the baseball dream & the complete asimov volume 1

i just woke up from a strange dream i keep having, and it's funny, because i left the radio on when i fell asleep and there was a song playing when i woke up called runnin' down a dream by this weird old guy named tom petty. he's on the radio every day, i think. i know he's a weird old guy because i've seen him on tv lots of times, and i don't know if this song is for kids because the video is a cartoon. so i don't know if i should watch it or not. mom always says that if it's a cartoon then it's for kids, it's really her sole criterion as to what qualifies as for kids or not for kids, but i don't know about this, for sure. i think i like the guitar part, though. dad says that tom petty is one of the travelling strawberries, so he thinks he's alright. the beatles are also travelling strawberries. i like the beatles. dad plays them for me sometimes.

but, this weird old guy tom petty keeps talking about running down a dream and going "woo-hoo, woo-hoo" so i'm going to tell you about the dream i keep having. woo-hoo...woo-hoo......

.......woo-hoo.........

mom finally came home last night, after being gone almost a week. i had to go downstairs so mom and tony could talk, and they got into a big fight. there was yelling, but i didn't really hear what they said. mom said tony had to leave, and he did. mom called dad right after, and dad is going to pick me up early this week. sometimes, dad says he'll have to call mom on sunday to see if me and my sister are going to stay with him for the week or not, but we always go back. dad has to give mom a lot of money every month, and he sometimes tells her he won't give it to her if she's not there, and says he'd rather we stay with him, instead, so he won't have to give her any money. i think that's why mom always comes home, in the end - she has to make sure she's there, so that dad has to give her the money. i remember when i was really little, before dad moved out, and they used to always argue about money then, too. so, i'm used to them always arguing about money. dad sometimes talks about the day, in the future, where we can stay with him, and he won't have to give her any money any more. i think there are pros and cons of staying with mom and pros and cons of staying with dad.

but, i fell asleep early because i had to stay downstairs, and i had this dream i keep having. i think that to understand the dream i have to talk a little about nana, first. 

nana doesn't come over as much anymore, but nana used to always come over during the week because mom had to go to meetings, to stop her from getting sick. remember i talked about how she got sick? well, the meetings were supposed to stop her from getting sick, but i don't think it worked as well as it was supposed to because she got sick, anyways. nana, though, would come over when mom was at the meeting and we used to always go out in the forest behind the field in the backyard and pick raspberries. nana was from manitoba, so she used to pick raspberries when she was little. i think there's just lots of fields and lots of forests in manitoba, so there's lots of raspberries. we used to pick flowers in the field, too. nana said i was lucky to have a giant field like that in my backyard, and i think she was right. the big field is longer than the whole row of houses and has soccer posts at either side. behind that is a baseball diamond and behind that is a hockey rink, in the winter. so, it's a big big field. behind the field are trees that go into the greenbelt, and that's where the raspberries and the flowers are.

so, i used to go out to the field with nana to pick flowers and raspberries back when i was really little. not before i went to school, but before i was in grade one.

then, one day, last summer, dad took me to the baseball diamond and there were all these other kids there, which i didn't expect. we used to go sometimes and play catch, and he would lob balls at me to swing at, but i'd never seen all these kids there before. dad said i needed to go out in the field on the left side and wait by myself for the ball to come, after somebody hit it. then, when the ball showed up, i'd have to throw it back to where the kid was running to. i didn't know why, but i said ok.

when i was out in the field, though, it was just like i was picking flowers with nana. i wondered if there might be raspberries, so i wandered off looking for them. i didn't find any raspberries, but i found some daisies and some dandelions and picked them up out of the field as i found them, running around from place to place, all over the field. it wasn't long before i had a little bouquet in my hands. i was so absorbed in the act of searching for flowers that i didn't even notice the baseball roll by me. 

before i could look around and see what was happening, dad had already come out of nowhere, had swooped me up with one arm and was bringing me directly to the car. he didn't say anything, but i felt something in his wooden grip that i hadn't felt before, a feeling of shame and disappointment. i didn't completely understand it then, but i've come to realize that he was very upset that i was looking for flowers instead of focusing on the baseball. he never really explained that to me, though.

