The Comments Section, Part 11 (Climate and Snowflakes)

Facebook post from September 6th, 2017:

So... Climate change... The Earth getter warmer... The sea levels rising... People are still going to deny that this is happening, aren't they? Despite the increase in wildfires, despite the flooding on the east coast, and despite the increased hurricane activity... Yeah, this happens every year, but not with this intensity. Look at the recorded data.

At least the Minister of Magic admitted that Voldemort had returned after staring him in the freaking face.

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Facebook comment from December 1st, 2017:

People stop calling you names when you embrace what they call you.


Snowflakes are beautiful fractal marvels of science! They melt into water, which is the source of all known life on this planet. In large enough numbers, they can level buildings and destroy entire civilizations. Or, they can brighten your weekend morning as you watch them out your window :)

Witcher 3 Triple Monitor Cutscene Fix

So I've been playing The Witcher 3 a lot lately, and I've set up a triple monitor Nvidia Surround system on my computer. This means I can play the game and have it span across all three of my monitors for a peripheral vision level of widescreen.

Problem is, however, that the in-game cutscenes block out my left and right monitors. This is most likely put in place because the developers wanted to hide various things off-screen, since the game was not designed with this level of widescreen in mind.

But whether I see characters in a funky T-pose that are supposed to be off-screen, or people appearing and disappearing suddenly as they're supposed to walk into the scene, etc, I still want to see these cutscenes span all three of my monitors!

So I looked around everywhere online, and all I could find was a hex fix for the game's exe file to make the cutscenes span across a 21:9 aspect ratio. My system is much wider than that, but this at least gave me a basis on where to start. This was a major clue, so all I needed to figure out was how to modify the game exe's hex data myself.

I downloaded a piece of software called HxD, which allows me to access and easily modify the hex data of exe files, and many other things. I loaded in the game's exe file and, with the help of some online forums, discovered that people were creating the hex hack by changing a particular set of hex values within the exe. By default, a game running with a regular 16:9 display should have these hex values in this order within the exe file:

39 8E E3 3F

So the fix they came up with was to replace that sequence with this one, which is supposed to span the cutscenes across a 21:9 display:

8A E3 18 40

I have no idea what these numbers represent, so I did some more digging and discovered that people found these numbers by converting the existing hex values into a "floating point" value. I still have no bloody idea what's going on, so I figure I'll look up some floating point to hex conversion charts online and see if I can piece something together to make this make sense.

Having the knowledge that the floating point value people were using for the 21:9 ratio was 2.38888, I figured if I can convert that backwards and get the same hex value they did, I'd have figured out how to convert these numbers back and forth.

I tried it and got a completely different series of numbers, so I tried it in reverse, to see what floating point number I would get from the hex. Again, totally different numbers.

So clearly this wasn't right, and I still had no idea what I was doing. So I began to think outside of the box, and I looked up the exact resolution I'm running on these three monitors, 5760x1080, to see if anyone else has messed with converting this into a floating point or hex value. Turns out some crazy group of gamers did something similar with Dark Souls. But unfortunately, their hex values somehow made even less sense within this context, so that didn't really lead me anywhere.

I took the hex values I had for The Witcher 3 apart, converting them into decimal and back in different ways to see if any of this made any sense in relation to my actual horizontal resolution. It didn't.

Having messed with the hex values a few times and tested them in-game at this point, I had to find those hex values by looking up the unchanging values that immediately followed it using the CTRL-F find command:

55 55 15 40

In a final moment of almost giving up, I realized that really, what I have to do is come up with something somewhere in the general ballpark of what I need. This hex value probably just needs to be bigger, because it's clearly representing only the horizontal section of the cutscene blocks. So I went back to that floating point conversion website and played around with turning the floating point numbers into hex values until I found one that I thought "looked right". Still, I barely knew what I was doing, and was going purely off of instinct. But I figured I backed up my exe file a long time ago, so what's the harm in giving this a shot? What's the worst that could happen?

So I changed the hex values in question within the exe file to:

40 18 E3 69

I figured this might stretch the black bars off my left and right screens a little more, giving me an idea of how much further I'd need to raise this number. I booted the game up to give it a test and entered into a cutscene.

The blackness that blocked most of the cutscene visuals from my left and right screens was completely gone, and the in-game performance wasn't affected in the slightest. It accomplished exactly what I was trying to do, and it happened on accident.

So yeah. I had no idea what I was doing, but hey, whatever it did certainly worked. And this is why I always tell people to just go for it. Think about it. Whether you know what you're doing or not, take advantage of Google. Ask questions. Take advantage of our ability to deduce and reason. That's how I've gotten this far!

The floating point to hex converter I used was from this website:
https://gregstoll.dyndns.org/~gregstoll/floattohex/
I want to give some credit to the people on this forum page, because this particular page helped me immensely:
http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=160343

Amnesia and Creepy Science Lab Dream

From October 10th, 2017:

I just had a dream in which I can remember nothing of who I am, and I'm in some kind of facility, kind of like a science lab mixed with hospital mixed with mental patient experiment ward... Kinda creepy. I have no clothes, but I don't find my trans body at all out of the ordinary, and I make no effort to hide it. Somehow I get out of my room and I'm exploring through the facility. It's surprisingly warm, so I'm not shivering. Cameras on the ceiling follow me as I wander around trying to figure out what this place is and who I am, because I don't even know my own name.

