My great grandma is in the nursing home. I remember when she lived in her own house, and she already seemed super old then. Since she's been in the nursing home it seems like she's frozen in her oldness. She doesn't get any older, but then again it doesn't seem like she /could/ get any older.

"You've only ever seen me like this," she said, moving her trembling hand to indicate herself and the tiny room that smelled like pee and antiseptic. "But this is just one very short period in my life. You never knew me when I could do THIS!"

--and she cocked her head and moved her hand faster than I would have thought possible, and the whole wall behind her was swept aside, replaced with an idyllic mountain scene of a small cabin on a lake, and crawling out of the lake was an enormous black creature, shaped like a man but too large, with massive black horns growing out of his steaming, cracking brow, and eyes that smoldered and grew red.

"There's your grandpa!"

I live off-campus, in the town. My parents have the last bit of farm land that's left in the city limits. My dad says the town used to be all little farms, but now it's all subdivisions and strip malls with Subway sandwiches and nail places and street light grids and cul-de-sacs. So my parent's land is completely boxed in by the city. You can't even drive to it anymore because it's completely cut off from the streets. I know how to slip in and out between the fences and dirt-road alleys and get to the bus, but my parents don't get out much.

The farm isn't even on the city maps anymore. When I was little the city council didn't know what to do with it, since it didn't fit into their plans, so they just removed it from the city maps and declared that it didn't exist. Then they removed that decision from the official record, and hired some two-bit hypnotist to erase it from the council's minds, so now it's completely off the books. It doesn't have a mailing address, and isn't hooked up to the city water or electricity. You can't even see it on google maps. They save a ton on taxes.

So thanks for the offer, @Pearline, but I'm already set. But either @Diadem or @Karena seem like great choices!

I volunteer after school at Saphir/Whorf, the infoshop. Some people call it a bookstore but it's not - it has a lending library. And computers, and coffee (pay what you can). And a needle exchange, now that turntables are so popular again.

It attracts a lot of interesting "alternative" characters from town, but they don't know about Psychic High School, or about real psychic youth. They kind of guess or pretend that we exist, but if you don't experience it for yourself, then you can't really believe it, can you?

They are mostly good people who really want to change things, so I like them, and I alphabetize the books in the lending library or clean the bathrooms or whatever needs doing. And then I use their computers and drink their coffee. And maybe their bathroom.

It's also a place local bands perform. Tomorrow there are some bands from Psyhigh playing, which is something they've never had before. I hope it doesn't blow everybody's minds too much! Or bore them to death. ;)

The Cassandra Propaganda show at Sapir/Whorf did not destroy the building. I missed it because I was working the door, and there was a huge line waiting but we couldn't let them in because it was at capacity and the cops totally keep tabs on us, being the "anarchist bookstore" and all. Luckily it wasn't raining.

It's like half the school was there. I've never seen so many psychic kids in town at the same place all at once. Mostly they don't mingle very well with the "townies," and the non-psychic townies are mostly oblivious to their antics. Kids out front were making rainbows (in the dark), will-o'-the-wisp dancing lights, giving themselves animal heads, or wings, space-bending - all the usual stuff those kids do when they're in a big group and showing off to each other but acting cool. The townies can't really see any of that - it doesn't register because they can't comprehend it. But it makes them a little uneasy. Or they just think the psychic kids are stuck-up.

People seemed pretty impressed with the Cassandra Propaganda - psychic and non-psychic alike. But nobody would really explain what they saw. I did see Power Value Stance, and was actually pleasantly surprised. I kind of have a soft spot for that heavy/distortion/shoe-gazer/psych thing. And they made pretty colors - if you're able to see them. There was some synth band that opened but I missed them too.

I went back to clean up today and I did notice something strange. We don't usually have homeless people camping right up against our building, but today there were like 6 or 8 people who were covered with coats and tarps in the alley and around the dumpster. They weren't really hurting anything so I didn't bug them. Didn't get a real good look directly at them, but the hands and faces I did see poking out all seemed kind of, I don't know, electric? Like they had TV static for skin? Grey and shifty and radiant. Or maybe Power Value Stance is still effecting my perception.

Last night I saw the light men. Or maybe one of @Princess Karnack's "snow-men."

I don't remember getting out of bed, but I was at my window looking out, over the yard, towards the trees, at the little dirt road that used to take you out to the street. Before the subdivision got built and blocked us in.

I'm looking and I see three figures, human shaped, walking together, and I think one was slapping the other on the back and joking around. But they were glowing, like they were transparent people filled with static electricity. More electricky than ghosts ever are.

Maybe I was sleepwalking, but suddenly I got very scared of not being in my bed, so I ran back into it as fast as I could. I don't remember falling back asleep.

This morning it seems like a dream, but I don't think so.

Even though people can't find our house, lots of other things can. Ghosts, foxes, random thoughts, sentient moonbeams, the occasional psychic hobo. So it doesn't surprise me these snow-men wandered in.

But I shudder just thinking about them. It's like just by looking at them, they knew I was there. I hope they're only passing thru.

The snow-men are everywhere in town! Have you seen them? They are totally multiplying.

I was in Ray's Diner, because they'll let you do your homework in there late as long as you buy one cup of coffee. I looked up and counted 7 of them, all wearing trench coats and fedoras, sitting at the counter, sitting at booths. But you could see their grey static skin sparkling in their hands when they held their menus or their coffees and you could see their grey static skin sparkling in their cheeks when they turned to whisper to each other.

I got out of there right away.

Sapir/Whorf is holding an anti-Black Friday/buy-nothing learn-in and guerrilla salon this weekend, but only the regulars showed up. Plus the whole anti-Black Friday thing is now getting co-opted by giant corporations, so what's the point? Might as well buy something from your local/indie stores and help out mom&pops, I figure.

But the streets of town are filled with the snow-men or whatever, the static/light people, doing a giant shopping crawl from the Walmart to the Costco. It's like a zombie riot out there! If you get caught up in it and need to escape, drop by Sapir/Whorf and I'm here making PWYC coffee.

I watched the light men (or snow-men) leave tonight. I was closing at Sapir/Whorf and looked out the window and saw them filling the streets. Walking calmly, drawn like moths to a flame towards the street lights.

Then, they started to ascend. Or according to @Ella Shanks descend, I guess. But they were dissolving and floating upwards, bit by bit, like electric snowflakes or rain or tiny sparks, up into the lights. They didn't make a sound.

I watched it for awhile, then finished sweeping up.

Was it really right to send them all back? They never ended up wrecking the place or killing anybody like in @Princess Karnack's article. They seemed to fit in real well, actually, except for the shocking people part. Why were we scared of them? Was it really our right to send them back?

Or maybe they were more like weird dimensional deep-sea creatures, just responding to stimuli, and we used that to guide them home?

Either way, it kinda spooked me to think about on my way home in the dark.

My other grandpa slept in a Sound Cave. Grandma made it for him out of clay because his snoring was so bad she couldn't sleep. It was designed like a bell so that the sound of his snores resonated perfectly back into his brain, which he claimed elevated him to a higher level of consciousness that allowed him to exist more fully in the dream world.

So there's a new boy at school - @Psychic Bicycle Joe. I keep seeing him all over town on his psychic bicycle. I swear he's ridden past the window at Sapir/Whorf three times a day for the past week, crunching right over the ice and snow or straight up the sides of buildings and on the rooftops. I wish he'd bring me a package. ;) Cool bike. And I like a boy with a job.