Last night I had the nuttiest dream. I woke myself up from it shouting even. But now I’m wondering if it wasn’t a harbinger for what happened this a.m.?

THE DREAM: GORILLA IN THE MIDST

I had one of those dreams that’s a combination of places I’ve lived. In this case, it was a combo of my current home and the one I grew up in, which I often refer to as the Akron Street house.

I dreamt of my neighbor’s tree across the street. The house looked like the neighbor’s house across from us now, which is on a corner, but the lot was the corner lot across from the Akron St. house.

There was a huge tree (maybe it was from the Jacksonville house neighborhood because there are no big trees here like that and certainly not in Denver). Something was falling out of the tree or being thrown and it caught my eye. (Like leaves coming down that shouldn’t be.)

I looked up and saw an enormous black creature. At first I was like, “Big foot is real!” All I could think was I had to run to get my camera because what a post that’d make for Haunt Jaunts!

But as I looked closer I realized it was a gorilla. Still, I needed to get my camera. A gorilla on the loose in a suburban neighborhood? What a story!

I got my camera and Murph came out with me right as the gorilla was climbing out of the tree. But there wasn’t just one. There were two. Baby was coming out of the tree, but Mama (a big ol’ mama at that!) was still up the tree.

But mama had her eye on Murph, who spotted baby, got all excited about making a new buddy and made a beeline for it.

All the National Geographic and Animal Planet shows I’d ever seen about moms being protective in the wild slammed my mind. I didn’t want to call out to Murph and cause any mama any undue alarm, but I didn’t want her viewing Murph as a  threat and attacking either.

So I started running to try and catch him, but as I did mama slipped down out of that tree. She headed toward Murph and her baby, but the baby was pointing at Murph all excited and went to pet him. Then mama kind of smiled (or that’s how it looked) and my heart kind of melted. It was clear she was thinking the baby making a friend with Murph was as cute as I thought it was.

Murph even went to say hi to her, then he kept going on one of his Sniff Missions, oblivious he was heading toward the busy street. Worse, baby was following. That’s when I started shouting for him to stop and come back, but he wasn’t listening. I think he was in bunny hunting mode.

I ran after him, and sort of skirted the outside of the mama gorilla, but even in my panicked state trying to catch Murph I still had “photo op” on the brain. As I dashed past her I flipped on the video function of my camera, pointed it in her direction and hoped I was getting some kind of footage of the gorilla on the loose.

But all the while I was yelling at Murph to come back. I yelled myself  awake trying to get him to listen to me.

7:30 A.M. REAL TIME: “NEW YORK’S CALLING…”

Okay, the dream was weird and left me shaken. I looked up “gorilla” in my dream book because that’s a new one. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt about a gorilla before.

Here’s what my Dreamer’s Dictionary had to say about gorillas:

To dream of this frightening big ape portends a painful misunderstanding, unless the animal was very docile or definitely friendly, in which case the dream forecasts a very unusual new friend.

Before I could get too worked up today trying to figure out if I’d said anything to anyone that might be painfully misunderstood, the phone rang this morning at 7 a.m.

Wayne was watching TV and eating breakfast before work. He saw the caller I.D. on the screen.

“New York?” He groaned and ran to answer, figuring it was one of the New York office partners needing something.

This is what I heard: “Yes, Courtney Mroch lives here.” Pause. “She’s here now if you want to talk to her.”

To me he says, “New York’s calling…”

I don’t know anyone in New York, so I figured it was a sales call of some kind. I was sort of miffed Wayne didn’t just take the call, but there were ways to get even. My mind was already working on them.

In 100 years I never expected to hear, “Hi, my name is Josh and I work at CBS Radio. My producer gave me your name and wanted me to call you about a blog you once wrote about your choice not to have kids. There was a new study that came out today about how the numbers are increasing. Would you mind answering a few questions about your decision?”

Turns out the article was one I wrote while writing for Families.com: Another Reason I’m Married Without Children.

I answered the questions right then. I wished I’d scheduled it for later and had a chance to reread my article. I may have given better answers.

But I did the best I could having just woken up and being caught off guard. The interviewer was really nice, but most of all…how many times in my life have I ever gotten a call like that? Exciting!

But also interesting: I can see how the gorilla dream interpretation (all of it) can apply to the call. And how the dream about the mom/kid theme even goes along with what the call was about.

But what’s funniest of all. My period is super late. First time I’ve been late since it started back up after chemo. How crazy would it be if, surprise!, I’m pregnant right now? I think that’s an example of irony…

…is that they’re their own worst enemies.

Oh, and in case you’re not clear on what a PIA is, it’s Pain In the Ass.

