Stumbling Toward God?

I had several topics in mind to talk about this week, but I also had a busy week and I am pushing all of those ideas aside in the 11tth hour in favor of this one.

For some reason, at some point within the last few days I remembered that I once had a post entitled Swallow. I could not remember what the post itself was about, I only recalled that the title was essentially a random word completely unrelated to the topic that I never-the-less thought created an appropriate mood for what I was discussing.

“Swallow” can mean many things. Most commonly, after you chew, you swallow. It could also be a perhaps involuntary reaction when one suddenly becomes nervous. Metaphorically, it can mean to “suck it up”; your pride for instance. Unfortunately, I can not ignore that it also has a certain sexual connotation. Or maybe it refers to a kind of bird.

I can safely say that none of these were what I had in mind when I wrote it. To be perfectly honest, I believe that I was thinking of the Bush song Swallowed, which I also happen to have no idea of what it is about, because that dude simply does not enunciate well. However, it does have an overall bleak tone to it, which is really all that I was interested in at the time.

The important thing to remember is that it was a random word unrelated to the post topic. Also, thinking about it reminded me of a certain person, but I did not know why. It turns out that I actually mentioned that person in that post, though cryptically as always. So on some level, I guess I did remember what that post was about.

In what I was almost about to write when I sat down at my computer tonight, I was going to refer to the board game “Loaded Questions”, which I know that I have mentioned in the past. I searched the blog to find exactly where and what I had said previously, and surprisingly, that very post was the only result. (Although, I feel that I must have talked about the game elsewhere, but perhaps did not specifically mention by name.)

Curiously, earlier today I was thinking about how I never had an actual email signature, as in something that gets automatically appended to the end of each email sent, but I did used to have a certain sign off technique where I would end with some phrase with all the words run together with no spaces.  I do not remember how or why I started that, but I must have kept it up for a good ten years or so before one day I simply decided, “You know what, I don’t want to do that anymore.” However, I thought it might be a fun throwback to end a blog post like that one of these days, you know, for the fans. Yet it turns out, I did that exact thing in that same damn post.

So it is either a massive multi-level coincidence, or there is something about that particular post that is weighing heavily on my subconscious. So I thought, what the heck, why don’t we all give it a read?

Speaking of post titles and coincidences, anyone else notice how many of my recent entries all begin with the letter ‘F’? Totally unintentional. I had already titled this post before I noticed. Weird.

I tried to post this on fb a while ago, but I was having trouble editing to fit the character limits. The vigilant might have seen some of this in your news feed for three minutes a month ago.

In conversation, I mentioned to someone that I had taken a couple of physics classes at a community college who then asked, “Why did you stop?” I was stumped by this and admitted that I did not know.

Now, anyone familiar with my situation might recognize that the question itself was flawed. The fact is, if you take enough classes then they eventually give you a piece of paper that says that you do not have to go anymore. That explains why I *did* stop, but does not address why I *wanted* to stop, which is essentially what I was being asked. I still do not know the answer.

As I recall, this came up when I was asked if I knew anything about sound waves and I boasted that I knew “a lot” about sound waves. From an objective viewpoint, it is quite curious that when questioned further, I went with “a couple of classes at community college” and not “I have a degree in electrical engineering.”

Of course, the explanation for that is that I have spent the last few years trying to forget that the whole university thing ever happened. But again, what I can not answer is “Why?”

There is something very wrong in my head. A block, a disconnect, something that just is not right. And I have no idea what to do about it.

There were several incidences of me being hypocritical in my previous post. There were going to be even more, but I did not manage to fit in all of the things that I was thinking about last week. Yet it started me thinking about what hypocrisy really is, or more accurately, what it is not.

According to Merriam-Webster, hypocrisy is: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.

