July 1987 again, but #5?

I actually don’t like this one much. I even recall not liking it when I made it, but once I’d set ink to paper, I felt I should finish it anyway. To me there are numerous bad spots plus poor color choice because I didn’t expect the red to be so bright and the blue to be so dull. Oh well.

The real reason I’m posting this one anyway is because on the back, I noticed that it was marked #5. The previous one I posted was marked #3. I know I made a lot of these pieces, but I can’t help but wonder where #1, #2 and #4 went. The other ones I found weren’t marked with a number, only a date.

Maybe I’ll find more on another day, in a totally different stack of old papers. I have memories of a few others that I did toward the end of doing all of these, but I haven’t seen them in years. I would’ve assumed they’d be with these, but they weren’t. Instead, the stamped ones were a sort of bonus.

Welcome to #5 July 1987…

I Smell A Ghost

Over the years, I’ve had quite a few experiences with the paranormal. Many times, I have no proof of what I felt or research ends up inconclusive, but that only makes my experiences unreal to others, not myself. I’ve frequently debunked myself, too, so I know I’m not always right or the things I’m sensing may not be universal.

I don’t normally talk about my experiences unless someone asks, so it’s a bit of a step for me to blog about them. But if they provide a bit of entertainment or someone learns a thing or two in their quest for understanding, then I feel I’ve done the right thing by talking…well…writing.

I’ve decided to break down my experiences by sense. I’ve heard, felt, seen and smelled, but I have yet to taste and I suppose that’s a good thing!

In the scent category, I only have one that I was both certain I smelled and that was not debunked.

In 1998 or so, I was dating a guy who, like me, was very into cars. His friends said he changed cars like he changed underwear. Well, truth be told, he went commando, but there wasn’t anything paranormal about that.

Anyhow, he got tired of driving his mom’s hand-me-down and started looking through the newspaper, Recycler, whatever (this was somewhat pre-eBay and Craigslist) for another Dodge Charger. He’d had quite a few–even still had left over parts lying around in his garage.

After maybe a week or two of looking, he found a ’70 Charger. It was a 318 automatic, but the car was complete and the guy selling it just wanted it gone. It was his grandma’s grocery getter. She’d passed on, the car became his and he got tired of re-parking it on the appropriate side of the street every week due to street sweeping. He lived in an apartment with only one parking space.

My boyfriend bought the car and immediately swapped the 318 for the 440 he had lying around. From a prior car, he’d also saved the chunk of floorpan where the manual transmission shifter comes up through the floor. From the new car, he removed the automatic transmission, cut the right size hole, then installed the manual transmission…and riveted the floorpan chunk in place before putting the carpet back down. For what the job was, it worked beautifully.

When I first got in the car, I wasn’t amazed that it was in such great condition. I mean, if it had been a grocery-getter all its life, it likely only saw the doctor’s office, the store and maybe a relative’s driveway its entire life so far. It should have looked as good as it did. Not pristine, but not shredded, either. Just old.

He wanted to take me for a ride in his new project, so I knew I’d be in for a fun time what with the 440 and 4-speed installed. As we get in, he tells me about how the car might be haunted. He wasn’t the kind of guy to really believe in ghosts, but he’d worked in several theaters and we all know they have lots of ghosts. Anyway, he’d mentioned that there was something a little strange about the car. I asked him about it and he said, sometimes, when he was just driving along, the scent of BenGay would waft through the air. It didn’t matter if the accessories were on or off or if the windows were up or down.

I laughed and shrugged and we got on the freeway. About fifteen minutes later, I started to smell BenGay, but it, to me, wasn’t quite right. There was ’something’ off about it. And it just appeared. It didn’t emanate from anywhere. Whenever I have a paranormal experience, there’s always a certain undefinable ’something’ about it that isn’t quite right…and that has become one of my ways of knowing I’m having an experience.

We both looked at each other, “I smell it, do you?” “Yeah.” It lasted about two minutes and then was gone. We shrugged it off. It didn’t feel negative, so there was no real cause for alarm. Plus, the car ran and drove great.

The following week, my boyfriend said he tore the car apart up under the dash, all through the interior. There was no trace of BenGay. Not a tube, a smear, nothing. And when he’d pulled up the carpet to install the part of floorpan, he hadn’t seen or smelled anything, either.

