Last night I had a terrible, terrible nightmare. I have "bad dreams" far less often than I have good dreams and I tend to have a lot of very great dreams. I should come up with a word that's the antithesis of nightmare because I'm clearly lacking in what seems like a necessary word. Despite the generally good trend in dreaming every once in a while I find myself consumed by a horrid nightmare.

When I have nightmares my doppelgänger takes all of the pain, bad memories, regrets and fears that are buried deep in my head and molds them into torture devices. My sleep paralyzes me as I'm tortured for a length of time that only exists in dreams. They hurt me so bad it takes at least a week to recover and that's just the outer me. The inside me never recovers, it just flutters about like the embers of a fire disturbed. My fucking nightmares make sure that the shit in my head stays the status quo. No one ever recovers from a nightmare because we are all our own torturers, its as if they are contingent of reality.

In my nightmare last night I was faced with the death of my mother. My mother and I were sitting on the floor in a room with a staircase going up. Next to me was a good friend that I never met before in my life yet knew well inside the nightmare. My mother went to introduce my already friend to me and used the wrong name. The act of senility was like and ax to the soul. My mother isn't senile in real life or even up to that point in the nightmare. That was just the torturer dragging up my fear of losing myself or my faculties. I'm sure we've all seen it before and I'm also pretty sure we wish we never had.

As the condition quickly set in on my mother she collapsed in an almost drunken manner next to the staircase. I rushed to be by her side and as I came close I could hear mummers from my mom. They don't make sense to me but in my head she was muttering painful remarks and observations about her life and the world in general. Deeply painful existential utterances that act to remove all morale from the world. What made it hurt even more was the fact that my mother is nothing like that. She's very optimistic despite the terrible things she's been through in her life and she never ever acts demoralized or defeated. God it just crushed me to hear the things she said, consumed by senility but cognizant enough to be aware of all that is wrong about who we are.

I grabbed my mother in my arms and rushed her upstairs. I can't even hold the tears back as I type this. As I brought her upstairs in my arms she began to wilt away like a dying flower. She shrunk away from my arms and evaporated away as I went to lay her onto the bed. When I placed her on the bed almost nothing was left, just a limp piece of biomass, like a dead weed. It hurt so bad that it jarred me awake only to paralyze me in my bed. I just can't get this out of my head and I really hope that typing this out expels as much of it as possible. I don't think I can go any further. The more I think about it the more I'm confronted with the things I wish didn't reside in my head.

I don't think I've ever been so stressed about finals before! All of the stress is collecting in my shoulders which is causing the muscles to pull on my neck to the point that it feels like someone is casually strangling me!

However its my own stupid fault that I'm so stressed out. If I just budgeted my time better I wouldn't feel so rushed. I don't know where my time goes but its just seems to slip away like picking up water with an open palm.

I think that I'm getting to carried away with being absolutely free. Even though its been a few years that I've been out of the military I still can't get over the excitement of being free from my former non-existence. Almost every aspect of my personal life seems brand new, and in a way it is.

Growing up with my situation and all of the random shit thrown on me pretty much rendered my childhood useless in the fun department. My teens weren't any better and 4 years of pseudo-existence in the Army really finished off my life trend pretty well.

It really does feel like in a way I'm finally living my life for the first time since I was born. Twenty five years of a hazy bad memory set the stage for my new life now. I suppose I just don't want it to end or be interrupted in any way.

This "pragmatism" thing keeps popping up in my head as something I should consider but we all know how I feel about that!

Artwork by David Irvine


Last night I had a series of absolutely spectacular dreams! I tend to have amazing dreams but it was as if the entire night was nothing but one long series of dreams. Some of them were clearly coming out of my surrealist nature because they made absolutely zero sense but others I can start to see the underlying theme of the dream.

The last dream I had was particularly interesting. It was an odd dream about an artist I met. He had the power to infuse magic into his art and he created amazing sculptures. I suppose his magic was sort of like voodoo in that if he sculpted a figure of you he could manipulate you like a voodoo doll but it wasn't nearly as creepy as voodoo and in the end it was all voluntary.

