waiting in the dark for sleep to find me
i hear them
i hear them talk
they talk not to me
they just talk
they seem so familiar
and yet i do not know them
they are all around me
and yet i do not see them
perhaps they are manifestations of a new and slow creeping madness
or perhaps they are but fore-echoes of dream
i do not know

i fear spending the rest my years sitting in a corner mumbling nonsense to myself
or drugged out of my mind — a drooling vacant zombie
for now, let them be dreams

I slept longer last night than I have in a long time. I went to bed a little after 7pm and woke a little after 8am. I've had longer sleeps in the past, but recently I've been averaging 8 (though with some deviation). I feel I went into some sort of hibernation.

The dreams were odd, creepy, and downright sinister – but I feel somewhat deloopified. I'm not sure why I would feel that way and I'm still trying to interpret the meanings of what was there. I'm still not sure what to do with this stuff. I dont know if it will lead to a better understanding, more looping, or simply nothing. Perhaps it's just a glitch that feels like something more. The only thing I know is that I do feel different this morning.

purpleglitter and I buried Squeaky and Piglet this morning. We placed them with Isobel so they can fly off together.

I haven't been well today or yesterday. I'm still in shock that they are both dead. Hearing purplelgitter gasp upon finding them. Seeing them there. I don't believe it. I am still waiting to wake up.

Feeling like my life is a dream isn't an state in my life, but what is less constant is the forceful will to wake up. Wake up to what, to where. I don't know. But somewhere my birdies are and everyone else is and everything is the "way it should be". But the way it should be never was, there is only the way it is.

Squeaky and Piglet and Isobel too are all okay. Though their bodies may have been fragile, they are not their bodies and they will never cease to be. I will miss them, they have flown off with a part of my heart with them.

Today, a second time, I see the "dirt" of on the wall in the stairwell. I doubted that it was dirt the first time, and now I do even more so. I believe it may be a mould. If it appears a third time, I will be sure of it. The perpetual leaks may have finally sealed our fate. If it is in the walls, we cannot stay. Perhaps this could even explain the sicknesses that trouble us in the house_of_clocks. Where will we go, I do not know. I have thought long this was coming to an end, and eventually it must. Now seems like a time of wind, I can feel it like a dream taking me to the next scene.

This winter will be cold and long. I have met none who doubt.

Sometimes, fleetingly, I think that I should like to live my life in chronological order. It would be simpler at the very least.

Other times I don't even notice that it's not in order.

Or that bits are missing.

Nothing's amiss until I look at it.

It's like a dream in that way. In fact, I'm not throughly convinced that it isn't one.

I've had some interesting dreams recently. The night before last, I dreamed I was on a holodeck. I kept switching through setting, but I was changing more than my environment. I was not only trying on different clothing, but different bodies. However, at some point I stopped changing and the room began changing more like a standard Star Trek holodeck. The finally room I was in was filled with shallow wooden boxes with large amounts of baby budgies. They were all blue and just getting their feathers in. They were pulling themselves from box to box, in the baby-budgie head-first method of locomotion. I was in a happy place.

Last night, I dreamed I was in a maze of a house. There was a strange man in whiteface who was running the place. The house was so large that it had a lake and a hill with cars. It was almost a village in a house. There was something wrong, a sinister air. I felt compelled to investigate what that wrong was. I followed these streams of crusty liquid up the hill and found an old stationwagon that had rusted with the years. purpleglitter was with me then and at that point had been with me on my explorations in the house even though she hadn't been with me earlier in the dream. We got in the car and I was able to start it. There was a road at the top of the hill; and after driving a short distance, we realized we were on the outskirts of Moscow. We drove back to the hilltop and looked down. There was the house and all it's trapping that we had departed. I concluded that there was some sort of portal to Moscow at the top of the hill. purpleglitter and I decided to drive around and explore the outskirts of Moscow. purpleglitter's cell phone miraculously worked and we called zarthon who told us we ought not be traveling around through portals willy-nilly and should head back at once. But we ignored him. Who was driving kept switching seamlessly in the dream, sometimes it was purpleglitter sometimes it was me. The controls on the car ended up locking up and we skidded into a ditch. It faded out after that.

Somewhere in last nights dreams purpleglitter and I were in a bank trying to stop a $2500 transaction from her account to a con artist. The bank was entirely bureaucratic and unhelpful, and we felt as if we were fighting against time. They kept asking invasive questions that had nothing to do with banking. Odd randomness. Why must bureaucracy even invade my dreams?

I'm feeling much better than I was earlier. I still go to the dark places, I imagine that I always will. And that is okay. The difference now is that I don't tend to dwell in those places. I understand that the dark places have a purpose, but I do not wish to be trapped there.

In the past, I would get stuck in those depths for days or months or years because all I can see while I am in those places is the darkness. But I have found the key. The key is that I do not look for the out, I do not try to find the right path. Instead, I repeat the mantra "keep moving" and I just keep moving. Eventually I walk past the edge of the shadows. The path isn't what matters, what matters is that I don't stay where I am. That I don't stagnate.

