In a desperate attempt to change the narrative away from Stranger Things posts for the last week, or maybe just as a brief respite from entertainment and movies altogether, we’re going to focus on dreams. That’s fun. Or, in my case, last night’s nightmare.
Every now and then I have a dream this memorable .. a nightmare that sticks with you .. and last night was one of those sleepless nights. It was the 3:00 a.m. witching hour when I woke up. That seems to be the most popular time for a nightmare to abruptly pull you out of your nocturnal decommission.
In this situation, the abrupt nature was a giant inflatable lumberjack.
Let me explain.
In the dream, there was a bluish tint to the atmosphere and fresh-fallen snow covering a giant yard .. presumably my yard. I noticed something underneath the snow, struggling to move. When I went down to investigate, it turned out to be an inflatable lumberjack. How cute. Have fun.
It started innocently, with the lumberjack now freed from the heavy snow on top of it and able to inflate freely. But as dreams tend to go, it didn’t stop there. Literally. It just kept inflating, to the point where it was potentially 30 to 40 feet high, and that’s when it started to frighten me.
So, in the dream, I ran back to the house for safety. When I looked out the window, the lumberjack decided to grab a giant inflatable axe, detach himself from the strings holding him down, and run at the house at full speed.
What a strange concept — a lumberjack, let alone a 40-foot inflatable lumberjack, charging at you at full speed.
It’s weird because it was just a dream, but it’s the kind of dream that stayed with me all day. There could be plenty of reasons why it happened. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe there’s something in my own life coming at me full speed that I need to grasp or grapple with.
Or maybe it was just too much vino at the hotel bar. Either way, I asked AI to make a gritty four-panel comic based on my very detailed description. It didn’t quite capture the full inflatable rendering, the size and ferocity of the lumberjack, but it’s good enough for me.
So I present it for your approval, with the help of our ever-increasing spy device known as AI. Enjoy: The Inflatable Lumberjack Dream, comic-style.
Christmas Day is here. Hopefully you, your family, and your friends all had a wonderful Christmas season and received the gifts you expected .. and maybe even a few you didn’t.
The greatest gift, of course, is simply being alive. And after the tension and pressure of this past year, let’s hope we can move into next year alive in a better way, more profound, calmer, and more beautiful.
A year where we slow down, take in every breath of life, and let even the smallest moments feel special and meaningful. Let’s make it the greatest year we possibly can.
And speaking of gifts, I received one of my favorites this Christmas: The Hellfire Man Stranger Things / Masters of the Universe crossover.
It fits perfectly alongside my He-Man collection and reminds me how good it feels to still feel like a kid long after childhood has passed.
And it is a great question.. It got me to thinking, one of the most popular of Christmas stories is one about ghosts visiting a stark capitalist who doesn’t care about a wheelchair-bound boy.. and a cartoon about a blockhead who seems to be disdained by his friends..
Christmas season is supposed to be good. That’s what we’re told, right? The lights, the music, the movies, the scents, the traditions .. all the imagery is designed to make this the “happiest time of the year.” And I don’t want to take away any of that, because those things are good. They’re important and give us something to look forward to while holding the albatross of nostalgia around us.
But at the same time, this is the time of year when the bad things happen too. The life-altering things. The life-changing things. The things that, for some people, make Christmas never quite feel the same again.
A lot of people experience trauma now, during this season. Deaths.. broken pipes.. job loss. It happens in December like clockwork at times.. And it becomes hard to stay positive when pop culture is blasting Christmas songs and holiday cheer straight into your face. I listen to the music too .. even during some of the worst Christmases my family went through, I still played the songs, still tried to find the spirit wherever I could. But when you have kids, you have to keep a sense of normalcy.
You keep the traditions going even when internally you feel like you’re falling apart at the seams.
For me as well, December has become this strange emotional landscape. In all different years, my mom went into a nursing home in December. My dad was hospitalized twice in December. A water system broke in December. A heating system broke in December. My nephew almost died in a hospital in December. There’s more if you have time.. but we will bookmark it there.