Eventually I run into a room that actually has people in it. But they don't rush me or freak out that I'm loose. Instead they just keep an eye on me, letting me look through the room a bit. Someone must have slipped me something somehow or something, because I began to feel pretty loopy at some point in this room. I found a section with a bunch of hanging clothes, hanging from a rack attached to the ceiling. I gravitated toward a particular group of feminine clothes, saying someone had good taste, and I liked them. The person observing me indicated they were mine, but did not speak. I replied "Well that makes so much sense. So I can put them on?" They nodded yes and let me clothe myself, seemingly fascinated by my every movement. It really felt like they understood what I was saying, they were just silent.

I start asking questions like what my name is and how I got there, but everyone is just looking at me strange. I ask what the place is, with no reply. The only communication I get is from facial expressions and body gestures, and even those were few. I start to really feel faint and weird, and I start (almost drunkenly) genuinely complimenting the skin and hourglass figure of another patient in the room. She smiled, but no words or other body movements as she lay on the odd hospital table thing. I asked if any of the other patients knew who I was, but they just smiled at me. As I'm stumbling a little over myself and grabbing a wall for support, one of the ward people takes me by the arm to help me walk. They start leading me somewhere outside the room. I black out with my arm around a ward's shoulder, not knowing where I'm being taken.

And then I woke up in my bed in "real life", feeling very disoriented, with the clothes I put on in the dream on the floor by my bed. I suddenly remember my name. That would be more weird if I weren't wearing those yesterday, but thank god. I suddenly remember where I am and who I am. Memories flooded back to me, but I still felt kind of loopy...

Dreams are fascinating... It really makes me wonder sometimes if I'm actually taken someplace else while I sleep. Maybe my mind found itself in another plane of existence for a while, and the people there were studying me...?

... I need to go to work now... What a great start to the day -_-

The Cop Dream

As long as we're talking about my dreams on this blog, I pulled another one out of my archive. I am very happy to report that this is no longer a recurring dream. I'm pretty sure I've had this dream about 3 or 4 times before, always ending with me dying via gunshot wound, and I never got away. I rarely even managed to hide. The events of this particular one ended the chain, possibly because, out of all of them, it was the most lucid.

This is copied and pasted from my archive. The only edits I did was to fix a few typos and misspellings, and a couple of sentences were very hard to read.

So here it is:

Notes From The Cop Dream, January 31st, 2013:

A dream I swear I've had before. Repeated in the same fashion. But I don't remember pulling the same kinds of stunts to get away last time.

I don't quite remember how it starts. It's some kind of thing where me and a group of people are walking through some kind of exhibit. We're looking at these weird things that remain from someone crazy who murdered some people. The mention of Alfred Hitchcock's name came up. We watched someone take a running dive off a high ledge and land right on their head. It looked incredibly real, but apparently it was a re-enactment of the movie that all of this was based off of.

By the end of this, our apparent 'tour' came to a halt and we all gathered into another area on the boat we're on to eat snacks. During the snacks, a cop shows up and recognizes me as some kind of murderer. The cop is Frasier's dad [from the TV show]. He shoots me dead.

The dream then restarts where that man runs off the ledge committing suicide. Each time it restarts I remember how I died last time and I try to prevent it. However, I remembered the last time I had this chain of dreams. I remembered all kinds of stunts I pulled on the boat to kill the cop and get away. I remember all kinds of attempts to hide. All previous attempts of that nature ended in failure.

So I tried something drastically new this time. I can't swim, so I thought what if I tried something that the dream knew I couldn't do. I found an area close to land that we passed by every time the dream restarted, before the cop was even part of the scenario yet, and I jumped off the boat and swam for the shore. Somehow, to my surprise, I was able to swim. I made it quite far away from the boat before I noticed the boat stopping, and some gunshots were being fired at me. I was shot and killed soon after I got to shore. I remember seeing that familiar laughter as the cop approached and his comerades congratulated him.

The dream restarted again.

I tried the swimming approach again, as it seemed promising. I got to the other end of the "dream wall" this time (natural barrier preventing me from going directly away from the ship) before I was no longer able to get further away and I had to make my way to a fence along the islands to the north. As I made my way to the fence, I hid behind trees, curving my slender body against them to prevent shots from hitting me. I made breaks for it when I felt like they had to reload. I finally made it to the fence and realized I didn't know how to get over it. I improvised, thinking that no matter how I hurt myself on the fence now, I'll be killed if I don't get over it. I managed to climb and jump over it, only to find there was a large cliff. The fence dropped off to a deep ravine, and there was another fence on the other side of the ravine, just like the one I was hanging onto.

I jumped from the cliff face over to the other side, and suddenly something very strange happened.

The entire scene in my dream turned to a third person view and looked exactly like some kind of Indiana Jones style movie opening sequence. I didn't make the jump, and as I was hanging off the cliff, an Indiana Jones silhouette was being cast over the cliff face somehow. Somewhere in here I also saw the face of my video production teacher, Rob Nyland, kind of transparently pasted over the whole third-person scene. That was very confusing. As the sequence progressed, part of the cliff face started to move and began to crush my finger. As I got my crushed finger free of the rock face I fell. Next thing I knew I was shaking my head in a daze. I had apparently never gone to the other side of that fence at all. I was laying just outside of it with the cop standing over me, doing that familiar laugh, just like every time he gets me with his comrades.

The dream restarted again. Frustrated with how the swimming approach didn't work and the fence seemed to be a fake, this time I ran to the head of the ship to jump off of it the instant it gets to land. I hid as best I could, and managed to get off the ship in time. I pulled some climbing stunts and got to a hiding place in an indentation on the rocky cliff face near the fence. This time I got to the fence from the opposite side - the side the cop got to me from last time [I'm confused by this phrasing too]. I hid with my back against the rocks. This was the best hiding place I had found from the cop yet, and the farthest away I have managed, but that didn't last too long. As his comrades searched for me, some of them came dangerously close to seeing my feet.

