100 Unfortunate Days (6 page)

7. The + sign means you are very organized and keep all your perfectly cut coupons in a neat little folder that you carry with you at all times. Dinner is always on the table on time, or you want it to be. You are very mean to people who are not as organized as you. The wildest you ever get is being on top.

8. Anyone that likes the ! pretends to be more optimistic than they actually are. They have contemplated suicide or at least moving away from their current life. They have some artistic ability or they like sports. If you like sports the circumference of your head is very large. You have buck teeth a little.

9. If you like the { sign you are very sentimental and live in the past. You keep stuff in little jars in your garage that normal people would throw away. You like the taste of alcohol and are allergic to something that blooms in the spring but cannot figure what it is. Old people like you.

10.If your sign is } you like to invent things—even if it is just in your head. You do not care about houseplants and would probably prefer them to die. You like toasted Wonder Bread with butter and love the smell of suntan lotion—especially Coppertone.

Almost everyone has an affinity for knives. Some people claim knives scare them, but those are the people who are the most fascinated. Some like little knives, with smooth green handles that only have one blade and are very easy to retract. This is the kind you can keep in your pocket and feel safe with. It doesn’t feel like a knife at all, but it could surely cut something if it had to.

Other people like bigger knives—like the Ninja knives they sell for cooking and chopping. They never get dull. Some of these knives are made of ceramic —but they aren’t real knives—they are ghost knives. Still other people like knives specifically made to do damage. You can’t take these to school or work because if people saw you had one they would send you home and call the police.

Most knifes made to do damage have black handles and black sheathes to store them in. They look like something Batman would carry, or Charles Manson. I know someone who collects swords, which are just oversized knives—like hatchets and machetes. There is no doubt these are made to kill people. An axe can chop wood and a machete can get you through a jungle, but that is not the reason for the fascination. All knives come with invisible blood and everyone can figure out how to get them to work.

Another sunny day and another minute closer to summer and you could not care less. There is a point in time when you are no longer living your own life. You wake up and it is a race to get the things done that you need to get done. And someone is telling you if you don’t get these things done, you are incompetent. You are grateful for the warm weather, but you have to clean up the yard, then cook, then clean, then listen to everyone bitch at how much you suck. And at this point you probably
do
suck, because what the hell, whatever you do is going to be wrong anyway. So you can’t wait to go to sleep at night, but not with your husband. Sharing a bed is overrated. I don’t want to share my covers, I don’t want to shut the light off if I don’t care to, I don’t want to have to worry about someone else not wanting to watch TV, and I don’t want to have to hold in a fart because it might smell bad.

Anything can be a tulpa. If you think of something long enough, you will make it real. You can make almost anything come true. Stacks of books are written about all the methods of imagery, manifestation and self-fulfilling prophecies—but in reality, all you have to do is think. Nothing tricky or fancy—just think. You’ll do this and you won’t even know it. You will worry about your kid…she’ll be sad at school, she’ll do badly with her new friends. Just keep it up—it will surely happen.

Whatever you think about for your kids, whatever you worry about—that is what they will become. Pity them and they will become the kid that should be pitied. You gave them a tulpa. They are their own tulpa because of you. People take things away from us all the time. They call names, they give us wrong directions and they hurt our feelings. We take it from there.

No one can ever talk to us as much as we talk to ourselves. “I’m such a witch, I’m such a witch…” One day your husband made you mad and you add something to his food that may upset his stomach just a little bit. “I’m such a witch…” The mole on your face has a hair you never noticed before. “…such a witch…” You no longer feel a communion with God. Somewhere along the line you become the witch.

A tulpa is a thought come to life. Mystics in India believe if you can imagine something to the point of knowing it down to its finest detail—eventually you will have a hard time knowing if it is your imagination or not. Then this spirit/idea takes on shape and energy and it becomes real. So real that you can no longer get rid of it. So real that it can become a part of you and have the ability to change your life.

Plant something. Do everything right…give it enough sun and water and see if it grows. If you give it too much sun, it could whither from the heat. If you give it too much water, you could drown it. If you totally ignore it the soil will dry up and it will die from neglect.

My brain does not work

She cried and she cried

I’ve visions of demons

And something has died

The food that I cook

Contains sticks and debris

I lie here and sigh

Feeling weak with ennui

The thoughts in my head

Contain lava and thorns

My mind’s forming cracks

And for sunshine it mourns

And the small dancing devils

In high-colored rooms

Pass ideas among them

And settle my glooms

On my outstretched unconscious

So that I’m not aware

Although I’m alive

I’m considered a spare

Project for a rainy day.

Stand in the rain until you are soaking wet. Come inside and put on dry clothes, but do not dry yourself off—let the rainwater soak into your skin. Go to sleep if it’s night or take a nap if it is before 6 PM. Before you fall asleep put a pad and pencil next to your bed. Sleep for at least 90 minutes.

