hooray for sleep deprivation! no...wait...

i've always been nocturnal. a creature of the night! for me it's normal to want to sleep all day and stay up all night.

throughout my entire childhood my parents had trouble putting me to bed. when i was a baby my grandfather noticed that i always fell asleep on car rides, so at night he'd strap me up in my car seat and drive around the neighborhood till i dozed off.

how cute is that?

to this day i sleep very well in a moving vehicle. luckily when i'm behind the wheel i don't get drowsy or anything. unless of course i've been up for x amount of hours, like i wrote about in my 2nd blog entry (ack! sparrows!). i do get reeeaaally bored when i'm driving though. but that's what music is for. XM radio....even better!

when i was a kid my bedtime was at 9pm. naturally, i expressed my strong objection to this every single night. after my dad would read to me i would just lay in bed... in the dark...bored out of my mind. hours later i'd finally drift off, usually waking up multiple times throughout the night/early morning.
most nights i spent under the covers with a flashlight and a book. good thing i had a lot of books. i guess that's how i maintained my sanity!

kindergarten was great because i only went for half a day, in the afternoon class! so i'd sleep in till about 11a.m. every day. i still had difficulty getting up at 11, though! and when i started the 1st grade...man! talk about a rude awakening. for 10 years, every single weekday morning throughout the entire school year was miserable.

high school wasn't so bad because i found out that i could function rather well with a mere 3-4 hours of sleep each night. i'd go to bed between 2-3 a.m. and wake up at 6 to be at school by 7. I actually felt more alert and had tons of energy when i got less than 5 hours of sleep.
hmm...now that i think about it...i did occasionally indulge in the art of napping.

on the weekends i'd get 6-8 hours of sleep. i'd stay up till 5am or so...stumble out of bed in the afternoon. as long as my parents let me get away with it, that is. but i'd feel so sluggish for the rest of the day.

well anyway. i seem to always give so much background information.

i am so irritated with the fact that:
a) it takes me forever to fall asleep, no matter how tired or sleepy i am.
b) i dream every single night. sometimes my dreams are fun and interesting. other times, they're stupid and pointless. really think that my nighttime head trips just tire me out.
and i can actually read in my dreams. i don't think you're supposed to be able to do that. if i'm not mistaken, the portion of your brain that reads text isn't active as you're sleeping.

ooh, maybe i'm not dreaming and actually traveling about the astral plane!

cool!

yeah, i don't know about that.
but, hey. who knows?!

could it be lucid dreams? would that tire me out, though? hmm. i have some research to do.

c) when i finally do fall asleep, in between dreams, i wake up throughout the night. sometimes it's two or three times. other times it's every hour or so.

i'm not anxious. i meditate. i practice yoga. i don't play video games/use the computer/watch tv/get overly excited before going to bed. i have a few hours of "quiet time" to just wind down. sometimes i'll read or listen to some relaxing trance or classical music.

i remember there was a time when i couldn't sleep without the radio on. but that was when i was in high school.

i really don't know what to do.
i guess i have some kind of a sleep disorder. i don't think there's anything really wrong with being a night person *hisses at the sun*...but there is something wrong with waking up 5,395 times a night and sitting around for hours waiting for the sandman to come (did he get laid off?!?).

i don't like the idea of taking sleeping pills. the last thing i need is to develop an addiction.

maybe i'll look into going to a Sleep Center. let them stick those...erm...thingies all over me and monitor my brain waves, breathing, heart rate...all that stuff.

(note to self: invest in a vocabulary builder. thingies? come on, now.)

oh well.

carpe noctem!

the condition of not existing

I don't exist.

Well....yeah, okay. I do exist.

But I'm usually off in the background. Hidden in the shadows. Blending in. Watching. Listening.

My parents certainly didn't neglect me in any way. Growing up as an only child, believe me, I was the center of their world. I wasn't shy. At all. I would walk up to strangers and just start talking to them. I charmed my parents' friends whenever they were over for dinner. I'd mingle at adult-only parties.
But as I got older I became withdrawn. I did socialize in school, and during my high school years I was on the phone...a lot. I'd go over to a friend's house to hang out every once and a while. The year after graduation I was out every single weekend. Either with the usual suspects or out meeting new people.

