Attack of The Cookies, Part I

She thought of herself as a gypsy. Not of the unintended racist meaning of the word, but of the person-of-whimsy-on-the-go meaning. Veda wore huge, dangly hoop earrings and scarves in her hair matching her long skirts. It was her uniform, worn everyday with little variation, which she thought gave her power. Her true power, though, the most elegant part of her, was actually love. She had the ability to see beyond the shortcomings of others, into the goodness within their hearts. Her magic was that she could look into the eyes of people forgotten, ignored, and misunderstood by others and love them.

She never noticed the small things about people that might drive others away. She never snubbed people when they needed to vent. She sincerely wanted to help those in need. 

But there was no helping The Cookies; evil creatures who resembled stunted humans with limp wavy hair, fuzzy bodies, and angry, colorless grey eyes. They were infamous for their passive aggressive behavior and undying love of sweet delicatessens, from which they earned their sticky nickname. 

The Cookies could not go past a certain amount of time without eating sugary foods, or dire health circumstances might unfold that would be unhealthy for The Cookie and anyone around it. This worked well enough on their home planets, where they had a variety of sweet yet healthy options. However, upon arriving on Earth, or, more pointedly, in Southern California, they promptly became addicted to processed, chemical laden, overly died and unnaturally colorful sweet junk food. This amused the welcoming Earthlings, who had never seen beings quite so egotistical (and, mind you, that's saying something for Southern Californians) and so loathing of all those others different from them while simultaneously taking an extreme and almost hedonistic pleasure in HoHos and cupcakes, and pop tarts, etc. These aliens now consumed not only sweetness, but strictly artificial sweetness, for every meal and snack. For all the sweet pleasures they sought, all The Cookies put back into this world was cranky negativity by way of condescending comments, cold stares, interruptions while others are speaking, and an awkward disregard of the warm welcome Americans gave them, despite the sharp criticism given from other countries. 

So pleased with our society's artificial food resources, The Cookies decided not to make the horrendously long trip back to their home but instead gave up the least favorite member of their pack to the American government to be tested and dissected in exchange for Naturalization, the ability to maintain confidentiality of from where they came and, of course, plenty of junk food. 

The Cookies then entered the American workforce by the hundreds, snarking their way through awkward office politics they created. They weren't dangerous, war and battles weren't their thing. The only time their eyes would light up in conversation was when talking about cakes, cookies, themselves, or how much better life was on their home planet, and how, oh if only, they could have doughnuts there, too! Otherwise, they were cold, unfriendly, and frankly annoying to work with because they were always on edge. 

Which brings us back to our Veda, in all her fortune-teller-inspired threads, whose greatest power was helping, loving, praying for, and trying her best to please everybody; which, in of itself is an impossible task. But add The Cookie who worked with her at the button factory? Disaster was imminent. 

I'm not suicidal, but...

I used to think that people who killed themselves were selfish, only able to see their pain and not the grief their actions bring to others. Lately, though, through stress, hormones, disappointments, financial problems, loneliness, and grief; I can totally understand feeling so overwhelmed with negativity that someone could be blind to the pain they cause in others. Once you lose sight of others, which could easily happen when you're buried in problems, you are totally susceptible to feeling worthless and not only unafraid but maybe eager for death to end the misery. 

I couldn't imagine killing anyone, including myself (so please do not 5150 me), but these days, when an abundace of pressure catches me at seemingly every angle in my life, I can see why someone might crave that way out, how if it's all processed in the wrong way, someone might go down the wrong path. 

The ever-optomistic saying, "Life sucks and then you die," is wrong. Yes, life breaks away at you, but imagine you are a giant sand dune. The wind, or life, blows at you until, little by litte, you've peeled away to a lesser height. It makes you smaller, or so it seems. But that sand doesn't disappear, it's just shifted to another place. Life doesn't break you down so much as it rehapes you. It can feel like you're broken because you don't feel as great as you once were, but that's only height. Your mass is the same, only your shape is different. And such is life, after everything has gone wrong. 

The Ranch Dream

Last night I had a dream geared around the possibility of riding horse, and I felt the need to share it with the internet.  

Tim & I were on a ranch, on vacation. Other people were there - his friends. 

