Buried Memories or Dreaming

While I was resting on Wednesday March 23, 2016 there was this dream I was having that was more of a memory than a dream.

It involved a food truck, a missing girl who had been my best friend, and the driver of the food truck. It seemed like I knew that the driver had taken the girl but no one believed me about it. So I had to do some investigation to find out what happened to my friend. There was a name like Lindon or Lyndon on the food truck. I can not recall how that could be a repressed memory since I have no clear indication when it could have taken place. It looked like I was a young boy.

What is odd, this was the second repressed memory/dream I have had this week. On Sunday, I was dozing in the afternoon and felt like I remembered something. But now four days later, I do not remember anything from that day. I wonder what it was I was dreaming about that felt more like a memory than a dream.

Did I really know a girl who went missing? I wonder who that could have been. This bothers me that such a well formed story formed in my head and as it filled my head, it recalled to my mind the circumstances of the story. This makes it feel less like a dream and more like a memory.

That was the same thing that happened on Sunday. Something I had not thought about for a while came to my mind. As I started thinking about it, more of the story was remembered. Something that I used to do all the time? But I had not thought about doing in a while? Something about memories being buried. But once the dam holding back the memories breaks, whole things that have been hidden come to light.

Sometimes my pride gets in the way of my memories. I remember things that no one should and people do not believe me because no one seems to remember those things. This interferes with social interactions.

So I have to ask, did a little girl go missing that I may have known?

Haunted

Haunted by faces

Haunted by voices

Haunted by dreams

Haunting my desires

Haunting my life

Haunting my world

Anything I touch

Anything I write

Anything I do

Days get better

Days get worse

Days get dreams

You are thought

You are force

You are everywhere

Still with you

Still with moments

Still with cherish

When do I

When do you

When do you

One Year Ago

This was intended to be a much longer post but I distracted myself because I could not deal with the thoughts necessary to write this post.
This weekend last year, I met a woman who changed my life. I have more to say on this woman and my life but I still can not bring myself to write.
I am going to go get drunk.
Put some random words into the tags associated with this post and you can figure out the rest.

Road Trip 2010

I Here I go out on the road. Not sure where the road will take me. Or where I want to go. I want to keep my schedule loose and just try to relax. Try not to do anything crazy. Find some perspective…take a breath…do some writing…get the repetitive conversations out of my head

Destination	Probability	WHY	WHEN
DC	60%	woman	July 31
Utah	10%	woman	week before July 31
Louisiana	40%	Mom	Week after July 31
Florida	30%	Aunt and Uncle	Week after July 31
San Diego, CA	80%	Comic-Con	July 24-25
Santa Cruz, CA	50%	Sister	July 26
Seaside, CA	50%	Grandparents	July 26
Hawaii	40%	some place different	July 31
Caribbean	40%	some place different	July 31
Tahiti	25%	Original Plan	July 31
Las Vegas	20%	why not?	never

At some point I may park at an airport and look for a cheap flight out to some random destination. That would be interesting.
This trip was meant to be on a plane. I was going to San Diego Comic-Con this week. Next week was going to be Tahiti. A deserted island somewhere in the South Pacific was where I wanted to spend my birthday. I took a drive up to the Northgate Mall last Friday. I realized that I need to take a road trip. So this is where this plan just fell into place. As the money came into existence, I had enough money for Comic-Con. But not enough money for Tahiti. I thought by saying no to Comic-Con I would be able to afford to go to Tahiti. And I can if I had saved my money and left on July 30th. That date was not going to work for me. I do not want to spend my birthday traveling. I want to be where I want to be when I wake up on the 31st.
Where that place I want to be is…Let the road decide!

Dental Appointment

Ledge of the office window Top of the Church 5th Avenue 

Some of the views from my new dentist’s office. I took a long time but I did find the paperwork for the dentist finally. I have several appointments scheduled now. First visit was a check-up. The next two are cleaning. Then a bunch appointments for fillings. Also, the dentist recommended that I get an orthodontist consultation.

Guess working at the Library will be good for something after all. Teeth cleaned, maybe straightened. Just might make me less self-conscious about my appearance. Build up my confidence and let me relax a little bit about life. 

Questions and Decisions Time

I am on a 23 day vacation from The Seattle Public Library. One goal I had before this vacation started was to get my apartment empty. I was going to put everything into storage. As the time approached to start moving things into storage, that idea just did not seem right. I no longer want any of these things in my life. I should not own more stuff than what will fit in the back of my truck. And I do not mean a full load either. One tote of clothes, one tote of equipment, and one tote of personal items. That should be more than enough stuff in my life.

Tote of Clothes	Tote of Personal Items	Tote of Equipment	Backpack
Suit jacket/pants	Sword	Scanner/printer	computer
white dress shirt, undershirt	Snake-Eyes action figure(s)	Tool case	camera
blue dress shirt, undershirt	Snake-Eyes skateboard	surge protector	computer power cord
polo shirt	Chess Board	extension cord	camera power cord
pair of black pants		PS3	passport
pair of jeans		speakers	cell phone power cord
2 pairs of cargo shorts		phone modem	cell phone
pair of sport shorts		alarm clock	extra camera batteries (AA)
5 pairs of underwear and socks		camera printer dock/recharge station	sunglasses
blanket, pillow			MP3 player and cord
grooming items			extra AAA batteries
			journal
			pens

