I need a project!

So this is going to be a relatively quick post; it's almost midnight, and another exciting work week begins tomorrow.

Lately, I've had this persistent itch...

No, not that kind. I mean this weird, restless desire to do something creative. Something above and beyond thinking up blog posts to give all three of the people who read it a quick and amusing glimpse into the life and thought process of yours truly.

It was inevitable, really. I know too many of these damn creative types; musicians, artists, actors, and writers are pretty much all I associate with. Granted, none of these people are actually *around* me, but whatever. And even beyond personal affiliations, there are all over the interweb cool, hip individuals letting their creative juices leak out of their smug, brilliant heads. They are doing web comics and vlogs, Video Game Let's Plays and movie reviews. They blunder about crafting memes, and in general, make the lives of social rejects such as myself a little brighter.

The point, dear lads and lassies, is that I find myself in need of a serious creative outlet. I need a project! I need something right-brained (yes, I know the left/right brain thing has been disproved) to bring balance to my current state, which is pretty meh, to be honest.

The only problem is that I have absolutely no ideas for cool, hip projects. However, I do have an overabundance of BLAH, so maybe it will work out.

A Tale of the Dreaded Friend-Zone.

Well, dreaded for guys, at any rate; I've rarely encountered a group of women standing around, complaining about being friendzoned by the hot guy who lives on the fourth floor. Or maybe they do, and they just practice a rare and valuable ninja art called Subtle. Perhaps it happens to women just as often as men, but men don't know about it because we are poor listeners and sexist pigs and *insert gender bias here*

Maybe, but I doubt it.

It wasn't my idea to upload an entry about this subject; the number of blogs featuring the angsty, despairing wails of antisocial neckbeards incapable of speaking to any female who isn't their mom could well reach into the hundreds of billions; I have no desire to contribute to that unwashed mess. However, a friend of mine who keeps insisting that I write about stuff (Gods, it's as if she actually cares about my aspirations of being a world famous novelist or something...) suggested that this tale I'm about to unfold would make for a great blog entry; the fact that she hasn't heard this story yet doesn't seem to matter, so here we go.

This miserable tale of woe takes place in May, right around Mother's Day. Since the beginning of 2013, I had been talking with this girl, let's call her Jenny, via online messaging. I met her on OKCupid, one of the countless online dating sites that have popped up like weeds in the interweb's prize garden. I've never been a fan of the online dating thing; I've seen and heard too many horror stories about them, involving everything from dudes pretending to be chicks, to dudes pretending to be chicks pretending to be dudes. I prefer to actually meet the woman in person first; I know, I'm weird...

But I figured, what the hell? I'm in a new city, I have zero friends, and am perpetually Forever Alone, so I might as well give it a try. Plus I know people who have done the online thing and met with great success. What could go wrong?

Anywho, I had been talking to Jenny for a few months via messaging; we'd have yet to meet in person. Our profiles on OKC were pretty closely in sync; a 93% compatibility is nothing to sneeze at (if you're the type who cares for that sort of thing). We had a lot in common; a love of reading, taste in similar movies, cartoons, etc. Plus she was hip to current nerd pop culture, a quality that's very important in a woman. Right up there with boobs.

The only problem was, I had no interest in her as a prospective mate. You didn't see that one coming, did you?

When we first started communicating, I had made it abundantly clear that I was not looking for a relationship. Now, you probably think that's a weird stance to take while surfing an online dating site, and you might be right. But OKC has this little section where you get to spell out what your are looking for on the site; not everyone is after relationships, or even a date. At the time, I was looking for friends and activity partners.

No, not those activities, you perverts. Get your minds out of the gutter. I wasn't looking for *ahem* casual fun time either. Just friends.

I mentioned this fact to her, and she said she was fine with it. We spent the next four months or so chatting,  and when we met up a week before Mother's Day, it was for the sole purpose of hanging out as friends.
We went out to a local bar, had some drinks, and talked. It was a lot of fun, and even though I have little interest in alcohol, I had a good time.

So let's jump forward to Saturday, May 11th. The day before Mother's Day. I was invited by Jenny to go bar hopping out in Bellevue. The plan was to spend a few hours running around downtown Bellevue, do some dancing, people watch, and then retire for the night. Jenny had made her couch available to me for the night, and on the morrow she would drive me back home.

