Insanity

The only times I ever really doubt my sanity is when I'm on the verge of sleep. It's been a pretty common phenomenon for me to experience Hypnogogic hallucinations when I am falling asleep, and in the past year, they've increased in frequency.

Because of this, I tend to hear and "see" things that aren't there quite often. (I say "see" because my eyes are always closed, but I visualize them so vividly sometimes that I'm surprised when I have to open my eyes when I wake up.) For instance, I had a few hallucinations at work once, and I thought that inmates were escaping and creeping up on me to attack me. Then I woke up and realized I was hearing the clock ticking above me and it altered my perception.

Well, lately, I've been feeling things as I'm going to bed for the night, or getting up for the day. Yesterday morning I thought I spilled a jar of peanut butter on my shirt, and I was concerned with how to clean it off and if I could salvage any of it. I could really feel it on me though, that greasy peanut texture. I could smell and taste it. I woke up and realized I was just lying in bed. Then I started falling asleep and started hallucinating about peeing in the toilet and I woke up, afraid I might wet the bed (I didn't, by the way. Never once wet the bed, somehow.). Then I hallucinated again about holding an apple in my hand. All just as vivid as the last.

I rarely remember my hallucinations, but the past couple of days have been so frequent and disturbing that I've started wondering where the line is drawn between my conscious recollections and my unconscious wanderings. Again. I wondered a few months ago while I was dealing with the irritability associated with excessive sleepiness. You know, who am I if I am two different people depending on how tired I am.

The brain functions on many levels, and there are many levels that coexist psychologically as well. I'm wondering who I am at the core, beyond the irritable and lazy instinctual side of me, and beneath the complicated but confident exterior that functions from day to day.

Or do we even have a steady core at all? I'm reminded of the one and only book on cognitive psychology that I've ever read, "The Mind's I" that talks about such topics. Do we have a core that's just clouded by our minds, or are we the sum of our many layers?

Am I a brain? or, do I have a brain? If I were a book, would I be any single page? Any single explicit theme? Would I be the cover? Or would I be a chapter? Or a whole book?

Am I an eyeball? A brainstem? A collection of organs? A torso? A machine? A cluster of nerve endings?

It's all gray area for me right now. There is nothing solid to hold on to, yet at the same time, this nagging voice inside says it knows exactly who it is. This voice describes me more like a powerful computer, that just happens to have an old analogue monitor that takes a few minutes to warm up. Before it gets warmed up, it can only display a few colors, but once it's primed and ready to go, it has a great resolution and contrast ratio.

Did I just turn into a total nerd?

Battery acid + baking soda = foamy goodness

My car broke down. I thought it was the ignition switch because of the finicky way it was acting and how the power was cutting in and out as I turned the key, but I found out today that it was just the battery terminals being corroded.

Surprisingly, there wasn't as much corrosion on the terminals as there was a month ago when I cleaned them, but I guess it built up inbetween the battery posts and the cable clamps where it didn't look serious. So I poured some baking soda water on there and watched it fizz and bubble, then I scraped them down with a wire brush and now I have a running vehicle again!

A running vehicle with expired plates...

In other news, dinner is about ready. Spaghetti with clam sauce and garlic bread.

I feel a little better now

Rest is good.

At the lowest low

I went to the clinic today to get tested for mono. I'm not particularly worried about having it, but since I took half of a night off work the other day from feeling sick, I figured it would be a good idea to know for sure.

So, there I was, typically anxious as I typically am around your typical needle, just waiting around. The nurse does what every nurse does (tells me I have terrible veins that are being selfish with their precious precious blood.) and then squirms around with the needle until she can get some goodies. Well, I made it through the plasma part, and then she snapped off tubes and grabbed the one for blood (I guess? Never done a blood draw. The first tube had plasma-esque substance in it...).

As she brought the tube to the needle, I felt my vision getting hazy, and I remember saying, "I'm starting to pass out." She told me I needed to relax, and to take a deep breath.

