LustingforNightmares

tumbleweed
2017-06-05 16:33:23 (UTC)

Oh, So I Got Semi-Murdered Last Night...

"Be My Angel" by Mazzy Star

They say it's you that washes the weary
And brings the night into the day
If you won't notice, how can I show you
All of your worries have all gone away?

Don't leave me lonely, don't leave me unhappy
Just bring me up into your faith
If you don't need me, then don't deceive me
Letting my freedom turn into stone

Just be my angel if you love me
Be my angel, in the night
Be my angel, 'cause you need me
Be my angel, and treat me right

June 5, 2017 Monday 10:01 PM

Sometime ago, I read an article about how coyotes have made themselves comfortable in the urban life.

They adapted in ways the author said we never expected. Like, while coyotes are typically diurnal, they became nocturnal in cities so they could avoid humankind and all that while hunting.

All this reminded me of my very, VERY limited knowledge of epigenetics. I was thinking to myself, hey, we human beings are diurnal. We have clock proteins in our suprachiasmatic nucleus (that's what it is, right? I can't quite remember, it's been a couple of months since I've needed to know that) that are "encoded" by light. So, when we see bright lights and stuff, our clock proteins will adjust our circadian rhythms to a new cycle of day-night-day-night. Which is why doctors are all, "Don't look at your computer screens before you go to bed." It messed up your proteins, yo.

Um. Sorry if this is all very simplistic. Buuuut, continuing:

Anyway, the point is, humans have clock proteins that work according to light. Do coyotes have the same type of thing? I'd think so. And if they DO, how is it that they were able to become nocturnal? Was it a necessary change in behavior that changed the way genes associated with the clock proteins function? Like, maybe we all have the ability to be nocturnal, but our diurnal genes are habitually expressed.

So, is it possible that a necessary change in coyotes' behavior (AKA they were forced to hunt at night because of urbanization of their former habitats) may have led to a change in gene expression, allowing them to become nocturnal? Or is it that the necessary change has forced coyotes to adopt different sleep patterns despite what is natural for them, the way teenagers are forced to wake up earlier than they are supposed to in order to get school? I mean, it's not like I've ever gotten used to the early mornings, despite a lifetime of the same shit. But I can do it, sort of. So maybe coyotes are just going against their instinct in order to survive.

It would be interesting to observe this change in behavior through generations. I talked about this with my dad, and he was all, "You probably wouldn't be able to use coyotes as your animal model because they're so complicated." And then we started talking about the different animal models used in neuroscience, like the lobster for neural networks, the sea urchin for neuron biology (I'm pretty sure—my distant cousin is a neuroscientist and I'm pretty sure he works with sea urchins' relatively large neurons), the sea slug aplysia for... well I couldn't remember what for. And how octopi are used to study learning and memory. Annnnd mice/rats are used as human models.

Looking into my question would probably require a rat, I think. Rats are nocturnal. I'd probably change their environment in order to force the rats to be diurnal, maybe by only making food available during the day or by making their environment "dangerous" during the night. Or both. Then, you could look at the rats clock proteins or whatever... or their genes... or I don't even know. This hasn't been thought through completely. I know it'd be way harder to do than I am making it sound, because science is always like that. You think, oh, this is easy, I just do this and this to see if I get this result.

But then you find you need to account for 1 million other things that could compromise your study in 1 million different ways. And you need to be able to do your study repeatedly, and you need other people to look at your study to make sure there's nothing you missed, and even then the results are rarely as significant as you'd like them to be. At least in my liiiiimiited experience.

Science is not as perfect as high school would like you to believe, because science is done by humans and humans have biases. Humans are not perfect. Soooo, yeah. Fraying facts, is the gist of it all. It takes a long time to know you're right about something.

But I guess that's just how it is. And I love what science has given us, you know? I love how it exists to make sense of the world. It doesn't give us the meaning of life (not that I think there IS one. I mean, what is 'meaning'? What makes you think life has meaning?), it doesn't tell us what is moral and immoral (not that I know of); it just tells us what is and why. Sometimes it can't even really tell us what we want to hear, 'cause science is incomplete.

===

Last night/this morning, I had a dream that Adrian's ex-girlfriend (??? I forget what I called her. Lizzy? Isabelle? I'm just gonna call her Lizabelle until further notice) shot up my high school. The population of high school, that is. We were all huddled in my old elementary school for some reason, I dunno.

