Not to sleep, perchance not to dream

I am having a killer sleep disorder these days, despite using my apnea CPAP thingy. I seem to wake up every hour or two with regularity, then take a while to get back to sleep. I think I've figured out what's going on. The doc from the sleep clinic told me a few weeks ago that the brain during REM, dream sleep is physiologically indistinguishable from the fully awake brain, so it's very easy for it to wake up during odd dreams. As you, my gentle readers, are aware, my subconscious mind has a habit of screaming at me in the form of dreams. About a week ago, my therapist made some connections about some of the Toby-and-Adam stuff going on in my head, and commented that it would be interesting to see how that would play out in my dreams. The underlying issue is a painful one that goes way, way back into my own early childhood. This current sleep deprivation phase began either the night I spoke with Therapy Guy or the next night. I'm thinking that I subconciously don't want to have any dreams, so I wake up whenever I get into the REM state. Whatever, it sucks out loud.

Haiku again

Two subjects are currently dominating my conscious emotions. One is present everywhere in the local environment; the other is more personal to me.

water, gone
silent city
hear, darkness

solitary hammer
trailer in the driveway
block by block

father's silent grief
sinks into the earth
love hurts

father's optimism
solid as the earth
love sustains

Thanks for the push, Andrew.

Fun with Santa

St. Mary's Autism Conference

DW and I spent the last few days in Alexandria, LA, seeing our boys and helping set up for the 1st annual St. Mary's Autism Conference. The school is looking to have its autism center serve as a resource to help school systems in the area train educators in applied behavior analysis (ABA), the only scientifically validated methodology for educating autistic children. This first conference pretty much went over the basics of ABA, and there was a fascinating presentation on brain science. Most of the participants were from school systems in CenLa, but there was a strong presence from St. Mary's new partner, Tulane Medical School, and I saw a couple of people from the U. of Southern Mississippi.

Toby and the Pope

Toby in the reception room at St. Mary's Residential Training School. The portrait to the late Pope's left is Bishop Herzog of Alexandria, who is President of the St. Mary's Board of Directors. 

I saw this postcard yesterday at the gas station, and thought how fun it would be to take my kids to something like this. Coincidentally, later yesterday, I was asked by someone who knew nothing about my picking up the card whether some of my recent angsty attitude was caused by not being able to do "normal" things with my kids. 

St. Tammany Parish--it's like a whole other country

I saw a Texas flag atop a construction project in Slidell this morning. I concocted a story that the powers-that-be in Parish Government were so offended by the Chocolate City speech the other day that they formally seceded from Louisiana and annexed us to Texas, and that, henceforth, we will no longer be known as a suburb of New Orleans, but rather, as a suburb of Houston. 

Is he really THAT bad?

Okay, so the caption actually refers to Hurricane Katrina. 

Birthday boy

Toby on his ninth birthday, Jan. 14, 2006. We had a busy weekend, chasing trains all over creation. 

Splash! There is plenty of organic matter to throw into the canal these days. 

Playing with a present he selected himself. 

Adam at church

 

We just discovered this program in Adam's latest school art project pouch. Anyhow, this is pretty creative--I don't doubt that Adam enjoyed carrying something like sand or dirt in the church procession. 

I just got me a scanner

Randy, 1964 

Randy & Dad, 1964 

Randy, 1964 

Toby with Irv Smith of the Saints, who was traded to San Francisco shortly thereafter. Fall 1997. 

Toby with Melody, his excellent day trainer. 

Shameless plug for my kid

Toby's artwork appears on St. Mary's note cards, which can be purchased for $10/box through the development office at (318)445-6443. 

Adam in the classroom. 

Santa,Schmanta, just give me some toys.

Subdued. 

Angry. 

Mending fences

Katrina is almost officially over at our house. 

We spent the better part of the weekend patching our fence. There are a few adjustments left, but it was a larger engineering project than I initially contemplated. Nevertheless, I'm determined to get over my poor homeowner self-image, and this fence-mending project is a good start. 

Cheesy dream

I was in my hometown of Ponca City, Oklahoma, which was in the midst of a cheese crisis. It seems that all of the world-famous cheddar cheese produced in the town was infected by a lethal bacteria. People around the world were sick and dying, and the reputation of the town was ruined. I, however, was immune from the bacteria. I paid a visit to the old Miller Market grocery store, and walked all around the town with a giant slab of cheddar cheese in my hand. I would pull of a bit and eat it, just to show off my immunity. I was really cocky about the whole thing.

The funny thing is that Ponca City produces no cheese products of which I am aware. DW's hometown of Logan, Utah, however, produces quite a lot of cheese. DW once worked in the mold room of one of the local cheese factories. Yummy yum yum!

Randy in outer space

This morning, I dreamed that I was in an astrophysics class. The professor was instructing us in how to fight an interstellar thermonuclear war. She was drilling us on how to climb across the ceiling while collecting and defending stars, planets, and galaxies. There was a film shown in which there was a simulated interstellar war being fought, and the instructor had a sense of urgency about her. Beneath the ceiling was a typical auditorium classroom. During lecture, we used textbooks, but I don't recall any details about them.