Before I go any further, I want to say two things. First, I need to reiterate that I was NOT looking for anything other than friendship from Jenny. She knew it, and I knew it. Second, I am not the most observant person when it comes to recognizing signals. I once point blank told a hottie who insisted that she knew me from somewhere that I did not in fact know her from anywhere, and that she must be mistaken. In the background, my friends where groaning, slapping their heads, and silently calling me an idiot. One even went so far as to pound his forehead repeatedly into the bar top once the dejected hottie vacated my presence. My friends mocked and ridiculed me for months after that. And they were right to do it.

That second point is important, because *I* noticed her putting the moves on me. And if I notice it, it must be horribly obvious to all. Throughout the evening, she:

~ Played with her hair, twirling it around her finger while giving me sultry looks with eyes that smoldered.

~ Made a point of touching my arm or leg as often as possible.

~ Laughed at every one of my stupid jokes and idiotic ramblings. And there were a lot; Stupid and idiotic make up 80% of my sentences on any given day.

In addition to those telltale signals, there were other, more obvious signs that something was up.

~ At one point, we had entered the first of many bars. I'm paraphrasing, but she said something along the lines of, "I'm going to have to stick by you; if I leave a man as good looking as you standing around for even a minute, you'll be surrounded by women trying to get in your pants."

~ Later, when we had stopped by a cool little spot to get some food, our waitress, a smoking hot blonde, paused and sized us up. Again I'm paraphrasing, she said, "You two are really cute together. I like this." That part was fine, but what wasn't fine was the way Jenny took that opportunity to reach out and take my hand. It was awkward, to say the least.

~ As we headed back to her place, she was having a hard time walking; a few hours dancing in heels will do that to anyone, I guess. Taking off her heels, she then leaned on my shoulder for support. I guess that one could be an innocent gesture, right? You would be correct, if you disregarded the ever so subtle butt rub she offered in thanks.

Once the night was over, and she had retired to her room while I awkwardly tried to go to sleep on her couch (I HATE sleeping in an unfamiliar place), I reflected on the evenings events. I knew things would come to a head soon.

And I was right.

It was the next day, Mother's Day, May 12th. She had graciously drove me home that morning. The conversation was subdued; I hoped it was just because she was recovering from a night of drinking and dancing. Once I arrived home, I showered, did a little studying for a Math exam I had the following day, and then the family and I were taking my Mom out to eat. Because, you know, Mother's Day.

On the way to the steakhouse (it's always a steakhouse), I got a text from Jenny. It read: "After last night, I realized something. I realized that I really don't want to be your friend. I want  to be more than that. And I know that's not possible. For the record, I really did enjoy my time with you. I'm not sure if I can just be a platonic friend."

Well damn.

The Friend Zone sucks. I kind of understand how women must feel when they turn down the advances of some brave soul who approaches them. I feel bad, despite the fact that I made every effort to keep things platonic. I kind of feel that I could have done more to keep a wall between us, but at the same time, I didn't want to hurt Jenny's feelings.

I really did enjoy hanging out with her; she's an Archer fan, after all. But I was at a point in my life where dating was impossible; unemployed, with no prospects, no car, and living entirely on the kindness of family. I was in no place financially for a relationship, nor was I in the right state of mind; I battled with depression and low self-esteem on a daily basis. I would have ruined any sort of romantic relationship within weeks.

What really sucks about the experience is that I lost what could have been an awesome friendship. But what could I do? With her feeling the way she did, there was no way we could have still hung out.

Oh well.

It's been a while.

Wow, so it has been about two weeks since I've posted an entry for this blog. I don't think I've ever let that much time pass between updates; granted, I've only been blogging for a couple of months now, but up until now, I've been fairly consistent with my posts, averaging an entry every three or four days.

My hiatus hasn't been due to a lack of interest; I've actually been itching to post for a week now. Rather, I've just been so damn busy. Being busy is highly unusual for me.

The last couple of weeks have been rather hectic. In my last post, I gushed about my new employment status (spoiler alert: I do more of that); I have a pretty good job now, and am currently in the middle of training. It's a four week process, and trust me when I say that every day of it is needed. There is a lot of information to learn. Truth be told, I'm kind of nervous about it. Partially because it is a new job, but mostly because I'm afraid that I'll get some wires crossed and blunder something important. According to my trainer, it takes about 6 months for anybody to feel comfortable on the job, so I don't feel bad about being nervous; apparently, everyone goes through the same process of being a blundering wreck. So, go me.

