Isaiyan Morrison

Agh, this whole working full time thing bites.

Yeah, yeah I know. Many of you if not all of you work full time. Hell, I used to. When I was in the Navy I worked 168 hours a week. If you’re good at math that’s 24 hours a day.
In the Navy I was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But enough about the Navy. Thinking about it makes me itch.

I decided to go full time at my job only because I wanted to keep it. Rumor around the office was that the company was starting to let people go, due to the whole housing market crisis. Usually temp workers were the first to go, followed by part timers. And I was a part timer.

The money is also nice too. But the drive to and from work is hell. Not to mention the gas. I also suffer from what I call my “Lazy shut down.” I stare at the computer screen, at the blinking cursor, thinking of the next word to type. By that time my brain is usually fried.

So why am I blogging about this? Well, because I needed a new screen to look at besides Microsoft Word

Wow.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since the 35W bridge collapsed in Minnesota.

I still remember what I was doing.

I didn’t go to work that day. It was the first day that I had called in sick that year. I was at home with my mother, watching television (I think it was ABC News) when it flashed over the television.

At first I didn’t know what bridge they were talking about. But when I heard 35W, University of Minnesota, I realized it was the bridge I called “The Blue Bridge.” It was the bridge that I crossed many of times; going to and from work, high school, the arcade at the mall, the University of Minnesota, at night on my way to the Industrial Club in Northeast Minneapolis.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. But when the newscasters showed the pictures of the crumbled Blue Bridge, some of it submerged in the Mississippi River, I immediately started calling friends.
But the phone lines were jammed.

Looking back at it now, it disheartens me and also makes me angry. I guess I could vent about the problems addressed years and months before the bridge’s collapse but it won’t mean much.

The new bridge is almost done. I’ve seen its progress, usually when I’m driving across the bridge directly next to it. Even though I’m sketchy about how quick the new bridge is being built, I’m glad that it’s impressive and adaptable for the rail.

I feel for the victims and the families of the tragedy. I couldn’t imagine what these people were going through when the bridge collapsed right underneath them. It’s a long drop to the cold, dirty, and unpredictable Mississippi River.

Now I officially LOATHE the Ipod.

I bought this piece of shit Ipod when a friend of mine recommended that it was better, and cheaper, than installing a CD player in my beloved 98 Toyota Corolla.

I went to the Apple store and purchased a tape deck connecting thingy for my car radio and then I went to Target, bought the Ipod, went to the Apple site to download the Itunes store.

Excited, I connected my Ipod. There was some message stating that I couldn’t connect to the Itunes store but hey, I didn’t need the Itunes store. I have a drive, totally dedicated for music.

It takes me about an hour and a half to copy my mp3s to my new state of the art Ipod. My Ipod was also charging while hooked up to my computer.

I’m set, right. Everything is in order.
I’ve got my tunes, my Ipod, my car deck connecting thingy. I was falling in love.

BUT

As I pulled into the driveway, I disconnected my Ipod while in the middle of Bob Marley’s song “Turn the Lights Down Low.”

And my Ipod didn’t turn off.

The screen was still lighted, the album cover still on the screen.

IT WOULDN’T TURN OFF.

Thinking I could solve the problem by plugging it into my computer, I did just that and . . . nothing.

It was still on.

What the fuck.

So now my Ipod is on and I’m about ready to throw it out the window. I just bought the damn thing and already I have problems. I can’t return it because my dumb ass can’t find the receipt.

It’s eating at me. I want it off. And I’ve been trying to turn it off for hours.

Ugh.

WHY WHY WHY do I buy these things?????

WHY WHY WHY did I have to spend my hard earned money on something so craptacular, small, and worthless?

I want to listen to my Bob Marley dammit.

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

Mine was okay. At least it was less stressful than the past two weeks.

I relaxed, did some writing Saturday morning surprising myself with writing one chapter in thirty minutes, took my mother out to eat for her birthday, and took her and my brother to see The Dark Knight.

I bought the tickets on fandago.com A friend of mine in California called me earlier that day and when I told him I was thinking about taking my mother to see the movie he scoffed. He thought it was a bad idea since it was opening weekend and I guess he heard something along the lines that the movie was selling eight tickets a second on fandago. He said it was going to be sold out, packed, crowded-basically anything to get me to NOT see it.

