Complain

I complain a lot, about seriously everything. The weather, my car making this weird noise, my bed, everything.

Lately it’s been about the way I look. Like nobody tells you that you turn into a man at a certain age in life. A little warning about this would have been nice. I actually enjoyed being a woman, it came with some perks that I rather enjoyed, and some downfalls I kinda didn’t. Overall though, being a woman was a joy. Now that I’ve officially hit middle age, I can say that growing a mustache and beard isn’t exactly all that much fun, and being hot all the time (especially during the summer) is annoying. I told a friend yesterday I was just waiting to grow a penis and I was good to go.

In that same conversation where I was talking to her, she was complaining. Her kids, husband, house, job, life, weight.. Everything. I never really realized how much complaining looked so negative. I even stopped and asked her “do you focus on the positive parts of your life at all?” Then felt a little dumb asking that question, because it could just as well been pointed right back at me.

My answer is no, I do not. I take the good crap in but focus on the bad.

For weeks I had been complaining it hadn’t rained here, and how we were going to have huge fires if it didn’t rain. After going out to dinner with my parents last night, we are driving home and it begins to rain. My first response? “Oh great, now everything is going to be muddy.”

Complaining should be some sort of mental problem, because even though we know we do it, and know it sounds terrible, we still do it.

Now that I’ve heard someone else do nothing but complain, I know how awful it sounds, and yet I woke this morning and complained I had to use my back up coffee instead of my favorite because I had run out. Why not just be happy I had coffee anyway? Because I’m so used to just complaining that I don’t know how not to now.

So, this is the next thing I’m going to work on in myself. Since I have to do it, so do you. Take one day and only focus on the good things, and don’t complain about the bad and see if you can do it. I’ve already failed today (the coffee incident) so I’ll join you tomorrow.

I have all kinds of faith in you!

Words

You’d think with my degree, writing, and love for reading I would have more respect for words. I don’t. I think most of the time people waste them on absolute garbage and I just don’t like listening to it.

I did realize the other day I have this ability to sit and listen to an opposing view without becoming terribly defensive about my own viewpoint. I feel like I’m waiting for them to say something to me that changes my perspective somehow. I mean, I don’t know everything. Maybe someone else has some information that hasn’t been given to me, then I’ll change my mind on the subject.

Needless to say, that hasn’t happened recently. I still listen intently and try not to roll my eyes when they something absolutely ridiculous (I do NOT have a poker face.) Then go on about my day realizing that people have their own opinions on things, and that is cool.

I think words can hurt. You can say something to someone today to completely ruin their day. Words can be an enormous weapon that nobody has a way to protect from. I also think though, that the person you say that to has to have some kind of positive opinion about you. You call a stranger stupid they will probably not take kindly to it, but won’t likely take it to heart. You tell your child they are stupid and they will have a hard time believing you didn’t mean that, and it will hurt.

We use words every day, and there are more people out there, (at least I hope) much like myself that although we understand they have the ability to be powerful, most of the time they aren’t. Most of the time they are just words, and we need to stop taking that so seriously.

I know this is primarily an introvert thing, but most of what people are saying is useless garbage. From “how are you” to “if you need anything, call me” is as useless as the cap on a pen.

Small talk has always bored and irritated me. I’ve found myself standing up and walking away from people asking me what I do for fun, or any of the other stupid questions that the answers mean nothing to the person asking. Hell, if I knew what to do to have fun, would I be sitting here having this boring ass conversation with you? No I would not. I would be doing the fun thing. But hey, thanks for asking.

It would be my guess that is the reason I don’t date. Besides the fact that I’d need someone decently interested in me, I’d have to go through the first couple of dates answering stupid questions that I don’t really have great answers for, but somehow have to answer in a manner that makes me seem like I don’t work 12 hours a day and then play on a PS4 until stupid hours of the night.

Then we have the questions like “what is your favorite color?” or the even more delightful “what is your favorite food?” With one word you’ve answered them, then need to act like you care what their favorite color is or what kind of food at that moment they think is their favorite.

I’m not saying words and conversations cannot be enlightening, I’ve read plenty of books and had some great conversations with people that left me with information I wouldn’t have had without that encounter. I’m just saying if we cut out all the crap and got down to the actual meat of a conversation, it would probably benefit us more.

Ask more pointed questions, dig a little deeper into someone. Don’t be afraid of rocking a boat that someone has put you into. Say something out loud that you believe, even if you know that nobody in the room will agree with you.