If you remember any dreams you had, write them down. Now the dreams are not just yours, but part of all the spirits and energy of heaven and earth. If you wake up startled from a bad dream, you are doing something bad in your life and you should fix it. The dream may indicate what you need to fix, or it may not. But you have to figure it out anyway. If you kill someone in your dream you are hurting someone and you need to stop. If someone kills you, you are in a bad relationship.

Imagine you are in a room in the foyer of a round medieval spire. When you look up you see a winding stone staircase that is occasionally lit by the sun shining in through stained glass windows. You see two doors. One is a heavy wooden door with iron metalwork and a very big lock with a key that will open it. The other door has recently been replaced with a white six panel door and seems incongruous with the rest of the surroundings. Like Alice in Wonderland, you see an ornate table with a note that reads:

Choose a door and enter.

Which door do you choose?

The Heavy Wooden Door with Iron

This door leads to an opulent dining room lit with wall torches and music playing in the background. The walls are covered in beautiful oil paintings framed in ornate gold. In the center of the room is a long table covered with a feast fit for a king. There are goblets of wine and platters and tureens of roasted turkey, pumpkin soup, fruits, vegetables and sweets cakes and pies.

Seated on red velvet chairs are people laughing and talking. You realize you know everyone there, and as you walk closer to greet them, you realize they are all dead relatives you once loved. But they are only half-dead now…and they have returned for a feast. They ask you to join them, but you are afraid. You miss them so much. You have not seen them in years and it is wonderful to hear their voices.

You hang your head and wonder what you should do…and see the floor is made of playing cards. Kings, Queens, Jacks…and as your eyes flicker over the Joker, the floor starts to give way. The card you are standing on crumbles and falls into a dark hole in the ground. You jump so you don’t fall in. The Queen that is supporting you now only offers momentary support because she too begins to break into small pieces. You are jumping from card to card, the floor becoming a patchwork of open spaces where you could fall and fall and fall.

You look up to your family at the table and they are watching you and laughing. You notice their feast is not what is first appeared to be. The table is now covered with fish bones and newspaper. You can’t look for long or you will perish. So you keep jumping.

The White Painted Door

This door is not easy to open. You will need to figure out the code on the frame before you can go in. Wondering if the code has something to do with you personally, you type in your name. It remains locked. You type in your birthday, your age, your name broken down to numerology, your child’s birthday, your anniversary, the age you lost your virginity, and any other pattern or important date you can think of. And still it won’t open.

Now you are a bit frustrated and bored and you try to leave, but the door leading to the outside is also locked. You look down and notice you are standing on a grate, and beneath the grate something is moving. You assume it is running water. Dark—almost black water. And the water level is rising.

You have a new desire to figure the code. You enter Pi, Avogadro’s number, the date in 2012 the Mayan calendar says the world is going to end—the door remains locked and the water level is still rising. You notice it does not sound like water though. You hear little clicky noises. It is not water, but spiders—millions of black spiders getting closer and closer to your feet. You enter the oven temperature for your favorite cupcakes, the lottery numbers your mother plays twice a week for the last 45 years, and your passwords for all your email and computer accounts.

The spiders start to crawl all over your feet and up your legs. They are biting you, and you know they are black widows. They can crawl so fast. You don’t feel well and you begin to fall—and as you begin to fall you hit the panel of letters and numbers with the side of your head and the door opens because you needed to suffer first. The spiders vanish because they were never really there and you feel much better, and you step into a modern room filled with windows. It smells of salt from the ocean.

There are paintings and pictures on the walls, images from your mind, images you would paint if you knew how. The white curtains billow in the soft breeze in front of windows that run from the floor to the 30 foot ceilings. You think you could live here forever except for the black shadows you see out of the corner of your eye. You know if you don’t call people and tell them where you are, they will forget you and never come visit you again. When you look out the windows you see the ocean all around and you look and look until it gets dark and you notice the white beacon of light going round and round. You realize you live in a lighthouse 1,000 feet above the sea and you will no longer have visitors.

I dreamt I could fly. I was sitting on the roof of my father’s station wagon with my legs crossed and I had a miniature drink umbrella from the Chinese food restaurant in each hand. When my father started to drive I took off and floated around town for a while. If I tipped to the right, I turned right—same with the left. I flew up to Rt. 22 and down the highway a bit.

When I got to Robert Hall, the automatic doors glided open and I flew right in, navigating up and down the rows of men’s suits. I could see myself in the mirrors between the aisles. I got tired and hot so I stopped to lean against one of the columns holding up the ceiling and pressed my cheek against it because it was so cool. I left it there for such a long time. My cheek looked red when I looked at myself in the mirror.