Marching with Bob Brown

First...most important thing...

Today is Jack's birthday!!!!!!!

We're taking him to a nice restaurant where you can eat exotic meat. He loves eating interesting things.

Second....

I dreamed election-related stuff last night.

I'm in Australia, at some kind of crowded place. The Greens are doing a march/walk, led by Bob Brown. I want to join in, but it's going super fast. It's almost like a conga line, but people aren't holding on to each other, or anything.

Finally, I somehow find a way to get in. I talk to people near me. Some man is teasing me (in a friendly way) about how I managed to get myself to Australia at this politically important time. He knows a lot about me, and that gives me the idea he reads my blog on a daily basis. I'm very touched by this.

After writing down my dream in my special journal, I did my new custom of reading old journal entries.

I'm on November 2004 now.

It's interesting because I get insight into why certain things happened, or why I made certain choices.

I mean there's not one big answer to everything....just puzzle pieces coming together.

One entry was about my cousin's son's birthday party....the one who'd later move to Australia.

I ate a piece of birthday cake, and my mom said I should watch out. I needed to fit into my bridesmaid dress.

Well, I guess I really took THAT comment to heart.

Now for most people, they'd probably laugh...and it wouldn't cause any problems. But I'm not that type. I'm super sensitive. And I had done some major calorie restricting in college. It was already in my nature...dormant...and waiting for the right triggers.

Who knows though. Maybe I had gotten a hold of a HUGE piece of birthday cake. Maybe my mom had a right to worry.

I also got an idea of one of the reasons I stopped making the family videos. Before going to the birthday party, I mentioned to my mom that I had finished the video of our Disney trip. Instead of saying, Great! Can't wait to see it. My mom asked worriedly if I was going to ask everyone at the birthday party to watch the video.

Yes, I'm going to ask a bunch of strangers to watch my videos. Right.

Oh...well. I actually DO ask strangers to watch my videos, and read my blog, and read my novels. I'm annoying that way. But I wouldn't do it at a child's birthday party. Goodness.

Anyway, I think my feelings had been hurt by that. I didn't stop making videos right away. Actually, I think I continued with it for two more years. But I started cutting down, because I felt I did all this work, and I wasn't being shown the mucho appreciation I craved.

To my mom's defense, she did show major appreciation of later videos. She loved the wedding video I made for my sister, especially the silly credits. I got kudos for that.

The other catalyst in my retirement from video-making happened when I wanted to show my family a video of our trip to NYC. My sister complained about having to watch it. But we're not in it! The video was of just me, Tim, and Jack. That made me feel....

I don't know.

Maybe I realized that for some family members, it wasn't about seeing my extremely fantastic creative work. It was about seeing themselves on film. They're very vain. So am I.

In other news....

Jen, I also dreamed about Bulgaria. But I don't really remember what the dreams were about. I just know there was Bulgarian stuff.

Anyway....

I hope all you Australians have a happy voting day.