Whatever.

Ok...so I lied in my last post. There will probably be another picture blog in the near future. Maybe it will be soon maybe it won't, I don't know. It's my life, I write posts when I'm good and ready...and lately I've been bogged down with procrastinating. It's a lot of work, but I'll make the promise that I will have another picture blog up by the end of the month. No one will care though, only like 4 people visit this blog...and 3 of them stumble upon it by accident, the other is my mom. Still, to whom it concern, that's when the blog post will be up.

Patience is a virtue.

No posts in a while... Well, I've been busy. School junk and that sort of thing. You know? Well...new post should be in by sometime next week. Again, be patient. Until then, here's an angry panda:

Dreamin'

Some people remember their dreams every time they have them. I don’t. On occasion I’ll remember one for the first twenty minutes after waking up, but then I almost always forget them on the way to the bathroom for my morning routines. However, there have been exceptions before. The most memorable dreams, for me, have been those on the furthest ends of the nightmare-paradise spectrum. For example, I can never forget the nightmare that has scarred me and left me terrified to this day. One day I was visiting my family in the rural parts of town. I went outside and stood next to a bush that seemed perfectly safe to stand next to. As I walked past the bush I felt something strange under my chin. I immediately thought it was just a simple itch, so I reached up to scratch it. When my finger had gotten to my chin, I touched something I couldn’t make out…but then it moved. I had a freak out in my head, causing me to erratically slap my chin. Of course, that only made it worse. It turns out the ‘thing’ under my chin was a lil’o wasp that thought my face was prime real estate.

The wasp probably saw my finger as real threat to his chances of homeownership. So he took action and stung my finger.  It hurt like the dickens.

Before that moment, I had never been stung by bees, wasps, or anything for that matter. I knew my first experience with any of these horrid beasts wouldn’t be pleasant, but this one was especially terrifying. Fingers are full of nerves, because they touch stuff, that’s what they do. And in case you didn’t know, nerves and the stingy acids in wasp-juice don’t mix well. Once I was stung, I ran around the yard screaming in sharp pain. The entire event was traumatic and the pain lingered even when I was falling asleep that night.

That’s when things got intense. When I went to sleep, I drifted into a dreamscape; I was all alone in the street at night, wearing only my undies and a t-shirt that stated the obvious fact that “I ❤ IHOP" (no clue why...). I could only hear a faint buzzing noise. I slowly turned around and saw nothing but the never-ending streetlights lining the road. I turned to face forward and began walking along the sidewalk, all the while the buzzing kept growing louder and louder. I couldn’t take it anymore. The buzzing was right behind me. I stopped and glanced back. It was there. I was being followed by the most petrifying giant wasp one could imagine. I bolted the heck out of there. I ran as fast as my dream-legs would let me go, but the wasp was gaining ground. By this time, I’d realized I was dreaming. The catch was I couldn’t wake myself up. No matter how hard I tried, the only thing I could do was run. I could almost feel the gigantic stinger driving into my backbone. Eventually I gained the will power to shake my brain out this bone-chilling slumber.

The morning after my scare, I had school. I was still shaken up by the thought of it. Everywhere I looked, there was a wasp. I would look at the different shapes of the world and my eyes would betray me, molding and morphing everything I saw into a giant wasp that wanted to kill me for trespassing on his property. Not even the people around me were safe from my paranoid outbursts.

Despite my newly developed spheksophobia, not long after that experience, I had my most memorable, pleasant dream. If you ask anyone that has known me for at least 4 minutes, you’d know that my all time favorite band in the world is Relient K. At the time, I would explode of happiness-build-up if I’d been to a Relient K concert, but if I got to meet the lead singer and head of the band, Matt Thiessen…I can’t even put it into words so it’d be kind of like this: “STyus45uS$W%U^wTWREYhg!!!!!!!!!”

So to save you the time, that’s exactly what happened in my dream. I met Matt Thiessen. It might not seem like much of a big deal to meet one of your role models, in only a dream especially, but compared to most of my other ‘happy’ dreams, this one took the cake. Most ‘happy’ dreams, if I can remember them, consist of me finding $5 on the sidewalk or other frivolous little things.

I don’t remember much of the rest of the dream. All that’s vivid is the moment I saw Matt just standing there. I ran up to him and clung to him like a lemming and never left his side.

