Dream Journal 8/19/18 | Nudes?!

My son and I flew to Maine to visit with my grandfather, who I hadn’t seen in nearly 10 years.

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Dream Journal 7/29/17 | Band

I was sitting in band class, clarinet in hand, waiting patiently as our teacher handed out some sheet music. He handed me my part, and immediately informed the class that we only had an hour to perfect and memorize the song, because we would be marching around the school in an hour, competing against other schools.

We ran through the song a few times, which sounded HORRIBLE, and he decided to inform me that he wanted me to have a solo, just as we were walking out the door. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that, and he just ignored me.

We were in the hallway, standing as a group, between two other bands. They were both standing at attention, and were wearing matching, snazzy uniforms. We were all in jeans and t-shirts, and looked like terrified, jumpy animals. We began moving through the very large, very empty, hallways of the school, at more of a walking pace, rather than marching, as the group in front of us played through their song perfectly. As we passed by the gym, the first group broke off, and went in. Myself, and the clarinet player next to me, began to follow them into the gym, but one of them turned to us and shouted at us to leave.

We get back to our own band, and the teacher signaled for us to begin playing. It. Was. Bad. No one knew the song. At all. Then, he signaled to me to begin playing my solo, that I was somehow expected to know, and I looked down and realised that I no longer had my clarinet. He kept staring at me, and I started to panic. Then, the clarinet player to my left started playing something to break the silence. It was shaky and breathy, and didn’t sound like much of anything, but I appreciated her breaking the terrible silence.

We kept walking, even as the band behind us started playing, until my teacher pulled me aside. He told me that it was okay that I didn’t do my solo, because now he wanted me to do a new solo. A spoken solo. He said that we were going to act out some scene from a book about zoo animals, and that I was going to be reciting the park of a lion, who gives a motivational speech about going to war… or something. He pulled us all aside, out of the path of the other band, and handed out a bunch of children’s books. We flipped through the pages, all confused as hell, as he began reading to us.

My fellow clarinet playing friend and I started to read our parts, when we suddenly heard the sounds of a crowd screaming and cheering. They were chanting something, but I’m not sure what. Our teacher motioned for us to follow him down the hallway, back toward the gym…

And then I woke up.

Dream Journal 10/19/16

I was sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee while Liam ate his breakfast, when I heard the sound of voices in the building’s hallway.

Mom’s Visit | Day 6

[You can read about Days 0-1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, Day 4 here, and Day 5 here.]

Hello, friends. Today has been very… trying.

Kyle went back to work today, though I had him with me all morning and early afternoon. I had planned on getting some housework done, since it has all gone undone ever since my mom arrived, but that never ended up happening. Liam was incredibly fussy all morning, despite sleeping for nearly 13 hours straight, and was being quite naughty. On top of dealing with a cranky toddler, Kyle had a meeting with the financial aid office about getting financial help with his CDL class… and they basically told him there is nothing they can do to help him. So he came home very upset, which only made me more upset about this whole day getting off to a rough start.

Liam took an early nap around 10:15, despite only being awake for 2.5 hours, and ended up sleeping for 3 whole hours. I decided to put off doing anything with my mom until after he had his lunch, in the hopes that his long nap would put him in better spirits. This did not stop her from driving all the way to the park up the street from our apartment, and texting us about all the comings and goings happening there. It made me feel bad, and a little annoyed, that she drove all the way here, when we didn’t want company for a while, but whatever.

After kiddo woke up and had his lunch, my mom came over, and we all sat around, playing with Liam’s blocks, doing puzzles, and chatting. Kyle left for work, and my mom and I left shortly after to take Liam to the play area at the mall. We stopped to get some concrete mixers from Culver’s (basically, for those who don’t know, it is just building your own delicious, frozen custard treat with all sorts of candies and toppings to mix in), since we’ve all been craving them lately. We brought one to Kyle at work, and visited with him and one of his co-workers for a while, then headed to the mall play area.

