| don't need nothin but a good time |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|09:03 am] |
I dreamt last night that the band Poison was hosting a horror thriller TV show. In it, I was at my grandmother's old house, and I was assigned to guard some lady of royalty (she was referred to only as "the Lady"). I knew there was going to be an attack of some sort in which a lot of huge spider-guys were going to come capture her and do terrible things to her. Except I was the only one who knew, and nobody would listen. I was ready at any moment to repel the attack, but the problem was the attack never came. And every time I would see something by the window, or someone would come to the door, I would have a panic attack. And this was happening approximately every fifteen seconds. Also, for some reason, I was dressed as a mailman. However, I did at least have a katana. Which I would have gladly used to commit seppuku with by the end of that dream. |
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| IEEE, the Rainbow Sorcerer of Finance |
[Feb. 25th, 2009|08:50 am] |
Not sure about much else about last night's dream, but I do remember the very last bit. I was with a group of people and we were searching for IEEE, the Rainbow Sorcerer of Finance. IEEE's name sounded like "ayeeeeee" (like an extended version of how you'd refer to Internet Explorer), but it absolutely was connected in my mind to this IEEE.
Sarah woke me up during this, and as I saw her standing by my bedside, I saw her dressed in a darkly-tinted rainbow-gradient trenchcoat, and I knew that she was actually IEEE. Then I woke up for real. |
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| ia! Ia! Vaniru phthagn!! |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|09:48 am] |
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| You Scored as Cthulhu You are Great Cthulhu! You lay and dream at home (or the beach) most of the time but one day (when the stars are right) you will suddenly have the power to get out there and show the world what youre made of! Lets hope you dont do too much damage......
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| DREAM REPORT! |
[Jan. 6th, 2009|03:26 pm] |
I had a really, really weird dream a couple nights ago.
I was on the bridge of the Enterprise (TNG), and the Vulcans had opened up a transport portal for us to go to their ship. You could see into their ship, which was lit dimly red, and it cast a pink light on everything on the Enterprise's bridge. That's not the weird part.
When we crossed over, it turned out that it wasn't Vulcans who opened the portal. It was Romulans, and we were soon part of some slave/summer camp where we were forced to play games for our captors' amusement. There was some game of Laser Tag that used real lasers and exploding bowling pins you could throw at the enemy to blow them up. Okay, I guess it's not so much a game as it is they were making us fight to the death. But it felt like one. But that's still not the weird part.
The weird part came in when I got to meet with our team leader, Marie Osmond. She didn't look like she usually does, I think my brain was mixing her with my grandmother's friend Maria from Italy who used to come over all the time when I was a kid, but most of you don't know her. At any rate, Marie's game was to stack large blocks. Big enough to make a real building with. I'm not quite sure how they were moving, but somehow they floated into place. And once they did, they exploded in a giant fireball. This is when it gets weird.
It is at this time that Marie tells us that this is a recreation of her blowing up her house when she found out her husband had been cheating on her years ago. Apparently, she had done such a thorough job in blowing up her home that she'd won some sort of prize for breaking the record for the largest display of pyrotechnics in the state. "And", she added, referring to her husband, "do you know what that son of a bitch did? He went right out and started selling tickets to the place like it's a goddamned tourist attraction!"
Then she unveiled her master plan: in order to get back at her husband, she was going to blow up the Shire. I'm not quite sure what the Hobbits ever did to her, but they were about to go out in a blaze of glory, and we were assigned to help her. She also had a long list of other fictional places that were slated for destruction, though I don't remember what they were. I woke up before anything else exploded.
I also had a much tamer dream last night that I was staying at my parents' house, and I woke up and found that someone had left partially eaten soft-serve vanilla ice cream cones all around the house in random places. Sometimes they had been eaten down to just the cone with a little ice cream left in it, but there were plenty of them with lots of ice cream still on the cone. One was leaned up against my dad's alarm clock, another was smushed against the wall under the bathroom dixie cup dispenser. It was like someone had been there for several days, taking an ice cream break every hour, getting too full to eat more than one bite, and just stashing the remains somewhere within arm's reach. I went all around the house cleaning these sticky, melted messed up. And the more I cleaned, the more pissed off I got.
