Inner Monologue

Was nothing short of a nightmare, and it looks like its going to bleed into this week.

My house was broken into on the 21st, my family was out of the state for that whole week. The computers were stolen and even though they decided to tear out the speakers, headphones, keyboards, and microphones, they decided that they should just take all the jump drives that had Artemis saved on them. I still have Ritzko, I suppose that's a blessing in disguise. Luckily I had emailed most of Artemis Book 1 to myself to read at work, so I will only have to rewrite the last chapter and the afterword.

I managed to get through work without breaking down in front of my coworkers, but to tell the truth I did have a patient that I found crying at 5 am and I ended up sitting with him and bawling my eyes out right next to him.

My boss has been amazing through everything, however I haven't told her yet that Robbie and I do plan on moving back to Michigan. We're waiting on his job to transfer and we've worked the budget to allow us to live on his salary alone for as long as we need to (while I'm unemployed). I have only told one of my coworkers what happened, and only because she had her house broken into last summer and I felt was the only one who really understood what I was going through. The others know nothing, and I don't plan on telling them anything until I leave, if then.

I stayed at Tammi's house one night, I'll probably do a lot of crashing there this coming week, what was a 6-day stretch of time off has become an 8-day stretch because guess what? To top off the week, Robbie's grandmother passed this morning around 4, and the worst part is that I don't have the strength to cry anymore, even when something really warrants tears. I know how close he was to her, when he said she was back in the hospital with her usual UTI CHF, I figured she would be right as rain and back home when we moved up there. So I work tonight and took vacation for the next two days. Hopefully I can pick up some time around the hospital in the stretch to save up money.

Penelope is still missing, and her sister is all out stressed and lonely now. She cries a lot, can't keep down food, I'm worried about the both of them. So we're taking Persephone up to Michigan with us for the funeral because we don't want to leave her alone for too long, she snuggled up to me for most of last night. I have faith still that we will find Penny, the biggest reason being that we have posters all over the damn place that offer a reward of $100 for her return, along with a picture of her. To be honest, she should be easy to spot, her fur is longer than any other stray, and her coloring is rather unique. It makes me feel better when I see people I've never met combing the area for her, calling out for her, $100 is a small price to pay for her if it gets her home. I know Robbie is lonely without her.

One of the only good things that happened this past week was when my sister came home from vacation and set right all of the mess between me and my parents, she then proceeded to buy me a new laptop, which I am typing this on right now. I'm in the midst of recovering my lost music, but it looks like I may have to wait a bit to get my Sailor Moon replaced, which kinda sucks because I could really use a good laugh right about now. Artemis Book 1 is in its own little folder on here, but I haven't put much work into finishing it yet. I'm still a little numb from the whole experience.

I guess I should start getting cleaned up for work? I have a few hours still, but there is packing to be done if I plan on leaving in the morning for Michigan for the funeral.

My meeting on Wednesday went well, of course then I got home exhausted because I hadn't slept yet, and immediately had another dream. Now they're coming faster and more often, but I'm not scared anymore. I think I just needed someone to tell me it wasn't malicious.

So there's that, and then there's the rest of it. While its nothing bad and I was told that there is apparently no evil spirit around me at all, the woman I talked to does NOT think that this is anyone who has crossed over, or even an angel. Still not afraid though, of course the three dreams that I've had since last Wednesday were the usual Sisyphean tasks, but they weren't anything that made me wake up crying. They were more the Captain Hook sort.

That being said, I don't think I'll be posting many more dreams online here, they've become a little too personal to just throw out there unless I find them either particularly amusing or revelatory. I'm quickly finding that whatever it is that is invading my dreams is quickly becoming a friend.

I really, really don't like how I'm looking ahead to what needs to happen still in Book One and trying to tell myself, "No, Van Dean wouldn't do something that despicable." Then come to the realization that "yes, yes he would."

I feel sick just thinking about it.

It rather goes hand in hand with the dream I had only two nights ago, where I was angry. Really angry, but I didn't know why, and I was getting text messages on my phone from Van Dean and they were all apologies, but I had a hard time swallowing them.

Jesus, even looking back over the old dialogue between Artemis and Van Dean makes me want to cry, I was going to take it out but it's too heart-wrenching to slash.

