This is me for real, last night.

I have recurring dreams. One in particular, when I start writing this story again. I've written it three, four times now. Each time slightly different. Each time I get to this point some improbable sequence of events brings someone to me who stops me in my tracks for a few hours.

Every time. It's gotten so I'm waiting for it to happen now.

When you write, it comes true somewhere.

In my head I'm flying above Antarctica. In my dream I'm where I have been, face plastered to the 8" plexiglass circle in the side of the C131. Jagged black mountains penetrate white ice like the backbone of the earth is splintered and poking through. Above the sky is black blue. The sun blares down mercilessly, ineptly, all bark and no bite.

In my dream I see Anna skiing across a plane of white nothingness. She's moving from nowhere to nowhere but I know she is real. She's somewhere.

In my dream she's talking to me as she skis. It's a mantra. It keeps her going.

She says to me:

"What is love? Is love what you thought you lost when I told you the life you'd chosen would hurt? Is love something you've been able to buy with all your money? Did it leave you when you left? Does your heart beat without it?

Did you find what you were looking for? Can you?

Are you done being a child?

Can love change our lives?

Would it make you happy for even one day?

Could love have stopped even one of your friends from dying of cancer?

Can it stop this glacier?

Or are we doomed to live ourselves out another life, only to realize at the last minute we lacked the vision to see we'd never lost anything at all?

When will you love yourself enough to believe

I know you?





I wake up hard, tears in my eyes.

Wife, almost asleep says, "What's the matter? Why are you up?"

"I don't know," I say. Gotta get up in a couple hours. "This is idiotic. It's nothing. Go to sleep."


I lay back on my pillow. Think--how many ideas do people have that will go unspoken?

How many stories are in my head I will never tell?

How many songs have I written no one will hear?

Pages written, trashed unread.

All these words. All this time.

When I am dead, do they just disappear, or do they show up in other people's dreams?

Anna, are you a dead man's dream?


I want to talk to the night. I want to say, "One of my characters is talking to me in my dreams, darling. I don't who she is. I miss her anyway."

My beloved is sleeping. I say nothing.

I've lost my mind.

Inpromptu nodermeets, Pt. 1: Auckland

I am currently travelling the world, the journey having so far taken me through Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The latest stage is Japan, and this particular missive is being written at a bar in Nagano-ken.

My next departure is for NZ, on the 18th of June. While I have plans for after the 24th, I'm left with a few days in Auckland with not much to do but mooch around an admittedly lovely city. If only I had some people I knew in Auckland ...

Which leads on to my proposal: would any friendly noders in the Auckland area like to get together at some point with a young British noder and his non-E2 friend?

If you'd be up for some prisoner of Her Majesty bashing between the 19th and 24th June 2004, let me know, either here or via my roaming email address - mirrorconspiracy at hotmail dot com.

Drinking (too much) on a weeknight when you have to get up at 6:30am the next morning to go to work is a bad idea. I feel marvelously rough this morning and of course I'll never do it again.

Time to go back to sitting here in a daze staring at the screen, unable to take anything in...


It's Friday people! Finally another working week is over for me and most of the other office slaves out there. Time to go and commit the Friday-night ritual of sitting around watching Tv and eating takeaway food. My theory is that all the grease helps boost my stomach lining before drinking too much on Saturday night as usual. Damn, I'm so predictable hehehe...


I bought a lo-carb protein bar today as part of an experiment in high protein foods. (I'm trying to bulk up after slimming down). It is without down the worst foord in bar form I have ever eaten. It was supposed to be chocolate and peanut butter flavour, so I was expecting a snickers-like experience. Turned out to be like really bad carob and rubber.

Mmmm.... Nice.

He had long known about them, studied them, and dreamed about them. Now, at long last, Zorbog was finally going to meet them. After a long and patient process of studying and analyzing, the perfect time and place had been chosen to meet and greet those human beings, those "Terrans," the intelligent species on the planet Earth.

