2001-04-20 - 9:48 a.m.

Playdoh: What does it smell like

Last Friday Redwood brought me a jar of black playdoh he got at a software conference. Even though I am a tactical person, instead of focusing on the squishy feel of the playdoh, I was more interested in the smell.

What does it smell like? To be honest, not like anything else I know. It doesn't smell like food. It doesn't have the bad body order smell or the good sex smell. It doesn't smell like paints or a chemical. It is so not metal or dirt. Not even plastic.

Yeah, as a kid smelling things was interesting. I know for a fact that Star Wars figures fresh out of the package have a smell. Still to this day I love the smell of Funker Vogt CDs. There is something in the ink of many of their CDs that smells differently than many other bands. It is odd, but still it is there.

Want My Money?

It is hard to find any industrial or gothic music on commerical radio. Steelhead, in my office, always listens to hair rock on the radio. The playlists from his stations are so short that if he keeps the same station on for a week, I can pretty much guess what days what songs will be played the next week. Well, I could if I paid a bit more attention. Some hair rock just bothers me. Sometimes it is OK, but I don't like anything that is overplayed. I'm this way with VNV Nation right now. I like VNV Nation, but I don't like hearing VNV Nation with industrial music in between VNV songs.

But I've found the perfect alternative. For over a year now I've been regularly listening to KDVS, the local college radio station. This week was pledge week, so figuring I get much more enjoyment from the resident industrial / techno program than I do my cable television (which I hardly ever watch) I pledged $35. Not much, but it should help the station.

Castles

I've been really neverous about tomorrow's Seismic Exam. A hell of a lot more than I've been letting on. I failed this part of the Civil Engineering Exam before because I am not a structural engineer. I am an environmental engineer, a different creature all together.

My therapist pointed out that I tend to avoid my problems by focusing on my friend's problems. That I will be there for them in their times of need, at the expense of my own personal issues. She challenged me to just think about how much I do this.

In a way I think everybody does make themselves busy to avoid other problems. This week I build Lego Castles instead of studying a hell of a lot for the exam. I studied some while at work. I studied a lot to and from work. But I spent some quality down time building castles.

I now have a Magic Yellow Castle in my living room and a huge grey castle that I customized to fit my needs better. In other words, I made it larger.

Right now the Lego castle men are guarding these castles which take up a large part of my living room, but I plan on moving them out and dropping my metal fantasy figures in their place later.

Fortunately these castles (many of the Legos are from when I was a kid) break down and fit in a very small box. This is the best thing about construction toys.

Dreams of Pittsburgh

I find it interesting that I've been having a reoccuring dream that involves Oakmont Pennsylvania, Post Nuclear War USA, and Plane Crashes. Two nights ago I had a dream that the minute I got off a plane in Pittsburgh that Nuclear War had broken out and many people were dead. Others simply were insane and killing everybody. A girl I was with (whom I honestly don't know who she was, just a cute girl) and I fought our way out of the airport from the Nuclear Zombies and found a diesel train engine. I was pointed the right way to my grandparents old town and I know the place well (still to this day). So we rode the train to the bridge that crossed the river to this town.

Since society had fallen, the damns holding river water back were gone, and the rivers were flooding. Most of the bridges of the Allegeney (sp?) River had structurally failed, but parts of them could be used. The bridge we choose to cross had water right at the deck level in parts, and other parts were submerged by fast moving water. You couldn't swim in the flood waters, but we got into a 4-wheel drive blazer that would try to cross the bridge. At times the blazer had to complete go underwater. I held my breathe each time, but was afraid I would need more air.

I was surprised that we made it across the broken bridge and then to prevent the nuclear zombies from following, we kicked the mostly broken steel bridge. The water ripped it free and we were safer.

When I got to the top of the hill, which should have been safe and isolated from people, I found out that Men-in-Black were there shooting everybody with machine guns. The girl and I just had to start fighting back.

Last night's dream was less violent, but still spooky. The first part simply had me and my Grandfather (who passed away last year) walking through his old town. He kept telling me what all the old buildings were and how things had changed in that time. I was surprised by how much of the town I remembered. (It probably helps that I spent most of Nov. there this year.)

The second part of my dream involved me riding in a plane with another girl (not the same one). The problem was that the plane crashed, but only bounced along the surface. We would hit the ground, bounce, have parts of the plane rip off and tear holes into the cabin, then fly again. It was incredibly cold in the plane.

I guess all the dreams of plane crashs and people invading and changing that old town in Pittsburgh might be related to my fears of change. I'm hoping most of this will go away once I take the exam.

-=-

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