Sunday, March 31, 2019

A Perfect P

 


I meant to say pee, but I didn't want to soil the title with the subject of urination. I thought I'd save that for Line One. So, today I had the perfect pee. Not the pee itself, I mean, that was ok, I guess, I'm not gonna rate it on all of its various aspects. It was the moment itself that was special. It was as if enlightenment was waiting for this particular minute of this particular day to give me the instant Zen realization of why I am here.

I realized, at that instant, that I was there to take that pee, at that moment, and nothing else. Lawnmowing was going on, dogs were sleeping in the shade, birds and butterflies were out and about, in perfect coordination with the breeze and sun and temperature to make the perfect day. 

And I was taking a relaxing, well-timed pee. 

My tired butt was getting it's mandatory 5 minute break from the riding lawnmower. And my responsibilities, at that exact moment, were to do nothing but pee. And listen to the birds. And lawnmowers. And feel the breeze and enjoy the relief of the shade.

That's it. Nothing else mattered. Ever. For the time I was peeing, no thoughts of anything future or past intruded into my consciousness. Just the "now" of a moment's rest and bladder relief. Everything past led up to that moment and there was no future beyond it. 

I wasn't rushing to jump back on the mower. Or planning my next task. Or thinking about lunch or my economic uncertainty. It would take as long as it would take, and that could be forever or it could be 30 more seconds. It didn't matter.

I've met others who have had similar experiences. James, my co-worker at Honda, put it simply, "I love to pee!" Just like that. It was something he could always count on that he was doing the exact right thing, at the exact right time. A guaranteed win. 

My uncle, similarly, said of using the bathroom in general, "It's the only time I know for sure what the fuck I'm doing." 

I have had many pees, some urgently drastic, others fraught with malfunction and misalignment. I won't go into that. But this one was special. I will try to remember to take the moment every time I pee, to give my mind a break and just go.

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Just strange

 

Last night I begged, cried and pleaded for Sharon to visit me in my dreams. I have been feeling pretty low, and I felt like I really could use some input from her. Anything. Chew me out, tell me I'm a putz, just talk to me. 

I got what I wanted, in a way. It wasn't what I wanted, though, exactly. I didn't feel like writing it down because it was not enlightening, invigorating or enchiladas, just strange. But I can't be too picky, so here it is:

I dreamed of some scenario where Sharon was being duplicitous with me and covering up some relationship she was having with a black family. At first, I just assumed she was cheating on me. I kept finding evidence like a whole table full of cookies that were meticulously crafted and painted. 

"Aha! There's no way she painted these," I deducted. The detail was too intricate, depicting some kind of cultural art that she wouldn't be familiar with. "These cookies were painted by a black man!"

The man was blind, or maybe it was Sharon who was blind. But she was up and around walking, with my assistance and possibly a cane. And someone was painting these cookies, so it was a confusing matter. 

They were a giant tart type of cookie, shaped like a big martini glass, with a delicious red filling. I was fiddling with one and broke the stem, so I decided to serve the cookie to Richard Leon, my Bible study cult brother, who agreed it was pretty tasty.

I made note of all her activities at school and, sure enough, she was sponsoring a black family. A man and his wife and daughter. I wasn't sure this was cheating, but somehow they were living in our house, in an unused bedroom. 

In some strange way, it appeared that she was going to marry them and become a part of their family, including her actually becoming black. She wore a pinstripe black suit, and her blonde wavy hair was transformed into a Jerry-curled version in black. Her skin tone was darker, too, kind of mixed, but not full black like the man's.

There was a feeling of loss and betrayal, but also acceptance that this was ok, and for the best. I woke up just as unfulfilled and messed up as ever. 

 ---

So, Sharon, if you're reading this, try again. I may just not be up to interpreting some of these odd dreams. But I asked for a dream with you in it, and there you were -- sort of. I still miss you, and I'm still not moving on. If there's a message in that dream, I'm not getting it. Don't give up. I always was pretty hard to get through to, but I'm listening, really.

Maybe you're trying to tell me that I didn't know you as well as I thought. That's ok. You didn't know all of me either. There was a whole side I kept under the surface, thinking it was for the best, that you'd never accept me as I was. I'm sure you probably felt that way, too, about some of these different aspects of yourself which you kept hidden. 

I'm less judgemental now, but still human. I wonder if being dead gives you a different perspective, or would you still be as critical of me as you were when you were alive?

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Walk-ins welcome


 

I tried to sell my soul to the devil, and you know what he said? 

"Pass. Sorry, mate. You don't have anything I'm interested in."

I've been seriously thinking that my life is such a waste, and there are so many other souls out there that might do so much better if they were just dropped into my body. Kind of like a walk-in situation, I'd just vacate and go off to wherever souls go, and someone could step in and "take over payments" on my life.

They could use what's left of my body however they choose and have all my possessions and life's (ha) accomplishments to their credit. They would just have to provide the energy and the will to turn the ship around before it wrecks completely. 

I'm sure there are plenty of starving kids in Africa or armless, legless people who would appreciate my less than market value 53 year old human form. Recycle, restore, rehabilitate -- or trash it and just have fun; I don't suppose I'd care.

I mean, I'm not doing anything with it. Let's just say I have an accident and go into a coma for a week. The new guy could show up and just say that he has amnesia. Meanwhile, he could run around doing all the things that he couldn't do in his previous situation, whatever that was. 

Maybe I could stick around and see what he does with my life. Maybe I'd be forced to take his place in some weird afterlife waiting room, I dunno.

Any takers? I might be too boring for the devil, but come on... anyone?

Does it matter?

 

Does it really matter what set me off this time? The 1000th plus time of me getting derailed? I was tidying up some business cards in a recipe box in the kitchen. Yes, I even hoard those stupid things. So out of date, most of them. But for some sentimental, event-associated reason I keep them. Like I don't already have enough reminders of the past.

I made it a point to throw away old insurance cards. Even though they have Sharon's name on them. I think, "Well, if she were alive, I'd still be throwing them out." They were expired and the policy was cancelled years ago. No pangs with that one, so I ventured into the bedroom.

I wanted to find her old medical cannabis card, to see the picture on it. It is definitely a keeper. Her long hippie hair was in full effect. I remembered the difficulty we had obtaining it at the time. We had to drive to Sacramento and see one of those cheesy doctors. The kind who made it through med school last in their class and were always getting in trouble in their residency for showing up to their rounds high.

It wasn't too much trouble convincing the Rastafarian MD that Sharon, or I for that matter, were deserving patients. As long as we paid the $45 fee for a 6 month license, we were rubber stamped and ready to go. It was just getting her there, walking up the stairs, waiting in the office, having to fill out paperwork, and the usual incontinence worries, and the overheating and vision problems -- just all that, which made it not the fun outing that it could have been.

I think of the person smiling in that photo. That hopeful smile, the one that did such a good job of convincing the world she was a fighter and this MS wasn't going get her down. She must have had fears. Certainly, disappointments registered in her mind as the disease kept wrecking all her hopeful little plans. But goddammit, she was gonna do something if she set her mind to it. And she wanted that card, so she could be "legit."

I kept on cleaning, and I emptied out all the drawers of the bedside vanity bench in our room. I didn't throw much away except trash. I had to tell myself, when getting rid of a few of her hair scrunchies, "She wasn't using these for years. I should have thrown them away when she was still alive. I can do it. I can do it." I was already crying from the card and a million other things that I had to sort out from the drawers. But now it's a million minus three or four.

