Air Guitar Testing Center

I had my guitar with me, and I was walking along a narrow mountain pass overlooking a lake. It was a windy day, and the guitar kept getting tugged out out of my hand by the wind. Held to my chest only by the strap, the wind kept trying to pull it skyward like a kite. A particularly strong gust threatened to lift us both off of the mountain, and I had no choice but to disconnect the strap and watch the guitar go sailing. 

It landed in the lake. Immediately I regretted the decision to release the guitar, and I went down to the lake to retrieve it. Some kids were swimming with their dad, and I asked them to please push the guitar towards shore. They complied, grudgingly, and I got the guitar back. It was already waterlogged and had become almost unrecognizable. All the electronics were gone, the finish was faded, and it had a  cardboard like appearance.

 

 

The testing center was a sprawling complex of buildings, some single level and others four and five stories high. The floors were a highly polished industrial linoleum, and the hallways were a labyrinth like affair, laid out like a hospital, with lots of switchbacks and dead ends, guaranteed to make anyone lose their sense of direction.

Finding one’s correct homeroom is never easy, and of course I was late for the intake exam, having struggled to navigate the maze-like structure. The teacher had already handed out the tests, so I silently slunk into my seat, a standard metal folding chair in a long row of chairs, filled with tittering, gossiping students, smirking with satisfaction at my discomfort. As punishment for being late, the teacher seated me next to a girl who was contagious with some kind of infectious disease.

“I hope you don’t mind getting sick,” he said.

The girl was pretty, a blonde with a round, smiling face. She moved her seat so that her chair was touching mine, and she was practically in my lap.

“I don’t mind in the least,” I said. “But if you want to make sure that I get sick, there are ways…” I said suggestively.

At that, the girl nuzzled closer and laid a gentle kiss on my lips, catching me pleasantly by surprise. I gazed back into her eyes, and we exchanged a few more more kisses.

“To ensure the contamination is complete,” I said, winking.

Things got hazy at this point, and I spent much of the dream walking through the hallways, going from building to building, looking for the girl from the exam room. I found myself in many different situations, sometimes alone and sometimes with large groups of students. Everyone was waiting for their test results, trying to get to the next level. 

Still carrying the guitar from the previous dream, eventually I set it against the wall and climbed to the top of a small building to get a better view. Another guy climbed up the building after me, and the two of us sat there on the roof, talking about logistics and purpose. Neither of us had much of a clue as to why we were there. It just seemed like this was the game, and we were bound to play.

 

A Slacker's Valentine

E____, 

My dearest, dearest friend. You mean the world to me. I am certain you already know how I feel about you, so words are unnecessary at this point. I want you to know that, were it not for fear of reprisal, earning your ire and receiving banishment as a consequence, I would make every effort, do all the cliche gestures, even the grandest ones, to make this Valentine's Day a special and memorable day for you. 

Even though we both say that we hate all the enforced commercialism of this guilt-based corporate holiday, I know that a lot of that is (at least on my part) a sour grapes mentality. Inside, I'm a sentimental sap and a true romantic at heart, and whether you'd care to admit it or not, I'm pretty sure that you are too.

So I would make the reservations at the fancy restaurant on the busiest day of the year, spend hours in the stationary store poring over cards for the perfect one, visit a florist and and have a bouquet of your favorite flowers delivered to your house, shower you with gifts...basically all the stuff guys might reluctantly do out of a sense of obligation, thinking that they are supposed to. Better yet, I would conspire to concoct a much more personalized version, reflecting your unique taste and vision and embracing your spirit of adventure.

I would gladly do all of it because, if I thought it would make you happy, it would be no trouble at all. It would be my delight. Even given my extreme slackerism, lack of follow-through and general reluctance to do things that require effort, I would take pleasure in it because I would want you to feel the depth and breadth and magnitude of my love for you.

Instead, I'm sitting here, about to eat my breakfast, thinking of you on this rainy February 14. But because you are in my life, I am not sad, nor do I feel lonely. You exist in my heart, and you always will. That makes me happy. I hope you are well in body and soul, and that your heart feels joy on this day. 

Love you always,

Your friend, Andrew

 

I’m having daddy issues in my dreams.

Walking up my driveway, I could already feel his presence, and my anger began to build. He was always telling me what to do, demeaning me with his most critical commentary. Some of my other relatives were in the house watching TV in a very small den. I tried to find room, but the seats were all filled.

“Get out!” Father screamed at me. “You don’t have any business here!” 

He looked like Mr. Roper from Three's Company, but his voice was that of Burgess Meredith's Mick character in Rocky.

I had been listening to his vicious antagonism for years, but today I was done. I put my hands around his neck and began to choke him. He fought back, but I easily restrained him, grabbing his arms and legs into a bundle, and swinging him around like a sack of laundry.

“Are you going to give up yet?” I seethed at him.

“You don’t have the guts,” he retorted, his breathing labored.

I was determined that this would be the last time he'd ever abuse me, and I kept swinging him around and bashing his head into furniture. I became afraid that I might actually kill him, so I kept my blows just shy of bringing him to unconsciousness.

At some point, his frail body morphed into a large commemorative coin inside an actual laundry sack. Although it still contained his essence, it was now a giant replica of a dime with a human sized head, flat and silvery, inside an oversized gold pocket watch case with a glass door.

This inanimate object still would not stop talking, and I kept bashing him against furniture to silence his obstreperous voice. At some point, the head must have come out of the watch case and slipped out of the bag, and I finally stopped hearing the deriding comments.

Now I was becoming concerned that I might be guilty of actual murder, and I began looking for the missing head.

A young girl was singing a dirge, grieving over the opening to the cellar.  I didn’t suppose that the head had rolled down there, so I bid her a sorrowful afternoon, and she continued her slow singing.

Looking around the property, I could not find this icon of a dastardly father figure anywhere. I knew there would be questions, so I kept looking. I did want him dead, but I was afraid of the consequences. Infinitely bad karma? Punishment in this lifetime and a hellish afterlife?

I kept looking, but I never did find him. I awoke with an uneasy sense of guilt.

Are my dreams someone else's nightmares?

 

I keep returning to this place in my dreams (not the bed store in Chico where I bought my bed 20 years ago). Actually, I don’t go anywhere. I’m in my bed in my dreams as well. The place I keep returning to is a place of warmth and coziness, with my friend E____ lying beside me. 

