Retro-Blog: 2014.01.03 (Originally posted elsewhere online.) My Father The Zombie

So I just woke from a strange dream.  

In it, my Father resides in a small house not too far away which I do not recognize from my waking life.  Both of my Sisters and my Mother were visiting him on the occasion of him being "awake".  In both my waking life and this dream, my father died in 2010, but in this dream he is somehow preserved, not buried, but just lying in bed in this simple little house.  

He becomes "awake" and interactive at unpredictable times, but always during daylight, and I had the sense that one of us is always there just in case, and to inform the others.  He doesn't eat or drink or go to the bathroom like a living person, but he carries on unfocused conversations and slowly putters about his little house, very much like he did in his final years when he was having one of those days when he wasn't entirely sure who was named what. 

The strangest thing about this dream is my Sisters and my Mother and I (Me?) being all in the same place at the same time with no tension or big drama going on.  The only drama was an in-dream memory of arguments with my Son who is convinced we are making this whole thing up and are all insane.  

This is just one of many dreams I have had when I have awoken with a strong sense that I had just returned from an actual place which I can only visit when I am asleep, and to which I have been going infrequently for years.  A place not part of the reality in which I am awake now, but a different reality which is simultaneously familiar and impossibly different from this one.  At this point, I've only had about two hours of sleep, so I'm going to go back to bed soon.

 

[2022 Self-Editor's Notes: Much context from my personal history would illuminate just how much stranger this dream was for me than may be otherwise evident.  However, much of that history is visited in various chambers of this labyrinthine, yet somehow monotonous blog, so I won't go into much depth here.  

I don't know of any time when being in the same room with my Mother and Sisters, particularly my older Sister, did not result in varying magnitudes of drama, but it all came to a hideous crescendo during the time leading up to and shortly after the death of my Father.  To be incisively fair, my Mother was not actually present for any of that, as she had him locked in a box of hate ever since their separation and divorce decades earlier.  

During the declining time of my Father's life, through multiple hospitalizations and incarcerations in hellish "care" facilities, I endeavored to be by his side and advocating for the quality of his care as much as possible, and my Son was there with me for most of it, helping me endure it all.

There, that's more context than content, as it is so often with me.}

Newly unearthed micro-autobiography from 10 or more years ago

[Self-Editor's Note: The headings are not mine, but from a template on a website having something to do with connecting high school classmates. I have no memory of creating a profile on this site and can't imagine what would have motivated me to be there. I found it tonight because I am trying to remember the name of a friend I actually liked, a fellow oddball outcast, and maybe even find out how and what he is doing. Maybe this is the same motive that had brought me to the site some 10 or so years ago.]

Life:

Born "James Milton Wood", legally "Michael Anthony Kepler" since 1983. Since around 1997, many have come to know me only as "Mookie". If asked for my name when ordering a blended fruit beverage or other such thing, I usually say "Elmer". There you go, full disclosure of my personal nomenclature.

Not much else to say. I "have" a wife, three kids, two cats and two dogs, and they are all much more honorable and interesting creatures than I am.

I was a mildly interesting person from about 1979 through 1984, but very few people noticed.

Since then I have been mostly boring, except for a period of being a conspicuous embarrassment to my family and all else that is decent from about 1999 through 2003. I may have even managed to become moderately notorious in a few specific bars. I have since spared my family, myself, and those bars from much further embarrassment. I don't really have to keep being boring just because I have almost 3000 characters remaining in my limit for this profile, but I will.

School:

Classrooms and I don't mix well. Usually, regardless of current age, I become an annoying prepubescent class clown. Everything I know I learned from TV, encyclopedias, and trial-and-error. Recently, I have come to realize that there are two subjects which I find interesting enough to sit down and shut up and pay attention: music theory, and history. At least I think so. I haven't actually put this to any practical test.

College:

Since I never went to college, per-se, I childishly scorn college and "college boys".

Workplace:

Jeez. For the whole sad story dig around and find my resume somewhere at tygerstudios.com [Defunct] or kepler.net [in a slow process or resurrection].

Military: I have neither the courage nor the self-discipline for military service. I suppose the military could have turned me into a man if they got their hands on me when I was younger. Now it is far too late for that.