Then, something happened. I don't know what it was, but I became very withdrawn. Aloof. The social butterfly in me had its wings ripped off....or....something. I don't know! But whatever it is that made me drop all of my acquaintances and give my undivided attention to my closest friends has now made me let go of everyone. The fact that I've cut all contact with everyone (except for my parents, my fiance, his parents and my "brother") worries my family. I don't particularly care, but they find something wrong with this.
I can recognize the fact that, yeah, this isn't terribly normal. I'm not being irrational or anything.
I don't know. I don't know what's going on. But it doesn't bother me.

I've always been an observer.
I just watch people.
...avoid interaction.

Whether in public with strangers, or in my home with family...I usually won't engage in conversation.
Sometimes I get caught off-guard when someone asks me what time it is or what my opinion is on something.
It's silly, but I seriously feel like no one realizes I'm around. So when I'm addressed in any way I have to remind myself " People can see you!" before answering them.

Mini-Rant! damn YouTube

I can't stand the people who insist on posting their junky videos on YouTube.
They think that just because they can haphazardly put together random clips with music, they have some kind of talent.

Yeah, you know what? You don't! When the clips don't sync up to the music, when the song has absolutely nothing to do with the video, and when the clips aren't related to each other in any way...it's junk.

All I want to do is find a video clip from a TV show or a movie that is funny and I want to watch it...just cuz.
I keep running into these damn videos where the title matches my search, but to my horror, 9 out of 10 times they turn out to be these ridiculous "music videos".

For the love of all that is unholy, PEOPLE. Either do a good job, or don't bother. Quit ruining songs and quit messing up my searches!!

*Deep breath*

The First Ghost.

The "Pepper Ghost" is only the latest of the strange happenings I've experienced in my life.

Before we start, let me tell you that my memory is absolutely amazing. I can remember things from when I was 2 years old. Those memories are a little fuzzy, but very much there in the area of my brain that can be reached. Memories from when I was 4, 5, 6 years old...and up...are vivid. I can remember certain events from my pre-school days with such clarity it seems like it happened 10 years ago...rather than 21 years ago.

Because of my freakish ability to remember details of my childhood, my short-term memory is....oh...um...what was I talking about?

Yeah! It's awful. I can't remember what happened last week. I have to stop what I'm doing and think very hard.

So. Short-term memory=virtually non-existent. Long-term memory=awesome.


My first encounter with a ghost was when I was 6 years old.
My parents and I were in Brazil, visiting family and friends for the entire month of December. We spent most of the time in São Paulo, but also ventured off to Mato Grosso and I think Minas Gerais if I remember correctly.

My mom introduced me to the beautiful country she grew up in. My dad showed me all of his favorite elements of Brazilian culture. It was great.

On a few occassions my parents dropped me off to spend the the afternoon with my great aunt (such a beautiful woman) so they could go on day trips, just the two of them.
One weekend my parents decided to go...I don't know where. My mom's cousin (Tia Lete) insisted that I stay at her apartment and that my parents go off on their own. So, my parents were off and I had a blast hanging out with Tia Lete, Xander (her hubby) and their son, Felipe. Well, actually...Felipe was a brat and was constantly trying to fight with me. But for the most part, it was a fun weekend. We watched movies, played games, the food was awesome, and even though I hadn't met them previously, I felt a deep connection with this side of the family.

The only thing that was slightly bothersome was going to bed early. I've always been a night owl, ever since I was a baby. Still am to this day. And I have always, always, always had trouble staying asleep once I finally drift off.

Tia Arlete's apartment was kind of small. When you walked in through the front door, you were immediately in the dining/living room area. To the left was the narrow kitchen that fit one adult at a time. Not a good area to run to when you're being chased. It's too easy to get cornered and trapped in that kitchen. Take a few more steps into the flat and on the left were two bedrooms. The master bedroom at the end of the hall, Felipe's room to the right, bathroom to the left. Felipe's room was about the size of a walk-in closet. With a twin-sized bed.

Sooo, for fun (and due to the lack of space) Arlete made a little bed for us kids on the living room floor. We were camping out, you see.

I woke up in the middle of the night. The apartment was illuminated by a few nightlights placed here and there, any by the light from the streetlamps that made it in through the cracks in the blinds.

I let my eyes wander around the room when suddenly they locked on to the silhouette standing in before the front door. I sat up, startled, and said, "Hello?".
I was more curious than I was scared.
I guess I knew that the building was very secure with watchmen 24/7. And I'm such a light sleeper I knew for a fact that I would have woken up to the sound of the place being broken into. I kept waking up every time someone got up to go to the bathroom or to get a drink of water.

