Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

I have been informed that I am an Epic Mom™. The Impertinent Daughter informed me of this last night, shortly after she discovered me playing Lego Star Wars on my DS. Apparently, this is something that Ordinary Moms™ just don't do, which makes me wonder, because surely I cannot be the only geeky mom around... right?

I sort of inherited Lego Star Wars from the Impossible Son after he got a DSi XL. Unlike the DSLite, you can't play Game Boy games on a DSi XL, so... I inherited his Game Boy games, which amount to the Lego Star Wars, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team, which I haven't played yet because... well... I'm trying to get into Pokemon, because both the kids are into Pokemon, but seriously, y'all, I get so mixed up, plus I'm almost afraid to play either game because I never know which kid has snuck up behind me to watch me play until I hear an agonized, "MOOOOOOOM!!! You can't fight a rock type pokemon with a grass type pokemon!!!" popping off in my ear.

I have to play my games when the kids aren't home, in other words!

I also learned a lesson last night. Never play Lego Star Wars before going to bed.

Why?

Because all my dreams were full of Legos. I was a Lego Auntie. It was... WEIRD! We went on vacation to Rockport again, and my kids were Lego kids, THO was a Lego THO, and set up a Lego canopy on the Lego beach, and the kids were in Lego water, and ran away from Lego jellyfish... And the Impertinent One was a Lego Soccer Ninja, kicking a Lego soccer ball on Lego grass, and we sat in Lego stands, and it was annoying when I had to get up, because I had to pop myself off the seats...

Don't even get me started on the Lego sex dreams!!

Let me put it to you this way... I had to invent the appropriate parts, and there was always this annoying >pop!< at the beginning and the end. Use your imagination.

*flails*

I want to thank everyone for their supportive comments on my last post. THO read the post and apologized profusely once he understood what was going on in my very busy head. It's going to take some work, but we'll figure our way around this one, just as we have before.

And in other news, I am still trying to get back into the swing of writing. Since I haven't signed up for any fests, and am reluctant to do so until I get my brain back in gear, it's been rather slow going. So, to help me get back into the groove, I'm asking y'all to prompt me. I'll do my best to fill them. Doesn't have to be Harry Potter, either. I could swing Star Trek, Dragonriders of Pern, Darkover, maybe Big Bang Theory, but that's a big maybe, with a possible, half-terrified stab at Stargate Atlantis. Or something original, if you give me enough of a prompt to build on. Go ahead, prompt me!

We'll see what we shall see!

Ear worms... man, I hate ear worms!!!

Just finished my morning walkabout of the neighborhood (gotta keep Auntie fit), even though what I really wanted to do was crawl back in bed and sleep for the next sixteen hours.

Why?

Because, I only got about one... or was it two? hours of sleep last night. Partly because of a nagging headache that wouldn't go away, partly because the Husbandly One was restless and thus sleepless, and thus keeping me awake, and partly because of... an ear worm.

The nagging headache is mostly sinus pressure, and a little too much chocolate from Valentine's Day. The Husbandly One was restless because he had a sinus headache, and was worrying and fretting on top of that. And the ear worm?

Okay, so I was laying there, dozing, had a bit of a really bizarre nightmare where thanfiction and I were trying to trace a friend's whereabouts by going back through all the phone calls he had last made on his cell phone, which was the only thing we could find that belonged to him. I kept saying, "You know, this could really, really backfire on us," and he said, "This is all we have to work with," and I said, "I dunno, I've got this really bad feeling about doing this," and we were on our fourth phone call, and the phone was picked up and we heard a woman scream, then shriek, "I... AM IN... A CAGE!!!"

We sort of boggled and thanfiction said, "Okay, that is not our friend. Our friend... does not sound like a woman."

And I said, "Well... no..."

Then the woman shrieked, "I... AM BEING... TORTURED!!!"

And I said, "Well... we can't have that." So I said into the phone, "Who is trying to torture you? Where are you? Can we help you? Is ... is our friend there, too?" Because I can't remember the guy's name at all.

