Christmas 2009

Days of Peaches, Nights of Thunder

Well, that was something wasn't it? The whole Twilight thing. I spend four hours one night making my silly little lolcats and next thing I know everything blows up! I went viral, so I guess that's one more thing I have in common with bird flu. It's all been quite fun, but I think it's time to press onward and get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Oh, and I know I've been plugging this a lot, but if you've missed it my new website is http://www.popsuede.com. Lolcats movie reviews and other pop-culture shenanigans will be taking place over there, so head on over and become a follower. Bookmark it. Send me money and snacks.

Back to what this blog does best: Adventure! This was a fine Saturday back in September, where Lady Elin, TR, Terrence, and I went on a trip to Ferron, Utah for the annual Peach Days festival (not to be confused with Brigham City's own Peach Days festival, which I'm sure is inferior) (and in turn should not be confused with Hurricane's Peach Days festival, which may or may not be inferior but is probably pronounced all weird).

Where is Ferron? Nobody knows. It's not on what anyone would consider a beaten path, though it does have a claim to fame: in the '90s it produced three champion bull riders.

It's a ways into the desert, past the Viking burial mounds.


Peach Days was packed with big events. Starting with the soapbox derby race.


Yeah, I would have thought the one on the left would have done better too. Seems more aerodynamic. Probably didn't want it bad enough.


The lil' tykes would race down hill and then get towed back up by four-wheelers.

After the races we went to find the town's social hot spot.

Then lunch at the (shudder) Grub Box.

I didn't want to eat there. Growing up "grub" was a slang term meaning that someone had touched your food with their damn dirty hands. As in "Looks like someone grubbed the chicken. Better throw it away."

Rich guy like this means one thing...

...high stakes horse racing.

That's a good picture, that one there.

Some of the racers had themselves fancy racing pants and flamboyant silks, while some had t-shirts, jeans, and bike helmets. The fancy guys always ended up winning.


Adjourned to a park for some grass layin'. A horrible crime took place in that tree.

Just outside of town is a canyon leading into the Manti-LaSal National Forest. That is some stunning scenery up there.


Something eerie about this partially dry lake bed.



The final event of the day: DEMOLITION.

Then the sky exploded and it got dark.

I think I've said this before, but the best part of the Demoliton Derby is when the cars crash into each other.
You know what? At no point during Peach Days did I consume a peach. I didn't even see a Peach. Huh.

disorder

My insomnia has been real bad lately. Wait, I don't like the term insomnia. That sounds like an infection. I ain't been sleeping so good lately. I can be as tired as a day laborer but as soon as that light goes off every thought a person is capable of having charges through my head. I do come up with a lot of good blog ideas, twitters, and chapter titles for my novel but I forget them by morning.

Morning! Morning comes too early. I wake up long before the alarm is set and can't get back to sleep. My heart is pounding and my thoughts are upturned. Not cool Zeus!

More interesting than not sleeping though is Hypnogagia. Look it up! Basically it's a disorder where your brain and your body don't wake up at the same time. Maybe your brain wakes up but your body is still in sleep paralysis. So you lay there awake, but can't move. Also, you hallucinate monsters. Fun!

This has happened to me four times, most recently last night.

The first time I was a kid. Just four or five. I woke up and perceived that Star Wars aliens were in my room staring at me. Like three Nien Numbs or something.

No seriously, monsters. See, your brain is awake, but not completely, and for whatever reason you conjure up hallucinations of usually unpleasant things. I'd wager most alien abduction cases can be explained by this.

Anyway, shortly after the Nien Numb incident I was told that there had been an earthquake. That's an important fact.

The second time I was older, late teens. This time I woke up to a vampire at the foot of my bed. a large one. Guess what? There was also an earthquake that night. So apparently an earthquake shakes my bed with just enough force to wake me up halfway.

I should point out, these hallucinations, you don't actually "see" them, you just kind of know that they're there. Like how right now you know that maybe there's a wall behind you or whatever even though you can't actually see it.

The third time was the scariest and longest incident. I had fallen asleep with the tv on and woke up to find myself watching the Simpsons, even though I didn't want to be. I couldn't move and it lasted long enought that I could actually think "I can't move. I can't close my eyes. I shouldn't be looking at the Simpsons right now but I can't close my eyes." I perceived, just off the side of my bed, a large goblin creature. It was horrible and malicious. This lasted an estimated 45 minutes (probably 10 seconds in actuality) before I noticed that my bed was shaking. Aha! I put it all together and realized that earthquakes caused these bizarre dream things.

Except there actually wasn't an earthquake that night. Huh.

Last night I woke up and there was an (imaginary) intruder in my room. I responded like I would if it was a real intruder. Cooly and calmly. My exact words, out loud (I think) were "Huh? Huh? Huh? What? What do you want? What is it? Oh my god. Ohhh my god." Finally I was able to move and flipped on a light. No intruder. Felt my bed rattle, but no earthquake.

Well, that's today's story.