 I have yet to meet Mr. Thiessen, but I know we are destined to see each other one day.  I have been to a Relient K concert, so that’s marked off the ol’ bucket list. And I have his signature on a bracelet that my sister gave me…it is my most prized possession. My dreams shall come true.

 On the subject of memorable dreams, another type of dream that usually gets stuck in people’s minds is recurring dreams. If you have the same dream often enough, you’ll never forget it. And I’m convinced I have the strangest recurring dream in human history. In said recurring dream, I find myself in an empty room wearing a nice, white shirt, black tie, and khaki pants. I always look around, see nothing, raise my right hand, and there it is…I have a crab claw. After looking at the claw I see a figure in the distance. I walk to the figure and it’s a well-dressed man in a top hat with wings. I always ask him how I can fix my hand. He responds, “I’ll go check” and he flies off into the distant white. I never stay asleep long enough for him to return. I assume I’ll never know if there’s a cure for crab claw.

I can’t fathom who on this planet would conjure up such a strange dream. I also can’t imagine why I would have this dream over and over. There must be a deep, psychological meaning attached to it that not even Sigmund Freud could explain. I’m definitely one-of-a-kind, but it makes me wonder if my mind is a crazy, psychedelic wonderland. It probably is.

Milestones, Late Blooming, and the Law

In life, there will always be early bloomers. The guys that grow up to be 2 feet taller than everyone else in the class and have a wannabe Tom Selleck mustache, and the gals whose faces were hit by puberty so hard they have to wear twenty pounds of makeup. However, with every early bloomer, there’s an equal and opposite late bloomer. I’ve always been the latter. I didn’t break five feet until 9^th grade, and that is including my poofy, childish up doo.

Also, the rule of early and late bloomers applies to more than just body growth; it applies to almost every milestone one must reach in modern life. There are people who get their first girlfriend or boyfriend in elementary school, where they sit next to each other in Ms. Stevenson’s class, share their animal crackers and always play the ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ together when they play make-believe. On the other hand, there are the people that find their soul mate after being single for thirty years. No matter what milestone, the point is, there are always late bloomers. As I said before, I am, always have been and always will be a late bloomer. Now, some folks may see this as a hindrance, I, though, count myself lucky. Reaching milestones later than my friends gives me a (literal) once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from their mistakes. My friends dive face-first into the frightening pool of responsibility and I sit back and watch them fail, waiting for the waters to calm. For example, it’s expected of a junior in high school to already have taken the ACT if they plan on going to college. I am planning to go to college, but I have yet to take the exam because I’m still taking mental notes on my friends’ mistakes and past experiences. I now know that it takes more than just twenty-three hours of cramming before the test to make a score above 19.

On occasion, sitting back and waiting as long as possible to reach such important milestones isn’t such a good idea. Procrastination doesn’t always pay off…unfortunately. One particular milestone that pops into my head when on this subject is the unofficial ‘teenage dream’: Driving. Most of my friends turned fourteen around the same time, while I was still a socially inept thirteen-year-old (again, a late bloomer), and they all rushed to take the drivers’ permit test. Once again, I stood on the sidelines waiting for my buddies to report back with intel, taking notes and carefully planning my approach to said test. And I spend a lot of time planning my attack. By the time I was ready to take my permit test for the first time…I was almost sixteen, and most of my friends had already taken the driving portion of their test and had been driving on the public roads with bona fide licenses for a majority of the school year like a bunch of big-shots. My friends had poked fun at me for not having a license, or a permit for that matter. After all the torture of such mockery, I decided enough is enough and dedicated myself to getting my license, no matter the cost. 

    I had no idea at the time, but rushing into such a momentous event would eventually backfire. My parents reluctantly kept up with my preferred pace of learning, moving from ‘learning the ropes’ to ‘advanced driving techniques behind the wheel’ in matter of days. Not too long afterwards, I felt confident that I was ready to pass this test. And pass the crap out of it. Needless to say, I was a wee bit cocky. My self-confidence didn’t impede my success in getting my license; I passed the road test with flying colors. The problems came when I began driving by myself. Being in a car alone and on the road gave me a sense of victory and pride that made me believe I was the best driver in the world. This firm trust in my abilities made me want to attempt driving other people around town, specifically people who couldn’t drive themselves. It gave me a sense of ha-ha-in-your-face that was better than I could have imagined.

