Sleep With One Eye Open

  Kayla and I just watched a movie on Netflix called Exam.  When you get to the end of the movie, you realize it's just a retelling of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with grown ups.  I mean, geez.  I sat through an hour and a half to see something I've already seen but without a chocolate waterfall?  If any of you out there saw this and have any thoughts, please share them.
  I wanted to talk to you about a phenomenon that I occasionally experience.  I don't really know what to call it so I'll just describe it to you.  I'll be asleep and dreaming but I'll be able to see the room I'm sleeping in because my eyes will be open.  I can move in my dream, but I can't see myself moving.  I can put my hand in front of my face, but not see it.  I can't change the direction that my eyes are facing.
  Usually I'll try to wake myself up by moving around a lot.  I'll be moving in my dream, but my body will remain motionless.  This is called sleep paralysis.  It's a safety mechanism so that you don't act out your dreams.  Only, in this case, I want to act out so that I can wake myself up!
  The coolest time that this happened was only about a month ago.  I was successful in waking myself up, but I was in a different position in my dream than my body actually was.  In my dream I had dragged myself off the bed and I was lying on the carpet on my stomach.  My hand was underneath me with the palm down.  I could wiggle my fingers in my dream and feel the fibers of the carpet.  When I woke up, I could feel the transition between dream and reality.  There was an instantaneous change from carpet to bed sheet because I really was still in bed.  Also, in reality, my hand was under me, but with the palm facing up.  That was the weirdest sensation ever feeling my hand go from palm down to palm up within the span of a second.  Please, if any of you out there have gone through this phenomenon before, let me know.  I'd like to believe I'm not alone on this.

Underdogs

  If I was Davidson, I'd be pissed because everyone knows what you're talking about when you say you ride a Harley.  Somehow all my life, I've always been able to relate with the underdogs.  I've always considered myself to be a nerd.  Geek seems too dignified.  In school it was always the outcasts that I got along best with.  I'm only telling you this so you'll understand why so many of my characters are nerdy, live in poverty, are homosexual, have disabilities (learning or otherwise), are socially inept or have OCD, etc.
  As you already know, I have ADD.  I also suffer from depression, anxiety, anger issues and a dissociative disorder.  I'll be meeting with my psychologist soon to see if I may be manic depressive.  I'm not boohooing here, I'm just like everyone else.  We all have problems and those just happen to be my particular crosses to bear.  My point (there is one, I swear) is as follows.
  There are several bands, directors and authors out there who seem to know how I, and people like me,  feel.  The bands, Hatebreed and Soulfly, have a very positive message about how family and friends can help you through tough times and that you are the source of your own strength.  Slipknot stands up for the downtrodden with lines such as, "What the fuck are you looking at?  I'll tell you what you're looking at: everyone you ever fucking laughed at!" from their song, Disasterpiece from the album, Iowa.  I don't need to go into all the songs, movies and books of that nature out there, I think you get the idea.
  Anyway, a big motivation for my writing is to try to connect with people out there who don't feel as if anyone understands them.  If even one person out there is impacted by my writing the way I am when I watch What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, I would feel like my life had some purpose.  Maybe I just have an inflated ego.  Well, the jury's still out on the manic depressive thing.  As they said in The Importance of Being Ernest, "The suspese is terrible!  I hope it'll last."  Now that I think about it, Willy Wonka said that too.