The woman was quiet for a moment, then she shrieked, "He knows who you are! He knows where you are!! YOU...ARE... A CORPSE!!!"

And thanfiction said, "Well, that's not very friendly." And I said, "Who cares, we have to get out of here now!!" and I grabbed him and used my Sooper Sekrit Amazing Powers and tried to get us out of there. Except someone whacked me with something hard and I sat up in the bed with my heart pounding, and my head pounding, thinking, "What the hell was that about???"

Well, I was still hearing the creepy woman shrieking in my head, so I immediately starting filling my head with music, planning to use Mozart to drive the heebie jeebies away, but... instead, I got Arcade Fire wailing, "Maaaaah body is a caaaaayeeeege... " until I wanted to bang my head into the wall.

It was a total ear worm.

Now, normally when I get an ear worm, my solution is to either find the music and listen to the song in its entirety, which banishes it from my head, or to sing it to myself. Couldn't do that last night. Not with THO restless and tossing. I could just see it. Auntie gets up and turns on iTunes to play the Ear Worm of Doom, and THO sits up and says, "Are you crazy?? Can't you see I'm failing to sleep here???"

So, I tried a counter dissonance and ended up with something even worse.

The Chieftains.

"Here's a Health to the Company."

I love the Chieftains.

I LOATHE that song.

I would rather crawl over broken glass naked than listen to that song. Really. I would.

It took me two hours, and a lot of forcing my brain down avenues I do not normally use to get that particular Ear Worm From Hell out of my head. Beethovan (I'm not big on Beethovan), Metallica, Dir En Grey, Buck Owens (usually "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass" does the job, but... no dice), I was starting to roam in territory I can't stand. I mean, when I start dredging up George Jones songs, you know I'm desperate.

Sorry, but I'm not into moaning, wailing, pathetically depressing country music. My dad loved it, which is probably why I hate it.

ANYWAY, it took Audioslave to get the Chieftains out of my head. Thank goodness. And I finally passed out around 4:30 or so. Too bad I had to get up at 6!!!

Oh well.

Think I'll put on something obnoxious, bouncy, and LOUD while I clean the living room. Like... oh, I dunno... the Fratellis?? The Sex Pistols? Hmmmm, too loud and obnoxious. Oh, fraggitall, I'll just put on some Jack Johnson to soothe my frazzled, freaked out nerves and get busy!!

And Than, dear, if you could explain why you were dressed like you were going on an expedition to darkest, deepest Africa?? Oh... never mind, it was just one of those stupid dreams!!

Okay, so last night, I had a not quite nightmare.  I say not quite, because I was fighting it for everything I was worth. Normally, when I'm dreaming, and I see it's starting to go bad, I can change it.  Yes, I'm one of those lucky people who can "change channels" when I'm dreaming and ward off nightmares.  Doesn't mean I don't have them.  In fact, there are nights where I have nothing but, as if my brain refuses to work and is saying, "I want you to be scared, dammit, and I'm not letting you drive tonight!"  But most of the time, I manage to change directions and keep the bad dreams from happening.

Last night, well, you know most nightmares are rather stupid, let's face it.  You're so scared while you're having it, but when you wake up to talk about it, nine times out of ten, you start laughing because you realize suddenly that if it had happened in real time, you would have laughed your ass off.  It's only that rare tenth time that you're just as scared awake as you were asleep.

So, last night, for some reason, I was dreaming that I had to live in the house of this great-aunt that I absolutely hated.  I had two, actually.  One I hated because she was nosy, interfering, and constantly hurt people by spreading gossip that was rarely true.  The other I hated because she was just plain evil.  It was this great-aunt, we'll just call her Aunt Evil, that I was dreaming about.  The weird thing was, though in the dream, the house I dreamed about wasn't her actual house.  In the backyard was a dying palm tree which I was determined to save.  I kept pruning it, and finding all these really strange insects, and it was getting very overcast and stormy, and I knew I had to save the tree before the storm.  The part of me that was lucid during all of this was sort of watching it and thinking, "Well, gee, this is really dumb.  Time to change tracks."  So I tried to change the sky, and turn the palm tree into a rose bush or something, but... it didn't work.  That's when I knew it was going to try to be a nightmare.  Of course, the fact it was supposed to be Aunt Evil's house sorta clued me in, too.

