Category Archives: OVERHERD

I decided to make icons of them all.

Update: Somehow I forgot Flat Cow! She/he has been inserted inbetween the rest in rough timeline order.

The Overcow: the cow who started it all. She’s glamor-posing here. I tend to think of her personality as being somewhere between Susan Sto Helit and Adora Belle Dearheart. Possibly with a touch of Benjamin Sisko.

She’s a cow you just don’t mess with and the leader.

Ike came afterwards because I needed a traveling/commuting cow. And, as it turns out, a working cow. He’s very comforting, and has a kind of Shaun the Sheep personality, but less mischievous. Possibly.

He’s the most personable cow and the Lancer.

Large Round Cow (or the LRC, after the LHC, or Large Hadron Collier) is indeed large and round, and she’s just fine with this, although she would like it if society made less “fat” jokes. You’d think she was a bruiser, but she’s quite a kind bruiser.

She’s the tank of the party, as far as nightmares are concerned.

Cozy Cow arrived at almost the same time as Large Round Cow. Ze is the chameleon mage of the group, and can turn into a pillow at will. Possibly ze may fly in dreams, but regardless ze is the most comfortable cow to snuggle with, and that’s saying a lot. I often wake up with zir in my arms, even though I don’t start that way.

Ze is probably more classed as a cleric, or the second bruiser of the team who just happens to have some healing magic.

For a while, Lulu was the smallest cow, but that’s since changed. Her size-to-smile ratio is quite pronounced, which is useful when I’m showering—she’s a bath toy cow, but probably happy that the most she does is sit in the shower with me. (The shower’s still not a happy place, but it’s better. ((My father was… special in some regards.)))

She’s the thief. Undoubtedly the thief. Or possibly the assassin; what she does is pretty much wet work. Her smile is possibly a slasher smile, but as long as it’s not a nightmare…

For some reason, she works better against nightmares when she’s hanging off the drying rack I have set up in my bedroom. She is often wet, after all, but from that position she certainly does something to whatever might try to enter the room at night.

Of the Overherd, Valencia is actually the most fierce for her size. Think Toph, but much more cynical. She also keeps the little white pills I sometimes take when the anxiety of some part of the PTSD is getting to me, and she’s almost always with me wherever I go, hanging from the purse strap. (I often tuck her into an additional pocket on the side of the Timbuk2 bag, for security. I don’t want to lose her. She has the good drugs.)

She’s of convenient size and tends to be secured to a belt loop and tucked into a pocket on my jean skirt at work. No one gives her much of a second look, and I seem to have successfully moved onto little hugs. Although only Ike gives me comfort during high stress times.

Flat Cow, who I accidentally forgot, is quite an unusual cow. She/he ((Gender identity is a curious thing. Cozy Cow and Flat Cow differ slightly from each other in this respect, whereas the other cows are definitely he’s and she’s.)) is flat, for one thing. As a blanket, she/he has quite a few uses, not the least of which is lying across my lap or on top of the covers. She/he works best when either facing me or when looking off the side of the bed towards the window. I suppose most of the cows don’t do this, and someone has to.

It’s a strange thing, but for a while I was afraid of Flat Cow. She/he almost seems alien, and perhaps that’s what she/he is. I’ve grown fond of wrapping myself in Flat Cow in lieu or in addition to a house robe during the cold of winter.

Elmer is the Littlest Cow, barely smaller than Valencia, and also the newest addition to the Overherd. He’s still learning the ropes, and is highly cuddlable despite being so small. I think of him as an everycow. He works best with Lulu, for some reason.

He’s actually a Christmas ornament, so at home he hangs out with Valencia on the Timbuk2. He also knows the value of a good hat. ((Any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan.)) Hmm. Maybe he’s got an Airman Higgs vibe ((I currently subscribe to the “Higgs is a kind of Jäegerkin” theory.)) to Lulu’s Zeetha.

I’m probably not going to do anything like the epic scale of Cleolinda’s The Secret Life of Dolls, because Cleo does it better and has been doing it for some time now. But some kind of storytelling exercise may help me obsess on the cows slightly, which will make it easier for them to enter my dreams. I think. Maybe.

This blog post was brought to you by the adverb “possibly.”

On the one hand, I’m glad the Overherd exists in my mind as a very strong concept.