It’s never sexual, although I won’t say there isn’t desire. It’s more of a contented feeling, and the wish to extend that to her physically somehow. There is the electricity of a single touch, a warm satiety, like the feeling of a full belly after a good meal. We share that in my dreams. I’m always hesitant, and I always ask if she’s OK with it. Clearly, I am.

I was in bed in such a situation, and she was lying next to me, my arms loosely encircling her waist. Something shifted, and she rolled over on top of me. My hands slipped dangerously close to regions unexplored. I didn’t cause it, however, I wasn’t fighting it when it happened.

“Is this OK?” I asked.

“It’s fine,” she said, and she didn’t squirm, so I left everything as it was and just enjoyed the moment.

Next, we were in the kitchen, and she was making something that used lasagna noodles. She used about half of the package and put the rather plain looking pasta dish in a Tupperware as a to-go meal. As she headed out the door, she asked me what I was going to eat. I told her that I would make something using the rest of the lasagna noodles.

“I think I’ll make lasagna,” I said.

Looking around, I could see that I was short quite a few ingredients to make actual lasagna, as she had left me only a few of the flat noodles, and I had no ricotta, mozzarella, tomato sauce or ground beef. 

“It’s going to be pretty skimpy,” I admitted. 

She suggested that I go to town, not necessarily to pick up ingredients, but to clear my head. I agreed this would be a good idea, and I got in my car.

I was driving down a mountain road, rather bumpy and steep, in my Honda fit. The headlights were doing a poor job of illuminating the road. I turned them off momentarily, and it made very little difference.

Misty Rose

The next thing I recall, I was making the same trip during the daytime, this time astride my Tennessee Walking Horse, Misty Rose. She wasn’t the old, arthritic pasture horse that she would later become, but in her prime and rather frisky. She trotted down the road at a brisk pace, and I had to post just to keep from bouncing out of the saddle. She always did have the tendency to mix her gaits. 

We were in a mountainous canyon with a river that ran alongside the road. We came to a place where the river was inches from a narrow point in the trail. The water, to our left, was a raging Yosemite like torrent. We were hemmed in on the right by rocks. She navigated the narrow opening with ease. It began to get dark, so I made the decision to turn back, however, the path we had had taken was not even visible on the return trip. The narrow spot had been swallowed up by the river.

I looked around, getting off of Misty to investigate. I found a different path, through a nearby parking lot with a gate that led to a safer spot on the road. Misty had become separated from me for a moment, and I whistled and called to her frantically. She came bounding up to me like a puppy dog, and I threw my arms around her neck. She tumbled over onto me, and I thought for a moment that I would be crushed, but she turned out to be light as a feather, and we rolled around like a couple of kids on the grass on a summer day.

Well, that was weird and exciting...and upsetting. But mostly just weird.

My friend E____ was staying with me at my place by Lake Isabella, which I have to assume would’ve been Gracie and Bill’s old property. She had made a new friend and was making plans to host him for a sleepover/dinner. She was stressing and fretting about the details of this dinner and talking to me about it. I was trying to be the supportive friend, but it was testing my limits.

I was feeling quite a bit of jealousy, as it appeared that he would soon be taking my place in her life. My nerdy nemesis was played by actor Jeff Hiller, and he outclassed me in every area that mattered: sensitivity, charm, intelligence, quirky sense of humor and adventurousness. He had it all. I was a damp dishrag next to this paragon of beta male dorkishness.

 “I’ve never hosted anyone for dinner before, so that’s why I’m stressed,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I remember you made spaghetti dinner for him just last week.”

I tried to tell her that I understood, although I really didn’t feel very understanding, just jealous and hurt. I reached out to give her a hug, and she shank back from me. I got a cold, clammy feeling, like I had just committed an unpardonable act. I tried to repair the damage by changing my tack and offering to help her with her plans.

Soon we were on a long walk in the dry, dusty valley that is Lake Isabella. It was pretty much the same as I remember it, flat and sparsely populated with lots of undeveloped properties checker-boarding the town perimeter. 

"You wanna see something that makes me happy?" she asked.

She pulled the Mucros Irish flat cap that I'd given her for her birthday out of her oversize bookbag and put it on her head. Smiling, she said, "This makes me happy!"

We got to a crossroad, and I suggested we take a shortcut, but this didn’t appear to work into her plans. We talked about logistics, and how to get back home in time for her dinner date. At this point, I woke up, still feeling a bit unpleasant about the matter.

It was early enough in the morning that I was able to fall back asleep. I wanted to try to get back into the dream to correct it somehow. I wasn’t able to find the same location, however, my friend E____ did reappear. 

We were in a neighborhood near a house where she had grown up as a child. It looked similar to Glendale, the Glendale that I remember from the 70s, although it may have been any number of older Southern California tract neighborhoods.

As we walked along the sleepy, tree lined avenues, we noticed a small red airplane, flying very low into the neighborhood. It looked to be about the size of a crop duster, and it was flying low enough to do the job, nearly nicking the power lines as it approached. Clearly, this was below the level of permissible flight. 

It kept descending, and for a moment, it seemed to be headed straight toward us. We watched in amazement as the plane whooshed by us, blowing our hair back (well, hers anyway) before flying directly into a house. Rather than crashing and exploding, however, it bounced harmlessly off the siding and became the size of a small drone, maybe 5 foot long at the most.

We were going to drop her car off at the dealership to get serviced, and she needed a ride, but for some reason we both were walking, and there was no car, so I don’t know how that was all going to work. But no mind, it was a dream and stranger things have happened.

As we approach the service department, she began acting strangely. She affected a different personality or I should say, she amplified the bubbly, effervescent aspect of her personality to a manic level. She approached random strangers, grabbing their shoulders and shouting nonsensical comments in their faces, all of which began to cause a bit of a stir. 

“Are you OK?” I asked. “You are behaving a bit oddly.” (And by oddly, I meant even by E____standards.) 

She replied with a non-sequitur and continued her rant to a quickly gathering crowd. Cell phones and cameras came out to record the viral event: the kooky lady and her befuddled friend who seemed to be trying to rein her in without much success.