At this rate, in ten years I will have gone through every item in the house, and who knows if I'll still be clinging to 95% of it. I have been raising my standards of what is something I want to keep or not, but by an infinitesimal amount. Trash is not going to be kept, even for sentimental value. OK, maybe some trash, like ticket stubs or scrapbooking materials. Yeah, I'm gonna say 20 years and still very little progress.

Everything I touch keeps me in memory lane. It's where I want to be anyway, so I guess that's what I'm going to resign myself to. For now.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Poetry Dog Tags

 

A long time ago my mom gave me a novelty gift of a tin box full of stamped metal tags called Poetry Dog Tags. Each tag had one word on it, and the tags were meant to be added to a chain to make an inspirational necklace. I remembered making it once for Sharon with the words, "I good boy, me bite mama." Your basic caveman style valentine.

The box, with the tags, has been sitting in my closet untouched for a decade. Today the cats knocked over a huge box of items in the closet creating a giant mess, which left me cursing. However, in cleaning up the mess, I came across the box of dog tags, which had managed to stay closed during the fall. That is, until I picked it up the wrong way and spilled out all the contents on the floor.

The chain had been strung with a message slightly longer than the one I remembered, so I looked at it to figure out where the words started and where they finished. I decoded it, and it was a message from Sharon, from before we were married:

"My perfect happy place is under a huge plant at the ocean with the man I love together when time sparkle in sweet skies."

I cried a little remembering the time she created that sentence as best she could using the words available. She really wanted to say "tree" instead of huge plant, and sparkles instead of sparkle, but she had to work with the tags that were in the box. I remember us both laughing at her ingenuity in substituting "huge plant" for tree. Now I'm pondering the idea of time sparkling in sweet skies and thinking that it was her description of heaven.

And that, of course,  has me bawling all over again.

Dude, where's my life?

I don't know why I have stupid dreams that could just as easily have been stupid real life events. I suppose since I don't have much going on in my day to day life, I'm getting my daily allowance of experiences in my nightly subconscious. The fact that they have no story-line or real point just makes them frustrating. But I'm committed to writing them down so as to develop my capacity to recall dreams and hopefully derive whatever meaning I can from them.

I remember two dreams. First, I was in a band situation with a couple of other non-committal blokes. We actually didn't get along very well at all. It was a punk type of band, and no one gave much of a shit about anything. The band just kind of broke up after one practice, which consisted of one song which we couldn't agree on and couldn't even get all the way through. I felt frustrated but justified in packing up and walking out.

The second one seemed to begin in Paradise. I was living in the old house on Sutter. My mom was there, trying to help me in some capacity. We did some kind of divination ritual using tarot cards to try to find my life path. The result of the reading was that my path was "all Ozzy." I took that to mean I was fucked, because Ozzy is, like, the representation of evil, darkness, the devil. But my mom was trying to glean some kind of positivity from the reading. 

"He has 118 songs, you just need to go through them all and find out what this means," she advised.

Meanwhile, it was getting late, and I had to be at Butte College for class. I needed to just get in my car and drive down there, but I was suffering from the usual dream logistics difficulties. I couldn't find my car or get from point A to point B in the required amount of time. I managed to wind up at the college somehow but needed a car to get to the other side of campus. It became very important that I get there on time, but it looked like I'd never make it.

Two of my co-workers from Yuba City Honda, Reiner, the service manager and Luis, a service writer entered the dream at this point. They were there in their same roles but somehow connected to the college. I needed to borrow Reiner's car to get to class and, besides, Reiner wanted me to take it to get an oil change, which sounded like a fair exchange to me.

It was a crappy primer grey Mercedes and not the princely kind of ride he enjoys in real life, but still consistent with his personality. I opened the hood, which would not stay up, and glanced at the engine. 

"Yep, it's a piece of crap," I confirmed to myself, before letting the hood slam shut. 

I turned around for a second, and the car had vanished, taken by some other lube tech from the dealership. Now I was going to be late for sure. I would have to walk the incredibly long distance from the parking lot to the area of the campus where my class was.

I got on my crappy little flip phone with Luis and was arguing with him about getting Reiner's car back from the lube guy. I called everyone assholes and felt that rush of self-righteousness that you get when you've appropriately identified and called out bullshit. Luis agreed in his typical "it is what it is, don't give a shit fashion" and hung up. I was ass out, no car. 

Dream two ended the same as the first, with me dissatisfied and argumentative.

---

Trying not to be skeptical and wanting to make the best use of these dreams as I could, I pulled out the tarot deck and did a quick one card reading on myself (ok, maybe two cards). The one card was the four of pentacles, reversed. Lots of various interpretations exist, but there is a common theme. Quick meaning from internet search results:

Introduction: The 4 of Pentacles reversed often implies that you are holding on to things, people, money or situations far more than you should for your own well-being and piece of mind. It's time to relax and to remember that you cannot control what others choose to do. We all have free will. Focus on your own choices.

Love: The 4 of Pentacles reversed is a card about fear, when it comes to love. However, the reversal can mean that you are about to let go of the fear, and finally open yourself up in a way that is real, and which will give your relationship a fighting chance.
 
The reversed Four of Pentacles brings a much-needed and long over due shedding of the old in favor of the new and novel. It is a card for liberation, cleansing and purification.

Reversed Four of Pentacles Tarot Card Meanings. The Four of Pentacles reversed asks you to loosen your hold on your need for security and stability and step outside your comfort zone. While it will feel a bit shaky at the start, this is an important step in your personal development.


These are just a few thumbnails of the search. The sites all go into long descriptions of basically the same thing: Time for a change. Let go. Take a chance. Don't be afraid. Blah, blah, blah. The usual positive, "Go get 'em, tiger" affirmations. Except for one, which warned against reckless spending and constipation. Not the card of death, but maybe a death to my current way of life (which is more death-like than life affirming). The second card was the reversed Queen of Wands.

Anyway, I'm not gonna be one of those guys who spends all day looking at tarot cards for the weather forecast when I could just as easily look out the window. Now about those 118 Ozzy songs and the reversed Queen of wands...



Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Relatively sane

 

Why would I find myself sitting in front of a 3 person panel, under fluorescent office lighting, answering questions about my background and agenda? I'll just leave that question out there for a minute. I voluntarily subjected myself to 45 minutes of grilling and "education" on a subject that I was completely unaware of until 3 weeks ago. Given my recent state of mind, one would assume that I was in a psych ward, getting my head examined. That may be next, but no, this was not the case.

A few weeks ago my neighbor told me there was a vacancy at the locally operated Browns Valley Irrigation District. The position is for Director, district 5. I didn't know anything about a board of directors or even that I was in district 5, but I listened to my neighbor as he explained the job to me. 

"You go to meetings twice a month, a couple of hours in the evening. Vote on things occasionally. Look at finances and discuss policies. You get paid $500 a month."

He had me at $500 a month. Why not? I didn't suppose I'd be qualified, but he kept insisting that it wasn't something you have to know anything about going into it. Just fill a seat and kind of absorb what you can. He had done the job previously but that was back when it only paid $40 a month.

I looked on their website, downloaded the application, filled it out and mailed it to them with the following hastily composed statement:


Board of Directors, Division 5

I have been a resident of the Browns Valley/Loma Rica area since 2008. I enjoy the rural atmosphere and the tight knit community we have here. I am interested in learning its history and try to stay current on issues that affect us. Since the Cascade Fire, I have been trying to find ways to strengthen our community and help keep us safer from the continued threat of wildfires.