Normally, when I need to relax, be it for meditation or to sleep or just to calm down, I will recite the Norse Alphabet. It's something I've picked up in the last couple years and it usually works pretty well. The first few letters are Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, and Ansuz, which are parallel to the Phonetic F, U, TH, and A.

Anyway, I remember taking a deepish breath, then saying in my head, "FEH--"

Next thing I know, I have a mind-numbing headache. That's the first thing I remember. Then I felt that slight tingle at the end of my penis that is familiar to all men who ever urinate. I tightened up my urethral and anal sphincters, then I took a deep breath and said, "I passed out."

Somehow, I managed to avoid vomiting. (I don't think the Dinner Pizza would have tasted as good on the flipside.) Almost immediately, I began cracking jokes, lightening the mood, my mood, trying to feel better. I was tingling uncomfortably all over, my head was swimming, I wanted to barf, I had to keep peeing...

The nurse didn't get much blood. She told me I snored in my sleep for a few seconds, and that the amount of blood she got during that time was probably enough, but we will see after she sends in the samples to the laboratory.

When it comes down to it, I'm really fucking scared right now. The humiliation, the sick feeling, the horror of not being able to handle something as pathetic as a little needle. Dammit I feel like a piece of shit. I punch walls for fun! That hurts more than the stupid needle, so why the anxiety?

Moreover, how can I ever amount to the kind of man I look up to if I can't handle the things they take in stride? On a deep personal level, I feel like I've hit a wall that I don't know how to climb. I feel like I have a part of me I can't control that will never be as focused and determined as I want it to be, and that it's dragging me down.

I'm afraid to go to sleep, which I wanted to do an hour ago...

And then...

Then I became one of those people who only updates his blog to tell people sorry for not updating enough... Yuck.

What to write? What has happened?

I most likely have mono. Rachel has it, and I kiss her pretty lots of the most of the time always, so even though I'm showing very mild symptoms, it could be just a sympathetic reaction, or maybe I just have a manly immune system.

I've read half of the Rurouni Kenshin series. Just finished volume 14 out of 26 or so.

My playstation should be coming back to me on Friday, completely fixed. I'll be relatively unhappy if it breaks again before I feel that my 150 dollar repair fee is justified. I wish I knew what the yellow light is for, cause if it's an overheating problem, I may get a cooling van for it so this won't happen when I try to run the machine for a month straight next time. I'm really big on Folding@Home and the PS3 does it really well, so I would do that when I wasn't playing. Then one day it just didn't turn on right, showing me this yellow light of doom... totally sucked.

Speaking of overheating, I now have to put frozen bratwurst on top of my video card to keep it cool while I play video games on my PC. It wouldn't last 10 minutes before I opened it up, put a 6 dollar walmart fan inside, and placed a brat on the GT8800. The problem is having a mini ATX case and motherboard, and a PSU with so many cords that they prevent all normal air circulation. I just need a bigger case, but I don't have 70 bucks to put up for it right now. Not after paying for the PS3. I guess PC upgrades are next on the list of things to do with my fun money.

Still working on my Iron Palm training. I ordered some Dit Da Jow but haven't gotten it yet. The stuff is supposed to help expedite the process of strengthening the tissue in the hands and wherever else you are trying to toughen. Most of my knuckles are healed up and showing improvement, but I think I really damaged my left index knuckle. Not seriously, I mean. It doesn't hamper my ability to do any day to day activities, but balling up a tight fist makes it ache a bit.

I can't think of much else right now. It's late and I need to clean before bed.

All healed up

The finger is all healed. Unfortunately, I overdid my Iron Palm training today and bruised the knuckles on both of my hands. They'll swell up nicely.

Not much time to update. Need sleep.

Cut my fingernail off

Yup. Trying to peel an orange with a vegetable peeler. Slice.

But then we saw this awesome sunset and I felt better.
For some inexplicable reason, I cannot get that image to flip horizontally. Bad luck. Anyway, there is a bit of a lightning strike in that picture, but it's hard to tell because the sun was hitting that part of the cloud while it struck. Was a great sunset and it reminded me a lot of that scene from Independence Day.

Now it's raining, but it's gentle and nice.