While I stood there, I had time to think. They're going to find me eventually. There's no way out. I'm clearly trapped. The only actual way out, the fence, turned out to be a trap that gave me nothing but false hope. The trap actually transformed my dream, bending the dream to keep me there. Can he transform my dreams? Bend them to his will? I don't think there's an actual way to fight him, or to run away from him.

So I made my location known to the cop's comrades (who turned out to be all of the other people in that group from the tour), raised my hands, and yelled for them to take me to the cop (I used his name, but I forget what it was). One of them shot me in the hand before I jumped down from my hiding place. After the shot to the hand I yelled "No! Take me to [the cop]! He's going to kill me, not you!" I walked toward the cop as I saw him approaching my hiding place from near the ship. I congratulated his genius, and told him he's unbeatable. Right after he acknowledged that I was a tough person to catch, he shot me directly in the heart.

As I was dying, this time it was totally different. I was still alive, still talking with the cop as I was dying somehow, as though we had known each other for a very long time. I don't remember all that he was saying, but it was like a series of flashbacks. I saw him in the future, after he gets shot in the hip, teaching classes. I saw him on his deathbed. I saw him as he is now. He gave me a hug and I died. But one thing - one question was repeated during the flashbacks: "What comes after the after?" I think it was. The cop was asking me this question repeatedly, and I couldn't answer.

The dream went totally black and ended shortly after I died. I woke up with a gasping breath in a cold sweat, still feeling the pain in my hand, and in my heart and chest. The pain in my hand didn't completely go away until I started typing this for about 5 minutes. The pain in my chest turned into a pressure feeling soon after I got out of bed, then the pressure feeling went away after about 4 minutes of typing.

I hope this different ending that I got after giving up ends this chain. Because I never want to have that dream again.

Minecraft Class, Part 2

So here we are, about a month later. 

This year's Minecraft classes are progressing about as usual. I have two classes, a middle school, and a high school class. I've given them a decent amount of time now to develop survival skills and get their crops growing so they don't starve to death.

I've assigned, and finished grading, the Critical Thinking: Survival assignment. 

It took 2 hours to go through all those assignments, since I like to give individual feedback to each student. I spent 5 hours straight overall grading assignments for all my classes that day, none of which I got paid for, because I used my 3 hours of prep time that week preparing for that week's class activities. But I digress...

I had some interesting assignment answers. One student in particular stood out, saying he was going to build a 3-dimensional wheat farm with a circulatory system of water columns for irrigation. I'm really quite interested to see how that develops, because I have never heard of someone making a farm like that before.

Of course, I do get some students in these classes who start off not taking it seriously.

They'll say stupid one-word things for their answers, clearly not trying. These are the students who learn that it's possible to fail in Minecraft class. For the first time in a long time I had to give a student an incomplete on his assignment and, in our monthly pass/fail system, he failed our second month of class. But there are also students who clearly know the answers, and are just goofing off and not trying. I'll give them feedback that speaks to their meme culture, and then tell them that, seriously, if you don't take this seriously, you shall not pass. Here is a picture of one such student's work. The additional comments was my feedback to him:

On another note, I've introduced blacksmithing.

I demonstrated how to do it by making a couple of powerful tools - a pickaxe and a broadsword - and giving them away at random to people who raised their hand when I asked who wanted them. Both classes have already built smelters to melt and cast metals, but it's looking like the high school class is making better tools from those facilities, and at a faster pace.

When I asked if they had developed a sustainable food source yet, a little over half the middle school class raised their hands. But in the high school class, all but one of the students raised their hands. So I decided to introduce the government options to the high school class a couple weeks earlier than the middle school class.

Upon introducing the government options, I had a second student bring a new option to the table.

He suggested a Feudal Monarchy, where the King would give land to nobles, and the nobles would essentially rule over different provinces. So that was added to the list. It got a surprising number of bites.

The next class after the government option lecture, we assigned groups.

I had students put their names under the options they chose. I'm sad to say that the Theocracy option only got one student, and therefore did not have enough people to become a group. However, the student who chose theocracy moved his name over to the Feudal Monarchy. This student is likely going to act as a priest who preaches the word of the prophets, while still attending to his duties as a citizen within the group, serving the king. 

I'm thinking I will set up a few divine signs in the world, regardless of the theocracy option becoming a group.

It should be interesting to see what happens. For my first "divine sign" I'm thinking I will create a subtle path of tiny metals, mixed into gravel, near the residence of the priest. If the priest notices the tiny metal shavings in the gravel and follows the path to the correct location, he will find a white tree with blue sparkling leaves, unlike any other tree in the world.

If he destroys the tree, I will create a thunderstorm shortly after it is destroyed. The next night the moon will glow red and poisonous spiders will show up in the kingdom's mine shafts. Then everything will be back to normal come daybreak and the signs will stop for a couple weeks.

If he creates a shrine around the tree, or otherwise protects it or nourishes it, I will secretly plant flowers that emit light in a bluish-white glow. Then, depending on how he reacts to the flowers, I'll go from there. If he places a chest in the shrine, I might sneak in and place something in it as a sign that the gods are happy. 

The next signs after that for a while will target unsuspecting people from different civilizations, and I wholly expect it will go over their heads. But we won't know until we try it.

I let the students come up with their own names for their civilizations.

Here is a list of the groups we have so far in the high school class:

Revenant - Anarchy (no leader, no laws)

It's looking like this group is going to be the rebels of the class. We'll see how long they manage to remain an anarchy. One of the inhabitants of this group was citizen of Highrock, a Constitutional Monarchy group from last year. You'll hear about that group in my next Minecraft Memories post.