Now comes the trouble. After driving myself to school and other places that my friends would be, I would offer everyone a ride, despite the fact I signed a legal oath not to drive with more than one unrelated minor. One day, this offer would inevitably lead to me getting one of the biggest scares of my life. I had driven myself to a Wednesday night service of church with a youth group of close friends. After the service, I stuck around moving from group to group nonchalantly asking if anyone at all needed a ride. Eventually, I was talking to a group of girls that, for the most part, drove themselves, doubting that any needed a ride home. I began believing I was driving myself home, abandoning my hope of gaining that “ha-ha-in-your-face” feeling mentioned earlier. I popped the question anyway and, low and behold, one of the girls tapped me on the shoulder asking if it was okay if I drove her home. I calmly agreed to be her chauffeur for the evening, but on the inside I lit up like the sun. Several factors made this especially exhilarating. First of all, I had someone to drive home. I was going to get the satisfaction I so desperately craved. Second, it was a girl! I had daydreamed about being the cool guy in the amazing car driving a multitude of ladies around with me…one girl in the car, for real, was close enough. Lastly, this wasn’t just ‘some girl’; this was a girl I was especially fond of, and nearly all those daydreams specifically had her in the front seat. I wasn’t happy to be driving her home. I was straight up giddy.

The two of us walked through the 8:45 p.m. darkness to the end of the parking lot and got into the car. I tried to keep it cool, I allowed her control of the radio and told a few disappointing driving jokes (what else could I do?!) and we were on our way. All was well to begin; I had good reason to be confident. I flowed over the bumps in the road so smoothly that she probably thought she was sailing on the ocean while a calm, rolling breeze drifted by. Little did I know, the planets would soon align in such a way that the dream ride with my dream girl would go awry and come to an embarrassing conclusion.

Here’s how it went down; I took a left onto a two-way street behind an enormous sports utility vehicle and we were both stopped at the nearest stoplight. Being in a short compact Corolla, I never noticed the faded signs informing me “Right turn only” from behind such a gigantic car. The SUV proceed into a nearby parking space, disregarding the signs, and I, being the ignorant teen I was having my attention drawn towards the ‘distraction’ in the passenger’s seat, followed the SUV…going the wrong way on a one-way street. I quickly became aware of my error and stuntdriver’d  my way into several of the closest parking spots, intending to right my wrong and turn right. I probably would have gotten away Scott-free…if only there hadn’t been a county patrol officer sitting at the stoplight adjacent to my pseudo-parking spot, in the perfect spot to observe every second of my unlawful flub. I turned down the correct road, taking in every consideration of the law in an attempt to leave every law I hadn’t already broken intact. However, the officers began to follow me. I could see in her eyes that my passenger was scared for me. At first, it seemed as though the officers might let me drive off.  It turns out that they were just playing a sick game with my conscience, lulling me into a sense of security from getting a ticket, allowing me to drive just far enough to allow me to think I was in the clear. But then they switched on their infamous, blinding lights.

The rest is history. I got a ticket, ‘nuff said. Although this whole incident was embarrassing to be happening in front of such an appealing lady, it didn’t turn out as bad as it could have been. She calmed me down and helped me see my mistake as a ‘funny story that I’ll look back at one day and laugh at’. Also, it happened at a fairly late hour, so there were few cars to crash into, going the wrong way and all. I didn’t get into too much trouble with my parents…although I do have to attend driving school on Saturday. Other than that, I feel lucky that the worst didn’t happen. I guess the lesson to be learned is that whatever happens, if it was something good, be thankful, and there’s always something worse that could happen. Also, late bloomers finish last…literally.

The Introduction.

Allow me to quickly introduce myself before I post any of my official posts. My name is Addison Williams, I'm a junior in high school, blah, blah, and blah. To protect my identity, in all my posts I will say I live in Wonderland. I might disclose my location some other time if I feel safe enough from people crazy enough to track me down. Enough about me though, this blog is for the enjoyment of any who stumble upon it. It contains, what I believe to be, interesting stories accompanied by some adequate doodles. To save myself the criticism, I was inspired to do this from Adam Ellis's "Books of Adam". Although, I have no intention to 'steal' his idea, in fact, his blog is 5000 times better than mine will ever be. If you haven't seen "Books of Adam", look it up. So yeah...there should be a post within the next couple of days. Be patient.

(Edit: There are now posts. Hooray.)