On the other hand, them writing messages in my blog worry me.

Of course, it was the Ambien talking.

Fixing up the bad spelling and grammar (this is as bad as LOLcats), apparently this is what they said:

Addressed to AJ’s nightmares –

You’re starting before the holidays hit. We can tell, we can feel it. Triggers are starting to pile up and we’re not even halfway there yet.

You may not be aware [of] or care about our client, but let’s make one thing clear: we do. And if you mess with us, we will Fuck. Your. Shit. Up.

Your target–our client–will enter the field on an elevated pillow, and two outer cows on the right side, and two more on the left side. Ike and I will take center and closely comfort the girl.

SFDebris will play either First Contact [or... or what? Are the cows asking SFDebris to critique as yet an uncritiqued Star Trek episode? If then, which is it?] and we shall be amused. But remember, bad dreams that would come in the night: we will destroy you.

And utterly burn your ideals [?] until there is nothing left but slightly sentient wafts of desire.

I remember [these] words.

No signature, but this is undoubtedly the Overcow.

I don’t remember posting this. I suppose this counts as sleep-blogging.

Ah well. If the Overherd is going to be on any side, it’s good that they seem to be on mind.

I’m very groggy and more than a bit asleep but I’m conscious at the moment.

Addressed to AJ’s nightmares –

You’re starting beore the holidays hit. We ca tell, we can feel it. Trigers are starting to pile up and we’re not even halfware there et.

You may notbe awaere or care about rour client, but let’s make one thing lclear; we do. And if you mess with us, we will fuck. Your. Shit. Up.

Your target — our clients — will enter the field on anelevated pillow, and two outer cows on the right side, and two more on the left side. Ik and I will take center and close comfort the girl.

SFDebris illl plah eiter First Cntact and we shall beu amused. Bu t remember, bad dreams would would om into the night: we weill destro you.

Ade willd utterly brn r ideals unti there is noting let but slightly sente=eient wafts of desirelll

I remembermh words.

Okay, first we start off with a happy pic, even if the focus is too soft and the exposure something awful.

Working upwards:

Lulu is in the towel (she does the wet work, and is often wet, and she kills nightmares with smiles).

Large Round Cow and Cozy Cow have been serving as my main bodyguards, so to speak, and I should have known things were going to go wrong when I didn’t frame myself between two of them. I was feeling ill from a cold, and didn’t want to throw up on a cow while getting to the puke bucket, even though Cozy Cow is designed for children of young ages and can stand a little throwing up on.

Ike is sitting with his arm around the Overcow, and between them is Valencia, who is not a baby cow or calf, but her very own self, even if she is tiny. She’s named after a type of orange, and is actually a coin purse; she has a little chain in the back and dangles well from my apron strings while I’m cooking. She needs an Arrival Post. That’ll come later.

Right now I’m still recovering from a very bad set of nightmares and resulting partial flashback. You can see the panic I was having on Twitter, although that is hilariously-in-hindsight interspersed with the time when the JavaScript injection attack was occurring in every other tweet, so. Many people @-replied and a few DM’d and I chatted with a few people over IM and IRC. And I would like to thank them for taking the time to connect with me. For a while, the laptop was the only indication I had that my bedroom was not transported back in time to the bad place.

It was all driven by two horrible nightmares, and one nightmare about a gluten-free pie crust recipe that leaped out from the comments section of Mark Reads Harry Potter ((A very good blog about someone discovering the Harry Potter series for the first time. I love that series for so many reasons, and some are tied to childhood traumas of mine.)) and ate people’s faces.

The first horrible nightmare was about being transported back through time and space into my bedroom at my parent’s apartment. ((For a while during IM conversations I kept typing in “home” and had to keep deleting and reminding myself it wasn’t my home anymore and hadn’t been for many years, usually a sign that some of me is stuck in the past.)) My father was raging behind the bedroom door; I could hear him, and for the first time in years I remembered the horrible little room… and my father burst through the door, like he always did in the end after working the terror up some.

I had my iPhone with me, and I called 911 as he broke in, but no one was there. I desperately tried texting 911 and then my father caught me. And proceeded to do bad things, which I don’t remember in detail, but I do remember it was bad. Except for the iPhone, this was all too realistic.