A few months later, he got it in his head that he wanted to do a complete tear down and rotisserie rebuild of the car. We lost touch when it was still in boxes. It has been a decade. I wonder if grandma’s grocery getter ever got back on the road. I know I’ll never forget her.

July 1987

I bet I was still working off the same set of markers I’d gotten for Christmas seven months earlier, but my artwork was changing a little bit. Most of my work is in the same vein.

In fact, after I’d done all of my drawings, I switched gears and started painting on my clothes. Yes, that was the late 80s-early 90s when embellishment was big. And since this was before I discovered cars, I had a lot of time on my hands. In fact, I still have a particular pair of jeans with this kind of artwork painted on them and they do still fit. I should hunt those down and snap a pic.

In the mean time, welcome to July 1987…

How my ability works…or what I can explain of it

I consider myself a sensitive. I’ve always believed in ghosts. My first experiences were when I was very, very young, but because I was so shy, I kept them to myself. I’m strange enough as it is. I don’t need to claim I see ghosts for people to think I’m a wacko! As a young child, I didn’t want anyone to have a reason not to like me.

Now, I realize that not everyone is going to like me, so I’m no longer afraid. I don’t bring up my ability in conversation unless I’m questioned about it. In which case, I’ll likely talk your ear off!

As a young child, I never had an imaginary friend. It was too much work to imagine one and there were always spirits around that I could talk to, so why use my imagination?

Both of my grandfathers passed on when I was five years old. One of them in particular, on my mom’s side, was the guy who kept the family in touch all the time. He had tons of energy. Everyone loved him. And I swear he loved everyone, too. Nobody has a bad story about that grandpa. All the stories I’ve ever heard were either funny things he did or how sweet and kind and wonderful and helpful he was—how he looked after those he loved. Well, after grandpa died, I never really felt like he was gone. Almost 30 years later, I still feel him around sometimes.

Anyhow, from what I’ve learned over the years, the ability to sense spirits (using any of the senses in conjunction with the 6th) is felt differently in different people.

For me, I get it in the solar-plexus. It’s a sort of tightening feeling. Sometimes it feels strong enough to take my breath away. Often, in those strong environments, I also feel it in my third eye—like someone ramming a railroad spike into my skull, hammering it in all the way until I can feel the head of it against my skin even though there’s no pain in my brain, only in my forehead between my physical eyes. When that happens, I’ve had others ask me if I’m okay because the pain does show on my face before I can stop it.

I usually thank the person for their concern, but insist I’m fine. If it’s someone who knows me, I say something like, “Wow, this place is live.” or “There’s definitely some activity around.” Sometimes, I even ask if the other person feels anything strange. Usually they do. People who don’t consider themselves psychic, too. Sometimes, I know someone’s trying to communicate with me. Sadly and for many different reasons, I can’t always open a connection.

When I walk into a space that is haunted—or has some sort of activity—I concurrently feel my solar-plexus tighten as well as a feeling like I’m essentially walking through jell-o. Sometimes I find it a little difficult to breathe, but that goes away as I acclimate to the new surroundings.

I’ve noticed that when I enter a space with a lot of activity if it’s mostly either troubled spirits or negative energy in general, that’s when I get bombarded the hardest. It’s like going into a room and suddenly everyone wants a piece of you. Like a group of screaming teenage girls when they see their favorite celebrity.

For me, it’s like all of my senses get jammed and I can’t make heads or tails of anything I’m feeling. Sometimes I can adjust to that environment and sometimes I can’t.

I’ve had experiences where the spirit is just too excited to be able to clearly communicate with me. Other times, the spirit is so angry he or she just wants me to leave and tries to make me so uncomfortable that I do, indeed, leave. Sometimes, there’s a lot more than one or two and they’re all excited one way or another or happy to see a sensitive and they talk over each other, trying to get my attention and try as I might, I can’t separate one from the others. I always feel bad when that happens.

How would you feel if only certain people can see or hear you and when someone who can finally arrives, they can’t talk to you? You have so much to say, so much to express, but you can’t. (That, in a nutshell was me growing up. I can relate to those spirits. And I think that’s one of the reasons I’m so sensitive.)