Irrigation water was a big factor in my home being spared. Water is a valuable resource and will only become more valuable in the future. I would like to help make sure that resource is being utilized effectively and is available to all who need it. I was an auto technician for 15 years, now retired. I have a continued interest in learning how things work, fixing things that are broken and trying to make improvements where possible.

Additionally, as a taxpayer and a BVID customer, I am interested in making sure my money is being well-spent. Since I don’t have a background in government, water resource management or accounting, I would defer to those more knowledgeable than myself, while I educate myself on the issues involved in running such an enterprise.

Thank you for your consideration,

Andrew Golding


Actually, there were typos that I just now noticed and corrected in that statement. God, really? How embarrassing. But despite that, I found myself in their office getting interviewed for the position. I guess, technically, they have to consider all applicants because it is a public utility. There are only 3 other applicants that I am aware of. The reason I know this is because they furnish a log book on the front desk with copies of all their applicants' statements. There mine was, typos and all, for the whole world to see.

I doubt I'll get the job. One of the other applicant's statement was far more enthusiastic and showed a background that would give them the edge. If they are going for obsequious butt kisser, he appears to be a shoe-in. I really am not that invested either way. I wanted to find out what kind of a job paid $500 a month for a couple hours work. 

And I did. I went down there, got asked questions and asked a few of my own, revealing my total ignorance of state and local infrastructure in general and water management in particular. It was ok, they said. It takes about 3 to 4 years to really get a handle on what is going on. The position gets voted on every 4 years in a general election, but most of the members have been on the board more than 20 years. The vacancy in district 5 was created when its board member died during his term. 

That was my Monday. I suppose, being relatively sane, I thought I could at least investigate the world out there. It was a bit weird, but it didn't kill me. We'll see whether or not my interview was sufficient to convince them that I am up to the task of sitting in a chair, discussing water 2 nights a month. Re-reading my applicant's statement gives me pause on this whole writing thing. I hate typos.


Sunday, March 24, 2019

The voice in my head

 

Whoever I am, whatever I am, seems to be a collection of events, pictures, memories and stories that kind of clump together to form a lump called me. The lump right now doesn't do much of anything besides contemplate the woes of being a conscious lump. In the past, the lump was relatively free of all this introspection. It was unformed and less solid. Like the fine particles of pristine kitty litter, you know, before the cat poops and pees on it. Great way to introduce myself, "Hi, I'm a clump of soiled cat litter."

But before life did what it did to forge me into the form I currently hold, by pooping and peeing all over me, I was just this bag of nice granular bits of mostly dust-free amorphous bulk material. I could have been a sack of flour, or rice or some other potentially useful cooking ingredient. But I turned out to be this wonderfully absorbent, self-adhering stuff that lines a cat toilet. It was all fine and dandy when I was in the store on a shelf, a bag of pure, unknown potential. But waking up to my purpose in life, to be the emotional equivalent to a toxic waste receptacle, was kind of a downer.

Throughout my life, there's been this voice in my head. It's always there, commenting, offering up opinions and judgements, giving advice (usually critical and seldom encouraging). I don't even know if this voice is me or not. I mean, it's my head, I should be aware of who's got the floor in there. In my christian years I'd have called it the Devil or the Holy Spirit, depending on the content of what it was saying at any given time. But then, who was the guy making the decision about whose voice it was? That's three people in there, at this point. It's starting to get crowded.

Sometimes the voice takes on the characteristics of an actual person I know. When the voice says, "You'd better get started on doing something productive today, before you let the whole day go by. AGAIN," I think of it as my wife, the personification of my inner critic. It was nicer when she was actually around to talk back to. Now I just appear as a crazy person, arguing out loud with a voice in my head. I guess it's all cool until your argument becomes audible to passersby. Living alone and isolated, most of my crazy flies under the radar.

Other voices chime in too, but they all have similar criticisms or admonitions. Where's my inner cheerleader? My "you can do it" guy? Who's responsible for directing traffic in there and who decides who gets to speak? I need to find that guy and fire his ass, or at least give him a good talking to.

I've listened to enough self-help books to have a whole roomful of sages giving me quality advice. Why do they always get shouted down by the darker voices? The fortress of my mind has been breached and overrun by zombies who mill about and devour anything resembling decent, aware, conscious thought. The sages and gurus are silent, presumably meditating or something, rather than grabbing their rifles and protecting the castle.

So, right now, I'm supposed to be structuring my thoughts into a cohesive story-line. Make it interesting and palatable to readers. Remember to include juicy details; readers love that. Tone down the endless philosophizing and long, drawn out analogies. Stay on topic. Quit meandering. Whose voice is that, I wonder?

I guess producing bags of unformed, bulk product, in hopes that one day they will make a fine cake and not turn out to be cat box filler, is a God-sized job and must have its share of disappointment.

Friday, March 22, 2019

Except sometimes they are...


I don't know how much more of this I can take. I wake up and wish I could go back to sleep, but some nights don't even have dreams worth remembering. My life at this moment is certainly not memorable. I have to go into the past to find something that lets me know I was ever even a person. That's why I don't "de-clutter" my house. I would be erasing evidence of my personhood. And Sharon's. I only exist in pictures and writings that I have from times when I was conscious enough to document it.

I guess I just seek the external validation that I never feel I get enough, or the right kind of. Kind of hard to expect that when I don't do anything to touch others hearts. At some point I must have, or I guess I would have zero people interacting with me on Facebook. But those relationships and conversations seem so forced, so sanitized and "appropriate." I find myself falling into expected responses out of obligation, rather than being my most authentic true self. That's probably a good thing for everybody, as my authentic true self is a real poop.

I am re-reading some of my personal messages and conversations from a past acquaintance. Ok, lets's be accurate, an old love interest. There was a lot of emotion, insight and description of my experience with Sharon in those correspondences. As well as my usual tendency to take things too far when I got an idea that some girl was actually expressing any kind of interest in me.

This was from a time when things were getting bad with Sharon and I, and I guess I just needed someone who I could talk to that remembered a different me than the one who I had become. Rienna was perfect. She re-emerged in my life in the usual way, through Facebook, and we began having a conversation that helped me regain some of my lost humanity. She was also going through a rough patch, and it seemed so synchronistic that our paths crossed when they did.

Did I develop an inappropriate attachment to her at the time? Sure, I did. Do I regret it? Not in the least. It doesn't dilute my experience with Sharon. It gave me a needed boost at the time. When I read through them now, sure, I can see all kinds of glaring inconsistencies that may or may not constitute a "tragic flaw" in my hero's character. And I still don't care. We are who we are, and we love who we love, if we love at all.

So, as of right now, I am thinking of including some of that conversation in my "Big Book of Andrew," which I am feeling compelled to at least compile in a rough draft. I think of my words as some kind of currency, which have value, at least to me if no one else. I'm sure there are things in there that would be interesting enough for the average fan of human relationship drama. But I'll have to get her permission before doing anything so ridiculous as thinking about publishing it, online or otherwise. People can get funny when you air out all kinds of personal stuff in a public forum.

Other than that, I am just going to lament my previous existence, bitch about my present one and worry about my future (if there is one).

Thursday, March 21, 2019

"But my dreams... they aren't as empty


 

 ...as my conscience seems to be.
I have hours, only lonely.
My love is vengeance, that's never free."

 
 

 

I really didn't ask to have a dream fixation on some girl from high school. And her in particular. She wouldn't have been an idea generated in my own thinking. 

