The Only Kind of Bird in a Madhouse

I remember having the nightmare as long as I can remember having dreams. It’s been almost exactly the same for all the years that it’s plagued me. Even before I moved to our house in West Seattle, somehow the dream started there.

There was a bedroom at the back of that house with a window that looked onto a steep hill that had been cut into to flatten the foundation and was now supported by a wooden wall. There were always strange things to be seen by that window at night and my sisters and I frequently had issues sleeping in that room because of it. Most often, we would see a shadow. It was a man, we were sure, and even though we couldn’t truly see him, we knew that he would stop and stare into the room. Even after my oldest sister covered the window with a heavy blanket, the shadow could still be seen some times and the feeling that the man was staring into the room persisted.
For a reason unknown to me this dream, this dream I’ve had for most of my life, always started there. I would be sitting on the bottom bunk of our white painted metal bunk bed and staring down at my feet or hands. Sometimes I think I was playing a video game, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure why, but I became nervous and looked up and out the window. There, instead of the shadow man that I grew used to while living in the house was instead a man that can only be described as a lizard. He was red in color with tones of purple and blue in places, especially the rows of ridges that followed the top of his head like cornrows. He wore clothes of a bland color scheme ranging from off-white to eggshell, taupe and tan, cream and other such colors. He wore a turtleneck under a suit jacket that was neatly buttoned and pressed and cream toned gloves. His body looked as average as any person. He stood the height of a man and didn’t show any deformities other than his lizard-like head. I knew for some reason that he wore slacks that were pleated and pointed toed shoes that were popular with early gangsters but still in his same bland color scheme.

His eyes, large and untouched by hair or eyebrows didn’t frighten me. He had no ears but instead sinus holes like most lizards and fish. His hands weren’t enlongated and I couldn’t see nails or claws or talons because of his gloves and I just knew he didn’t have any. There was no reason to be afraid. At first I’m not. Once our eyes meet for a brief moment that always feels like eternity I run. I run out of the room, down the hall, through the living room, around the corner into the kitchen and out the back door. His trip is much shorter, having to only walk a few feet and turn a corner, but he isn’t there yet. I bolt up the slope next to our back door that will lead me to the back yard, but I don’t go there.

I travel through a maze of hazy yards and fields I’ve visited over my lifetime, still up the slope and eventually come to the back yard to that house. All this time, the lizard man has been following me at a calm and slow walk. My legs feel heavy and I can’t go as fast as I want or need because my body won’t let me move right in my sleep. I wind up going up another slope until it turns into dirt stairs.

The first time, I got tired and sat on the first step. I watched as the lizard man turned and headed up the slope after me, walking towards me in that calm and steady pace. His face never shows malice, but just before he reaches me, I wake up. Every night I dream this, I rest at the next step. Over the years, the steps have gone from earth to stone then wood and cement, constantly evolving the higher up I go. It was at the third set of steps I began to see what lay above the stairs. Past the last step is a plateau. I can’t see what’s there but I know something is.

The most recent time I had this dream was still several years back, after talking about it to my therapist of that point in time. It began the same. I was back in that room and running for my life. I reached the next stair and I believe I saw a well just over the plateau. My view of it stops when I sit down on the step. I look the way I came and the lizard man approaches. He begins to reach his hand, and I wake.

She asked me what I thought was up there. I don’t really know. I believe there is a well that I am to look into. I never want to reach the top of the steps. I never want the lizard man to touch me. I always hope I won’t have the dream, but just when I have almost forgotten it, I go through it again; always another step up. I don’t want to look into the well because I’m sure that when I do, I’ll die. I had the dream again last night.