I recently paid a visit to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. I was innocently talking to my friend, not even thinking about the fact that I was about to walk into a ship that many consider haunted. I don’t recall what we were talking about, but the moment I crossed over the threshold and stepped onto the ship, my breath caught and the lobby felt very heavy and thick—like jell-o—to move through.

At that moment, I scolded myself for not being prepared. As we checked in to get our room and walked down the hallway, I spent the time trying to adjust and tune in. Otherwise, I was just going to be restless the entire time I was there…and that would be no fun! I did mention it to my friend and she said she didn’t feel much. She doesn’t have the same ability as I do. She’s more proficient with premonitions…which she unintentionally demonstrated later on!

Once I got acclimated, I was okay and tried to single out a few spirits to communicate with just for fun. I felt I was eventually successful sorting through the jumble of place memory versus spirits, but I have no evidence to back it up.

That’s another thing. I’ve been living under a rock for so long… I don’t watch television. I don’t listen to the radio. I’ve been disconnected from the world of paranormal investigation. I’ve read books over the years and have always enjoyed ghost stories, but as for staying on top of the latest technological advances in proving paranormal existence, I’m quite far out of the loop.

Besides, I don’t need physical proof. I already know there are spirits. I always have. You can tell me different or that I’m cavorting with the devil, but I know where I stand, I know what I know and were the naysayer in my position he’d likely see the world the way I do, too.

This is one of the reasons I don’t talk about my experiences much. I don’t have much proof of them. It has been rare when I’ve been with someone else when something unexplained happens that can’t be debunked. But it has happened a few times and I plan to blog about those experiences, too.

I’ve worked in many theaters and as you probably already know…every theater has a ghost—most have several. Honestly, these are the entities who helped me hone my ability. Some are legendary and still haunt the theaters to this day. Some, I never got a concrete answer as to whether the person had anything to do with the particular theater. But I felt their spirit, felt them trying to communicate and in some instances witnessed them with my other senses.

I feel it’s time I talked about my experiences, wrote them down and shared. Maybe someone else can learn something from them. Maybe I can, too.

How do you ’know’ when spirits are around?

1987 and Magic Markers

I don’t recall if this was when I got a brand new set of magic markers, but since the date on the back of this piece is January 1987 and the color is pretty rich, I’m betting the markers were still brand new from Christmas.

Now, remember, it was 1987… Why am I reminding you to get in your way-back machine? I’ll just let the artwork speak for itself…

My First Past Life Regression

Last Friday, I went to a workshop about past life regression. I hadn’t researched it or experienced a regression before, so naturally the night was quite interesting. I’ve been threatening to blog my paranormal experiences and I assure you, they’re on their way. I need to write them all out first and put them into some semblance of order first. I dunno why. I just feel I should.

Anyhow, I also feel I should blog my first past life regression since it is a sort of important occasion, I suppose.

Apparently, I was a rather large, dark haired man…in the 14th century. The toes of my armor were very, very thin and pointy. I was rather burly and apparently had a few servants or at least male friends to help me prepare for battle.

What battle? I have no idea. It was quite urgent that I get ready quickly and get on my horse and go. I recall something about an invasion, like there was land at stake in the skirmish, like I was part of the defense. I was near the battle, but not near enough to see it. I didn’t seem like an asshole, but I also didn’t get much of a flavor of myself to really know for sure. I did feel as though I was noble and in the right to defend whatever it was that I needed to defend. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I was a good guy.

The man leading the regression then asked us to go to our home to see what it looked like.

My house was made of stone and rather large. It was not a castle…not even a fortified manor. It had several multi-light windows and appeared to be two stories high. The door was thick wood and quite tall although not like the kind on a castle. It was also not ornate.

I had a beautiful, long-light-brown-haired wife with hazel eyes. I think she loved me, but she also seemed afraid of me or at least surprised to see me at that moment. She was dressed neatly, but again, nothing fancy.

At least two of my three little children were boys. The other could’ve been a girl. It was hard to tell. The oldest was maybe five or six. My house was well furnished, but not fancy. In the room with my wife and kids, there was one tapestry, a few candlesticks as well as wooden chairs and tables. It seemed as though I had everything I needed.