But the most mysterious time was December 2013. You also may have had a ‘moment’ like this.
My father was quickly growing very sick at that time, at the time we didn’t know why but it was getting serious.. I walked into the kitchen and saw him, and for whatever reason, my memory of that moment is not normal. The whole room felt white–glowing white. The table looked like it was floating, and I remember trying to hold it down. Yes, this sounds absolutely insane, I know that, and maybe it was stress, or maybe it was a high blood pressure moment, but that’s how I remember it happening.
Eventually my dad was taken to the hospital and my sister has her own strange recollection from the hospital that year during this situation. She swears my father said to her, “You were there,” and insinuated that she was holding death back from taking him. He wouldn’t even agree to emergency surgery unless she promised she would still be there afterward.
And during that entire week, there were so many little things that just didn’t line up with reality as we knew it. My sister always worked Mondays, but somehow this hospital visit seemed to fall on a day she shouldn’t have been working at all .. yet we both remember vividly that she was. Maybe she filled in for someone. Maybe life is a blur when disasters pile up. But it still doesn’t make sense.
The strangest moments came when my father was finally recovering, and I was driving him home from the hospital. My mom said to me on the phone, “Wish upon a star that everything’s okay.” And right then — no lie! A shooting star streaked across the sky in front of me. Sure, it could’ve been coincidence. But it was weird.. really weird.
Then the moment happened that I still cannot explain. As we were driving, we suddenly heard my sister and brother-in-law talking inside the car, through the speakers, even though my phone was not connected to anything and I had not called them (And this is 2013 technology folks) But we heard them. Full conversation. I was so startled I actually called them afterward and told them everything they had been saying.
Right after that, outside the windows, snow was falling. My dad looked at me and said, “This happened before, didn’t it?”
And I looked back at him and said, “Yes. It did.”
There was this deep, unspoken knowing .. the kind of moment you don’t forget .. that somehow, in some way, we had lived that exact scene before. Neither one of us could explain it. We never talked about it ever again. Not once. And now he’s gone. I never asked him what he meant by it. I never explored what I meant by it. Time ran out.
TIME RUNS OUT
That’s the thing: We make Christmas plans, New Year’s plans, life plans, but we run out of time for the things that actually matter.
It’s the typical cliched conversation a the work Christmas party.. We say we’ll have the deep conversations “later.” We say we’ll reconnect “soon.” We say we’ll talk about the mysteries of life “when things calm down.” But life doesn’t work that way.
And maybe that’s what bothers me about this season.. the holiday parties, the work lunches, the happy hours, the shopping that feels half-present and half-numb. We scroll Amazon, clicking nonsense into carts for people who don’t need it. We forget where the car is parked. We forget what we’re even doing in the middle of a store. We’re overwhelmed, distracted and oddly disconnected.
It’s not just that we’re not living in the moment. It feels like we’re living in a different moment than where our feet are standing.
Time just slips and slips and slips. And we don’t even fully realize it until we’ve lost more of it.
Here’s the last thing I want to say, and maybe it’s the most important part of all:
Nobody wants to hear this at a holiday gathering, but we’re all going to exit stage left someday. For good. Not exactly a pleasant conversation starter and for sure a first date ender.. Say that at a Christmas party and you’re worse than Scrooge. But the truth behind it matters: life ends. It’s the one guarantee. And because of that, we should be talking more openly about the things that actually give life meaning.
Seeing a parent pass away changes you. Facing illness changes you. Losing a career and having to suddenly change life during financial personal crisis hurts .. not being able to afford the ‘Christmas cheer’ is haunting.. homelessness… war.. famine.. disease.. All under the bows and wreaths and mistletoe. Now that is often reality that we don’t want to consider..
Watching time run out changes you. Work still has meaning, life still has structure, but you see it differently. You understand what’s real and what’s man-made.
Christmas comes but once a year. Make it the best. It could be your last .. God willing you will have a hundred more.
Same with summer. Same with every moment. You don’t always know what’s going to become a profound memory until years later.
It seems we are all struggling this year to find the Christmas joy.