I’ve sat in a room full of racist people talking highly of other nationalities and their accomplishments. Once I left the room, a friend of mine said “weren’t you afraid?” I said “why? The worst they could do is disagree, and that isn’t my problem.”

Maybe you will get to know someone a little deeper, maybe you will change someone’s mind about a subject, maybe you can make a little bit of a difference in this world full of chaos.

Or, maybe we can just keep asking one another how we are doing.

By the way, my favorite color is dark blue.

What’s In A Name?

On October 1st, 1969 I was born Jodi Louise Dana. It was Dana because that was the clown my biological mother was married to at the time, and not my actual biological father. Had she named me after my biological father, my name would have been Jodi Louise Fisk.

None of that matters, because as you know, I didn’t keep that name. Why not? Why didn’t I keep the name my biological mother gave me nearly 51 years ago? It’s a story, and I’m going to tell it to you.

When I was 18, I decided to meet my biological family. I had this aching need inside of me to have a family, especially since the one I was thrown into didn’t appreciate my existence very much.

As I grew up, and heard stories about how I was left in a restaurant and my biological mother’s husband came to rescue me, being the wonderful person he was, I realized I wasn’t the norm. Most people had a mom and dad, and that never changed. For me, it certainly did. By the time I was 5, I would have 4 different sets of parents. Not lost on me was the fact that the people I ended up living with had an entire family that despised me. You see, a woman married the man was married to my biological mother, the man that she kept telling me (falsely) was my father.

So the man I thought was my biological father was now my uncle, and at one time I had lived with him and his new wife. Since I left that house with scars and stitches and 2 memories I hate looking back on, I assume that was a terrible time of my life.

Being thrust into a family isn’t a good thing. This whole “you need to call this person sister” thing isn’t as glamorous as they make it out to be in movies. Sometimes people hate you for intruding in their family, even if you are a 2 year old with absolutely no say in what adults are doing.

So, at the tender age of 18 I decided to meet my biological family. They couldn’t hate me, right? I mean, they know nothing about me, some may not even know I exist. My thought was they would be happy to see me, happy to know they had a niece, cousin, daughter, sister..

That wasn’t exactly the case, but from what I remember about that visit, it went well.

When I got back home (2000+ miles away) everything just hit me. It was almost too much for my mind to comprehend. Names of people swarmed through my head, and the thought of being attached to people that never cared that I grew up in a family that despised me made me a touch jaded.

I once asked my biological mother during that trip how she had come up with my name. She said she was pregnant with me, standing outside and heard someone call out for “Jodi” and thought it would be a good name for a girl, if I happened to be one. Almost instantly, I began hating that name. Once I knew it had absolutely no significance at all to my life, and was attached to a past I’d kill to get away from, I wanted to change it.

So, I went to the courthouse in Texas with my change of name papers and when the judge asked me why, I began crying and told him about my past. I told him all the names people called me, the times my name was screamed in my head and the fact that I just wanted to get on with my life and leave all of that behind me. I only remember that, and the judge looking at me and saying “you are going to need to do more than change your name to get through this you know?”

I never felt so liberated as when I got to change my name on everything. My drivers license, my social security card, everything. It felt good to get away from that, and get to living the life of Josephine instead of Jodi.

Sometimes the problem with running from the past is that the past runs faster than you, and will meet up with you again.

In a twist of fate, I ended up back in the town where my biological mother was and had to tell her I changed my name. In a moment where I should have been like “yea, well, if you wanted to name me, you should have raised me” I felt a little ashamed. I mean, she gave me life at least. Even if it was when she was married to this guy and cheated on him with a 17 year old. It is still life, right?

Every time she heard the name Josephine she said she didn’t like it, and you could tell she really didn’t. I don’t how I feel about that right now, honestly. I don’t care. I’ve not been so apathetic about something than I am that.

Now everything is about the same as it was when I was 18, after I changed my name of course. One family doesn’t like me, and the other doesn’t care that I exist.

What brought this up for me is someone had written “Jodi” on an envelope and I stopped and looked at it for a minute. It has been nearly 33 years since I’ve even thought of myself as that, and I like the idea I walked away from it with no anger or bitterness. I didn’t change my name because I hated anyone or because I wanted to make anyone angry. I changed it because I wanted to start over from the time I got to make decisions for myself, and got to stop being punished for being someone else’s mistake.