I thought about waiting but about three hours later another friend, Tom, called me. He was going to see the movie for the second time that night and told me how good it was. He also told me the theater wasn’t packed but it was pretty full. So I decide to take my mother and my brother.

We went to the 9:20pm showing. We got there early and got some pretty good seats.

Then the crowd rushed in.

Tom wasn’t kidding. It was PACKED.

But as long as we had good seats I didn’t care. But there were soooooooooooooo many kids that I couldn’t believe it.

Who would bring their kid at a late night showing? I guess everyone and their immediate family in the Minneapolis area.

While waiting for previews a kid sitting directly behind me kept tapping my chair. It wasn’t annoying at first but the tapping became harder and harder and eventually he pushed and I jerked forward. Meanwhile my mother glares at me. I guess the person behind her, the father of the little boy behind me, was also pushing on the back of her chair.

Now, if you know my mother she doesn’t tolerate a lot. She turns and bitches out the father.

He stops.

But his little brat kept pushing the back of my chair. I turn back several times and glare at the father, hoping he’d do something. But he did nothing. At this time I had enough. It was going on for about fifteen to twenty minutes.

I turn around and growl at this kid, probably no older than eleven: “Listen you little fuck. Stop pushing my chair!”

He stops.

Previews start and I’m sitting there, thinking about what I’d just did. I couldn’t believe I had just cursed out a kid without even thinking about it. I just exploded. I felt sorry and I thought about turning and apologizing but that thought flew out the window when I saw the preview for Watchmen.

Dear God, what an awesome preview. I want to see that movie when it comes out.

So the movie starts and I’m totally immersed in it. It was great, well worth the ten bucks, and highly entertaining.

If you haven’t seen it already I suggest you go.

In the middle of the movie the tapping starts up again. I try to ignore it, thinking that maybe it was an accident on the boy’s part but no; it keeps going and going and going and going.

I turn around and glare at the dad and the boy. It FINALLY STOPS.

The movie ends around midnight and we leave the theater. Overall I had a good experience. And to be honest I DON’T feel sorry for the boy and for NOT apologizing anymore. I feel sorry that it took the “bitching” efforts of my mother and myself to finally stop their constant tapping.

Can you imagine someone kicking the back of your chair or pushing it over and over and over and over again?

It’s annoying. Honestly.

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July vacation.

Me?

Well, mine was filled with rest, food, ice cream cake and heartbreak.

For the 4th I made ice cream cake. I cooked the beans, barbecued, and made fruit salad. I had the urge to write but family was over. It’s not like that happens frequently.

Saturday I experimented and made more banners for my website. I created a couple of bookmarks to give out at a book release party, which I haven’t planned yet. I was getting bored so I called up my dear friend, Sina, and decided to go out dancing.

I haven’t been out “dancing” in awhile. I think it’s been a month or so. Now, the clubs here in Minneapolis, especially the clubs that cater to goths, rivetheads, cybergoths ect. are nothing like the clubs in Hollywood; the clubs I used to frequent.

I learned that the hard way when I moved back to Minneapolis.

But opinion aside, I go out. The club is somewhat empty and I spend most of the night on the smoking patio with Sina, talking about hauntings, ghosts, and our experiences with Ouija Boards. I told her a secret that I haven’t revealed to many people but I’ll reveal to you, reader, now.

In high school I was heavy into grunge ala Nirvana, Soundgarden ect. And of course, I tried to contact one of my idols at the time, Kurt Cobain. It was an interesting experience.

I also tried to contact Sid (from Sex Pistols fame) and Nancy (his girlfriend.) That was also fun.

But I’m getting off track.

So we drink, we dance a little to VNV Nation and what sounded like Covenant, and I head back to our friend’s house, Stacy, and spend the night. Did I mention that Stacy’s house is haunted?

I wake up with a voice mail on my cell phone. That night, while I was drinking and dancing, one of my pit bull puppies, Jez, disappeared.

That morning, hung over, I went driving around the neighborhood. I walked Chewy, the mother, around in the hot ass humidity and came up empty. I filed a police report, printed out flyers, spoke to neighbors…

NOTHING.

It was like she had disappeared into thin air.