As this year came into existence, I knew I wanted to spend this time answering some big questions in my life.
1. Do I stay in Seattle?
2. Do I stay at the Library?
3. Where do I go?
4. Why?
5. What am I doing with my life?
One thing I learned in the last year is that my siblings consider me stable. Even my mother agrees with that statement. And I find myself not arguing with  the thought of me being stable. My soul yearns for that label to be wrong. This stability that others see is the act that I put on to hide. I am so worried about going crazy that I do nothing with my life.
As the past year unfolded, a wrinkle entered my life. A ‘wrinkle’ is not an adequate term. Something I had not counted on, entered my life. I fell in love, fell in lust, fell into an old pattern of obsession. Whatever the proper term or expression, this period of time that I requested off last year for reflection on my life has different priorities. Those things that I thought I would take this time off to think about, no longer has the same meaning that it did last year.
One major thing that I did not realize would change is the collection of toys. I am no longer interested in adding to or keeping my GI Joe collection. So I have been trying to sell them on the www.forums.yojoe.com I have been taking a lot of pictures of the collection. I have not opened the old boxes yet. I have been concentrating on the loose items I have bought since moving to Seattle.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jlbowen/GIJoe
Someone put the idea in my head of getting rid of books. Before I could change my mind, I took the books to Half-Price with this person. And I am thinking about getting rid of the rest of my books. I did not make any money on the books but at least the books are gone. The counter person pointed me towards the books that the store could not take. I went towards the box of books, reached towards them to see what was rejected, and said out loud, “No, Jason, RUN!”



  I have been trying to sell off my comic book collection. A couple issues here and there over the last couple of years but no major sales. I have been looking for a big dealer and I thought I had one lined up but that did not work out as hoped. Mostly, I messed up the automatic process of selling the collection. Trying to enter 4,000 comic books from one online program into another online program was not easy. I got maybe 100 books entered before I gave up.
This is where I am right now. I need to find some perspective on my life or something. I have been vaguely planning this vacation for years. Now the time is upon me.

Possible 35th Birthday Tahiti Trip Part I

Over the last few months, people have been asking me about my plans for Tahiti. I have been ignoring the questions because I did not know how to answer. I have given some line about money being a problem. That is an incomplete answer.

History
I first thought of going to Tahiti in 2004 or 2005. I was shelving books at the Central Library of The Seattle Public Library. On the cover of a book I shelved was a picture of what I call a bungalow on the water. This was either before or after I turned 30. I saw this book and thought to myself that is where I want to be on my 35th birthday. That gave me five years to plan the trip. I thought that would be enough time.

Money Situation
In 2000, I spent several months not working. I lived on my credit cards for a while. This was a dark period. I was buying drinks at the bar every night. Most of the time I fell asleep in my car. After 2 or 3 months of this, I got a job at the Post Office in Pebble Beach. I was still drinking every night but at least I could start making payments.
Then I moved to Seattle. I did not find a good job for a few months. Then I got a job at Fed Ex on April 1, 2003. This did not let me make any progress on getting the bills paid down. I made minimum payments but got further behind on other bills. After a year and a half of working just at Fed Ex, I got a night job for the 2003 Christmas season at Fred Meyer on Broadway. In March 2004, I got a third job at The Seattle Public Library. April 1, 2004 I left Fed Ex employment. June 2004 I left Fred Meyer employment. This left me just the job at the library. As time progressed, my money situation got better even working the one job at the library.
At the time I thought of the trip I was in serious debt. I was making some good progress on my bills though. By 2008 I was down to one or two bills. All the other bills I had paid off or did not have any information.
Doing the numbers in my head, Tahiti was looking like a probable event.

Then came Summer 2009...........

Time spent in June 2010

Days in Month: 30
Days at Work: June 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 26, 27
Vacation Days: June 5, 6, 23, 24, 29, 30
Sick Days: June 1, 10, 11, 21
Days off: June 4, 7, 12, 13, 19, 20, 25, 28
Work days: 12
Days off: 18
For some reason, I thought I had taken a lot more days off this month. Still 3:2 ratio is high. Next month is going to be about the same.
Netflix Instant Streaming Recently Watched is close to 100. This is a combination of movies and television shows. That much movie watching is not good. I took maybe 2 walks this month. Most of this month has been spent in bed.
I did work on the three projects I have been putting off. Toys are being photographed and put online. Paperwork has been scanned and shredded. Comic books are slowly being offered for sale.
Time spent on my days off when I was not lying in bed. I should have gotten a lot more done than I did.

Grandparents Visit

My grandparents came to Washington to visit. I met them at the Motel 6 off exit 152. The motel was down the street from the airport. The three of us went to dinner at the Airport Denny's. We had a good dinner and some dessert.

This evening was the longest I have ever heard my grandfather speak at one time.

My grandfather walked me out to my truck when I left. He had some more words for me about how he met my grandmother. They were at the Roller Rink. He was skating backward when he turned around, she stuck her foot out, and tripped him. I think that was the story.

Some topics of conversation was their roadtrip, coin collections, vehicles, and advice about relationships from my grandfather.

Why I am walking

I am walking around in an attempt to get someone out of my head. Unfortunately, no matter how much I walk, those thoughts are still in my head. Sometimes with reinforcements. But I don't want to stop really. I just need a change in pattern of thoughts.

That someone in my head is myself. And no matter where I walk or how I walk, that person follows.

Relationship books and other sources say physical exercise is part of the cure but I find that the more I exercise, the more I think those thoughts that I am trying to get away from. I think those sources of advice are wrong. Except....exercise focuses ones thoughts.

Of course the last time, it took ten years to get over someone. But then again, if someone were to ask, I would probably admit to still having feelings for Laura from kindergarten. And that was almost 30 years ago. That is scary to think about. I wonder whatever happened to Laura. I wonder if I could find her if I tried. Would I try? Trying to find someone from 30 years ago might be difficult.