Women's Lib: It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time

I am not a feminist. I am not not-a-feminist. I can't say I'm really one way or the other. In fact in most things I am not really that opinionated, or if I am, my opinion changes quickly and easily when presented with a good idea or argument.

I'm fickle and I'm a hypocrite.

I like to think that I'm open-minded, and try to remember that I don't know everything about everything. So my opinion about some things is available for swaying (not all things; there is no negotiating with me about animal abuse, for example).

When it comes to feminism and women's lib, I'm kind of "meh" about the whole thing.

Not because I think women are weak or stupid or born to be mommies or any of the usual stereotypical bullshit. I just think that perhaps women's lib backfired in some ways.

In college (which of course I attended because of the women's rights movements, yes, I appreciate that), I really enjoyed economics classes. I learned how almost everything can be boiled down to economics. Sometimes I wonder if, economically, women's lib was more of a lateral transfer than a step up the rung.

For example, I'm trapped in an office cubicle all day. I can't leave my job, because of the need for money. It sucks, day in and day out. People are unbelievably rude, pretentious, arrogant, selfish and bratty to me all day long. No one, certainly not the men, spare me any detail or censor their mouths because I'm a women. No one gives me any breaks because I'm a woman; in fact, it seems the opposite: they seem to think I can do 10 things at once. I hate it and it's sucking my soul away little bit by little bit, every day. Thanks, great-grandmas, for this gift of "freedom" I have in the labor market. This is just so awesome. It's not at all like another form of slavery and economic disenfranchisement! (excuse me while I wipe the sarcasm dripping from my mouth.)

If I were trapped in a marriage and raising kids barefoot in the kitchen, at least there would be a few advantages:

1. I'd be barefoot. Sweet. No uncomfortable heels.

2. I wouldn't be getting screamed at by strangers. (Just my own little monsters).

3. I would be spending a lot of quality time with my children. (These are hypothetical children I'm speaking of, by the way, I do not actually have any kids with two legs.) I would get to enjoy watching them grow up, helping them learn (or maybe even homeschooling) and making sure they spend lots of time playing outside so they don't become obese.

4. My household would not require two vehicles, and subsequently, two tanks to fill, double the car insurance, two repair bills, double the amount of fossil fuels burned, etc etc!

5. I would have the time to prepare a lot more home-cooked meals, which are fresher, more nutritious and healthy, less processed, less expensive, and when making your own, it's easier to source locally grown foods. Hell, I'd have my own garden and chickens and goats if I were at home all day.

Housing is another conundrum. I earn what is the median income for my area, approximately $32k annually. The median home price in my area is $200k. I would not be able to purchase a median home with my median income. The numbers don't work. I could only purchase a home with another person.... like one of those husband things you hear about.

The same goes for apartments. A good portion of the people who rent are lower income. They are waitresses and retail workers and so forth. They often cannot qualify for an apartment on their own. So they co-habitat with a friend or a...wait for it.....boyfriend.

Why has housing become so expensive? Housing prices exploded since the 1970's.

According to the US Census, the median home price in the US in 1950 was $7354. The minimum wage was $.75 per hour. A person earning minimum wage at a full time 40-hour work week grossed $1560 per year. That's about 4.71 times earnings. ($1560 x 4.714 = $7353.84).

Today, the minimum wage is set by state. So let's take just one state, Massachusetts. MA is known for having a high cost of living anyways. The minimum wage in 2011 is $8/hour. The median home price in MA as of May 2011 (after already suffering a 20% drop due to the recession) is over $300,000. A minimum wage worker in Mass earns $16,640 per year. The median home price is 18 times annual minimum wages.

This is a rough economic comparison, to be sure, but this is how I see it.

If the ratio of minimum wage compared to median home prices were the same today as they were in 1950, then the scenario would look like one of these two:

Minimum wage $16640/year (as it is). Median home price 4.71 times that = $78,374.

OR

Median home price $300,000 (as it is), wages should be $63694 (about $30/hour.)

Isn't something awfully wrong here?

There is just NO WAY that a person earning minimum wage today could buy a home of "median" value. How is that even possible? Keep in mind that "median" price is very different than "average" price. Aren't there a lot more poor people in the world than rich people? Aren't there a lot more people earning minimum wage than $30/hour?

Essentially housing prices are just WAY out of the ballpark than they were decades ago. And why is this? Why the long, rambling, discombobulated rant on housing prices?