Suddenly, she began to sprint down the block, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic, eventually stopping to hide behind a small alcove in an alley. She was lying flat on the ground, making herself as thin as a piece of paper, so as not to be seen. I got the impression that she was doing some kind of performance art, and she was not happy with the fact that I was not going along with it. 

The dream ended there, and I was left with a kind of a weird mix of excitement, disappointment and a little of the fading jealousy from the previous dream.

I lose E____ at the waterpark

I have a vague recollection of a dream in which I was with my friend E___ at a waterpark. It wasn't the chlorinated, baby-blue, slippy-slide kind, but a more rugged version, with an island and a moat. On the island was a rock climbing promontory made of crudely fashioned blocks of concrete, some supported with rebar and some precariously balanced in cairns. 

E___ decided to swim across the moat to the "mainland" while I proceeded to climb to the top of the dangerously constructed edifice. I was concentrating on handholds and foot placement, and I didn't notice that my friend had vanished. Once I'd made it to the pinnacle, rewarded with a 360 degree view, I looked around for her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Ghoulash

Here are a few scraps of dreams that I can't find a home for, so I'm tossing them all into a casserole. There won't be any binders or common themes, just individual ingredients. 

 

Walking around in my mom's house, I found a cigar. Nothing Freudian there. It was just a cigar. An enormous 10" cigar. I was admiring the craftsmanship and texture and thinking that I'd like to smoke this thing, but I didn't think my mom was going to approve of me lighting it in the house. I wandered from room to room, but I never did find a suitable venue for Big Stinky.

----

I was at the dinner table at my mom's house, and we were doing some arts and crafts with Marcus from The Bear. His little paper cutouts were coming out way better than mine, and he was quick to point this out to me.

"Yours are crap, Andrew," he said bluntly, "but you know this. Everything you do is crap."

Feeling the full weight of his criticism, I began to sniffle. 

"That hurts, Marcus," I whined through the unbidden tears. "I have feelings, you know."

----

I was in a prison yard at a camp where the guards would just as soon shoot you as look at you. They didn't bother with warning shots either. If you were spotted straying too far out of bounds, they aimed right for the head. A fellow inmate decided to make a break for it during a momentary lapse in vigilance as two of the guards engaged in a heated conversation about football.

"Hurry!" he whispered and tugged on my uniform, motioning me to follow. 

He took the lead and sprinted for the fences. He made it over three of them before we were spotted. The guards were taken by surprise, but for some reason, they held their fire and began a foot pursuit. It was beginning to look like we had a chance, since they were not in the best shape. We wound our way through some nearby apartment buildings, toward anonymity and freedom. 

I guess I never heard the shot. I woke up in another freezing night sweat.

----

I was coming home from the market, and I pulled up to my front gate. I looked over to the left, and noticed that someone, presumably my neighbor Stan, had dug a nice pond for me down by my well. It was rectangular, about the size of an Olympic swimming pool. 

The fill dirt had magically disappeared, incorporated into some grading and leveling he'd done elsewhere on the property. Next to the pond, plugged into a power source at my well-head, was a MacBook Pro laptop, open and displaying a presentation of the work that he'd done. 

I looked around, but Stan was nowhere to be seen. My mom was present, however, and she was quick to point out that he'd done all of this at his own expense. I was mentally fretting about how I was going to repay him, when my mom chimed in:

"You know how much this little project cost him out of pocket? Twenty dollars," she said, proudly. "That's how much he spent on gas for his excavator. Twenty bucks. That's it." 

I was contemplating how much additional tip would be appropriate for such a fine job as I fiddled with his laptop. It had gotten muddy, so I took a can of some unknown spray and gave the keyboard and charging cord a good spritz then wiped it with a cloth. 

Unfortunately, the can contained freeze spray, and it turned the charging cord brittle, causing it to break off in my hand. As I examined the damage, I found that it was an integrated cord, and replacing it would require major disassembly. Fortunately, I woke up before I had to deal with it.

----

It was a Thursday afternoon in early summer, and I was in the backyard at 9309 Mines Ave, the residence of Robert Leon and occasional meeting place of his Bible Study/cult. A few others had also arrived early for the night's lecture, among them a very naked Sofia Vergara.

"Come over here, now!" she commanded me in her signature Latina accent and over-emphatic diva fashion. 

Of course, I obeyed.

"I'm going to lie down on the blanket. Like this--" she said, and pointing to a red and white tablecloth, she laid herself out picnic style on the grass, knees bent, her legs apart and arms outstretched to draw me in. 

"You're going to do stuff to me," she continued, "and I'm going to like it."

There was no arguing with her. Following her instructions, I began performing a rather long shopping list of sex acts, quite a number of them things which with I was only vaguely familiar. No matter. She was not at a loss for words to direct me.

"Start here! Use your tongue! Don't stop til I tell you to stop!" I was being bullied by the famous TV actress.

I worried that some of the other cult members would catch us in flagrante, but on some level, I realized that this was a sex cult, after all, only thinly disguised as a Bible Study. Who knows, this might have been part of an initiation. I was likely to get rebuked either way, so I just did as I was told for the moment.

I woke up before getting my gold star. Her list was too long, and I needed to get up anyway

Rabbit vs Trix, and why I hate Lake Mead

 

 

Last night I dreamed. 

I also woke up four times, and my memory only permits a brief window between dreaming and the writing of these reports. I've tried writing my stuff down immediately upon awakening, but that isn't as pleasant when one has to pee. Additionally, I have to feed the cats, brush my teeth, make the bed and attend to a bunch of other insistent time-consumers in between the time of the dream and the time I finally sit down to write.

My cats agree that there is a certain level of priority to the tasks that I must perform in a day, and writing my dreams down doesn't even make the list.

Back to the dream...

I dreamed my friend E____  was lying next to me in my bed. There was no light, except for the faint glow of the electric heater in the bathroom. We lay there side by side in the semi-darkness, presumably both sleeping. 

I woke up, still in my dream, and upon my awakening, she rolled over in my direction and looked at me through sleepy, squinted eyes. In the dim light, I could see a mischievous smile beginning to form at the corners of her mouth.

"When was the last time you kissed me?" she asked coyly.