I didn't know who had done this, but I knew it was someone my parents had invited to stay. For some reason, I was convinced the person was a car salesman. I just knew it in my bones. When my parents got home, I told them what had happened and expressed my vehement displeasure with the person who had done this. My dad looked around scared like the guy who did it might have come back and hear me, but it was a "I'm trying to impress the boss" kind of scared, not a "he's gonna shoot us all" kinda scared. I told my parents that I really thought this guy was a major toolbox, but that I would respect their desire to keep it civil when I found the guy. At this point mom started getting on my side and started to shit-talk the Mad Ice Creamer as well, but then I woke up.
I've been trying to shake the feeling that I've got sticky warm ice cream on my hands all day. Ick. |
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| It's awesome being a dad. |
[Nov. 19th, 2008|10:42 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fatherhood | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relieved | ] |
| [ | music |
| | CUTMAN!!! | ] |
My poor little dude developed twin ear infections yesterday. Poor kid screamed for four hours straight before the doctor put anaesthetic drops in his ears. It blows unimaginably not being able to take away your kid's pain right away, but Sam was fortunately feeling somewhat better by the end of the night.
This morning, I was greeted with happy smiles, which was a pretty clear sign he was feeling better. As I was getting him dressed, I was singing him the Cutman music from Mega Man 1. Well, sort of. Is it singing or humming when you go "doooooo dodo doo do doo do dooooo..."? Well anyway, I'd tickle him every time the high note (the arpeggiated little bleeleep) at the beginning of the first two measures of the main theme. And he thinks that's just goddamned hilarious.
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| to whom it may concern |
[Nov. 4th, 2008|11:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hopeful | ] |
Dear President-Elect Obama,
Congratulations on being elected President. You have consistently impressed me with your ability to inspire others regardless of age, sex, color, and creed. I am so pleased that we will finally have a President who wants to unite us and encourage us to cooperate with each other to do great things (and fix broken things) as opposed to scaring us to death trying to control us. If you live up to even half of what we hope you can be, you will be the best President in the history of ever.
Please do not screw this up. However, for the first time in a long time, I do not feel like you will. Congratulations on your victory, and please keep up the great work!
Sincerely,
Matt Dukes
Dear America,
I am so proud of you today. You finally stopped letting your leaders scare you into doing what they want, and decided to make your own decisions. Better yet, you opted to vote not just for someone random who was different than the current government, but for someone who you genuinely believed to be the right man for the job. The best part? The fact that he's African-American is just icing on the cake. You voted for who you thought who would run the country best, and it just happens to be someone who's African-American. In doing so, you showed everyone that you understand what equality really means. Which is, frankly, awesome.
Please do not screw this up. However, for the first time in a long time, I do not feel like you will, and I am excited about the future. You are beginning to rock again. (Except you, California. Please do not make Mr. Sulu cry again.)
Sincerely,
Matt Dukes |
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| curse of the killer whale ninja power skiis |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|02:43 pm] |
I had a wonderfully bizarre dream the other night, and it went a little something like this:
I was standing on the quad of some college campus, I'm thinking UIUC but I think somebody told me I was in Boston or something. I look up at the roof of a nearby church and I see a ninja, who has giant inflatable skis on decorated like killer whales and long black stalks with black feathers on them attached to his costume making him look like some sort of failed stealth-peacock. This ninja is using his killer-whale skis to surf on the power lines, and he's doing quite well and goes a couple blocks before he rounds a corner and his luck runs out. The ninja plummets probably 30 feet into a yard behind some hedges, and I take off running to go see if he's OK. I notice I'm barefoot for some reason on the way there, and the road hurts my feet a little. I'm not quite sure which yard he landed in when I get there, and I call out to see if anyone needs help. I don't immediately see a dead body or anything, but after a little searching I do see a shadowy figure crawl into the hedges to hide. I approach closer to see if he needs help and the ninja turns and looks angrily at me, and before I can get any closer he throws a windmill throwing star from the old Ninja Gaiden games at me, which moves back and forth blocking my path to him. In a final attempt to help, I outstretch my palms and say "dozo???" and I don't really remember what he said because I woke up. |
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| woot |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|04:44 pm] |
 I am Kung Fu Master.
I like to be in control of myself. I dislike crowds, especially crowds containing people trying to kill me. Even though I always win, I prefer to avoid fights if possible. What Video Game Character Are You?
