Category: Dreams

Bobbie, what interests you?

Not much really.

Computers?

Nope.

But you’re so good with them?

Nope, I can just RTFM and I have decent logic

Electronics?

Nope.

That’s just common sense and logic again.

Cars / motorcycles?

Nope.

Never have liked cars.

Bicycles?

Nope.

They’e good to ride and easy to fix, but that’s it.

Scooters?

Nope.

Cheap to ride and charge, but that’s it really.

Camping?

Nope.

Travel?

Nope.

Music?

Yes, but just listening to music, anything musical inside of me was successfully killed by my father.

Television / movies?

Nope. Thankfully Richard and Sue didn’t want us in the PMQ while we were kids, so going for long lonely walks as a kid to keep the pain of the cold at bay is what I would do instead of getting hooked on TV as a kid.

Sports.

Fuck no. I loved sports before the events of CFB Namao. But after Captain Totzke said that I could never play sports due to my “homosexuality” I grew to resent sports. Besides, I learnt from my father to despise hockey and such. He didn’t hate hockey. He loved it. He would sit at home screaming and yelling at the TV screen getting pissed of angry and drunk when the Toronto Makebeliefs would lose a game, which was almost every game back in the ’80s. When Richard was ranting and railing against his favourite team you didn’t dare disturb him.

Electronics have always been something that I was able to use on jobs to keep my employment and offset my depressed personailty.

People can detect my issues long before they’ve ever talked to me.

The one thing that I always had was my ability to do techinical work that was far above the pay grade of the job that I was applying for.

When I started working at Lions Gate Lanes in 1992 I wasn’t “one of the guys”. I didn’t hang out with the men’s bowling leagues and shoot the shit about sports teams and tit’s ‘n’ ass like the other mechanics would. But what I did have going for me is that I could repair the CPU and Video boards for the AS-80 scoring system, along with the optical scanners. Repairing the overhead video monitors was extremely beneficial.

I could do the same mechanical work that everyone else was expected to do, but I could use my electronics knowledge to offset that I wasn’t a “team player” like the other guys.

When Lions Gate Lanes closed down in the summer of 1993 I was offered a position at a bowling centre in Mississauga owned by the same company.

The head mechanic out there wasn’t going to be told what he had to do by a West Coast manager. And besides, I wouldn’t drink with the boys, I didn’t get a kick out of the girlie posters in the work shop, and I didn’t shoot the shit with the boys.

People find it odd that I don’t “check” people out or enjoy porn, or pin ups, or talking about sex in general. Y’all can thank Captain Totzke for that odd aspect of my personality.

People often take my lack of interest in girls, not as a general lack of interest in sex, but as a sign that I’m gay.

Yeah, I’ve sucked dick in my life.

But that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re a homosexual, right?

Not being interested in girls doesn’t have anything to do with the abused you suffered at the hands of the babysitter. Nope. Not being interested in girls = being a homo.

Anyways the head mechanic at Mississauga wasn’t going to have a homo in his shop.

This is why I was able to get my employment insuarnce claim re-opened after they completed their investigation.

When I came back to Vancouver I would end up getting a job at a small bowling cente in East Richmond. The centre was brand new and had only been open since 1989. It had the latest computerized pinsetters. And that was a major problem. Their mechanics couldn’t do any type of electronic repairs or electronic troubleshooting.

I came in and was able to repair just about everything in the centre. Pinsetter CPU boards, I/O boards/ power supplies, AS-90 Scoring system, etc. Plus I could MIG weld which was beneficial as this pinsetter was made from stamped sheet metal and would often suffer cracks.

I never did get sent for factory training at either bowling centre.

You’re far too smart.

But without factory training there would be absolutely no advancement.

I started working in commercial office buildings in 1998.

Working on the building automation systems was a piece of cake as I had a good understanding of electronics and computers.

But more of the same shit.

When you’re dealing with tenants that pay thousands of dollars per month in rent, they want special treatment, and it’s expected that you’ll kiss their asses and tickle their nutsacks whe requested.

Fixing things is what I do.

Blowing sunshine up the ass of some rich trustfund brat who’s running his “own” company because daddy gave him a $500,000.00 loan wasn’t a skill of mine.

Heaping praise on someone who makes their living from trading penny stocks and scamming seniors with investment scams wasn’t a skill that I was very good at.

Want your lights fixed?