I realise that I post infrequently at the best of times, but I realised just a couple of minutes ago that this journal has less than ten posts. LESS THAN TEN, PEOPLE! I've had this journal for idk how many years, but I'm too stubborn (and I already deleted the accounts) to go back to livejournal. I probably will wind up meandering over to tumblr at some point, but this is sad. I think I don't post here just because of the fact that only family actually follows me here. I mean, I don't look at friends posts here, so why should they?
I really keep meaning to get back into the habit of using a journal or something, but time gets away from me. And I'm about to enter summer quarter at the college so once again I won't have as much time as I would like. Really I just want to go back to not leaving the house. I don't want to go out and about and I certainly don't want to be at school or work. I just don't. I'm a homebody. I'm reclusive, a bit agoraphobic, I know all of this. So can I stay home now?
It occurs to me that this has jumped completely from me whining about how little I post to me whining about how little I want to leave my own home. Honestly though, they sort of coorispond with eachother since if I didn't have to go anywhere like school then I would have more time to do things like post on insanejournal. Simple as that.

Simple as that.

This is an open letter to an old friend whom I lost touch with years ago.

Dear Mikey, or whatever you are going by these days since Mikey is rather childish and you may have outgrown it:

First, I would like to say that I’m sorry, so I will. I’m sorry that I constantly slammed your hands in every door we seemed to pass through. This was never intentional (at least, I don’t think it was) and I hope that in these years since we last met, and I last crushed one of your hands with a very heavy door moving at a ridiculously fast speed, you have healed and have regained once more full functionality of your hands. I sincerely hope that I didn’t do any permanent damage, except for maybe a couple of scars to remember me by.

I should let you know now that I don’t remember much of our time together. I’ve had rather bad luck with head injuries, I’m sad to say, and my memory is not very good—although I don’t think it was ever very good. I do remember that you were my best friend, my best guy pal, and that no matter what mean and horrible things I did to you, you always forgave me. You were never outwardly mad when I crushed your poor little hands (sorry again), you cried and I cried with you. We played games and I always got my way. I should tell you now that this fact hasn’t much changed.

I should also mention now before it escapes my mind that if we ever do meet again and we play Ninja Turtles, I’m still going to be Mikey. I don’t care that both of you have (or maybe had?) the same nickname—he’s my favorite character and I called it first.

I know that Larry never could understand why you put up with me, and honestly I’ve never know either, but I’m very thankful. I didn’t get along well with either of my sisters and they really didn’t want anything to do with me, but you did. Thank you for always being willing to play with me and let me boss you around and hit you when you tried to kiss me. In a lot of ways, I miss you and hope that you have grown up well. I miss your whole family actually, but you most of all. I feel like if we had continued to be around each other, we would have become even better friends and probably inseparable. I’m sad that it never came to be because you were such a great person.

In truth, I think this letter is just one big apology, again for the hand thing, and I feel like I missed out on a lot because I missed out on growing up with you. I’m posting this to the world in a small hope that it will find its way to you. I’m not sure I want you to read this, but I felt I needed to say it. I hope you are doing well. I hope you have found happiness, by yourself or with someone that hopefully doesn’t abuse you as much as I did (unless you’re really into that now, at which point go for it). I hope your family is well. I hope that someday we’ll meet again. I hope that when we meet again, we can still be friends.

I don’t actually know why we stopped hanging out, it was probably a move on my family’s part or yours, but I really do miss you. Again, I hope this finds you well, sorry about your hands, and I’m still going to be Mikey if we ever play Ninja Turtles again.

And since I guess that’s all I really have to say, I’ll then say goodbye.

…or until next time.

From (hopefully still) your friend, Gana.

So I'm on my first day back at school... Math went well, the teacher remembers me and my group seems to be pretty good. All but one homework problem finished, but in order to do it, I'm going to need a different caqlculator. This is the only time this will happen in this class, but its annoying because my phone, computer and calculator do not have a fraction key so its a pain in the butt. But still, so far so good. I have about two hours to go before my next class (sat in math class to work on homework) and I am hoping that I like my asl teacher. Sorry for any misspellings, but my keyboard is tiny and I'm not used to using it yet. Going to just chill for a while, have a few smokes and hopefully I won't be too bored in my break.