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| please please please please please make this a habit |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|04:44 pm] |
Sam slept through the night for the first time last night.
I hope it is not because he was depressed that he had to switch to soy formula and is worried that all the other babies will sense that he is now a dirty hippie and mock him. |
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| superbaby crocodile |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|10:27 am] |
Since shortly before Sam's birth, I've been having the occasional dream that we have a baby that is more advanced somehow than other babies his age. I think part of it is that I think that would be awesome to have some supergenius, but I'll still love him to death even if he's not. At any rate, I've had the following dreams about it:
- Before he was born, I dreamed we had a baby and right after he came out, he said "What's up daddy?". All of this was on the set of Dick Tracy as best I could tell.
- A week after he was born, I dreamed he spontaneously learned to walk but he was very wobbly and it was kinda creepy looking to watch.
- There's been several other "holding the baby and he speaks a sentence to me" dreams but I don't remember what.
Last night, I had another one in which Sam was present, but he wasn't the advanced superbaby. I was present at the birth of this other kid, and I'm still not quite sure whose it is. But immediately after coming out, it hopped up to its feet and started walking around. Ten minutes later, it was a 10 year old looking blonde girl with pigtails who was giving me quite the amount of sass for someone only ten minutes old.
There was also a part where we visited a Mad Max themed bar/art museum (I'm still not sure what that means to be honest, but there were a lot of scary people there), and my dad came to pick us up and he tricked me into thinking we accidentally left Sam there but he was really riding in his grandpa's lap in the driver's seat. I was angry.
Just before waking up, I dreamed that Ii was on an episode of Ninja Warrior and the obstacle i was stuck on was trying to run a community of primitive african warriors known for their eternal battle against giant crocodiles through a giant toy castle. I distinctly remember a couple of them getting eaten but one got swallowed whole and I hoped he got out before he drowned. I also remember growing to gigantic size and trying to pull the toy castle apart because I couldn't figure out how to get them to the other side since there were lots of tunnels leading throughout. |
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| invaders |
[Jun. 9th, 2008|03:09 pm] |
Sam has recently discovered his feet. He does not know they belong to him, he has just become aware that they are there.
I don't know that I would say he is afraid of them, per se, but the look on his face is always one of surprise and concern. He stares at them for several minutes, brow furrowed, cautiously waiting. You know, just in case. |
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| nooooo mister pecan |
[Jun. 9th, 2008|01:40 pm] |
Despite having gotten something resembling enough sleep last night, I have been fighting falling asleep at my desk all day. After lunch, I lost this battle briefly and was rewarded with this mini-dream.
I was 6 years old and living in tennessee and i was sitting on my front porch when a giant pecan with arms and legs showed up and tried to molest me. It was laughing like Bill Clinton the whole time.
When I told this to my friend Eric, he told me "I was just rubbing my face as if I were trying to wash that couple sentences off of me before they entered my brain." |
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| ben stiller's ghetto inferno |
[Jun. 6th, 2008|11:13 am] |
I dreamed a couple nights ago that i was ben stiller and i had the hilarious idea to make an outdoor dance club for homeless people in downtown Peoria on Adams Street. I was all sure that I could get the funding to do it because I was Ben Stiller, which doesn't make sense cause I was literally making the dance floor out of cardboard boxes and benches from trash cans. Then on the way back to my car after setting things up, an SUV full of bad people intent beating the shit out of me pulled up and I was running and then I woke up.
There was also another part of the dream where I was me and not Ben Stiller, and Sarah and I were staying in a hotel. It was night, and we were going to sell her car the next day, so I went out to the parking lot to say goodbye to it. I put a bag of peaches in the back seat to make it feel better and to make it more attractive to its new owner. |
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| my brain a splode |
[Jun. 4th, 2008|11:34 am] |
It's like somebody scanned my brain at age 7 and then again at age 19 and using this data a computer pooped out the thing it thought I would like the most. |
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| a sign of things to come? |
[May. 8th, 2008|01:05 pm] |
Last night after his 10pm feeding, Sam spit up on me. Copiously. So I cleaned us both up and I laughed and told him he was "very prolific".