I’m your man.

Want your heatpump replaced?

I’m your man.

Want your nutsack tickled because you fell into a CEO position that your father bought for you?

Go fuck yourself.

Bobbie, why didn’t you just go to trade school or take a diploma program?

Well, calling up daddy and stepmommy for a loan or help with getting a loan, or help with a place to live was not in the cards .

At this point in time I had no idea where my mother was, and as I would find out when I located her in 2013 and talked to her, it wouldn’t have been of any use.

And then there’s the problem of my depression and my anxiety and my intense self loathing.

I would have been absolutely terrified of approaching my father for any type of help with as any failure in a trade or diploma program would have only elicited more scorn and derision from him.

So I took Power Engineering. Started with my 5th class refrigeration operator, and then did my 4th class.

I thought that Power Engineering would be something. But its not.

There’s a misconception in property management and plant management that Power Engineers are engineers.

They’re not.

They have an understanding of refrigeration plant operation, boiler plant operating, operating low pressure and high pressure thermal plants, operating low pressure and high pressure steam plants, firing oil fired boilers, natural gas fired boilers, oil fired boilers, black liquor fired boilers, and fluidized bed boilers. They understand thermodynamics, psychrometrics, enthalpy, and other basic principles of physics.

But that’s not what the majority of empoloyers that require power engineers on site hire power engineers for.

The vast majority of employers just hire power engineers to satisfy the basic requirement to meet provincial regulations of having a power engineer on site while the boilers or chillers are in operation.

The vast majority of plants that hire power engineers are looking for “Johnny the janitors” who can look after stuff that janitors can look after, but the employers cheap out and just dump all of the work that doesn’t require a TQ on to the power engineers.

If I had a chance to do my life over again, what would I do?

Probably something in fashion, or theatrics.

Back at Pierre Laporte I used to do the lighting for school productions and I’d look after the sound.

I was good enough at this that Mr. Ford got me a weekend job at a local P.A. rental shop repairing lighting and sound equipment.

I like clothing.

I love dresses and mix and matching with dresses.

As I’ve said numerous times, I’ll never understand why men don’t wear dresses.

For some reason when it comes to dresses and my manner of dressing, I don’t give two fucking shits what anyone thinks.

I don’t identify as a women.

I don’t want to be a woman.

But I love dresses.

I liked make-up when I was into it in the period of 2006 to 2011.

But then again I bought myself a nice little sewing machine a few years ago.

I got rid of it a short while ago.

It was painful looking at it as it sat in my apartment unused.

See, every time I tried to use it Richard was there screaming at me for being such a silly fucker.

My brother doesn’t understand what it’s like having Richard and Terry living in my head.

But they’re there.

Shitting all over anything that I like to do.

Why don’t you start a business?

Do something that you love doing….

Well, that’s a problem. I don’t really “love” anything or aspire to anything. That was beat out of me a very long time ago.

Another thing that I realized a long time ago is without family support, you can have the greatest business ideas, but you won’t get anywhere.

You never hear about the small business failures.

You only hear about the successes.

Bobbie, if you just tried, you could be the next Bill Gates. He started off from absolutely nothing. You like computers, right?

Won’t go off on a Bill bashing tangent, but he came from “old money”. Musk’s family was involved with an Apartheid era Emerald Mine in South Africa. Jeff Bezos had easy access to about $250k in the early ’90s when Amazon almost went bust. Sure, they had innovative ideas, but they also had the family and the money to back them.

And no. I don’t like computers.

I use computers. I can RTFM (read the fucking manual). And I can set them up.

But I don’t like computers. That ship fucking sailed when I was in my teens. I never developed an interest in computers after that.

But what about a small business Bobbie? You seem to like lighting effects and lighting systems. You installed and wired up a BOSE sound system by yourself and installed the DMX lighting system by yourself and impressed the pants off the owner of the lighting & sound company that supplied the equipment.

That’s true. But to start up an even modest lighting company you need funds. And you need guarantors for your loans.

I would rather smash my testicles with a ball-and-peen hammer than ever have approached Richard for any type of loan or help securing a loan.

As Richard would often tell his friends, Richard kept my brother and I solely to control the costs. If he had given us to our mother, he’d have to pay child support, and that wasn’t something that he was ever going to do.