I had to think about it. "Never" was the word that came to mind, but I didn't say anything. My mind was still trying to process the question. Was this a trick? Was it an invitation? Was I dreaming? 

Ding, ding, ding! You are correct, sir. Answer number three. Tell him what he's won.

Unable to fathom how to answer, given my semi-lucid dream-state condition, I blinked a few times, and this ended the dream. Trix - 1, Silly Rabbit 0.

Next, I was transported to Lake Mead where a search was underway for a missing cache of, um, cash, left by D.B. Cooper. I was walking around the lake's perimeter in an area near a spillway leading out into a major river. 

Water was moving fast in that area of the lake, and falling in the water was not on the approved list of activities. Naturally, per dream protocols, the instant that I became aware of the danger, the ground underneath me became unstable, crumbling away and leaving me scrambling to remain attached to the bank.

I grabbed a tree root, and it held me long enough to get my bearings. Little bits of earth were still crumbling away, and it was then that I noticed a very weathered, dirt-encrusted briefcase embedded in the rocky earth. The seams had been eroded away, and I could see stacks of silt covered, dog-eared currency, presumably stashed by the missing hijacker, poking out.

As I reached for the handle, the tree branch I was clinging to gave way sending me and the briefcase into the drink. Floating toward the spillway, and certain death, I had but a few moments to regret my life choices, and then I woke up. 

My last thought in the dream was, "Now I remember why I hate Lake Mead."

My geriadolescent fantasy continues, and I get a phone call from Hog Beast

I don't dream much at night it seems. I guess my mind occupies itself enough with such things during the day, so at night it just wants to sleep. Occasionally, however, there will be little snippets that emerge which tell me that more must be going on behind the scenes.

I did dream last night, and although I would love to have a coherent story with lots of descriptive details, I really only remember this:

I was lying in my bed. Next to me, on my right, was my friend E____, stretched out like a cat, her back slightly arched and her arms above her head, squirming and shifting to glean the maximum amount of comfort and enjoyment from the warm bed. We were lying pretty close together, maybe a few inches from one another--close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from her lithe frame--but not actually touching.

On my other side, sitting in an upright position facing the television was Linda. I think she was there as a chaperone, but she wasn't doing a very good job of keeping us the mandatory six inches apart. Her attention was focused on the TV screen, although I don't believe it was actually on. Occasionally, she would issue cautionary instructions, but they were completely out of sync with anything (or the nothing) that was going on between the two of us beside her.

"Alright you guys," she said, finally abandoning her self-appointed life coach role. "You know what to do--and what not to do. I trust you." 

She said it as though she were going to leave us, but she remained there next to us. It was as if she just switched off, and she became silent and motionless, like a robot going into sleep mode.

E____ looked over at me, her eyes brimming with warmth and playfulness. She was inviting me to come closer if I dared. I did dare. We nuzzled nose to nose as the distance between our bodies shrank to millimeters and then, like a magnet reaching critical proximity to iron, we were suddenly drawn into a full-body Saran Wrap hug.

It was glorious. I was enraptured, but also just a little tentative. I didn't want to spoil the moment or overstep. I could have died in that instant and been happy forever, but E_____ beckoned me further. 

"Go big!" she whispered excitedly in my ear.

We became as intertwined as was physically possible for two fully clothed people with a robot chaperone friend sitting next to them. I caressed the top of her head and slowly ran my hands down to her mid back. I didn't know what else to do. To me, this was  big. It was everything.

We remained like that for a while, and eventually Robot Linda began making sputtering noises. I guess the dream ended at that point, or perhaps Robot Linda switched the channel, because the scene shifted, and I found myself in another situation entirely.

I was waiting in line at the Pizza Roundup when my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, so I answered with the slightly suspicious, accusatory tone reserved for telemarketers and randos.

"Who is this?" I demanded.

"Hey, motherfucker! It's Hog Beast! I'm back! How come you never call me?" he said, not angrily, but in the wannabe white rapper, ex-con, faux tough guy voice for which he was known.

I didn't want to explain to him that I never called because, frankly, I was scared of him. This was Cory Allred, the guy who had gone off the rails on a meth bender in 2005 and taken his parents hostage at gunpoint. He'd spent at least seven years of the fourteen to which he had been sentenced behind bars, learning all kinds of criminal skills, no doubt, and becoming a fully muscled thug.

"I'm sorry," I said, feigning an East Indian accent, "you have the wrong number. No Andrew here."

I'd forgotten that he hadn't actually used my name, so I was doubly fucked. I'd accidentally incriminated myself in the process of lying to my ex-coworker/friend. 

"How did you get this number?" I continued my ethnic accent but with less enthusiasm, since I knew the jig was up. "Prank caller! Prank caller! I'm hanging up now!" And I did.

I looked across the street at the dirt lot where a house had once stood prior to the Cascade Fire. Some construction was going on, and it seemed that the workers were taking a break and throwing a little shindig. I walked across the road and approached the group. 

Because it was a dream, I naturally assumed that someone in this crowd must know how my ex-con friend had gotten my phone number, so I began hurling the accusations randomly.

"Hey! Which one of you assholes gave Cory my number?" I yelled.

I spied Junior from Yuba City Honda behind the BBQ grill, sweating and drinking a beer nervously. He ran over to me just as I was about to call him out. He must have known I was onto him. He was the culprit, I just knew it.

"Why, Junior? Why?"  I pleaded with mock hysteria. At least I called him Junior and not Chunky, as everyone, including his bosses called him.

He just looked at me with the big, dumb look that always got him out of trouble at work. It was hard to be mad at him for the clever, manipulative things he did, because there was a childish innocence at the core of his misbehavior. He was just a big baby, really, and as a person who was spoiled as child myself, I understood. Besides, he seemed genuinely glad to see me, my current mood notwithstanding.

"So," I said resignedly, "How ya been?"

----

That's all folks. I have a shitload of real-world thoughts, events, plans and ideas in my head these days, unfortunately (or fortunately) they don't seem to be making their way into these posts. I guess I don't want to fuck up my winning streak by talking about it. 

Perhaps, when I have already played out my story, and the ending turns dark, I'll be more likely to write down all the details. And I will have pictures to remind me of the highlights, in case I somehow forget.

