ramblings of a rattled mind

During wintertime, I always keep my bedroom window closed. However, last night, my apartment inexplicably heated up to 79 degrees. So, prior to going to bed, I cracked the window open. When I woke up this morning, I remembered why I like having the window open during summer. The cool, crisp air, and the bustling noise outside makes the promise of a new day prevalent. And for a split second there, I felt good and happy. Excited, even. However, the positive feeling quickly gave way to the older, familiar feeling of wanting to crawl away somewhere, in some cave away from all my problems. It was a sick reminder that I have some hurdles that I need to clear before I can truly be enjoy these types of mornings. Every year during this week, I tend to get a bit screwy in the head, seeing as what tomorrow is; however this year it seems to be a bit worse than years past. Maybe it’s because it’s been five years, maybe it’s because I just recently realized that it effected me so much more than I initially thought.

As is normal, I rarely remember my dreams.  It doesn’t take more than half an hour after waking for me to go blank on a dream, no matter how interesting.  I don’t usually dwell on what the dream was about, however, with Inception still fresh in my mind, I started wondering about my most recent dream.  I just woke up from a mid-afternoon nap, and had to write about it quickly, while it is still fresh in my mind.

The details are already becoming hazy.  I remember being in my house, even though it wasn’t really my house.  There were many people there, all of whom I seemed to know, even though I can’t remember now who they were.  The main thing that was in my mind throughout the whole things is to see my father.  It’s as if I was waiting for him to come home, but he has not.  I remember running from room to room in the dream, searching for him.

And then I woke up.

A fairly boring dream, really, but it got me thinking.  I don’t remember most of my dreams, but one theme that keeps repeating itself is me looking for or waiting for my father.

Now, as some may know, I lost my father nearly five years ago.  It was sudden and confusing, and has made for a difficult few years.  It brought up some questions for me that cannot be answered.

It inspired me to write a screenplay based on my father.  I’ve been having issued starting it.  Yesterday, after a very good writing-based talk with a friend whose opinion I greatly covet, I finally started.  I only wrote two scenes, and have a couple of ideas for a few more.

Yet I’m still a bit afraid of not being able to tie everything together within my script.

Why can’t I find my father in my dreams?  Why can’t I just have a conversation with him and have a good time bonding?

This makes me think back to Inception.  Cobb’s goal is to see his children’s faces.  He keeps seeing them, but only from the back.  It’s not until he finally “takes a leap of faith” that he gets to see them.  We can argue whether he’s awake or asleep at the end of the dream, but that’s a whole other conversation.

Maybe I need to take a “leap of faith” of sorts.  Maybe then will I be able to write a screenplay truly worth my father’s memory.  Maybe then I can talk to him, even if it is in my own subconscious.

Something that Inception made me realize, or rather remember, is that as a kid, I often wondered to myself – what if my life is a dream? What if nothing that is happening is real, but rather something dreamt up or thought up by someone else? What if I am just tiny part of some large fictional universe? Granted, since I was in my “singles,” it wasn’t quite as thought out and thorough as the film, but nonetheless, it is a quite interesting idea. Now it’s easy to think that I’m only saying this to get some attention, but I really do remember thinking of this as a child. I remember wondering, what if I’m asleep, and I’ll wake up any moment, and I wont be me the way I think I am. Maybe I’m a completely different creature, different species, or in a different time. I’m a little surprised that it took movies like The Matrix and Inception to remind me of this. Matter of fact, it took a day after seeing the latter to even realize that I had these memories and thoughts. They must have been deep in my subconscious. Now that I think about that deeper, I’m starting to wonder if the movie used inception on me to make me think that I thought of this on my own. Oh lord. I’m going cross-eyed just thinking about it. I think I’m going to think about this some more and see if I can develop some idea based on this that’s not like Inception. Could be interesting, if I can think something cool up.

Me

Watched this for the 4,245,256th time and it’s making me miss someone I probably shouldn’t be missing…

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has such a wide open revolving door in regards to friends. In the past year alone I’ve seen you go through friends like a child goes through clothes. You keep saying how they aren’t good friends to you because of reasons X, Y and Z. I would continue to believe it, but the ex-friends keep racking up, and the only common denominator in this equation is you. You seem to keep causing fights and drama with these friends, and where most people would work it out, you just cut the cord. I don’t really understand the cause of all this. Do you have such a high expectations for people that you expect everyone to be a perfect friend to you and do everything you want them to do? It s a two way street, and you aren’t the perfect friend yourself. You try to be, at first, and seemingly overdo it. The tiniest thing will irk you - the friend cancels plans, or hangs out with a different friend instead of you (because you’re supposed to be the only person your new friend can hang out with!) - and automatically, this person is bad. “I don t need friends like that!” you exclaim. Keep it up, and you wont have any. I shudder when you introduce me to a new friend, because I can just see in a few months you putting the stamp on the end of the friendship by ceremoniously taking them off your Facebook friend list. Most people look past their friends’ faults. This is what makes friendships work. No one is perfect, and you need to understand that. No one is out to get you, nor are they jealous of you. They have lives, jobs, kids. You need to have more patience with your friends, as I have had with you. I wish I could talk to you about this, but I can just see you throwing a fit and saying how I never take your side on things. Only when your side is wrong, which it has been quite often. I wish my patience would rub off on you and you grow up and mature. However, if this little issue starts affecting MY friendships… you just might lose your closest friend.