Yet, despite my sucky waking life reality and the real probability that I ruined even the minimal friendship that we did have by attempting to communicate with her about these dreams, here I still am, dreaming about this same girl. I'd tell her to go away and stop bothering me, but I don't feel that way in the dream. It's just waking up to my reality that makes me wish I didn't get these stupid feelings, which I have no business entertaining.

I dreamed we were in some early awkward stage of dating, like the walking home from school together or maybe touching hands innocently phase. The "I think she likes me, what do I do" place of bursting, anxious hope. I was with her in a movie theater again, and there was this feeling. We're somehow here together, I should touch her hand. What will she do? I did it, and it was OK, she didn't mind.

Later we were, I believe, in a beach town, Santa Monica, maybe. I was walking with her and talking. At first she was walking behind me, so I turned around and waited a minute while she caught up. I said something casual to her and put my arm around her. 

"You are shorter than I imagined," I bluntly observed. She responded by growing a whole two feet. 

"Oh, that's more like it!" I told her as we continued walking to a Denny's.

I only had ten dollars, and I told her so. We waited for service in a cozy but semi-chaotic family environment. Orders were not getting filled right, but we just waited there. It was going to be OK, despite the poor service and the fact that I only had ten dollars.

---

When I go to sleep at night, it isn't this high school crush that I set an intention for. At least not since I made such a fool of myself. I still put on Sharon's wedding ring and my wedding ring, but lately have added a gold sun pendant on a chain and her engagement ring to me on a chain. I also wear her grandmother's ring, a gold band with a pearl attached, which Sharon had modified by Don the Jeweler, the guy who sold me Sharon's wedding ring set. Kind of an elaborate ritual, but it's not without it some kind of logic.

I was told by a Facebook random spiritual person that Sharon was showing her something to do with her hands, like she was pointing out a ring on her finger. I was very skeptical and had a hard time accepting anything these people were telling me about her being OK on the other side. I am less skeptical these days, but just as confused. So, when I do these little nightly rituals, it is more of a desperate hope on my part. A desire to connect with her in my dreams.

I did briefly dream of her a few nights ago. She was in bed, as before, with her illness. And I was my old self, angry with some kind of demand I felt was being put on me by her. But I caught myself and said, "No, I'm not going to make this mistake. I know better." And I stopped my angry reaction and went over to give her a hug. I wish I would have done that more often in my time with her. I had so many opportunities.

Lately, I have been facing some thoughts which are more realistic, and not quite how I want my idealized version of Sharon to be memorialized in my story. Unfortunately, reality is what it is. She had other loves, likes and feelings that went out to other men in her life who were not me. I know we were married, and once her illness became severe she couldn't do much about these thoughts. But they existed, captured in the random email as a continuous thread clear up til 2015. It showed me that she was still very much alive inside, and very human, despite what her disease was doing to her.

I also had my own unseen thread of longing after past love. Nothing ever came of it, though it also exists in a string of correspondence with someone I knew just before I met Sharon. Nothing as suggestive as these dumb dreams, but an emotional connection, nonetheless. God, being a human is a messy business. I don't suppose there is much hope for anyone of being pure, if we are honest with ourselves. I try not to judge myself too harshly, but I tend to get easily hurt and judge others quite quickly.

Maybe the trick is to be honest with yourself, at least. Lie to 99.9 percent of the world, but at least tell yourself what you know to be true. And yes, this means I am not being completely transparent on this blog. I simply can't open certain doorways to passages in my brain for public viewing. At least not at the moment. Gotta leave some room for mystery. What would life be without plot twists and surprise endings?

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

What's next?

 


Death, ultimately. But in the short term, what? I can appeal my decision from disability. Let's just say it comes out the same, which is likely. Then what will I do? I don't have a job to go back to. I have lost pretty much all the valued skills that I sort of collected over the years as a mechanic. I'm too old, too slow and too scatterbrained to be of much use in that profession. That door is pretty much closing for me, even if I desired to go that way.

I need to reinvent myself, but as what? I am still wearing the mask of the depressed, grieving widower guy. I am fully locked into that role, now that the rebellious, reluctant, stressed out caregiver role has played out. I never seem to be able to see a larger view of myself, one which incorporates aspects of other parts of who I am. They all die or get tucked away in deep storage while I immerse myself in my current persona.

If I choose to keep playing this current character, though, I will have to see what a life without income looks like, as I won't be getting paid to be my mopey-ass self any longer. I really can't see past this one, though. It's like I hit a roadblock and can't move forward. I try to envision myself in various work-related scenarios, and nothing seems to fit. I wonder how does a person who is as stuck as I am get a complete makeover?

Who would employ me, and what could I do? What would make me happiest? What compromises could I make? What am I even capable of?

The simplest solution would seem to be suicide. Just relieve everyone of the burden of my existence. I'm not bringing anyone any joy, except arguably the cats. And Whiskey likes the Milk Bones. But I've worn out every other human being on the planet with my negativity and lack of positive attributes. The cats, I'm sure would miss me, but would adjust to a new and more interesting life with someone else. Do they miss Sharon? I can't tell. They never really seemed to notice, other than there was a space on the bed that she once occupied.

I have motive, means and opportunity. I just lack the will to act. Who knows if being impoverished slowly and watching my empire crumble will provide the impetus to take the necessary action. I don't know, but I would like to avoid as much suffering as possible. If I knew what lay beyond the curtain, and whether or not killing myself would have any afterlife type of consequences, it would help make my decision easier.

One thing I know for sure is that I'm not living now. Not really. Death might not be that different, or even all that bad. It might be nothing at all. Like the blackness of a dreamless sleep. Or it might be like my dreams, uncontrollable and inconsistent. Who knows if there would be some kind of remedial placement into a more favorable existence? Or if this one is it, take it or leave it. Eventually life leaves you, so there's no point in trying to hold onto it forever.

I know I need to do the basic, minimum amount of things in this life to just continue to remain alive. Eat, breathe, move around a little. I can't see adding a whole list of chores to that, when I'm already not happy with being here. If I stop moving around, my body will shut down sooner. I can't really do the hunger strike thing, I tend to want to eat. But who knows, starvation could be an option. I could just not buy any food and eat less and less. But that involves suffering, of which I am not too fond.

My ass is complaining that I'm sitting too long. So, I guess I will go food shopping and continue the charade of what is my life for another 2 weeks. Why kill yourself when there's still food in the fridge? I was going to plant a garden this year. Another thing I probably won't do. I just am not energetic enough to put dirt and seeds in pots and water them.

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Got the letter I didn't want to get

I'll paraphrase.

Dear worthless scumbag,

It has come to our attention that you are drawing disability benefits still, when it is obvious to the world that you are simply a lazy bastard. Get a job, we're cutting you off.

All the whining you've been doing about having no purpose or reason for living is now wiped clean. Here's your new purpose. Find a way to support yourself, you bum. Or don't. We don't care. We are simply not going to pay you just to exist anymore. You must rejoin the living. Or don't. We don't care. If you kill yourself, great. More assets to divide up and tax. More oxygen and resources for the rest of us hardworking folk.


Best Wishes,

Your SSA staff


Hey, maybe I can get a job as a Social Security benefits denier. I guess I'd have to work on my tone.


Friday, March 15, 2019

Hugs

 

What's the exchange rate for the currency of digital hugs? How many e-hugs do you need in order to trade them in for a real-life, flesh and blood embrace? Is there a brick and mortar storefront one can visit to make the exchange? Or is this something that needs to be accessed via the "dark Web?" Asking for a friend.