So no, there was no manna from heaven with Richard. It wasn’t that Richard was cheap really. He had the money. And he could indulge himself and Sue whenever he saw fit. The problem is he had such a hard on hatred of Marie. And seeing as how he couldn’t discharge his hatred on Marie he vented his hatred upon my brother and I. The “Heathcliff” phenomenon.

And no, my stepmother would never have been an option. She made it very clear early on that we were not hers.

My mother? Between September of 1982 and July of 1990 I had absolutely no contact with her. From July of 1990 until February of 1992 I had contact with her, but she was unemployed for a good stretch of that. And then I had no contact with her from February of 1992 until November of 2013 when I had to track her down to ask her about who actually had legal custody of my brother and I.

Extended family? Nope. Our family was far too fractured.

So no, there was no financial backing available.

Bobbie, start small then.

Even if you do start small, you need cash.

Okay, fine Bobbie, maybe you don’t go into lighting production. Do something else like cars.

I hate cars. I despise cars. I haven’t owned a car since 1998. I only got into working on cars as I thought that it would be a way to bond with Richard. Man was I ever fucking wrong.

When I lived in Edmonton and I was unemployed from the summer of 1991 until I moved to Vancouver in February 1992 I did some cash work for a bodyshop on the south side of Edmonton. Man did I get fucked over by those two brothers. But there’s a lot of that in the automobile repair business. All I can say is be very fucking wary of buying a car from a bodyshop.

Electronics, why don’t you start an electronics shop? Again, money.

And I turned my back on electronics when I was younger because of what an employer had said to me. Both Bruce and Ed at Rainbow games turned me down for pay raises because although I could beat a DeVry certified technician, the fact that I didn’t have an electronics certificate meant that they couldn’t justify paying me what they paid an electronics tech that was qualified.

Yeah, I’ve used electronics to open doors for me into jobs that I normally wouldn’t have been hired for. But once in the door I scale back what I’m willing to do. I’ll do enough to make up for my major depression and my severe anxiety, but nothing more. But that’s more so that I don’t piss anyone off at work. It sucks that I have to play dumb in order to get along with others. But that’s the way it works out for the “unticketed” and “unqualified”.

So, it’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s not that I didn’t have hopes and dreams. It’s just that those options were never available to me.

Weird Dreams

Lexapro dreaming is a lot weirder than fever dreaming.

Well, ever since I’ve started taking escitalopram for my depression I’ve started having really weird and vivid dreams.

Last night was a really weird one.

I was riding my motorcycle down a highway somewhere when a cop riding on a bicycle pulled up beside me and told me to pull over because I wasn’t sitting properly upright on the motorcycle and therefore they thought that I was drunk.

As the cop was talking to me their face kept changing from male to female and back.

The cop wanted me to drive to a building for a breathalyzer.

So I drove to this building which looked more like a flop house.

There were a bunch of other people getting breathalyzers as well, and none of them looked drunk.

It was my turn to blow, and the reading came back as zero.

The officer made me blow again, and again I got another zero.

The officer went and got their supervisor. The supervisor told me that I must be drunk as I wasn’t sitting in the seat properly and that I was slouching.

Sure, okay, whatever.

The supervisor gave me a bunch of breathalyzer tests, all of which came back as zero.

I was told to go sit on a couch in the living room.

When I sat down, someone else came and sat down beside me.

Really weird dude. Kept talking about nothing. But then he showed me a trick.

He could point at the sky and stars would appear where he was pointing.

The cops came over and told him to stop that as it wasn’t allowed.

I was allowed to leave.

I got back on my motorcycle and drove to work.

Work was kinda like a hospital, but it was also a restaurant with a dining room.

To get in and out of the workshop I had to open a door that also served as a fuse panel for the restaurant. Every time that I would try opening the door I’d get a 208 volt shock. The panel/door was quite detailed. It had screw in fuses and blade disconnects.

Every time the door was opened, it would trip off the air conditioner and the maternity ward would call down an complain about the lack of A/C.

The restaurant was always complaining about the lights flickering.

One of the servers in the restaurant had a real bad limp and when he’d bring food out from the kitchen the food would always fall on the floor. He’d pick the food up, blow on it, and put it back on the plate. The customers saw this, but they felt sad for him because of his limp so no one ever complained.

Any ideas what the hell this was all about?
This had to be the weirdest dream of all since I first started escitalopram (Lexapro).
Even fever dreams that I’ve had before were never this weird.