Unexpected benefit from watching the Space Station

I watched a little of the Space Station this week. It's been a while since I've done that. I found it calming in a "familiar" sort of way. Weird, I know, but since I watched it practically non-stop for about a week my brain now experiences a level of comfort when it sees it. Familiarity brings me a great deal of peace. (Well... good familiarity. Familiar crap makes me feel crappy!)

Watching the International Space Station this week also made me a little sad because some of my favorite astronauts will be returning to Earth soon but that's for another post. The post below, however, is yet another that I wrote a while ago and saved to draft. Here ya go:

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I've pretty much finished my spree of space posts, but last night I discovered what I think might be a really great benefit from having watched the International Space Station for about a week. I was able to fly MUCH more easily in my dreams last night!

Oh sure, ROLL YOUR EYES, but you don't understand what an issue this has been for me! Do you know I actually had to develop a whole other technique for flying in my dreams? I've had SO much difficulty flying at times - which is annoying because WHOSE DREAM IS IT ANYWAY???!!! But, a few years ago, I figured out that I could sometimes levitate instead - directionally too. Which is a bit different but can sometimes achieve similar results when necessary. - When I'm aware enough to remember. (BTW, I found this was also the key to moving objects in my dreams. I tried "willing" things to move for months and got nowhere, but when I tried levitating them I was able to succeed.)

I lucid dream a lot. I have since I was four. And sometimes it gets boring, so I try to master new skills (- like telekenisis.) - You would too if you found yourself sitting in your kitchen every now and realized "Huh... I'm dreaming again... Now what?" I mean one can only fly out a window so many times. And visiting your favorite literary or television characters gets tricky because it's easy to lose lucidity once you get there, and then it rarely works out right.

Last night, for example, I got my outfit right, and I got a main character right, but the setting was totally wrong. - Yet another thing I have to work on. It's not the first time I've arrived someplace, looked around and said "Ok this isn't right... This is my dream... let's change it...." -and it doesn't change :P

So anyway, where was I?

Oh right... Flying. Much easier last night. And I think it might be due to having watched others do it so effortlessly for over a week now.

So if you have trouble flying in your dreams, might I suggest watching the space station... ;)

Red Shirt Fridays

I find this a bizarrely ironic name for a movement.

People wear all kinds of stuff on the Space Station. One Friday, I tried to read Mike Fossum's shirt. Mike was not cooperative with my efforts. Seems he thought fixing the space station was more important ;)

I was able to read enough of it to see that it was titled "Red Shirt Friday" and that it had something to do with supporting US troops. I did some searching and learned that this is a quiet movement that's been around since possibly 2005. The idea is for people to wear red shirts, which symbolize the spilled blood of soldiers, on Fridays, to show support for our troops, until all of them are brought home. I found no other explanation offered re the symbolism of wearing red shirts for this movement. Blood of soldiers. That's it.

Anybody else find "Red Shirts" an unfortunate and ironic symbol for our troops?!

Non Geeks Click Here

A "Red Shirt" or "Redshirt" is slang for a nameless expendable character that gets killed soon after they appear. The term came about due to the original Star Trek series where crew members in red shirts frequently met their demise by the end of a scene, often in large numbers. Although the term "Red Shirt" is most closely associated with Star Trek, it is often parodied and referred to in other television and film genres as well. 

Audrey II - The Return

Remember yesterday's post? That was written a few months ago. I posted it now because, of course, there's more. This next one is from a little over a month ago  (If you only knew how much I have saved to draft!)

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Things were going great with the new mattress. It grew too, but not larger than the queen sized frame (since this mattress was a full.) and it was comfortable. Then this past weekend I got that sinking feeling again. Except this time, there's no hissing.

Unfortunately I can't find the leak anywhere. I've looked at the parts of the mattress most likely to be punctured. I even went over the entire surface and sides of the mattress with a stethoscope. - Yes I did. - I heard nothing.