Memories

There was a point in my life I lived on an island in the Aleutian Chain. Adak, the island was Adak, Alaska. My father was stationed there in the Navy. No clue what he did up there, but I was there when I was 13-15 years old.

If you look it up, it’s a tiny island waaaaay out in the chain with about the same climate as Seattle, Washington. There was lots of wind, rain, snow, and earthquakes.

Granted, the place was beautiful. It was almost like getting involved with a gorgeous model only to find out she was an idiot that could barely put a sentence together, was awful in bed, and a complete slob.  That was Adak, Alaska.

I made lifelong friends from there, one I even call my sister today, and adopted her parents as my own. She speaks fondly of Adak, reminiscing about various memories we had and sometimes getting me involved in idle chatter about it.

Recently, she added me into a group of people that think of this place fondly, and it made me think that I was the crazy one. Like how do all these people love this place and I hate it?

I had moved from California to Alaska. I’ll tell you this right now, no state is more beautiful than Alaska. The people are great, but the state is breathtaking. I just happened to have liked the warmer climate and more ‘normalcy’ of California than I did Alaska. I didn’t have to stand at a bus stop in -54 degree weather at 5am in California, for instance.

My friends were getting into men, and I wasn’t interested yet. I remember staring blankly at a friend while she described to me her first sexual experience thinking “I’m never doing any of that, it sounds disgusting.” I’m sure they all thought I was weird when I’d rather sit in the library than hang out on the football field drooling over teenage boys.

Then I had my first crush. His name was Chris Ashenbrenner. Yes, I remember his name. He was a jock, and at the time I thought he was amazing. I remember writing in my diary that he said hello to me. That was literally the only time he even spoke to me, and I’m sure it is just because I literally put myself in his face and he didn’t want to be rude.

I remember a different Adak than these people in this group. I remember losing a dear friend, Deanna Jo Slead to an accident in the Bearing Sea. I remember everything being so expensive in Alaska that I didn’t know how people even survived. I remember babysitting for these people and them being arrested right outside their home and wondering if now I was responsible at 15 years old of raising their children.

It just feels strange watching these guys comment on posts about what a wonderful time they had and how their lives are filled with these wonderful memories when I don’t feel the same way. I hated that island, and was very happy to leave.

Of course, the fact that I then went to Honolulu, Hawaii after Adak probably didn’t help. I had many wonderful memories in Honolulu, and do remember that island with fondness.

My delight was seeing Chris Ashenbrenner in the group. He still won’t say anything to me, but talks to my friends like they are family. He’s an asshole, and I’m glad the only thing he ever said to me was hello.

Why Though?

So I’m talking to my sister today (via text) and she told me she read my blog yesterday. I don’t know why it always surprises me when people read my blogs, but it does.

I know people click on the “like” button, but let’s be honest, you can click on that whether you read it or not. I’ve done it plenty.

I had a friend that was a writer. I’ve also told you that I hate poetry, right? Well, she wrote poetry, and it wasn’t my thing. Not only was it poetry, but it was the sappy kind of poetry that made you want to grab some tweezers and poke your eyes out so you never had to read it again. But, we were friends, so I ‘liked’ literally every post of hers, and when she called me out I’d have to say something nice about it. Because I’m honest, I wouldn’t say “I loved it” because I didn’t, I hated it. I’d say things like “you rhymed very well” or “it has a nice flow” which you can say to anyone that has written anything you hate and it probably isn’t a lie.

How many of her hundreds of poems did I read? The very first one, and a few sentences of a few others. Other than that, my ‘likes’ were thrown around like candy at a parade.

I think my problem with people actually reading my posts here is that they are so personal. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, none of those tell you where I’m at in life or what I am thinking, but this blog does.

I feel like I’ve invited you into my home, sat you down, and made you listen to a story of mine, a true one, then without even getting your reaction, you left. That is what this blog feels like.

Soooo.. When someone says “I read your blog” I instantly think “oh crap, what did I say in that blog?” Then immediately go read it.

A person got in touch with me on Facebook today and asked why we weren’t friends on Facebook anymore. I didn’t remember offhand, and had to go down his profile to even remember who in the world he was.

Turns out he was a philandering ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine. Why he wasn’t blocked I have no clue, but there he was, hitting me up in Messenger as if I really needed pointless conversation from a dude that is in his 50’s still trying to be a player.

I thought about just answering with a friendly “oh! I didn’t realize we weren’t friends anymore!” But if he isn’t stupid, he’d know we haven’t been friends in over 2  years, so the chances of me not knowing were slim.