His studio was what I imagine an old Spanish monastery would be like, overlooking the ocean. It wasn't the ocean like here or even the Pacific, it was the perfect ocean, warm and inviting. I remember being aware that there was a lot of ocean like it was some point in the distant future and all of the ice caps had melted.

Don't worry it gets stranger and stranger. The artist created a sculpture of me and invited me to his monastery/studio to look at it. I remember that it was made of bronze and absolutely beautiful! The strange thing about it was that it was a sculpture of me as a mermaid.

Aside from loving the Little Mermaid growing up and wanting to be a marine biologist that was pretty much the extent of my love for the oceans. I suppose that's more than others but my dream still tossed a curve ball at me. The artist said that all I needed to do was to dive into the ocean and I would become a mermaid. It was a strange offer but he seemed very warm and benevolent so I decided to take him up on his offer.

I remember being at the end of a pier absolutely nervous and scared about diving in, looking down past my bare feet with a sense of apprehension. I'm not exactly the best swimmer in the real world or even my dreams.I dived in and it was absolutely amazing! I don't really remember what I looked like but I can remember what it felt like. The warmth of the sea and the soft blue glow was totally therapeutic in my opinion! I swam for hours and absolutely loved it! I encountered a few divers and they were surprised but not the same sort of surprised you would be if you saw a mythical sea creature so I can only assume that the future has those sort of things.

When it was all over I swam back to shore and crawled up onto the beach where the artist was waiting for me. I told him about my adventures and how I loved it and I expressed some dismay that it was all over. He then told me that there was no way back and that I was now a mermaid forever. I felt the a quick jab of betrayal but it went away immediately, it was more shock at my situation than anger over it. I didn't really mind and I was actually glad to leave my old life behind though I don't know exactly what that was. It could have either been selfish desire or liberation depending on what I was leaving. I remember that it was truly amazing that this artist knew what was best for me and took me down the path to happiness. After that I woke up in such an amazing mood!!


As for the symbolism and themes of my dream I have a few ideas. The immediate one that comes to mind is my current situation as a transsexual. It's clearly about leaving one life behind and starting a new one as well as a transformation. However I don't think this dream was about that. I was already a woman in my dream as I pretty much tend to be normally.

I think the two major points of this dream were pragmatism and happiness. I absolutely hate the concept of being pragmatic and I think it totally stifles the pleasure that comes from life. I'm the last person you would ever see working in an office and I can't stand still for more than a few years. I think my dream of escaping into the sea just reflects how willing I am to drop everything and run off or in this case swim off into the great unknown.

The other aspect of the dream does have to do with how I want to perceive myself but in a less literal sense. I wish I could be more like the artist. I wish I could make my art more than just art and I wish I knew how to make people happy. I wish I knew exactly what people needed to make their life wonderful and I wish I could give it to them in a spectacular and magical form.

Hopefully I'll dream about it again but for now I'm off to swim with the fishes!

The past week or so has been nothing but a turbulent affair.

A few things have happened lately that really work out in my favor. My mastery of beurocracies that I developed in the military really helped me to get the ball rolling with the financial aid system. I've received so much financial aid in the form of grants that not only is my school payed for but I actually have a credit to my account. By the time summer rolls around I'll have around $5,600 credited to my school account. That's so FUCKING AWESOME! I went from not being able to go to summer sessions because of major debt to basically getting college for free!!

But wait it gets better! New Jersey just passed new legislation that waives tuition for veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan. So now not only is school payed for but I need to pay even less for it! What's even better is I'm still getting the GI Bill so that's around $18,000 I can pocket as my own! In just a two week period I went from stressing about paying off school to getting a free education! This totally opens up a lot of amazing possibilities for me!