(still deciding on a name) - Democracy

This group is currently determining whether they are a representative democracy or not. They seem a bit disorganized, so I'm hoping they elect a representative to help them get organized, otherwise they may fall into anarchy. One of the group members is the former president of the Bone Archer Republic, but it's looking like he's not opting for the role of a ruler this time around.

Rapid Fire Goat Birth - Republic

Sometime within the next couple of weeks they will be holding an election to determine the president. But before then, they're working on a consensus for what should be contained within their constitution. 

This group contains the nomad who threatened nuclear war in my first Minecraft Memories post, another citizen from Highrock, and a citizen from The Brotherhood of Anarchy, a non-representative socialist democracy group from the 2016 school year. Having this many students from previous classes and different backgrounds should be interesting to watch.

Dead Bush Empire - Feudal Monarchy - Imperator: Milo

This group contains a citizen from Lakeside, a Communism society from last year in the same class as Highrock. This is also the group with the priest who tried to start a theocracy.

To my surprise, this group already has a leader. How the leader was chosen isn't exactly clear to me, but everybody follows him somehow. He has chosen the title Imperator, which is actually a word I did not know until now. From Roman history, apparently Imperator was a title bestowed upon an emperor. The title is supposed to refer to an absolute or supreme ruler.

This group is surprising me with their coordination and productivity. Imperator Milo seems to know what needs to be done, and with him at the helm, who knows what we'll see next.

So there you have it.

I introduce you to the Friday class of this 2018 school year. We'll be assigning groups in the Thursday class soon, so you'll be learning about them once that's settled.

The Comments Section, Part 10 (Human Rights Posts)

Facebook post from July 15th, 2017:

To any men's rights people out there: You do not need to campaign for your rights because your rights as white men are not in danger. That is why people find your efforts offensive.

While women, black people, and the LGBTQ communities are trying to bring attention to the fact they're discriminated against, men's right activists are out there bringing attention to themselves like children who feel left out.

White men are not in danger from discrimination. Hogging the spotlight only distracts from and worsens the actual discrimination issues.

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Facebook post from August 6th, 2017:

[Posted a link to a YouTube video called What Your Doctor Wants To Tell You, But Can't (From A Medical Physician)]

It's so sad that so many Americans lack enough common sense to make this a problem... We need to do what we can to stop contributing to this issue. We are a large part of why so many doctors just zone out and don't even care.

If I were a doctor in those situations, in order to survive, I could totally see myself giving up the fight eventually and just writing out the requested prescriptions. And that's what reinforces the spreading drug addictions.



I'm quite alarmed by those doctor suicide statistics, and I think continuing to bring a whimsical attitude to their day and thanking them for their efforts and tedious work after each visit might go a long way in helping with that.

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Facebook post from August 14, 2017:

So black people have been getting shot or otherwise harmed and killed left and right by neo-nazi racists for years. Lots of them. And the only outrage and coverage it was getting was on the news and social media, and some protests.

One white girl gets killed by neo-nazis, and now it's all over the news and social media, but now suddenly it's also being talked about with more widespread variety on different networks, people in high places are saying stronger things, Illinois officially labels neo-nazi groups as being terrorists, and the public outcry generally seems more intense.

Nothing has changed except that the racists have stopped hiding their faces, started targeting white people, and started showing more of what they truly are by wielding torches.


Ughhhh.....

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Facebook comment from October 31st, 2017:

I had a mother with her two kids snicker to themselves in the lobby when I was getting my birth certificate changed. The mother said, with a snickering smile on her face, "He used to be a man." Her daughter chimed in, "I wouldn't wanna be a boy!" and they giggled quietly.


Yeah. You wouldn't want to be a boy. That's great. Neither did I!

The Other Life I Lived [Updated 1-1-19]

Hey, everyone!

Heads up, this is a very long post, and the story is kind of scattered. The original post date was October 31st, 2017. I did the spellchecking and formatting on the fly as I typed, so I don't know how many typos, readability issues, or inconsistencies there are in the memories. It's painful for me to read through all the way, so edits or updates are likely to be few.

That being said, this was last updated on 1-1-19 to add a drawing of my daughter and to add a name that I remembered.

I have an archive of nearly all the digital conversations I have had over the past decade. I document things like a digital pack rat. Among those things I document are little scraps of things that have happened in my past, and dreams that I vividly remember.

I think it's time I talked a bit about one particular dream. This dream changed my life. No joke, I was a different person after waking up from that dream. The act of waking up was a scarring experience, and it took me over a week to get over it. To this day, when I think about it in detail, I still feel a strong emotional reaction. It's been about 6 years now since I had the dream, so I think now is a decent time to do this. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I will try to recall it as best I can.

This was a dream in which I lived out my life for about 7 years.

Now I don't mean I experienced various events, and by the end 7 years had past, no. I mean I spent 7 years in this dream. I ate breakfast. I went to sleep. I got a job. I moved out of my parent's house. I changed and cleaned diapers. This was 7. Years. Long.

The earliest memory I have of the dream begins much like a typical dream, with oddities and inconsistencies, though it was based closely on reality. My girlfriend in this dream was the same person I was dating at the time in real life. For the sake of anonymity and minimal awkwardness, let's call her Rae. There was a tornado warning and evacuation for our area, and my family and my Rae's family were scrambling to get out. It's kind of hard to remember exactly how this worked out, but we got caught in the high winds and were actually lifted off the ground running away from it. We managed to survive, and the tornado didn't actually end up truly destroying anyone's houses in our neighborhood. It really just shook us up more than anything. But after that tornado, Rae and I felt a somewhat stronger bond, having gone through such an experience together. 