I've been a little down lately. A lot of memories have made their way back to me; some bad, some bittersweet. To make things worse, I can't really work on Artemis like this, my nightmares would get worse. I'm officially to parts that are gruesome enough to be against LiveStream Policy. The events seem only slightly bitter at first, but then I get to thinking about what is going on in the story right now and I feel sick.

I remember the melody of the song from my dream a few months back now. The words are still a blur. And if I've had another dream since the last, I honestly couldn't say, but Robbie tells me I've woken up screaming and crying in the middle of the night a lot lately. I still can't really decipher the last one, but I'm still firm in my resolution to seek help if I get another one that wakes me up like that. I've still got the name of the woman in Pickerington that someone at work recommended. I can't even look at the Tiffany's at Easton without feeling sick. And Swavaroski is another story entirely.

Other than the nightmares, things are okay. I'm going over Ritzko a few times, mostly because when I changed it to first person certain places before my decision don't sound like Bastian. Its just not gritty enough, just needs more ebonics and rough language. Once that is done its going to a few other people for final proofing, then off to be published. It makes me proud, just looking at the giant stack of papers and thinking "I wrote that in less than 10 days and it kicks ass".

There's a large snowpocalypse hitting the midwest right now, and the water dmg is at an all-time high. Of course the landlord wouldn't listen last spring when I told them about it, I expect to get an earful once I tell them "well, it got worse", of course in all the time that my parents have had their house, I don't recall my landlords ever doing any work on this house. So I'm fairly certain the roof is much overdue.

But I'm sleepy now and since its five in the morning I suppose I could check the school closings to see if Samm is free today...closed, yup. Time for me to crash and rest up for later.

I haven't been to sleep yet, and I really don't want to either. It isn't that I'm not tired, I just spent ten minutes shuffling through my music because I wanted to listen to Goldfrapp and I couldn't remember where "G" was in the alphabet. I could listen to my dramatic reading of "My Immortal" and not lose and brain cells. I'm that fried right now.

I had come to the conclusion that I would wait a few weeks to see this psychic that was recommended, and I still plan to, but it's going to be harder to put off. Because I came to realize that I've been putting off sleep more and more every day, and I even pick up hours at work to avoid it. I started sleeping with a teddy bear again. And the worst of it is that in the past the dreams were more intense when it was that time of the month. Used to be that if I was off my period and Robbie was in bed beside me I could sleep easy, but the last few dreams broke all those hopes...

So its that time again. I feel like I'm going to fall face-first into my keyboard.

If I at least knew that they were nothing, just weird dreams, that would be enough. Every time I try to shrug them off they come back stronger.

I couldn't begin to describe all the strange things I've researched in working on Artemis. Diseases, hand bones, language of flowers, ice cream, aquariums/zoos, Jannah (Islamic Paradise), nitty-gritty details on fruit, weapons/firearms. All of these things just to make sure they existed in 1863 (I was sad that Kamen couldn't crack an Alice joke on Rei.) Sometimes it seems like a little much to delve into for a few moments of interest, but then again, it does give me something to smile about later.

When I was in kindergarden our teacher decided to show us this movie around Christmas, that was a variation of the Nutcracker. In my opinion the music for the ballet is waaaaaaay too overplayed, I much prefer Swan Lake. Every once in a while I would look for this movie but had no such luck until about an hour ago. Its a stop-animation, much like Santa Clause is Coming to Town (a few of the people who worked on that project had a hand in this), but it was done in Japan and got a few awards. The movie was released around 1980, and is cheesy, as badly done as most other stop-animation, and gritty.

The beginning two and a half minutes are what scared me, and from the comments on YouTube, it looks like it had similar effects.


Looks like an over-hyped boogyman, right? A rag man was basically a junk man who would travel around and ask people to trade their junk for things of value. Bones, scraps of fabric, and bits of metal, anything really. There's a VERY similar name for the Boogyman in many spanish-speaking countries, all of which mean "Sack Man".

Sack Man stories are all pretty much like the beginning animation for that movie. He collects bad children and throws them into his sack to eat. Seeing as how Hombre del Saco actually existed in the 16th and 17th centuries, its easily something Kamen can toss about.

Fuck this shit, I was terrified of the Rag Man when I was little. I still have this anal tendency with the blankets Robbie doesn't understand. Always up over my head but away from my nose so the Rag Man couldn't tickle me and wake me up.

EDIT: What a fucked up way to start a children's movie.

...I can't believe I'm downloading it now...