who you gonna call? - and an art project

Let's start as I started this morning - at 5:58 when the sanitation engineers came by to empty the dumpsters from the parking lot in front of my apartment. Granted, my alarm was set for 6:00, but still...

The banging of the dumpersters yanked me out of dream - one that had an element I wasn't familier with. In the dream, I was playing an online game with two friends. The object of the game was to score points by wandering around and looking for spirits to capture. It took place in the real world - as viewed through goggles - so a trip to the grocery store could end up being a challenging level. My goggles broke, so I just had a piece of glass that I carried around to look through. And, when I looked in the right place, I could see the spirits that we were supposed to capture.

To do that, I needed to hold up my right hand in the direction of the spirit and concentrate. The spirit would be drawn toward my hand until I had captured it. Once captured, a raised bump would appear on my hand until I released the spirit - and earn points for it. The funky part was, though it was a game, you could become sick if you gathered up too many evil spirits and didn't release them quickly - a real problem since the release areas were few and far between. And not just sick in the game, but sick in real life as well (yes, I'm aware it was still just a dream).

My team and I were the best - mainly because I could hold up to the pain better than most.
It hurt to drawn in a spirit and my hand would ache until those spirits were released.

And here's where things go off the deep end. I distinctly remember that it hurt to draw in a spirit. I remember the senstation of pain on contact, the ache in my hand and my whole wrist while I stored the spirits. I remember feeling the cold of the day as we hiked out to get "just one more spirit" before quitting for the day.

Real pain. To the point that I was surpised when I woke up and found my hand undamaged and without any raised bumps of stored spirits - since I woke up before releaseing them.

Now, I know that you aren't supposed to feel pain in dreams...but I remember it and it sure as heck felt real. Good thing we were winning the game...

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Back to reality... Ever heard the expression "Like a hot Dremel through Plexiglass"? No? Well, there's a reason for that. It doesn't go all that well. It'll work, just like cutting a frozen potato with a dull spoon will work, but it ain't fun. For one, it smells bad. Also, the shreaded plexiglass tends to fly off and that stuff is hot. And the dremel bit tends to get fouled when you let it stop as the plastic cools and fills the bit.

Now, why was I cutting plexiglass with a dremel? Well, I was trying to make a mask. Yeah, yeah, I know..."what hairbrained project are you up to now, Anthony?" Actually, I've been working on some masks in various mediums (paper mache, clay, etc) and I figured plexiglass would be the next logical step before tying to carve one out of wood.

I actually had some good success and would have done more to smooth the edges, but it was getting late and I was losing the light - since I was working outside to minimize the mess and I was wearing sunglasses for my safety goggles. I may have time to finish it this week, but it's no big deal if I don't.

And before I close - a big shout-out to my colleague and friend for inviting me to his bonfire last friday. I had a good time and enjoyed the food and the company.

So, that's it for now in this slightly longer than usual blog. Time to get back to work...