I stared at the silhouette, which I suspected to be a man. His arms were crossed, and it looked like he was staring at me (that's kinda important....there's a pattern. Remember that as you're reading my next few posts on ghosts). I couldn't see any features. Couldn't see what he was wearing. He just stood there, motionless. Staring. I looked over at my cousin. He was sound asleep. I looked over into the master bedroom. Both Tia Lete and Xander were in bed.

Hmm.

I looked back at the silhouette, confused. I couldn't figure out why the nightlights weren't casting any light on him.
Where this...thing...was standing, he was just a pure black shadow. Not the glow from the nightlight nor the light coming in from the back porch touched him. And where he himself should have cast a shadow on the wall and the floor...there was nothing.

I grabbed my cousin's teddy bear and threw it. It flew right through the figure, hitting the door with a dull thud before dropping to the floor.

I decided that it wasn't a threat and went back to bed.

For an entire week I told everyone about what I had seen. No one really believed me. They said, "It's just your imagination."

Which it very well may have been. But to this day, I'm still convinced that this was my first encounter with a ghost.

The next one I saw was when I was 9 years old.

To be continued...

my pepper ghost!

I decided that I needed to organize the contents of my spice cabinet. There were plenty of things of the non-spice variety that didn't belong in there, so those items were removed. I wanted to make everything from the Old Bay seasoning to the hot Jamaican curry to be easily accessible.

(This story will get more interesting. I promise.)

I took everything out of the cabinet and set them on the counter. So...the cabinet was completely empty. Before I had emptied out the cabinet, the counter had absolutely nothing on it.

I looked over all the little containers and vials to see if I needed to add anything to my grocery list. Sure enough, I was out of black pepper. The can I had was completely empty, so I tossed it into the recycling bin. I walked off into the living room to add "pepper" to my grocery list. When I came back to the kitchen, something caught my eye. There was a full, brand new can of McCormick's pepper sitting on the ledge of one of the shelves in the spice cabinet.

um.

The very cabinet I had just completely removed all innards from.

I stood there, struck with astonishment and surprise.

Where did that can of pepper come from? Who placed it in the cabinet?

The only thing I could come up with is something paranormal. There's no way my significant other could have crept downstairs and snuck into the kitchen without my noticing. For starters, he's no ninja. Secondly, the kitchen is open to the living room. So even if he had managed to make it down the stairs and across the hall without a sound, he'd have to have been wearing an invisibility cloak.

I flat out asked my fiancé if he had even gone to the store and bought the can of this pungent condiment and he gave me a strange look before answering "no".

After the "Inexplainable Pepper Incident", my kitchen ghost did a few more things to make his presence known. This mostly involved throwing items across the kitchen. Not in a hostile way. In a playful way, if you can imagine. I'll be cooking something on the stove and I'll put the spoon/fork down on the spoonrest. There is no possible way that this utensil can roll off the stove. However, on many occasions, the spoon or fork has ended up on the floor on the opposite side of the kitchen. Even if it had fallen off the stove, how could it have possibly propelled itself across the room? Exactly! It didn't. The ghost did it!

I'm not sure if this is the same guy or not, but there is a "creepy basement ghost"

Many people have witnessed this guy.

Years ago a friend of mine and I were watching TV in the living room. It was about...oh...5 in the morning. We both heard a sound coming from behind, like someone was walking up the basement steps. She and I both turned and looked at the same time...and right then the basement door closed. She and I saw, I kid you not, someone pulling the door shut. Just the hand and arm. Very pale. Kinda translucent.

A few weeks later on a Friday night I had a few people over and almost everyone had made some comment on how they didn't like having the door open to the basement because it creeped them out. Two different people claimed they had seen a pale guy standing in the doorway for a split second.

Creepy.

After a while the spiritual activity had subsided. Significantly.I'm not sure why. But it seems to be picking back up.

Just this morning as I was eating my delicious breakfast of Autumn Wheat and black coffee, I was watching my cats. They were going nuts and I couldn't figure out why. I almost dropped my mug as the refrigerator door opened (all the way) then closed after about 5 seconds.

Interesting. Some incorporeal being was raiding my fridge.

Or maybe they're taking inventory. Maybe a carton of soymilk, some fruit and a bottle of seltzer water will magically appear in my fridge!