I decided I didn’t owe him friendly, and didn’t want to entertain the conversation and said “I’m pretty sure it was because you were boring.”

I don’t know why I said that actually, I don’t know or care if the dude is boring.

He read it immediately because Messenger gives you that handy check mark. He didn’t respond to it though. I just checked a few minutes ago, and he blocked me. You can tell because Messenger puts up this “you can’t respond to this message” message that lets you know.

I always hate when people block me first, it makes me feel like they beat me to the punch. So, I went to Instagram and blocked him there.

The only thing is, he has a name similar to another friends name, and I accidently blocked my friend instead.

I get a message from my friend “you blocked me in Instagram, why though?”

Karma.. Now I gotta explain the story of me being a 10 year old to a friend that I’ve known for 20 years.

What Did I Lose Really Though?

Loyalty is a funny little beast, isn’t it? I’ve written about it quite a bit, and rather enjoy the fact that it exists, when it does.

Some people think loyalty is choosing someone over someone else due to the length of time they have been around one another, and it isn’t.

I was going to go into this whole story, but it is boring, and funny in how absurd it actually is. Just say I lost people, people I had helped quite a bit, just because I stuck up for myself to someone that was bullying me. Someone that I had done so many things for I couldn’t even list them all out, and he thought it would be funny to be an ass to me. Actually, he had always been one. I would have just helped him out and he’d be an ass, nothing ever changed, other than the fact that when I finally had the last straw, it was over for me.

Dude had friends, obviously, and they chose to side with him. Like I said, loyalty can be a fickle little bitch. I think it’s because they all have penises, but I’m sure they would say that knowing him 3-4 months longer than they knew me was the deal breaker. (Eye roll goes here.)

Whatever it is, all of them are now gone, one by one, and I’m left wondering if I’d ever do that again.

Will I be that helpful again? Because I certainly wasted my time being as helpful as I was with them. Will I use my energy to try to be part of a group again to find out none of us are really friends at all? Because honestly, we weren’t. I was an idiot. If we were friends, they would have talked this out with me, we would have come to some sort of agreement and still be talking today.

But we aren’t, and most likely the reason is because I don’t have a penis.

It wasn’t a loss, it was an eye opening experience for me. It will make me more cautious, less helpful, and most likely will make me keep my guard up until something happens and I have to see if these people will fall into this fake sense of loyalty or not.

So the only friend I have left out of this group is a guy that is brand new and the ass actually did a pretty crappy thing to him too, and instead of being offended (like I was) he deleted the ass. Then he deleted the asses friends.

When a friend of the ass came back to the new guy and said “hey, he didn’t mean to do that, he is really sorry” and I was told about it, we both thought to ourselves “because he meant to do it to Josephine, and accidently did it to the new guy.”

We were right, of course. He did mean to do it to me, again.

I’ll most likely beat my head against a wall wondering why someone I helped as much as I helped that guy would be an asshole to me, but I hope I don’t. I hope someday I’ll realize he’s just an asshole and his friends are just as much assholes and I didn’t really lose anything in not having them as “friends” anymore.

 

Looking Back

I don’t why, but September is always the time of year I look back on the past few months and wonder what I’ve done, and if I was even remotely moving forward during that period of time. This gives me 3 more months to do what I need to do to make myself more productive. That way, I can look back on the year and decide I had done everything I could have done to be productive.

This year was a bit different, since COVID and the things that happened from that. I came into the year snoring. Yes, I was asleep at midnight when the world was ringing in 2020. I had pretty bad PTSD, and barely made it through a day that I wasn’t having a hard time coping with life. I honestly felt like I was drowning, only it was slow and more precise than that. It was almost intentional and devious, something had taken me over and I couldn’t quite get a handle on it.

Being abused as a child makes you hate yourself, then coupled with being abused as an adult, it can really do some major damage to your psyche. Getting over that is hard, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Over the course of the past few months, I scared myself a few times. I got too close to people, then would get frightened, and rip those people out of my life. It was safer for me to have people that I wasn’t actually that close to be friends with me, than to even maintain friendships that had been going on for decades. Strange thing, that is. People that really love you kinda understand, and those that don’t just trickle away like a feather in a stream, never to be seen again.

I did manage to trust a couple of people explicitly, one was my sister Kathi, and the other was my counselor. There was no doubt in my mind those two had my best interest at heart, but everyone else on the planet was questionable, at best.