And if you, reading this, are trying too, you’re not alone. We’re in this together. We’re human. And we’re speaking the quiet part of Christmas out loud.
People can call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for themselves or if they are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support. No matter where you live in the United States, you can reach a trained crisis counselor who can help. If you or someone you know has a mental illness, is struggling emotionally, or has concerns about their mental health, use these resources to find help for yourself, a friend, or a family member: https://go.nih.gov/Fx6cHCZ .
I just want to take a quick moment to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.
I’m thankful for the folks who read, the folks who reach out, and even the quiet ones who never say a word but still stop by. If you fall into that last group, don’t be a stranger—look me up, say hello.
Life is tough. We’re all in this together. Life is short, too, so let’s soak up the sun where we can, eat a little more than we should, and grab every bit of life that’s offered while we’re here.
Give thanks for what you have, and try not to envy what someone else has—you never know, they might not even like it themselves.
I’m going to go a bit personal here. I haven’t done that in a while. The internet’s changed a lot since the last time I shared something like this—people get a little too judgy these days. But I wanted to talk about something I’m sort of proud of… and also a little confused by.
So, around August of last year, I gave up drinking.
No, really—I mean it. I’ve had maybe one or two beers in the last few months, but even those felt like a chore to finish. I don’t even remember if I got through the whole glass. That’s unlike me.
I was never a party animal. If anything, I was more of a lone wolf drinker, and yeah—that’s not great. Drinking alone isn’t glamorous. It didn’t make me depressed or angry or anything like that, but it started to feel… pointless.
I didn’t quit for health reasons—though I’ll admit, the health benefits I’ve noticed have been pretty great. I quit because I wanted to. Because I felt bored. Because as I’m getting into my 40s, alcohol just doesn’t hit the same. It hurts now. If you’re around my age, you know what I mean—the throbbing headache after just a couple glasses of wine, the dragging feeling the next morning. I think back to my 20s, when I could polish off a bottle without flinching. But now? No thanks.
Am I proud of that old version of me? Not really. So, yeah—this whole “not drinking” thing seems to be catching on. I’m not saying I’m a trendsetter, but maybe I’m part of a quiet movement. It seems like a lot of people are phasing alcohol out of their lives—not in a puritanical way, just… choosing different paths.
Of course, the recreational marijuana and gummy industry is booming, so we’re all trading one vice for another. But alcohol—man, that stuff can really hurt. It’s literally a toxic liquid. And I’ll tell you this: I feel better without it.
I’m not going to sit here and claim I lost a bunch of weight or feel like a million bucks. I’m still aging. I still get tired. I still have muscle aches. But I don’t feel that little liver throb I used to. My heart doesn’t feel as taxed. My body feels like it can breathe again.
And here’s the best part: I haven’t had a hangover in nearly a year.
That’s worth celebrating.
I’ve had water with lime at the few functions I’ve attended (I’m not much of a social butterfly anymore, sadly). If nobody hears your drink order, they won’t know what you’re sipping. I’ve heard people say quitting alcohol made them lose friends. I didn’t lose any—though, to be fair, you’d have to have a bunch of friends to lose them. The close ones I do have? They don’t care. So, we’re good.
I’m good.
I’m not swearing off alcohol forever. I’m not setting some hard rule that I’ll never drink again, because if I break that rule, I’ll feel like a failure. Instead, I just say, “No thanks.” And maybe someday, if I want a drink—wine, beer, whatever—I’ll say “Sure.” And that’ll be that. No big deal. I think making it a big deal is what makes it harder than it needs to be.
Now here’s the kicker.
Here’s the big one.
I’ve been drinking coffee longer than I’ve been drinking alcohol. And for the past 10 days… I’ve been coffee sober.
Yes, you read that right. No caffeine. No coffee. Cold turkey.
And let me tell you—those horror stories you hear? They’re true. The headaches were brutal the first few days. Your body begs for it. But around day four, the storm started to pass. And now, on days 7 through 10, I’m in this sort of hazy malaise. Like my body’s still adjusting, but I’m not falling apart anymore.