Chicks, man.

In the 1940's and 1950's, the vast majority of households were single-income households. Dear husband worked, mom stayed home. The laws of economics kept home prices low. Houses had to affordable on one income, because that's who was buying: single-income households. When women entered the workforce with regularity, suddenly more households were two-income households. The two-income households could afford MUCH more house. The laws of supply and demand are always in play, and housing prices rose. And rose, and rose.

Today, housing prices practically demand a two-income household. And you say women are more independent today?

Of course, there ARE many women who are high-earners, and this will continue, since more women than men are earning college degrees these days. And there are modest, reasonably priced condos that an average Jane can afford on her own.

But for most ladies, if they want a nice "average" home and lifestyle, not fancy, just "median", with the yard and maybe a pool and a garage... you need to shack up with someone, baby, or even better, get him to put a ring on it. Not only that, but you STILL need to go to work every day to afford the cost of living!

Essentially the point of my argument is: women earning money caused housing prices to skyrocket. Many women are still enslaved in their marriages due to economic factors, and have to go to work every day on top of it, while managing children and household chores and generally being even more stressed out than ever.

I'm not saying it shouldn't have happened. I like having, you know, choices in my life. I'm glad there are laws against discrimination, and I especially enjoy not being fondled at work. I admire the hell out of the ladies who had the balls to stand up for their rights.

It's just, you know, a lot of times things don't work out exactly the way you planned. The moral of the story: be careful what you wish for.

As I have conquered donuts, I shall vanquish mornings

At my high school, there was a mid-morning snack time between classes. The dining room was open for coffee, crackers, fruit, etc. However, on Wednesdays, in addition to the usual snacks, there were DONUTS. (Or "doughnuts", I imagine is probably the proper spelling, the former being proliferated into common usage by Dunkin Donuts.)

Donut Day was a BIG DEAL. Everyone looked forward to Donut Day. Being on a Wednesday, it also coincided with "hump day", which is a not-well-thought-out phrase.

In fact, the phrase Donut Day sometimes even replaced the word Wednesday itself. If you said to a classmate, "I forget, when is that geometry test?" she might reply, "Next Donut Day."

And when donut time rolled around, the cafeteria staff had to keep the dining rooms doors closed until the official start of snack time, because people crowded around in antsy droves, jostling for position so that they would have their pick of the best donuts. When the doors were opened, the crowd would spill into the dining room and start snatching. (Boston Cremes went fast, the plain brown ones were always left last.)

Now, my best friend in high school and I were always cheering each other on in self-improvement endeavours. We were just as enthusiastic about Donut Day as everyone else, but we decided that donuts weren't very healthy and we shouldn't gorge on them every Wednesday.

The problem was, how did we persuade ourselves NOT to partake in the weekly joy of Donut Day? How could we possibly resist the sugary goodness? How would we stick to this seemingly impossible goal?

We decided to use the POWER OF WORDS. *Insert picture of swords vs. dictionaries here*

First of all, we decided to change the name "Donut Day" to "Excellence Day!" So while everyone else was tantalizing their brains by using the word "donut" constantly, we were reprogramming ourselves to think of it as a day of success.

Secondly, whenever we felt weakness, whenever we saw everyone else rush off in pursuit of the treats, we would start talking about how much we disliked donuts. "Donuts are just too sugary - I can feel the stuff getting stuck between my teeth", "donuts make my stomach hurt", "I feel tired and nauseated after eating even one bite of a donut". On and on we'd go until we'd thoroughly grossed ourselves out by the thought of eating donuts.

This actually really worked and we refrained from participating in the mad dash of Donut Day for pretty much the rest of high school.

What's funny is that many years later I got back in touch with my good friend and somehow "Excellence Day" came up. And she said, "You know what? I STILL don't eat donuts!"

********************************************************************

My whole life, I have had great difficulty waking up. And by "great", I mean that I will sleep for 12-16 hours straight if nobody wakes me up. I can sleep through blaring televisions, screeching alarms, and chainsaws outside my window.

I'm not really in a deep sleep, however. I seem to sleep deeply for about 6 hours and then I enter a sort of twilight between waking and sleeping. I am vaguely aware of the outside world but it doesn't bother me, I am still dreaming, and if I drift further back towards consciousness, I can re-enter dreams at will.

