and yapping.

At that point I realized my mouth really hurt. I touched it with my finger and there was blood on it. I realized I had left my nightguard (I don't have one in real life, I just know people that do) on and for some reason this explained the blood. I pulled it out, but it was stuck on my teeth, and my mouth started bleeding more and more. I discovered a lot of black string was also caught in my teeth, but pulling it out just caused more pain and bleeding. I started to panic and ran into the tiny bathroom attached to my room, where I had to hunch over uncomfortably to look in the mirror, because for some reason the ceiling was slanted and low. I looked in the mirror and saw blood dripping out of my mouth, the nightguard half in and black string stuck all in my teeth. I started trying to get them out gently, and to rinse my mouth with some water. The sink was filthy and disgusting, covered in this slimy, leftover food. I was so frightened by my loss of blood that I stood there trying to rinse out my mouth anyway.

And then I actually woke up. It was really hard to shake off the dream. I went into the bathroom, straightaway, just to make sure I wasn't bleeding. Of course everything was fine, but sometimes you just have to check. I slapped my face with cold water and felt a little bit more in the here and now. It wasn't until I had some caffeine with breakfast before I really felt like part of reality.