I've had things like this happen to me ever since I was 6 years old.

More on that next time...

lucky 13

Happy Friday the 13th!

i'm not superstitious. at all. are you?



i love Joss Whedon. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV show. not so much the movie) has been an obsession of mine since season 1. and i absolutely love Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!!! I highly recommend you click the link and watch it.


it'll change your life.



ok, maybe not. but still. it's funny!



despite these obsessions of mine, i'm not really a hardcore Whedon fan. i haven't made any attempt to watch Firefly or Serenity. i did, however, watch Dollhouse today. i'm not quite sure how i feel about it yet. the concept is intriguing. it has a lot of potential.

"In Dollhouse, Eliza Dushku plays a young woman called Echo, a member of a group of people known as "Actives" or "Dolls." The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They're then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. On missions, Actives are monitored internally (and remotely) by Handlers. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a futuristic dorm/lab, a hidden facility nicknamed "The Dollhouse". The story follows Echo, who begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware."

good stuff. if you're into that nerdy, sci-fi stuff like i am :D


when it comes to my brand of comedy, Joss Whedon and Jhonen Vasquez are all i need. Whedon's witty, brilliant dialogue and alluring charaters, and Vasquez's dark humor and use of misanthropic themes bring such joy to me. no one can make the combination of cute and psychotic work quite as well as Mr. Vasquez does. or dark and funny like Whedon.

did i mention that i love Joss Whedon and Jhonen Vasquez?




i also like curly fries. a lot.

sparrows....everywhere...!

Sooo...where did we leave off?

Oh, yes. The quitting of the job. Which leads to the Road Trip of Craziness. Also known as "The Road Trip of Irony" and "The Sparrow Incident".

I missed my cousin's wedding to attend my grandmother's funeral.

*Sigh*

The wedding took place on December 6, 2008. In Florida.

The plan was for my dad and I to drive, mom and my significant other to fly, and we'd all meet up on the 4th. Dad and I left the day after Thanksgiving, giving us plenty of time to go sightseeing before the rendezvous in Ft. Lauderdale. We'd go to the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, then drive/fly back.

My parents and I are spontaneous. We rarely ever make plans. When we do, we realize that we'll probably stray from the itinerary one way or another. We know to expect the unexpected. Stuff happens.

Somehow I knew...I just knew that something was going to happen to my grandmother. As I was packing my suitcase, for just a few seconds the thought flickered in my mind. I said to myself, Wouldn't it be crazy if as soon as we arrived in Florida, Grampy called with bad news about Gram..
Just as quickly as that thought had entered my mind, it was gone. My mind concentrated on getting ready for this adventure.

Day 1
Ok. So we left on time (amazing! that never happens) and had a lot of fun, stopping wherever we wanted to check out the view.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is - for lack of a better word - stunning. Forget the interstate highways. When you're on a road trip you need to take your time, enjoy the sights, and see what's out there. The point isn't to get from start to finish in as little time as possible. If you're terribly impatient and don't have any interest in the scenery, then flying is for you.

Dad and I stopped for the night in North Carolina. That is where I, for the first time in my life, ate a bbq pulled pork sandwich. It's funny how the most mundane foods are new and different to me.
After the delicious meal and an ice-cold beer, I just about passed out in the hotel room.

Day 2
The Blue Ridge mountains had me speechless. Grandfather Mountain took my breath away. I'd never seen such beauty.
We arrived in Pensacola, FL at 4a.m. We slept in the parking lot for about 3 hours after driving all night. (Since we had actually backtracked to check out Grandfather Mountain, and since we were not the least bit sleepy, Dad and I had decided to drive all night so we'd have the entire day to devoted to Pensacola and Gulf Breeze adventures.)

Ventured off to Gulf Breeze to check out the little plot of land we have. Drove back over the bridge to the Naval Aviation Museum. One of my most favorite museums...ever!

By 6pm we were both pretty exhausted.

The sleep deprivation had finally caught up to us. My dad, being 65 (at the time), got major bonus points for keeping up with his hyperactive 24-year-old (at the time) daughter.

Just minutes before checking into the hotel my mom called telling me to call my grandfather.

So I did.

Knowing exactly what I was going to hear.

Sister Jilda Marie (Grampy had nuns over?!) answered the phone and informed me that my grandmother had passed away. She then handed the phone over to my grandfather. My heart broke when he said, "Grammy's gone." The pain in his voice struck my chest, and I cried more for him than for anything else.