On a separate note I finally got hired at Jerry's, the dream job I've been wanting. This is of course where the problems start. I've already started to work there and its already stressing me out! I think that reality settled in and I realized that dream job or not its still a retail job and I can't stand retail! I'm so stressed out right now because of work that I can't even sleep! Part of me really hopes that this is just general stress from being nervous at a new job but I'm not really sure.

The defensive part of my brain is telling me that I should just quit. If circumstances were different I would just deal with the job but having free education and eighteen grand thrown in your face has a funny habit of making one rethink their priorities. Am I lazy or do I just want what's best for me? Ultimately my primary goal right now is my education. My mind is just focused on getting through both of my majors and maintaining a good enough GPA to help with future financial aid for grad school.

If I work at Jerry's it gives me a good opportunity to learn more about the arts but it also really detracts from my time to actually make art. They have already said that they want me working a minimum of 3 days a week. The problem with that is the whole rest of the week is filled with classes. I can already tell that I'm going to have some problems tackling two majors while also working during my free time.

I think for now I'll just work through it and when the school year starts up reevaluate my position. Who knows maybe it will turn out that I love the job and everything works out. I just wish this wasn't so stressful!

Photo by archificial


The unfortunate side to always having vivid imaginative dreams is that I have vivid imaginative dreams. It's a shame that something as wonderful as dreaming can also be such a bane on ones existence. I love escaping into the dreaming but sometimes it hurts to come back out. Having to face reality is one painful cost to having a wondrous dream.

The problem that I've had lately is that I'm so down in the dumps I just sleep it off. It works to a degree, after all I can't believe that its the third week of July already. When I'm alone, like I am now, my dreams tend to be amplified. They can be funny or wild or colourful or all combined. I do have bad dreams but they tend to be overcome by the good. However that's the thing about dreams, even if the plot isn't bad they can sure make you feel like crap.

Lately I've had to switch my schedule around to more daylight hours because of something that I'll talk about in my next post. The hard thing though is its so hard to keep normal hours when you're working at night or sleeping the day away to avoid people. For instance I'm writing this at 5:57 AM because I'm to awake to fall asleep. That and I'm depressed enough I need to vent.

In order to get me back on track I started taking Ambien. I was reluctant at first but I've heard that they work and I need the sleep. I normally try to stay away from sleep aid because they usually work too well and I usually have very intense and odd dreams while on them.

I started off the other night with a half dose and it just made me groggy. My mind was still racing enough that I couldn't sleep. Two nights ago I stepped it up to the full dose and it kicked my ass. Within thirty minutes I felt extremely tired and I started to lose motor control. I managed to throw myself onto my bed just in time to crash into the deepest sleep I've had in ages. That night I dreamt so hard I practically left my life and started a new one.

I did so many wonderful things in my dream but the most memorable was my encounter with a dream lover. Even in my lucid dreams I can't make out the details of my lover. The more I try to concentrate the more fuzzy it gets. Sometimes its a girl and other times its a guy, sometimes its both or neither I suppose. In my latest dream we just held each other closely in the light of a sunrise filtered through soft curtains. Arms wrapped around me made me feel safe and loved and we shared kisses for a length of time that only exists in dreams. It was such a beautiful and peaceful moment of tranquility. However the harsh light of the real sunrise burned the dream out of my head like fog disappearing in the morning light. It was such a crushing feeling to be left empty and alone in my bed.

I really wished that I had someone to share moments with so that my dreams, even the wonderful ones, wouldn't hurt so much.

A common stereotype of veterans is that they suffer from flashbacks. These dramatic flashbacks are usually painted in a comical light and at the expense of veterans for the sake of humor. However there is a real aspect to the stereotype and its usually not anything like what the media or comedy makes it out to be.

Today out of nowhere I had a flashback. I don't ever recall having one before but I know I definitely had one today. It wasn't bad but it was an odd sensation to actually experience one.

I was making my way through the kitchen to get to the back bathroom to grab a Kleenex when it happened. As I passed through the partition separating the kitchen from the dining room my ear picked up on the sound of my mom using a hand held electric mixer in a metal bowl. Along with that sound there were two fans as well in the kitchen and dining room. The combined pitch, rhythm and frequency of all of those sounds created a very eerily accurate sound of a UH-60 Blackhawk.