It takes me a long time to transition from sleep, to half-asleep, to mostly awake. When I finally pull myself out of bed, it's gut-wrenching because I am still mostly asleep and my body wants NOTHING to do with re-entering the real world. My limbs feel like bricks and having to leave my pleasant, slumbering state feels like the most cruel punishment ever devised.

Then I sit around the couch for a while, trying to shake off the drowsiness and fight the urge to just lay back down.

This brain-fog lasts for hours. I feel depressed about my state of affairs and my station in life.

But what if this is all a result of my deeply held *belief* that I am an oversleeper and hate mornings? What if I rose out of bed each morning and threw my arms wide and exlaimed "I LOVE MORNINGS! IT FEELS GREAT TO BE ALIVE! AAAAHHHHH YEEEEEAAAHHH!"

Would my attitude change? Could it be possible that I could actually start to wake up easier?

So, this idea occurred to me yesterday, and I didn't really do anything different - I just thought about it, and thought about the possibility that it's WITHIN MY POWER to change this aspect of myself. I started thinking some positive thoughts about mornings - like, wouldn't it be great if I woke up early enough that I could take my dogs for an invigorating walk. Or do some writing. Or go visit a new coffeeshop.

And this morning - I actually did wake up easier. I woke up around 6 am, and I felt pretty refreshed. I did fall asleep again though. But even after Round 2, when I did get up, I felt more energized and less like a miserable lump. It could be a coincidence, but I haven't had such an easy morning in a long time.

So I will continue to experiment with this and see how it goes. I will continue to affirm to myself "Hey, I actually LOVE MORNINGS! How bout that!"

For the record, I don't want to STOP being a night owl. I just don't want to sleep away my life, 16 hours at a time.

Overheardisms

Are cows mammals?

Uh, yeah,of course cows are mammals.

Are you sure?

Yes, absolutely sure.

How do you know? What makes them mammals?

What else would they be?

I don’t know. You tell me. What makes something a mammal?

Well, a mammal is warmblooded, it usually has hair or fur, and makes milk. It does not make an egg. Well, except for the platypus. The platypus is mammal but it makes an egg. But that’s an anomaly.

How do you know all this?

Um, PBS? School? General knowledge?

Dreams installment

Stephen Fry and I discovered a portal to Hell in my bedroom closet. (If you don't know who he is... he's a British actor that's been in a lot of stuff, you'd recognize him.) I had some kind of psychic flashback to the past where an eccentric scientist (that looked suspiciously like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein) put together some kind of concoction and poured it down a drain. The concoction was so corrosive it burned a big hole where the drain used to be. And it just kept on burning the hole bigger and deeper, until it reached Hell.

Eventually the portal was attempted to be closed off, covered up, and the laboratory turned into a small bedroom and the house sold like nothing ever happened. Except that I had been experiencing some suspicious paranormal activity and enlisted the help of Stephen Fry (who, in my dream is a apparently a paranormal investigator) and he traced the activity to the closet and found a fake wall and behind that fake wall was the seal on the the portal and when we ripped it off, we reopened this drainpipe to the netherworld. And a huge dark blue/black energy beam shot out of it, blasting through the ceilings and up into space (kind of like that plasma drill in the latest Star Trek movie, but in reverse. And evil.)

We realized at this point that things were beyond the scope of our expertise and we decided that the best course of action was to get the hell out of there.

*********************************************************

It was thundering last night. My mother told me when I really little that thunder was "the angels bowling", which even at age 3 or 4 I recognized as total bullshit.

In my half-waking dream, the thunder sounded odd,and it was because it really was the angels bowling. They were in some kind of league competition and they were really into it. When they did poorly they couldn't curse but they did a lot of "arrghs" and "doh!s"

Eventually I got tired of the noise because it wasn't getting quieter like a normal thunderstorm would, and it wasn't just the 'thunderous' sounds but also their cheering that was annoying me. I tried leaning out the window to shout up at them but they couldn't hear me. Or pretended not to hear me.

*********************************************

The other night I woke up crying, because I had a bad dream that my fiance was joking around with me about my, er, sexual past. He was insisting that I answer "How many times, since you became a Lady, have you lain with a man?" Like it was the year 200 or something. Then he insinuated that he was going to cut off one of my fingers for each partner. The joking around seemed to have taken a dark turn and I started crying and told him he was scaring me.

Whenever I tell him about dreams like that, he says "God, why I am such an asshole in your dreams?" I try to reassure him that it's not him, it's just that my brain believes deep down that everyone is out to get me.