While Lucid Me was trying to change things, Clueless Dream Me went into the house to confer with my Hip Lesbian Roommate who for some completely unknown reason, was reassembling an old Volkswagon Beetle on our living room floor.  I think she was trying to turn it into a fish tank, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, I explained the problem with the palm tree, and she said, "I dunno, Auntie, it's a nasty old thing anyway, and it's just taking up space.  Let it die and we can have it hauled out."

And said, "Oh no, because it's a rare Beetlejuice Tamara palm, and we can't let it die!"

I have no idea what  Beetlejuice Tamara palm is.

So then I said, "I know what will save it!  Baby shampoo!"

Yeah.  Right.  Lucid Me was thinking that Clueless Dream Me was a complete and total ditz, and I was trying so hard to change this around.  I hate dreams where I'm stupid.  But the dream was determined to drag Lucid Me along, so I followed myself down the dim hallway.  

I hate being afraid.  I mean, really, I hate being afraid, and I tend to get angry, and force myself to deal with whatever is making me so scared.  It was getting really dark outside, because of the coming storm, and I was already scared, because I hated being in Aunt Evil's house.  And that was true from real life.  I hated Aunt Evil's real house, because it always had such a creepy feel to it.  I spent as much time as possible out in her back yard.  It was always dark in that house, no matter how bright it was outside, and the windows were open and all.  It was always dark and gloomy in that house.

So, there I was, walking determinedly down the dim hallways, even though I was so nervous and twitchy, and I got to my room and reached in through the door to flip the light switch.  Nothing.  I flipped it up and down, nothing.  No lights.  Gritting my teeth, I plunged into the room and stood there, waiting for something awful to happen.  Nothing. So I started trying to turn on the lamps.  Nothing.  Crap, Lucid Me thought.  This is definitely going to be a nightmare, and I really, really don't wanna have it!  So I tried opening the blinds, tried turning on the hall light, but no, it stayed determinedly dark in my room.  The shampoo was in my bathroom, and it was even DARKER in there!  And Something Awful had happened in there (though, of course, Lucid Me had no idea what).  I walked to the door, reached in to flip that light switch, and of course no light.  At this point, even Clueless Dream Me was sick of being scared, and totally pissed off.  I could see the shampoo bottle sitting on the edge of the tub, and shoved the door open and strode in.  And of course, the Awful Scary Thing was behind the door.  I knew it, and didn't care.  I picked up the shampoo, turned around and glared at it and shouted, "Leave, dammit!  Leave now!!"  Except I had a very hard time saying it, like I was shouting through mud, which meant I was actually trying to shout it out loud.  And this hand started slapping my bare bottom, which really puzzled me since I was dressed, and I startled awake to find the Husbandly One basically trying to spank me awake, since we were both tangled up in the bed covers (thanks to my flailing) and that was the only part of me he could reach.  "Hey, wake up, wake up, Auntie!" he was saying.

"Hey, stop spanking me," I mumbled, and turned over.  Well... I tried to, at least.  We were pretty tangled up.  It took a while to sort out, and while we tried to free ourselves, I told him about the nightmare.  And ended up laughing heartily.  Because it was just so darn silly.  I think my favorite part was the Beetle in the living room.  It made me nostalgic for my first year in college, when I was in marching band and a group of us used to take our grad assistant's Beetle and leave it in unusual places.  Like... a piano practice studio.  Doors wide enough to accomdate a piano are wide enough to accomodate a Beetle.  Or... on a float in the middle of the decorative pool by the Performing Arts Center.  Or on the roof of the dorm he lived in.  Sorry, Reese, we couldn't resist.

Anyway, as far as nightmares go, it was pretty tame.  Nothing like the nightmare I had about being pursued by Charlie Chaplin midgets through my house when I was pregnant.  I've never been able to look at a small child dressed as Charlie Chaplin since without palpitations!