Next time, I'm bringing my psp. Still, I can read comics or whatever, but I'll have to find an outlet before I can eally do anything on my computer here. Another bit of good news is that the school network is now completely free. No blocks or encryption, no need for personal or universal info to access. I just need to remember that I can't keep porn as my desktop background at school. Luckily the image that my teacher saw was very discreet, but still need to be more careful. Shame on me. Anywho, I'll be out of school fairly late today, but for future reference, my big break is between 10:30 and 1:00. So if you want to text or chat or whatever, that's probably the best time to do it.

I think that's about it for now... I'll be posting a link to this on twitter. Of course if you don't have me friended or don't follow me on twitter-- you'll never see this! Bwahahahaha!!! okay, I need to lay off the crack. Also, doing a good job of censoring myself again. Thank goodness. After the month at B and J's place, I forgot how to censor due to sharing EVERY THOUGHT THAT CROSSED MY MIND with Megan. Fun stuff, nearly died of laughing many many times. Okay, I am off now.

So as many of you know, I'm not much one for the phone, and I used to be on a number of chat programs all the time. Well, a few years back during on of my major depressive episodes, I removed everyone from my friends lists and hid away. Recently I've been wanting to get back in contact with a lot of my friends, and I realized that I don't have the ability to chat over the internet with them anymore. So I am inviting you all to re-add me on a number of chat programs. If you know of people that should hear this too but I don't have on my flist for some reason (Ariel and Krista from high school for example), please send this along to them. I miss you guys. All of you. And now that I'm not on my computer as much, I have a new chat program on my phone that will pull from all of my accounts around the net. Some of these I have multiple accounts on... So here's the info you'd need--

AIM: seriouschan
MSN/Windows Live: alphawerewolf@gmail.com, cuteinsanity@gmail.com
Yahoo: fairemorgana@yahoo.com
Google talk: alphawerewolf@gmail.com, cuteinsanity@gmail.com
Myspace (yes I can access the chat from my phone): alphawerewolf@gmail.com
Facebook (see above comment): alphawerewolf@gmail.com

And eventually I will set up skype on my netbook so I can video chat. I got it partially because of the camera and Bronwen living so far away. And now that her baby is born and I don't get to visit them often, we all like to check in on her and the hubby with skype. Other reason for my netbook is schoolwork, etc.

If you can think of another chat program you think I might have (I'm no longer using IMVU for the most part, but I may reinstall the program for my netbook) please let me know. ReAdd me, pass it on, and we'll talk.

...also you could just call me. if you don't have my number, just ask.

(x-posted to MySpace, FaceBook, InsaneJournal)

Edit: I have now joined the ranks of skype, but don't use it much. still, if you want to add me the name is cuteinsanity

So today, I have not been able to abstain from making some of the worst jokes ever to fall out of my mouth. Of course, not the absolute worst... Suffice to say, watching anything is getting quite a bit of character commentary ala MST3K. But with that, I'm making cracks about them. Such as on the way to see How to Train Your Dragon today (yes, I saw it for a second time-- DEFINITELY worth seeing it in 3D):

(mostly from memory, so most of this is not what was said. Just the gist.)

Me: I want to make flash dress-up games for my characters... That way I can plan outfits and see how stuff comes together... That would be really cool.
Megan: Yeah, that would be awesome.
Me: Like one for Jimmy! ((second generation character for the Gorillaz)) It'd be great! I could set him up with all sorts of outfits-- like the undies and cape and oversized boots so he could shout "I'm Murdoc!".
Megan (lolz) That would be great.
Me: ...and Ikari... ((Naruto character)) I can just see it now-- an entire menu of nothing but frilly dresses!
Megan: Yes!
Me: I even know the look I would give him: that whole squinty glaring eyes an crossed arms with a really horrid frown...
Megan: Exactly! That look that says "I'm going to kill you. Some how..."
Me: Yeah! I mean, he'd try to do the exploding blood thing, but he'd just have to kill me through my brain. I'd have an aneurism! Either that or he would turn my blood in to poison.
Megan: How does he do that anyway?
Me: I don't know. He's a fucking GodModder.