This stronger bond helped us get through various issues as our relationship progressed. The events of the tornado showed us the selfless acts we would do to protect one another.

I remember sleeping the night that followed the tornado incident, feeling so exhausted. So tired. So glad I didn't have anywhere to be the next day, but sad that I wasn't able to share a bed with Rae, since her parents were still squeamish about that.

You know how, in real life, you can't remember everything that has happened to you over a long period of time? Like, you can't remember every day? Or every detail? That's how this feels when I think about it. And I've lived so long now in reality that even more details about this dream world are slipping from me, since I'm living life now as though these events never transpired. But they did happen to me. In my mind. They're quite real to me.

Some days had passed in recovery from the tornado, but everything worked out fine, and really, we were all back to normal after a little over a week. I was taking college courses at the time, and so was Rae, at a different college. We lived in the same neighborhood though, so we saw each other a lot.

I don't remember the exact time frame, but I want to say about 3 months after the tornado, Rae and I had a pregnancy scare. And this is particularly eerie, because I actually had a real pregnancy scare with her in real life some time after this dream. In real life she wasn't actually pregnant. In the dream, however, she was. It changed everything. There was a ton of drama coming from all sides, and I was honestly worried her mom was going to kill me (she seriously owns a crossbow in real life). But I never doubted for a second that I would stand by her side no matter what she chose to do. 

To my surprise, she decided to have the baby.

But she was in no way the type to submit the rest of her life to staying home because of a child. She wanted to pursue higher education, and she had a promising career path. I encouraged that she do what she wants with her life, and I declared my support to try and make it happen, despite the baby. I would stay home if need be.

I stuck my feelers out around college, looking everywhere for a good job opportunity to help make some income. I needed to help save up, because kids are expensive. My mom was delighted at the idea of acting as a babysitter and parent mentor. I was terrified. The idea of having kids is terrifying! You are completely responsible for the life and development of another helpless human being. There's no possible way for you to prepare yourself for it, and there's no possible way you will be perfect at it.

I found a job opportunity. I was so lucky! My internship at Microsoft paid off, and I found an actual position as a video editor. I got to stay there, and they gradually took advantage of my experience in fixing technology, which helped make me more valuable to them. It was stressful work, but I fell into a good groove over time. I developed some good work relationships with a co-worked named Michael (I forget his last name), and my boss's name was Larry Larsen. I remember them both quite well, actually. Larry was not the type of guy you want to leave hanging... Every second counted to that guy. You talk fast, you multitask, you simplify. That's the kind of guy he was. He loved to party just as hard as he worked... I don't understand how the guy could handle being that high energy all the time. Michael though, he was far more laid back. A little too laid back sometimes, but he knew what he was doing. Reliable guy. Anyway, I should probably move on... I'd rather focus on the parts of this dream that really matter to me, more than my job.

This job was a godsend though. I had never experienced anything like a true paycheck before, and this opened up so many doors in my life. I could financially support myself and Rae, so our parents wouldn't have to deal with the financial burden of the baby. And I managed to land this job before the baby came. Rae got to keep doing what she wanted to do, though it was... Definitely a challenge dealing with the pregnancy. That had to have been the longest 9 months ever. Unfortunately I don't remember enough of the details to adequately explain how it went. I remember a lot of anxiety though, especially in combination with being terrified about my job performance, because I really needed to keep that stable income.

Rae's water broke in the night, around 8 or 9pm. We still didn't live together, so I got the call from her parents, and I rushed over. Her parents took over and drove to the hospital while I got my hand crushed by Rae, while receiving lots of obscene comments on the part I played in this whole pregnancy situation, with an occasional heartfelt thank you for being there at the same time.

Painkillers helped somewhat in this process. I never really comprehended what it means to birth a child until then... I had seen videos of births before, but it's different when you're there... It's really scary. You're afraid for your partner's life, you're afraid for the baby's life, and... You're afraid of being a bad parent... And... You're excited. I was excited. I was also surprised by the smell. Never anticipated the smell... I was also frustrated, because doctors don't like people being in the room, but there was no way in hell they were keeping me out of there.

And then I heard my daughter's voice cry out for the first time. Jennifer was brought into the world. The feeling when you hold your first newborn child in your arms is indescribable. It's a part of you. There's an attachment that goes beyond words, beyond understanding. It's like there was a psychic link between me and her. I used to be terrified I wouldn't know what the baby was going to want when it cried, but that fear was somehow gone. I always knew what Jennifer wanted. Her crying and baby babble sounded all the same to everyone else, but to me, there were differences. Little changes in pitch, little differing inflections. They all meant something, and we understood each other. She was my daughter... I never knew love like that before.

This... This continues to be one of the hardest things I've had to accept. Sure, I never got that job in real life, but jobs come and go, who cares about those. Jennifer wasn't there when I woke up from this dream. Jennifer wasn't real. My daughter isn't here. I never got to see her grow up past age 6. I will never see her again. It still makes me cry to think about that. I have spent so much time in reality now that I've forgotten her birthday. How could I forget her birthday? I feel like a terrible parent for forgetting... It was in May. May... 16th? May 17th? I don't know... I miss her... She cost me so many sleepless nights, and she drove me crazy, but I miss her so much...

Typing that made me very emotional and I had to take a break... You get the idea. But wait, there's plenty more. She was only just born, and we still have 6 years to go...