And then it all thrust me into another nightmare, where—well, there were a lot of very fine details that were extremely realistic, down to wet concrete stairs with moss in the cracks that were slightly too tall for me to step over/down comfortably. In it my father had murdered my mother, cut off her head, attached it to skeletal chicken feet, left it in someone’s closet to find (was it mine…?), and melted her body in a lime pit that was also a tool box. You could see the body bubbling through the clear toolbox lid.

So yeah, um. Then the third nightmare of whatever.

And I woke up and I couldn’t tell the difference between reality and dreams. I didn’t know if the present was real or if this was a dream, and when I opened the bedroom door, bad things would be on the other side. It was of course dark, too.

The first thing I did was turn on the Ottlite full spectrum light next to my bed, which very closely mimics daylight, although not well enough to ward off everything. And then I reached out to people through Twitter with very desperate cries for help, because I was very scared and nothing seemed right. I knew I was going through a partial flashback, but at the same time I couldn’t pull myself out of it. My brain really did believe that on the other side of the bedroom door was the body of my mother and my father waiting for me, and the wet cold cement steps leading down to what I realize is now one of the many hells.

Many people helped out, even if it was just good wishes. Some cheered from the sidelines, and encouraged me to go explore outside the room a bit, to try to stop the feedback loop of the flashback or whatever the hell was going on with my brain.

I succeeded in opening the attached bathroom door, which was easiest, because bathrooms are small. But when I opened my bedroom door, all I could see were the steps, and overlaid on top was the portal to a cold, dark hell. In the shadows I knew my mother and father were waiting for me. Even though obviously they couldn’t be there.

I shut the bedroom door and pushed a chair against it, back to the door. And then a laundry basket full of clothes I had forgotten to fold and put away. And my laptop bag. I didn’t add anything else because it was either too heavy to move or too light to make a difference.

I opened the window blind as an easy way to see the present outside, but there was nothing but pitch blackness out there. So that didn’t work at all. And I closed the blinds.

I spent the next few hours online, and surrounded by cows and everything that really, really mattered to me dragged onto the bed. At some points I had all six cows in contact with me, and oh my gods. If the bedroom door led to hell, the laptop led to a world where there were real people who were never part of the sickness that was my parents’ insanity. It wasn’t physical, but it helped so much. ((This is why I get upset at people who say the Internet isn’t good for anything. It’s good for keeping my sanity when I can’t leave the bedroom, you bastards.))

Anyways, eventually I fell asleep (I had to) when the dawn came… sort of, full of mist, and the ferry horns were starting to sound on a regular basis. I could see outside anyways, and left the blinds open. I was able to go downstairs briefly and see that there was nothing but my house there, and also grab some gluten-free snacks. ((Envirokidz stuff. I want more of it.))

Then I curled up on the bed under the covers with the two Overherd bruisers behind me, Valencia and Lulu guarding the snax, and Ike and the Overcow in my arms, facing the laptop.

It’s kind of strange, but in the resulting dream, I could hear the little sounds that Adium was making as people logged on and off. And I knew everything was okay. And the dream was… well, a very strange work dream, of the settling kind. There was sunlight in it, too, and when I woke up there was sun streaming in through the window—which is kind of rare for the Pacific Northwest this time of year, and therefore magical and a sort of omen.

And then I stepped (really, really slowly…) through the rest of the day. Though I missed the boat into work, and am working from home again, so… sigh.

A word to describe what I feel like when I hug the cows: anchoring.

If I try to expound further I’m going to start getting into the entire discomfort of touch where my family is involved, and how to this day I cannot be touched near or hugged around the neck without reacting as though someone is going to strangle me.

This is probably odd to people, because if they ever meet me and I know them, I usually will hug. But I don’t react well to people initiating the hugging.

I have huge problems with intimacy, because the only time I remember having to bear someone’s hot, sweaty, naked chest against my body is when I was trying to block my father from killing my mother. Repeatedly. Over years. Starting from when I was five.

Intimate relationships are problematic in so many ways for me.

Anyways, here are the cows getting ready to fly to Moo Moo Land.

This is kind of hilarious and scary at the same time.