I had some time to kill so I was reading the comments for my store on yelp.com and boy, are people ignorant.  There’s comment after comment saying how they weren’t greeted because they were wearing jeans and t-shirts, and didn’t have expensive purses.

You people ever hear the saying “Assuming makes an ass of you and me?”  Cuz all you bastards are dumbASSes.  No one at the store gives two shits about what you wear.  More often than not, you don’t get greeted the second you walk in because the sales people are busy helping others.  You ever think of that, you selfish fucks?

And I gotta love all the comments about “I make 6 figures, so I can buy anything at the store.  They lost my business.”  Blah, blah, blah.  If you have to brag about it, it’s not true.  You don’t make 6 figures, you make 6 dollars. 

Do people tend to get treated differently at high end retail stores?  Sure!  Is it because of the way they look/dress?  Sometimes, but not at my store.  You get treated like an asshole if you act like one.  Simple as that.  And if you ask to see every single piece we carry in stock, and then get the cheapest one, or worse yet, say “I’ll come back,” yeah, we’ll be pissed, and we’ll remember you next time.

People, be nice to retail employees.  We get treated like shit internally as it is, so when you add to it externally, you don’t exactly promote good customer service.

It was an unusually warm winter morning. He was getting ready for work, going through his usual routine. He was wearing his favorite tie that morning, the one given to him by his father just the past Christmas. He packed his usual lunch - TV dinner, fruit, drink and yogurt. Dad was also getting ready for his first day of work at his new company. The usually chipper guy, he was uncharacteristically nervous, pacing back and forth in his room. His new position required a lot of new things that, at 51, he was nervous to learn. Old dog, new tricks , he thought. The son told the Dad to not worry, and have a good first day. “We can go shoot some hoops after work tonight to take off the stress,” he said. The Dad nodded reluctantly, and received a hug from his son.

He had never seen this very strong man look so helpless.

The uneasiness seemed to have rubbed off.

His next few hours were a blur. Normally focused and easy-going at work, he was completely out of it. He had to be told to do things that he would normally do automatically. He was very uneasy all morning, as if he knew something bad was going to happen. He wasn’t the only one. Granddad called him to see if he knew why Dad wasn’t answering his phone. “It’s his first day of work!” he replied. “He must be busy.” Mom, too, could not reach him. He tried calling home and Dad’s cell, also to no avail. Trying to put any bad thoughts out of his mind, he kept trying to keep busy at work. He wondered if maybe he should go home and check what’s going on, but decided against it. Some time later, he felt his phone vibrate. He snuck a peak at it and saw Home on the screen. He smiled, figuring everything was alright and Dad was returning his call. He was busy, so he let it go to voicemail. Lunch time came around, and he stuck his tv dinner in the microwave and started looking through the newspaper for something interesting to kill time with. Nothing caught his attention. He then remembered that he had a missed call and went to check his voicemail.

All color drained from his face. His hands shook and he stood there in shock for what seemed like eternity.
He expected to hear Dad’s voice, but instead it was Mom. In a hysterical voice she told him to come home quickly. “Dad s gone. He s…gone.”

He was driving slower than he wanted to but faster than he should have. “It can’t be true,” he thought. “He’s fine. He has to be.”
The half dozen police cars on the street said otherwise. He ran inside the house, full of blue uniforms, suits, coroners. He hugged his mother as she burst into tears.

He was numb. He tried to cry, but couldn’t. The feeling was unreal.
“Can I see him?” he asked a cop. “In a few minutes.”

An eternity later, he was allowed to go into the garage. Dad was lying on a gurney, everything but his head covered. He could still see the marks on his Dad’s neck, and dried saliva around his mouth.

Numbness.

The next few days he couldn’t eat. The next few nights, he couldn’t sleep.

He had too many questions. He needed reasons.

There were none.

The day of the funeral, everything still felt unreal. That wasn’t his father in the casket. It looked and felt like a wax statue.
The mourners began to arrive. Through all the pain, he felt good to see so many familiar faces, as well as those from the past. The look of sadness and disbelief adorned the faces. The people kept on filing in. This great man had made a lot of friends throughout his years, and had made such a great impression on so many people that seemingly hundreds showed up to pay their last respects.

As the casket was lowered, he looked on. Too many unanswered questions were being buried, along with a piece of him and all of those around him.

“What am I going to do now? Who will guide me?” he thought. He didn’t realize for a few more months that this man had instilled enough in him to have him guide himself. Every time he looks at a picture of his father, he thinks to himself “I hope I’ll make you proud soon.”

I still hope I will.

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