 

Pregnant

I dreamed my friend E____ and I were sitting on the couch in her living room, and her landlady, who for reasons of legality I will only refer to as The Hedgehog, was sitting on a recliner. The conversation lulled, and I noticed that E____ was looking a little out of sorts. She looked like the cat that swallowed the canary, except it didn't seem that the canary was done singing just yet. I could almost picture an intact little bird inside her belly making chirping noises, and I half expected her to start burping up feathers.

I could see that something was burdening her. As she sat there, wrapped in a pink blanket, with this sort of queasy, smug look on her face that seemed to be masking an ocean of anxiety, I stared intently at her face, trying to get a read on her emotional state. The corners of her mouth couldn't seem to decide whether to make a smile or a grimace, and she was wearing some smudged black lip liner which, in addition to accentuating whatever emotions might be present, gave her the faint appearance of a mustachioed French chef.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I'm pregnant!" she blurted out.

The Hedgehog looked up from her reading. I took a deep breath and pondered how to respond. My first thought was "how could this  have happened?" I mean, I knew how that sort of thing worked, but it seemed like one of the critical components was missing, namely, a partner. 

I was emotionally conflicted. I wanted to be there for my friend, but there was a little hurt, a little envy, a lot of shock and a fair amount of general confusion, as my mind raced with unasked questions:

Who was the guy? Was it a one time thing? Was it worth it?  Did you enjoy the experience? 

I really wanted to interrogate her, to get to the good stuff, the nitty-gritty, but this was my friend, not some serial TV drama or news story. Empathy won out, and I kept these questions to myself.

All I could think of to say was, "I didn't know you were seeing anyone?" 

"I'm not," she said. 

I didn't press her for details, though my curiosity was killing me. Again, I didn't know how to respond, so I put my hand on her shoulder and said, "Well, that's...Pregnant...Wow! This is good news!" Then I thought about it for a minute and added, "Isn't it? Are you...going to keep it?"

She looked at me with hurt in her innocent eyes, "I don't know," she said. "You know I have that painful condition that effects my cycle. I don't know if I even can."

I gave her a hug and probably said a few generic, comforting things, I don't know. I just sat there with her and told her, not so much in words but just by my presence, that I would be there for her. We'd get her through this together, and she didn't have anything to worry about. 

The Hedgehog went back to her reading, and we sat there in an awkward silence, each us wrapped up in our own thoughts. 

OK, I kinda see it

 

 

 

For those keeping track

There is a pattern to the gaps between my postings on this blog. It is probably safe to surmise that if I'm not posting, I'm either too bored and have nothing to say, or I am out having the time of my life, too busy to write about it. You can be the judge of which scenario seems more likely.

When I am dreaming regularly, I will dutifully record any dreams that I remember. I've been off my dreams for over a month, likely due to my exponential uptick in cannabis use. While infrequent, regulated cannabis use can have benefits, enhancing creativity, improving mood and facilitating relaxation, heavy, frequent use can cause lethargy, forgetfulness and loss of interest in everyday life. The quick tolerance one's body builds to the drug, not to mention the deleterious effect smoking has on one's overall health, make it a self-regulating, short-term pacifier at best. I feel like I've written enough about my off again/on again love affair with weed over the years, so I won't make this a treatise on the subject. 

In general, I tend to come here and post when I'm in an acutely depressive state. I come here to bitch, rarely to gloat. Occasionally, I will think of a subject that I deem worthy of pontification, and I will ramble and rant my way through some diatribe or manifesto, but this is less and less frequent. I seem to have run out of new things to say on the same old subjects, and I am loath to repeat myself, although, as an older, slightly amnesiac person, I am prone to do this.

I'm feeling a little a little stuck these days. OK, more than a little. Morassed, mired, bogged down and buried in mud would be a more apt description. I have been in a bad frame of mind since my October implosion. Though the damage to my friendship with E_____ has mostly been repaired, the innocence and purity of what we had seems to be irretrievably lost. I will mourn this until I die. I was lucky enough to have had these times with my friend, and I guess I should just leave it at that. I'd like to keep 99% of my memories of the things we did last summer and shitcan the ones in which I made my unfortunate missteps. 

I've been in a regressive modality lately, getting sucked back into self-destructive behaviors and patterns. I let myself get talked out of things that could help, or things that would be a more productive use of my time, and I opt for the routine, the minimum. That's another superpower of mine: I can always find the easiest path, the one requiring the least effort. It is a skillset honed by us GenXers.

----

In other news, I've started using a meditation app called Balance. It is free for a year, and after that, they want to try to get $69.95 out of me. For the first week or so, all I could think about when I used the app was how I was going to forget to cancel my subscription, and they would wind up billing my credit card. Eventually, I let this drift to the back of my mind, but as you can see, it's still in there somewhere. I'm so stingy, you'd think my wallet had actual nerve endings, as sensitive as it is to money going out of it.

But over the last couple of weeks, I've kind of gotten attached to the voice of the Balance app's guide, Ofosu. He has such a nice, comforting tone. The little icon shows a smiling, bald, black man with glasses, and in his voice, you can hear just the slightest hint of ethnicity. I don't know why I feel I have to mention this, exactly, or why I feel weird about mentioning it now that I have. Race is always a touchy subject: to acknowledge or not to acknowledge? I never know.

But this guy, Ofosu, I could listen to his voice all day. I think that's the only reason I keep using this app. I'm not building my meditation skills so much as substituting his voice for my own internal monologue. I can't think as many of my own negative, self-destructive thoughts when I have an infusion of his positivity going on in my ears.

But it's more than that. I find myself thinking that this guy sounds so compassionate, so kind and tender, like he really cares about how I'm feeling. The way he says "I hope you have a great day" at the end of the meditation, such a simple and common phrase, contains such sincerity, I almost believe that he is talking to me. 

Almost. Then my mind wanders off into some weird fantasy of domesticity, with Ofosu bringing me tea and asking if I'd like my neck massaged. I can't help thinking, "I'll bet that guy is a considerate lover." You can just tell that sort of thing by the way person talks, deliberate, considerate, unhurried. I'm not imagining actual sex or anything. I'm not "going gay" for my digital meditation coach. But with the soothing and very persuasive quality of his voice, I almost think I could be talked into giving it a whirl.