Last night, I had one of those dreams—where my current life is a lie, and I’ve never left my parents. I forget most of what they did to me, but I remember retreating to the bedroom and my bed, which was the last defensive position I could hold at home. I was lying there, trying not to count the minutes until my father found me.

And then suddenly cows were there. I knew I had Overcow with me at this point, under my arm, but on the side were Large Round Cow and Cozy Cow. Cozy Cow had even brought hir relative, Flat Cow, who I hadn’t met in person yet. Flatland Cow was under me, kind of like a magic carpet.

The next part is kind of hilarious. Flat Cow… how do I even explain this… opened a rainbow chute out of the dream.

Seriously. A RAINBOW. CHUTE. A CHUTE MADE OF RAINBOW.

Anyways, we all went down it, and I ended up in a dream where I worked in a perfume and board games store. For serious. The cows were no longer there, though. But on the other hand, every single Fantasy Flight game ever made was there. In huge tall stacks. Including all the ones out of print or incredibly hard to find. If you’ve ever had a hankering for an FF game you can’t find or afford and I’ve just exacerbated it? You’re welcome.

I have to watch some movies where there are proper mystic portals.

This is the first time the cows have shown up to rescue me—that I can remember, anyways.

Ike wasn’t in the dream, probably because he was busy holding my glasses.

Everybody is happy. Including me, for some reason, because my PTSD is temporarily vanquished (perhaps it’s on vacation in Maui or something).

Does the Overherd get hugged less during this time? Strangely, no. Perhaps they’re giving me an emotional boost of extra security so that I can be happier than I usually would.

And everybody’s been staying on the bed. I guess I do thrash around more when I’m having nightmares—or something. Isn’t your body supposed to be in paralysis while dreaming?

Ike still accompanies to work and I still hang onto him. I particularly need him there. The Overcow is my constant companion at hope, though when I’m cooking, I put her on the sofa such that she’s still in view of the kitchen. Well, there’s also a kitchen stool, which she sits on now instead of me when I’m stirring things on the stove or something.

Lulu still accompanies to the shower, which is the only bit of unhappiness I can think of now.

Large Round Cow and Cozy Cow are still my snugglers of choice when I go to bed. I think this arrangement leads, for now, to fewer nightmares. Although when the Ambien knocks me out, it does so quite seriously, which is a good thing these days—it means my insomnia is less keen than it used to be.

I don’t have appointments scheduled with my bartender though. He’s been busy, with a full schedule, and I have this nagging feeling that if I don’t see him, this good period will come crashing down, hard. It has in the past.

I expect to get a few good months out of this. Maybe two. My deterioration will really come in October, and any good vibes will vanish a week or two before Thanksgiving. Perhaps this year I should just think of Thanksgiving in terms of Black Friday, and ignore anything before it as “not me, definitely not me.”

Ike does protect my glasses rather well.

Nobody fell off the bed, my dreams were tame and unmemorable, and sleeping snuggled in cows—literally snuggled, rather than just having them merely close—makes me feel secure. I still need the Ambien, but I’m otherwise at peace.

Also, for the first time in a long time, WhiteNoise was enough to occupy my ears. I love the sound mix feature, although I may never use anything but the cat-by-fireplace-and-grandfather-clock mix. I may experiment with the water sprinkler and light rain with birds (oh yes, our automated lawn watering sprinklers waste water…), or maybe dishwasher with dryer.

I still sleep with the light on. In July the bedside table lamp was on all the time; these days I’m okay with a tiny portable LED reading lamp. ((The Mighty Bright. I need to find the power adapter….))

It’s weird to think of, but I have a bit of a social network now where there was none before.

*hugs the readers*

Of the Overherd, Ike is the best at holding things. It’s his arms, which can cross over each other. In the car, I usually let him hang onto the ferry pass book, for instance.

So tonight, I let him hang onto my glasses while lying beside my bed wedge, so that he didn’t wander into my arms. This worked quite well.

These days the Overherd manages to stay on the bed without the assistance of chair backs. And ever since I started bracing the bedroom door with a chair every night, nobody’s ended up guarding the door.

Also, it makes a hella difference not being oncall with Ambien, than oncall without Ambien. My dreams were without incident.

Although I’m pretty calm today, it still feels like a day for hugging cows constantly, so Ike is settled in my arms. It’s a nice day for a ferry ride.