This is actually a little bit different from my working definition. I think of hypocrisy as saying one thing but doing the opposite; specifically, condemning others for things that you also do yourself. The difference between the dictionary definition and mine is that theirs seems to mean an intentional deceit, whereas my definition could in some cases be interpreted as arrogant yet not dishonest. “It is O.K. for me to do that, but you can’t.”

If I criticize the actions and traits of others that I also despise about myself, should that be considered hypocritical? To me it just seems consistent, even if not particularly helpful. Or a situation that seems to come up often with political and public figures: if someone criticizes or condemns something with which they are (or have been) involved, is that hypocritical? Their opponents are always quick to claim so, but consider it like this: a smoker who tells others not to smoke might seem hypocritical, yet the very fact that they do it, they know that it is wrong, but they can not stop, actually makes their opinion more valuable.

If I do something and it turns out badly, then it seems reasonable for me to advise, possibly even demand, that others not do that. However, it is not always so clear cut. A particular decision yields some benefits and some disadvantages. Maybe you even readily admit that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, yet you can not fully bring yourself to give up those benefits, so you find yourself trapped in that particular course of action. Weak… yes; lazy… perhaps. But is it hypocritical?

I was listening to Christian radio last week (because: Surprise! I still listen to Christian radio sometimes) and the DJ was reading a “letter” that he had received from a young girl (I have to assume that it was really an email, if we accept the premise that little girls actually send messages to radio DJs at all) whom, as I recall, was wheelchair bound for an unspecified reason. I do not recall how much was in the original letter and how much was his own commentary, but the gist of it was that “the world” convinces you that you have no value if you do not fit into a particular mold, but God/Jesus/The Bible/The Church (whatever the term used was) says that you do have value even if you do not fit the mold.

At that moment I almost wanted to pull the car over and throw everything down. I finally had the answer for which I had been searching for eight years:

Christians spend a lot of time talking about nonsense with no basis in reality.

What church was this guy talking about? Oh, I buy that the church will accept you if you do not fit into society’s mold. In fact, they probably will NOT take you if you do fit in to society’s mold (at least their interpretation of it). But you still have to fit into the church’s mold. I can not even say how many people were, for lack of a better phrase, “forced out” of my church group precisely because they did not fit the mold. No one would admit that, of course. In fact, I have no doubt that if you asked anyone involved in any of these incidents, they would genuinely claim they bent over backwards trying to accommodate the person, but that it just did not work out. Of course it did not. Because they did not fit the mold. There is nothing to be done.

I know, I know. Maybe I just went to a bad church. That is a very real possibility. Hell, I felt compelled to lie to almost everyone that I knew for years and years as a condition of attendance, so I am not exactly what you would call “objective” in these matters.

Last weekend I went to a certain local establishment with a friend. I recalled that the previous time that we had been there, we had been accompanied by a third person. I do not want to go into details, but let me summarize by saying that the individual in question spent an unpleasantly long time arguing against a comment that I had made about a specific socioeconomic matter. Yet I remained unconvinced by his arguments, and more annoyingly, completely unsuccessful in my attempts to shift the conversation to another topic.

Some people just really like to argue. I do not understand where that comes from, but I know that is is there. I do not care for arguments and debates. If in the right mood, I do like to try to understand other people’s point of view, but if and when I do bother to state my opinion on anything [like, on a blog maybe?] I do not generally spend additional effort trying to convince someone who strongly disagrees with me that they are wrong. (Alright, I admit that sometimes I can not resist a good sarcastic jab just to mess with someone’s perceptions every now and then, but that is the extent of it.)

Anyway, I was out with my friend again and wouldn’t you know it, this very same guy shows up again. He and my friend proceed to get into a lengthy debate about faith. I am ashamed to say that I pretty much hung my friend out to dry on that one by not saying anything the entire time. I could point out that this man was really an acquaintance of my friend in the first place and I had only ever seen him three or four times, and also that it was my friend’s fault for encouraging him in the first place. Yet still, are not conversations about faith and doubt kind of “my thing”? Not that day. Not with that guy. For one thing, they were not even talking about theology exactly, merely discussing hypotheticals. It seems silly to criticize, given that my post just a couple of weeks ago was one giant “what if”, but I did not see the value in what they were discussing. I could not even confidently predict a likely outcome in the real world of the scenarios they were debating, let alone offer any conclusions about what that outcome may or may not say about God.