So yeah... that was the slightest of it all. And of course now I want to write a bunch of character stuff, but its mostly just random comments or inside jokes on stuff that is going on. Like right now, we're watching Pirates of the Carribean 2. So Aro and Eric are cracking jokes, mostly at the expense of Barbosa. Of course if anybody else knew about their horror stories of having survived on that Black Pearl while Barbosa was captain... And then there are the cracks about Jack being a coward and would sell anybody out... So yeah. Needed to share and all that jazz.

In other news, we've made it through another week of school. Now there's only like... ten more weeks? I might be exaggerating, but I don't thinks so. I aced my first CMST210 test. 24/24. Kickass. Now I need to read chapter two and look over the workbook exercises. And get caught up on the Math that I missed on Thursday. That should be easy, especially with Megan helping me. And then there's the homework that accompanies that, but again, that's easy and fairly quick.

And there was something else I was going to mention there, but I have forgotten. Got distracted by the movie just long enough I guess.

Other than that, I have a doctor's appointment on Monday to see about my plague of lesions that has attacked my hands, feet, and (sort of) scalp. Still hurts to walk, put pressure on my feet, change postions, etc. but I'm drugged and not noticing it too much right now. Though my hands and feet are peeling really badly. I'm torn between taking the skin off and leaving it... That's snake puberty for you though.

Sorry if some of this was TMI, but you friended me so you kind of asked for it. Bye bye for now...

So I started school this Monday, and am eagerly awaiting the weekend. So far, I've run in to Rae, who I knew would be there, passivestalker has ridden the elevator with Jo twice, and I'm ready for it all to be over.

Interpersonal Communications isn't bad... Despite having one of the worst teachers I've had since entering college. It seems like it will be a really simple course, mostly talking in groups and nothing really in front of the entire class. Thank God. I'm not sure what the projects will be like yet, but mostly we just read two chapters a week, do some exercises in the workbook, and take an easy test on line with ANGEL. Other than that... I don't know what to say.

Math.......... I'm having a little bit of an issue. Tuesday went fine, breezed through everything, did the homework fine. Today, I was having issues. I get the whole Sine, Cosine, and Tangent thing. I know how to get those. I know Pythagorean Theorem. So why in the hell can't I understand the problems I was supposed to be working on? passivestalker of course got it just fine and spent a good five to ten minutes trying to work it out with me, but my anxiety was rising and it made me nauseous. I excused myself to the bathroom where I proceeded to throw up. Rinse out my mouth, went back, tried again. Got a little bit further on my stuck brain, but still couldn't handle it. I packed up and left the class and sat out in the car. What I really needed was Valium and something for my headache. I had one cigarettes left so I smoked that and when passivestalker got out of class, I asked if she would take me home. Once home (and after stopping to get gas and smokes) I took a huge pill cocktail (I had forgotten to take my morning pills) and went to lie down.

As it stands, I still feel pretty crap, but I think we've worked out the main issue I was having. I'm hoping to sleep well tonight and be able to get through the one hour of class tomorrow. I really hope that I don't have to flake out on it. Then I have the homework! Reading two chapters over the weekend, doing some work in the workbook, and of course: MATH!

Its a good thing that I like math... and school... I just am having major anxiety issues.

Ah... School. It starts tomorrow. Luckily, class doesn't start until noon. Unfortunately, I am insane and so on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have a class that starts at 7 am. What the hell was I thinking?! Apparently, I wasn't. Oh well. I'm probably going to stock up on energy drinks for those days and try not to fall asleep during class. My bigger worry is the older sib because she's my ride. We both have a tendency to not sleep well or very much, and I know that makes driving dangerous and school difficult. I'm hoping it works out anyway.

Of course I'm sleeping ridiculously huge amounts and not getting anywhere on rest. I seem to be having just enough disturbing dreams to make it unrestful, but I still sleep most of the day. I hate that thing. Still, I feel alright once I've been up for a bit.