Sometimes it’s only a temporary condition. I can be a PIA to Wayne when it’s Moody Cooties time. (You know, when Aunt Flow’s due to visit?) He can be a PIA when he’s working too many hours.

But then there are those people who are permanently (and IMO irreversibly) afflicted with PIA Syndrome. I had to deal with one of those yesterday.

I knew she was going to be trouble from the get go. She’s a very uptight, controlling person who believes she’s more important than she is. And everything’s got to be done a certain way (hers) and she must have a say in how things are orchestrated even when she really shouldn’t.

Like when she’s a guest blogger on my blog. It’s my terms, bitch. Deal with it.

Anyway, normally I’m way too laid back to be bothered much by so much intensity. I’m pretty good at smoothing over ruffled feathers (even ones that are determined to always have something to be ruffled about), but when it’s Moody Cooties time my patience flies out the window.

Yesterday she was all about the drama, and the thing of it is…she was creating it all. Instead of stepping back and giving someone the benefit of the doubt that they (me) knew what they (I) was talking about because it is my blog and I know a thing or two about it, she jumped on the accusations.

“It’s wrong. This is the right link.”

I tried to politely explain that, no, that was not the right link. The original one was.

“But it’s not centering or pulling up right. It’s all wrong and all my people from East Coast to West can’t see it. Stop promoting it. There’s no point if it’s not right.”

Excuse me? You better back up the bus, Martha, and get a better ‘tude with me. I ain’t got time to be dealing with that kind of nonsense.

Normally I would’ve, though. I would’ve coddled and placated her until I could get the matter clear. We might even have a good laugh about it.

But yesterday I had an extremely busy day. I was also stressed because it was a three month oncologist check-up day.

“What ifs” plague me when I have to go for check-ups. And to boot while I was there Aunt Flow decided to land. (She didn’t full on arrive until I got home thankfully, but the pains had already flared.)

So my mental state was pretty keyed up for a change. That’s why when I got a snarky email from Miss Intensity freaking out because she can’t understand the link I sent her WAS the right one, I snapped.

The link was not pulling up weird for me as she claimed it was. I would of course happily fixed it if I saw there was a problem. I don’t see it on my end therefor I don’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it for her.

But to have the nerve to tell me to stop promoting a link on my own site or via Twitter and Facebook? Step off!

That’s just poor policy. I won’t be dealing with that person anymore.

And I can bet others aren’t going to put up with that kind of nonsense either because most people aren’t as nice as I am. She’s shooting herself in the foot with her high maintenance PIA ways.

My husband complained to me the other day, “I’m a blogging widow.”

He’s not far off. Every free second I get anymore I’ve got my laptop fired up and I’m in front of it. When he asks what I’m doing I chortle, “Blogging.”

“How can you be blogging? You always say that, but with all the banging you’ve been doing on those keys I’d have expected 50 posts by now.”

At this point I always sigh with exasperation.

“I’m doing blogging stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” he asks haughtily. (Because he caught on to my insinuating tone that it’s far too advanced for him and his fancy CPA mind to comprehend so I have to put it as simply as possible. Doesn’t get much simpler than “stuff.”)

So I sigh again. (After all, he’s taking away from my blogging time!)

“Blogging is more than just writing posts. I’ve got to visit all the blogs I follow and leave comments. I’ve got to scan my Google alerts and Tweet the links. Oh, and speaking of Twitter, I have to scan all my lists there and see what’s going on and RT or ‘at’ followers in my responses to their Tweets. That can take up a lot of time. Then I have to stop by the Haunt Jaunts Facebook fan page and…”

“Stop right there. I’ve heard enough. That doesn’t sound like ‘blogging’ to me. That sounds like you’re goofing off.”

I release a full on “I’m very annoyed with you now” huff.

“See? That’s why I just say ’stuff.’ You don’t understand that blogging is more than just writing a post. There’s a lot of behind the scenes work.”

“Goofing off.”

This is usually when I’ve had enough. I turn back to my computer and go back to my blogging, wishing he had something to blog about. Then he’d understand.

I got my complimentary copy of the Bylines 2010 calendar the other day. (Actually it was maybe two weeks ago now. Sylvia was a smidge late getting them out. I’ve been a smidge late remembering to write about it.)

It’s my third year to make it in. (And part of the payment is a complimentary copy.)

Each week a different author’s essay is featured. They’re very short. (Less than 300 words.)

My week is coming up soon. (The week starting February 21.)

The first year I made it in I wasn’t able to do much promo before I moved my mom in with us and assumed full-time (and then some!) care taking duties. Then last year I was far too sick from dealing with hitchhiker complications and chemo to do much of anything except veg or sleep.

So this year I need to start spreading the word. I figured I’d practice via my blog.