Unlike yesterday, we had the entire play area to ourselves, and Liam had a blast, running around and screaming like a silly boy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all that fun for me, as my mom was driving me absolutely insane. She was crawling around, playing with Liam, and chasing him, and kept stopping every so often to proclaim loudly, “Oh, I better stop, I’m probably embarrassing mommy!”, despite the fact that there was no one around, and I had not said anything at all. She did this at least 10 times. That’s just something she does, and it honestly drives me insane. She always says things like, “I’m just so stupid, don’t listen to me.” or “I’m probably wrong, I’m wrong about everything.” or always assumes that you are embarrassed of her, even when you aren’t arguing with her, or correcting her, or anything. It is so irritating, and she has been like this my entire life. I was hoping that she had changed, even a little bit, in the 8 years since I’ve lived under the same roof as her, but she hasn’t. I’ve called her out on it before, and tell her to stop saying things like that about herself, but it just makes her angry.

Anyway, after a little while, it started getting close to dinner time, so we headed to the bathrooms at other end of the mall to change Liam’s diaper. Once we got there, my mom told me she was going to just go wait for me by the car, which was parked outside of a totally different entrance, and I told her I was going to be a minute, because I wanted to take Liam to say goodnight to Kyle, since he wouldn’t be home in time for bedtime. She just walked off without a word.

Back in Kyle’s work, where it was absolutely dead, I found myself ranting irritably to Kyle and his co-worker friend, while Liam ran around, playing with the various things that hung from low hooks. I eventually went to meet my mom back at the car, where she argued with me over where we should eat dinner, and we ended up eating nowhere, and she just dropped me off at the partment.

Ugh. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve just been so exhausted lately, emotionally and physically, and it has put me so on edge. I knew that this was going to be a hard week for me, as even spending 24 hours with my mom gets under my skin, but this week has been hard for so many reasons. Tomorrow is her last visiting day with us, even though her flight leaves Saturday night, but she doesn’t want to stop by that day. I’ll be honest, I really missed alone time with my son. I missed cleaning my apartment. I missed taking naps. I missed spending Kyle’s days off with him, cuddling on the couch, watching Netflix. I missed normality.

I guess that’s it for now. I want to spend tomorrow driving around, looking for garage sales and yard sales in the area. My mom is still pushing that she wants to buy me stuff, so maybe I’ll be able to find a decent dresser somewhere for her to get me. Who knows.

Well, Kyle literally just walked in, and I want cuddles. We’ve been watching The Adventures of Merlin on Netflix, and I know I’ve mentioned it before, but seriously, you should check it out.

Also, before I go, I wanted to add something else that she does that I find… odd. Whenever Liam does literally anything, like how he plays with blocks, or babbles, or runs around excitedly… just the things he does normally, she never compares him to me at his age. Not at all. She always says that everything reminds her of herself, or her and her mom, from when she was little. She never even talks about me as a baby, or her and I. I just find it strange. Is it? I don’t know. Meh.

Anyway, thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

Dream Journal 5/26/16 | Closeout

I was working for a large warehouse-style store, and it was my store’s last day open. Most of the employees had already left, and there were only a handful of us left. My boss, a very tall, attractive, blonde woman, kept coming up to me, interrupting my various tasks, to tell me to get more things done before we closed the doors for good. I was getting angrier and angrier, because she was letting people leave, but giving me more stuff to do. She was also bothering my friend Travis (who I haven’t seen since… 7th grade or so, and doesn’t even live in the same state as me), and he came over to ask me if I wanted to just walk out with him, since it was our last day anyway. I agreed.

As we were walking across the store, which was basically an endless warehouse, I stopped to hug all of my co-workers, and started getting really emotional, talking about how we would never see each other again, and reminiscing about all the good times we had working together. After the 15th or 16th person I stopped to talk to, Travis walked away, and I lost him in the store. I kept walking toward the exit, saying goodbye to people, getting more and more emotional. I stepped outside of the store, into the sunshine, and the street in front of me was completely empty. In the distance, I saw a guy I knew named Elliott (from the show Leverage), and I chased after him because I needed to say goodbye to him. I kept calling his name, but he wouldn’t turn around, and I couldn’t catch up to him.

Suddenly, I was walking, and Travis was walking next to me, and he was angry with me for not giving a hug goodbye. I told him that I was trying to catch up to Elliott to say goodbye to him, and he stopped walking, and told me Elliott was a jerk. I ignored him and kept walking, and he started calling after me.

And then I woke up.

Dream Journal 4/17/16 | Locker Room

I was attending some kind of lecture at a college campus. I was all the way in the back of a huge auditorium, with horrible acoustics, and I could not hear the speaker at all. Everyone around me was falling asleep. I stood up and clapped when everyone else did, even though I had no idea what was going on, and we all left. In the hall, a woman instructed the men to head to the men’s locker rooms and shower, and for the women to do the same. I went with the crowd of women to the locker room, where everyone started taking out gym bags filled with clothes, towels, shampoo, etc. I started to panic, as I did not have any of these things.

