Hey, kiddo!

Last night I dreamt up my daughter again (it's the second time ... maybe third ... in this lifetime).

The first time it was a pregnancy, I remember it was as vivid as morning sickness itself.

The second time the girl was 7 or 8, and gazed at me calmly, like waiting. She had black straight hair, and a nose shape that later on I came to understand whose it was.

This third time, the kid was just a baby, maybe one year old. Same nose, same eyes, brown, downy hair. Gestures that echo those of the owner of the original nose shape. And a round, elfish face.

It's an odd day, an odd time, to be attacked by motherhood blues. It will go away.

In Absentia

Eze's been away for 4 days now. It's not much, but it feels like eternity. You know it feels like eternity when you start getting used to being by your own in the evenings and mornings. But you're not so used that you forget that there is someone who usually comforts you when you wake up in the middle of a stormy night, ridden with nightmares about shape-shifting trees that murder people. It's the void in the pillow next to you that hurts the most... but you've gone numb.

Nonetheless, I've kept myself mostly busy:

On Saturday I went shopping with my mother: one of the most productive shopping sessions I've had in my life (and I hate shopping). In the evening, I tended to the usual in Frecuencias Alternas.

On Sunday I received a visit by Alysha and Tattiana. We cooked ground meat for taquitos and I made a batch of polvorones. In the meanwhile we watched Andres López's Pelota de Letras (a Colombian comedian and his 3-hours-long stand-up routine, very funny, but exhausting!).

Monday and Tuesday have obviously been work-days, but I've managed to spend the evenings in something other than moping. I've already finished watching season 3 of Doctor Who (which was not as tragic as the ending of season 2, but just as enjoyable). I've also come across a few interesting contacts, namely Rasputina's manager (I contacted him regarding a rumored recital to be held here in Puerto Rico in November, and as he confirmed so kindly, I took the liberty of asking about the possibility of interviewing them over the phone for Frecuencias Alternas - he hasn't answered yet, but the exchange was interesting enough for me).


I also found out about a private animal shelter (No-Kill) in Humacao: El Faro de los Animales. They're a non-profit organization (with no funding by the government) that's dedicated to the care of homeless animals and the search of loving homes for them. They have a series of different programs to allow the public to participate and help as much as they can with this mission. I'm seriously considering spending at least 2 days a month in this place and help out with my time (every other saturday or some similar arrangement).

Oh ... yeah, and the reason for this last discovery: I'm looking for puppy. :-) I finally feel ready to adopt a little bundle of canine love. Let's see how soon it turns out to be.

A Hole in My Forehead

If I hear screams outside - and not your run-of-the-mill play-like scream, I'm talking about bloodcurdling, hair-rising screams - I'm the kind of person that will peek through the door's eye-piece or look out the window. Unless it's gunshots we're talking about, in which case I'll move to the innermost part of the apartment in a hurry (and it has happened more than once already). Same goes for numerous and insistent siren wails. Part of me does it because I want to be in the know (be it for the reason that it may: I like being a well-informed citizen ... or I'm just turning into an old, gossipy fart!). The "bigger" part of me does it because it gets a thrill - an adrenaline surge - out of other people's emergencies and crises. Same goes for when a hurricane is announced. The tornado-chaser in me wakes up and smiles a little bit.

Until now this part of me has had no bearing in my fortune. My curiosity has not gotten the best of me, not to the point in which any onlooker could be tempted to start talking about dead cats and such. But last night, in my dreams, it did.

I dreamt some regular Joe broke into my apartment with me in it. I tried to force him back outside, only to run into the grim figure of a dead neighbor. I had seen too much and the guys with the guns knew it. I knelt and I looked for the longest time into a brushed steel barrel (sort of flat-ish) and then it was over.

Next thing I know I'm looking at a mirror in a bathroom (not the mirror in my bathroom, but then again, dreams are fickle when it comes to spaces and appearances). What's wrong with all of this is: I'm alive but I have a gunshot wound in my forehead and there's blood streaming down my face and across my chest. Dry, caked blood. I'm supposed to be dead, but all I have to prove for it is a zit-sized hole ... a zit-size smoking, gaping hole. Not supposed to be there, was it?

Then again, when some people started visiting my home, I realized most of them were seeing something completely different to what I saw in the mirror. Something completely different from what I look like (I'm under the impression, perhaps out of a glimpse I got during the dream, that I was a girl with long, light-brown, wavy hair). I had reincarnated almost immediately, I realized, out of concern for what would happen to Eze.

I woke up with a start. It was scary enough to see me dead in a mirror. Dead-but-alive. Holding on to dear life, even if it meant invading someone else's body, out of concern for Eze. Thing is, I think I'm not afraid to die so much as I am afraid of missing out on the lives of my loved ones.

The Voices in My Head

Has it ever happened to you that when you're about to fall asleep, a throng of voices wakes you back up? There's not much in your mind, you're in that place in which you're not conscious, but you can still hear things from the outside, even if not comprehend them. Then, in a creeping crescendo, a voice shouts or shrills into your brain so hard, that you come back into consciousness with a scare. That's what I call "the voices in my head". I don't know if it's my imagination, or if its a phenomena based on scientific fact. But I know it's scary, specially when it's more than one voice. Or when the voice is a tortured scream, like the one I heard last night.

Lately, my nightmares have taken on an unexpected turn, and I'm guessing it has much to do with my recently acquired taste for Japanese terror flicks. A monster suit will leave me in stitches, but the simple image of a man transfixed in terror and trying to scream will make me shit my pants. Specially if his irises are not showing ... :-(

I was afraid that I'd be having nightmares last night. Thankfully, I didn't. Last time I had a real nightmare (not just a scary dream), Eze had to wake me up, to wrench me from whatever force I was feeling that was keeping me from screaming myself into consciousness. He told me I was mumbling. I felt like I was trying to scream, but something black and liquid was keeping me pinned down and silent (yeah ¬_¬ pretty much like Spiderman 3's venom suit). And this is not the first time he has had to wake me up. It's pretty disturbing to have to wake up a loved one because he or she is crying in his sleep (plus it sounds scary, damn! it happens to my mom, too). It's scarier still to feel that you do not have the power to wake yourself up from a nightmare.