I've heard blackhawks plenty of times but in this one instance it was enough to transport me away from where I was. I just stopped in place as all of the memories of blackhawks rushed through my head. Most of my close up experience with them was while I was Iraq so a lot of additional memories flooded in as well.

It was nothing horrible but it was slightly disconcerting to experience it.


It's strange to have a two fold duality running parallel through my life. On one side I have my place in the world as a transsexual. No matter how far I move along my life as a woman every once in a while something crops up that reminds me of my origins. I feel as if I'm split right down the middle. Furthermore no matter how much I wrap myself up in my new life as a free-spirited art student I can still feel that part of me that was a soldier.

Just the other day my mom was making a joke about how my grandmother is dealing with all of this. She imagined that instead of bringing shame to the family she would just state that I was some long lost twin sister. My mom stated succinctly and with humor that "My son is an Iraqi war vet, my daughter is an artist."


What a weird life.

This is the first time I ever bothered to answer one of these questions. However I think that its slightly loaded because it assumes that I think there is hope for the future. Of course I'm not a nihilist that wallows in my own depression but I would like to think that I'm realistic.


Hope is only something that can exist within a specific context. Not to split ends but I have no hope for the far distant future because the earth is going to get swallowed up by our sun in 5 billion years, on a Tuesday I think.

This may seem a bit absurd but it is relevant. The point is that we find ourselves in an unforgiving universe that exists without "hope" and without a single concern for us. If our world was to be wiped out tomorrow no one would shed a tear for us or even know that we existed. Perhaps some distant aliens in the future would find out about us but all they would really know is that we have a penchant for shooting gold plated records into deep space.

I don't let any of this depress me nor do I think its all that depressing. For us to have hope we need to be aware of it. Coming to the realization that we are such fragile and imperfect beings floating along in space is absolutely vital to our survival because it gives us context.

The fact that more and more people are aware of this and that more and more people realize that we are the stewards of this beautiful planet is a fact that gives me comfort.

Hope for me is the continuing shift in the zeitgeist towards the realization that humility and responsibility are the key aspects of what it means to be human.

I have a bad habit of completely turning around my sleeping patterns when I'm not socially obligated to be a part of the "living."

I'm sure its partially biological but I also think its a defense mechanism of sorts. I tend to sleep a lot during the day to escape having to deal with shit and that opens up the entire night for me to sit here in introspection.

Tonight is one of the bad nights, the nights where I can't help but think about where I've been in life and where I'm going. A lot of really great things have happened in my life recently but its still a long way to go before the scales are tipped in a favorable direction.

I really wish I could get away from myself but that's not really ever possible. I don't like not being comfortable in my own body and I wish I could just roll over in bed and hold on tight to someone. Maybe if I just held them close enough I could escape where I'm at and go to a place where I'm part of something wonderful and all is right in the universe.

Every 4th of July I like to reflect on what it is to be an American and what it means to live in this country.

The sad thing though is that for many years this introspection has always turned up a bit of embarrassment and shame. I'm not proud of what this country has been doing and I feel as if the further along we have moved recently the further and further back we have gone as a nation. I think that we have moved so far back we passed our declaration as a sovereign nation and went back all of the way to the dark ages.

Every time I hear a politician speak of how proud our forefathers would be if they could see us now I just cringe. In these past few years we've given up on the very essence of what it means to be American.

The President speaks of spreading freedom yet he taps our phones and denies citizens the right to marry. How can we take pride in the fact that we are a secular nation when religious conservationism runs rampant throughout the halls of government?

It's as if people aren't even aware of our origins or the enlightened philosophies that helped to craft this nation.

However reflecting back on the two hundred and thirty two years of this nations history gives me comfort. I know that we haven't been perfect and we have made a lot of mistakes in the past. However we have always managed to learn from them and incorporate them into ourselves. We press on as a nation driving toward the goals given to us by brilliant people over two hundred years ago.