Zorbog and his colleagues had chosen an institution on Earth filled with young adult humans with open minds and a thirst for knowledge, two factors Zorbog found to be perfect for meeting - for the first time - intelligent beings from another planet in their solar system. In the language most popular amoung the Terrans - English - the word for the place was "college." Zorbog, after much study, concluded that it was an institution primarily used to expand their minds and expedite their maturity into fully-adult members of the species. This "college" also included already-mature adults in roles of teaching and guidance - some of the most advanced and intelligent of their species.

Zorbog wanted to be more specific than just landing somewhere in one of these "colleges." As he often was, he wanted to be particular about where exactly in this college they were to land the ship. After even more scrutiny, he decided on one of the structures on the fringe of the campus, a "fraternity house" where young adult humans banded together and shared a special bond. What better place to first meet humanity - a place where they share close relationships with each other, form life-long friendships, and quest for greater knowledge together?

"There," Zorbog said to his pilot as they cleared Earth's upper atmosphere. He pointed to a blip on their nagivation monitor. There it was, the "college" that they had chosen. His pilot, Snozzrag, glided the ship down to the cluster of structures as their sun set on the horizon. As they approached the "fraternity house" Zorbog and Snozzrag noticed that there was some type of gathering at the structure. Large quantities of young humans were moving in and out of it. By Zorbog's count, their numbers were usually beyond the capacity of the structure. Whatever was going on, it must have been of great import for such a large gathering. Perhaps they had found out ahead of time about Zorbog's arrival, which would make them far more intuitive and intelligent than he had ever guessed. This excited Zorbog immensely.

As the ship landed, all the humans at the gathering turned to look at it. Some reacted with awe. Some reacted with fear. Others just seemed to look blankly at the ship, possibly studying it intently.

"Fascinating creatures," Zorbog said to Snozzrag.

"Indeed," Snozzrag agreed.

After their ship extended its landing gear and was settled on the ground, Zorbog opened the main door of the ship. Slowly, as all of their eyes were on him, he strided down the stairs - closer and closer to them he came. As he took each step his body tingled more and more with excitement.

Finally, it was time to speak.

"Greetings citizens of Earth," Zorbog said in their native language. He hoped that he was speaking it correctly. "My name is Zorbog. I come to greet you and extend myself diplomatically to you in hopes that your species and mine can become great friends and interstellar colleagues."

Some of the humans began to shift around, mumbling amongst themselves, far too low for Zorbog's auditory nerves to make out what they were saying.

As Zorbog opened his mouths to speak again, one of the humans - a female - finally said something loud and clear: "Where are you from?!"

Zorbog smiled. Ah, finally some meaningful dialogue! "We are from...Uranus!"

After a few seconds, some of the humans covered their mouths with their hands. They began to make unusual noises and squinted their eyes. Some even began to bend at their midsection.

"What is this?" Zorbog asked Snozzrag in his own language again.

"Zorbog," Snozzrag replied with disgust, "I believe they are laughing at us! They are mocking us!"

"Whatever for?!" Zorbog exclaimed.

"I have no idea, sir," Snozzrag replied.

As the humans continued "laughing," Zorbog fumed with rage. Intelligent indeed!

"Let's go, Snozzrag!" Zorbog commanded him.

"Should we recommend Plan B to the council, then?" Snozzrag asked. "Full scale invasion?"

"You bet your ass!" Zorbog replied.

As the stupid humans began "laughing" so hard that they were rolling around on the ground, Zorbog fired up the ship's antimatter engine. Then, they took off as fast as they could.

Another Uberman's Sleep Schedule Blog.

11:00 AM Friday June 4, 2004 - Well I just 'woke up' though I didn't sleep at all, from my first nap. I've been wanting to do this cycle since Winter, but due to school I haven't been able to. Now, however, I'm all graduated and grown up (ha!) and have the spare time to test it out. So I will be updating this as I go along, and hopefully, I'll be able to stick with it. A few notes which might make things more interesting. I live with 3 other people, who won't be on this schedule, so my nocturnal activities will be limited. On that same note it might be a little harder to try and sleep during the daytime while they're being loud. We'll see how it happens. Stay tuned!

Next

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.