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The night after I had that last dream, I told Jim that we must eat the fortune cookies that came with our dinner for luck, since my dream could mean I’m about to die.  He agreed.  I opened my cookie and groaned.

Jim: What is it?

Me:  “You’re next in line for a promotion.”  A promotion is the next step to something else.  And what comes after life?  DEATH.  My promotion is DEATH.  What does yours say?

Jim:  “You will regain something you’ve lost.”

Me:  It’s your single status!  Because I’M GONNA DIE.

Go ahead.  Laugh, make fun, but the cookie prophesied it.  You’ll see.  One day, I’m totally gonna die.

If my dreams are predictions, let me jot this down while I’m thinking about it:

Last night, I had a dream–well, really, a recollection while I was sleeping, heh–of several of the death scenes from Sailor Moon.  That’s what woke me up at 3:30 AM.  Seriously.  I was like, “Wow.  I haven’t thought about that show in a long time.”  By the way, you might think it’s a silly show–okay, in all fairness, there’s a lot of silliness to it–but Sailor Moon has some pretty moving death scenes.  What this foretells: I will be buying Sailor Moon, even if only for nostalgic reasons.

Da-da-DUM.

Then, the night before that, a dream that I only partially remember, and this part, I only remember because it was so bizarre: I was in an auditorium with a crowd full of people.  One woman, located dead center of the room, had a big, misshapen head.  She got into a fight with another woman.  The other woman slapped her and part of the Elephant Woman’s face caved in, as it were made of styrofoam.  There was a  collective gasp and people backed away.  Did Elephant Woman bat an eye?  No.  Instead, she got on her soapbox and started lecturing about how this is why Canadians were better than everyone else: They would NEVER hit someone with a gigantic, spongy head.  What this foretells: Someone’s gonna bitchslap a Canadian, and we’re all gonna be horrified, because who hates Canadians?  Nobody–unless they’re preachy like this lady.

All right.  My foretelling has been foretold, folks.  Impressed?  No worries.  I won’t be quitting my day job any time soon, heh.

In other news:  About a month or so ago, I mentioned to Jim that he and I needed a hobby together.  We both like Warcraft, true, but with only one computer, we can’t actually play together.  We can only afford so much gas to drive around (although we both love going for long car rides and chatting), and I can only handle watching so much TV before going nuts.  So, a few weeks ago, while in the shower, I suggested something to Jim I’d never thought I’d suggest:  D&D.

Seriously. 

There’s a catch.  Jim has tried running a game with just me, Shannon, Phil, and himself back when we first started dating.  This fell apart quickly.  I’m too timid for that kinda stuff.  Not to mention the fact that I felt ridiculous and wondered what kind of cult these people were trying to suck me into.  (Jim admitted later on that he was worried I’d dump him because he was “too weird.”  And I was worried he was gonna dump me because I wasn’t weird enough!)  At the time, I didn’t really know any of them well enough to be comfortable.  Now?  Well, I’m pretty much just 100% comfortable with Jim, period, end of story.  Anyway, Jim had once mentioned that he made a game just for his little cousin to teach his cousin how to play, so I knew he could do one just for me.  So that’s what I asked him to do: Create a game where just he and I will be playing.  Bashfulness shouldn’t be such an issue, then, plus Jim’s prepared to do a little handholding along the way since he knows I have zero clue as to what I’m doing.  And we will be doing something together!

I’m trying really hard here to get interested.  I’m trying to come up with a character and everything.  I’ve decided on a druid.  Jim said humans and elves were best for that, so I picked human.  Human over elf because…well, I am a human, so I have a frame of reference there.  Not really sure what elves are like exactly, aside from kinda prissy.  To get into the spirit, I’ve even picked up Jim’s Masters of the Wild: A Guidebook to Barbarians, Druids, and Rangers.  I secretly call it “Dork Training 101,” but I’m trying hard not to say that to Jim’s face, heh.

But I think going over to the dark side will be worth it, as Jim seems to like this idea a lot.  Although he’s admitted to me before that he was glad I wasn’t a “gamer girl,” he’s also turned around and told me he thought it was too bad I didn’t game because he thought I’d be good at it.  (Not if I don’t get over the bashful/uncomfortable/they’re-gonna-lock-me-in-a-room-and-make-me-read-religious-texts-about-dragons feeling.)  Don’t ask me what makes a good gamer, though.  He just said I knew a little bit about a lot of things.  To me, that just makes me sound like yet another Liberal Arts major, unable to make a solid commitment to any one subject.

And on the subject of commitments, I’ve gotta pick my geek–er, man–up from work.