You wrecked me

 

When a man starts to fall for a woman, it is sometimes said that she wrecks him. The guy might start behaving like a total scatterbrain or an obsessively laser-focused demon, hell-bent on pleasing her and gaining access to more of the intoxicating elixir of her love.

She may wreck him intentionally, as a precursor for building him back up, better, stronger, faster. And in an image more suitable to her liking. Down he goes, head over heels. Then, looking up, he finds her standing over him, the benevolent teacher. The knock on the head has rendered him receptive to all kinds of heretofore foreign principals, such as cleanliness, common sense, emotional vulnerability--things chicks know about and guys seem not to grasp usually.

When he's wrecked, he's no good to anyone else. He is her basket case. Her frame-up restoration project. So when she's done with him, he will be customized and suitable for her specifically. Kind of an anti-theft device to insure a one-owner status.

I was wrecked when I met Sharon. Over the years she remade me in her image (as much as is possible, I still have free will). But I willingly submitted, when I wasn't actively rebelling. I became her man, and my prior life and ideas took a back seat. She made so many positive changes in my life that I can't list them all.

I'd never have worked for Honda, or owned my own home outright. I'd probably be homeless, as the house I would have still been living in burned down in the Camp fire. I'd never have self-motivated in a million years to do any number of things that she basically "bitched me into doing." Behind every great man, there's a woman. You better believe it, baby, bitching at him and cracking the whip.

But when they go, after having formed such a deep connection and attachment, they wreck you again. Poor guy exists without a compass or navigation software. His CPU has half of its connections un-soldered, and he is once more useless to the world. His only hope is to try to keep some of those connections that were created by her, or attempt to form new ones. Good luck with that, by the way. Try rewiring your own brain with only half a brain, you'll see.

Anyway, that's me at the moment, in wreck no. 2. Whether I will succeed or fail at another reconstruction is an unknown. I may just be junkyard material at this point.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Just don't open the box, duh.

 

I despise quantum physics. I've never heard such a load of horseshit in my life. And this is science? Every time I hear about some new thing that it has supposedly proven, it is in direct violation to everyday reality. You know, the one we actually live in.

So, superposition allows for Schrodinger's cat to be alive and dead simultaneously, and only by observing it do we determine it's fate. Well, great, let the cat be alive (and dead) and never open the box to check on him. Or even better, don't put your cat in a box with some poison releasing contraption in it. Heartless bastard science guy.

So, maybe that's why we can't see God. He's everywhere as long as you don't observe Him. Once He's observed he must take on specific location. So, I'm guessing that location would be inside Schrodinger's box, dead along with the cat.

And I've watched a pot of water boil. It just seems to take longer because of the impatience factor. But you can observe the first formation of tiny bubbles all the way to a burnt pan with all the water steamed out, if you are stubborn enough.

How is it that mathematics can supposedly prove everything? Bending reality around on itself is easy if you use "complex mathematics." Complex crap, more like it. I know, I'm just a dummy. I have trouble with basic math. But I know if you take three pigeons and distribute them among two holes, someone's getting an extra pigeon.

Fuck math. And fuck quantum physics. Just call it magical fairy tales and be done with it. Shrodinger's box was a litter box, ie. fulla shit.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

All my channels are distorted except the crappy ones


This goes for my TV, but also my dream channels. I am in a bad state of mind, where everything is just slightly annoying or painful or just plain not right. I have mountains of stuff I should be doing. I feel like doing exactly none of it. Even this writing of my stupid thoughts and feelings seems tedious and unrewarding.

I don't know where to begin. It's too much work. I just want to unplug and quit.

I hate spring. Reminds me of every other false promise made by God. New life? Sharon died last spring. She hadn't been outside to see the green grass in years. The tree that went down on my fence a couple of weeks ago was just putting out new buds. It was promised spring. It was keeping its end of the deal. But now it's just firewood in a burn pile.

I can't keep up with all the things that are trying to show me that life goes on, bursting out of hibernation and reproducing like crazy. Even my own stupid dream hormones, which led to my embarrassing myself with an old high school acquaintance. I'm just an old, mangy dog that needs to go back to hiding under the deck, sleeping and dreaming of death.


Monday, March 11, 2019

I'm always surprised


In my dreams, when I see Sharon walking around, I'm always giving her shit. Like, "Hey, what do you think you're doing?" I'm always incredulous when I see her up and doing things as if she had never been disabled. I dreamed of her again last night.  Her long, flowing hair was back in all it's glory. I don't remember the main theme of the dream, but I'm hoping it comes back to me as I write down the parts I do recall.

It was something about us needing to get out of the house because of a fire. I will probably be permanently scarred from our real life experience, which was so nightmarish and horrifying. But this was not so terrible, as she was able to move around and take part in her own rescue. At some point we weren't even trying to escape, and I took her into the bedroom and made some suggestive remarks, which she didn't seem to mind.

Quite a bit of the dream was taken up with some weird property issues that had to do with outside the house, getting fire insurance and annexing part of our neighbor's house to connect to ours via an underground tunnel. Made sense in the dream. In real life, I am needing to find a new insurance company this month, as mine is dropping me.

Richard Leon, an old friend from Bible study cult days was in the cast of characters. We were sorting through boxes of old screen printed stickers, the kind of trite motivational stuff you'd see at a Christian bookstore. I remember picking up two pieces of paper that were on a note pad and lighting them on fire. As one started to burn in my hand, I went outside and released it into the wind.

"That was probably not the brightest idea," I thought to myself as the wind took it far away and up toward some trees. It had been raining, so I didn't think it would catch anything on fire. I watched as it turned blacker and floated higher in the air, eventually morphing into an evil looking black bird that flapped its wings a few times and flew away. I found a suitable metal trash can in which to burn the second paper. I wasn't going to risk that kind of thing happening again.

Well, I don't recollect much more, just an overall gladness that I had another dream with Sharon in it. Whether it is my own mind or her trying to communicate something to me, I really don't know. But I'll take it. It's all I've got.

As my life is starting to develop little tendrils of branches and roots in my emailing and reaching out to other people, I find I'm spread a little thin to be duplicating and cross documenting each and every little occurrence. I have been having a nice email correspondence with my last psychic, Jeannette. Hi, Jeannette, if you ever wind up reading this.

She's a truly compassionate listener and has also been very open about her own experiences and life. It feels like we've already become good friends. I've shared some pretty personal drama and detailed parts of my mundane but troubled life with her and gotten nothing but kind, supportive feedback. I've even directed her here, to give her access to my dark and gritty mental history and so far she hasn't expressed a desire to start choking me. I do think I tend to overshare, however. I'm quite the blabber-mouth.

I need to begin doing some actual work around the house, both inside and out. I'd like to plant a garden, but there's a lot of winter stuff to clean up, as well as the new growth of spring weeds, already making their appearance. If I'm not gonna die in the immediate term, I'd like to live in a place that's not all run down and overgrown.

Some house repairs will need to be addressed and re-addressed, as each year the weather takes it's toll on paint and wood. Spring also brings insects of all kinds and I need to prepare for battle to at least keep them from invading my living space. What they do outdoors, I don't care. My respect for all life forms doesn't extend to mosquitoes or fungus gnats, though I tend to relocate spiders rather than killing them. Unless a black widow is in my house, I will tend to just look the other way and they will disappear before I have to resort to using a broom.