I, of course, had to be the one to tell my dad. He took it rather well.

And he, being the mildly psychotic, and the rarely (yet surely) irrational man that he is, insisted on turning the car right around and driving up to Connecticut. Immediately.

I couldn't stop him.

He wouldn't listen to reason.

Of course the day we arrived in Florida we'd have to turn around. AHA! I knew it! I had totally imagined a scenario such as this one.






I appreciate the irony.





So my dad and I took turns driving home, stopping about every hour or so to take a catnap. When we finally arrived in Maryland he agreed to getting some rest and leaving the next day.

Thank goodness.

From the sleep-deprivation, grief and exhaustion I was to the point where I was hallucinating. I kept seeing sparrows appear and disappear in front of me. Why sparrows? No idea.


Until I had reached 24 years of age I had never been to a funeral for a member of my own family. It's weird.

I met the side of the family I never knew. That was nice. They all know my name. Bonus points. I didn't know any of them, though I'd heard of some of them.

A lot of people said they were going to stop by the house after the burial. My dad went overboard (as usual) and bought 1 pound each of ham, salami, turkey, cappicola, swiss and provolone. He bought 4 different loaves of bread, 2 gallons of already made coffee, 3 dozen breakfast danishes. Cousin Marge had brought over a box of doughnuts.

No one showed up. Not a single person.

Hours after the funeral my dad wanted to get in the car and drive right back to Florida.

He's insane.

Instead I spent the week with Grampy. I couldn't just leave him.

Which resulted in my mom's refusal to speak to me for two and a half weeks, because I missed my cousin's wedding.

It was a nice, quiet two and a half weeks.

as of recent...

Good evening sirs and madams!

I have abandoned the MySpace blog. For what reason? Eh. Got tired of it is all. I used to be quite the MySpace junkie.

I got over it.

And you can, too! ::thumbs up::

Sorry, Tom.


Sooooooo I quit my job at Kohl's in October.

You know, I actually enjoyed working the graveyard shift! Sure, my social life came to an abrupt halt (not that it really bothered this schizoid). I never had to worry about rush hour. I dealt with no more than a dozen people which kept the introvert in me from screaming in anguish. I enjoyed making a lot of money. And holding the job title that gave me power over minions. Minions! I didn't treat them as such. They were actually my friends, and I could trust them to do their jobs. So I let them run freely with very little supervision as I sat in the back office reading books and texting my friends (huh? work ethic?). Sometimes I'd wander aimlessly. Whenever anyone needed help, I was there. Plus, working in advertising was fun in general.

It was awesome.

Funny thing is that everyone I worked with had at least 1 year seniority over me. Why they didn't apply for the supervisor job, I don't know. So I took it. And how cute it was to have all of these middle-aged co-workers of mine come to me whenever they were having problems with their assignments. They were the very people that trained me for goodness sake! It was very strange. I never did get used to it. I couldn't even enjoy going on the obligatory "power trip" because I was too weirded out by the situation.

Oh well.

Many things contributed to my quitting this awesome job.

1) I knew that my grandmother was going to, you know, die. Like, any day now. (Tactless? Nay. Straightforward! Ok...same thing, but word choice makes all the difference.) My dad and I had to make bi-monthly road trips to Connecticut to help out Grammy and Grampy. Work just wouldn't allow it. That was reason enough.

2) I was having trouble sleeping. My neighbors were too noisy during the day. I don't mind rap music, but when it wakes me up from a deep sleep i find myself with this sudden desire to kill, kill, kill! Namely, my neighbors. Hm. Interesting.
But you know what? Now that I think about it, pretty much anything that wakes me up makes me violent. :D

3) I wanted to go back to school. Full-time. I don't have the discipline to work full-time AND attend class. Let alone actually complete any homework and actually pass said classes.

I felt like I was at a dead end. It didn't matter that I was having fun at work every night hanging out with the crew, reading my vampire novels and texting my partners in evil. It didn't matter that my weekly paychecks made me do the "Happy Dance" as I deposited them into my checking account.

I did not have my dream job, nor was I on the path to it. I was sucked in, but I refused to stay trapped.


So. I quit!

To Be Continued....




Next time on "the condition of not existing":
A road trip to Florida.
A wedding.
A funeral.
Perhaps some clichés? Stay tuned!