for some reason, i keep dreaming about this over and over again. specifically, i dream about the non-verbal expression from dad, and the feeling i felt, at the moment that he swooped me up out of the field. it seems to have left me unsettled, somehow. i think i'm struggling to fully understand, and dreaming about it over and over to give myself the repeated opportunity to understand it. what exactly was i feeling in dad's arms at that time? what was so upsetting? and, why was throwing the baseball so much more important to him than picking flowers?

dad then silently drove me back to mom's and dropped me off a little bit early. neither of us said anything during the drive, but there was a strange tension in the car. finally, we get to mom's, and he walks me to the door and, before he leaves, promises he'll never make me stand out in a field, alone, by myself, ever again. and, he never has.

i spent this week inside reading like the doctor said. i read something called the complete asimov, volume one, which is another book nana gave me. these were short stories like the first one and they were about all kinds of things. as before, i liked the ones that had ideas and didn't really like the ones that were just stories. i think that's probably true about this isaac asimov, in general. i actually have more isaac asimov from nana, but i'm going to dad's in the morning, so i won't get to them until next week.

and, then i have to go to a new school on an army base in september because it has a really big field. but, there's a big field in my backyard. i think i agree with dad that it's silly, but i'd might as well make the best of it.

the concussion story & the complete robot

wow, have i ever had a weekend. and, i'm really confused and need somewhere to write it down, so i'll write it down here. i hope nobody finds it.

it's sunday night, now - almost monday morning. i'm supposed to go right to sleep, but i'm wide awake, so i'll write. i usually go to dad's on the weekend; i didn't go last weekend, because he had to go away. but, he usually picks me and my sister up on fridays and drops us off on sunday afternoons. this week, he kept us until the very end of the day, and dropped us off with tony. tony says he doesn't know where mom is, but he thinks she's probably ok and should be back "in a few days". if she doesn't come back in a few days, well...we'll take it from there. that's what he said. but, he thinks she'll be back.

i think he's right.

i'm actually used to mom disappearing for a few days when she gets sick, and she's always come back before. i didn't tell them she was sick, though. and, somebody usually knows where she is. nobody knows where she is, this time. and, tony's really worried because she's pregnant. mom was even so sick that she was smoking, and i know she shouldn't smoke when she's pregnant because it can hurt the baby. i think being sick is bad for the baby, but i know smoking is. i can't tell him what really happened, though - i can only write it down in here.

so, this is what really happened, and i can only hope nobody finds this notepad. nobody comes in here. i clean in here, when it has to be cleaned. i don't think anybody would even think to search down here, because i'm so well-behaved and polite. i could have piles of rotting, dead corpses in here, and nobody would ever suspect it. 

i came upstairs on friday around noon, after i made myself lunch, which i ate downstairs by myself, and mom said i had to go outside. i had just come up from watching this video by this crazy person named prince called batdance, so i was singing baaatmaaan and dancing silly, but not like in the video. i thought the video was really weird and the singer was sort of gross. but, i also thought it was kind of interesting. i think i like it, but i don't know, yet. maybe i don't, but i think i do. i watch the old batman from the olden days sometimes so i know who he is. anyways, i was singing baaaaatmaaann, baaaaaatmaaaaan and mom said i had to stop and go play outside instead. and i know what that means, it means she's going to be sick for a little while.

but, the last time i played outside, somebody punched me in the eye. i didn't want to go back out there. no way, jose!

she said it's ok because i know karate now, but that isn't true, and i get upset when people tell me things that aren't true. so, she went to the drawer and took out a spatula and threatened to hit me with it if i didn't go outside, which made me think she must be getting really sick, and made me want to do karate, but i didn't. i just went out front and sat on the green box and waited for dad to come get me.

a few seconds later, i looked up and mom was yelling at me to get away from the house. i had to go to the park, or the pool, or somewhere else that was not on the street, i wasn't allowed to just sit outside the house. i didn't want to, but i know that mom doesn't make any sense when she's sick, so i decided to go for a walk around the block and go back to waiting for dad when i got back. 

as i was walking down the street, i looked back and saw mom standing out on the sidewalk, making sure i was really gone. she yelled at me to keep going. wow, i thought to myself, she's really sick today.