I know someone has her or someone HAD her and sold her. I have a gut feeling. There are too many assholes willing to breed a female pit to death. Funny thing is, she’s not a pure breed. She’s half pit, a quarter Lab and a quarter Akita.

But she’s my baby. And I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

I cried myself to sleep Sunday night, hoping that she wasn’t lost, hungry, and drinking the water from the lakes around here.

If someone has her I hope she’s shitting up a storm on their carpets and chewing their shoes since she’s not house trained.

The cover is amazing!

cross posted on www.myspace.com/isaiyanmorrison

I’ve been dreaming again about planes crashing. Dream sites say that these “dreams” stem from a deep inner fear of flying.

I’m not afraid to fly.

And in my dreams the planes are usually small two seaters or a helicopter and they fly overhead, stop, then slowly come crashing down.

Or I can see them in the distance and somehow I know they’re having some kind of mechanical problem. Then they fly in toward me at an angle.

I run and I see the plane crashing a block away.

These crashes occur in the weirdest places. One was in the middle of a University (probably one I’ve attended but I wasn’t sure.) The other was in the trees surrounding the house my parents used to live in. Last night it was at the same house. However there was a crowd around. We were watching an old locomotive pass by the house (in real life, there are no train tracks close to the house.)

There was a discussion about getting rid of plane flights and going back to the locomotive on US soil. Even though it took days to get from one state to another, it was safer for the environment and for people. Then we see a red and white plane overhead; a news helicopter. It starts to have mechanical problems. I run to my car to find my brother, with my keys, trying to unlock the door.

I yell to him “Me, me, me” and he moves aside and I get in and unlock the doors. Meanwhile the helicopter crashes into our home and people are running. My family gets inside and I drive in reverse, up a street that turns into a neighborhood with brick apartment buildings.

I drive past a school and on the rooftop there’s a tip of the a plane that just crashed into the top floor. Kids are walking calmly out of the school, their faces darken with soot. I continue to drive and overhead I look again, seeing another helicopter having mechanical problems. It’s starting to fall from the sky. People are running. I’m driving as fast as I can, seeing it crash in my rear view mirror and skid down the asphalt, chasing me.

Then I wake up.

My puppy just took a shit in my bedroom and the smell of feces is filling my nostrils.

God, I’m starting to hate my helicopter/planes falling from the sky dreams.

I don’t dream often. Well, I don’t remember in the morning. But I feel like every one of these “plane” dreams I’ve remembered. They don’t scare me. They just annoy me.

I’ve told a couple of people about these dreams. Their conclusions? Either I’m afraid of flying or in my past life I died in a plane crash. One person went as far as to say that I’m going to die in a plane crash.

First. I don’t believe in past lives. Why would anyone want to come back to this world for a second time?

Second. I’m not afraid of flying. I do hate turbulence and when I do fly the thought of crashing is always in the back of my mind.

Third. If my future is already planned out for me I might as well just sit back, get fat, and hate the world. Nothing I’m doing now would change my “death.”

But I’m a curious woman. Besides a fear of flying, my death by plane crash, and my past life, does anyone else have an opinion about this?

I’d love to know.

This week has been such a roller coaster ride.

First my mother and now my half sister has told me that my grandmother is in the hospital.
They went to go visit her but I had a final today and I couldn’t go.

So when I got back from school my publisher sent me the cover to my novel for my approval.

I’m so nervous.

Those who personally know me know that my mother, a diabetic, is having surgery this coming Tuesday, 24th of June.

This month just keeps on surprising me.

It started off as a good month. My birthday was on the 7th, around that time I received word that a publisher had picked up my novel, and I had started a business venture on the side.

I knew eventually that my mother was going to have her gastric bypass surgery but I thought it was going to be next month. But my mother informed me yesterday that it was this coming Tuesday.

She’s already updated her will and she gave me special instructions in case she doesn’t come out of it.

That’s a hard thing for me to handle. I’m having problems concentrating at work, at home. It’s hard for me to write when my mother’s health is a top issue.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting.

Then again, maybe I’m not.

You can find my short story, “Stay Within the Lines” in the new Word Weavers fiction anthology, “Of Shadows and Substance.” It’s available for purchase!

“Stay Within The Lines”
“Of Shadows and Substance” — Word Weavers Fiction Anthology
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