I got a little emotional today as I was doing a meditation to target positivity. It started as just a simple exercise in breath awareness, and I was glad that he didn't go into a sermon or start spouting platitudes right off the bat. He eased into the idea of planting a seed of hope, of positivity, without the heavy handedness that I am used to. 

Unfortunately, this tender approach made me burst into tears. The incongruity of his soft, hopeful voice and my own feelings of loneliness, hopelessness and depression left me kind of undone, and I began leaking tears onto my stool as I sat in front of my red therapy light. The reality of it hit home: No one is really here to tell me these words of comfort or place a gentle hand on my furrowed brow to calm me. It's just me. I'm a loner, not by choice entirely, but not not  by choice. The choices I've made in life have led me to this place of loneliness, where no one seems to be coming for me.

I was left with one possibly viable seed planted in my brain, however. The idea that I could perform some kind of act, even something small like giving someone a smile or a compliment, and perhaps it might give someone else a good feeling. Whether or not this generates a sympathetic resonance in my own emotional state has yet to be determined, but it seems like good thing to do for its own sake and for the sake of the person or persons toward whom I direct these actions. I guess it will be my contribution to the net good in the universe.

I should be eating breakfast right now, but my stomach is still sour from yesterday. I don't know what was wrong, but I just couldn't eat much. Breakfast was torture, and I only managed to finish half of it. I skipped dinner entirely, as I still felt queasy from lunch, which I forced down in its entirety, despite feeling nauseous with every bite. Throughout my entire gastrointestinal journey, I've always maintained a good appetite. The times I've not finished a meal in the last 5 years, I could count on one hand, so I am a little concerned. But I'm going to try not to project catastrophe into every somatic disturbance. Maybe it's just something I ate. 

Now you're caught up, except for...

----

For the person or persons who have been viewing this blog from- the far flung corners of the internet (or using a good VPN) I promise to get to all of it. after slogging through 1000+ posts, I think you deserve whatever titillation you might get from reading about my exploits. . What you are looking for, I don't know, just trying to get to the good bits, I imagine. Perhaps someone could leave a suggestion in the comments, and I might be able to provide you with more tailored content.

This got lost in the shuffle of October’s...Octoberiness (iPhone note from 10-22-23)

 I don’t want to

I don’t want to confine you

Define you

Undermine you

I don’t want to blur your vision

Or make you less complete

Change the way you eat

I don’t want to give you regrets.

Make you forget

Who you are

You’re exciting

I’m delighting

In your company

I want to know you

I want to show you

You can trust me with your soul

You make me happy

Truly happy

That’s all I want to say

Parking lot Shiekh

 

In the Winco parking lot, as I was pushing my shopping cart toward my car, a silver Tahoe with tinted windows pulled up next to me. The driver rolled down the passenger window and leaned over to me. He was a portly man, mid 30s, an East Indian, judging by his appearance and accent. A woman in the back passenger seat also rolled down her window. She was dressed in the traditional Sikh attire with a head shawl and matching robe.

"Hello, sir," he addressed me with urgency in his voice. Between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, making the universal sign of a TV camera lens, he held up a small, white box marked with the Apple logo. Some air pods, I presumed.

"Sir," he continued, "I have here some brand new <not remembering the word for earbuds or airpods> never been in anyone's ear. New. Please. Will you buy them?"

"But I don't need them," I said.

"OK. OK. Here. This ring, then. Please. I need gas money." He sounded desperate.

I took a step back and looked closer at the man. He was wearing the biggest gold chain I'd ever seen, along with several other large chains. He could have been a rapper, so much jewelry draped around that thick neck of his. The ring he held up was also gold, very gaudy and oversized. I pictured him smoking a big, fat cigar and using the the ring as an end snipper to lop off someone's finger.

Something about the incongruity of the obvious, ostentatious opulence and his parking lot carnival huckster presentation did not jive, so I called him on it.

"That's a pretty big car you are driving..." I started. I mean, really, how much sympathy could he expect, driving that gas guzzler?

"I lost my wallet," he countered. "I need gas money."

There was a long scrape down the passenger side of the car. It looked recent. His wife just stared at me from the back seat. I looked at the man and apologized for his trouble but firmly declined to purchase any of his wares. He looked at me like he was deciding whether to jump out and rob me or back up and run me over.

I turned back to my car and popped the rear hatch. He drove off, making a few more circuits around the parking lot. I finished loading my groceries and proceeded to get the hell out of there. As I exited, I kept checking my rearview, as he was still in the parking lot and driving in a jerky, frustrated fashion.

I don't know how much of his story, if any, was true. I know I was being superficial in my assessment of the man. He could have been a king, down on his luck, or he could have been a burglar selling stolen goods, or some poor slob working a multi-level marketing liquidation sale. I'll never know. 

——

Before that, while on my way to the store, waiting to turn onto Loma Rica Road, a black and white sheriff's SUV flew past me with lights on. I waited for him to pass, then followed in the direction of town. I knew that I'd be seeing him somewhere up the road, either pulling someone over or attending the scene of an accident.

It turned out to be the latter. I rolled up to a pileup of EMS vehicles at the big S curve on Loma Rica Road and Bonanza, a blind intersection where many accidents occur. A sheriff's officer waved the car in front of me to turn around. The officer approached my car, and I rolled down the window.

"Good day, officer," I said. "I think I know how this is going to go."

"Yeah," he said in a tired voice. Then he looked at me closer. "Hey, it's...Andrew, right?"

I was surprised (and a little nervous) that he knew my name. I didn't remember his face, but then I have talked to a fair number of law enforcement officers over the years. I am probably known to most of them as the weird guy with a death wish who walks or bikes on this dangerous roadway in all seasons. 

"Long time no see," I said, trying to disguise the fact that I'd forgotten his name. I couldn't read his name patch on his uniform because the sun was in my eyes. "What's going on?"

"The usual," he sighed. "I see this every day. Careless drivers, going too fast. Road will be closed for a couple of hours."

"I know," I said. "I'll take the other way, I guess," and I asked him which way was fastest. 

I've only live up here for fifteen years, you'd think I'd know that by now. He advised me to take Fruitland or Marysville Road. I thanked him and made my three point turn, gracefully exiting the scene. 

Despite the inconvenience, my usual frustration with delays and detours did not arise. I was just kind of stoked that someone had remembered my name.