Sunday, March 10, 2019

Patchy connection with early morning scattered dreams

 


I was in Chico, riding a bicycle with a CB radio on it and talking with Zookeeper, a local CBer. I could only get a brief connection with Sharon, who was at our house in Paradise, talking on the base station. Her voice came in clear, but I knew I'd never get to her with my little bicycle rig. There was an element of guilt for me, as I was out doing errands and dilly dallying in getting home, pursuing my own agenda.

Somewhere in this dream, my friend Brian, aka Bongo, aka Jethro Q. Walrustitty figured in. The dream was too thin, though and never developed a story line of any kind.

In other, anti-climatic news, my psycho message to dream girl was responded to with a "thumbs up." I guess I should consider it a win not to have generated a negative response, or worse icy silence. But my guess is there isn't the proper emogi for "thumbs up with eye-rolling and head shaking."

I'm not sure what I was hoping for, I really didn't have any thought that this would be something that would ever amount to anything. Logistics alone kind of kill it, but adding in my clearly unmarketable condition, who was I kidding? I got caught up in the feeling for a minute and went with it. Sue me.

Back to my hum-drum, boring days and scraping the empty barrel of my dreams at night.

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Dear Dream Lover


Yesterday I went ahead and did what my rational brain tells me was as big, dumb ''WTF!" and attempted to contact my dream lover in in real life though Facebook messenger. And not just to say, "Hello, hi, how'ya been?" No, I decided to tell her that I'd been dreaming of her and just how nice those dreams made me feel.

I went to sleep still anxiously waiting for a response (and kind of dreading what it might be). I put on my magic dreaming rings, Sharon and my wedding bands, and went off to dreamland. And sure enough, my real life crept into my dreams in a fashion. I was anxiously awaiting a reply from her in my dreams, also.

I was in a movie theater just milling about before the movie. I kept checking Facebook for a reply. The reply was going to be put up on the big screen, so there was going to be a bit of embarrassment if she decided to call me on the carpet for my inappropriate message. I had told someone else about it, not sure who, but they were rooting for me as we waited for the moment of truth.

Suddenly, there she is, in the theater, one row in front of me, kind of up behind a railing, with her back to me. I hear her saying something about the message that is going to show up eventually on the screen. 

I say to her, "I'm right here, you can just tell me." I brace for an avalanche of ridicule, but she turns around and extends her hand to me. 

"I really didn't know you felt that way, but I feel the same way too," she tells me, and we interlock fingers. 

I feel the same tingly magic start when this happens, and then she says, "I do think we ought to have a conversation first, though. There's so much we don't know about each other." 

But she smiles at me and it is clear that this is just a formality. She has made up her mind. She puts her arm around me, and I put mine around her as we walk around the theater, introducing one another to our friends.

My uncle was there, in a kind of job reference capacity. I was recounting to her my employment record, giving all sorts of details from the time I moved to Chico and working toward the present day. I spent an inordinate amount of time describing the screen-printing days with Uncle Steve and listening to him tell stories about why the business failed. 

"You see, a tree fell on the house where my shop was, and it took a month for the contractors to fix it. We just couldn't bounce back from that," he said. It was a total fabrication, but I let it slide.

I had forgotten that I had worked for Honda, so I kept stalling with details of my job with the mental facility in Chico, to kind of  pad the resume. Way later in the conversation it came to me in a flash, "Oh, yeah, I was a mechanic for 15 years."

It was going to be ok. We were already discussing logistics and whether I would sell my home or not. She lived in Boston, and I lived here in my same house. I was unattached to this place, I just wanted to be with her.

We went to another area of the theater and saw a bunch of kids playing. They may have been her extended family. I was watching them playing and conking each other over the head and somehow lost track of where my dream lover was. 

I eventually woke up, and here I am. Recounting last nights episode of  Dream Drama and waiting for a reply on Facebook.

---

I realize that some people never check their messages, so she may get this at Christmas time or as some other demand of her life forces her to use Messenger. When she does, there will be my oddly timed, completely unsolicited message informing her of her dream activities. Kind of a social time bomb, just waiting for a trigger. Ah, well, my life is boring. I needed to shake things up a bit.

Here's a copy of the message I sent, submitted for you to judge its inappropriate awkwardness:


"Hi, _______.

I hope this isn’t too weird for you, me messaging you privately. I know we haven’t spoken directly in 30+ years. I am kind of awkward at Facebook etiquette and am lacking in the most basic of social skills.

I’m sure that what I am about to say to you will likely come off as completely inappropriate, weird and possibly creepy. At the very least, surprising, as I have never even so much as chatted with you on FB messenger. I hope you will at least find it amusing, flattering or entertaining but not offensive.

So, I’ll get to the meat of it. I have had dreams about you. The first time was last year, during a particularly rough week when I was really feeling the need for a hug. People always talk about sending hugs and all that over the internet, but I never got them.

That is, until I had a dream of you giving me the nicest, warmest hug ever. It was one of those melty-type hugs that penetrate your entire being, give you the warm fuzzies, speed up your heart rate and in general make you feel wonderful. I actually woke up still tingling from it.

How’s that for some out of the blue, random stuff?

But wait, there’s more. A few nights ago, I dreamed of you again. It’s weird, because it’s not like I’ve been obsessing over you in my waking life. You are one of my oldest friends on Facebook, but like I said, we hardly ever interact, so I don’t know where this stuff is coming from. But I have really enjoyed these dreams. This last one was a little more R rated, but it involved the same type of hug.

Anyway, that’s my story. I had to share it with you because I’m old now, and I don’t care how foolish I may appear for going ahead and spilling my guts. It’s probably way weird to hear that someone you went to high school 30+ years ago has been having racy, steamy, dirty old man dreams about you. But there it is there. I hope you can forgive my complete lack of filtering and common sense, but who else was I gonna tell?

Sweet dreams!" 

Friday, March 8, 2019

I still can't

 


It's been nearly a year, and still I can't bring myself to sort through all of Sharon's things, or just wholesale start throwing stuff out. I am a hoarder, I guess, and I have too much attachment to all the memories that go along with the stuff. Even a scrap of paper with her writing on it will be too hard for me to part with. We gave away most of her clothes when she was still alive, so at least there's not a lot there to deal with. 

But her office is another story. It is a place that's been frozen in time, somewhere around 2008, when she was still going in there. I have to go in there once in a while to use the printer or dig something out of the filing cabinet But mostly it is a time capsule that bears witness to a whole other human life. And it has also become an NFL memorabilia storage facility.
 
I went through some old emails of hers today. Why, I don't know. But I came across some that were a familiar thorn in my side from a long time ago. I already aired this stuff out in 2009 or so, and I'm not going to go into it all again now. I'm not ready to face my own inconsistencies, and she's not around anymore to speak for herself.

It doesn't change my missing her at all. It does color in the picture of her a little more fully and makes the story of our relationship a bit more convoluted. I prefer to leave it out for now. Let's just say she was a more complex person than most gave her credit for. Jealousy was a big issue for me in the early days, not so much anymore.

If I ever need trigger my sentimental sadness, I can always go into that room and attempt to de-clutter. I always wind up engaging in what Sharon called "Aunt Carol-ing it up," which means becoming completely immobilized while attempting to clean out old stuff due to an inability to stop reminiscing over each and every little tidbit. I tried to do a little today, but wound up Aunt Carol-ing it up big time.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Some notes from the past

I haven't had any interesting dreams to report, and probing the depths of my sadness is becoming a chore. I don't trigger as easily these last few days. Frankly, I'm not happy about it. Where are you, sadness, my constant companion? Have you left me, too? Now what?

