that seem to plot the course of the day ahead.
I have always, nearly without fail, remembered in detail and almost painful clarity, my dreams.
Sometimes they are of strangers and other times, erotic and provocative images and happenings of and including people I am acquainted with.
Images that have no business being in my head are there and they tempt me to try to relive them in reality as well as in the dreams, of which I have no control, in which they were born.
I don’t make a secret of them. I share them with the cohabitants of my dreams, often to my regret afterward, but nonetheless, I find that the ability to lie escapes me.
It doesn’t help matters that I, on occasion, am a blabbermouth and just blurt things out at random. A curse and one of the things that, were I able, would immediately change about myself.
Those, I think, are more disturbing than the bloody, murderous ones for they are more realistic and leave me feeling vulnerable and exposed.
And then there are the non-dreams that are climatic in their own weird and distorted way.
I am certain, given facts that I am sure of, that I sleepwalked last night.
Things that were present when I went to bed were missing and no evidence, anywhere, of their disappearance, could be found.
I looked.
In the trash.
Under the couch cushions.
Under my mattress.
I know what was there and what is now missing so either I walked (and ate chocolate Nekot cookies) in my sleep, or there was an intruder who only wanted my cookies.
And who, pray tell, breaks into a house leaving a priceless collection of vintage vinyl and takes only chocolate-peanut butter cookies.
Especially if they know me and know that I sleep with a very large cast-iron skillet capable of causing a serious brain hemorrhage or, if aimed just right, instant death
Nobody, that’s who.
So since the latter is improbable, I have only left to assume that I am, once again, up to my old tricks.
Walking and performing tasks, like eating, cooking and cleaning, in my sleep.
It disturbs me on some level that I do things in the night that I don’t remember. It should disturb me. It should disturb anyone.
But I know the cause, or at least I think I do.
For several weeks, as anyone who knows anything about me knows, I was manic to the point of being carted off by the men in white coats.
I thought it would never end and once it did, I missed it immediately. That rush of feeling, the power of confidence that, in a normal state, I lack.
But one phase which lasts so long does not go without the alter-ego phase coming in to claim their share of the psychosis.
I call it psychosis because what else is one going to call it … hyper to the point of explosion one moment and despondent to the point of mediocrity the next.
I live this every day, every week, every month. One would think that by now, I would know what was coming next.
I don’t. And people who try to pinhole me into their idea of normalcy don’t either and end up doing nothing more than pissing me off.
As do those who lie to me. Or make excuses instead of just being up front.
An omission or generated excuse is no better or worse than a lie and I put them all in the same bag.
I expect people to be straight with me no matter what and if they aren’t then they immediately lose their credibility and, as far as I am concerned are no longer relevant in my life.
I no longer listen to their words for they are, from that moment, nothing more than blather. Filler because they can’t think of anything useful to say and therefore are useless to me on any conceivable level.
It is disappointing to me to think that I have friends who pretend to understand me only to find out that not only do they not understand me, they have no intention to.
Valuable time wasted if you ask me.
I try to conserve the space in my mind for those who actively want to be a part of my life. I realize that I try too hard to make friendships sometimes. I find people who pretend to understand me but have no real inkling as to who I am or what makes me tick.
It is a disappointment to realize that I have been, for lack of a better term, led on by their pretense.
But in time, all is revealed and life goes on.
I don’t hold it against the pretenders because in all essence, I have better things to do than hold a grudge.
But I will be more cautious in the future. Once a manipulator, always one.
Funny, isn’t it, how they don’t see themselves that way.
Life. Goes. On. and that is just the way of it.
I may be hanging, at times, by a thread, but in my mind, I am happy simply to be hanging.
Until next time, be well, be yourself and know that whatever you learn today will be most useful at some point (unless is is geometry and the jury is still out on that one)
in reality, what dreams are made of …
A Photographer's Heart 