I hate trying to hammer out posts in a mere five minutes before I rush off to work, but MAN.  The other night, I had a bad dream that I had died.  I’ve had a lot of those dreams before, although not recently, but before, I actually liked those dreams.  But this one sucked.  I imagine that the fact that I’m happier now is the reason I wasn’t so thrilled in the dream about dying.  But at any rate, that actually wasn’t the sucky part.  The sucky part was that once I was buried, my spirit couldn’t leave the coffin.  I was trapped there.  And then I realized that it had been like this as long as humans had been burying their dead, and that we had a planet full of trapped spirits who had been that way for centuries.  It was one of the scariest–and saddest–dreams I’ve had in a while.

Last night, I had a dream that one of my (male) friends made a pass at me.  To make things more confusing, this was a friend that I kind of liked before but quickly dismissed as not being a good idea to do anything with.  At any rate, in the dream, he tried to kiss me, and then I had to do that awkward thing.  You know, where you push him away and tell him, DUDE.  Maybe once it might have happened, but you had your fifteen minutes of chance, and even then, by minute sixteen, I realized it would be a bad idea.  And now?  I’m so not interested.  I’m not dating Jim just to fill up the time.  I’m dating Jim because he’s the one I want–not you.

The guy looked upset, which always makes me feel bad, and gave me a look that made me realize that I would lose yet another friend this way, similar to the friends I’ve lost this way in real life.

Hormones sucks.  I’m glad this was just a dream.

Once upon a time, when I first met Jim’s mom, she told me that when Jim and I first started dating, he told her that I had “a devil cat.”  I had two cats at the time, but the one he was referring to was Emmy.  Mind you, if you piss Emmy off, she will give you a warning–usually a few growls–and if you don’t move your hand, she will nip you.  I don’t know.  I always thought it was fair.  I mean, she did give you warning.

When Jim first met Emmy, he was bitten a lot.  Funny how quickly he trained her not to do that–and how quickly those two got close.  Fast forward to yesterday, when Jim told me that he had a nightmare that Emmy’s original owners came by, claiming that had had her chipped, tracked her down that way, and wanted her back.  Jim refused to give her to them.  So they took us to court and we were ordered to give her back.  Jim still refused.  They showed up at our apartment with cops.  Jim ran into the bedroom, put Emmy in the carrier, then jumped off the balcony and ran off with her.

Funny what a guy will do for a “devil cat,” heh.

There is about an hour or so to kill between dropping Jim off and when I have to get ready for work, and I have to admit, I really like this time.  It’s nice and peaceful.  What have I been doing during that hour?  Watching TV.  Surprising, I guess, since I don’t really watch much TV on my own–usually, Jim and I watch DVDs and it’s definitely almost always his idea, and after about two hours of it, I’m begging to have the TV turned off because, my god, there’s only so much I can take.  (Jim, in case you haven’t caught on, is a TV whore–er, I mean, “buff.”)  But mostly, I’ve been watching the news.   I can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  For example, after I watched CNN’s cheating death about suspended animation the other day, I’m now convinced that we’re just paving the way for zombies.  Suddenly, Jim’s “zombie contingency plan” that I laughed at when I first started dating suddenly doesn’t sound that crazy.

Laugh.  You just don’t know.  But now I have something new to think about at work: Cubicles overrun by zombies!

Anyway.  Things are pretty good.  A couple posts back, I wrote about dreaming about getting an error at work.  Two days later, it came true.  I fought it hard and had it removed.  Yay me.  Let’s see, what else?  I got a raise at work.  A good one.  Technically, I also got a promotion with it, but really, all it is is a slight name change.  It’s still the same job.  I texted Jim my new wages; he was impressed.  Speaking of jobs, Jim had another interview.  He sounds like he might actually want this one, but we’ll see how it goes.  We’re both really liking his new schedule here at his current place, and if he went to this other place, I’d bet money he’d wind up back on thirds.  And bah to that.

Relationship stuff: Jim and I are doing great.  Although, honestly, I’m not sure I’d post about it if we weren’t, but luckily, we are.  I guess some people are in the dark about it though: Jim invited his mom up to our apartment the other day, and it was only then she realized that we lived together.  I mean, I know that she knew we were serious, but I don’t think she realizes how serious.  Jim’s positive he’s told his mother he moved in with me and she apparently forgot.  But I guess now the news is traveling to the other unenlightened people in his family.  Jim’s brother, the one in the military, called Jim the other day.  One of the bad things about a lot of cell phones is you can hear EVERYTHING the other person is saying, and I heard him asking Jim about how he had heard that Jim had moved in with me, then he asked Jim if things were going good with me, to which Jim replied, “Yeah, they’re good.  REAL good, actually.”

Ha.  Told you that we were doing well.

Well, the alarm just went off, which means now I really need to get ready for work.  Ugh.  What a long week.  But at least it’s Friday, yeah?