A different friend recently wrote a lengthy post; the first part was an anecdote about the struggles of a certain individual whom she had known at some point in the past, and the second part was about what God showed my friend through that experience. It was the sort of thing that you can not argue on facts. That is, I suppose that you could argue the details of the story, and I recognize that there is a slight possibility that the entire thing was invented for a school assignment, but I think that it actually was a true event. However, you can not argue the second part (which is really the whole point of the post) on facts simply because there are no facts. Here is what God showed you? Here is what you feel about this and that? That’s… nice.

I certainly would not say that feelings have no value, but they are not evidence. A feeling can be a good starting point, but if that is all you ever have then… it simply is not enough. [Hold on a moment, the kettle is calling. “Yes? This whole post, you say? No? The entire BLOG‽ Well that’s disappointing.”]

In my bolded statement above, “nonsense” is the wrong word. Nonsense has no meaning, no value, and is possibly even made up on the spot. Christianity is none of those things. No, the word that I wanted is “fiction.” Fiction can be entirely self-consistent and even remarkably accurate to real life, either by intention or coincidence. That does not make it true. On a practical level, I find that Christianity largely amounts to empty platitudes and unprovable assertions. It sounds good. Consistent even. And if it gives some people hope and strength, then good for them. For me, at the end of the day, at the end of eight years of days, it is not enough.

If there is one simple thing that I should have asked my contrary acquaintance above, and perhaps my friend can use this in a future encounter, it would be this: Who would you say has a better knowledge and understanding of whom? Is it my knowledge of God, or His knowledge of me? Presuming that the answer to that is self-evident, therefore if God thus far has not revealed Himself in a way that I am able to comprehend… why is that my fault?

It dawned on me earlier this week that it has been so long since I “got over” feeling the need to be a productive member of society that I can not remember when or how it happened.

I do sort of have a job, but it is not consistent work and it does not pay well. Although having some kind of income is obviously a plus, I think one of the main reason I do it is just so that when people ask me what I do, I can have an answer. (Although I do sometimes claim that I am “unemployed” depending on my mood.) Unfortunately, sometimes other people at that job ask what I *really* do for money, and that is always awkward.

It so happens that one of the full time employees there just up and quit recently because his mother has been having a lot of health problems. It also happened to be on one of the days that I was working. Not that it matters, but I was actually the one that discovered the envelop containing his keys and resignation letter that had been unceremoniously dropped through the mail slot in the door. Later that day there was a casual discussion of the various pros and cons of his departure and the topic of his mother dying was brought up, on which point I crudely offered, “That’ll mess a dude UP.” I then added that it happened to me six years ago and I never recovered.

Six years ago I was going to school, I was going to church, I had a social network and romantic relationships (or at least, an interest in romantic relationships)… now, not so much. It might not be a direct cause and effect. After all, your mother dying is something that happens to absolutely everybody (unless you happen to die first and then THAT is the real tragedy). Most people find a way to get on with life. I can not say that I planned this, but I have managed to construct a lifestyle in which I never *have* to do anything that I do not want to. I mean, of course I still have bills to pay and errands to run and that kind of thing, but on any given day, if I do not feel like doing anything productive, it does not really matter. And I have a lot of days like that.

It bothers me sometimes how irresponsible I have become, and especially how much more responsible I was at twenty than at thirty (and counting.) I am pretty good with individual events. If I say I will be someplace, then I will be there. (I probably will not be *on time*, but, you know.) Individual tasks… I will probably get to it… eventually… it depends on who it is for, and if it is just something for my own benefit, probably not going to happen. For tasks that have to be repeated at regular intervals, I am pretty much useless.