I had a terrible fall in February that left me with fractures, 4 x-rays, 3 MRI’s and a breast cancer scare that is one for the books. I refused to let anyone in on that. When people would ask why I was walking strangely, I’d tell them I twisted my ankle. I didn’t want to tell anyone I fell down stairs and was actually walking on a broken foot.

It is hard being vulnerable to people, and especially after you leave an abusive relationship. I always want to be tough, resilient, and even seemingly uncaring sometimes when I probably shouldn’t be. You don’t want anyone to think they are actually GETTING to you, because nobody GETS to you anymore, you are tough.

March had me beginning to think I could pull it all together, then finding out that because of a pandemic, I couldn’t. Where I should have been proud of myself for doing everything I did to try to change my life, I just looked at it as another failure.

I lost people along the way, people I had loved, grown close to, and even ones I thought would never walk away from me did. I also lost people through death, unexpected deaths. One was a radio announcer from our town. We had gone out to lunch and dinner a few times, he showed me around the radio station where he works, I even took cookies I had baked to him a couple of times when he was working. He had a blog, and I was supposed to encourage him to write, which I did. Now he’s gone, and the world will never hear his voice or read his writing anymore.

Another was a bartender in town, she and I had many conversations about PTSD, men, and many other things. Now she’s gone, and the world won’t have her sense of humor or that great smile anymore.

April through July were a blur of nothingness as we were kept home and not allowed to even go out to eat, then a trip to my sisters house where I learned that maybe I wasn’t as crazy as I thought brought me back to a reality I could finally comprehend.

A phone call from a friend that chided me about my inability to write made me sit down and cry. He told me the truth, harsh as it was, as he understood it, just like friends do. I once liked that about him, and after I was over the indignation, I realized I still do. He was right, I gave up on the one thing that made me whole, whether anyone ever reads anything I ever write or not, it is something I’m meant to be doing, something that makes me happy, and honestly, it completes me.

I feel like there was a huge war around me, and I’m now awake and standing looking at the rubble. I’ve lost people, gained none, and still there are people standing next to me that never once thought of leaving my side. It’s easy to lose people, sometimes all you need is a contrary opinion, I’ve learned that sometimes though, it is hard to lose people, that no matter what you’ve done or said, they will be standing there next to you, cheering you on, waiting for your next step and hoping it leads you to where you are meant to be going.

My next three months I plan on finishing up a book, publishing it, and continue with my short story writing. I hope to make the people that stayed by me feel as appreciated as they are, and the ones that didn’t not feel guilty for not staying. It’s hard to stand by someone pushing you away, I know that very well. I just know that I’m finally awake, finally living, and finally able to put just a tad of trust into people again.

Make your next 3 months count, especially since we don’t know how much time we have left.

Why So Serious?

I may have mentioned that my personality someday will be called a disorder, and if I haven’t, then there is my mention of it. Need to get all that out of the way before I delve into this.

As you know from previous blogs, I got a tad (quite a bit) into gaming since the pandemic. It kept me sane when I couldn’t go out running around at night after work anymore. It was a coping mechanism, as well as a distraction for me. I played it like I do everything else in life, with all of me involved. If I couldn’t overachieve, then I wouldn’t do it. In that case, it would have been better for me to play Farming Simulator instead of games like Read Dead Redemption where people are trying to kill you instead of leaving you alone to get rich.

In the course of this, I had “met” people that I thought were friends. We’d chat it up, all while trying to protect and help one another navigate this game.

Most people play games with little seriousness, and those people I cannot relate to at this point of my life. I’ll give you an example.

I’m showing a friend of mine this game called “Skyrim” where it nearly, but not completely, guides you through becoming a pretty awesome warrior. He makes the person the way he wants him to be, then gets put into the game. What does he do? Immediately shoots a guard and I gasp. “No, that isn’t what you are supposed to do, find the damn dragon and kill it so you can become a d..” Before I even finish, he’s died 5 times and is now laughing at how he’s made the entire town angry at him.

I sat there appalled. How in the world do you go into a game and just start doing whatever crazy things you want to do? After a half an hour, I’m up washing dishes because I just cannot fathom his craziness he asked me to come see what he’s done. Every time he dies, he returns and is immediately killed again because he’s level one and there are 14 guards standing there killing him. “What do I do?” he asked. “Umm…. Kill the damn dragon and become dragonborn so you can actually kick these guys butts.” I tell him, sarcastically.