Now, I think I'm going to hold my niece for a bit. Good day to you all, and please send good and restful thoughts to us to help us keep going.

So the middle sib, brother-in-law and the baby have come and gone for now... They're supposedly staying for the weekend. As it is, I have a tendency to upset the bro-in-law, and the crying baby easily gives me migraines. I will probably be taking insane amounts of ibuprofen. Still, its nice to have them around for a bit. I can't take them for extended periods of time, but that's true for most things.

In other news, I'm still totally digging the new Gorillaz album Plastic Beach. The more I listen to it the more I love it. I wasn't that thrilled with it the first listen through, but now I've realized that I like EVERY song on the album. A very rare thing and I don't even have that feeling about the other two albums (and their B-sides). Thus, I am happy. Listening to them pretty much nonstop, and I'm sure that we're driving the parents insane.

I'm working on a master list for all the characters I've created for fandoms, the ones that are canon that I play or write as/for, and my original fandoms. Its pretty fun, but slow going and painstaking. Part of it is for schizomanic, but its also good to have around for general reference. Its the first time that I've really tried to tackle something this big when it came to fandom lists. Most of the time if I do something like this its for one or two fandoms at a time and its just character names, no real descriptions, etc. This time I'm going to be linking in character pages and images and stories, all that good BS. I'm not planning on linking those into the document itself, but more with tags on schizomanic. That way I and those with access to that can look at all the stuff for a particular character. Again, its fun, but VERY slowgoing. Currently I'm done with the fandoms and character list but am now doing icons for the new journal. These icons are just the character that might post and their name. Nothing fancy, no animations, no funny sayings. Although I am using some of my older icons which go from static to animated, have more than just names, and some say funny things, like my "Val has boobies" icon. In fact, I'll use that for this post because it makes me laugh so much.

And again, I'll suggest that you go over and check it out even though content is locked on there, but I think I did a pretty good rundown of what it was all about and I hope that draws some attention. Really, its just there for me to dick around and be silly and write posts as my characters and others that I just find to be really fun like Murdoc Niccals (Gorillaz). EVERYTHING sounds funnier coming out of his mouth. Its really easy to just go off on tangents about nothing and you can say anything without having to apologize. It just sounds right coming from his mouth the more crass and blatant you are.

Also am moving my entire documents folder onto my new flash drive so I can work on anything anywhere. Its taking a bit, but I expected it to. I started it up just before I started this post and it has moved up its time from 1.2 hours to almost 2 hours. I expect that the time will fluctuate randomly as thats what it always does when I'm moving stuff around.

By the way, do any of you know a good online image storage site that has large amounts (preferably unlimited) and no rule against nudity? A lot of my art includes nudes of my characters to help me better understand how to draw them clothed, and I'd like to be able to link to some of those for my character journal. Any suggestions are great and I'll go and take a look at the site before signing up or anything.

I really need to do drawings of some of my one-off characters that I don't really use for more than background. As I'm making these icons, I'm finding more and more characters I have no art of, even stuff that the older sib has done for me. Another point of annoyance to me is that I'm missing one of my large sketch books that has a lot of my "missing art" characters. Beyond that, I'm missing one, maybe more, other sketchbook from part of my junior high days. I've found one that I did mostly in 8th grade, but my sketchbook from 7th grade is definitely missing. I'm wondering if that was one that I ripped all the pages out of.... Oh well. I'm currently drawing on loose leaf paper to save me from being frustrated with binding on books or my demanded standard of things I like to have in my sketchbooks. I know, its silly, especially since its a SKETCHbook. Still, I can't help but try to erase, rip out, or utterly destroy pictures that I don't really like that wind up in my sketchbook of the moment. Looking back through my older sketchbooks, I kinda like seeing my shitty art because it helps me feel like I've actually improved (though not too much as some of my current stuff is way shittier than my shitty art from 3+ years ago).

I think I'm going to try to draw some of those missing characters so I can do the icons, and hopefully my big sketchbook will turn up soon. Bye for now.