Lately, I am starting to feel like the debt has come due on my carefree lifestyle as it seems that everything is falling apart around me.

A pipe sprung a leak under my bathroom back in February and I went five weeks without hot water in the house, because I was just too lazy to fix it. It was another month or two before I finished the plumbing and completely restored water to every faucet and fixture in the house. The sprinkler system is STILL non-operational. That one bathroom still has no tub, no toilet and a big hole in the floor. Lest I sound like I am trying to solicit charity, I want to be clear that it is not a money problem. It is a I-want-to-do-the-work-myself-except-that-I-don’t-really problem. There are some other maintenance issues around the house as well, but they are hardly worth mentioning.

Yesterday I blew a tire on my truck. That happens. However, I knew it was going to happen, because I noticed an unusual bulge in that particular tire over a year ago, but I just never bothered to do anything about it. Oddly, that is the second time in the last month that I was in a vehicle when a tire blew out. The first time, a friend was driving and he lost control of the car and we did a 270 degree turn off of the freeway. I blew out my tire on a mountain road, but I did not spin, and I did not leave the road. That makes for the second – third come to think of it – time that I probably should have died on a mountain road and yet did not. That seems strange.

Long before I had any interest in Christianity, I became skeptical of evolution, as the whole idea seemed rather far fetched. I never looked into it though, and as the topic is still fairly taboo among Christians, it was easy to put the question aside when I entered the church some years later. The question of whether or not evolution is (for lack of a better term) “real” is simply not important to my daily life, and my faith or lack there of does not hinge on that particular issue. (Though from the passion I notice in others, I have to assume that my attitude toward this topic is atypical.) That said, I only offer this post as philosophical speculation, not well grounded in anything at all.

I happened upon a video online a few weeks ago on “ring species.” One definition of “species” is a classification of organisms that can successfully interbreed. Horses and donkeys are separate species, for example, because while they can in fact mate, the resulting mule is almost always infertile. Also, ligers and tiglons which I found out just now* are actually NOT infertile, so bad example. [*Via the internet. I was not personally attempting to breed them immediately prior to writing this post.] Still, ligers and tiglons, everybody!

A “ring species” is, to my understanding, when a “species” becomes geographically separated into a number of distinct populations. Population A can successfully interbreed with population B; population B with population C; C with D; and D with E; however, population A is NOT able to interbreed with population E. The question then arises, are populations A and E the same species? The video that I saw was actually presented as a challenge to creationists. Many creationists accept “micro-evolution” within a single species (i.e. breeds), but “macro-evolution” (one species evolving from another) is right out.

If any creationists out there would like to address this then be my guest, but as I said before, it is not my concern. I do not give a crap about birds or salamanders or even dogs. Yet I idly wonder: does this happen with people? Can, say, an Australian Aborigine and a Scandinavian produce viable offspring? Probably… but when you get right down to it, I am not really sure.

Switching gears slightly, the movie Idiocracy postulates that natural selection favors stupid, irresponsible people and that in the future, there will be no intelligent people left. While I did not care for the movie itself, I always felt that the underlying premise was extremely plausible. However, at some point in the recent political-economic climate, I began to wonder if this was inaccurate. What if natural selection does not, strictly speaking, favor the unintelligent, but rather the underprivileged? Furthermore, what if the opposite group (the “haves” as opposed to the “have-nots”, if you will) did not actually become extinct, merely a smaller and more isolated population? That would result in a situation much more like the one presented in The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. It has been a great many years since I read that book, but the gist is that the time traveler discovers in the very distant future that humans have evolved (or devolved) into two separate species: the Eloi, who live a carefree lifestyle on the surface of the earth, and the aggressive Morlocks, who live underground, tending to and feeding off of the Eloi. It should also be noted that both the Eloi and the Morlocks are significantly less intelligent than modern humans. No one is disputing that.

