I miss writing.

I've recently become infatuated with a woman.

Oh no darlings, not like that, I'm still completely hetero, but Brittany Gibbons of Brittany Herself is my current obsession. She is a confident, witty, quite possibly the perfect amount of insane and I just know she'd be my very best friend if I knew her.

Before this begins to stack up against me in a court of law in the off chance she has a stalker, let me explain why I am singing her praises, she's encouraged me (indirectly of course) to write again. The problem is, when you're a writer, your craft has to be cared for and nurtured. I've spent much too long neglecting mine. I've simply forgotten how to write. I need to start again somewhere safe, with some guidance. Some lubrication for the gears, if you will.

So, when Brittany posted writing prompts for the month of September, I liked what I saw. I would like to start with Day 1.

You are having a dinner party, which 10 famous people would be on your guest list?

1. Drew Barrymore - she fascinates me in so many ways. She is a strong independent woman with an amazing heart. She's beautiful inside and out.
2. Dave Matthews - His music got me through some very difficult times in my life, I'd like the chance to thank him. Even though I feel as if I've begun to outgrow him like an old favorite pair of blue jeans.
3. Diane Sawyer - She's in the know. She's my favorite Nightly News person and I just have a feeling she could really throw down and I'm sure she has some GREAT stories that would come out when she's intoxicated. Hell, she possibly even went on the air drunk once. Party fucking animal.
4. Jamie Oliver -

It's at this point, I realize I hate writing prompts. I'm OCD, I'm a control freak, everything in my life is structured, in place, my writing was always the one thing in my life in which I felt free from myself.

Yes. That's exactly what I mean...free from myself.

So, with that, I'm going to continue to read Brittany Gibbons and Jenny Lawson, trashy romance novels and dystopian young adult fiction, until I find myself writing again. It starts here. With this step.

Dreams are weird.

Dreams are weird.

I've always had weird and crazy dreams. I remember a lot of them too. I even remember some from when I was a young child. Sometimes I have a hard time waking up from my dreams. Sometimes they are so vivid, I wake up and get confused about where I am because 5 minutes ago I was somewhere else. It's pretty awesome, unless it's a bad dream and then it's far from awesome. Once I woke up thinking I had a child, when it wasn't in the house I went all "DINGO STOLE MY BABY!" for a solid 5 minutes. I should probably have my dreams analyzed, but I'm scared to do that because I'm pretty sure I'd be committed. Here is a Highlight Reel:

Christmas Morning - 1985 - My Mom has to wake me up to open presents. I'm 5 years old. I shouldn't have to be woken up. I should be up, jumping up and down to screaming to open the Popple that was wrapped under the tree that I totally saw my brother wrapping for me a few days before. When my Mom wakes me up (I remember this, clear as day) I look at her and ask "Where is Pizza? And Pepperoni?" she looks at me and says "You want pizza? It's Christmas morning! You can have some Froot Loops after we open presents." Exasperated I say "NO MOM! Pizza and Pepperoni are my bears." She proceeds to tell me that I don't have bears named Pizza and Pepperoni. I explain to her that I have 2 big stuffed bears named Pizza and Pepperoni, one was dark brown and one was light brown, and as I'm telling her, I realize that it was a dream and then I begin to cry hysterically because I really wanted the bears from my dream. They talked to me and were my friends. I still feel heartbroken when I think about this.

In my mid-20s I had a recurring dream that I lost body parts. At the time, I worked with a girl that only had 1 arm. So I totally blame her. She was born that way, but in my dream, unlike Lady Gaga and the girl I worked with, I was not. The body parts I lost would just fall off and while they were sometimes different, it was almost always my ear. In the dream I was riding on a bike, fleeing from my coworker with 1 arm while she ran after me exclaiming "Hey, you dropped your ear! Come back! They can give you a prosthetic!" It felt like hours would pass as I frantically rode my bike, trying to get away from her. It was terrifying. I haven't had this dream in some time but occasionally I will catch a glimpse of my ear and get chills

I have been broken up with exactly once in my life. I mean, really dumped. Like, out of the blue, what just happened, my heart will NOT go on Celine Dion I don't care what you say, don't sleep, don't eat, complete misery dumped. It happened over 11 years ago, was one of my shortest relationships ever (read: 4 months) and that son of a bitch still haunts my dreams. He was a total loser. Even so, when I dream about him I almost always end up waking up with my heart racing like it's going to explode from my chest and I'm completely covered in sweat. Not in a good way either. In a terrified, please dear baby jesus get me out of this dream right now, kind of way. And usually, I just see his face and he says "Hey".

