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.

Disney has released a new animated movie, and one of the characters in it is Maui, who is a trickster (demi) god.

When I read that, it got me thinking how common the idea of the trickster is. Almost every mythology around the world seems to have a character who could be called a trickster, whether its Maui, or Loki, or Annasi (trickster spider from Africa, who was so clever he often tricked himself).

I wonder what that says of us as a species, that we love the idea of a trickster so much?

I had a super crappy day. So much so, that I am gonna ask for something I don't like to ask for.

I'm asking for compliments.

Anybody?

When I was in Jr. High, I thought the way to get popular would be by taking part in sport, so I signed up for a long distance race that would have my school competing against other schools in the city.

A week before the race, I broke my wrist, but I decided to run anyway.

It didn't go well.

In fact, I finished last. so far behind that several of the other runners lapped me.

On Monday, I got to participate in an interesting study on speech.

They put sensors on my body, and recorded me talking about a video, and what they created on the computer looks like a stick figure with my voice.

They plan to show this to people, asking them if they can determine if I am male or female based on my voice and the movements of the stick figure.

When they get their information, they plan to use it to help trans women pass better in terms of their speech and body movements.

I am very frustrated. After a pretty good day with only mild pain, I was heading home when I got a flashback while driving. Thankfully, I was able to keep control enough to make it home without getting into an accident, but it still bothers me that even after 6 years of working on this, I am still vulnerable to flashbacks without any obvious triggers.

Sighs ...

I have been very sick all day today, vomiting, the runs, no fun.

I hope this goes away soon ...

Despite being super sick today, I did get one bit of good news. One of the managers of the Walmart I work at told me he sent an email to my employer saying how good a job I'm doing.

So that's a yay ...

For those looking for a break from election coverage, Mercy chapter 14 is up.

I hope people like it!

I have had a stressful week.

Issues regarding family (I cant go into details) have caused a great amount of sadness (and stress), Sharon has apparently injured herself and is currently not able to work, and two different news articles have really brought me down.

I have a question.

You know those symbols for male and female?

The ones that look like a circle with a cross below it (female) or a circle with an arrow pointing up at an angle (male)?

Does anybody know what they are actually called?