No one ever promised it was going to be easy and a lot of people died just so that we could even start this nation on its trip but I know deep down inside that it was worth it. I know that as misguided as this nation is now that one day we will be able to look back on this moment and use it as yet another stepping stone to reach for the future.

Transitioning from a boy to a girl is such a fun yet stress inducing activity!


Though my name is very important to me as well as the use of proper pronouns every once in a while I get a little chuckle from the occasional mad-lib like strings of odd sentences that my friends and family say by accident sometimes.

Today when I logged onto Facebook I has the above message waiting for me. It looks like even Facebook is confused by my situation!

At least it's polite enough to ask!

I stumbled onto these advertisements today for a French based AIDS prevention campaign. Click on the image for a larger view!

I absolutely love these adverts, both aesthetically and functionally! I love the pallet of soft pastels and the figures have a sense of innocence to them. I think that its a beautifully crafted campaign that sends a positive message without having to resort to harsh statistics or shock imagery.

Reflecting on what I just said I find it funny that giant penis-monsters of the see and disembodied breasts and lips floating in space aren't considered shocking in my world.

For as long as I can remember I have always had vivid dreams. Dreams full of rich pallets and interesting characters. For each new experience I had in life it was incorporated into my dreaming. I have come to trust my dream for they tend to reveal both the problems and joys that rotate through the core of my being. The other night I had a particularly symbolic dream.

Lately I've been having a hard time dealing with family issues. To put it simply I can't relate to my family anymore. This is nothing new in the world of family problems but its new for me. I think that the mother-son relationship that I had was truly special but so far the mother-daughter relationship has been on thin ice.

For the vast majority of my life up until the point I came out I really wasn't my own person. I lived a shelter life that I imposed upon myself in order to avoid the awkward situation of my youth and I was just generally confused about who I was in all respects.

It wasn't until my last year of high school that I really started to come into my own as a person but unfortunately all of that was put on hold when I joined the military. It's not exactly possible to have a personal life or even an identity in the military.

After I got out I just slumped into my usual habits of not doing anything or even knowing what I wanted. Once I came out and started my sophomore year I REALLY started to grow as a person. The woman here today typing this is so far removed from who I use to be it even amazes me. Unfortunately all of this happened quick and it happened while I was away from my family.

Now that I'm living at home for the summer I'm finding it difficult to relate to my mom. We don't share my interest in art, our music tastes are vastly different and even our personal philosophies are seperate from each other. Whatever makes my mom who she is and whatever make me who I am simply do not mix. We argue with each other all of the time and I can't ever bring myself to talk about anything because she simply doesn't get where I'm coming from.

Right now I feel like I'm at a fork in the road. Either she is simply going to "get it" as far as recognizing my new life as not only a vastly different individual but also as her daughter or she will never get it and we simply fall apart as a family. Both are totally possible and I'm not really sure where this is all going to go.

All of this information and concerns that have been swimming in my head lately enough that a dream emerged from it.

In my dream I was driving across a desert. A vast and dry desert occasionally punctuated by remnants of cities long destroyed. My car eventually got stuck and the sand consumed my engine and clogged the air filter. My car began to overflow with sand and I was trapped inside. The only thing left to do was to call out on my phone for help. I called by mother in my desperate moment of need but when she answered I couldn't bring myself to speak. After that I woke up.

I know the desert is one of despair, I've associated deserts with that in my dreams ever since I was in Iraq. The cities I'm sure are the remnants of my past family life. It is true that this situation is consuming me. I'm deeply depressed about not only the possibility of losing my family but also the realization that I may not mind. Some part of me is telling me that its bad to lose out on family relationships but I know plenty of them fail and people move on.

At this point I just don't know.