I went to the door to leave, but the woman was blocking the way, and told me that I HAD to shower. I asked her why, because it made no sense, and she pushed me backwards into the room. I started walking around frantically, trying to find someone who could help me, but I realized that I did not know a single woman there. After some frantic running around, I found my friend, Lindsey, and begged her to let me borrow her shampoo. She looked at me, and started laughing, telling me no. I started crying, and tried to run from the room again, but the woman guarding the door stopped me and started shouting. I shoved her, and she hit the wall behind her, and started shouting at someone to grab me before I started running.

And then I woke up.

Lindsey, I love you, but damn!

Dream Journal 3/29/16

[Since I’ve been so busy being glued to the couch with my sick, clingy toddler lately, I haven’t had any time to type out the dreams from my dream journal. I finally have a few minutes today, so here is dream 2 of 3.]

I was trying to take a nap, but my roommate kept screaming my name. Finally, she came into my room, and it was my friend, Kat, from Upward Bound. She told me I had to get up because I was supposed to babysit her niece so that they could all go out somewhere. I ignored her and went back to sleep. She came in the room 5 or 6 more times to yell at me before I finally got up, and went out to the living room.

Everyone was dressed nicely, and I was in loose fitting pajamas with my boobs practically hanging out, and my hair a complete mess. Kat hugged her niece, who started crying, tell her that she hated me and that she didn’t want to stay with me. Kat gave her a puzzle box and told her that they would be back tomorrow morning. Then they left.

The little girl had a plate of Spaghetti-O’s sitting on the table, and she walked over and threw them on the floor, laughing and telling me I had to clean it up or she was going to tell Kat that I hit her. I cleaned it up, and she kept laughing. Then she went into my room and locked the door, and I was banging loudly, and someone was banging on the front door, but I ignored them, trying to get the little girl out.

And then I woke up.

Dream Journal 3/23/16

[Since I’ve been so busy being glued to the couch with my sick, clingy toddler for nearly two weeks, I haven’t had any time to type out the dreams from my dream journal. I finally have a few minutes today, so here is dream 1 of 3.]

I was at a graduation party with my high school best friend, Adara, and a few other people. Her younger brother was graduating from college, and we were in a beautifully decorated mansion, filled with nicely dressed people. Adara and I, along with a random dream created girl, were upstairs drinking, and Adara was getting crazy. The more she drank, which was quite a lot, the smaller she shrunk, until she was about the size of an American Girl doll, less than 2 feet tall. The other girl and I went to find her brother, but couldn’t, and when we found Adara in the bathroom a few moments later, she was in the process of falling off of the toilet, and hitting her head on the sink.

Dream girl and I picked her up, which looked incredibly awkward, as she was still very tiny, and we were holding her as though she were normal sized. We carried her downstairs, and two guys came up to us and tried to pull her away, saying that no one was allowed to leave. I punched one of them in the face, and we loaded Adara into the back of her brother’s car, where he was waiting for us. He told us that he needed to stop at Walmart for something, and that he would be quick, but instead, he pulled into the driveway of another mansion, and got out, leaving us there for a long time.

It started to rain, and the other girl and I grabbed Adara, carrying her in the same awkward position and started running with her toward the hospital in the distance. There were sports cars speeding by us, and people drunkenly hollering to us.

At the hospital, her mom was in the waiting room, and she started hitting us with her purse and telling us it was our fault that Adara ended up like this, because she is allergic to alcohol. The other girl started crying, and a doctor came and put Adara on a tiny stretcher and carried her away. Adara’s mom took a place of cookies out of her purse and started eating them, but told us that we couldn’t have any because we were both bitches.

That’s the last thing I remember before.

Take A Walk With Jan #11

Hey, friends! Yesterday was absolutely beautiful, and in continuation with the theme of being a fantastic day, I was able to get outside with my little one for the first time in a few days, since there had been some nasty weather happening recently. After a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and applesauce, we set off for the park. Once we passed by the high school, I decided to attempt jogging the rest of the way to the park, and that was a mistake. I am so out of shape. It was awful. I also almost witnessed an accident between an older woman, who was driving properly, and a teenager in a large truck, who decided to blow through a stop sign and speed through a school zone. Luckily, I didn’t have to be a witness to something fatal. Kids these days are assholes. People in general are also assholes.