It was night time and I walked into a bathroom that, in fifth grade, everyone thought was haunted. It was in a sort of isolated hallway across from the library and it had the prettiest light streaming through the high windows, according to my faulty memories. The pipes in the walls always made funny noises, which is why we thought it was haunted (well, I didn't actually think it was haunted—maybe no one did. We were pretending in the way kids do, where at some point you're not sure if it's real or not).

So yeah, I walked into the bathroom really randomly and a bunch of people were crowded in the stalls, including Liv and Adrian. I joined the huddle. Some of the people were holding up wooden planks as if that'd protect them. So yeah, I was asking what was going on, but I don't remember if someone told me Lizabelle shot up the school or if I just figured it out using intrinsic dream knowledge, lol. Well, all of a sudden I got a text from Liza... It was a bunch of photos taken from the front lawn.

They were in a blue and yellow color scheme. I mean, the night sky was this deep blue but the bodies on the ground were cast in yellow light by the street lamps. They were all dead, but the photos were just so beautiful. Beautiful. I remember I took photos of my dog before she died in the same way. The world was blue but we were under the street lamps. She was cast in yellow among blue. I took selfies at that time too, because colors are what make me Happy.

Anyway, after I got those photos from Liza, I knew she was coming for me in particular. I was vaguely upset because if she wanted to kill me, I didn't understand why she had to wait until I went to a public place.

But anyway, she pulled up in front of us in a shiny, black limo (yeah, the wall in front of the stalls disappeared for some reason and looked out over the street). She stepped out, looking beautiful as ever—'cause she really is gorgeous—wearing a pale pink tank top with lace trip at the top. I dunno. Then she came over to me. No one stopped her. I tried to, y'know, whack 'er with a plank but I was weak, really fuckin' weak and she knew it. She had the most cold look I've ever seen.

She rubbed some acid on my throat and I guess it burned through, although it didn't hurt. And then I think she stuffed a poison seed into the throat hole??? She ended up dying very shortly after, though, because—as dream doctors would tell me later—she was so eager to kill me that she'd held onto the seed the whole way over to the school, and the poison permeated her skin, got into her blood stream. Ya. She died.

Well, I didn't. I was dying, and my brain told me I couldn't breathe even though I really could. I was really afraid, because I really, really didn't want to die. But at the same time, I felt a sort of peace in knowing that it would be over soon and everyone I loved knew how I felt about them before I had to go.

I told Adrian (and Liv, and Alexis, and some other people?) about this dream, only in way less detail.

Adrian laughed and was like, "Wow!!!! And Liza actually DOES hate you, like a LOT!" He was, as expected, exaggerating. Liza doesn't hate me, I guess, but she didn't like me while they were dating I guess because she was jealous of how Adrian felt about me or something???

This is because Adrian has a crush on me. I'm not sure how much he likes me. When I asked him, he said it was a "little" crush, but I don't believe that. I don't WANT to believe it. He did say at least that his crush is based in reality, and I believe that because Adrian knows me pretty well. I expected the crush to fade the more he got to know me but it hasn't so far.

Part of me kind of wants to say Adrian loves me. In a very pure way. I mean, I feel like he really cares about me in a real way. I don't know if the crush is as little as he says. And again—I don't want it to be little. I think I like being loved. But it's kind of selfish since I constantly tell him I don't return those feelings, definitely NOT at the same intensity at least.

Over the weekend, I talked on the phone with Adrian and the conversation was actually very pleasant. I called him at around 2 in the morning because we were arguing over text and I wanted to argue in real time so he didn't have time to delete his own words, y'know?

We were arguing over prom. He keeps asking me to go with him and I have told him I don't want to go with him because I don't want to lead him on. He's like, "OK well now that I know that... wanna go anyway?"
And I'm like, "ADRIAN I KNOW YOU SAY YOU GET IT BUT I'M WORRIED IT WILL SUBCONSCIOUSLY RAISE UR HOPES WE CAN JUST HAVE FUN AT PROM TOGETHER AFTER ARRIVING SEPARATELY" but he keeps asking. Actually, today, he yelled after me in the hall, "HEY, WANNA GO TO PROM?" It was actually kind of adorable. I'm glad he's not afraid to ask anymore.

But I don't want to go with him. And not for the reasons I said.