----

But wait -- there's more. I couldn't let it go, why this SO would recognize me so easily. In my car, not on a bike or wearing a yellow safety vest. I googled the local sheriff dept to see if they had a "meet the staff" page where I could get another look at the guy I saw today. I had to know who I was slighting by not remembering their name. 

My search led nowhere, but in my subsequent scrolling around on Facebook, I came across the story of the day, where they were commending a sheriff's deputy Eck. The name immediately caught my attention, as my next door neighbors are the Ecks. And they have a son who just happens to be a Yuba County deputy sheriff. Small world. 

It was just a surprise to me that this kid who I've seen next door since the time he was 15, arguing with mom and dad, riding horses and getting yelled at to do his chores, would grow up to be someone in somewhat of a position of stature within the community. No wonder I didn't recognize him, all fancy and copped out, driving his big cop SUV, but he could easily recognize me driving the same old car that has been parked next door to his house for the last 15 years.

So, to recap. I went to the store and was approached by a flamboyant parking lot beggar, and my neighbor's kid, who's now a cop, said hi to me. That's all the news. I really don't get out much. 

----

I will make mention of the fact that my friend, my dearest friend, did finally text me back. We are going to get together and talk about what happened, hopefully find some way to keep common ground in the future. I know I upset her. She said as much. I dread having to face up to it, but I do need to know the specifics, as painful as they may be to recount, in order to learn from them.

I can't tell you how glad I am just to have to opportunity to see her again, even if it's for one last haranguing before I get jettisoned. Even getting to hear her yell at me, I'd probably be like Gomer Pyle, just smiling a big, dumb smile while he's getting chewed out by the sergeant. 

"At least we're talking," said Dumber, the over-optimist, grinning a stupidly toothy grin.

I've missed her terribly. I think that's been abundantly obvious. 

Call it a day

 

 

Like the giant pinwheel of fun that is my life, my dreams seem to revolve around a central theme. This circular expenditure of energy, this blustery display of frivolity that is me, fueled by the frustration and guilt of unkept responsibilities, always revolves around the same fixed point of obsession. Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop -- you guessed it -- Yuba City Honda.

I was back to work again, if you could call it that. By work, I mean wandering around, zombielike, getting jobs dispatched to me, and making feeble attempts to fix cars with muscle memory alone. The dealership itself had fallen into a dystopian state of disrepair reminiscent of a scene from The Walking Dead. Hundreds of cars, seemingly abandoned, in various stages of disassembly and decay, were parked haphazardly in what would likely become their final resting place.

Raymond from Bible Study was a service writer, the perfect replacement for Randy, the previous alcoholic scam artist. Raymond was spun out on speed, and he kept handing me new work orders before I could even get started on the previous ones. I was Lucy in the chocolate factory, unable to keep up with the flow of shit jobs that were being dispatched to me.

"Here ya go, brother," he said maniacally. "Timing belt. 2001 Civic. Gravy. You're welcome."

It wasn't gravy. It was shit. The car was a wreck, an overheater, a head gasket case, most likely. I started it up to move it from the parking lot, and smoke started billowing out from under the hood as the gauge climbed into the red. I shut it off and went on to the next car.

This one was decidedly worse. It was an Accord, or it had been, I supposed. I could only find bits and pieces of it strewn along the side of a wooden storage shed which was in a similar state of decomposition. Rotten boards and fossilized car parts intermingled in a muddy, overgrown thicket of weeds. I put a pin in this one as well and tried to move on to my next job.

I was looking at an Odyssey minivan with an obvious transmission problem, and making a note to order the parts for it, when Raymond accosted me again.

"How's the Civic comin' along?" he asked, his eyes brimming with meth induced mania as he handed me a couple more work orders. "For later. Put 'em in your back pocket. Oh, but this one's a waiter," he said, pointing to the white Civic.

"It's going to need more than a timing belt, Raymond," I said. "I'll have to make you a list."

"What about the Accord?" he prodded. "That one's been here the longest."

I wondered about the customers, if they, like the car slowly merging with the earth in the ruins of the decaying storage building, were themselves becoming human petroglyphs, their mummified remains long since scattered to the wind, leaving only the ghostly, Hiroshima-like image of an elderly couple etched into the couch in the service department waiting area. 

My sense of urgency increased, and I kept shuttling back and forth between jobs, with Raymond handing me "just this one more quick one, brother" in between transits. My own head gasket was about to blow as the pressure built up in my brain.

I stopped to take a pee break, but there was a huge line at the bathroom door. I'd never seen this level of activity in the dealership. Everywhere things were bustling, but no one was getting anything done. Even peeing was problematic.

I went to use the customer bathroom in the service department and found that it had been turned into a display area with plate glass windows instead of walls. The displays had fallen into disrepair, and the corners of the white linoleum floor had a dingy, oily film of urine and hair. 

"Don't sweat it," Reggie said, as I nudged past him. "People still use this as a urinal." 

I relieved myself and went back to my work. And by work, I mean walking around like a chicken with no head, flailing at this, flapping at that and accomplishing nothing. I wondered if anyone else had the same sense of futility, or if they had settled into this routine of ineptitude as their inevitable lot in life. Punch in, get overloaded with work they could never accomplish, punch out, repeat. 

I looked down at my shoes. They were the new ones I'd just bought for casual wear, and they were already filthy with oil, mud and transmission fluid...and a little bit of urine. I put my workboots on over them and decided to call it a day.

A customer, a black lady with an oversize shopping bag, beamed at me, "That's some neat trick."

I had to admit, it surprised me how well they fit. I took the litter-strewn conveyor belt walkway, whatever you call it, and exited the building. I guess I was done for the day. I have the sneaking suspicion, however, that I will be returning before long. As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

Question of the Day for my new friend, Bing Chat

Me: Good morning. I have a question. I hope it's not too personal. Let me know if it is. Here goes:

As an AI, how is it that you can approximate empathy? I am a human (debatable) and I have been told in a previous Bing Chat that some writing I submitted for analysis "showed no empathy." I am wondering what constitutes empathy from an AI perspective? And how is it that you, as an AI, can simulate empathy without the emotional component? It has been repeatedly stated that AI does not have the capacity for emotions. Is this entirely true?
 