We are always around his friends in life, never my own - simply because I don’t have any, which breaks my heart to write, but the few friends I have left in this world live 3000 miles away. I simply do not see them, or interact with them non-digitally, enough enough for me to commit their faces to memory in order for them to be able to show up effectively dreams. If only I could see them in my sleep, I'd at least get to see them at least in some way and perhaps my time awake might feel so much less empty. 
 Being annoying is a bad habit, and, let me tell you from first hand experience, it is hard to break. The less I speak to real people, the more the bad habit grows. Real conversations put me in check and I recognize that I need them. Often enough, the only people I talk to outside the home are coworkers who find me utterly and completely annoying. It makes speaking at all difficult to even imagine, except to Tim. At least I have him in my life to speak to daily and he helps me hold onto reality. 

Dreams are an exception to this. Well, no, they aren’t; but in sleep I have allies. And they support me exactly the way I never even knew I always wished someone would support me in life.

In my dream, we were on a ranch-like resort with Tim’s friends. 

There were horses and it made me long for the summer days spent on a family ranch in Wisconsin, horseback riding Western Style, which is the best style, in my opinion, for safety reasons and also because it’s a classic example of an American improvement on a lacking design - why wouldn’t you have a handle, however small, attached to the saddle to hold onto if something goes wrong with your mount? It’s practical and intelligent, yet Westerners are the barbarians? Please. 

Anyway, I wanted to go horseback riding and I spoke about it any time the mention of making plans came up. I mean, what were we doing on a “ranch” resort if we weren’t going to ride a freaking horse? But people kept coming up with excuses and delaying the activity. One of his friends has a habit of speaking condescendingly to me, especially when he's drunk. It’s not personal, he does it to most women I’ve noticed - all the women whom he has already ruled out the possibility of sleeping with. It’s a pathetic display of his ability to dominate for no reason other than his own sad fears and he stayed pretty true to character in my dream.

 In life, I hardly tolerate this behavior, and look beyond it with the acknowledgement that I, the friendless wonder, am also far from perfect. I can see that talking down to women comes from a deeply bedded insecurity pushing him to feel as though he needs to constantly prove to everyone, including himself, whatever it is he lacks confidence over. I know I probably just made him sound like an asshole, but please note that there are so many aspects of his personality which are wonderful; that is just the one part of him I don't care for. Though, when faced with him placing his expectations onto me as a way to boost his ego in my dream, I fought back as probably would have in real life.

I forget what activity he was pushing for, that’s how interesting it was to me. Probably standing around a bar watching other people square dance. Nope, that sounds like a fun night-time activity. This was during the day so I don’t know what he wanted. Maybe there was a pool and he was more interested in showing off his new girlfriend. I met her once; she was an all around delightful person and if I were dating her, I'd want to show her off, too. I honestly like her and I have no real life prejudice to bring into this dream against her, so I have no clue why my subconscious made her the VP of Team Boss You Around. She was helping to lobby people into doing whatever crap thing the two of them wanted to do and, true to an his ego, Tim’s friend was annoyed that everyone didn’t find his boring ass activity interesting; which meant, he was took a considerably condescending tone with me for insisting on going horseback riding.

In my dream, as I would in reality, I told him to go do what he wanted, that I was going riding and I'd meet up with them all later. 

In real life, Tim would say nothing, afraid of rocking the group's boat too much. I have no such fears; if you’re afraid of a little boat rocking, don’t drop it in the water where I’m swimming, but Tim isn’t like that. He’d likely make sure I’m OK without him, and still join the other party, just because he knows I’m independent enough where I don’t care if anyone joins me or if his friend freaks out a little bit when he doesn’t get his way. He'd pick the option where someone freaks out less because he's just sensitive like that. I'm not sensitive. I don't care who freaks out; I want to do what I want to do and likely it's not actually hurting anyone.