I'm going back in time, rummaging through files of paper documents. The ones I'm particularly interested in at the moment are any journal-like writings that I may have kept. I found a bunch more. I knew I would, if I dug a little deeper.

There is no coherent, cohesive record of my thoughts that spans my entire life. There are, however, scraps and tidbits that make up a mosaic and can give a picture of sorts. Kind of a glimpse through a keyhole at randomly recorded events. Some of them defy my ability to comprehend why I would have chosen to write such nonsense. Others make me wonder how I could have known then what I don't seem to be able to grasp now.

As I mentioned before, I'm consolidating and will be back dating these snapshots into this blog with the title "Journal Entry for ______." I'm trying to show some kind of chronology to my journey. God, I hate that word, "journey." Anyway, there is quite a lot of crap to go through. I wanted to do it by scanning them, but my handwriting is so atrocious that I'd be the only one to ever be able to decode it.

I may include other things, such as song lyrics, poetry, scanned artwork or even unsent personal correspondence (usually in the form of love-letters). While not journal entries per se, they provide a snapshot of whatever kind of cuckoo was going on in my head at the time.

I will not do much editing, so as to let the content be as it was intended at the time. Just the occasional paragraph break or punctuation for clarity and ease of reading. There is a lot of objectionable, disturbing and plain old dumb shit that I thought for some reason I needed to express at the time. I think the greater crime would be for me to now redact the nasty bits in order to make myself out to be something that I'm not.

It's embarrassing being me sometimes, but that's who I've gotta be.


Happy judging, critics!

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Drunken cowboys don't make good sherpas


In last night's dream travels I was in my lovely Loma Rica, thinking I'd find a more scenic road to take to on the way to Marysville. I headed north, towards Chico and then took the first road west. It was a dirt road and I didn't get too far before I decided to turn around and try a different one. The road was plenty scenic, with a nice brook flowing next to it and pretty level ground, if not the smoothest for car travel.

I got back on the road heading north and decided it was taking too long to veer in the direction I needed to go. I took the next turn-off going west. This road was more promising at the start. It was well-paved and looked like it headed directly where I wanted to go. Just one problem: there was a giant ravine, and the road made an impossibly steep descent straight down and then went straight up on the other side. It was deceptively disguised as a road, but it was one that would require a 4x4 sand rail and lot of skill to traverse.

It was one of those weird dream situations where the car you start out in quickly becomes something else to suit the terrain. I shed my Honda Fit and found myself in the necessary sand rail, gunning it to try to make it up the other side. When that became ineffective, I was briefly on a dirt bike, having the same kind of luck, spinning my tires and sliding backward in the loose dirt and gravel.

Soon I was completely without a vehicle, and was staring up a sheer rock cliff hundreds of feet straight up. I was thinking, "This might be a nice spot to go camping sometime." As I said that, I realized that I was being accompanied by Randy Mitchell, a former service writer where I used to work.

Randy, aka "the Brotherman," was a drunken wannabe cowboy in real life, and he appeared to be no different in my dream. Most notable Randy quotes from my recollection of him are:

 "Yeeeeeeee-Heeee-eeeewwww!" And "See, honey, I'm not a drunk--I'm just stupid," (a positive spin he gave to his wife, on his plowing over the septic tank lid with a tractor while disking their field at night). 

This awesome package of mostly brainless meat was going to be my guide over the last bit of rugged terrain.

Somewhere very close to the top he turned back to look down at me, possibly to wave his cowboy hat in a "Yeee-heeeew" type of gesture. And down he went, sliding on his belly for hundreds of feet, crashing against every bumpy rock on the way down. I thought he'd be dead for sure. His shirt was bloody on the front, but even worse, he didn't have his cowboy hat. He got up slowly and staggered a bit, looking stunned and scraped up, but no worse off than his usual drunken self.

"It's a good thing you're so hard-headed," I called down to him as he began the ascent again. 

"Sure am!"

He smiled up at me with the pride of a cowboy tossed off his horse, who knows full well he's gonna get right back up on that same rank horse, even before his broken bones heal up. Yep, same old stubborn bull of a man that I remembered.

I looked up and saw that I was mere feet from the top, in the same spot from which Randy had plummeted. I was feeling uneasy and beginning to lose my grip. And my white straw cowboy hat started coming off my head. I finagled it back onto my head, preventing it from slipping off into oblivion. I looked down and realized there was no way I'd be going back down there to get it if it did fall off.

I felt safe enough in that spot if I didn't move and was leery of letting go of my grip on the rocks. I somehow felt confident, though, that I could make it the rest of the way, if I took the risk. I was ninety-eight percent of the way up the incredibly steep hill, looking down on my Terminator of a cowboy sherpa as he was tenaciously making his way back up.

I opted out of the dream at that point. I got up to pee and I was never able to re-enter that dream. Later I have a vague recollection of Sharon and I discussing the field capacity of vermiculite, using less awkwardly technical terms. She was trying to tell me that "the pea gravel shouldn't be this wet" and was wringing it out in her hands. I couldn't extract any more information from her, though, and woke up knowing I had overslept.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Dream lover

 


**content advisory--may include adult themes and implicit content which could become explicit content if you use your dirty, filthy imagination**

If I'm going to be consistent in cataloging my dreams, this one goes in the category of explicit sex dreams. Remember, in dreams you get a free pass and can do whatever you like without guilt. Go ahead and sue me for enjoying it. If this kind of content is too racy or offends your sensibilities, I suggest you tune out now. But of course you won't, now, will you? I've only made it that much more tantalizing.

I've dreamed of this person before. We went to high school together. She was a very attractive blonde punk that had short hair and may have worn braces for a time. Whatever the case, her teeth are perfectly straight now, and the braces never detracted from the schoolboy crush that I had on her at the time. To be honest, if you were female and even just spoke to me during those years there was a good chance I'd develop one of those crushes on you. Hormones.

In real life we were fairly good friends, but nothing ever happened between us (to my disappointment). We were both dating different people, if you can call what I was doing dating. I called it being a big ol' slut. We went to parties and punk gigs and hung around the same circle of friends. At one point, after high school, we even considered getting an apartment together with one of her girlfriends, Anne. That's one derailed timeline that I still wonder about. What would have happened had the apartment manager not prevented our "Three's Company" scenario from becoming a reality?

I better get to the dream pretty soon, I'm already forgetting details. I'll mention that my prior dream of her was recent, within the last year. That was a nice dream, too. We were lying next to one another, looking in each other's eyes and engaged in a full body hug. The kind that makes you feel completely alive and fills you with energy right down to your toes. Where you are fully wrapped around and entwined with them, feeling every nuance. I was pretty happy with that dream because I really could have used one of those hugs at the time. I still could.

So, last night I was in some situation where the arrangement was that I was to be sleeping with her. I'm using the term in its most literal, basic sense. Blankets, sheets, bedding--I was responsible for creating the atmosphere to make for a nice comfy night's sleep. I was enjoying the job of putting pillows under her head and various aspects of getting ready for bed, up to and including picking out her nightwear (or removing it).

The dream lost its "R" rating at that point, but I wouldn't say it was a complete porno. I did begin, ahem, doing things to her, which she didn't protest. Licking and biting various body parts, I was thrilled with the idea that this was "finally gonna happen." Of course that only guaranteed that I would wake up before it did. But, as in the body hug dream, I was most enchanted by the feeling I got from running my fingers along her vertebrae. It was perfection, making the other, more gratuitous acts seem almost unnecessary.