Now, at the same time, I was also working my last two weeks at the retail job. So basically, my day began with me groggily stumbling out of bed at a cheery 6:30 am, grabbing a quick bite before heading out to do retail drudgery from 7:30 to 10:30 am, then immediately heading to the other job to work from 11 am to 7:30 pm. Getting home a little after 8 pm left me with about two and a half hours before I had to return to Slumberville, population me.

Now, I'm not complaining. I'm really not. I'm psyched about the new job, and more than happy to go and get paid real money. Putting in my last two weeks as a retail drone was good and decent; walking up and quitting on the spot would be a dick move, especially considering how understaffed they are.

That being said, I am greatly relieved to be done with Retail Land. I like my former co-workers; all of them are good people. But the job stunk.

With my new job comes better pay and more opportunities. It also comes with a few snags, unfortunately, but I can deal with those. Let's examine them (because I'm sure you're fascinated and not at all tired of me talking about this):

Pro's:
1. Good pay. I make more in a week then I did in whole month at Retail land. That sounds more impressive then it really is, though; Retail Land pay came out to around $95 a week. Do the math and weep with me.

2. Free time. I work 24 hours a week. Three 8 hour days. That gives me 4 days a week to focus on other projects and interests. Now, for the year and a half I've been in Seattle, I've had nothing but free time. The big difference is that now I'm not being a useless lump. I can actually contribute to the bills and rent and whatnot, which I can tell you does wonderful things for my ego and sense of well-being.

3. Paid Time Off! I've never had PTO before. I look forward to taking the occasional day off and not worrying about how it will effect my income.

4. I get to sleep in!!! You notice I have three exclamation marks. That indicates how excited I am about this. I HATE getting up early in the morning; to say that I'm not a morning person would be an understatement. Working at Retail Land, I was forced to arise with the sun. And being the night owl that I am, I constantly had to fight my natural tendencies to stay up late in the evening; I've had to dose myself with some form of sleep aid at least once a week.
For the next two weeks, I get to wake up at 9:30 am. This fact brings me joy, like the feeling of being wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking a mug of hot chocolate and reading a good book.

Kind of like this, except completely different.

After that, I can wake up whenever I want. (But see con's below)

Con's:
1. No school. So I've been in the Worker Retraining program, which helps poor scumbags such as myself get an education in a marketable field. They pay for tuition and books, sometime even transportation. That sounds incredible, right? Well, it was...
But I no longer qualify. It turns out you have to be on unemployment and/or not making a certain amount. Getting this job has knocked me off the list of those who can get free schooling. So now I'm forced to actually *pay* for my own education. What the hell has this world come to?

An even bigger snag is that the only reason I was going to that particular school and studying that particular field (medical assisting) was because it was being paid for. Now that that is no longer the case, it puts me in an interesting place. I need to sit down and figure out what I want to do as far as schooling goes. Oh, and save up money to pay for classes.

2. My shift kind of sucks. I work Thursday- Saturday, 5 pm to 1:30 am. Odd hours, but also the busiest. What that means is that when ever I actually cobble together some kind of social life, I will be at work during the time most people are usually out having fun.

It's kind of lame, but I'd rather do this and have money than be a broke fuck and have limitless free evenings.


It seems the Pro's outnumber the Con's; that's a first for me when it comes to any form of employment. Long story short (too late!), I'm pretty satisfied.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Lifestyle Upgrade

It's been a long time coming.

I've spent 19 months, more then a year and a half, of my life living in a situation that has been... humbling, to say the least. Since late December of 2011, I've been unemployed, or nearly so; the 12 or so hours a week I get working at  Retail Hell barely qualifies as an actual job, and I don't count it as such.

In that time, I've filled out 927 applications, sent my resume to countless companies, temp agencies, and online job sites. And in all that time, I can count on one hand how many interviews or call backs I've received. I've acquired plenty of rejection letters, however; there are few things in this world more soul-crushing as a rejection letter from a prospective job.

Well, that's all done and over with. I've finally landed a really good job. And with that job comes the lifestyle upgrade that I've been yearning for for longer than I care to think about.

Getting to this point has been an ever present goal of mine since I first moved to Seattle; The idea was to get a good job, get my own place, a car, and start living like a grown up. Sadly, it hasn't worked out like that, as much as I've tried. As of today, I'm still living with family, have no means of transportation beyond the public kind, and I feel very much like a 30 year old child.

Now that I've reached this very important first step, I find myself experiencing a strange phenomenon I like to call "New Employment Syndrome" or "I Ain't Broke No Mo'!" It comes in three steps.