I actually don't want to go with him because I don't want to confuse myself. I have a very hard time differentiating between platonic and romantic feelings when it comes to boys, as is evident by the whole Isaac fiasco.

I am not going to prom with Adrian because I know that I WANT to... too much. And it's confusing. I don't know what it means. More likely than not, it doesn't mean anything, but I'd rather not have to go through another situation in which I end up breaking someone's heart. And bruising myself in the process, breaking my own confidence in the understanding I have of my emotions.

I lied to Adrian (and Alexis, who was my soundboard as I tried to reason with Adrian) because I thought it was the truth at the time. And the thing is, that's the problem with me (and with most people, I guess). I accidentally lie about this shit, kind of like I lied to Isaac when I told him I liked him back when, if I had been honest with myself, I should have realized I didn't.

Part of me believes that I'm just gonna end up with Adrian one way or another. I sort of already think of him as mine a lot of the time (I actually hate that I do this, but it's sort of automatic).

But, y'know, I don't want to rush it because I am fragile haha. And he is not mature enough yet, y'know? I can see that he is growing and I love that, but it's not enough yet, so I have to wait. And I guess I'm just not ready yet either.

Sooo yeah. Sorry, Adrian. That's why I am not going to prom with you, you little butt-wipe. I don't need any more confusion right now.

Oh! Right! Back to the phone call.

Over the weekend, I talked to Adrian over the phone and it was such a nice phone call. It was like the phone calls I have with Liv and Caroline. We were just talking the way we normally would. Both of us were exhausted so stupid things were funny, but I dunno.

I mostly listened to Adrian talk about his passion for music. He said words like, "syncopations," and "pop," and I understood very little of it. It was beautiful. I have never seen that side of him. I've heard him talk about music, but only with a pretentious covering that he uses as a sort of defense mechanism (basically, a glaze of phoniness that he holds most days). This time, he was just... pure. Honest. Ohhhh, I love honesty, and Adrian is not honest very often. He's not a liar—but he just doesn't act like Himself most of the time. He is always trying to be someone or something else.

But anyway, at this moment, he was himself. I don't know, I don't think I've ever seen that side of him before. He was so excited about his music, so excited in analyzing the different sounds and connecting them to different cultural... stuff, I forget.

I told him he was a grain of rice. It felt right.

Adrian is a grain of rice.

I was all, "Sorry, I don't have the energy to organize my abstract thoughts into something cohesive... wait... coherent? Coherent..."

Because when it comes down to it, I think in the abstract a lot of the time. Yeah. I think stuff like, "The sky is a flower," and, "Adrian is a grain of rice," and these things have meaning, but can only be understood by other people when I deconstruct them and put them back together with words that actually make sense. In other words, it's like this diary, y'know? I take the chaos in my head and I put it in order so I can sort of begin to communicate.

Adrian is a grain of rice (specifically, a cooked grain of white rice). This means he is smol and pure, soft and shining bright, very small compared to everything around him. Small in that there is this little shining seed in him that he usually smothers with that phony glaze—all his fear, his confusion, twisted into prisms around his body. Different angles show different images, different colors....

But deep down, he is that soft rice.

This is what my sleepy brain said, at least. I did not explain this to Adrian, however, and he was okay with that.

---

Also, another thing: today, Adrian's tag was sticking out the back of his shirt and I tucked it in. This felt like a weirdly intimate thing to do, especially since it was almost automatic. It confused me. I did not like that.

---
And yet another thing:

When I told Adrian about the blue and yellow pictures, he laughed and said that Liza is actually colorblind and can't see blue or yellow, I guess. I don't know if this is the Truth or some kind of weird Twisted Truth (Adrian, again, is not a liar, but he sometimes twists things by accident).

Anyway I feel psychic.

Also. Also, also. I didn't tell Adrian about the end of the dream, which was the two of us hugging each other tightly while I was dying. I had my head tucked into his neck and that's when I realized I could breathe—I wasn't gonna
die. I was gonna be okay. I could breathe.
-

I hate my stupid dreams sometimes, especially when they involve Adrian. It can never be platonic. I mean, even today, I was reading through old notes on my phone and I found one describing a dream in which I walked down a beach with Adrian, holding his hand, and I told him I loved him. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, THIS WAS LAST YEAR??!??!?! ARE YOU... REALLY???FUCKING.... GIOD FUCKING...

Well, whatever. Right now, Adrian is just one of my best friends. I want it to stay that way for now.





Ad: