These are old archived entries from my journal, Ornamental Illness. I have eliminated all graphics (except those in context of an entry) to save on my bandwidth usage.


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Saturday, February 1, 2003

The Past Day and a Half

It was just such a weird damn night.

The night before last while lying in bed, I had been ruminating over in my mind some response to Stan's Floydian entry. This processing turned into a dream in which I was in a record store similar to Wax Trax in Denver, but different (it's the record store I dream about that doesn't exist anywhere except in my dreams, but it's the same record store in every dream)...there were lots of vinyl LPs. I was (naturally) in the Pink Floyd section. I was going to buy The Final Cut. Then Stan starts pulling out all this Dehydrated Floyd (thank you to whoever came up with that term somewhere on the internet, I cannot claim it but I think it is brilliant without being cruel like 'Pink Fraud') that he was going to buy for himself, but he didn't want to pay for the CD I wanted to get along with the ones he wanted. Hrrrmph. OK, so I was left buying it myself. End of dream.

So I thought that day when I woke up, that I will buy The Final Cut, you know, sort of a conscious effort to do what you did in your dream. Stan gets off of work, we head out to do an errand and go to Borders. In the Target parking lot, Tim calls us on the cell, Stan reaches for the phone and is blindsighted and nearly gets run over by a car. Stan, of all people, was being a stupid American on a cellphone. I found that amusing. But at least Stan has the decency to talk in the lobby of the store, not walk up and down the aisles gabbing away. Tim decided to be a bad boy and miss some absolutely dreadful sounding birthday bash for the assistant principal. He snuck out the back door of the school he works for and vanished, then called us to go out to eat with us instead, as we had asked him last night, but at that time declined because of the previous horrible commitment. As we were in the store, in every aisle there was a woman talking on a cellphone. Every single frickin' aisle. 'Find one in every aisle,' said Stan. 'You'll see.'

It took me four tries (Borders East, Borders West, Exclusive Company and finally Barnes and Noble) before I finally found a copy of The Final Cut. And I did buy it myself, but then again, Stan wasn't buying anything either. But I suppose if he does want any Dehydrated Floyd in the future, he will have to buy that for himself. The dream will be true in the end.

At dinner, Stan told a strange story of when he was a kid, he bought a strange book with an elephant and a swasticka on it, and it disappeared soon after, probably confiscated by his dad, Gordon ('Can't have the boy readin' this stuff!'). Ironically, if he had grown up with his biological dad, Richard, the book would probably have been cherished. I told Stan maybe the book was some sort of symbol sent by his dead biological grandfather. And Stan, I really don't know whether I should go there...I'll leave that end open to you.

As we were eating, I started getting extremely hot. I had no idea what was happening, but I was burning up. I thought maybe they had the temperature turned too high at Laredo's, but Tim said he was cold and Stan wasn't hot in the slightest. Usually I am the one who is coldest.

I started discussing the topic of how we can travel back in time to talk to ourselves in different times of our life, to give advice. Have you ever experienced something where you feel like you are getting guidance from someone? I think it's from a shade of yourself from the future. Like before we moved to Madison, I knew that it would either be a very good thing or a very bad thing, and it was both. I think that's because I could perceive my future self. And when you meet someone that seems so familiar, it's not because you met in a previous life, but because you are remembering them from the future. That gave way to a topic of a certain...ahem...woman...we knew once. When we first met her, she seemed so familiar, but it was only because our experience with her was so intense and emotional and painful that we were remembering into our future. That in turn gave way to a realization that when we knew her, we were so vulnerable. Our vulnerability lay in the fact not that we were new to Madison (and starting graduate school and all that rot), but that we were without music. It was the time after we moved and we had sold back all our vinyl. We had no musical foundation. I had even so much as denied I even liked music to a jerkass professor of mine (who would have excoriated me for liking the kind of music I liked anyway, so there was no great loss in his deception, but rather amusing to see his confusion of someone of a creative mind denying music). But once we started to start buying music again (CDs), the...certain...ahem...woman...started becoming less and less significant in our lives. And once I seriously got back into music again...she was gone. We had started a new home in Madison, but without a musical foundation, it was a house built on shifting sand. Once things started falling into place, musically, discovering new stuff, but most importantly, rediscovering the old, things improved dramatically.

Back at the dinner. We discussed a very humorous topic which I cannot repeat here because it would offend too many people and I do not want to be a flame target. However I mention it because it relates to the prophetic nature of conversation that we were having earlier, because later that night we would encounter something that harkened back to this not-suitable-for-internet-journal discussion. It was all very amusing. And very Seinfeldian. Right out of a Seinfeld skit. Like if Seinfeld was in Madison instead of Manhattan. And if Seinfeld was even more risquee and provocative. The Bleeding Edge. And that's all I'll say about that.

