Second Hand Hypnotism

Invited by Greg to see a hypnotist at a near-by college, I set off at 9pm to make my way to the school's auditorium. The hypnotist is pretty popular, though. His name's Dr. Jim Wand. You could look him up on his website, hypnotism.com.

Anyway, I went. Greg's my ex-boyfriend, but we're still cool. And I thought it would be fun. When I got there, he met me in the parking lot and we walked in. But... as soon as we walked in, the main auditorium was out of seats. So Greg, being the awesome person that he is, turned to me and said, "I've already got a seat saved for me down here. You could sit with Tony on the balcony." Like WTF? I didn't even know Tony was there.

But I went with Tony and a couple of other girls to sit in the upper auditorium. And a few minutes after we found seats, the show started. It went well, and the guy was telling some stories about other shows he'd done and he got started with picking some people out of the audience.

Okay, interruption. Greg has been to see this guy multiple times, and gets picked to be hypnotized every time. Interruption over.

Oh my gosh, guys! Guess what?! Greg gets picked to be hypnotized. I know you're surprised... So he goes up and whatever.

But the main point of this story is: I wanted to be hypnotized. However, sitting on the second level on the auditorium, it was an impossibility to be picked. But ha ha ha, I was determined to pay attention to the spinning orb of light sitting in the middle of the stage. I remember Jim Wand saying something about relaxing, closing your eyes, thinking on another place, a happy place... I thought of Canada, don't ask me why. I did that, but I remember any thing happening. a couple of seconds later, I looked around and saw a couple of people who were out cold near me.

The show was really fun. I thought about visiting the website later and learning a few things myself about hypnotism. Afterward, I met some of the people who went on stage and made themselves the objects of entertainment for the entire school, and they loved it. They absolutely loved it. Being told what they did and what they said... it just made them smile.

So during this conversation of what happened during the show, I told everyone about how I really really tried to be one the people in the audience to become hypnotized but failed. And suddenly one of the girls who was sitting next to me went, "oh! But you were." And I went "No, I remember the entire show."

But suddenly five people told me the story of how I went out for a long time. I was doing the same thing as some of the people on stage. People took pictures of me, and Tony, "that asshole" as I so affectionately call him, told everyone not to bother me because he saw some kind of sick enjoyment at my unconscious state. But as soon as Dr. Wand told the band of zombies he'd made to put their hands straight in the air in a fist, I put my head up and smiled.

Now I'm trying to teach myself to hypnotize... Starting on myself. The first night, I accidentally kind of paralyzed myself and when I finally got out of it, I my legs started spasming. So uh.... please, for your own safety, for the love of all that is scared, tell your body that you have no control over it and you won't be able to move for twenty minutes. It's mind over matter, people.

An Adventure in Writing and Ultimately Failing

What's a word that describes being better than average, but less than perfect? It's adequate, right? I would say that I'm an adequate writer, but is it fair to judge and grade myself? How many of you would raise your hand high and say that Vincent Van Gogh was an adequate painter? -Not that your opinion has to be that of the general public's, but stop and think of Starry Night and Sunflowers: two of Van Gogh's most famous pieces and known as awe-inspiring works of art this present day. And if you know anything about the history of Vincent, you'd know that people not only didn't think his work amounted to anything, but they loathed him as a person as well. His art didn't sell while he was alive, and in my own opinion, that must have been so demotivating.

Taking that into account, I've not written in over a year. I believe that I am an adequate writer who doesn't write to please others, but cares about what people think of my writing. I wanted to keep living in the delusion that I could coast through life ignoring popular opinion and being my own person living by my own rules. But if you saw me now with all my possessions and books and ideas, you'd see that all along I was looking to be approved, but by another society all-together. I wrote about love and loss and all the heartaches that I knew well of, and that didn't make a damned difference in the long run. I still saw clichés, and repeats and garbage, and I gave up.

So now I'm starting over. Hopefully for good this time.