Just woke up about fifteen minutes ago, which makes it 11:00 AM on a Sunday morning and something I’m not thrilled with.  I don’t like waking up late on weekends–I want as much of the weekend to myself as possible, so it’s not uncommon these days to find me up and about at 6 or 7 on a Saturday morning–but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I slept so late.  Last night, I was up until 2:30 AM and then got up at 6 to pick Jim up from work.  Needless to say, when we came back, we both crashed.

Speaking of his work, Jim freaked me out last night when he called me after midnight from work to ask that I bring over medical supplies, as he had gotten hurt.  I flew over there as fast as I could, but (thankfully) instead of finding out that Jim was nursing a bullet wound or an amputated arm while dutifully waiting on customers, I came to find out that it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. 

Hm, what else?  Life’s not all that exciting.  Well, it’s good for me, but I imagine it wouldn’t be so exciting for anyone else to hear about.  Jim and I plan on moving his stuff in Monday and/or Tuesday.  We’ve both told our parents that we were officially moving in together.  I told Jim last night that I e-mailed my father and let him know, and I think Jim was surprised.  See, my parents are Southern Baptists, very conservative ones.  They’re also not stupid.  I know they know Jim is pretty much living here, anyway, and they’ve had other daughters do the same thing, so this is not new or shocking for them.  Also, I once told my father that if I ever got married again, I would want to live with the guy first.  I want to know what I’m getting into this time arond, and it’s harder to fake not being an asshole when you’re first waking up and not feeling well or something to that effect.  At any rate, my dad just e-mailed me back and said he was glad I was okay.  Just like my father:  I know this isn’t the way he’d prefer his “baby girl” to do things, but to him, it’s more important that I’m all right and I’m happy.  Honestly, I don’t think my dad liked the idea of me living alone, anyway.

I wonder if he’d feel any better that Jim’s already admitted to having put thought into buying me a ring?  We both already know where this is all going to lead; it’s just a matter of time before it gets there.

So.  I think what Jim and I both expected to happen after he moves in, though, is slightly different.  Me, I thought Jim was just going to help with the rent, and I wasn’t even going to ask for anything more than what he’s paying his dad for now as I don’t want to overwhelm him.  Jim brought up the topic of bills last night, and I came to find out that he pretty much wants to split almost all the bills:  the car, insurance, and rent.  (My rent, by the way, includes all utilities.)  I balked and just told him paying rent would help me tremendously, but maybe there’s another reason for Jim put something toward the car too.  I mean, he uses the car all the time as well, and I’m always telling him that I consider it his as well.  Kinda hard to think of something that way if you don’t pay anything towards it.  I’m still reluctant…Maybe I’ll just let him pay a bigger chunk of rent than I originally was going to.  I don’t expect him to pay what I pay as I make more money than he does.  Like I said: I don’t bills to overwhelm him the way they’ve overwhelmed me.

The other item of conversation was sending one of us back to school.  We’d both like to go, and he offered to support me while I went, but practically speaking, it makes more sense for Jim to go.  I already have an associate’s and a bachelor’s degree; Jim just has a high school disploma.  I make more money than he does, so it’s be easier for me to help him get through school than for him to help me.  One of the things I warned him, though, is that if he gets a degree in what he wants to do, which is teach high school English, we might have to move as getting a job in southern Illinois might be difficult.  We both love it here, but unlike Jim, I’ve lived other places before, so I can move along if need be.  I worry about him, though.  He knows so many people down here.  I’m not kidding.  The other day, we were waiting for our order in New Kahala (a Chinese restaurant here in town), and we saw no less than five people that Jim knew just while waiting .  I find it a little suffocating.  I personally like privacy and anonymity, which Jim knows, and I think that’s why lately he hasn’t been introducing me to people–to protect it as much as he can.  See how considerate he is?

Hm.  New topic:  Lately, Jim has been working on his little army guys–er, Space Marines–and he’s told me I can help paint them if I want.  The little girl inside me jumps up and down at the idea of this.  I mean, when I was little, I wanted to paint something.  Anything.  I thought models of anything  were really cool.  Cars, trains, planes…I probably would have liked them all.  Even now, I’ll tag along with Jim to the gaming store here in town and look at the minitures with him.  I always ask to see what his progress is and he asks me for input on his painting schemes.  Yes, I still think they’re really cool.

However, the adult in me looks at his minis and thinks, “I’ll just screw it up.”  I used to be a good artist.  Something that I realize now as I’m older was that when I was younger, I was blessed with a natural ability in many things that others had to work at.  The bad thing is that I didn’t appreciate it so I didn’t take advantage of it, and even with natural abilities, if you don’t use it, you lose it.  And I have.  I can’t paint.  Are you kidding?  Do you not remember I have this reoccuring problem with my blood sugar crashing and getting nauseous–and shaky as hell?  I’m shaking most mornings when I wake up.  There is no way I can paint tiny little army guys. 