On the way home, I saw the gallery that is holding my work hostage (The Director quit, the organization or estate decided to close it, and I've been a paranoid wreck lately wondering if I'll ever see my paintings again as they couldn't be gotten ahold of) had a light on and people were milling about. I told Stan to pull over, that I had to go talk to them. As we got out of the car, a plane flew overhead. It seemed so low to the ground, like it would crash, but it was just coming in for a landing. It was spooky. I told Tim that I always dream of planes falling out of the sky. If I didn't have a generously-sized Margarita for dinner, I don't know if I would've been bold enough to do what I did as far as the gallery. I definitely felt a bit out of character. Maybe it was my future self giving me courage...heh. I started talking to people I've never seen before in my life, acting very charming and all. It was a graduate student MFA show opening that was 'renting' the space for the night, and I was able to talk to someone who could help me with my hostage situation. Hopefully. I'm usually not that bold. But I just thought, what the hell, these are my paintings held hostage here, the hell if people think I'm some party crasher ('who were those strange people?'). No, I put on the charm as opposed to the pissed off angry punk or the shy little artiste. Tim and Stan were quite amused. And I felt so damn fake.

At home, I was still hot. Tim and Stan both felt my forehead and hand. I was quite hot. I was burning up. I was not sick, though. There was nothing wrong with me...I was just burning up.

Which brings us back to this morning, listening to the radio and hearing that the shuttle Columbia was about to land in 13 minutes, feeling impending doom, and then an hour later, hearing the tragedy unfold, and how it had 'burned up' upon reentry. What I said about ourselves visiting us from the future...it's not a psychic thing. It's something else entirely.

Hard to work on stuff today. Listened to the radio a lot. Called Stan at work. Called my mom. Called Tim.

Listened to The Final Cut again, and decided to read the lyrics. Got to the last page, and something strange struck me...it was put out on Columbia Records.

Weird.

Posted by Ann on 02/01/03@06:40 PM CST ..::Link::..

Columbia Shuttle

I just knew, lying in bed this morning around 8 am CST, listening to the radio, they were talking about the Columbia shuttle and that it was scheduled to land in 13 minutes. I just had a very bad feeling. At 9 am CST, I heard the news...

I don't think it's a psychic thing that made me perceive this, I think it was something else. Stan and I were discussing this last night with Tim...I'll discuss later.

Posted by Ann on 02/01/03@09:04 AM CST ..::Link::..

Thursday, January 30, 2003

Mental illness is breaking out all over!

Mental illness seems to be falling off a mountain like an avalanche. A lot of things seem to be happening at once and this causes me to feel a lot of pain and sorrow in my heart.

I have a cousin who's wife recently suffered some sort of break down. Her problem has something to do with obsessive compulsive behaviors. The worst part is that she wants to keep it a secrete - as if life can just go on without anyone knowing that there was a problem. We'll the problem with this is that it's never the case that there was a problem and suddenly everything can go on like nothing ever went wrong. Wanting to hide this sort of thing and pretend that it can never happen again (as if it's somehow over) is a sure path to suicide. I just hope the people in my family who are on the front line in this situation won't let her get away with this fantasy of denial.

I have a sister and brother in law who are getting separated - which will do both of them a lot of good. However my brother in law has had some sort of childhood sexual abuse. To the best of my understanding this is something he's not willing to work on. I don't know much about the specifics in his case, but I know from my own experience a lot of quiet time is very beneficial for sorting out these kinds of memory problems. Not to be insensitive, but if my sister is going to live in another state this should be a step in the right direction for him. He'll get the quiet time he needs.

Also as Ann mentioned that my one of my sister's biological sister jumped over the Golden Gate Bridge. It seems to be the case that she must have suffered some sort of delusional episode. I understand she was a very gifted classical music person who wrote a lot of music of her own. It seems like this sort of thing always happens around to lots of people when they are 30 something years old. I think our minds go through changes in our 30's which not many people understand or talk about. I hope in some future generation there will be more understanding.

Posted by Stan on 01/30/03@09:48 AM CST ..::Link::..

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Floyd Spat

Sorry I haven't written sooner. I've understood for several weeks before Ann admitted that she has a crush on Roger Waters - that she did. I've seen this sort of thing before, and I've always been very happy that she's attracted to interesting men.

She left the Pink Floyd argument issue sort of vague and understated though, and I'm afraid some people might get the wrong idea. Unlike John Lennon I'm not a jealous guy. When it comes to love and attraction there's no point in worried when the woman who owns your heart is attracted to someone else. I think it's a natural thing most women experience. The argument over Pink Floyd wasn't about Ann's degree of fondness for anyone in the group, but rather our intellectual positions on Waterless Floyd.

Ann is more of a purist than me when it comes to ideas about creativity and she sees issues in artistic originality. I think she sees the creative mind on more of a hard line between the thinker and the (end product) artpiece/musical or lyrical work. For better or worse I see ideas of creative originality, and the relationship between artist and works in a much fuzzier paradigm. Thus we often have conversations about aesthetics and I think our different paradigms produce lots of interesting conversations.

Personally I wish Roger had a friend like me at the time when he decided to take legal action against Waterless Floyd. I sympathise with the fact that nearly all of the lyrics were written by him, but I think it should also be clear that without the other musicians there wouldn't have ever been any value in the name "Pink Floyd". I certainly wish someone would have at least tried to talk Roger out of wasting his time in the legal system before he had to find out about the realities of law the hard way.

