mahiwaga

Every so often, at a particular time in the evening, all the dogs in the neighborhood bark. I always thought it was just their set time to meet, you know, like they'd hold some grand council remotely, just by barking. Because I can hear my dogs bark, and then wait for some other dog to answer.

But my sister's boyfriend had another interesting theory. He has a Lhasa Apsu/Poodle, and he was walking him around our neighborhood, when for some reason, passing this certain spot on the street, the dog just reared up and started growling at thin air, like there was something there, although it didn't look like there was. The dog didn't calm down until they passed this particular spot.

So the theory is that there might be a ghost or two haunting the street. My sister's boyfriend wondered if someone had died at that spot, or maybe something tragic happened at the house adjacent the spot.

I've always believed that dogs can feel things that they can't necessarily see, and things that we humans definitely can't see. (My 13 year old is probably half-blind by now, but she seems to be able to see just fine.) I mean, after all, there's that theory about dogs predicting earthquakes (although this isn't all bullshit, since they can probably hear at a lower frequency than we can, and the sound waves generated arrive a lot faster than the actual wave through rock.)

I know I've dreamt of bizarre tragedies occurring on the street where I live. Like that time I dreamt I saw a car get repeatedly struck by lightning. Or that time I thought I could hear coyotes howling (this was before we had dogs) and dreamt that there was a massive pileup on the nearby freeway. This happened to precede the Whittier-Narrows earthquake in 1986 (which happened to be the first major earthquake I ever experienced.) Although I don't remember our dog freaking out during the Northridge quake, surprisingly.

Which reminds me. I've been meaning to see if I can find out if there are any Tongvan sacred sites around here. (The Tongvans are the people that the Spanish called the Gabrieleños, and are responsible for naming Eagle Rock) Well, besides Eagle Rock itself. I imagine that there must be a lot of haunted sites nestled amidst these hills that the Tongvans once occupied. That might explain the weird dreams and the dogs barking. (I don't know how, but hey, it's 1am, and I need to be awake in 5 hours. I'm obviously grasping for straws here.)

Or maybe it's just the spirit of this hill, still groaning about the incision that the Glendale Freeway makes through its flesh.

OK, I'm losing it.

By the way, I walked one of my dogs past that spot this evening and he didn't react. So it could all be my own personality insanity wanting to tie everything together.

How do you dispel fear? By confronting it.

But I think I am more afraid of facing this fear than I am about the hallucinatory prospect of facing a hostile army with superior weaponry (OK, I'm seriously reaching for metaphors here. I clearly need help in more ways than one.)

Seriously. I think I would be less afraid to jump out of an airplane. Less afraid to go swimming with sharks. (OK, maybe I'm lying there. Maybe that's the problem. I'm just a big coward.)

You know, though. There really hasn't been a time when I've actually completely given up on anything. Sure, as time passes, as events occur, as I sit here paralyzed by fear, the probability of things going my way rapidly approaches nil.

Intellectually, I realize that the end result doesn't matter at all (as Immanuel Kant would probably say.) Whether I achieve what I set out to do or not is not the point. The point is that I do it and face my fear.

But right now I can't, even though I don't know what I'm waiting for. I know the longer I wait, the worse and worse it'll get.

I don't know why I'd rather be doomed instead of facing up to my fears.

Nobody ever died of rejection.

And still, I will sit on my hands, waiting for my hair to turn gray, waiting for spring to turn to fall again, over and over again, until one morning, it just won't be worth it to wake up.

A thousand tomorrows of never facing up to what I fear.

Zeno ain't gonna save me now. I don't know how to break this up into small, non-threatening things. This is the leap of faith, the jump off the precipice. Do or die. Do or do not, there is no try.

Damn it.

I keep telling myself that tomorrow, it's gonna change, but nothing's going to change if I don't do a damn thing about it.

I have this knack of knowing that I'm going to get run over by a train, but of not being able to do anything about it. Very Wile E. Coyote-esque.

I don't know. The more pressure I put on myself, the less likely I'm going to do anything about it. I guess the time is not right. And maybe the time will never be right.

I admit it. I just can't do it.

Holy crap, does this mean that we won't be able to bring iPods onto airplanes anymore? (As if TSA actually worked…)

iPod Used in Domestic Homicide (link from littleyellowdifferent.com) I know, I know. It's a hoax. I'm a little disturbed that I thought it was funny.

This song is absolutely perfect.

If I could take over this world that we're in I wanna reach out to every human being I'll take all the sorrows from every goodbye I'll shed all the tears so no one ever needs to cry but

Nobody cares for me nobody here needs me a love to share but nobody dares nobody cares for me

I'll summon the oceans to drown every pain I wanna be shelter to the countless in shame erase every conflict from every divide I wanna give every bit of me until I die

Nobody cares for me nobody here needs me a love to share but nobody dares nobody cares for me

A tab is at Ultimate-Guitar.com