Today's dream involved issues with my mother. I was in my own living room and Caicedo was there with RedEyes. He was showing off his ... to her and she was unimpressed. While they were talking to each other, my mother came in and started telling me what to do. I tried to speak to her as a rational adult but she would not listen and I continued not to do as she was forcing me to do. That's when she hit me and I was shocked. I actually went into shock and started to shake uncontrollably. As my mother saw this was happening, she continued to slap me with continued yells that I must do as she says. At this point, all my thoughts were seeking objects to hurt myself. I picked up nearby crayons and markers and started to drag the tips across my skin, marking myself. I raked the crayons on my teeth and across my face. At this my mother continued to watch and scream at me that I was crazy and all this was due to my not following her orders. She stopped hitting me at this point because I was obsessed with doing my own damage. I screaming back at her to stop hitting me and trying to force me to do her own will; to treat me as an adult. She stated that I was obviously hurting myself because of lack of her guidance. My response was that it was due to her continuous controlling abuse that I am hurting myself. That my only option was to hurt myself because that was the only thing that she could not control. Meanwhile, I was looking for razors or blades that I could do even worse physical harm to myself. At this point, I began to wake up and the dream was over.

I had a dream and I didn't want to forget it. You were in it. I was lying down with you think u still playing poker when u suddenly changed you're mind. That you were going to need an 8mm video camera and some other things. I had an extra one and gave you; asking you to explain what you were doing. The second think you said was that you needed some weed or something with weed in it - because you're going to be this big video journalist, you needed to make your ideas come out and to be fresh. You started to drag me to some disreputable places, saying again that it was necessary to find the right place.

Some guy gave us and dress where this white guy was there to sell marijuana chips. I'm looking at you all angry that you've resorted to buying weed and that you are going to do videography. You explain that you were going to need it because when you enter Mexico to film, weed would be a great way to meet and socialize with the locals. The sold you a small bag of weed chips and I'm telling you that I started to get an even worse feeling. You finish your purchase and we head out when gunshots are heard and we start dashing out of the area. When we got far enough we were walking in and out of restaurants trying to look causal.

And then we ran into William H. Macy from the shameless show and we weren't sure it was him because he looked all cleaned up and we couldn't stop because we needed to get further from the shootings.

Ok, 750 words. Not likely. I should talk about the creative benefits of writing. I feel that the mind does need an outlet to be creative. Too many times I believe a lot of people are trapped in what I would call the "mind template"; where we would continually take upon what we've done and said in the past that was considered acceptable to others and then use that as a template and customize that with no real creative start or conclusion. Say for instance, in an email to a colleague at work, I automatically resorted to looking for a prior email or an email similar to the point that I wanted to get across. When I found that email, who was addressed to someone else, I customized it and found the wording or structure that I wanted to relate to the colleague that I was currently writing to. Now, that I look back, I can obviously see that I used that email as a crutch. Do I regret it? No, I feel that the crutch was what gave me the confidence to send the email. The time I would have used to create the email from scratch, I used instead to copy and paste and move on to the next task. However, what I do feel is that lack of the creative process that I couldn't utilized to create something different, something new and hopefully, better than the email that I sent that I believe was acceptable and uniform. Too often I am lost by uniformity. I feel that five years in a corporate environment and being told what to say, how to say and who to say to, has committed me to being more unsure if I am expressing myself correctly. My inner editor is astounded that I could express anything independently to anyone, thus resulting in my ever present and frequent need to use my crutch aka "mind template." It's wonderful to challenge yourself and start from a blank slate. Just because you made a great success writing once from scratch shouldn't mean that the slate is filled and to continue to change and customize the same slate for repeated use. Working in corporate, has really wreaked a toll on my creative mind. I can look at a blank slate for hours, or for a few minutes before I look elsewhere because working from scratch has now become more of a chore than I wanted and really it shouldn't have to be that way. Challenges should make you learn and grow and stimulate your mind for new and better ideas. While all I can think about is conform. Conform to what was used, what has worked and use continuously. In essence, doesn't that promote plagiarism? Do we not only tell people to read something and force them to write what it was that they read but in their own words but then judge them harshly because their own words were not as good or never as good enough. So to live up to the overall standards presented, we conform or in most cases we plagiarize. A lot of creative things are time consuming. We aren't given the time necessary to be creative. Or even is there ever enough time to creative? That email I sent took me no more than a simple 20 minutes. While I can type something creative and mull over it for hours, doubting myself if what I said was clear, focused, entertain or was it relevant. What can I say about a solution? Is there really any solution? I can only think of hope. Hope that folks will continue to seek within themselves for that creativity. Hope that people those who try to get their 750 words will focus on not falling in to the "mind template;" to continuously challenge themselves and seek for new words and phrases. Perhaps hope the time is enough for anyone needing to focus and create is available. Its all too easy to fall back into the safety crutch of using the template. So many easy distracts cry out for attention. Again another means of not being creative. Distractions. Do you that lots we are raised to be distracted and then told not to be. Even so far as to be medicated to "help" with being distracted. So many creative enemies. Even procrastination. How was I ever able to finish my 750 word allocation today? Definitely harder than I imagined but I'm all the more proud of myself for it.

My 2011 attempt at NaNoWriMo...

Here are my photos from NYC's Comic Convention of 2011 (NY Comic Con):

Anna Faris brings back her charming acting and slapstick comedy to this cute ladies film about counting the amount of men one has slept with. At first, I felt this movie was just going to be another cheesy rendition of Bridesmaids. I have to say, it is. There are few moments of laughter.  Not as good as Bridesmaids. But it's a really cute heart felt comedy. Looking at the trailer, you can already see where the story is headed. See it if you have a soft spot for romantic comedies and for the devilishly cute Captain America star,  Chris Evans. 

Just got out of the screening for Drive. It was so slow with little action! I felt like I was in a car hitting speed bumps when the action was just starting to get good, the excitement falls and I'm bored again. There was very little, and cut up dialogue. Loads and loads of silence in the film.

Direct quote from their website:

"The Pomodoro Technique® is a way to get the most out of time management. Turn time into a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it.

From the start, the introduction of the characters, I found was long but expected. At least in Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch, the personalization of the characters lives endeared me to them. Gave me a sense of caring for their well-being. It didn't get that here. A family film, an interview with a character but nothing where I felt who was the main character, at least till the end. I wasn't even sure why they were sending these astronauts back to the moon. There was an instance were one of the characters even asked the same question. Even if this is one big government conspiracy, there was no explanation or reason why they sent sacrifices. I don't know if my scare threshold is high because I wasn't scared or really creeped out at all. It was like if you see someone throwing something at you, are you really scared? There were no story twists. The acting I couldn't say was really bad, given with what they had to work with. The story had a lot of room for improvement. There was a part where the creepiness and gore could've been emphasized. One of the astronauts got wounded; there I could see moments where I would be squirming while watching a prosthetic being poked, prodded and a good gush of blood flowing. But that wasn't there, just a thin trickle of blood. The "monster" was not scary at all. It was comical; more like an STD joke. Maybe if it wasn't shown; kept a mystery until the very, very end, I could've been creeped out more. At the end, I wasn't sure if one of the astronauts died. Probably he lived and that's how they received the footage? But I didn't get that feeling from the story. So then how was the footage brought back? Still loads of questions at the end.