No problem. I got the extended warranty right? Except it takes "warranty land" a month or so to get you your new product, so I'd prefer to bring it back to the store for a quick exchange if possible. But the only two stores within 2 hours of me don't have any more full sized inflatable mattresses. They have twin sized (too small) and queen sized (not doing that again) but not full. Both stores have told me to check back daily since they re-stock each midnight, but neither knows when the next shipment is due. Both think "soon." I'll give them 'till the end of the week. If they're not stocked by then, I'll go the mail route. Meanwhile, I'm sleeping on a half inflated mattress. Which has become an interesting and not altogether unpleasant experience.

This mattress is thinner than the last, so it doesn't engulf me as much. Plus, it only deflates in areas that have the most pressure. So although my back sinks until it's flat on a hard surface, my legs remain in a somewhat elevated position. As does my head, so no need for a pillow. And if I roll over, I have instant "body pillows" on each side. My biggest problem is getting in and out of bed. As soon as I sit or kneel, the rest of the mattress flips up to greet me.

Again, things shouldn't be this complicated.

Audrey II

- That's what I'm calling the air mattress that tried to eat me.

The short explanation of why I'm using an air mattress, is that my old mattress was sagging and hurting my back and after flipping it (and me) to every angle and configuration possible, I finally tossed it. One of the reasons I didn't purchase a new "real" mattress is because I've been considering getting a new bed too, and that would influence the kind of mattress I'd get. So for now, an air mattress is cheap, does not hurt my back (surprisingly), and works fine. Or at least it did.

I got a Coleman queen sized mattress, and everything started out well. But then it started to grow. That's right, my mattress started to grow. The mattress stretches out over time, and I mean really stretches. As in stopped fitting onto my bed frame which caused all kinds of issues including my having to remove the headboard.

Then one night, I heard a strange hissing sound. Where was it coming from? Was it outside? No. Was it the computer? No. Radiator? - Too early in the season. No, it was the bed. I wondered if I'd be able to find the hole easily and yes I was. It was pretty large. The puncture had been caused by a sharp corner that was exposed due to my having removed the headboard. I'd padded all those corners, but clearly not enough.

I sealed the hole with some packing tape, re-inflated the bed, and all was well - For about 2 hours. Then I started getting a "sinking" feeling. So I searched for the patch that came with the mattress. It comes with a patch! That should work right? It did! - For about two hours.

I tried re-applying the patch, then cutting a different patch, then putting a patch AND packing tape over the hole. None gave any evidence of hissing, and everything seemed to be fixed - for two hours each time. After which I'd wake up in the middle of a flat oasis surrounded by air pouches on all sides. A bit like being consumed by a large deflating bouncy castle.

Finally I went out and bought a new full sized inflatable mattress in the hopes that a full might stretch to the correct size and I'd therefore be able to avoid another "puncture by sharp corner due to necessary headboard removal" incident.

I liked the first mattress, until it grew.... and I punctured it.

Oh, and I got an extended warranty on the new one! I rarely purchase extra warrantees, but the checkout guy told me it not only covers wear and tear, but idocy too. Apparently I could stab the thing a bunch of times in a fit of rage and they'd STILL replace it!

This shouldn't be so darned complicated.

Never?

Sometimes I visit a site where people post a lot of quotes.
Some I save, some I ignore, and some I feel compelled to comment on

Like this one:

(Unless you're a crazy stalker, or they're a crazy stalker. Then do!)

* I appreciate the romantic intent of the original quote, but not being able to get someone out of your head doesn't always mean you're meant to be together. Sometimes it means you're psycho! (Or they're psycho!)

Spam to go

I got the BEST spam yesterday. Well maybe not the best. The best would have given me billions of dollars and not been a hoax! But the spam was impressive and made me LOL, and laughter is always good in my world!