i noticed the mean kids at the park as i walked by, so i didn't want to go there. i'm glad they didn't see me. but there were some other kids near the store that i hadn't seen before. they were a little older, but they were still kids - or, that's what i thought, anyways. they called me over to talk to them. i normally would be too afraid to go talk to them, but i wasn't excited about going back to get yelled at by mom, so i thought maybe i could waste a few minutes talking to them. they thought i was too young to go out by myself, but i told them i go out by myself all the time, because mom asks me to. for example, mom often sends me to the store by myself to buy cigarettes. the store clerk thinks i'm too young to smoke, so he sells them to me. he always shakes his head when i come in and i can tell he's not happy about it. i think i probably shouldn't be allowed to buy cigarettes, even if they aren't for me. but, i have to listen to mom because she's mom.

it turns out that the big kids wanted me to go to the cliff with them to swing on the rope. i had no idea what they were talking about, but it sounded exciting - like something in a book. i asked them if it was dangerous and they said "no" and rolled their eyes. so, i decided i should go and see it, and just not swing on it if it's too dangerous. that's ok, right?

we walked along the big road, called "bridle path", until we got to a sidewalk that went between a row of houses and an industrial area, which i knew not to go into because it was fenced off. almost right off the sidewalk, in a small forested patch, there was a tree overhanging a 10 foot drop. a rope dangled harmlessly out of the tree. what the big kids did was take a run towards the "cliff" and jump on to the rope, then swing back and forth until they landed back on the cliff that they had jumped off of in the first place. i could see that this was safe for them, but they were a lot taller than me, and i realized i couldn't do what they were doing until i was a big kid, too. so, i took a step back and said "i'll just watch". i still had some time to wait for dad to pick me up.

but, the big kids were mean, too, it turned out. it didn't bother me that they called me names for not wanting to run and jump at the rope, i just turned to leave to go wait for dad somewhere else. but, they wouldn't let me leave; when i tried, they grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me towards the cliff, telling me i had to do it. i struggled, but they were just bigger than i was, so i couldn't stop them. they were laughing because they thought it was funny, until they managed to spin me around, so i was facing the cliff, and get me close enough to the edge to lift me off the ground, rotate me to the horizontal position, pull me back a little in an arc of my future forward momentum, and then launch me, head first, into the air, towards the rope, which i didn't actually come close to intersecting paths with.

it was only ten feet, but time slows down when you're airborne, and i was launched into it, face-first - first up a little and then straight down. the experience of losing touch with the ground was not entirely void of pleasure, so i wish i could have better enjoyed that fraction of a second, that minuscule segment of time, where i saw the clouds moving towards me, and was suspended in nothingness, when i had the presence of mind to wonder if i could fly off to the top of the tree, and if everything would be ok, after all. then, the industrial park comes back into focus, and, sharply, the descent asserts itself; i distinctly recall understanding the ground beneath me, futilely attempting to adjust to protect myself and then realizing, in horror, that it was nothing but rock and there was no way i could prevent the inevitable imminent collision with my oncoming face. all i could do was close my eyes and brace for impact.

i'm probably lucky that my skull held. 

after an unknown amount of time had elapsed, in which the status of my consciousness is not clear from memory, i opened my eyes and sat up. the first thing i noticed was a trickle of blood coming from my nose. so, i did what you would expect me to do - i started crying. but, nobody came to help.

instead, i looked up and noticed that the mean big kids were also cowardly, and had run away. big, mean and cowardly. i didn't ask them their names, and i'll probably never see them again. i don't even know if they live around here at all.

so, the first thing i had to do was climb out of the cliff, which was taller than me. and i had to climb out of the cliff because i was surrounded by barbed wire fence. after looking around a little, i was able to find a tree root that gave me a boost for my feet, and i was then able to pull myself up using a branch, like i used to when i climbed up the water heater and under the holes in the basement stairs when i was really little. once i got back up to ground level, i desperately called out - and what does one say?

i said...

help!

it turns out that one of the big kids was there the whole time, and he came out with a giant tree branch and told me to run off, and then threatened to hurt me with the branch if i didn't. he also told me not to tell anybody what happened. i ran all the way to the space between the row houses, before i got off hunter's point and back to farriers lane, where i knew i was safe. farriers lane is home base - nothing bad happens there.