Step 1: Paradigm Shift
It starts out with a strange disassociation from your normal mode of thinking. In my case, I had to actually sit and contemplate just what had happened, and what the end results would mean. I've been poor and broke for a very long time now, and the prospect of not being in that state is so foreign that I can scarcely believe it. As it stands, I've just now come to accept that it isn't a fluke.

"Did someone say Fluke?"

This entry level position offers excellent pay, flexibility for pursuit of my educational goals, paid vacations, benefits, and plenty of opportunity for advancement should I choose it. As someone who has spent their entire adult life working retail and low paying positions, this is naturally surreal. Even now, days after the fact, I'm having a hard time adjusting to it.

Step 2: Toys!
Followed closely behind the first step is the realization that I'll have money to buy things! That is one of the goals of working in this consumerist society we live in today, right? Working hard so that you can go out and spend your hard earned money on shit you don't need.

Naturally, I've never had the luxury to just splurge on useless toys. I still won't, despite my unrealistic excitement, but I've taken a step in the right direction. I can now (or soon will be) able to buy some of the stuff I've wanted for a while but haven't had the means to get. Things such as:

~ The materials to build a kick ass gaming pc.
~ A PS3; I can *finally* play The Last of Us. And Kingdom Hearts 1.5 comes out in September...
~ A vehicle or some sort.
~ Real vacations to exotic locals! I've always wanted to travel. Now I can actually save my money and take a long, relaxing trip and not worry about how much money I'm not making while I vacation.
~ Books. I have so many books on my "must read" list. Now I can actually buy all those books. And read them. Read them so HARD.
~ Savings. I can actually save money for the rainy day that is always just over the horizon; I live in Seattle, after all. Plenty of rain.

Excuse me while I wipe the droll from my chin...

Step 3: Oh Shit, Responsibility?!
Now that it's the day before orientation and job training, I've hit the last step. The step where I realize that all this money and benefits comes with the expectation that I'll actually work. And worse, perform my job well. Fuck, there goes my wood.

Even worse, it comes with nerves. The job requires a lot of multitasking, combined with a secure knowledge of the computer system, *and* I have to talk on the phone with real life doctors on a regular basis. Um, gulp. Now I get to experience the nervous tension that comes with learning a bunch of new skills, in addition to the pressure to perform well in front of my direct supervisor, who will be training me for the entirety of August. Again, gulp.

Damn, I guess there really *aren't* any free lunches

Confessions of a Junk Food Addict

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I had been doing pretty well with my diet; two weeks of eating clean and with controlled portions combined with a vigorous weight lifting regiment was slowly producing results. While I can't actually see any results as of yet, the scale says I've lost a few pounds. But that's to be expected; it's a marathon, not a sprint, as the old saying goes. With patience, diligence, and a little willpower, I will in the span of a few months be thinner, healthier version of myself.

And then I passed by Five Guys.

That infernal burger place has some awesome burgers. Horribly expensive, mind you; their "little" cheeseburger by itself costs over $5. And don't get me started on the fries...needless to say, it's a bad place, run by bad people whose sole purpose is to tempt well-meaning individuals like myself into eating their delicious, evil crack-burgers.

Sad to say, I succumbed it it's seductive siren call. I failed my Will Saving Throw and couldn't pass by the stupid place. I entered and ordered the Little Bacon Cheeseburger with a small order of fries. And I ate it all. I nommed the hell out of it. 

Now I live in shame of my weakness; the long term goal of being in shape and having abs sort of got muddled in the aroma of cooking ground beef. It's dreadful that it happened; the amount of calories in that one meal probably killed whatever progress I'd made during the week. According to the nutritional information posted on their website, the little bacon cheeseburger is 630 calories, while the little fries are 526 per serving. If you've ever eaten at Five Guys, you know that they throw SO MANY fries in the bag with your food; they fill up a cup, which I assume is one regular serving, and then shovel in a mountain full of extra fries, just in case you're worried that you'll avoid the heart attack from the burger and first serving of fries.

So we're looking at a BASE of 1156 calories of filthy fat inducing sludge being pumped into my gullet; that doesn't include the additional calories from the condiments and that other landfill serving of fries. On the plus side, there was no need for additional seasoning; the salt content of my tears provided plenty of extra flavor to my Fat Guy meal.

I look pretty good here, don't you think?

Weight Loss is fairly simple. You burn more calories than you consume everyday, and boom! But of course, the simplest things are often the most complex; if simple was the same as easy, every one would be living in Abs City. As it stands, most of us are not residents of that most glorified metropolis; the housing market must be starved for business.