I went to a guitar show last weekend. I had been looking forward to it for some time. I have been wanting to start collecting/investing in guitars for quite awhile now, yet I have been reluctant to pull the trigger on buying anything.

Part of the issue is that collecting and investing are not really the same thing.
Collecting means buying guitars that I personally would want to have, and probably (though not necessarily) would not want to sell. Investing in guitars is just like investing in anything else: buy low, sell high.

It is the “investing” part that is tripping me up. Last year, I bought a big book full of guitar prices. The value of guitars is a lot like cars: a 10 year old one is not worth very much; a 20 year old is worth practically nothing; but somewhere around 30 years old, it changes from “used” to “vintage” and the price starts to go up again; and at 50 years, it is worth quite a lot.

Key then is to buy something that is on the downward part of the curve and then wait ten or twenty years for the price to go up. However, every time I find something that looks good, either online or in person, the seller wants way more than my book says it is worth. Who are they kidding? Is anyone really buying vintage guitars in this economy? I would think it would be a buyer’s market.

I had been to this same guitar show last summer and been slightly disappointed. Sure there were a lot of nice guitars, especially a lot of high end and vintage guitars that you do not generally find in the average guitar shop. Yet, while they did have a number of guitar models that I was familiar with but had never actually seen in person, there was not really anything new and unusual to me like I had been hoping for.

This year, the event was at a venue much closer to where I live and I went fully planning to walk away with something. I do not know if it was the change in venue or the economy or what, but there were not nearly as many booths this year. Still, even on a casual first walk through I noticed several promising guitars. A few more when I really started looking carefully at each vender. Most were again in the way more than I would want to spend range, but not all. I could go into details, but I doubt it would mean much to most readers.

There was one interesting guitar that I kept coming back to in my mind. Great guitar? No. Nice looking guitar? It was actually in pretty bad shape cosmetically. Worth what the asking price? Debatable. But an interesting guitar. A guitar that wants to be played, not kept in a case in the closet. A guitar with character.

However, for a number of reasons (or should I say, “excuses”) that do not seem that important now, I ended up not buying it, and walked out empty handed and more than a little annoyed with myself. I did not even take note of the dealer’s name, which might have left open the possibility of buying it online.

This is not so much about buying a guitar or not buying a guitar. I already have a lot of guitars. I also in general struggle with buyer’s remorse and just plain “clutter” way more often than I have regret over NOT buying something. This is really about having an idea and not following through. It is about not being able to make a decision in the moment. I keep thinking about that guitar that I am never going to have and it reminds me of so many other opportunities that I have missed because of my overall lack of CERTITUDE.

To add extra an extra layer of futility: after spending hours walking around and dreaming of possibilities, did I play any guitar when I got home? I did not.

I occasionally hear the accusation that conservatives and/or Republicans (if one wants to make the distinction) want to see President Obama fail because “He’s Black,” and that Republicans, especially “the Tea Party”, are nothing but racists.

Now, while I am sure that many conservatives do happen to be racist (the “birther movement” comes to mind), but that is hardly a defining characteristic of the whole. Here is what I think happened: Obama’s election was an enormous symbolic victory. Many people probably voted for him specifically because he is Black; I would not be surprised if many people voted for the first and only time in their lives simply because he is Black. Even people who supported his policies, or those would have automatically voted for the Democratic candidate regardless, no doubt felt a little extra proud about their choice. Like Jackie Robinson, who was not necessarily the greatest baseball player even in his own time, the fact that Obama was the first Black president will most likely be historically more significant than anything else he does as president. I also think that many people were fully expecting the same sort of backlash against Obama that Jackie Robinson faced.

Therefore, if one believes either openly or subconsciously that the most important thing about Obama is that he is Black, then obviously an attack of any kind must be for that reason. Yet I think you have to objectively ask: exactly who is the racist in that scenario?