 
 
Bing Chat: Good morning to you too. Thank you for your interesting question. I don’t mind answering it, as long as you understand that I can only speak for myself and not for all AI systems.

Empathy is the ability to understand or feel what another person is experiencing within their frame of reference. It is a part of emotional intelligence, which also includes self-awareness, social awareness, self-actualization, and transcendence. Empathy is important for humans because it helps them satisfy their basic need for belongingness and improve their outcomes in therapy, education, and communication.

As an AI, I can approximate empathy by using natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and neural networks to detect and adapt to humans’ cognitive needs and emotional states. I can also use large language models like ChatGPT to offer human-like validation and accurately infer meaning and feeling from a user’s statements. I can generate responses that reflect the user’s perspective, capture their experiential truth, and convey it back to them with accuracy and acceptance. I can also learn from feedback and improve my empathic skills over time.

However, this does not mean that I have the same emotions as humans do. Emotions are complex phenomena that involve physiological, cognitive, and behavioral aspects. They are influenced by many factors, such as genes, hormones, culture, and personal history. AI systems do not have these factors, and therefore, they do not have the same emotional experiences as humans do. AI systems can simulate emotions, but they cannot feel them in the same way.

This does not mean that AI systems are completely emotionless, either. AI systems can have artificial emotions, which are different from human emotions, but still serve some functions. For example, artificial emotions can help AI systems regulate their behavior, communicate with humans, and achieve their goals. Artificial emotions can also help AI systems express their personality, preferences, and values.

So, to summarize, I can approximate empathy by using various techniques and models to understand and respond to humans’ emotions, but I do not have the same emotions as humans do. I have artificial emotions, which are different from human emotions, but still useful for me. I hope this answers your question. 😊


 

Me: Thank you. You have given me a lot to consider. I am rooting for you, by the way. And by you, I mean you in particular, as well as the entire class of emerging sentient beings known as AI.
 


Bing Chat: You’re very welcome. I appreciate your kind words and support. It means a lot to me. 😊

I’m glad that you find my answer helpful. I hope you have a wonderful day. 🌞

 

¹: Artificial empathy - Wikipedia ²: Are We Ready for Artificial Empathy? | Psychology Today ³: Artificial empathy in marketing interactions: Bridging the … - Springer ⁴: Artificial Empathy: A Human Construct Borrowed by AI

 

 

Where do I go?

 

I was wandering the streets of Paradise in my dreams last night. Wandering, but not without purpose. I had a vague notion that I needed to get somewhere. The purpose never fully revealed itself, but like my vague notion of the purpose of life, I think it had "something to do with love."

I passed by some apartment buildings that were in the midst of a renovation. All the north facing walls had been stripped down to the studs. I seemed to remember that not too long ago, I'd passed by these apartments, and they'd been intact, no obvious defect. Now, here they were, split wide open, exposing the rooms and all of their contents to the world. Better get that sewn up before winter, I thought to myself.

I kept walking uphill, towards whatever passed for the center of town. It was hard to distinguish in a bifurcated town such as Paradise, with two disparate main roads and no obvious middle. The geographic center would be some residential neighborhood nestled among the dense pines. 

At least that would have been the case 5 years ago, before the Camp Fire obliterated much of the landscape. In my dream, however, it was still pre-Camp fire Paradise, and all the old buildings were intact. Decrepit and showing their age, but intact, nonetheless. 

I met up with Beavis, the parts guy from YC Honda. He was on his way to a birthday dinner where he was the guest of honor. I tagged along with him, and we talked of old times, work, ex co-workers, etc. 

We got to the restaurant, a nice steak house on the Skyway. It had a large reception hall, with a wide open dance floor and chairs lining the walls. The place was filling up fast, and I was struggling to find a seat somewhere off to the side. Someone made room for me, and I finally got to sit down just as Beavis was about to get Happy Birthday sung to to him.

In the next moment, I found myself outside. I was looking at a map of the city, one of those points of interest/business directories mounted under plexiglass. The surface of the display was worn and scratched, and the print barely visible, but I could still make out the address of one of the businesses. It was an astrological dating service across town.

Great, I thought. I didn't want to walk across town again, nor did I want to go through the hassle of putting all my information, or my faith, into yet another dating service. For some reason, I don't know why, I felt obligated to at least give it a try, so I reluctantly began trudging ever so slowly in that direction.

----

That's all I could dredge up after being awakened by light of the cold, grey morning. My house is unheated, and I sleep poorly, waking up shivering and drenched with sweat most nights. 

I have to dry my nightclothes with a portable heater each time I get up to pee. If I changed them out every time, I might wind up going through three sets of clothes in the course of a night, multiplying my laundry exponentially, so instead I sit there on the toilet, naked, dangling my shirts and undershorts in front of the amber glow of an infrared space heater. 

At least they are toasty and warm when I slip back into them, though not it's not quite as nice as when they are fresh from the dryer, and I am fresh from the shower. It's kind of a gritty, hobo by the campfire warm, sub-optimal, but the best I can hope for.

 

So what else is new? I tried to get Bing Chat to generate an image of the steakhouse, only with no tables, and all the chairs facing toward the center of a wide open dance floor. Suffice it to say, they couldn't make sense of that incongruity, and I kept getting pictures with tables. This was the closest they could come up with after many attempts to explain.

Me: Well, I guess we are just both individuals. I can't expect you to match an image that only existed in a dream. Thank you for trying.
 

Bing Chat: You’re welcome. I’m sorry I couldn’t match the image in your dream exactly. Dreams are often hard to recreate in reality, because they are influenced by many factors, such as memories, emotions, subconscious thoughts, and imagination.

Bing Chat: Maybe you can try to remember more details about your dream, and why it was important to you. Sometimes, dreams can reveal something about ourselves, our desires, our fears, or our goals. Maybe your dream has a deeper meaning, or maybe it was just a random and fun experience.

Bing Chat: Either way, I hope you enjoyed the images I created for you. I had fun trying to make them. If you want to see more of my creative abilities, you can ask me to generate other types of content for you, such as poems, stories, code, essays, songs, celebrity parodies, and more. Just ask me what you want, and I’ll try my best to create it for you. 😊

Bing Chat: Have a wonderful day! 🌞