*********************************************

There is a pond near the center of town that is fairly scenic. Years ago we had an eccentric neighbor who was a photographer. Specifically a boudoir photographer. Which we strongly suspected he "specialized" in simply because he was voyeuristic. He had no photography training,he simply bought a pretty good camera, took a gazillion pics, picked out the best ones and then applied a few Photoshop filters. He was kind of odd but also kind of wise. We deemed him harmless and liked hanging out with him. We called him "our friendly neighborhood pornographer." (All this stuff is true, not a dream.) The pond by the center of town is a manmade pond, in the industrial age they dammed up a creek, which in turn created the pond and the dam provided some power for the factories they built next to it. As you walk along the street by the pond, you can peer over a rail and see the little dam, and water rushes over it and the flows under the street and then past the old factory buildings. I guess that part of the street is technically a bridge, kinda.

Our friendly neighborhood pornographer liked hanging out there, looking over the rail down at the dam and watching the water rushing beneath him. He always said "God lives under the bridge." He didn't seem like a particularly religious person, and it seemed like a strange place for God to hang out, but he insisted.

In my dream, there was a church right in the center of the pond. It was old and beautiful. It looked a bit more like a theater house than a church building. There was a little ferry boat that shuttled people back and forth. One night I was walking by the pond and it was just turning from dusk to night, and the church's windows were lit up and I could see people standing around in front of it, and the ferry was doing its thing, and it was really beautiful. In my dream, it had been there all my life but I had never visited it. (Just like how a lot of people have never visited the tourist attractions in their own backyards. Or least I haven't, anyways.)

(The dream imagery reminded me of the time I was in Venice. The vaporetti boats (which are the equivalent of the public bus) run 24 hours a day, and will go to any stop you like even in the middle of the night. My friend and I asked to be taken across the water to a beautiful church, and we hung out on its steps good part of the night. It was pretty magical to be alone in Venice on this beautiful, isolated spot. I remember wondering if the boat would ever come back or if we'd be stuck there till morning.)

So in my dream, as I was standing there looking at the church on the pond, I looked down to where the dam was supposed to be. At night, in a different light, I could see something new. In addition to the dam, there was an opening. It was a shaft, and it went very deep. I went "omg he was right" because somehow I could tell it was a magical or holy shaft, and even though it was going downwards, it didn't lead to hell... it didn't exactly lead to heaven, but to something reverent.

I was too afraid to try to explore it because I didn't know if I was worthy of entering a sacred space. And that's why I had never visited the church, either. Deep down, I wasn't sure I would be welcome.

Some of my dreams seem to have a consistent theme that I discover, or realize, or remember, that deep down I am evil or sinful, and cannot tread in holy places where good people go.

************************************************************

(Not a dream): last night I saw my grandmother. She can never remember where I work or if I go to school or not. She always thinks I work in a store. Last night she asked me, "Do you still work in that store, the holy store with the rosary beads and things?" Um, no, grandma, I have never worked in a store like that. "You never worked there?" She didn't seem to buy it. "But you used to, right? The holy store, with the crosses and things?" No, never. She didn't seem convinced. I think if I were old and forgetful, I would become suspicious that people were always fucking with me, too, because how would you know?

I don't recall having any violent or strange dreams last night. I did have a dream, however, that I was riding my favorite horse of all time, the horse I rode nearly 20 years ago now. I woke up feeling bittersweet. It was a lovely dream, but I also miss that horse dearly, and his memory still haunts me in a heartbreaking way.

Today I went to a party. I was only mildly successful in socializing. There was an old friend there. Or maybe you'd call him an acquaintance. I don't know, I spent more than one drunken night with him and sometimes in intimate settings. (Meaning, not very many people.) I can't say I ever got to know him exceedingly well, but I always liked him. He's a fun, likeable guy. For the last couple of years, whenever I run into him, I still feel comfortable around him, but I think he doesn't feel comfortable around me. I don't know why. He's polite and chats a bit but then he always finds an excuse to scoot away. I feel like he's avoiding me. It could be one of two things, I believe. 1.) Every time we hung out before, he was pretty blitzed. Since then he's sobered up a bit and quit smoking cigs. So maybe the situations I've encountered him in, he's just not as liquored up as he used to be, and is more socially awkward than I remember. Or 2.) I've somehow offended him in some way. Apparently, I am REALLY GOOD at accidentally offending people. Which is pretty ironic because I am so painfully self-conscious and always trying too hard not to do/say the wrong thing. Often I don't even find out about my accidental offenses until months or years later. Or never.

