Notes

-Normally I don't get nostalgic or melancholy about small rural Eastern-European cities. But this week I did and in an unexpected way. On the show Bizarre Foods, the host travels to Hungary. Well, I've lived there so the hook is in. Let's see where this goes. He starts in Buda, travels to the Pest side and keeps talking about the bizarre foods upcoming. I'm hoping he heads out of the city for real bizarre foods. But it's like hoping the CEO at your company won't get a 20% raise while layoffs are happening in your division. He could go to Pécs or Táborfalva or Lake Balaton or Kaposvár or speed through Taszár. They had abandoned factories, Trabant's, deep rich awful coffee and drunks keeping the bars open during the day too. He stays, tells a good story but I'm left still hoping he makes it out of the city.

-Sleep paralysis is something I've had all my life. The constricting feeling as you lay in bed of not being able to wake up and not go to sleep and not able to move is awful. Sheer panic sets in as you struggle for either option. Add in the hallucinations that occur leave you screaming at the top of your lungs for someone to help you wake up. In these cases I've heard footsteps coming down the stairs and pass by, seen a little old lady troll at the end of the couch with mole on her chin and knives in her hand cackling at me. Then slowly walk up my chest and get closer to my neck with the knives. I've seen a murderer come into my house go upstairs to my kids bedrooms with a shotgun and I lay there helpless. I hear the back door open as he leaves and finally I can wake up. My only consolation that it didn't happen is that it wasn't my kids weekend with me. They were at their mom's.

In all these times I've known that it is coming and can't do anything about it. Last night was different though. Last night it didn't happen until I woke up. My prior dream was about a long lost girlfriend who I'd just recently run in to. Letting me stay at her place while I was in town but being very overly devoted to her husband. Over conversations with her brothers, a radio report came in that there was a car accident that killed a local football team. The conversation turned to the real accident that happened in Indiana where a family on their way to a funeral was rammed and 7 people were killed - http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20111028/news/710289884/. When I brought up the dream accident, everyone looked away and wouldn't talk to me or look me in the eye. Later I inferred they were looking away because I was in the accident. That's where the dream ended. As I wake up, the hallucination happened as an invisible set of feet of a 1 year old baby stood on my hip, ran down my leg and off into the ether.