What did cheer me up though was a rainbow. After leaving the city the other day after running some errands I looked out at Manhattan from the bus as it emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel. It had rained off and on during the afternoon and the weather left a brilliant rainbow that stretched all the way across Manhattan. It really was amazing and everyone noticed on the bus. It was so comforting to hear the murmuring voices of student, businessmen, tourists and other people all unrelated to each other enjoying something as simple as a rainbow.

Hello and welcome! The purpose of this journal is for me to document and share the colourful journey that life's path takes me on. My life to date has certainly been an interesting one and I imagine it will continue to be far into the future!

Quite possibly the most important aspect of my life is that I'm a transsexual. I was born a male and I lived the majority of my life up to this point as one. However I couldn't hide how I was anymore and the pain was getting far to great. I'll try my best to explain the situation and my journal will reflect my outlook on life through the lens of a transsexual.

( Please, read on! )

Last night was a very odd night for me. I had an average day I suppose and I actually liked the film fest that I went to last night but after that I had quite possibly one of the worst nights of my life.

After being dropped off at my dorm by my friend Kristin I began to feel tears welling up inside me. I rushed into the building and did my best to make it past the desk assistant without crying but once I made it to my room it all came out. I've cried before but rarely like this. Between the sobbing and the shaking all I felt was pain. Physical, emotional and spiritual pain. It didn't really let up and I was still crying at 4AM.

I think that everything caught up with me finally. Because of my gender identity I always felt like I was a "freak" or some sort of oddity growing up. Because of that I pulled myself away from people and spent most of my time alone. When I did interact with people I tried my best to be polite and well mannered. I guess I had hoped that in doing so people wouldn't look to deeply into me for I feared that people would find out that I'm a transsexual.

I do honestly want to be polite and helpful but I think that I've underestimated how that effects me as a being. For whatever reason people feel comfortable talking to me and confiding in me about their problems and the various other crashing waves of life. I do my best to listen and give advice but I think that it's getting harder and harder. I desperately want to help people but I'm not sure if I can anymore. How can I possibly tell someone who wants to take their life to see the beauty in life when I still struggle with my own thoughts of suicide? How can I tell someone who wants to find love that they will when I don't even have it? How can I assuage the fears within the core of my friends when I feel it to. How can I possibly help anyone when I can't even handle my own problems? I'm so deeply flawed that I'm not sure my advice means anything. Years ago when I believed I was at my most altruistic my actions resulted in the death of innocent people. I'm such a fucking hypocrite.

Sometimes at night when I'm alone with my thoughts I curl up into a little ball. I pull myself in so tight that I wish the world would get pulled in with me and flip back out again. I wish that if I just concentrated hard enough that I'll flip around and wake up a different person. I image its the feeling coal must get when the pressure of the earth crushes it into a diamond. I don't even want to really be a diamond, just something other than what I am. I wish that I could erase all of the bad that I've ever done and provide comfort to all of my friends and loved ones. I wish that I had the right answers and the right things to say. I wish that I had a soul-mate to share the experience with. I want to be courageous and true. I wish that I could cast out my demons and help others to remove theirs. But for now all I wish is for the crying to stop.

Art is fun!!!

One of my biggest problems is a lack of motivation when I need it.

I have several large projects due as part of my Fine Arts major and I really need to start putting my foot down! Today was one of those days where no matter how hard I try I just can't bring myself to work.

It was such a beautiful day today that I decided to go out and take some shots of the flora around the campus. In the end I'm kind of glad that I didn't work today.

More shots can be found here

I think I'm starting to get the hang of Livejournal's code. I'm a HUGE fan of customizing everything so I can't stand default layouts! It's really not that difficult to change things up, it's just a matter of finding out what code means what.
As you can see the journal look is far different than the basic Unstyled one that I started out with. I like the colors and the layout but this is by no means permanent! I just needed to get something down that I like enough so that I can start posting. Yeah... I'm weird like that I guess! :D

I suppose this should be some sort of awe inspiring mega-post seeing as how I'm venturing into the world of Livejournal but I'm just far to caught up in trying to create my own theme at the moment. More to come!