Her full name was Jennifer Rin, and she had Rae's last name, which I will not say on a public forum for privacy's sake. I seem to be blanking on what happened after Jen's birth, so I guess I will continue on from the next parts I remember. After Rae's recovery, she continued her classes and high education. We traded off looking after Jen as we were home. At this point I stopped going to school, since I got a decent paying job, and I could not do all of that at once. I wanted to, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I can't be in two places at the same time.

Jen was loud at night. Just like me, she had trouble going to sleep at a decent hour. Rae went to bed earlier than me, and I had a fairly flexible schedule for work, so I looked after Jen by myself most nights. She would sleep in my bed with me, because I believe that small children need to be close to their parents, especially at this early an age. I took my bed frame away and put the mattress directly on the floor. I surrounded the whole floor area around it with pillows and blankets, and essentially baby-proofed my room. The place was perfectly safe, as far as I was aware, for Jen to get up and wander around in the night if she got restless while I was asleep. But as far as I can remember, I don't think she ever did. 

When we were in bed together, we played little games with our hands. Her hands were so tiny! And her fingers! They were fun to poke and lightly squeeze, and she'd grab my finger and bite it with her gums. That became less fun when she started teething... It just felt so amazing that she existed. This tiny little human came from me and Rae. She started from practically nothing, and turned into this little being laying in bed with me, nomming my finger. I booped her nose, and she'd grab mine, poke me in the eye, stick her fingers in my ears, and so on... We kept each other company this way when we couldn't sleep, but oftentimes she fell asleep before I did. Sometimes it got old, but really, I found it quite entertaining for longer than I would've expected I would.

One part I definitely don't miss is changing the diapers. While I was still living in the basement apartment of my mom's house, I took advantage of her natural motherly instincts to do it for me whenever possible. But she pushed it off on me more and more. Jen didn't throw up as often as I expected a baby to do, but it happened sometimes when I was burping her. A few light pats on the back, and a wet splatting sound over my right shoulder... It made me occasionally move to a non-carpeted area, just to burp her. It strange how cleaning up your child's excrement is different from cleaning cat litter, or dog poop, or anything like that. It's like... The connection I shared with her made it feel like I was cleaning up my own mess. It didn't feel like wiping someone else's butt, it became just as natural as wiping my own. I figured out easier and better ways to do it over time. My mother taught me methods with reusable diapers, so that helped save a good amount of money, and I think the cloth diapers were more comfortable for Jen. If I was the one wearing them, I'd choose the cotton. So why would I want less for her?

Other people's kids seemed so whiny, but Jen seemed calm. She was curious, but like... A kind of introspective curious. She would go up and try to get into trouble here and there, as any kid would do, but sometimes instead she would analyze things before touching them. Poke at them before grabbing them. Stare at them before shoving her face into them. It's like she was thinking about it. She reminded me of myself in that way. I think part of the reason she didn't cry as much as I expected is because of that understanding I felt I had with her. She didn't have to, because I knew what she wanted. I tried to make myself there for her, sometimes just sensing that she needed me on certain days, so I couldn't leave her at home with my mom. I brought her to work with me on occasion, when we didn't have filming to do in the greenscreen room, and when Michael was feeling generous. I think he liked her, but he didn't want to admit it. Larry didn't like the idea of having her in the studio though, so I couldn't do that too often.

I had not discovered I was trans at this point in my life, though my relationship with Rae was already fairly reversed in terms of gender roles. Throwing Jen into the mix just emphasized that even more. I was clearly the "mother", and Rae was clearly the "father". I hadn't truly questioned my gender yet, but I accepted that that's who I am, and went with it.

Rae and I began to talk about living together, since being split apart in two different houses was making things a little complicated. Paying no significant amount in rent at the time, and no expenses other than Jen's food and wipes and things, I had saved up a considerable amount to get us started in an apartment. Jen's first birthday was at my mom's place, but I believe it was soon after that that Rae and I moved out into our own apartment.

Jen blew out the candle on her cupcake all by herself! ... After I demonstrated how it was done, and re-lit it. As she stared at the candle, the fire light sparkling in her brown eyes, the shadows dancing around her light brown hair, the look on her face... Everything was new to her. It worried me, the fascination she had with the fire. Luckily she never hurt herself with it. She was smart. We've had a couple of mishaps here and there with Jen getting into things I didn't want her to, or bonking herself into stuff. But such is life... We managed, and Jen turned out okay so far. 

I don't remember what town we moved to now... It might have been Redmond? No way, that can't be right. Rae was going to WSU, and there's no way she'd make a commute like that every day. We must have moved up north, somewhere closer to Bellingham. Our new apartment was... A stressful adventure. Not just the moving and everything, but getting used to having our own place. Doing the dishes and various housework proved difficult for me to keep up on a regular basis, amidst my job and the baby. But Rae came through and took care of everything. It was a great balance, since we both seemed to be talented in areas the other was not. The apartment made it so Rae and I could finally sleep in the same bed with Jen. Sometimes. Rae needed a different room in order to get enough sleep on occasion... I guess some people just don't have matching circadian rhythms with their daughters. Really, it felt like Jen helped me get a to sleep sometimes. She fell asleep before I did all the time, and she brought me a kind of peace of mind. Watching her sleep, wondering what she was dreaming about, was like counting sheep for me.