Roger and Ann are both mavericks when it comes to creative innovation, and maybe the rest of the world and the legal system isn't going to be able to see the creative mind in the light of their ideas. I think any time the mind of creative intelligence has to be put along side ideas of fairness the creative intelligence is going to get the short end of the stick - as the saying goes.

In spite of my disappointment with the vapidness of Waterless Floyd I have to believe they made the best of their situations, or at least as far as they could. I'm a little confused as to why David Gilmour fell into playing the role of the rock bimbo. I'm wondering if there wasn't a little over the rainbow and unhealthy self delusion running through his mind during those super-sized light show years. I guess madness finds all of us one way or another, and sooner or later. Even though I probably won't listen to Waterless Floyd very often, I still think it's worthwhile to a small degree.

Posted by Stan on 01/29/03@10:32 PM CST ..::Link::..

Monday, January 27, 2003

A Night in the Life

In one night in Twin Peaks, everything happens at once. Agent Cooper gets shot in the stomach, Jacques Renault is murdered, the Packard Mill burns down, and Nadine Hurley attempts suicide. Stan experienced one of those nights last night, in terms of second-hand news regarding his family. I won't go into all the details, however, there is one story I would like to tell:

Stan and his sister are both adopted, and are very different in many respects. Both of them have now found their biological families, his sister being the first to start out doing so. On her bio-mom's side, there are three half-siblings, two brothers and one sister, the same as on Stan's bio-mom's side. In both families, the brothers are the youngest and are pretty much 'guy guys.' The sisters in both families are more interested in the arts. It's a very strange sort of ironic symmetry. Stan's adopted sister gets along well with her half brothers, but not so with her half sister. She's told Stan that he would probably get along well with her, both of them being of the more artistic temperament. Her half sister was a musician and lived in the San Francisco area. And just this last week, she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Pretty unbelievable.

I can't believe I actually indirectly (neither Stan nor I have met his sister's half-sister) know of someone who actually jumped off the Golden Gate. I've heard of it, but it's always someone else...someone in someone else's lives...a character in a movie, someone in the news. Not in my life.

It's very anger-inducing. At first I felt mad at Stan's sister for not trying harder to get along with and value her half-sister. Then I was mad at the suicide victim herself because perhaps she didn't try to get along with her own half-sister (Stan's sister). I don't know their story. I do know that I did have an especially hard time getting along with Stan's sister myself at various points in time, however I can get along fine with her now, despite the fact that we have very different taste.

Stan and I are sad we never got the chance to meet her. It's a damn shame.

Posted by Ann on 01/27/03@01:12 PM CST ..::Link::..

Sunday, January 26, 2003

It's been a while

So The Boy and I had our first Floydian argument/disagreement last night. And upon going to sleep, he kept snoring and I told him so to which he sighed exasperatedly, 'are you going to go to sleep or not?' Yes, I was trying to go to sleep, that was the whole point of telling him to stop his snoring. It all left me with a much disgruntled attitude this morning. Then I checked my search referrals for this site and found something that really made me giggle. I mean, the words are there, but in a different context than what I suspect the searcher was looking for:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=sexy+roger+waters

Yes, it really does bring up my site (19th one). Ironically, I SWORE I had been searching on those words at one time too... ;-)

Uh oh, I see I just opened up a can of Worms for Stan...I can hear him...'Oh, well, that explains EVERYTHING!'

----

Oh and BTW, I really haven't been dreaming much lately, hence the lack of postage. My alpha waves or REM cycles or whatever must be in a state of disturbance...or maybe it's just been too cold at night. The last dream I recall I was with Stan in a movie theatre and he had gotten me tickets. It was very crowded, and a line was forming and he held my hand so that he wouldn't lose me. Then we started filing into the theatre, but we had to stop by the refreshment counter to get our hands stamped. Once Stan got his stamped and I was waiting to get mine stamped, he let go of my hand and he started walking into the theatre. I yelled after him 'STAN!' because I knew that I was going to lose him, but he just kept walking, as if he was trying to lose me on purpose. I shouted in my sleep 'STAN!!!' and I think I woke him up. Also there were other strange dreams in the past week...one I had a video cassette of some Pink Floyd concert that was pink-coloured (the plastic on the cassette) and I was eating and looking at it (the cassette, not the concert, oddly enough) and accidentally spilled some beans or chocolate syrup on it or something...kind of like that scene in The Who's Tommy with Ann Margaret. Then I was on the western side of Fort Collins driving with Stan on some East-West street and about to make a left turn onto Overland Trail or Taft or someplace, but we had no car...we were pedestrians, walking, in the road as if we were in a car. I saw a tornado over the mountains...typical stupid Fort Collins tornado dream in that weird area that I always dream about lately.

Posted by Ann on 01/26/03@11:03 AM CST ..::Link::..
By Ann @ 20:56 PM CST:02:20:03 ..::Link::..