I made it halfway through the park before I stopped jogging. As I slowed to an exhausted walk, we passed by a woman who was talking pictures of her toddler, who was balancing on a log. She also had a another baby in her umbrella stroller. She looked up and smiled at us as we passed by, and I secretly wished that they were on their way to the playground as well. Well, they were!

We were extremely excited to see that they had put the swings back in the night before (they take all the swings down for the winter), and when I put Liam down, he immediately ran over to the nearest little kid swing. And then, he was in absolute heaven.

Look at that happy faaace! 😀

After several minutes on the swing, the other woman walked over with her boys, and Liam immediately started trying to climb out of the swing. I put him down on the ground, and he ran straight up to them, flailing is arms and babbling like crazy. The woman, who was about my age, smiled and talked about how cute he was. The older boy, who I found out was 3 years old, followed Liam and I up the steps to the playground, and showed me his “I VOTED!” sticker. I jokingly asked him who he voted for, and he informed me that he was too young to vote, but his mommy voted. He was so sweet.

Liam was acting shy at this point, and kept wanting me to pick him up, so I carried him around for a few minutes so that he could watch the other boys play. Her other son, a chunky little 17 month old, was about Liam’s size (Liam was actually 3-4 inches taller than him, and she commented on how tall he was and how impressed she was that he was running around so well), and Liam warmed up to him pretty quickly. I took Liam’s soccer ball out of his bag, and the little boy immediately came up and stole it. His mom seemed embarrassed, but I told her it was fine, as Liam never plays with it, I just bring it along just in case. It was a good thing that our boys were the same size, because her little guy peed through his diaper, and she was going to leave early, but I offered her a spare diaper, and she was grateful.

We ended up staying at the park for nearly two hours, then we left together. She was going home in the same direction that we were walking to the store, and we split up a few blocks from the park. It was so nice to not only find someone for Liam to play with, but to have someone to talk to. We exchanged pregnancy horror stories, talked about teething, picky eating, and watched as her older boy dug out worm after worm from the dirt around the park. It felt nice to have some human interaction, and I sincerely hope that we see them again.

The walk to Dollar General was somewhat uneventful, although I did pass by a woman walking two very loud whippets, who did NOT seem to like that I was on their sidewalk, and then passed by a car with a dead bird on the windshield. Ew.

My trip to Dollar General itself, however, was another story. Now, I’ve worked retail. In fact, most of my jobs that I’ve held have been retail jobs. I totally understand that, sometimes, things get a little crazy when you are just trying to pass the time… however, what I witnessed and overheard at my local store was completely unacceptable, albeit not unexpected from this specific store.

The store manager was complaining very loudly to her co-worker, who was several aisles away, about how they were going to be getting a very large truck the next day, and she said, “I don’t know where the DM expects us to put all this shit. I should tell him to bend over and shove it where the sun don’t shine, right up his ass. That’s where he can put it.” Um… wow.

First off, I get it, I really do. She was frustrated. I’ve worked at a smaller DG store before, so I completely understand. However, it is completely inappropriate to talk like that on the sales floor, especially that loudly and vulgarly, around customers. She didn’t even care. The conversation continued like that for the duration of my visit to the store, and I was not the only one noticing. The older woman in front of me when I was checking out asked the cashier girl to speak to a manager to complain… well, sure enough, the look on her face was of shock and disgust when the manager of the store walked over. So she told them that she would be calling the 1-800 number, and the manager did not seem to care. I wanted to be shocked, but I wasn’t, and that is saying a lot.

Look at those chicken legs!

Then, we came home. Despite being exhausted on the walk back, Liam did NOT want to take his afternoon nap, and instead chose to run around and repeatedly take off his pants (see above picture). So we played for a while, ate dinner, got ready for bed, and he slept like a rock, even with the insane thunder/hale storm raging outside our apartment.

That’s it! Today will be another beautiful day, and I’m hoping to get outside and do some stuff.

Thank for reading, friends!

Jan

Take A Walk With Jan #8

Hello, friends! Yesterday, the weather was hovering around 67 degrees and partly cloudy for the majority of the morning and afternoon, so I decided to take Liam to the park. I wanted to let him spend as much time having fun in the sun, since he had a pretty traumatic night the previous day. He fell down while running through the kitchen, and almost bit through his lip. It was so swollen, and there was SO much blood. It was awful. He’s handling it like a champ, but I wanted to give him a really good day.