The comment had several key words from my post so, initially, I thought it was a real comment, until I saw the name of the commenter! I don't know if a bot posted a standard form response, or if it alerted a human to my post and they posted a response, or if there are people whose job it is to sit at computers all day doing searches and manually entering spam. I'd like to think it was a bot because I'm quite fond of robots, but who knows.

Their response to yesterday's post:

Thank you spammer. I might just do that. 

I crave order

They painted my kitchen - re the water damage - which meant I had to take everything off the walls, counters, and shelves, remove the shelves themselves, remove all pictures and racks, and move all the furniture into the center of the room. This also meant my kitchen was essentially out of order with no place to sit and no way to prepare food. But that was ok. I had the brilliant plan to order takeout food. Except when the time came, I couldn't find my menus because they were buried somewhere under the mass of furniture and kitchen items in the center of the room. Plus I wasn't exactly sure when I could order food because my clock was unplugged. Eventually I checked my computer for the time and looked online for the takeout number.

After the painters left I tried to get some cleaning done, but there were some large items to clean and the best place for those was the bathtub. Except the bathtub was full of bathroom items that had been taken off those walls and shelves because they'd painted in there too. So I put all the bathroom stuff back up and away (which was far easier than the kitchen) and that wore me out for the next few hours.

Once night hit, I walked around in the dark a lot because my window shade wasn't on (it had been taken down so they could paint the window frame) and I didn't feel like doing "Noisy Quiet TV" for the neighborhood. Eventually I decided to put the shade back up, except I wasn't sure where the ladder ended up, so I looked for it in the dark with the help of light from the street lamps outside. A few minutes later the ladder was found and the window shade was in place again.

With the window shade in place, and the lights on again, I decided to clean (there's SO much cleanup to do. It'll take a few days.) Except I have this "thing" nowadays where I pop a VHS tape in whenever I'm in the kitchen, so it can play in the background and I can be sure there's nothing important on the tape before I toss it out. - It's an ongoing project. (So far the contents of every tape has matched its label, but I still feel the need to go through all of them just in case.) So I go to turn on the TV and it's not plugged in. - Finding and untangling that extension cord from the mass in the middle took about ten minutes. Then I wondered what time it was and of course there's still no clock plugged in.

So now I have the shade down, the light on, the TV and VCR plugged in, and I'm happily drinking water out of a small bowl because my mug rack is currently soaking in the bathtub and all my mugs are still under the table.

I dream about bugs

I dreamt there was a bug that I used as part of a magic trick. It was some kind of beetle or large cockroach or waterbug. It wasn't a pretty beetle like a scarab. This was a big brown bug with legs that ran very fast, and its shell was more segmented, not round-ish and shiny.

I was afraid of this bug and would squeal just like everyone else who saw it. But it was also part of my "magic trick" so I would try to make sure nobody stepped on it. They'd just back away quickly screaming. As, pretty much, did I. Then I guess I'd put the bug back in its box, the trick would be over, and life would go on.

During the dream, at some point, my logical mind intervened. - It does this sometimes and totally messes with my "dream world" logic. When my "real" logic stepped in, I thought "wait a minute... this is a living thing. Why would I have never thought of that before? I've used this bug as part of a trick for years, as a "thing," but it's alive... it's a living being..." And then I thought "What is wrong with me?!" In this dream, I had 'memories' of the trick and bug that went back years and I was confused about how none of this had occurred to me until that moment.

NaBloPoMo Guide - Unofficial

Almost two weeks into NaBloPoMo, some people are still feeling lost and overwhelmed by the new site, and some have given up altogether. This saddens me. I've created an Unofficial Guide to NaBloPoMo, for old participants and new, to address some of the confusion. Please take a moment to swing by NaBloPoMo Guide - Unofficial and let me know what you think (preferably in this post.) Feedback of any kind is welcome.

Functional Wardrobe

Sometimes I visit a site where people post a lot of quotes. 

Some I save, some I ignore, and some I feel compelled to comment on.

Like this one:

(So I should wear red?)