I must’ve been reasonably well-to-do in order to have so many possessions, but still, nothing could be considered true finery. The curtains were a sort of dark amber color, but I couldn’t tell what fabric they were made of. It wasn’t fancy. There were a few servants about, but I don’t recall much about them.

Then the man leading the regression had us go to the biggest, most important moment in that life.

Well, that’s when I got a little confused. It was as though I (as the dark-haired man) was interchangeable with the man in the center of my view…having his head chopped off at a public execution. There were whispers of treason bandied about. There was also something about either my brother had done the treasonous act and I was being wrongly executed or that I was somewhere in the audience and it was my brother being executed.

I’m leaning more toward the executed being myself because as my soul separated from my body, I saw my wife crying in the audience. If it had been my brother being executed, I would’ve been with my wife and I likely would’ve had an opinion or felt emotion about the death. Instead, I guess I was sort of in denial that I was being executed in place of my brother.

The crazy part was that I definitely felt the axe or sword blow around my neck and mostly what I thought about was that I was being wrongly punished for something I had no part in.

However, to me, the most interesting bit was as my soul was flying away, I knew everything was going to be okay because it would all be fixed in my next life. I would right whatever wrong had been done to me or in general, my next life would sort everything out. I just had to keep looking up and being honorable and noble and overall just plain good.

If there’s one thing I learned from the entire experience it’s that I wanna do it again!

And quite honestly, I’ve always believed in past lives. I’ve also always believed I was a rather large man in more than one past life. I’ve also thought that perhaps I was given this tiny little female body in this life as sort of payback for some bad stuff I did while in my big manly body. Like I needed to walk in the shoes of someone I’d wronged in order to really understand.

I’m 5’5″, 105lbs and yet I still think I can push my car up a hill. I still charge in and pick up four 25lb lighting fixtures as though they aren’t heavy. I still pick up two 50lb steel pipe bases as though it’s no big deal. I enjoy the company of men more so than women and I get pissed off when the guys hit on me rather than treat me like one of the boys. There’s always been that sort of disconnect in my brain. As a kid, I played with more boy toys than girl toys although I had an affinity for both.

In fact, I still collect dolls. Although my Hot Wheels and Matchbox collection has skewed toward the real things rather than the miniatures over the years.

I think it’s a strange balance. I mean, this was only my first regression. What if next time, I find out about a past life where I was female and I start to look at all the feminine things in my life that seemed to have always been there?

But I just gotta say…I still think I was more often a man than a woman. One of my ex-boyfriends even said I’m more of a man than most men. Funny how that is. To look at me, it seems impossible. To know me, there’s certainly truth in it.

And that’s just another thing about me that makes me strange…but happy.

Who were you in a past life and did that carry forward into this one?

Another Stamp Art Piece

My two stamp art pieces were done at totally different times on different paper. I don’t remember doing the other one at all, but I do recall this one because I’d just gotten the ballerina stamp for Christmas and maybe two months earlier, I’d gotten the unicorn circle one and the rainbow on the clouds. There’s also a teddy bear with a band-aid on his leg that I think I got for Christmas, too.

I’m thinking this was done some time in either 1985 or 1986. The other was slightly earlier. This was before I discovered beads and proceeded to make 50 pairs of earrings one week only to take them apart and recycle all the beads the following week…for, like, three months. I suppose that’s why I have so few drawings. I was too busy beading.

Also of note… None of my drawings are of actual things. They’re all abstracts. My brother got the talent to draw real things. I got the talent to make designs. Not much has changed, either. I still can’t draw my way out of a paper bag, but I can barf a bunch of color down and have it look at least somewhat pleasing to the eye. I’m betting it was my love of color that helped me while designing stage lighting. I was very particular in my color choices.

Let’s call this one Stamping Art.

My old artwork…

While hunting for some old journal entries, I found a cache of artwork I’d done in 1987-1988 and found it fascinating, so I’m gonna share them here. I mean, I want to scan them anyway, so why not post ’em?

I never titled my work and rarely signed it–I was in 7th or 8th grade, for goodness sake!–so I guess I’ll have to make up titles as I go along. Let’s call this one ‘Stamp Art’. (I know, I know…sooooooo original…) Notice the line running down the left. This piece was done on binder paper. I guess I didn’t have any plain paper on hand that day or perhaps I was too lazy to find some… Or maybe the spirit moved me and I couldn’t take the time to bother with blank paper, I HAD to do the artwork at that very moment or it’d be lost forever.