(current time remaining for my drive copying: 2.3 hours)
(while I was writing that its dropped to 1.4)

Since I was telling you a bunch of BS, I forgot to mention that I have been updating random shit on FaceBook (no longer hang out on MySpace) and Twitter (ACK!). You want to follow me? Be my friend? Well alright then!

My FaceBook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1570531843
My twitter name: cuteinsanity

Right, now I shall retreat once more to my cave and not post for another year. Or not. I hope not. I'm rambling. Of course I am! Who do you think writes this journal, my sane twin? As if. Like I have a sane relative or friend in the world! That includes all of you loonies.

...Bye.

Oh my god, you mean I'm NOT dead?

Yes my friends, that's right. I didn't die. I didn't fall off the face of the planet. I didn't even get locked in a basement-like cellar to feed on nothing but rats while my captors made me listen to Brittney Spears for hours on end. Where have I been all this time? Mostly at home, avoiding being social with anything and anyone.

I have gone back to school several times over the many long months I have been gone from my journal. I'm even starting back up on Monday with new classes. I've mostly been avoiding anything that would require me to think for more than five minutes and so have been reading bubblegum books and playing lots of video games and watching endless hours of television and movies. Why am I back? Because I felt like it and I also felt a little ashamed of hiding from you all and not checking up on you. I haven't been reading any journals or status messages that did not directly involve me, family, or the adorable niece.

Niece you say? Yes, my older sister (the middle one) has been married for a little over a year and has a beautiful little girl. I even got to see her in person this past weekend. Both the middle sib and her husband are doing well and are exhausted after making the world's cutest baby.

Why do I keep posing questions to myself as if you're asking them? Because I talk to myself you dolts. You should know this by now.

So what have you been doing creativity wise? I've been slowly unlearning how to draw and write. Yes I know that sounds silly to you now, but anyone who writes and draws knows that slumps are not just times when you don't have inspiration-- there are slumps that just make you untalented. I get that A LOT. So what do I do about it? I cry, crumple paper, hit my computer, stamp and scream, tear pages from sketchbooks, burn things that make me mad, smoke, drink, demand a ride or coffee, and all around just act like a two year old with privelages to things like cigarrettes and booze. So when I am actually able to create again, I'm still frustrated, but I work a little bit better.

I know, you've heard all this and more from me before, but I'm not angsting about it today. Honestly, what I'm here to tell you has almost nothing with my complete and utter lack of intellegence and talent. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite. You see, I've still been creating. Stories, pictures, bad sexy doodles, and characters. Characters I hear you say? Why of course! I can't help but force the world to see my awful Mary-Sues and other blunders. And what about this blunders? Why I'm giving them their own journal!

Then again, why would anyone want to read that? Well, most people don't and I don't particularly want the bad reactions that frequently accompanies posting your works online. That's why it's "friends" only. That's right, another shielded and highly secretive journal from the mysterious mind of Morgana Mitchell. So why should you care? Well, I don't really expect most of you to care or be interested. In fact, I don't really want all of you reading it as you have no refference for the characters who write in it or really any of my writing and RPGs. So again, why am I posting if I don't want you to read it? Because I'm a glutton for punishment and posting this seems easier than asking my individual friends one by one to go friend it. Honestly you do need my permission to read anything there. That's why I'm asking that istead of just friending this mysterious journal I have not yet named to you, I want those of you who are interested to go and post a comment on the visible post on this journal's wall. I will not be very sympathetic to those I do not wish to have access to this. I will simply say no and leave it at that. But if I somehow say yes to you, feel free to add as I will be adding you immediately after my reply anyway.

So again, why should you care, or even bother going and seeing what its all about? Because I'm lazy! I want you to do all the hard work and look for yourselves instead of me giving you the key to it all. Honestly... Its like asking for the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Greedy guts.

So I suppose that I should give you that link now before you completely lose interest, huh? Well, here it is: schizomanic

Go on! Check it out! Try your luck! Go. Now.

...your cuteness has arrived.