... At least until she started teething. I believe this kicked in a little before her first birthday. Everyone said she was rather late, but come on, everyone's unique. In real life, I don't actually even know when this is suppose to occur in babies. When it started though, it seemed like it was going fast. I don't know how quickly teeth are supposed to grow, but I seem to remember her having all her teeth by... Sometime in the vicinity of her second birthday? It must have been awful for her, the pain from such rapid growth... She would wake up crying sometimes because of the pain. I didn't know what to do to help, but my mom gave me something. I don't remember what it was... I know I had something to help with her pain relief... This was a really hard time for me, and resulted in me having to take some time off from work on occasion, just to get some sleep. Rae really came through for me during this time, I remember, making sure to get me enough sleep, telling me to take naps, taking care of Jen so I could have days off from everything sometimes.

It occurs to me, I didn't glue Jen to the TV with cartoons and things. I did little activities with her, gave her my stuffed animals, and had her play with physical objects and puzzle games (no small pieces). I guess I felt like the TV was going to brainwash her, and I wanted her to experience life in reality before discovering the bright colors and hypnosis of visual media. Kind of ironic, considering I worked in video production. I guess it also felt a bit like a break for me, too.

I'm blanking on a ton of details and events between this point and Jen's third birthday. I just remembered she loved The Little Mermaid. That was something she and Rae had in common somewhat, and Rae did a themed decoration around the apartment for Jen. I know Jen had friends, and I know some people showed up... I can't remember any details on that though. It's like... I know I experienced all of this, but so much of it has disappeared from my memory now over the years, as I pushed it away and declared it to be not real. Jen had Rae's naturally straight hair, and it was a kind of hue between strawberry blonde and light brown. She liked it worn loose, with bangs. I was actually a bit jealous of how cooperative her hair was, and it very rarely tangled. Though I brushed it every night, usually before brushing the tangles out of mine.

I know we had outings with Jen, and we did fun activities and things, but I don't remember what they were. I have this vague memory of an aquarium, but I don't know if that's something else, unrelated. It's strange, like I know that we did things. Life wasn't this constant repetitive grind EVERY day. But somehow the repetitive parts of this life are the only ones I'm really remembering, maybe because they stuck harder in from the repetition.

I believe it was the November after Jen's 3rd birthday that we learned Rae was pregnant again. By this point, Rae's experience and reputation in university was spreading. Combined with her various scholarships and honor society rep, she was given a few potential job opportunities. She wanted to pursue one of the jobs in particular, but the baby complicated things a bit, and she still wanted to continue to finish her degree program at Western.

To my surprise, Rae decided to keep this baby too. I felt like this went against her character, not getting an abortion in this situation. But I supported her, so long as it was truly the decision she wanted to make. Once again we went through the chaos of pregnancy. This one seemed to have more vomit than the other one, I think. I'm rather hazy on the details surrounding this pregnancy, as it all feels kind of like a blur in my mind.

It felt like before I knew it, we were rushing off to the emergency room. It bothers me so much that I can't remember this birth in the same level of detail as I remembered Jen's. But I do have a memory of bringing Rae home. I don't know what day it was... But I believe it was sometime in August.

... Now I'm feeling really guilty again, like a horrible parent. I barely remember his birth. It seems like something I wouldn't forget, except that this was a dream. His first and middle names were Calvin Jin, with the same last name as Rae, just like Jen. I am pretty sure Rae gave him his first name and I gave him his middle name. Heh, Calvin Jin and Jen Rin. I guess I had a thing for three letter names.

Calvin seemed to warm up more to Rae than Jen did. I seem to remember her taking to him more intuitively as well. Where Jen and I had a kind of telepathic bond, and I always knew what she wanted, I couldn't seem to figure out Calvin in quite that same way. Rae seemed to have it quite under control though. She never really told me, but I'm pretty sure she had a similar bond with Calvin as I did with Jen. Rae would make things seem like they should have been obvious, but I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I know they're two different kids, but really, they were both our kids. You'd think raising them would be at least a somewhat similar experience. Jen was the thinker and analyzer, and Calvin seemed to be the curious little chaos dinosaur. It was so much easier cleaning the diapers of the kid who didn't have a built-in fire hose. I remember getting hit directly in the face once, just above the nose. I cautiously kept a hand up for self defense at various points in the changing ever since.

You would think that as I get closer to the end of the dream I would be remembering things in greater detail, but somehow that's not happening. It feels like things are getting more foggy. The only detailed memory I can remember well enough to tell right now comes from 3 years after Calvin's birth. I remember that Jen was 6 years old, and Calvin was 3. Rae made us breakfast, in an very happily intellectually sarcastic mood. Both Rae and I had jobs at this point, she was a forensic psychological evaluator, and I still had the editing job. I usually worked from home at this point, considering I was often taking care of the kids, but this particular day I had to drive down to Redmond to check in with Larry and Michael on a collaboration we were doing on some new holographic tech we were documenting. I was leaving before Rae, so she was making sure the kids got to school.

The image I have of this moment is pretty vivid. The kitchen had a kind of bar-style counter-top on one side, where the kids ate breakfast. Rae was in the kitchen finishing up eggs, toast, bacon... Or was is sausage... Calvin was pestering Rae, jumping around the entrance to the kitchen, babbling here and there about geometry stuff he learned in school. Calvin was just entering first grade, and Jen was in third. Calvin bounced around on the balls of his feet, a lot like I do, come to think of it. Jen was patient, climbing up onto one of the chairs in front of the bar counter, waiting for her plate, muttering under her breath for Calvin to shut up. Rae said something in response... I wish I remember what it was. It was clever, whatever it was, and it actually got Calvin to quiet down a bit, and made Jen blush.

I was witnessing this glorious display right after scrubbing my face and getting dressed in my work pants and a button up shirt. As the events unfolded, I stood there by the dining table and watched for a while thinking, "Look at them. That's my family. These are my kids. And we're turning out alright."