And of course one of our buddies who's all into kids tried to talk us into having some of our own. "These things are great!" That's his whole argument. He'd been carrying around someone else's kid in his arms for like two hours and the child had been completely silent the entire time, practically comatose. The thing started wailing the second he got near me. For a moment I thought my friend was going to try to hand me the kid and I involuntarily flinched.

Other than that it was the usual horseshoes, beers and leftover food. (We make it a point to be ultra-fashionably late.)

Is it bad if you don't feel like you've "gotten started" until the 5th beer?

Essentially I got nothing done today whatsoever.

Dehydration + Depression = 16 hour sleepfest

So yesterday I had a riding lesson in the hot, hot sun. I was doing fine, but when I jumped off, I realized... I think I'm going to faint. My heart was beating superfast and I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. I was boiling hot - I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust. I didn't faint, but I was awfully close. I realized I hadn't drank a lot of water that day, or the day before for that matter. I procured two Gatorades and drank both and felt less like I was going to die, but still pretty unwell. I spent the rest of the day and night on the couch.

I thought I felt better around 10 pm and decided to get up and join my fiance at a party. When I got there, though, I felt really antisocial and sat down in a corner. I was pretty sure I was emanating some pretty ugly vibes, but I figured my mood would improve after a beer or two and all would be well. But then some guy with a foreign accent who was like 50 or something came over and put his hand on my my shoulder. "Miss, you're alone." Um, yeah, thanks for pointing that out. "You allright?" Yes. Then he proceeded to say some stuff I couldn't understand. I gave him a weird look and pointed over towards my fiance and said "I'm fine, thank you" and he said some more stuff I couldn't understand and went away.

I don't know why but that really enraged me. First of all, why can't I sit alone for five minutes? I was reading an interesting article about Ernest Hemingway on my ipod. (I'm not cool enough or rich enough to have an actual smartphone.) Maybe wherever this guy comes from, women are not supposed to be unescorted and that's why he was so concerned? I don't fucking know. Yes, I tend to turn a lot of innocent situations into feminist arguments. Secondly, OK, let's say he just saw an opportunity of a young woman sitting alone. Why is it that only old, unattractive people approach me? Oh, and lesbians. I never get hit on by any cute, straight male anywhere near my age. This really fucks with my self-esteem. Thank god I'm engaged because I really don't know how single people manage.

Anyways, that was that and I decided I had to get out of there. My fiance was a bit taken aback that I was taking off five minutes after getting there but I just wasn't in the mood.

Turned out I didn't really want to go home, though. So for about 45 minutes I just drove around aimlessly. I felt as though I wanted to go somewhere different, go on an adventure. I realized that I spend 99% or more of my life in three places: Home, Work, and the bar. We never go anywhere do anything different. I cried for a while, feeling sorry for myself. I tried calling some people but I don't have a lot of friends and it was 1 am on a holiday weekend and no one answered.

For the last few days I've been feeling really anxious and depressed. I read an article about a guy who killed himself and in the days leading up to his death he told his parents "My world is shrinking." Somehow that phrase really resonated with me.

So eventually I went home, went to sleep, and proceeded to stay asleep or mostly asleep for about 16 hours. I got up at 5 pm.

Usually I feel pretty terrible when I do this. Terrible physically, and also despair over the fact that I do such things. I usually wail "I am sleeping my life away." But today I don't feel as much despair. Because I had a lot of dreams, and I enjoyed them. I kept waking up but kept going back to sleep because I was having more fun in my dreams than I do in my real life. I know I'm going to be awake all night, but that's OK because that's the best time to write. And I thought, this isn't a curse. It's just who I am. Perhaps this is just what I'm meant to do, this is how I'm meant to live. Sleep all day, write all night. It's what I would do naturally if I wasn't forced to adhere to a "proper" schedule.

Last night when I got the hell out of that party, I was reminded that I am naturally a solitary person. I do enjoy company, but in limited bursts, and I'm very picky about who it is.

Anyways, I had a lot of dreams and some of them were nice and some were pretty fucked up. I'm not going to be able to remember all of them but I'll forget them entirely if I'm don't write them down now.

