Nightmares

Sometimes I amaze myself, but in the bad way.  I'm sitting here on my TempurPedic bed (because I care about my comfort), trying to digest what just happened to me. The best way I know how is to share with strangers.  Lucky you.

At 3am I woke up screaming, in response to a dream I was having, where I was on a dock, kneeling down either getting something or placing something.  I turned to my left to engage someone who was standing there when a gun entered, touched my head, and fired.

Dreams are weird in that so much goes through your mind during them it is hard to get a sense of time when re-capping what went on.  But at the time the gun fired, I remember thinking, "Yeah this seems right", like it was all part of a plan or some appropriate ending to my larger dream (of which I can't remember).  Then I realized that I had been shot and that old wives tale came into my mind that if you die in your dream you die in real life.  I remember trying to move somehow, to reassure myself that this was a dream, but I couldn't make my body respond.   Rather,I was loosing control of it.  I had a few other thought flash through, but I can't remember them now, all compressed into a split second.  Lost to my diseased mind or something.  Anyway, I woke up screaming, flailing my arms around.  Cat goes one way, empty bottles the other.  

Being terrified for your life for a split second is not something I recommend.  I have enough death anxiety when I'm a wake that I really don't need to be afraid to die in my sleep.  The whole experience was very earth shattering to me, and even as I sit here, a good 40 min after this shit, I'm nervous and jumpy.  Any sound I hear is cause for alarm.  Any thought I have is of that moment I woke up screaming, scared I was really dying.  I am kind of glad my girlfriend wasn't here with me, because she would have gotten a fist to the face inadvertently.  I say "kind of glad" because anything she got she would have deserved on some level.

And my poor cat, Wesley.  He got all scared, ran to the door to escape my craziness, but instead ran into the door, closing it.  Which was funny and sad at the same time, because he really needed to get out of that room but he just couldn't figure the door out.  What a looser, eh?

My Dumb Thoughts on Charlie Sheen

By now, some of you are tired off hearing about Charlie Sheen.  I know, I was one of them. You post online about how it's truly sad that we are paying this much attention to a "drug addict" and not enough to this or that domestic issue.  And perhaps on some level you are right to think these thoughts, but here's what you don't understand:

Charlie Sheen is an addict.  Self-admitted, diagnosed addict.  If it's not drugs, it's fame.  If not fame, attention.  If not that, money.  Power - doesn't matter what, the man has a problem with control.  What is painfully obvious is that the American public sees this, and still bashes him.  Still calls him names, condemns him, judges him, when in fact we are all addicted to something.  We just don't have an outlet to express our insane thoughts like Charlie does.  If it wasn't a famous person self-destructing, you would all feel lots of compassion, wondering how to help.  The love would pour in.

I have a few addictions, and I am ok enough with them to share them:  I love craft beer.  Video games get me every time.  I'm an attention whore (which is why I'm on the radio for free, why I'm on Facebook, Twitter, soon-to-be-TV, and maybe a movie).  Free internet porn is something I would die without.  Do you say I'm a bad person when I say these things online?  Nope, because I don't matter.  We as people love to judge those with more than us, and we do it very well.  So Charlie Sheen has some issues - who doesn't?  If you don't like it, don't talk about it, don't listen.  That is the best way to stay out of the line of fire.

What I really do enjoy about Sheen are his rants; they are raw and unchecked - something I wish I could do more often than I actually do.  Sheen has "Fuck You Money", meaning he has the financial ability to say "Fuck YOU" to any job, any person he likes and he won't really suffer for it.  This shit shield allows him to be whomever he wants to be right now.  Who wouldn't want the means to tell their boss to go fuck themselves and not suffer for it?  Tell them just how uncreative they really are?  I think that takes big balls to do, no matter how booze swollen they are. This man is saying things that many in Hollywood would never say, never dream to do.  Yet here is this ... insane creature, sitting in his house ripping new assholes for everyone to shit out of.  Punk. Rock.  They actually do make sense, if you listen carefully.  Watch some of his videos, the guy knows how to throw an interesting sentence together.

My point is this: lay off the Sheen, kids.  He's a man who has problems and has found a creative, albeit crazy-sounding way of working through them.  Nobody is forcing you to pay attention or to judge.  The man is funny, just enjoy his sense of humor and get over it.  I have.