If anyone wants a copy, let me know. I can get them for 1/2 off! (They’re $14.95 and you can either get them from the Bylines site or on Amazon.)

They’re very cool calendars with lots of space for jotting notes and plotting plans. My favorite thing is the “Goals” and “Tasks” checklists for each month at the front. Super handy and organizationally motivating!

Julie from Above the Norm jinxed me yet again. First off she said I’d hit 1,000 Twitter followers when I reached 500. Next thing I know I did!

But when I wrote how I had no Follow Fridays last week, she said this Friday she might have to get involved in all that FF business.

I do believe Julie is a jinx for me –in a great way.

She did do some FF shout outs and threw a couple my way –which I think is what broke the zilch spell for me. I ended up with 25, not counting a few that were RT FFs in nature.

Julie, thank you. I know you didn’t mean to be a jinx, but I’m serious. I really believe you are!

Well, I knew it was coming. I had myself psyched up for it. But it still sucked when I was snapped back to reality.

Last Friday I had no Follow Fridays (a.k.a. #FFs) on Twitter. Zip, zero, zilch.

I did have someone RT one of my FF shout outs, and I had a few people thank me for including them on mine FFs, but I didn’t make anyone’s FF shout out list this week.

Bummer.

But, like I said, I did know it was coming.

It sure was fun while it lasted. And it just might happen again someday. Something to look forward/aspire to.

Last week I was all excited because I had 15 Follow Friday (#FF) shout outs on Twitter. When all was said and done it actually turned out to be more like 17.

I thought that was totally impressive and it blew me away, but this week’s #FFs annihilated last week’s number. It set a new record. One I’m not sure will be touched for quite a while.

33!

SHAZAM! (And that wasn’t including the few people who for whatever reason #FF’d me more than once, or RT’d other #FFs that had @HauntJaunts in them.)

What happened to make it spike so much? Do I even know? As a matter of fact, I do.

I was well on my way to at least getting close to last week’s number on my own. I had 12 #FFs when I checked early on in the a.m. But when I checked back later around noon…whoa. I saw a slew more. And my followers number had leapt up too!

All because Autumnforest had shared her contact with me at Ghost Adventures. (I used to actually have a contact there, but I didn’t follow up with them and ended up losing him. It was actually serendipitous Autumnforest was as generous and selfless as she was to share her contact like she did, and I’ll be forever grateful to her for doing it.)

Anyway, the GA contact sends out advanced info for bloggers to blog about. Then, if you send him your link, he’ll Tweet it.

With something like 14,000 followers following GA on Twitter, that’s pretty decent exposure.

Autumn had suggested I make it something snappy. Something to make people want to click. Because when she does it, she sees a HUGE spike in her numbers.

Well, easy for her to say “clever.” She’s insanely clever. (She did a funny one about a song, “Sunglasses at Night” and how it should be Zak’s theme song. It was really good.)

So…I did the best I could and came up with a short quiz about what does Ghost Adventures and Princess Bride have in common to tout the extended version of the Poveglia Island episode that was on last night. Then I gave clues in the form of quotes and a picture.

Ghost Adventures did Tweet it, and my bit.ly stats for that link also set a not-likely-to-be-topped-anytime-soon record: 536! (I average about 6-10 clicks per bit.ly link. In the teens is good. Above 20 is great. Once I hit 50 something and that was the record holder.)

So that’s how I know it was the GA tweet that helped me so much. (That and a lot of my new followers have GA twibbons on their avatars.)

But it also didn’t hurt that A&E (as in A&E on cable TV) included me among those they gave #FF shout outs too also.

So Friday January 22, 2010 will go down in my record books as an absolutely marvelous and fun, not to mention record-setting, Follow Friday!

I went to post something to Haunt Jaunts Facebook page last night and happened to notice the fans had increased to 39. And best of all it wasn’t even people I knew!

My dear friends didn’t leave me out there hanging with no fans in the beginning. Tracie and her mom and aunt, then Brenda, Kim Smith, and even Wayne signed up.

Then I ran the Halloween Blog Contest and got more fans that way. (FB has since revised their policies on such practices, so I won’t be doing that again!)

However, I think I got up to 17 then.

I’ve been growing slowly ever since. Which is pretty cool. (And I didn’t even know it! I think I was at 20 something, like 22, last I knew.)

Twitter took off all of a sudden in December. I went from 400 to 500, 600, 700 to 850 followers in a month! But Facebook was just sort of stagnate.

Until recently. 39 fans? Okay, so it’s no 850, but it might as well be. People actually took the time to check me out. (At least long enough to hit the fan button.) Sweet!

Slowly, slowly, I’m growing more visitors. It’s all very exciting. And fun. I love living in the Internet Era! What a blast!