"Prolific", as it turns out, is one of Sam's favorite words, because I received a giant, radiant, toothless smile that seemed to say "I LIKE YOU VERY MUCH LARGE BEARDED MAN WITH STRANGE WORDS". I continued to use the word and kiss him on his little nose, eliciting several more minutes' worth of smiles.
Soon we will read him to sleep from the dictionary until he is old enough to have a wireless ethernet card installed in his neck. Then the Internet will teach him. |
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| from Hell's walnuts, I cram at thee |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|05:28 pm] |
I knew before I became a dad that raising kids was a "soft science". There was no one way to do it, and your mileage may vary.
What I hadn't counted on was quite the level of Opinionated that people get when you talk about raising kids. Keep in mind, I've been doing this just a hair over a month, and I've already found people who have something to say about us choosing not to breastfeed, how and when Sam sleeps at night, our choice to put him in disposable vs. cloth diapers, and our choice to put him in daycare so Sarah can go back to work.
Multiple people, including my dad and the nurses on the maternity ward, have told us not to pay any mind to the "baby books". As my dad put it, "Sam didn't read that damn book." Dad is right. Sam routinely breaks from the milestones they set forth. He held his head up by himself the day he was born and he can flip himself over already. I am worried we need to childproof everything by this weekend in case he figures out how to walk this week. Problem is, we're brand new parents. We don't know shit yet. And occasionally Sam does something that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Like when his bellybutton started making goopy stuff. Bellybuttons don't have substances going in or out of them! What the hell?? We need information! So we read.
For instance, we've been reading this book given to us by some of Sarah's friends to try and get a handle on getting both Sam and us some sleep. In this method, you put him in his crib at bedtime and let him cry it out unless it's time for a feeding or he's on fire or something. For the most part, it seems to be working well and he's sleeping well (approximately 3-4 hours at a time). It affords us some sanity in the evenings and allows us to sleep. It is great. Right?
I think my first mistake was trying to find out more on the Internet. Because if you would like to see fantastical examples of people being opinionated, read about childcare on the Internet. As it turns out, I don't love my baby and I have already given him three deep emotional scars for every ten minutes I don't hold him when he cries. I hope he gets a good job, because man he's basically going to have to leave a sleeping bag at the psychiatrist's office. One of my favorite blogs writes about raising her kid all the time, and people fucking threaten to call DCFS on her if they see something they don't like. So I try very hard to stay away from the Intertrons to see what to do with Sam. It just seems like a bad idea.
Real people are less insane, though certainly no less likely to suddenly emit their opinion. Relatives and friends I can handle for the most part. Random people at work coming up to me and offering suggestions on what to feed Sam? What the hell? And it's not just parents with older kids offering sage advice. Even people I never expected in ten thousand years to give me childcare advice are doing it. People who have sworn never to reproduce. Ever. Are telling me how Sam should be sleeping. It's like the Twilight Zone meets Hints from Heloise.
At first, I got really pissed off that everybody was telling me how to do my job. Now I understand a little better that people are just trying to help and it's just human nature to share one's experiences-- but when they keep on pressing the point and/or suggest outright that I am about to screw everything up if I don't listen to them, I briefly consider murdering them and seeing if their body will fit in our Diaper Genie. (Especially when it's abdundantly clear that they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about!)
One of the things I've been trying to work on a lot more lately is telling people to knock it off when they're starting to piss me off instead of standing there and taking it. (Otherwise, how else will they know to stop?) This subject, in particular, is shaping up to be an incredible learning opportunity to hone my skills at telling people to cram it when necessary. Walnuts optional.
So I guess the plan goes thusly:
- Determine if there is a problem.
- Call doctor if problem seems severe, otherwise go to step 3.
- Get more information.
- Make educated guess as to whether information is bullshit. (if necessary, return to step 2)
- Act on information. Or discard information entirely and do what seems right, as it honestly seems at this point I may literally know as much as most people about this stuff. Which is nothing. Which scares me to death.
- Invite others to cram it with walnuts, if necessary.
- Pray.
- Wipe baby's ass.
- Wipe own ass (optional if problem is not severe enough to make one shit one's pants)
- Hug baby.
- Sleep for 7-12 minutes until next feeding.
- Repeat.
I think the trick here is just to accept you have no idea what the hell is going on and just roll with it. At least, I hope that's what the trick is. :) |
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