Clearly, I have a major issue with rejection. But it's ok because my friend Casey tells me that all the cool kids do.I had one of these last night, it's what brought all this on. You can thank that asshole for this blog post.

I also randomly dream of Whales. Like, I'll be at a picnic, in the desert. BOOM, there's a whale. I'll be at my desk at work. BOOM, there's a whale. I'll be in a museum. BOOM there's a painting of a whale. This is a fairly new development and has been happening for about the past year. Whales. What the...

All of this only goes to show that the inside of head is a lot like the movie Jumanji. One crazy confusing movie staring Robin Williams.

What do you dream about? I truly want to know. Maybe it will make me feel less crazy?

Don't mind me, that's just how my brain works...

My brain doesn't work like most brains.

For example, I'll wonder what giraffes eat, so I Google it. Then I see, "What do giraffes symbolize?" and I click there instead because surely that is infinitely more interesting than what they eat. Apparently, they symbolize the ability to see

into the future. Then I begin to think, is the fact that I'm curious about giraffes and what they eat mean that I can see in the future? If so, does that mean I will see how I die, or how my friends are going to die? I can't handle that. I don't want to know. Why do I have to know that?

This is how my brain works.

It effects my decision making ability because I'm always thinking 12 different implausible hypotheticals that might happen and I need time to weigh all of them before I can decide the best course of action.

Because of this in a moment of crisis, I am not the right person to go to. You should see what happens when my gas light comes on in my car. I start breathing heavy, and calculating the miles it would take to walk to the gas station, and then I realize I don't have a gas can and I'll have to buy one and what if they don't have one. Bam, mini panic attack. I can't breathe right, my heart is pounding, I start to get really hot, it's awful. Some friends were in the car with me recently when this happened, I explained to them that this is how my brain functions all of the time. They are amazed I make it out of the house with clothes on each day.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking of the many stories I could tell you about the times my brain has gotten me into trouble this way. There was the time I accidentally set my Mom on fire while we were ear wicking (Google it) and couldn't figure out what was the most effective way to put the fire out so I stood there just saying "Oh, um, Oh, uh...". Until my sister realized what was happening and yelled at me to pour the glass of water I had in my hand on the fire that had slowly begun it's crawl from my Mom's slipper to her pants leg.

Then there was the time my friend went into a porta-potty toward the end of a night out and all of a sudden some guys rolled the porta-potty away, with her in it, but there was a cop eyeballing me because I was holding a cup of beer and I was afraid I would get arrested if I ran after her, so I didn't. I stood there and held my beer, yelling hopefully loud enough for the guys to hear me but not loud enough that the cop would think I was too drunk and arrest me. Because they would arrest me and I would go to jail. I didn't know how to make a shiv at that point in my life, so I was worried about the outcome.

I call these my "Thought Trains" and occasionally I change the words to "Love Train" and sing about them, but only when I'm alone. My most recent Thought Train has been the scariest of all for me. I'm currently separated, soon to be divorced and I'm 33. I want a child (just 1, I'm not sure I could handle 2 with all this going on inside my head everyday) very badly. So I think about doing it on my own, do I go the old fashioned way or adopt? I formulate plans in my head for both, I then wonder if I can buy a baby on Craigslist. Before I can begin the research, I think about how hard raising a kid on my own would be, I don't make a lot of money and kids are freakishly expensive. I really like to sleep too, and they are up all night having tiny baby parties.

I'd have to work 2 jobs to afford diapers, then I'd have to work a 3rd job to afford the childcare I'd need for the other 2 jobs. Then I wouldn't have time to dedicate to teaching them to be an awesome human because I don't want to have a brat for a child. And if my kid is uncool or likes Justin Beiber, I'm just not sure how I would handle that disappointment as a parent.

Basically, inside my head there is a whole lot of crazy. I live on the ledge and I'm constantly pulling myself off of it. Or at least that's what it feels like sometimes. I do my best to keep it in check but occasionally it slips up and 15 minutes of time can just pass by in a blur. If you are ever talking to me and I space out, I'm probably hearing everything you are saying, I'm just thinking about the hypotheticals. One day when I know how to save your unborn pony from a zombie attack at 20,000 feet, because I had already thought of that, you'll thank me for it. Well, as long as I have thought of that hypothetical.