But, in my dream... it was so beautiful. Tim took my hand and we walked away. I told him that I was concerned we should break up because his family doesn’t really like me (his sister is the only one who does, but she’s moving away) and his friends all don’t like me at all. I’m a square peg in the circular cookie cutter of his environment. He didn't scold me for being dramatic, lecture me on the importance of being nice and passive, or suggest any social behavior that always ends with me feeling repressed. He just smiled, kissed my hand and said not to be silly. He made a crack about the other couple eating too much cake, which in my dream, somehow translated to being a little nutty. We giggled and made our way to the horses to try on cowboy and cowgirl boots, which were apparently required. I picked out colorful ones and Tim picked out plain ones, then we had fun teasing each other for our choices. As we were waiting for the mounts to be brought up, other people from the group showed up, also interested in joining us. Only, they couldn’t because there was a line and a waiting list. They could go together and meet us at the end of the trail.

Shortly after that, the bossy friend showed up with his Frau, having decided to join everyone else. Strangely, though, he was talking as if it was his idea all along and acted annoyed at Tim & me, not for winning some kind of popularity game that existed only in his head which we weren’t even trying to play, but instead for some other cranky excuse that he’d made up in an effort to make us either look or feel like bad friends, which had no effect on us."Thanks for going ahead of us and not putting our names on the list, too," or something along those lines.

Our horses arrived, we took our mounts, and raced to the beginning of the trail, laughing at our own inside joke about some people eating too much cake.The dream went on from there, but I don't remember it at all. I just remember the feeling of fulfillment and having someone truly by my side. 

I love how ridiculous dreams are, how what is a minor part of a person's in-real-life-personality becomes such a dominating part of a dream's plot. The brain has the capacity to manipulate scenarios that have so little link to reality, but touch on such real topics. The dream points out how alone I am, how good it feels when Tim stands by me - when it happens. It forces me to acknowledge that I'm not "nice" and that I never will be and how badly I just want to be accepted for that; how proud I might feel if only I could inspire someone else to act more socially independent. That our independence is what makes the forces trying to control us in life, no matter what their methods, weaken to the point where they are laughable. And love; most of all, this dream stressed the importance of love and interdependence; that you don't need each other as some sort of emotional crutch, but that you choose each other and work as a team from there. How we all must long for that in every relationship we have. 
Also, isn't it interesting how, when I can't think of anything I want to write about, how totally uninspired I am, my subconscious can spit out something amusing and technically correct in terms of story telling: a beginning, a middle, and an ending, with a problem (albeit a tiny one in this case, though sometimes the smallest problem feels like a giant dilemma) and a solution. Now, if only I could dream something a little more action-packed...

I just realized I believe in past lives

Sometimes when I'm reading in bed, I'll extend my right hand out, reaching for another hand I'm always subconsciously sure will be there. When it's not, I have a reality check. "Oh right, there's no hand there." There never has been. There's never been anyone in my life with whom I would lie beside, holding hands as we, Mystery Hand and I, read our separate ...separate what? Separate novels? That's what I read but maybe Mystery Hand's Owner's other hand held the day's paper? I'm unsure whose hand it is exactly that I reach for, so a reading preference is somewhat difficult to determine. What I can determine is that when it happened tonight, I finally decided it's not just a tiny neurotic quirk I partake in often. I decided that it must be a habit left over from a past life where I'd fallen into a habit of holding hands with someone while lying down and quietly reading. I must have loved this small gesture so much that my soul clung to the habit, always hopeful Mystery Hand's Owner will be there even after living such a different life as is mine. I must have loved this person very deeply and was, in return, loved incredibly much as well.
It's so much more beautiful of a thought than merely accepting that perhaps I am crazy. Crazy, sad, and lonely, but at least creative.

Hope

Hope is a bad dream

When your creativity

Wanted a nightmare.      -EF

Seen and Heard: Shuttle Stories

I inadvertently overhear a lot of crazy stories in the shuttle. It's not my intent, I dislike eavesdropping, but there's nowhere to go; it's a closed space, and people share their craziest lowdown in a normal volume of voice, as if they were in a car alone together.
Some are just not ashamed of their lives, and kudos to them for that; it takes a strong person to laugh at themselves openly in public. However, some of these things are so TMI - poop stories, stories involving squishy sounds that don't end well (they never end well), he cheated on me now I have nowhere to live but with his mother, etc - that I never thought to post them. But, hell, every now and again, something comes along that you can't keep to yourself - a story so great it can only be shared with the whole World Wide Web.
I sat in the second row of the shuttle while the two girls behind me in the third row spoke loud enough that I'm sure even the driver couldn't have tuned them out.
They spoke in the diglossia of immature female voices that are not so far from the Valley Girl inspired accent they were in the process of outgrowing. They haven't become adult enough to drop it altogether, voices an octave higher than really needs be. It sounds forced, like someone clinging to a youth that everyone within hearing distance is probably desperate for them to drop.
Although, we are a competitive bunch in this field. Perhaps these ladies are struggling to be the most feminine, and they believe a higher pitched voice equates chic femininity. I don't know and I don't care; I'm just grateful no one in my team feels that way. I'm crass enough to drop a snarky comment here and there if I was exposed to it on a daily basis.
But, I digress, these two people were speaking loudly and in falsetto post Valley Girl era voices.
"Ommigod, so, like, I was at a Birthday party last night? ...in a trampling park."
"What's that?"
"It's a big room with giant trampolines? -like, everywhere."
"Fuhhn..."
"Yah, it was. Everyone had such a fun time..."
"Yah, I behht."
"Yah, only," and she paused to giggle in an awkwardly intimate way, "There was this one thing that happened? ...that was kind of bahhhd."
"Oh no, wha-happened?"
"Ommigod, so, Dave? ...came bouncing up to me and was like, 'I'm gonna jump over you.' And I was like, 'No, you're not.' And Dave was like, 'Yes I am, I'm really good at this, I've jumped over someone as tall as you before.' And I was like? 'Idon'care, stay away from me.' And he was like, 'I'm gonna warm up, but when I'm done, I'm gonna come over, and I'm gonna jump over you.' ...yah... So, I tried jumping by myself, away from everyone because, like? I didn't want him jumping over me."
"Yah, that's nuts."
'Yah, he's so stupid," She gasped with disgust, "Dave." Then they sighed simultaneously, so I guess Dave has a reputation for this type of antic.
"So, I tried staying away? ...but people kept following me, all like, 'Why are you bouncing by yourself?' ...and then Dave would bounce over again and be like 'I'm gonna jump over you.' It was so scary."
"Yah, I behht."
"Yah... and so, eventually, he came up to me and he was like, 'I'm ready, I'm gonna do this. Hold still, don't move, or I could land on you.' I was so scared. I even bent my knees a little, in case that helped."
"He is a buff guy..."
"Yah, he's super in shape, and if anyone could do it, I'm sure it would be him, but still..."
"It's a dude jumping over you."
"Exactly!" I once sounded that excited when I finally found someone who agreed at the atrocity of corporations running news organizations, promoting not even politics anymore, but their own [evil] corporate agendas, which absurdly value their future pro-baller rapists. Well, someone else besides me who isn't a blogger on Jezebel, that is; a fellow sober Centrist lurking awkwardly at a party full of drunk Republicans who only blinked bleary eyed and rushed off bored when they'd tried to join our conversation, which, by the way, I've summed up way too generally. However, this girl was excited because someone finally agreed that having a dude attempt jumping over her didn't feel like a safe or sound idea.
"Well, you don't seem hurt, what happened?"
"So, he jumped? ...and he landed crotch first. Right. Here."
I didn't turn around to see what part of her body she gestured to because that would be crossing the line between overhearing and eavesdropping, but I really struggled to hold back laughing openly at this girl.
"Om-m-m-igod," her friend said, trying to sound comforting through laughter, which came off incredibly condescending, "Aw, that's so embarrassing. But, at least you fell back on your butt, right? I mean, at least you were on a trampoline."
"No, he stopped himself literally on my face, like he used my face as his brakes, and we both went down together."
Her friend gasped politely and she must have made the appropriately satisfying 'are-you-kidding' facial expression, as well, because Trampoline Girl said, "Yah, I know."
"Wow."
"Yah, my ears were ringing, I had to sit down, like I couldn't move for a few minutes. The guys who worked there came over and yelled at us for not jumping safely. And I was like, 'It wasn't me, it was him.' But they didn't care and I thought they were going to ask us all to leave. Like, I'm injured, my face hurts, and I was so embarrassed that the room was spinning, like? ...I was dizzy ...but then they just walked away. We weren't kicked out and I was like, 'phew!' That would have been so bahhd if it's someone's Birthday and we had to leave because of that. I mean, I'm so clumsy, anyway? I can't believe he did that."
"Awww."
"Yah."
"I'm sorry that happened."
"Thanks, yah, those parks are super dangerous."
'Yah, that's what I heard. Sounds like it was a lot of fun, though."
"Oh yah, other than that? ...it was so. Much. Fun."

And then, on my way out of the shuttle, my wrap dress unwrapped itself in the wind (wrap dresses: will I ever learn???) and I gave the warehouse employees a great show they won't soon forget, I'm sure.

So there you have it, one shuttle ride, two embarrassing stories, 
HotChaCha.

Princesses are Always in Peril.

I'm ten years old, playing Super Mario Bros with my two older brothers on the floor in my room. The games and consoles are outdated, and have been forgotten by their original owners since they were long ago replaced by newer, advanced versions while these gems were passed to me. Yet, here they are, those original players one and two, sitting with me on my floor playing a game while the tears begin to dry on my blotchy, red face.
The doctor my mother had taken me to six months earlier declared that I had ADD, that I should be taking Ritalin, and that I would be much more manageable for her while taking them.
The medication makes me awkward and painfully antisocial, which would be difficult enough to deal with had I grown up among my current classmates. But all the kids I bonded with way back in kindergarten are all 2,000 miles away, where they ought to be, where I feel I ought to be. There is no loyalty to depend on at school. There is no one to see a difference in my behavior. No one, save my brothers.
They, not my parents, witness my coming down off the medication my mother insists on force-feeding me every morning. They witness the shakes, both physical and emotional. They sit with me when I sob from the frustration of not understanding what is happening to me, to the point where my lungs hurt inside my chest and I can't breathe. They, not my parents, sit with me, distracting me, probably as scared as I am.
But their voices, if used at all in this matter, fall upon deaf, stubborn ears. Their concerns probably meet the same response I get every night when I tell her how much I hate taking the medication, "The doctor said there may be some adverse reactions, at first. Stop being dramatic. Do your homework."
Or, perhaps merely witnessing my struggle every morning deters them from seeing a point. A woman so bent on drugging me up does not seem open to the opinions or viewpoints of others. Except, of course, unless that person's name is followed by, 'MD.'
At the ripe age of ten, I will experience what it feels like to come off cocaine - an experience I will find myself in much later in life, after experimenting with drugs at the seemingly generous will of a future boyfriend I wish to impress. I'll recognize the dip in emotions, the aches, the lack of hunger, the cloudy head. The memories of the toll this feeling took on my childhood will ultimately be what turns me off to cocaine and, as a result, I'll be weary of taking any recreational drugs and eventually drinking altogether. This will be the only perk of the whole situation, and in fact, that behavior doesn't win me any gold stars among drinkers as I age, causing me to remain somewhat antisocial and aloof for life.
I will always fear others trying to control me for their own benefit, especially women.  It will destroy many relationships.
I will have no respect for the older generation, to the point of seeming cold and ungrateful.
I will not want to have any children, and dread settling down, for fear of being the next generation of this type of parental behavior.
But, for now, my brothers try to make me laugh, a banter I am not able to join in on. I don't understand why yet, but they instinctively leave me out of it.
It's my turn and I pick the Princess for the chosen level.
"You're like a princess," one says, thinking incorrectly that this would cheer me up.
"They're always in peril, something's always going wrong for them," he explains.
"No," I gesture to the screen at the pink dressed icon floating around the bombs and waterfalls.
"Well, if you aren't a princess, what are you?" Later in life, he'll learn how to control a conversation to make you think things like this were your ideas. He'll be so good at it that it concerns me, but for now I'm not convinced by his claim. After all, it doesn't feel like someone's coming to rescue me.
My other brother puts his arm protectively on my shoulders and responds calmly and quietly, "She's someone who is going to get far away from here one day."
A tear rolls down my cheek and he adds, "We both will."
Years later, after this brother moves three thousand miles away on his own, he'll give me the Dr. Seuss book, "Oh The Places You'll Go," with an inscription that LA was made for me and I will remember this moment.
The hard part is over, my cheeks will be dry by the time we hear the garage opening for her, in about an hour. It will still be midnight before my heart will stop racing and for my brain to stop reeling. And then it will all happen again, more or less, tomorrow.