Whatever. 🙂

Criminal Minds

Now that the WGA strike is over, I hope to be getting on more shows, but I really don’t have much control over it all.

I was a “Narcotics Support Group” member with my car (’06 Mustang, this time.) for two days on Criminal Minds.

The location was a church and there were very few signs as to whether I was in the right place or not. I was about an hour early, but usually there’s at least one sign as I near the location. This time, it wasn’t until I got to the set that I saw a sign. It was also a little difficult to get to from the directions I was given. But that’s one of the reasons I like to go early…just in case.

I parked on the set, got shuttled to base camp to go through wardrobe. Very cool wardrobe people on this gig.

Then we were taken back to holding in the basement of the church complex. It was a little creepy and weird, but not as bizarre as other places I’ve been in. Anyway, I read Shadows of Darkness by Brian McIntyre and John Zaffis. It’s true stories of demonic possessions and various other supernatural weirdness. I dig that kind of stuff. Plus, I met John Zaffis at a ghost hunt on the Queen Mary last month and really liked what he had to say.

So, I sat in holding until it was time for us to work…in a sort of mini-theater. There was a podium up front and a bunch of folding chairs set up. Since I was apparently a former drug addict, I sat in the audience. I know I got on camera, but I have no idea if I’ll make it into the finished product. I don’t want to give away any of the story, but from what I saw, the episode looks really, really good.

At one point while I was seated, two ADs were whispering and pointing while looking at me. I got a little nervous, but not too much. I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong, so I just continued on with the scene and my participation in it. Finally, one of the ADs came over and said that I was being considered for a sort of upgrade tomorrow. Cool. I found out later that I was the same size and looked a lot like a day player who would be in the following day, so they wanted to use me as a stand-in. Great.

After a yummy lunch, my car worked while I sat enjoying the nice night. It was only a little cold–nothing my jacket couldn’t keep at bay. I finished the Zaffis book.

The next day, I came back for more fun and games. I parked my car, got some lunch and then was immediately pressed into action as a stand-in. Before lunch, I stood in for “Woman #1”, “Woman #2” and “Smoker” (who didn’t actually smoke, but whatever) which actually gave me the title of Utility Stand-in because I stood in for so many characters–2 of which were blonde. It’s always fun for me when I get thrust into positions I never thought I’d be in. I truly enjoy the adventure.

After lunch, all of the day players were done, so I was mostly there because they were using my car in the parking lot. I stood around a lot, sat around a little and then it was time for the car stunt.

It was pretty simple really. The driver rammed a car into a cargo container. It was enough to have the kind of safety meeting I wrote in Driven to Distraction (by Ashleigh Raine) and I haven’t been on a set in awhile where we were doing anything that involved a real safety meeting, so that was fun for me. I like to watch the coordination process between what the driver does, the Special Effects guys as well as the Medics and Stunt Coordinator.

And actually, I almost forgot something… After going through the lunch line, most of the chairs were taken in the catering tent, but there was one on the corner of a group of four or five guys. I read “SFX” on one walkie-talkie and figured that’d be a fun group of guys to sit with even if I didn’t say anything and just listened.

I was so right.

I won’t repeat the stories I heard, but let’s just say it was well worth the price of admission. At the end, the guys laughed and said I probably didn’t know what I was getting into when I sat down. I replied, “No. I did. That’s why I sat here.” but I don’t know if they quite believed me.

That’s okay, though. I had a great time on this show. The crew was one of the nicest, most awesomest I’ve worked with in a long time. All the extras were treated with respect and everyone had fun–including the director!

Engine Swap

So this weekend was rather surprising. I’m writing this while experiencing an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment…

My husband and I successfully unhooked the old engine in my ’68 Convertible Mustang yesterday. Today, we pulled that engine out and put in a different one.

I am utterly amazed that we did it. Every other time I’ve tried to do this much work in a weekend, something inevitably either breaks or turns up missing and I have to stop everything and abandon the project for another day or week…or month.

But not this weekend. All went well. Very, very well.

‘Course we didn’t try to get it ready to start… Perhaps that’s when the real shenanigans will take over.

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