But I have learned a lesson or two from my relapse into my addiction to crap "food," and I'd like to share it, since I've already shared the humiliating parts. Will power is a finite thing. It's a muscle, and like any muscle, it can become fatigued when used too much. And once it's been reduced to a quivering mass of fail, you end up caving in faster than Charlie Sheen at a Free Drug Giveaway. 

Having discovered that the hard way, I've now resolved to give myself a little treat every other day or so. Nothing truly decadent; something small like a dark chocolate Hershey bar or a single serving of ice cream. Basically, I'm going to reserve 200 calories or so of my dietary budget to be used for junk. I health guru I know once said, "As long as you are good 85% of the time, you'll make progress." 

Let's hope that she's correct.

More Kitten Madness

It's been a few months since Khaleesi, the furry whirlwind of destruction, entered our home. Since that time, she has doubled in size and discovered her niche as an agent of chaos and anarchy; all that she surveys is reduced to its component parts in a matter of seconds.

In other words, she's a typical kitten.

Don't be fooled by her cute; she's a monster.

In the time she's been with us, we've spent much of our time trying to curb her destructive habits with a combination of patience, a firm yet gentle punting, and liberal doses of water from the numerous spray bottles strategically places around the battleground...err, house.

As expected, we've only had limited success.

It is with a great effort of will that I haven't kicked her against a wall or tossed her in the garbage disposal or something equally horrendous; cute though she be, her hobby of tearing apart my possessions has quickly gone stale. Even worse, she has picked my room as her favorite hang out, and loves nothing more than to try and climb in my closet or play with my window blinds.

To date, she has: 

~Slipped like a shadow into my closet and climbed everything. My clothes are her personal jungle gym, and the boxes filled with books her obstacle course. I've had to toss three shirts because her tiny hell claws have punctured them beyond repair. 

Needless to say, my closet is on 24/7 lock down; if the door is open for even an instant, she darts in. It doesn't matter where she is in the house. If that door opens even a crack, there she is. She can teleport like Nightcrawler.

~ Spent many a late night playing games with a plastic bag while I try to sleep. When I take it away from her, she creeps out of my room and returns not five minutes later with another bag. WHERE DOES SHE GET THEM? I once spent 20 minutes collecting every loose piece of plastic I could find and locking it in a closet. She somehow found another one and went right back to playing. I have no idea where she finds them; I'm convinced she can access the Demiplane of Plastic Bags using her infernal kitten powers.

~ Ruined two loaves of bread. I foolishly left a loaf of bread on the kitchen counter, naively believing that she would have no reason to destroy it; what kind of monster attacks bread?! Well, I now know the answer to that question. Oh, you don't believe me? Well, take a look at this:

After the first incident, I decided it would be wise to keep my new, unshredded loaf secured in the bread box (yes we have one of those) on top of the fridge. I then went about my business, a smug smile on my face; human ingenuity combined with weird old-timey devices would defeat the fuzzy ball of entropy. I would be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle after all.

I was a fool.

I came home a few hours later to find my bread demolished. The little hell-spawn had somehow managed to reach the top of the fridge by climbing up one of the bar stools, running across the kitchen counter, making a running leap into the pantry adjacent to the fridge, scaling to the top shelf, and then hopping over to the not-so-secure bread box that was all that stood in the way of Khaleesi and my future turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle.

Apparently, kitten voodoo includes a spell capable of opening slots in bread boxes. Or maybe somebody else had just left it open. Either way, my dreams of a turkey sandwich with medium cheddar, lettuce, a dab of mustard, and a pickle where reduced to shredded wheat and plastic wrap.

~ Chosen my cat Kira as her BFF. That doesn't seem like a bad thing in and of itself, but it is. Kira is like my second shadow; everywhere I go around the house, Kira is sure to follow. It's sweet and incredibly cute. But now Kira herself has an additional shadow. Which gives me three shadows in all.

Best Friends.

While it is nice to see Kira and the kitten darting around the house playing together and being adorable, the fact that they both orbit around me means that where ever I go in the house, destruction is close behind.

~ Mastered the ninja art of Sneak Attack. One must move carefully around the house, for every shadow, every nook and cranny, every tiny space could contain a nightmare ready to pounce on your soft, unprotected feet and legs. One minute you are minding your own business, the next you have a kitten latched onto your appendage.

