I had a dream last night of having the girliest of girl birthdays. Every present was super feminine.

The one that made me happiest was some very feminine outfit, but before I could wear it, water leaked out from under my bed and got it wet.

I was devastated, and then I woke up.

I'm blaming Jaci for this dream ...

I may have gained a reader. I mentioned at work about having a book on Kindle and one of my co-workers looked it up, and i think he's reading it. Be interesting to find out what he thinks of it.

I am very lucky to live in a house with animals.

Like last night, I was having troubles emotionally, and laying in bed and unable to sleep when my brother and sister-in-law's cat came into my room, jumped up on my bed, and basically demanded I pet her. After a while of stroking her soft fur and hearing her purr, I could feel my blood pressure drop and my heart rate slow. When I stopped petting her, the cat sat at the end of my bed facing my door, as if guarding me from any intruders, until I fell asleep.

Like I said, I'm very lucky.

Had a nice service at church today. Not only did we talk about Jesus as a young boy at the temple, but after the service, we had a lecture/discussion on the subject of "repairative therapy" - sometimes called 'conversion therapy" or "pray away the gay".

As it consists of little more than physical or psychological torture to try and "fix" people like me, and does much more harm than good, we are trying to start the process to get the Alberta government declare it illegal for people under 18 at the very least.

Why am I so weak? I read stories of people who went through stuff that makes my life look like a Sunday picnic and I wonder why is it that I feel like I am hanging on by my fingernails? Why can't I be stronger?

I am always reluctant to give a shout out to a particular story here. Not because there aren't fantastic stories being made, but the reverse - pointing to one story feels like not being fair to all the others being offered here.

That said, I hope you don't mind if I say I am really enjoying a story called "Prom changed Everything." Mostly because I can really identify with the main character who is struggling with her feminine side at the same time as she tries to recover from PTSD.

Yesterday, my local paper had an article about a "doctor" who thinks trans people are just autistic with a "fixation" on opposite gender stuff.

I'm 100 % sure the anti-trans people - especially the "Christians" will latch on to this guy so that's gonna be fun ...

Well, I am home from my Doctor's appointment, and it went better than I could have hoped. The occasional pains are minor muscle issues, and nothing to worry about. Plus, the doctor was very gentle and told me everything she was gonna do before she did it, and between that and using my grounding, I didn't have nearly the trouble I was expecting.

So yay!

Some readers may notice a slight similarity between my latest story and a more famous book, and to help cement that idea, I planted some "Easter egg" style hints throughout the story.

Did you find them all?

Let me know if you did!

Well, I found a new trigger for my PTSD. See, for the last while I have been reading "The Dark Tower" by Steven King, and partway through the second book, I started getting shaky. But I didn't connect it to what I was reading, because it didn't contain my usual triggers.

okay, I want to talk about dreams for a moment.

I am not sure I understand, much less agree with all dream analysis, but when patterns start get being repeated in dreams, its at least possible your brain is trying to tell you something.

For example, I've had a lot of "searching" dreams - dreams where I was looking for a person, a place, or an object.

The last week of the year is often given over to reflection on the year that is about to pass, so let me add my own take on 2016.

Out in the world, its been a year of tremendous change -not a lot of it positive. Trump, Brexit, the growing power of Russia, terrorism, - its been pretty hard to find a lot of good news.

Plus, this has been the year of the Celebrity Death. I honestly cant think of a year where more famous people have died, and not just b or c listers, but huge names have left us this year.

Well, I had a mostly nice Christmas. My mom was working and brother and my sister-in-law were gone for the weekend, so it was pretty quiet. I did my laundry, took out the garbage, binge-watched "Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency" on Netflix (it was awesome), and then when my mom came home we went to Sharon's and had a supper and gift exchange with her and Samantha. Other than her calling me "Todd", it was a pretty good time, except I had a bit of a panic attack.

Okay, weird dream last night. I found myself in a haunted house, fighting ghosts with not much more than my bare hands, and as remarkable as it seems, I won. But the dream wasn't done yet. At the end of the fight, God told me to pray for one of the ghosts to return to his body and live again. I did as I was told, with my hand on a casket, and the person was restored to life.

If God's trying to tell me something, I think I need an interpreter ...

Well, I got some tentative good news about the money I am owed from Walmart. I got the last piece of info I needed to send in the forms they asked for, and mailed everything off today. I have been told that I should get a check early in the new year.

Should I cross my fingers?

Crap. One of my favorite singers, Laura Branigan, has passed away.

Darn it, 2016 is apparently not done messing with us ...

I got a visit from my old friends, Pain and Panic today.

Its funny how often they travel together.

I wanna share a story that I have told very few people.

When I was 16, I was a mess on the inside. Rape and physical abuse had broken me into pieces, and it was only because I was so good at running on autopilot that nobody really knew how bad it was for me.

In my head, I felt like I had a hundred voices - it was so bad I tried to create a mental "parliament" just so there was some kind of order.

If you peeked at my latest story, and wondered what the heck was going on, let me take a moment to help explain things.

See, about 8 years ago, I found this site, and after lurking for a while, I took the plunge, became a member, and created my first story.

It's called "The Saga of E-Girl", and it was kind of a tribute to the Shazam stories I had loved as a kid.

I wont say its a bad story, but I will say I think my writing has improved since then, but despite that, I have a soft spot for that story, and have revisited the "E-Girl" universe a few times since.