As I’m retelling this story later on to my counselor, he asks me why we play games. I think the answer to this varies from one person to the next. In my friends case, he plays to have fun, regardless of what he’s really supposed to be doing, and I play to gain stuff. I’m either there to get rich, or to amass a bunch of weapons, or in the case of some games, to be the last player standing.

Is that really fun to me? Absolutely. I like the climb up the mountain as much as I like the view.

I haven’t found a game that I’d be willing to play that I just had fun at. Fun to me is sitting by a fire, having a beer talking to a friend about whatever we want to talk about.

Which actually is my problem. Why am I playing them if they aren’t even actually fun? I think there are fun aspects to them. In Red Dead, there are some fun things. I like trying to find the legendary animals and seeing if I can get through a mission from that crazy woman. It was a little fun to try to become level 20 bounty hunter when I sucked at it. The rest of the time I was in competition with myself to find out how much gold, money, horses, and levels I could amass in a short period of time. I was grinding, most of the time, trying to get all of that, and more.

These ‘friends’ that I met, they aren’t really friends, I took that all too seriously as well. They knew nothing about me, nor did they particularly care. We just played a game together, that was it, and that ended when I stood up for myself against being bullied and they began deleting me from their friends lists, or ignoring me all together.

I think I need to reevaluate gaming and realize it is just a game, not take it quite so seriously, and find a happy medium between who I am and being killed 90 times at level one because I find it amusing.

Papers

You know when you get something handed to you and people expect you to be excited about it? It can be a high school diploma, divorce paperwork, or even your taxes. When you tell people they are all excited and you think in your head that maybe you should be excited too, but you can’t seem to find that anywhere.

In my case it isn’t any of those, but another paper that left me sitting in my car remembering what a fool I was. It will be a reminder of nearly 3 years of my life that I’ll never get back. It’ll be the little voice that reminds me that I make poor decisions and sometimes overlooks things I shouldn’t.

I waited about an hour before I text the first person that I had received this paperwork, because I knew the reaction. I knew I was SUPPOSED to be happy, but wasn’t. I knew I’d have to feign like I was, then deal with whatever I really did feel once I was done running errands and got home. So immediately after the first text, I text my counselor.

Just be aware that not everything everyone receives is good news, whether you think it should be or not. Sometimes it is a reminder of something else, something they don’t talk about.

If someone calls you, or texts you and says they received their divorce paperwork, don’t just assume they are thrilled (unless you can clearly tell they are.)

Sometimes a piece of paper can be the thing that rips a scab off a wound, and we should be mindful of that.

Oh yes, and I have a short story blog you can find HERE.

So Did You Cry?

In less than a month I age again. Pretty sure I’m not going to acknowledge this one either. Most of the time my birthdays pass with little to no fanfare, maybe a phone call from someone, a few comments on Facebook because they are reminded, but nothing too out of the ordinary happens. Thus, I can ignore them like they don’t happen. I MAY tell people I’m 29 this year, or I may just stay 28, I haven’t really decided yet.

A friend calls me just before an appointment today  and I take the call, it’ll be a nice distraction. She tells me about a dream she had last night where she was pulled over by the police, her car was searched and they found drugs, so they started hitting her. In my head I’m thinking “yea, I’m sure that is exactly how it goes, they find drugs and beat you.” But I don’t say that, because it is insensitive and I’m trying to be a better person. Instead I listen to her wild explanation about how she tried to get up and explain it wasn’t her drugs, then decided to just relent and take the fall for them, since they were in her car and all.

After the story is over, she sighs and says “what do you think that means Josephine?” As if I am some type of dream interpreter or something. “I don’t know” I tell her “maybe you have a problem with authority and just need a beating every now and then?” We both laugh. She continues “they didn’t even stop beating me until I admitted the drugs were mine.” Knowing this friend like I do, she wouldn’t even know a drug if one fell out of the sky and hit her in the head, which to me made the story that much funnier. “Maybe you just need to admit to something you didn’t do to shut someone up? Does that sound familiar?” I ask her, half joking. She sighs again “I guess our minds are just crazy, the last thing I watched was that damn cooking show you got me hooked on, so I don’t know how it went from that to being beat up by police.” I tell her it is nearly time for my appointment, but I’m no dream interpreter, and wouldn’t take it seriously. She asked me what I dreamt about last night and I told her I remembered very little of it other than some dude telling me I was hideous and needed to live in a cave. She asked “so did you cry?”

Nah, I punched him in the throat, woke up and had some coffee.

Like a boss.