I walked up behind Jen and put my hand on her head and told Rae I needed to grab my food and eat in the car, because I was running behind in getting out the door. Jen leaned over in her chair and hugged me, and Calvin ran from the kitchen over to my leg and grabbed hold, hugging it the way a barnacle hugs the hull of a ship. I look down at each of them and say "Aw, I love you too."

Rae stops and looks at me for a moment, as I'm stuck with the kids hanging off of me, and says, "Looks like you're not moving from that spot." 
I shake my leg and tell Calvin to sit in his chair, and I give Jen a return hug with my right arm. Rae hands me my food in a plastic container, apparently foreseeing that I was going to run late. As I walk away from her chair I kiss Jen on the cheek, 
"Have fun at school," I said, briefly touching foreheads, and smiling at her as I turn to Calvin's chair. I ruffle his hair and kiss him on the forehead.
"...and you stay out of trouble. Rawr."
"Rawr!" he exclaimed, in reply.
"Love you! See you after school!" I waved at Rae and the kids as I walked toward the door.

As I walked out the door it got darker, and suddenly it was like there was a wall in front of me. I started breathing really heavy and fast, in a mild panic. Suddenly my clothes were gone, and I was laying on my back. In bed. But whose bed?!

I had woken up. I had no idea where I was, I was freaked out that I was suddenly naked and in an unknown place. I jumped up and noticed that I recognized the room. I was in my old room, from about 7 years ago. I looked back at my bed and checked the clock on the night stand. It was around 2pm. I sat down, completely freaking out, realizing that the only logical solution to this is that that was a dream. But there's no way that was a dream. I put some clothes on and walked slowly outside the room. The living room was just like it was 7 years ago. The bathroom too. I went back into my room and checked a calendar. It was 2011, not 2018.

I started to remember what I had done yesterday in real life. I began to cry uncontrollably as it sunk in that it actually was all a dream somehow. I brought my body under the bed covers and buried my face into the pillows and howled in tears. If that was all a dream, then I would never see my family again. My kids never existed. I would never see them again. I descended into a paralyzing panic attack.

After about an hour and a half or so, I finally calmed down into a state of deep numbness, staring at the ceiling. As I stared at the ceiling I recalled so many memories. I thought about how many experiences that was, and how it was somehow all crammed into one night's sleep. I made the comparison to the Star Trek TNG episode, The Inner Light. Sure, you might find it to be a funny comparison, but in that moment, there was nothing funny about it whatsoever. It was horrifying, waking up and realizing nearly everything I cared about in the world was gone, never even having existed in the first place.

I contemplated whether I truly wanted to go on living, or whether I woke up into yet another dream. I was honestly considering suicide, because how could I do this? How could I go back 7 years and live it all over again? Especially if I knew I wasn't going to have those same kids again this time around? That I wouldn't have that life? That all my effort over those 7 years meant nothing.

As I stared at the ceiling the memories from my 7 year dream were already fading into the back of my mind. I wrote some of it down in a mad scramble to not forget it. Now, 6 years after having that dream, I cannot find that note, but I never forgot. I couldn't forget.

I was in my room coming to terms with what had happened for about 4 or 5 hours before I realized I was starving, and I had to leave my room eventually to get food. I went upstairs, slowly, bracing myself for what I was going to see.

My mom and my step-dad were upstairs, business as usual. They said hi, and I awkwardly said hi back, knowing that they had no idea what I had just been through. I had to keep in mind that they had no idea I was a parent, or that I had my own apartment, or that I had a job, or that I was 7 years older than everything else in this world. I simply said, as I wandered to the fridge,
"I just had... An extremely disorienting dream. And... I think it's going to take me a while to adjust to... Life. Again."
My mom showed sympathy, but clearly had no idea what it meant when I said I just had a dream that lasted 7 years. She had no idea the trauma I was feeling, having lost that life. It was as though in one fell swoop my girlfriend and both my kids were killed, and I was transported back 7 years into the past, before they existed, in such a way that they could never exist again.

After eating I went next door to talk to Rae. She was so much younger now, and she lacked so many of the experiences that had shaped her over the years. When I told her a few small details about the dream, she seemed to unsympathetic, saying it was just a dream, and I needed to move on.

This was not my girlfriend... This was not the person I had all those experiences with, and this was not the person who bore two children with me. Who lived with me for over 5 years. Who supported me when I...

...I had to go back home and lie in bed again, staring at the ceiling.

It took me over a week to get back into the groove of my life again. But I don't think I ever truly came back and healed from that experience. That was another life I lived, and it is gone now. I have been burying these memories in the back of my head for years now, but I can't anymore. I need to accept this as a loss. I need to process this. This is an experience I had, and I need to work through these emotions.

That was the other life I lived. Thank you for reading my story. It is as closely based in truth as I can get it, considering how many memories are so fuzzy.

If I every remember anything more, rest assured, I will write about it. I have been long broken up with Rae at this point, but these memories of my kids are precious to me still. Especially now, since I will never have biological children again.

I will never be able to bear children.
I will never have a uterus.
I will never have eggs to fertilize.
I am infertile.

So those were the only biological kids I will ever have... Jennifer, and Calvin... I miss you...

[EDIT: I drew this picture of Jen on January 1st, 2019. This is a drawing of when she was 6 years old, the way she looked the last day I saw her. It's not perfect, but I can tell it's her, at least. Her hair was a light brown with highlights of reddish blonde in the sun, and her eyes were a lighter brown than mine, with a tiny hint of green sometimes in bright lighting. I remember noticing it one time when we went to the beach when she was around 4 or 5. I still miss her a lot...]