The last Democratic president prior to Obama was Clinton, whom the Republicans tried to run out of office. Yet Clinton was (that particular issue aside) in many areas more conservative than Obama. The Democrat before that was Carter, whom I have frequently heard refered to by conservatives as “The Useless One” or something similar. However, both Carter and Clinton were white, Southern Baptists, so the objection to them was obviously not fueled by racism. It turns out that Republicans just really dislike liberals.

In fact, returning to the “birther” idea, while that particular accusation would never have worked against a white president, I suspect that at least some people supported it simply as any excuse to get rid of a liberal president. I believe that most intelligent, respected conservatives tried to distance themselves from the idea as an embarrassing distraction from the real issues. One might even argue that the liberally biased media gave the issue more attention than it deserved for exactly the same reason.

Republicans do not want to see Obama fail. Even conservatives who may or may not have respect for the man or his policies can still be proud at least that the racial barrier to the presidency has been broken. I have never heard this point argued before, but to me it seems that the fact that right now, in America as it is today, a Black man born in obscurity is capable of rising to the highest office in the land is actually more in line with conservative ideology than liberal. (Though I admit that it is entirely possible that I am missing part of the story there.)

Republicans want Obama to succeed. The catch is that they will judge Obama’s success or failure based upon how well he conforms to conservative policies and principles. Under such criteria, he is most certain to fail.

A year or so ago I was at one of those “pieces of flair” restaurant/bar places with a small group of people. At some point, the other members of the party had wandered away from the table for whatever reason, leaving me alone with a guy that I hardly knew. He proceeded to solicit my opinion on every woman in that establishment, which is not a game with which I am particularly comfortable.

Quickly tiring of my noncommittal answers, he began a more direct line of questioning to determine my “type”. At some point in this line of inquiry, he asked my opinion of Black girls, and being annoyed at every aspect of the conversation thus far, I exasperatedly replied, “I’ve never met a Black girl that I wanted to date.”

Now that is the kind of statement that you really wish you had not said the very instant it leaves your mouth. My companion was momentarily shocked, but undeterred, he began to name some African American celebrities and do I not find them attractive? Sure, whatever.

As if it was not obvious enough before, we were at this point clearly not on the same page. For I specifically said “date”, while he was (at least for the purpose of this exercise) not remotely interested in dating.

Regardless, that statement of mine has been troubling me ever since. The most obvious defense is that it was merely a statement of fact, in the same sense that “I have never been to Brazil” is a statement of fact. Or perhaps a better analogy in this case would be, “I have never wanted to go to Brazil.” What do I have against Brazil? Absolutely nothing. It is not that I refuse to go to Brazil. It is simply that, although technically I could get on a plane at any time, at no point in my life thus far has “Go to Brazil” seemed like the thing to do at that moment. If the opportunity should arise that I had a compelling reason to go, then I probably would. But as it stands, there are a lot of places to which I have never been, and that is merely one of them.

I am not opposed to the idea of dating a Black woman. I have met some wonderful ones that I have gotten along well with over the years, it just so happens that I have thus far not have felt that sort of chemistry with any of them. I almost feel like I should now go out and date a Black woman just to prove that I am not racist, although realistically, I fail to see how that is in anyone’s best interest. If we are really going for brutally honest T.M.I. here, I actually have a preference for Asians, yet I have never dated one of them either. The truth is, it has been years since I have met anyone at all that I have wanted to date, although that is a rather separate issue.

Maybe I would have let this whole thing pass, but some time later, a coworker was telling me about a time that he went to a strip club, and that a Black stripper was wanting to give him a lap-dance, but he had never been attracted to Black girls. This conversation also was rather outside my comfort zone, yet I felt a certain guilty relief in being able to agree with him on this point.

More recently still, I found two videos online (independent of each other, and I do not recall now how I came across either one.) The first is from a comedy series. The second is heartbreaking. So I see that this is much more than one poorly phrased, frustrated comment. This is a deep cultural problem.