This morning’s drink of choice? A large iced decaf from Dunkin’.
Ironically, that’s what made me want to quit. I realized I was having close to 1,000mg of caffeine—multiple times a week. Sometimes even in the evening. I’d actually drink coffee to fall asleep because, somehow, the stimulant was making me tired. That’s how far gone I was. Maybe it’s a medical anomaly, maybe not, but it was weird and I didn’t like it.
And honestly, I didn’t want to be that person—someone who needs coffee to function. I didn’t want to need it first thing in the morning. I didn’t want to be defined by it.
I’ve tried quitting before. I’ve gone cold turkey and lasted about four days, then came crawling back—and drank even more. But this time feels different.
While I’m not ready to say caffeine-free living is giving me some great mental edge, I do feel a longer-term clarity. Less jittery. Calmer. I’m more even. I think things through instead of reacting instantly. And that, to me, is progress.
I don’t know what the long-term benefits will be. Who does? I could get hit by a car tomorrow and none of this will matter. But if it matters—if I’m lucky enough to live a long, healthy life—then the idea of never having a hangover or a caffeine crash again? That’s sounding better and better.
Now that I’ve dropped two somewhat toxic things in my life—alcohol and caffeine—I’m starting to wonder: what else can I do?
Because honestly, the best self-help advice is simple: just do something.
Be careful though–I still have not decided if decaf can be a gateway drug..
Take one small thing and tackle it.
Now… giving up sugar?
I don’t know if I’m ready for that conversation yet.
I went outdoors last night. It just so happened to be one of those nights where sleep just wouldn’t come. I’m not sure why—I woke up from a dream in a panic, but I couldn’t remember the dream itself. Just an uneasy feeling lingered throughout the early part of the evening.
That uneasy feeling had one benefit, though: I was awake to witness the blood-red moon eclipse.
What made it special wasn’t just the eclipse itself, but the slow-motion dance of the Earth’s shadow creeping across the moon, transforming it into that eerie red glow. It wasn’t just the moon that took on the color—it was the whole sky, bathed in a deep crimson hue. More than anything, that aura gave the night an apocalyptic vibe.
I’ve seen plenty of photographs today, but none of them truly do it justice. Pictures can capture an image, but seeing it with your own eyes? That’s where the magic is.
What made this event even rarer for Eastern Pennsylvania was the clear sky. No clouds, no rain, no storms, no snow—just crisp air with an early spring feel. It seems like every celestial event in recent memory has been obscured by bad weather, but not this time. This time, the dreadful, dark, blood-red moon hung over us, a stark reminder of space and science—or, depending on your beliefs, a sign of Armageddon and biblical prophecy.
But let’s ignore the biblical prophecies for now—after all, we’re still here. And as far as I can tell, nobody was raptured.
Sometimes, dreams come and go, slipping through our fingers like sand, forgotten before we even open our eyes. But then there are nights when our dreams refuse to let go, clinging to our minds with their surreal imagery and cryptic messages. Last night was one of those nights for me. And trust me, the dreams I had were as bizarre as they were unforgettable.
Let me take you on this strange journey and see if we can untangle the threads of meaning—or just enjoy the ride together.
x x x
A Cosmic Textbook
It started with the planets. In my dream, the night sky looked more like a celestial chalkboard, complete with labeled planets hovering in perfect alignment. Jupiter, Mars, Saturn—they all floated there, their names glowing beneath them like captions in a giant astronomy textbook.
What’s fascinating is that, in real life, the planets actually were lined up last night. Maybe this dream was just my brain playing back what I’d seen or read, but the textbook-style labeling? That’s what sticks with me. Was my subconscious trying to tell me something about clarity or understanding? Or was it just showing off its ability to turn the cosmos into an educational PowerPoint slide?
The Woman in the Woods
Then things took a turn. In this dream, I saw a woman walking toward the woods behind my house. She wasn’t threatening, but there was something unsettling about her silence and purpose. She was dressed nicely, carrying a book, and her intentions were vague.
Should I stop her? Should I ask questions? Should I call the police? My dream-self wrestled with indecision until the sheer uncertainty of the situation jolted me awake.