I'm sure she will grow out it; all cats start out as kittens, and all kittens were put on this earth to shred furniture, bread, house plants, and human skin. She'll eventually get older and mellow out. Right? Right?!

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

I know what you're going to say; "Really Darren? Stealing Stephen King titles for your silly little blog?"

Yup. And?

Last night an old friend of mine decided to drop by. Now this guy is one of those assholes that has no understanding of timing; he drops by whenever he feels like it, not when you're free to entertain. In this case, his visitation coincided right as I was heading to bed.

But being the gracious host I am, I humored him as he inflicted a night of near sleeplessness on me. His incessant ramblings prevented me from achieving a good night's rest. It was until a little past 3 am that my good buddy packed up and left. Never mind that I had to be up at 5:30 am to begin my day. So I think I managed maybe 2 hours of sleep; really, I had a nap rather than a night's sleep.

Thanks for dropping by, Insomnia. It's always a pleasure.

As you can imagine, that wasn't really an awesome way to start (continue) my day; all the speed metal on the interweb couldn't give me enough pump to lift a glass of water, let alone drag my sorry cadaver out of bed. But being the incredible individual I am, I managed to carry on and shamble off to work.

"So what does this have to do with the compelling (and stolen) title of this blog post, Darren?"

I'm getting to that.

Anywho, I was again for all intents and purposes sleepwalking at work, and it showed. My clumsy attempts to do such intrinsic activities like walking, and sometimes, breathing, both amused and frustrated my fellow processing drones; conversation limited to slurred half-sentences, the slow, blunderous efforts at un-boxing the useless junk we sale, and reflexes so graceless that an obese elephant would mock them all made for a fantastic day on the job. I guess. I don't know, I wasn't really awake for any of it.

When it was finally over, I happily (sleepily) skipped (stumbled) my way back home for a day of productive job hunting and writing (staring blankly at a monitor with drool leaking down my chin as I tried and failed to remember which button was the "a" key).

Then I decided to take a nap.

Oh, I know what I wrote in my last blog post. But you see, the guy who wrote that was Past Darren. And Past Darren is an asshole. He has no idea what I have been through today; I stood staring at a tree for ten minutes because it looked pixelated. For a minute there I thought I had sleepwalked my way into someones Minecraft session. So yeah, next stop: Nap Station Central. It was Nap o'clock. The main course was sleep with a side order of nap.

So life-like.

And so it was that our hero did indeed nap. And it was glorious.

Except for the Nightmare.

Oh, what? You thought I was done rambling on like an insane person? Well to use the familiar vernacular of our times, "Lol, rofl, and lmao!" Noooooo, I've just begun to ramble. For you see, I managed about 40 minutes of sleep before I woke in a pool of my own sweat (and possibly urine) because my insane brain decided to visit Freakish Visions of Horror and Madness upon me.

"Oh, so that's why you choose (pinched) that title from the esteemed Stephen King! And that explains why you've been spewing gibberish at us like Daffy Duck mid-rant with his mouth full!"

I thought that was plainly obvious at this point in the game. Come on, Castle, keep up.

In this Freakish Vision of Horror and Madness, I was with some people I don't now recognize, but in true dream fashion, it made perfect sense for me to be BFF's with them. There was some kind of party we were planning on throwing for another phantom friend that I don't really know. We went for supplies (booze, alcohol, and liquor. And Pop-Tarts) and when we got back to the dream house, we found all of the other party goers dead. Horribly dead. Dead like Amanda Bynes' reputation.

If that wasn't enough, one of my phantom dream friends had the brilliant idea to use a magic spell to reanimate the party-goers so that the fun could continue. And, I guess, help clean the mess up when it was all done. I don't know; dream logic is shaky at best.

We all proceeded to drag the bodies into a big pile, for reasons that I'm glad I didn't conjure in my fevered absurdity. A second phantom dream friend produced from a backpack a thick, leather bound book. Opening it with a dramatic gesture, he began to read (babble) words from an arcane language (Happy Potter pseudo-latin). The sky opened up and a hellish beam of green light smashed down into the pile of bodies. One by one, they moaned and arise to stand before us, their empty eye sockets aglow with the same green light.

And then the phantom dream friend spoke more gibberish, and I began to sweat wasps.

You read that correctly. I was sweating wasps. And they begin to sting me. And my phantom dream "friends" laughed at me as I screamed in terror and flailed about like someone covered in wasps. Hell, even the zombies let out a dusty chuckle here and there.

And then I woke up, all thoughts of ever sleeping again eradicated.