********************************************************************************

I was running in a park, on nice wooded trails. There was someone I was trying to avoid, someone I didn't want to run into because it would be an awkward conversation. It was a physically vivid dream, and the running was effortless. I was so excited because for the first time since I'd started jogging/running, I had reached a fitness level where I felt like I could just keep running forever. I didn't have to stop after 3 minutes or 5 minutes or 10 minutes. I could sustain the running, and I just wanted to keep running.

I stopped when I saw some people standing around looking at something. They suspected a crime had taken place. We banded together to look around, and found an abandoned school. We ended up in some locker rooms, which we noticed were "gender neutral" locker rooms (how we knew that, I don't know) and we thought that was kind of odd, no one had ever heard of such a thing. The place was creepy indeed.

One clue led to another (that part is vague), and we ended up at a creepy old house. It was dusk, and the sky was overcast and had a weird color. We went inside and there were a bunch of people standing around in a circle. The walls of the house had that disgusting yellow look from cigarette smoking. The light inside was dim and the figures were muted silouettes. We wondered what they were all standing around looking at. They were ignoring us, so we got closer to look. They were standing around a bed. On one side lay a very old, sick woman. On the other side there was a crib or a washbin or something. It was full of water. There was a tall thin man standing next to the bed on the side with the bin. He was holding a baby, that was half-wrapped in swaddling. It's arms were free. The man was reciting some strange incantations, and then he put the baby in the washbin, and held it underwater. The baby struggled, his arms flailed, but he was of course totally helpless. The incantations continued. Only the man recited, the viewers were silent.

As the baby stopped struggling, a ball of light came out of his mouth, lifted up from the water, and floated over to the old woman. The light went into her mouth, and she gasped loudly and sat up. She still looked old, but she was much more lively and didn't look sick. Me and my newfound friends were just staring, mouths agape, and she looked right at us and said, "What? You never seen a witch before?"

******************************************************************************

I was at work, and closing up the office. I hadn't locked the front door yet though, and an old beat up Cadillac pulled up right next to the door. The person inside looked as though he was rummaging around for something. He probably needed to pay his account. I told my coworker I was going to shoo him away. I went to the front door to lock it and called out towards the car, "I'm sorry, sir, we're closed" and when he looked up it was Norm McDonald. (Apparently, in this dream, I was acquainted with him.) "Oh, hi Norm! Come on in!" He replied "really? You let old creepy old men in after you're closed? What kind of establishment is this?" I laughed and said, "Only a few certain creepy old men, Norm, we're very selective here."

We chatted as he paid his bill and that's when I realized that I had a bit of crush on Norm. I decided to be rather bold and asked him what he was doing afterwards. He was going to some kind of party and I basically invited myself. He looked really confused, and I was hoping that he was just surprised and flattered that I was hitting on him.

****************************************************************************

My fiance and I were on some kind of trip, riding on a coach bus. The bus was going through a small city, and started making a sharp turn. Then, something felt wrong. The bus was leaning really hard around the corner. Everyone started to gasp and then it felt like a tire blew out and it started tipping even more. My fiance said "We're going over!" and the bus started to fall onto its side. Luckily we were seat-belted, but not everyone was. The bus not only fell onto its side, but rolled a couple more times. People were falling every which way and screaming. I pressed my eyes shut, hoping that we would just come to a stop and not fall over a cliff or catch on fire or something. The bus eventually plopped to a stop. I called out for everyone to move carefully and slowly because we didn't know where we had landed. I inched towards a window and saw were high up in the sky. Apparently the bus had been makings its way to the top of a parking garage when it had flipped, and we had gone over the edge and landed on the roof of another building. People were hurt, so I had to go get help. I managed to get through an emergency door or an open window, and found myself inside an apartment building. A really sketchy one, filled with prostitutes and drug dealers. They were looking at me like I had two heads as I tried to find my way to a stairwell to get the hell down and out of there.

*******************************************************************************

Edited: Later today, I went for a walk/jog and thought about the dream where I'd been running easily. And in fact, today I did run way longer than I've ever been able to. It did feel pretty effortless, at least until about the 20 minute mark. I guess the dream was good for something. Either it foretold my newfound ability, or I was able to do it because I believed I could. Either way, I was pretty proud of myself, it was a quite a milestone for me. Pretty soon I'm going to be one of those annoying people you see jogging around looking all fit and trim. Is it wrong to WANT people to hate you?