----

The hour grows late and the dream world awaits me. I must retire to bed. I learned long ago that if you don't visit the dream world, the dream world visits you.

i am worried
i am worried that i won't be able to stay above the waves
i am worried that i will be sucked back down
i do not want to go back to where i've been
i do not want to return to those roads
but i often feel the darkness closing in
there is much i am keeping inside right now
and telling no one at all
the world does not feel real
i am far behind the window eyes
i look out the window
and i hear the winds
the same winds that are always there
i do not know where i am going
but i do know that in the end the winds will come for me
i ask, what i am here for?
my eyes look upon what is before them
i note the what is right before i forget it
the demons are still with me
i do not think they will ever leave
i walk through the mud
and reach for the sky
i cannot take in these things
i am not a great person
i cannot make long sense of what is here
only in passing does it match
every angle changes
forever
no paradigm can stick
flux
change
eternally
nothing constant
i wander still here
i walk still here
i forget still here
what is coming must soon come to pass
i have trouble staying in the body now
more and more
i leave it behind
i am not going mad
i never left mad
soon the sky will be yellow and the grass blue
for reality never was where i am
adrift in a sea of dreams
always forgetting where i am
and never find the shore

There are things that I try to say. Things that cannot be said because for such things there can be no words. Many people will therefore find much of what I say nonsensical. I am by far not the only one who sees these things, I am just one of those who is foolish enough to attempt to speak them.

I talk of demons and of angels and of monsters and of God. I remember the walls stained with blood and I know where the devil lives. I have wandered between the dreaming and waking to where I could no longer distinguish one from the other. I am friends with færies and do business with ghosts. I have walked the asylums and tasted their zombie potions. I do not speak in the polite language of the day. I am mad, of course. And that is that.

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I often wonder if there exists a thought that if one thinks it they die. This death could be a physical death or it could be an inevitable suicide brought on by having thought the thought. I wonder what such a thought would be like, how it would form, how one would come across it. What thoughts lead to it, what path does one find it on, or is there no fully describable path would it just be like a bad dream or a dark enlightenment.

The next level of this hypothetical thought would be if it could be passed on before the original thinker died, making it a fatal meme. If it is equally deadly after suffering translation, such a meme could rip through the planet, causing a global thought-pandemic. How effective it would be would depend on how much time victims had to pass the deadly thought on before they fell victim to it themselves and the power of the drive that victims feel to pass it on (which may or may not come from the meme itself). If the meme had the right combination of attributes, it would have the potential to wipe out the entire human race.

How would people go about finding a counter-meme? Unlike other contagious agents like virus and bacteria, one cannot view a meme under a microscope. One has to take in and understand the meme to attempt to figure out a cure. But once they have done that they may no longer be motivated to find a cure. It will be in their head, and they will be under its sway. One way to attempt to find a cure would be to have a group each take a piece of it and understanding that piece, with none taking in the whole thing. One could then search for an analog to viral proteins to attack with counter-thoughts using a counter-meme. Would it work? I have no clue. Maybe such an anti-meme be more successful at spreading because people would be actively trying to inoculate themselves. But, again, I don't know. I can't even imagine the attributes of the deadly meme much less what sort of anti-meme would be effective.

I find the idea of such a powerful meme intriguing, even if it is indeed an impossibility. Less powerful memes have certainly wreaked their havoc around the world. Large scale crimes such as genocide and war would not be possible were it not for such contagious meme pathologies, and most smaller scale crimes have underlying meme causes or influences as well. Memes can be incredibly powerful things, and can change the landscape of the world for good or evil and often for both. Whether or not such a doomsday meme like I described above exists, I believe that the true potential of memes has not yet been fully tapped.

-----

one meme to rule them, one meme to find them
one meme to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

When I arrived home from the asylum, I found a letter stating that I had yet another overdraft charge. I seem to be utterly incapable of keeping track of my balance and the $25 fees add up. I decided that I should just cash my SSDI check instead of depositing it and handle things in cash. I headed out to Arlington center, and only fell once on my way there and was able to get up quickly. I did end up sitting on a bench for 15 minutes shortly thereafter waiting to regain my coordination.

My first stop was Leader Bank. There I was told that since they are not publicly traded they are exempt from being required to cash treasury department checks for non-customers. No luck. I went on to Bank of America. There I was told as a non-customer I had to have two forms of identification for them to cash the check. I only had my licence with me. Strike two.

I decided to try my luck at Cambridge Savings Bank. I knew my account was negative there, but I hoped they would cash my with just one form of identification anyway. The teller told me the system wouldn't let her do it because my account was overdrawn. I asked by how much, and it was only $3.76. Aparently I had a little over $20 in the account when the overdraft fee hit. Seeing as the amount was so small, I told her to take the $3.76 out of the check, cash my check as a customer with one form of identification, then close my account. She did, and I'm now done with banks (except what will be my monthly trip to cash my check).

-----

purpleglitter drove me to my therapy appointment at 5:15. I signed in at the front desk and waited. 5:30, no therapist. The receptionist paged her. 5:45, no therapist. The receptionist paged her again, then noted that my appointment time was actually at 6:00 and not my normal time, and that's probably why my therapist wasn't responding. I had things to do, so I just left.

-----

purpleglitter dropped me off at the corner and went up to her house to bake merryperseis's birthday cake. I fell heading from the corner to my house, spilling my Monster. Several people asked if I was okay, but no one called anyone on me. I got back in the house and ended up lying in bed for some stupid reason and fell asleep. I drifted in and out of sleep and seizure for a couple hours, having nasty dreams that everything was getting worse and that I was being locked away forever. Finally, merryperseis came into my room and helped me out of bed. I ended up falling on the floor in the hall and sat there until I felt balanced enough to go down the stairs.

-----

recoiling, purpleglitter, and iamacliche were downstairs and we had quite a wonderful time celebrating the anniversary of merryperseis's birth. Towards 1:00 I started feeling very twitchy again, and couldn't really get up from the couch. All the non-residents of the house_of_clocks had left, and merryperseis had to go to purpleglitter's apartment and pick up my meds, my Metamucil cookies, and mazzycat's tuna for me. I was planning on just crashing on the couch, but did eventually make it up to my room and to sleep.

-----

Everyday is an adventure nowadays. Some moments I feel so elated I coul