So, I politely declined his offer and bought a sketch book instead.  It’s sad I lost the ability to draw, but maybe I’ll just have to do it like everyone else and actually put some effort and time into it.  Maybe I can get it back.  But I do have something specific I want to sketch and eventually paint.  About a year and a half ago, I had a dream, and the scene stuck with me:  I was in an apple orchard with my parents.  There was a full moon, making the leaves look as if they had been dipped in silver.  Runes hung on the tree branches.  It was obvious to me that this was a very sacred place–I”m not sure I’d say the Garden of Eden, but it does make me think of that–and ever since I’ve had that dream, I’ve wanted to paint the scene and hang it on my wall.  I mean, hell, most everything people put on their walls don’t mean squat.  I would kind of like things that do mean something to me somehow.   Make sense?

Ugh, it’s after noon already.  I really don’t want to spend the entire afternoon on here.  I have Warcraft to play!  I”m sure there’s some errands in there as well, but meh.  My weeks are for adult things.  Weekends are for me, damn it.  No grown-ups allowed.

Adieu, suckas!

Right now, I’m watching Twilight.  Funny how I”ll watch movies over and over again that I don’t really feel strongly about.  I know a lot of people will hate me for this, but I don’t quite get the big fuss over the movie.  This might sound funny because I have all the books and the movie, which I watch repeatedly.  It’s not that I dislike the Twilight.  It’s all right.  It’s just for me, it’s a “comfort” movie, one that I put in just to have noise in the background and forget about.

One could argue that there really isn’t much of anything I feel strongly about anyway, except maybe Jim and a couple others.   And, of course, my cats.  I feel bad admitting this, but there are people I used to talk to and really like a lot, and when we drifted apart, it just didn’t bother me.  I know that sounds awful, but it’s the truth.  I care a lot about people, I’ll worry about them and all that crap, but if they go away, that’s just fine by me.  I don’t know why I’m like that.

OH.  When I mentioned my cats in that last paragraph, I remembered this AWFUL dream I had last night.  In my dream, I had all the cats I’ve ever had:  Tigger and Kili (who are now dead), Gypsy (have no idea what happened to her), Ash (who my ex gave to a friend of ours without my knowledge and then lied about it to me, telling me that the cat had run away), Piper and Emmy–the two who are now with me and Jim. 

Okay, so now that you’ve had the cat rundown, in the dream, I had a gun and was told I had to shoot them.  I don’t remember why, but it was “shoot them to save them” kind of thing that is only logical in dreamworld.  I shot Tigger and Kili, but my hands were trembling so bad because of the horror of it, they didn’t die.  In fact, they seemed all right, just hurt.  I started to cry and begged the mysterious, invisible person who was making me do this.  I insisted that maybe we didn’t really need to shoot them to save them.  Maybe we could reverse what I had just done.  I looked at Kili, who rolled a little on his back and looked up at me with big, round eyes.  His stomach was shaved, just like it was in his last days from the constant visits to the vets before I lost him to pancreatic cancer.  Emmy huddled near by him.  I couldn’t imagine losing her, too.

God, it was awful.

Okay, enough about depressing dreams.  Normally, I’m not alone on Thursday nights, but apparently, they changed the schedule at Jim’s work on him.  Last night, he was supposed to go in 1 AM, but he got a call at 10:20 PM right when were in the middle of watching an episode of Angel.  So that sucked, especially because Jim has been sleeping a lot earlier this week (hence, why I’ve been able to do so much leveling on Warcraft lately), so I had been looking forward to spending time with him.  I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow night, although I know he’s going to be busy with his new toys.

Which brings me to the new thing around here:  Jim is obsessed with Space Marines.  I call them his “little army guys,” which, apparently, Jim’s boss finds humorous.  Jim’s obsession is evident on my desktop: He has a wallpaper of one with a caption that says I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over how awesome I am.  He and his boss (who is also a very good friend of Jims) have decided they’re going to start playing Warhammer 40k .  I’ve already been advised that this is going to happen on Wednesdays–okay, not “advised” because Jim always asks if things are okay with me first–but playing the game won’t happen for quite some time.  Turns out all those little shits have to be painted.  Sometimes, I just don’t get the whole “gaming” world.  See, to me, that sounds like work, not fun.  How is that a game?  Warcraft, I can deal with: I point, I click or hit a button, I kill or get killed.  Okay, it’s not quite that simplistic, but I play games to relax, not do more work.  Still, I support Jim if he wants to do this.  As a consequence, I have little army guys stripped down to their little white butts around my apartment, waiting for Jim’s paints to arrive.

(Okay, I exaggerate.  Clothing doesn’t appear to be optional on these guys.  Which, SEE?  Less fun.)

Well, the pills I took earlier are making me drowsy, and frankly, I was oddly exhausted today, so I think I’d like to get a little extra sleep tonight.  I think I just bored myself sleepy.