The Book of Ashes

About dreams... 1:47AM

Last night I talked to Char about dreams and she brought up an interesting question. Do I dream in colour? I had never really thought about it and assumed I would have but couldn't remember anything being any specific colour in a dream. I knew I had tasted in dreams (and it was the best tasting stuff ever!) and maybe even smelt but I don't know about colour. Anyway last night I had a restless sleep and I drempt heaps. I don't think I had any colour but its hard to tell. I was awake before my alarm went off so I got up straight away when it did go off. This is 35mins earlier than usual for me, thats how slack I am on normal days. I took the rubbish out cause I had forgotten last night and decided to go for a jog up to the end of the street and back. Its a short but hard one. I now know how far it is that I jog from my place to the top of the Mt Vic lookout. Its 1.9km, all up hill, and I did it in 12mins and 4secs last night. 10mins is very achievable and will also be quite legendary. And thanks Fi for the use of your car to measure it.

A few things about dreams. I think you are meant to dream around 7 dreams per night on average. You may think this is a lot but you only really remember them if you wake up during them and even then you might still forget. In my dreams I can't get hurt. Everyonce and a while I dream I'm falling for what feels like 10 seconds and I'm heading for a massive collision with the ground and I tense and freak out cause its going to hurt but when I hit I just get up as if there was no fall, no pain, no nothing. I am very glad I don't sleep walk, then I would be a danger to society. I sometimes talk in my sleep, but I don't think that often, although its hard to tell when you can't watch yourself. I have recurring dreams, sometimes I recognise them during the dream and can change it a little. One is where I find coins, just lots of loose change lying all over the ground and I pick it up hastily as if its the best thing in the world, looking around for more, but its probably only $5 worth so what is so special about it? I don't know. Also I think your dreams represent what is strongest on your mind at the time. You may dream of failing tomorrows exam or of stuffing up your presentation at work or of friends or places that you're thinking about. I know I dreampt about things related to my 25th party before hand cause I was quite stressed about all the details.

Anyway I gotta get back to work. Dreams are interesting and I feel sorry for those who say they don't dream - they are missing out

Quote from a quote that quotes itself (the rock in the sand) 8:43AM

Can you quote from a quote that quotes itself ? I don't know but I'm going to try...

""I am the rock in the sand. I exist as the one constant while all shifts around me. I affect others paths, but none affect mine. My only worry is that the sand may bury me.""

- The Book of Ashes : Passage 02.08.01

Cake for Char, santa story 10:42AM

The day was pretty non eventful, all in all. I went out and brought some of those little chocolate bottles of alcohol at lunch time and a cool chocolate cigar. We are playing a game of poker tomorrow night, just the guys, so that will be cool. We'll get dressed up a little, drink a few hard spirits, smoke some cigars and bet away our millions. Of course I won't be drinking, I don't allow smoking in the house (hence the chocolate cigar) and it'll only be a few hundred cents on the line. None-the-less its going to be a good night. The lady in the chocolate shop smiled as I came in and said hello. She is starting to know me now. I go to Sweet Temptations just under the mid city picture theartes. They are the best and those alcohol chocolates rock my world.

Fi came over early on and told me she had a cake for Char and was going to bring it out at some stage. They were going out to dinner then maybe Zeal so she might do it there or might do it at home later. I went over and gave Char the chocolate alcohol bottles and had one myself so that counts as a little bit of alcohol but still not a proper drink. I then went up and saw my Nana & Poppa with Gerry and my cousin Jessica was there as well. We had a tea and some Louise Cake which was good and caught up. My Poppa wasn't looking too good which isn't so good but it was good to talk to him. Even though hes a bit weazy he was still trying to organise Gerry to come up to Palmy with me for my cousin's 21st. I don't know what he would do if he didn't have 8 kids and about 20 grandchildren to organise around. My Nana & Poppa live for us grandchildren so it is good to go catch up with them every once and a while. I am lucky they live so close.

So we wondered back down the hill and Fi told me that she was bringing the cake out at Zeal so I wouldn't need to come over and sing happy birthday. So Gerry and I turned on the TV and used our stool seats (most of our chairs have lost their backs and become stools seats) as foot rests and lay back in comfort and relaxed to the mindless bliss that is TV. Unfortunetly TV really sucked but it was still good.

I must mention here a story that my Nana told tonight that made me smile. We were talking of some of my younger cousins and how the older cousins had to explain that some of Santa's cousins often helped out by dressing up as Santa (hence you see lots of different Santa's around). I thought this was quite a smart explanation. Then my Nana told the story of how she had taken them to a park and there had been a whole lot of work functions on there and they all had Santa's for their kids and my cousins had seen the Santa's giving out presents there and had said, Look Nana, theres Santa giving out presents, can we go see him? Of course this was just a dress up Santa for the work function. In the end my Nana had to take them over and they got given some lolly pops or balloons or something. It is funny though and you don't really think that if kids see Santa they wanna go visit him, even if he's not a public Santa. I guess I will learn these things more once I have kids of my own

Santa 11:04AM

That story logically leads on to how I first discovered that Santa wasn't real. I was 5 years old and one Christmas morning I came out excited (I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping Christmas eve till I was about 22, I still get quite excited even now) to a tree with a sprinkling of new presents under it and freshly decorated with beautiful ginger bread men covered in icing. I was amazed and I asked my parents in wonder, where did the ginger bread men come from? Of course they replied, Santa brought them (mistake #1). So after I had gotten over that I went to the fridge for a glass of milk and what did I find there but the left over icing from the ginger bread men (mistake #2). I looked up at my parents and said Santa didn't make the ginger bread men, you did. And from that day on I didn't really believe in Santa (of course I pretended for a lot longer just to make sure I got my presents). My sister still blames me for running straight to her and telling her that Santa wasn't true when she was only 3 years old.

Let me tell you one of the things that impresses me a lot. It is when someone else expresses their desire for knowledge or goes off and learns or researches something themselves. I get cold shivers down my spine thinking of this kind of excellence. I probably told you of my cousin who is 6 and was learning her times tables by herself before they taught them at school. I was REAL impressed. Kids ability to learn is amazing. But if you are like me and past the sponge stage where the brain absorbs anything and everything you may think I can't learn anything anymore. Well, not if you think like that you can't. Even if you consider yourself useless at something it still impresses me when you show an interest to learn or better yourself. I remember some chick wanting to learn to play chess (and it was definitly not her kind of thing) but she showed the interest and I respect that.

Let me now scare you with how fussy I am and how I think about things too much. I can not be interested in a female who does not read. I know that I benefitted greatly from my mother reading to me as a kid and require it in a wife. Even though I will make sure I read to my kids it will not be enough for just me to read. This is just one of the hundred things that cross my mind when looking at woman. Such is the curse of the perfectionist. I am going to have to devote a bit of space to some of my prophecies one day by which I live my life, just to let you know where I think I'm going and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Yeah too much to start writing about that now, I've already written enough for tonight