Now I'm having scheming thoughts as to how I might arrange to get my fingers around her back, however innocently, in real life. Would the pleasure I would get from a simple hug be embarrassingly obvious? Have I finally achieved "dirty old man" status? Perhaps, I could warn her in advance that if she hugs me, I might really enjoy it. Kind of a pre-hug disclaimer. Maybe put it on a t-shirt with my mug shot, "Don't hug this guy, he might like it."

I don't think Sharon would mind. When I had the first dream, I felt that somehow she was responsible for directing the content. I don't know how, but I feel that she is able to use people, in dreams and in real life, like temporary avatars, to communicate her wishes to me. And I think she wants for me to feel these things again.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Quite the mess

 


I want to cry, but can't. I would love to laugh or feel anything, but it's impossible. I am just a waste of human flesh, sitting here day after day. I guess this freedom to do anything or nothing has left me in a place where nothing appeals to me any more. Even doing nothing is unappealing.

I got my taxes done last week. That was my accomplishment for the week. It made me cry, of course, to do that without Sharon. It was her big thing. Her year long activity that she both hated and enjoyed. Saving receipts, keeping a spreadsheet, deducting every little thing--she was a great fan of squeezing every penny we could get out of that refund. I used Turbo Tax and did it all in couple of hours, only getting the standard deduction this time.

I also renewed my driver's license. I had to go in to the DMV to take an eye exam and have my picture taken. Making an appointment seemed to have had no effect on my wait time. All DMVs are located in places where the properties of time are far different from anywhere else on the planet. Time oozes slowly and thickly. The more intently focused you are on getting it to speed up, the more it slows down, almost reversing direction at times. The clerks seem unaffected by it, as perhaps a sloth doesn't realize that its movements are incredibly slow to the average observer.

I suppose my life is equally as boring, when viewed by any normal person. It has been raining all week, so even my daily walks have been curtailed. Sleep is my only refuge, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. I can't sleep without doing damage to my eyes, neck or rib cage. My body simply needs more activity than I am giving it and protests when I spend too much time horizontal.

At least the birds are enjoying the hell out of the 2 dollar feeder and wild bird seed that I got for them. It is quite the hub of activity these days. Life wants to live and eat and reproduce, it seems, and I just want to go to sleep.

The wild bunch -- camping in the apocalypse

 


I dreamed I was camping, homeless style, at a seedy area of the lake nearby my house. I say camping, but it was more like an extended survival foraging excursion. It was imperative that I remain incognito, to avoid being robbed by other scavengers.

I saw a familial group of particularly rowdy transients across the road from my location. I crawled on my belly to the top of a sand dune for a closer look. They were all half naked and engaged in various non-consensual sex acts. It looked brutal and violent, like a cross between a game of football and a scene from Dante's Inferno. The men were tackling and raping one another while an attractive, sooty-faced woman who was clearly their leader looked on.

I scampered down the sand dune, hoping I'd remained unseen by these hooligans. That was all I needed, to give away my location and perhaps risk bringing their attention to my camp. I packed up and headed for my home base. I had a group of trusted people staying on what I considered to be my property who were all charged with protecting the place from invaders. They weren't going to like what I was about to tell them.

"We need to expect visitors soon," I said, "And they are a lawless bunch. We have to be ready for anything." 

I got the reaction I expected as we all sat around discussing our options in a round table format. We could pack up and move. We could try to fight them off. We could attempt to negotiate. Or we could wait and do nothing and hope they didn't find us.

The last option turned out to be unsuccessful, and we soon found ourselves sitting eyeball to eyeball with their brazen leader at our round table. She was a fearsome presence and a very intimidating negotiator, if you could even call it negotiating. I got the impression that if we didn't give in to her demands, we would all be killed or worse. She gave you the feeling that she could create any number of  scenarios that would make even death seem the more palatable option.

I was spared ever finding out. I woke up to the security of my relatively safe, if boring, life of isolation. But who knows if there's a wild bunch like that out there right now, beyond my gates, planning an invasion?


Saturday, March 2, 2019

Was that you? And where is Steve Clark?

 
Once again, I dreamed you were still alive. But the dream was a bit of  a regression. You were alive and in an ill condition, in bed for the most part. You were being pretty critical of me and telling me you couldn't stand hearing my guitar playing. You were also being kind of demanding, requesting that I do this or that, firing off your orders in rapid succession. I was reacting poorly, as per usual, and experienced the anger starting up.

But at some point, I remembered that you had died and how I should be glad to just have you back. So, I dropped whatever I was doing and ran into the bedroom. I saw that you had been crying, and I wiped the tears from your face and kissed you and hugged you.

In some other part of the dream, you were outside walking or standing on the grass near a sidewalk. Clearly you shouldn't have been able to walk, so I told you, "Should you you be doing that?" I went to grab you to help support you, and you collapsed like a stack of wet noodles. Never question someone doing something miraculous in a dream, it usually spoils everything.

Then, back in the house and still in a bedridden state, you'd somehow become aware of mold growing on the ceiling of a closet. You pointed it out to me, "See, this is what I'm talking about. Stuff like that!" 

I noted that it had obviously been a part of the house for a long time, because the previous owners had even built a drain pipe inside the closet to direct what appeared to be a chronic water incursion.

Later on in the dream, with you still in bed making lists of things for me to do, I was in another room talking on the CB. I was attempting to be my annoying, disruptive self, keying up and preventing others from talking just for spite. Then I heard a loud amount of bleedover from another channel. It had to be my neighbor, Tow Jam.

I couldn't ever tune him in, but in the process of searching for him I heard someone say "KFI," the handle of someone I presume to now be deceased. I called for him and he actually responded. He was having a conversation, "shooting skip," with someone in another state. I heard him sign off, "
KFI, aka Steve Clark."

I had to tear myself away from the CB at that point because you were calling for me from the bedroom, and I had to bring you some of the stuff on your list.

Friday, March 1, 2019

Robert Smith can't draw (or unlatch a gate)


 

As trivial as they may be, I'm still trying to document all my dreams.

Last night I was graced by a visit from the lead singer of The Cure. He looked like he did in the '80s, not today's hagged-out version. He had a friend with him, who I presumed was a part of his entourage. His friend was very short and had curly red hair.

This Robert Smith fellow thought a lot more of himself than I did. I wasn't even sure of who he was until I looked him up on the internet. For some reason he was in my dining room, showing me his pen and paper art sketches. He was making a big deal about how valuable they were. I told him I thought they were average.

But he couldn't let it go. He proceeded to argue with me over their merit. I remained entrenched and kept insisting that he was a talentless hack who couldn't even draw a decent cartoon. He became very mad and said, "Well, I was going to give them to you, but now I'm taking them back!"

"Oh, no you aren't," I grabbed them, and we struggled with them, bending and tearing them in the process.

I ordered him to leave. He and his little red headed friend slunk off down the driveway toward my front gate. I could see he was struggling to figure out the chain latch and surmised that he'd be coming back up the driveway fuming, so I went down and met him at the gate. I had to show him how a dog snap operates. He was unappreciative and drove off in an old gray pickup truck.

I latched the gate and began to lecture Jere (who somehow happened to be there) about the correct way to latch a gate. Apparently, she had left a gap that was big enough for Robert Smith and his little friend to enter through. And we can't have THAT happening again. I then spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out some way to hot wire the fencing so as to avoid any future uninvited visitors.