that's when i noticed the headache, and that i was really tired, but i thought maybe it was from running so fast. i can run faster than the other kids, but i get tired just like they do, too. so, i walked the rest of the way and went to open the door...

it was locked. and, i didn't have a key. 

mom only locks the door when she's sick. but, i had to get a bandaid. she'd let me in for a bandaid, right? so, i knocked on the door.

at first there was no answer. all i could hear was some terrible music playing, which always happens when mom is really sick. but, i really needed a band-aid so i knocked on the door. and banged on it. and rang the doorbell.

eventually, mom came to the door. her belly was very big, because she was very pregnant. she had a cigarette in one hand and a clear bottle that said vodka on it in her other hand. i don't know exactly what that is, but i know it's what makes her sick. she gave me no chance to respond before she screamed, as loud as she could, 

get out of here! get out of here! get out of here!

and, that was all there was to it - there was nothing to say, no debate to be had, merely a dictate to immediately leave.

and, then the door shut again. so, i sat down, and heard the curtains in the kitchen window ruffle behind me, before the door re-opened and the hard face of the spatula came down across my shoulders. and, she began again:

get out of here! get out of here! go! get!

i had to get up immediately, or risk further attacks. so, that is what i did.

i didn't have a watch, but i guessed that dad would be there in less than an hour, if he was on time, which he isn't always. but, sometimes he's early, too. i could no longer stay awake, and i did not feel it was safe to sleep in the front of the house, so i tried to move towards the backyard, where there are less people, if i couldn't go in the house to sleep there. 

at first, i found it hard to move, and i fell over a few times on my way around the house. as i fell, i felt a weight pulling me down, and a difficulty generating the energy required to walk. but, after a few tries, after a few stops to rest, i did manage to make it to the backyard of the house, where i entered through the back gate and sat down behind a large, green weed. the backyard was neither mowed nor gardened, but was rather left to the weeds to grow in, in tremendous sizes, some much larger than myself. there had been both raccoons and skunks in the yard, at different points in my childhood, but they had both been removed, at this time. 

the curtains over the sliding door going into the backyard were always closed, so, with the music blaring, she didn't notice i was there; if she had, she would have chased me off. once in a safe place, i wiped the blood off my nose, cleared a space in the weeds, lied down and went to sleep. the music from inside was very loud, but it did not prevent me from sleeping.

i woke up in the children's hospital of eastern ontario with several doctors hovering over me and asking me questions that i did not understand. i found it difficult to speak. they insisted i smell things to stay awake, and i did. eventually, dad came in and started asking me questions, and i understood those better. nana was also asking questions, and i understood those, too.

when they asked me what happened, i told them the story up until i got back to farriers lane and then told them i didn't remember anything after that. but, i did.

they made me stay in the hospital all the way until saturday morning because they wanted to "observe me". and, then they let me go to dad's on saturday night and we had pizza and dad watched the hockey game. dad doesn't get sick like mom, but sometimes he gets a little silly. that's ok. he said he was really confused when he found me outside and didn't know what to do, and was worried he might have to miss the game because of it, but he's glad i'm ok, now.

the doctors said i had something called a concussion and they say i'll have to go back to the hospital later, but for now i'm ok to go home and sleep and do whatever else, except i shouldn't play outside for a while, i should stay inside and read, instead.

that sounds like a good idea to me!

what i was reading before i had to go outside was another isaac asimov book nana gave me called the complete robot. this is a book all about robots. i was hoping that i'd know everything about robots after i finished reading it, and even know how to make one, but it's actually just stories about robots. so, it's not as good as i wanted. but, stories can be fun, too. some silly people are afraid of robots, but i'm not afraid of robots because robots can't hurt people because they're not mean. they're just robots. but, people are mean. so, people can hurt people, and i wonder if maybe we could make different robots, ones that aren't like the ones in the book, that might hurt people, because people are mean. but, if we do that, it won't be because robots are mean, but because people are mean. and, i know people are mean.

tony wants me to show him where the rope is so he can cut it off with a knife, so we're going to do that when i can go out again, next month.