It’s the kind of dream that leaves a residue—a low hum of unease that lingers throughout the day. What was she doing? Why the woods? And why couldn’t I make a decision?
A World Without Squares
And then, the final act: a world where squares didn’t exist. Not just banned, but completely wiped from existence—like some Orwellian fever dream where the concept of four equal sides was deemed unacceptable.
In this dream, we all seemed to vaguely remember squares, but they were now forbidden, replaced by a world of circles, triangles, and abstract shapes. There was an underground network of hidden square objects, like secret contraband for those who couldn’t let go of the past.
I can’t explain why this dream struck such a chord, but it left me with an almost existential sense of wrongness. What does a world without squares even mean? And why did it feel so important?
What Does It All Mean?
Dreams like these—abstract, strange, and layered with unspoken meaning—have a way of sticking with us. They aren’t just random snippets of imagination; they feel like puzzles waiting to be solved.
Take the square dream, for example. Squares are everywhere in our waking world. They represent structure, stability, and order. A home, a framework, a foundation. The absence of squares might symbolize:
A rejection of old systems or ideas.
A loss of structure or stability in life.
A subconscious urge to break free from rigid boundaries and explore something new.
Or maybe it was just my brain having a little fun with geometry at 3 a.m.
A Lingering Sense of Dread
What ties these dreams together is the strange undercurrent of dread—not fear, exactly, but a sense that something was just slightly off. Whether it was the silent woman in the woods or the forbidden squares, there was this quiet, unspoken feeling of unease.
But maybe that’s the beauty of dreams like these. They don’t come with easy answers, but they leave us questioning, reflecting, and (in my case) writing blog posts about them.
So, I’m putting this out into the universe: Calling all dream analyzers! What do you think these dreams mean? What would you make of a world without squares? Or a silent stranger walking toward the woods?
So here’s the deal, and it’s been my deal for a few years now: I am on a mission to find and buy presidents’ heads. Let me explain.
I’m talking about those iconic, oversized heads of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln that used to adorn classroom walls in the early 1900s. You know the ones—giant oval cutouts that loomed over children as they tackled their studies, offering a silent, patriotic presence, and in the case of honest Abe, a slightly melancholy and distinct stare..
You might ask, Why on earth are you hunting for these heads? Well, let me tell you: it’s the thrill of the hunt.
It’s also for some decoration to properly celebrate Presidents’ Day. For three years now in January, I’ve embarked on this annual exercise to find these elusive relics of American decor.. Because there are personal rules to this game, and I’ve set a strict rule for myself: no eBay, no online shopping. This is a boots-on-the-ground kind of mission, a real scavenger hunt for the presidents heads..
My latest adventure took me to Rosie’s, a craft store in Minersville, Pennsylvania. It’s the kind of place that smells like nostalgia and glitter glue. I found an image when searching for craft and decoration stores that gave me hope.. a little glimmer of ABE in the picture made it appear I may have finally struck presidential head gold:
Obviously the photo was dated–2021. Lots happened since.. and when we got to Rosie’s, the mission came to a screeching halt..
While I struck up a great conversation with the cashier *(and presumably the owner) about old-fashioned decorations, I was told that the cutouts were long gone. And as a matter of fact, they may not even be in production anymore–something I sensed with their lack of availability. . The trip was not wasted, I walked away with some decent materials—Cupid cutouts, Valentine’s Day décor, a few cardboard constitutions (because why not?). I’d recommend Rosie’s for the old fashioned decor–can’t wait to go back around Halloween and get some cardboard cutouts of Frankenstein.
But back to the heads.. it was yet another tragic blow to the mission, but not one that will deter me.
I’m committed to this quest. I’ll keep exploring craft stores, antique shops, and every strange, off-the-beaten-path establishment I can find. Because let’s be honest: the thrill of finding these vintage gems in the wild beats clicking “Add to Cart” online shopping any day.
And really, aren’t old-school decorations the best anyway? They’ve got history, character, and a certain charm that modern stuff just doesn’t have.
