However

It's been a while once again since I've written a blog, but it's vacation time!  Time for long car rides full of reflections and thoughts to share with people.

This vacation is to Massachusetts to visit my badass cop sister.  (vacation: to vacate one's current situation and flee to another. No word on whether this will be more or less pleasant. Last vacation was less pleasant. This one has the winds of good cheer blowing over it already.)

There will be gift sharing there. If only it was the thought that counted and not the physical gift, for I have none. Yet. There's a mall up there.

The other day I wanted to take the back way to my friend's house that I saw her do once and I was sure I could replicate with the help of my GPS once I had gotten it far enough to assure it I wanted to go that way. I failed in such a way that I couldn't help but smile; I had come back to the exact point where I had started my effort. My GPS has a very strong will.

However (oh my gosh- I just met this girl my age whose every other sentence begins with the word however. I almost want to bring it up to her but don't want to make her feel self-conscious. More on her later.), I was exposed to such countryside as I had never expected would be in my figurative backyard! I crossed some European-looking cars and went through this little town center where a nice white-haired man waved at me out of his car (which I suspect was because it was his turn and I had violated some form of intersection etiquette) - (I call him nice because he didn't shout or use rude gestures) and I almost thought I was in a different world. And it turned out I was just driving in a relatively small circle.

I actually saw scenes that brought about memories of recent dreams I've had. Sometimes this happens to me and elates me because it proves to me that I have dreams and they do stay in my head even if I cannot readily access them. They come about magically when they want to or when God wants them to or something like that! And I relate dreams to creativity and continued thought and problem solving during sleep. Sometimes I think the reason I'm so tired during the day is because I spend so much time processing and thinking and dreaming during the night, which is really exciting because dreams are magical and crazy things.

Last night I dreamed about being a part of NCIS and climbing out of a car submerged in water and up, up, up onto a suspension bridge high in the air into a chaotic scene with many many people riding a train and me riding one the opposite way with the assignment of telling the people to trust what they were being told because I trusted the person who was speaking. There were also dirt tunnels involved.

The same girl who uses the word "however" excessively had a dream that helped her with an art project. I wish I had dreams like that.

About her: I met her through church about two days ago and spent some time with her yesterday. Over the course of about 45 minutes it hit me that she was the girl from elementary school who left because everybody made fun of.

Including me.

Of course, I was the girl who was on-and-off nice to the group of weird girls because it was the nice girl thing to do but I secretly resented them for being different and I was cruel behind their backs to my family and sometimes I joined in with the meanness of my other classmates when I thought she was especially odd or annoying. I don't know if she thought I was an ally or an enemy, but it's not about ME. It's about her. And I was just part of everybody that made her move to another school district after fifth grade.

I apologized to her IF I ever hurt her. Like I didn't. And she said, "all is forgiven." Just like that. But would she really feel forgiving if she saw the way I made fun of her behind her back, to my mom, for example? I was CRUEL.

But we had a good time together and I think there's some healing taking place. Maybe we can both let go of some things.

666

Do you know how badly I wish I could have my phone and my keys and my driver's license and my debit card imbedded in my wrist?

I could leave the house to go anywhere at any frequency without running around my house frantically trying to find each item (in addition to a suitable bag) on each occasion.

It would also solve the problem of me trying to use my car keys to unlock my house and vice versa.

Which is very absentminded of me and very common and very annoying.

I believe technology is heading that way but some conspirists think that  might be kind of like what the Bible is talking about when it says people will not be able to buy or sell without the devil's number tattooed on their wrist or forehead.

As a side note, I'm not sure why someone would want the devil's number tattooed on their forehead. Imagine leaning your head over the grocery store scanner to verify your identity.

I feel like it'll be a lot more obvious and sinister-feeling when the devil's number comes around than when humans get chips imbedded in their wrists with convenient scannable info. I think Christians will be able to tell and it won't be something controversial among followers of Christ.

I think there'll have to be some sort of denial of Christ involved.

Right now this chip thing is kind of like the issue of tattoos or drinking. I wouldn't burn at the stake for my opinion on it. I would only burn at the stake for the fact that Jesus is Lord. 

So, anyway, for ADD people like me, maybe a compromise to not worry my dad about me losing my place in the book of life would be to put little GPS trackers on my important items and have several tracking devices including on my friends' technical devices.

It would be very James Bond.

Mittens

Remember in my last post the nice older gentleman who waved at me out of his car window when I'm pretty sure I was cutting him off at an intersection?

Well, here's a post on unfriendly gestures.

I think I already wrote about the girl who leaned out her window and licked her hand at my friend when she stopped in the middle of a red light and how the internet had nothing to say about it. 

Sometimes I pass by locations that I don't like because they remind me of people or events that make me very unhappy and I like to give them the finger.

It has so happened, though, that I have been wearing mittens while driving past these locations and I believe that God has used that as a sort of reminder that I shouldn't practice angry gestures because it will  eventually increase my personal bitterness tolerance.

Sometimes I like to personally flip off drivers who annoy me, inside my car, for my own emotional fulfillment. I should probably wear mittens more often.

My friend likes to joke that you can flash three fingers out the window and yell, "read between the lines!" Which I think is hilarious. I've never seen it done. But the condition of my heart would still be the same.

My favorite signal is the peace sign. It's a method of apology and thanks. I'd be careful using it to tell someone to chill out, because, as another person has warned me, you never know when a person is carrying a gun or some such weapon.

And an update on the break-tapping: I have heard that putting on your four-way flashers is a good way to get tail gaiters to back off without risking them hitting your rear. But father brought up a good point: if someone hits you from behind, it's always his fault. I caught him angry recently saying that if mom and I weren't in the car, he would've slammed on the breaks and begged his current tailgater to hit him.

I love my dad.

Bubbles

I just watched the movie "Frozen" and loved it.

I was in a terrible mood and it immediately enraptured me. The animation, the way the light shone through the ice, mmm, it tasted so good to my eyes.

By the time the elk or reindeer character got his antlers entangled in the dangling branches of trees which were covered in drops of ice that were shining more beautifully than any Christmas lights ever could, I was smiling inside, because my spirit had chosen to take the movie in, no matter what happened. It was mine, it was my own little piece of irreality, a bubble of a story that I could hold forever in my heart as a beautiful work of art and inspiration, storytelling and magic. Like a dollhouse I could enter whenever I wanted or leave alone if I felt that way.

There's a book called "The Great Good Thing" in which the characters are characters in a storybook and their lives depend on being remembered by their reader. As they deteriorate, well, I actually forget what happens. It means they are going through the same journeys and struggles as they did in their original story right now as I write this.

When the movie ended, I had to sleep uncomfortably and I was angry and my bad mood returned. My bubble of happiness had been put away. Sometimes I like to just be angry and not pull out my happy stories and beautiful memories. But they're there. When I went to sleep they came along.

Rock Face

I just dreamed a lot. There was this guy I had a crush on (who was not a person from real life) who met me while we were going through a real-life pinball machine obstacle course type thing after a rainstorm in order to get back home. 

I had gotten too far from home because in my dream world when it floods everything becomes a swimming pool and i easily glided through the water, down the sidewalks, maybe for a mile before the water disappeared. 

The sidewalks weren't for people. When it was time to go back home and the floodwaters had disappeared, I discovered I had to crawl or sort of Neanderthal it all the way back to home base because the walks were right outside people's doors and underneath low, low roofs that made me think perhaps I had chosen the sidewalk designated for pets. And without the water it took forever to get back. 

....

I have just returned to this draft after who knows how long. 

I don't remember if in my dream I got back "home," but it wasn't really home anyway. 

Also included in the dream was a trip to the theme park and the dilemma of what to pack, and my sister and I trying to start and drive a vehicle to a restaurant across the street (for some reason this was a challenge) and a classmate and I climbing up and down a vine- covered rock face. She was fearless, like she is on real life. I admire her. 

This classmate of mine - we used to be buddies, until the day she told me I irritated her. And when I left her alone, I saw her change into whoever I was holding her back from being. 

It's a little depressing to think of it in a certain light, but just because my presence was a cage to her doesn't mean it is for everybody else. It makes me happy that I didn't hang on to her any longer than I did - because she has made so many friends, changed her appearance, even stopped wearing her backpack to school, I think - since I left her alone. 

It's almost like I'm being her friend by not being her friend. 

But in the dream, she was being really encouraging to me on that rock face with the vines. 

So Glad I Did

The other day I visited a friend at the library. 

Every time I go to the library I wonder why I don't spend more time there. But it's not like I actually read stuff. I just find books with cool pictures and look at them. 

Like, for example, I just checked out thirteen books with pictures of hairstyles from different decades and time periods to look at and helpe with a project for school. Also cultural body painting. 

It's a stage. I'll get back to reading stories someday.

Just like I'll get back to legit making art someday. 

For now, school. 

And with school, comes the self-bestowed privilege of being allowed to approach strangers and ask them about their hair. 

At the library, I spotted a black woman with luxurious long curly hair. Curly hair is my favorite and I wanted to know her secret. Especially since i am immersed in a Paul Mitchell product environment, I want to know what other hair products work for women blessed (they might say cursed) with curls. So I gathered my courage and approached her. 

"I noticed your hair from across the room and it's just so beautiful - I'm a cosmetology student and I'm trying to learn as much as I can. What do you use in your hair?"

She looks at me and laughs and says "it's a WIG!"

This is fairly normal for black women so for a split second I think nothing of it. 

She continues,

"I have alopecia and I'm always so depressed that I don't have any hair!  I'm so self-conscious all the time - like today coming up the stairs into the library it was windy and so scary, which is just depressing!  And to hear that my wig looks natural and beautiful from a COSMETOLOGY student is just so encouraging."

And she gave me a hug, and we talked some more, and she told me about how she washes it and the products she uses, and I was so happy I talked to her because I had been considering not talking to her simply for my own personal comfort.  

And she told me she has a supportive husband but she thinks he just says nice things because he loves her. Which is really sweet. 

But I was floating when I walked out of the library, and I hope she was, too. 

I think my car may have been floating as well because I returned most of the thirteen books I had checked out from a different branch of the same system.