for now, i have to stay inside and read, even when mom gets home. she's not allowed to tell me to go out and play, at least not for a few weeks.

the early asimov

hey, it's that pad of paper again. i just found it in the space between the wall and my bed, as i rolled over to try to fall asleep. i should be asleep because it's late and everybody else is asleep, but i'm not sleepy. so, maybe i'll write instead.

i just finished this big book of short stories that nana gave me, called the early asimov, by somebody named isaac asimov. nana gives me lots and lots of books. mom doesn't like it because she thinks i should play outside more, but nana thinks that it doesn't make sense to choose between playing outside and reading and i should do both. she says it's important to read. mom doesn't think kids should read, but she listens to nana. nana is her mom, so i guess she has to listen to nana, just like i have to listen to mom. that makes sense to me. mom's husband, tony, thinks i should read, but that i should only read allowed christian books, and nana really doesn't like that so she buys me lots of science books, instead, and tells mom it's very important i read them and tony is wrong. some of them are books about things like dinosaurs or astronomy or animals, like cats. i know about all the dinosaurs because i have books with pictures in them that have descriptions of them. and, i know about all the planets and all the moons on all the planets and even how stars work inside, a little bit. i also know about all of the countries and all of the capital cities in all of the countries because i have books with maps that are fun to sort through and imagine stories about travelling through. tony sometimes gets mad that i read all these science books, so nana once asked me to explain to tony that i like the science books a lot, and he seemed to get less mad after that. he even bought me some different science books, with pictures of people walking with dinosaurs, but i know those books are silly, because there weren't really people back then. but, maybe there were. i wasn't there, so i don't remember. but, there can still be books about people walking with dinosaurs, even if it's silly, i think.

before tony lived here, mom had a friend called nadine that stayed here. nadine was a university student. she studied philosophy. she once said there are negative numbers in real life, like actual negative numbers, but i don't believe her. that's silly. if you have a lot of apples, you can take some apples away, but you can't have a negative number of apples. nadine said you could, but i just refused to believe it and told her she was wrong. she laughed and said i shouldn't get so upset about things that are so "trivial", which means not important, but i don't think believing in negative things is trivial. it's not true! i don't like it when people tell me things that aren't true, it makes me upset. nadine used to tell me a little bit about science and i think it's one of the reasons i like science.

but, i already liked science, though, too, because my favourite movies ever are ghostbusters and et. i used to watch those movies lots and lots on the tv in the living room, in my care bears chair. and, that care bears chair is my chair - nobody else is ever allowed to sit in it, ever, or i'll get mad and push them out. don't ever sit in my care bears chair or we're going to get into a fight!

wow, it's really late. but, i really just finished reading this book by isaac asimov. at first, i thought it was going to be one big story, with chapters, so i was confused. but, then i realized it's actually a bunch of different stories. but, then i thought it was one big story, because there were some of the same characters, so, i don't know if it's different stories or one story. but some of the stories are about space ships and martians and people from venus, and it's fun to think about. i took notes about these stories in a different notebook that's for books i read only, so i won't talk too much about what they're about in detail, here. i'll just be general, here. but, i liked reading the stories, even if they used big words that i didn't always understand. dad gave me a dictionary, and i sometimes look words up in it if i don't know what they mean. he gave me the dictionary because i always asked him what words mean, and he usually didn't know, either. so, we would go to look up words, together. now, i know how to look up words and can look them up when i'm at mom's, too.

i like reading stories that are about ideas more than stories that are just about stories. stories are fun sometimes, but they're just stories, and stories that are just stories are just stories. a story has to be really good if it's just a story, and most stories aren't really good, so they aren't that much fun. but, if a story is about an idea, the story doesn't have to be as good to be fun because the idea can be fun, instead. i already knew that before i was eight, but, now that i'm eight, i really know that for sure. i think this isaac asimov book had stories that were more fun because they had ideas. the stories themselves weren't always that fun, but they were fun because they had ideas.

i'm really sleepy and am about to fall asleep. it's really late!

but, i often have the radio on when i'm reading, too, and i really like this silly song called so alive that is playing all the time right now. it's on right now.

i'm not so alive right now, though. i'm so asleep...