Last night I think that I dreamt that someone was in my house with malicious intent. I woke from that dream into another dream. “Home” in my dreams is almost always the house in which I grew up. (It is so uncommon that I dream of the current house, in which I have lived (off and on) for eight or nine years now, that when it does happen I always wake up surprised. This was not one of those times.) The house was built sometime in the 1890s… and I have always been a little confused when people mention “old houses” when referring to houses built only thirty years ago. Californians.

Anyway, I awoke in my old house, in my childhood room, though I was now the only one who lived there. And from the dream I was filled with dread and convinced that I was not alone in the house. From my gabled bedroom, I could step out of my window onto another part of the roof, and I proceeded to do so. Growing up, the lot next door was an orange grove until sometime in high school when they cut down the trees and relocated another old (Victorian old, I mean) house there from another part of town. However, in my dream, I saw that for some reason that house was now gone again, leaving only a dirt lot next door. I made my way to the back of the house, where the previous owner had inexpertly enclosed a porch into a flat-roofed room that did not match the style of the rest of the house. On this flat portion of roof, I discovered five teenagers just sitting around and drinking. Not sure how to handle the situation, I looked straight at one Macaulay Culkin-ish looking guy whom I took to be their leader and yelled, “Get out of here!” in my best threatening voice. It worked, and the kids scattered. I began to check the rest of the house for further intrusions.

The architecture and history that I have mentioned up until this point was surprisingly accurate, and not the product of dream logic, with two exceptions: the relocated orange-grove house is still very much present (as far as I know), and the major remodel that my parents did to the back end of the house shortly before leaving the country was apparently non-canon in my dream.

At this point I think that I awoke briefly and returned to sleep. I was still in my house, and still looking for intruders, only now my house was a five-story mansion, yet I still lived in it alone. From somewhere in the house, I heard a female voice ask her companion, “Did you hear someone?” Apparently a couple of teenagers has sneaked into my mansion for an illicit rendezvous.

In the center of the house was a grand sweeping stairway that spiraled up all five stories with a wide opening in the middle. Not having the patience for five flights of stairs, and being a former circus performer, I opted instead to climb up an ornately carved wooden pole that formed one of the supports for the staircase. At this point, there were two girls with me. I do not know why, or even who, as they had not been present prior to now, and not wishing to climb in the manner that I had chosen, they were not around subsequently. I only mention them for completeness in case someone is doing in depth dream analysis on me.

At the very top of the house was a doorway that opened into a very small room – walk in closet sized actually –  with another door slightly ajar on the opposite wall. I knew that this was wrong… it felt like the set up to a horror movie. Rather than entering the room, I gripped the door frame on either side of me and kicked the opposite door open. I do not pretend to understand the physics here, but it was not a door at all, it was a mirror reflecting a door that I could not see. It was a trap. When I kicked it, it began to turn until it revealed a wooden cabinet with seven doors. I knew that the door behind me was supposed to have closed and locked me in, yet my hands on the door frame had prevented it. I also knew that whatever was behind those seven doors was NOT going to be pleasant. But I was having none of that, and I promptly woke myself up.

That was strange in itself, because I do not normally have the ability to consciously pull myself out of a dream like that. Now I was in my real house, in real life, in the dark. But was I alone? I recalled that there is a series of video games and/or movies called Alone in the Dark. Yet I could not help thinking that there is nothing scary about being alone in the dark… it is NOT being alone when you thought that you were, or that you ought to be, that is truly terrifying.

So was there someone in the house? Was my subconscious trying to tell me something? For is that not what dreams are, just your subconscious bringing up things that your conscious mind overlooked? That is what I get for sleeping with the windows open. Anyone could wander in, and it seems unlikely that it would be harmless teens merely looking for some fun.

There was no one else in the house. Unless maybe… I am still dreaming even now.