I made the mistake of wearing a long-sleeve shirt and yoga pants, both black, and started sweating just a few blocks from my apartment. As we walked, it got warmer, and sunnier, and I was very relieved to go into the shade of Subway to get some lunch to bring to the park. However, I had an absolutely bizarre experience once inside. There was a woman finishing up her order when I walked in, and I stood off to the side of where the line would be, since I wasn’t ready to order. An older women walked in behind me, and I immediately smiled and told her to go ahead of me, since I was still deciding, this is a transcript of how this ridiculousness began:

Me: Go ahead in front of me, I’m still deciding.
Woman: *Moving in front of me* Oh, thanks, but I don’t know what I want either.
Me: Oh, that’s okay!
Sandwich Artist #1: What can I make you?
W: *Staring at the menu* Uh, I don’t know… hmm… uhhh…
[4 minutes pass, while the employee and I exchange glances, wondering if this woman has fallen asleep with her eyes open. Two more people walk in and get in line behind me.]
SA #1: Ma’am? Have you decided yet?
W: If I did, you would know. *Turning to me* Bet you wish you hadn’t let me go in front of you, huh?
Me: Oh, no, it’s okay, we’re not in a rush.
W: Mmhm. Okay, well, I’m going to have a ham and cheese on white bread, American cheese.
SA #1: Do you want it toasted?
W: Did I say I wanted it toasted?
SA #1: Right, not toasted then. Any veggies?
W: Nope.
SA #1: Any sauce?
W: *Sighing dramatically* Nooope!
SA #1: Any other sandwiches for you today?
W: Oh, yeah, he’ll probably want something, too. *Turning to me again* Sorry!
Me: Yup. No problem.
W: Steak and cheese, deluxe. NOT. TOASTED. NO. VEGGIES.
SA #1: … Okay. Got it.
[At this point, SA #1 slides the sandwiches over to SA #2, who appears to be new, who is standing at the register, and tells her what they are, before turning to me to take my order. SA #2 does not appear to hear her, and asks her again what the sandwiches are. SA #1 does not hear her ask, so SA #2 just stands there, while W glares impatiently at her.]
W: Hello? How much?
SA #2: Um… what were the sandwiches?
W: Are you joking?
SA #1: *Realizes what is happening* Ham and cheese, steak and cheese deluxe.
[The woman pays, and walks away to a table to fiddle with her receipt and purse. I finish my order, and start the payment process, while the couple behind me begins their order.]
W: OH, I need two drinks with these. Hello? HELLO? I need two drinks.
[No one responds, and she does not get back in line.]
W: FINE, I guess not! I’m going to Casey’s! Bye!
[She leaves, and we all exchange WTF? glances.]

Seriously. What a bitch. Why, lady? Why? There was zero reason for any of the attitude!

Anyway, we left Subway, and headed to the park. Liam started squirming and going a bit crazy once the park came into sight, and as soon as I set him down, he ran off. We were alone at the park, and Liam took full advantage of running, climbing, and going nuts all over the playground. After just a few minutes of being there, I heard, “Mommy! Look! There’s a baby!”, and I turned around to see an adorable little boy charging the playground. He immediately ran up to us, introduced himself as Gideon, and informed me that he and his mommy saw dog poop on their way to the park.

So. Freaking. Cute.

His mom was really nice, she was around my age, maybe a few years older, and had purple streaks in her hair, and a band tee on. Gideon followed Liam around, and every time Liam stumbled, he reached out to help him up. He talked up a storm, too. Telling me about how he was three years old, and how he likes to take naps after he goes to the park, and how he wishes he could sleep at the park, because he liked it there, which made his mom and I laugh. He was the sweetest little boy, and after a very short time, Liam was running around with him and following him as well. It was really nice to see him having fun, as we really don’t get to see other parents and kids very often. At all… ever.

He also may have eaten a very small pebble… still waiting to see if that was actually a thing or not.

After a whopping hour and a half at the park, we headed to Dollar General to pick up a few things. I was sweating so bad. I also walked by a really stupid fight going on in front of the high school a few blocks from our apartment. It was nearly 70 degrees by the time I got home, half dead.

Then we napped. And it was glorious.

Thanks for reading, friends!

Jan