The Mountain Comes to Mohammed

 

If you can't get the disabled guy to go to work, bring the job to him, I guess was the message of last night's dream. I was living at home, in my poorly maintained, yet somewhat functional kingdom. People were bending over backwards to try to keep me "in the mix" with regard to my automotive career.

Oh. Wait. Breaking news. Sharon was there, too. Let's backtrack and see what I remember.

Sharon was there with me in my new life as a disabled ranch monarch, complete with all the kingly accoutrements that I currently enjoy, mainly: a quad and lots of time and land to do with whatever I chose. She wanted in on the fun. She fired up the quad and started doing some exotic 4 wheeling, taking it up muddy banks, nearly flipping it and generally causing me worry.

"Look, honey, I'm all for you doing impossible feats for fun, but take it easy with the laws of physics, would ya?" 

She was supposed to still be disabled, and here she was doing things that were clearly outside the realm of normal, functional reality. While I disapproved, I was still quite happy with the idea that we were finally getting to have that fun she always wanted.

We toyed with the idea of me doing some side work for a neighbor, who had a small automotive shop. I would do as little as possible, to avoid not being considered "able-bodied," which in my mind I still was not. I had dug myself into a bit of a pit of disability, both mentally and physically. 

But the idea intrigued me, so we were working on some kind of weird dispatch intercom to connect my house and the neighbor's service drive. I was in the process of getting this whole thing started when Yuba City Honda came calling.

A new, red Honda Mark III pickup truck was delivered to my address for PDI. For those who don't know, PDI stands for pre-delivery inspection. As a dealership mechanic, it is the holy grail of gravy jobs. Look a new car, test drive it and sign off on some paperwork. Nothing to it. 

And because the corporation is serious about quality control, it actually pays pretty well. And because techs are essentially greedy and lazy, and the cars are pretty much flawless, there isn't much to do but try to rake in as many PDIs as one could. Money for nothin'.

Still, it is a responsibility that requires a certified technician to sign off on it. As a semi-retired, disabled ex-technician, I had let all my certifications expire. So I had a lot of preliminary catching up to do, before I just started back pumping out the PDIs. 

But they clearly wanted me in the game, so they were willing to wait for me to get back up to speed. That's why they just sent me the one shiny new truck: to whet my appetite for gravy.

The truck was delivered with a shipment of other cars, from which I could pick and choose. A Toyota and some Korean off brand car, below the status of a Kia, were among them. Some were new and some were used cars. 

I disdained them all and looked strictly at the Hondas. There was this pickup and also an extremely exotic prototype sports car, but the powers that be ordained that I wasn't ready for the sports car yet. I'd have to get started on the new Mark III. 

The license plate read I III III III, which seemed odd, even in the dream. Honda doesn't make a pickup called the Mark III, but that didn't seem odd at all, as new stuff is always being introduced every year.

Sharon was a part of all of this, cheering me on and advising me in the background, doing her usual job of encouraging me and pointing out pitfalls that I should be aware of. Once again, the pull of responsibility was making it clear that, since I wasn't dead, there was meaningful work that I could do. 

If I couldn't go to the dealership, the dealership would come to me. It was part of ADA requirements, so their hands were tied. I was gonna be their token disabled technician, even if they had to bring the cars to my house and just feed me gravy jobs.

---

I woke up. And it's earlier than I wanted to be awake. But I can't go back to dreamland now. There's too much work waiting for me back there that I'm trying to avoid. Whatever happened to dreams being an escape from all that? At least I wasn't dreaming about doing my taxes like Sharon used to do so often. 

I would like to go back and see what other trouble Sharon is getting into with the quad, though. When she nearly flipped it, and I had to come bail her out, she was giggling and scheming to do it again.  It was reminiscent of the time she flipped her power wheel chair on a dirt mound in our back pasture and called for me to rescue her. She was mad, frightened, indignant and composed--and laughing--all at the same time.

Gotta love a chick that's always pushing the envelope, and my buttons, as well.

Post script: 10:45 PM. It was a very low energy day today. After 1 day of higher than normal activity today, I was pretty much immobile all day. No walk, minimal exercise indoors, zero accomplishments other than checking the mail.

I ordered some supplements online. 3 different ones targeting mood, energy and overall health. They are ashwagandha, maca and rhodiola extracts. Google them if you want, I did. I'm not convinced they will help me, but possibly I'll get to feeling a little better, and I'll get myself out of my resistant funk. They are all supposed to reduce cortisol levels and remediate damage caused by stress. 

I'm going to drink some ashwagandha with my chamomile tea before bed, as it has a more sedative effect. The rhodiola is more of an upper, so I'll try that out in the morning. 

The Wheel of Me

 

Round and round and round she goes...I feel like a roulette wheel of emotion. Just your two basic colors, red or black, red being anger and black being sadness. Rage against the universe or recoil in despair. My two responses to everything in life. Oh, sure there's double zero, green, but that's as rare as snow in the desert.

I'm finding that anger is a much more productive reaction than the listless melancholy that I've been so endeared to. 

"Hate is good. Hate keeps a man alive, 41," as the slave driver said to Ben Hur, in the classic slave ship scene. 

I get more done in a day when I'm fed up and disgusted with something, and it gets me pissed enough to actually do something about it. I hated on the snails, so now I get up and religiously persecute them. It just bugged me enough to break the cycle.

Next, I had to get after the weeds in front of my house. My street frontage would be a fire hazard if I let them grow willy-nilly. I had a bit of spare energy left over from the snail killing, so I thought I'd tackle a chunk of real estate. 

It takes more than one day for me to accomplish anything; I'm not the whirlwind that I was ten years ago. But I managed to get a little done yesterday and a little more today. It has to be done, and I can't pay someone to do it for me, so I don't care if it takes me all summer.

First snails, then weeds. It's a slippery slope being the guy that kills things. I killed a spider in the bathroom with very little remorse. I'll let daddy long legs live, but this guy was an unknown brown spider. 

Sorry, but it's getting to be a "them or me" world, and I don't want to get bitten in the middle of the night because some arachnid isn't honoring the non-aggression pact. I still feel bad that it has to be this way.

It would be nice if I could do my chores and the necessary tasks in life without having to adopt an evil attitude or be fueled by anger. But I'll take what I can get right now. My energy level has been so low; at least it's something. 

But please don't tell me I'm "cured" or start the hallelujahs just yet. Tomorrow's another day, and I'll see where the spin of the wheel takes me when I get there.

Infinity Morning

 

Someday, after a long night's fitful, tossing and turning, of trying to get comfortable, but only for a moment, of waiting for the inevitable dreadful grey light through the window shade--I will awaken to infinity's dawn.

It will be a day of endless possibility, for all the clocks will be broken, and time will stand still. Birds will sing, but not so loudly as to disturb this perfect moment. 

The magical smell of pancakes will permeate my olfactory glands, wafting in from a place where breakfast awaits me. Golden rays of sunlight will beam their good intentions across my face, and I'll smile for the hope of a new day.

I'll see you and you'll smile and ask, "What do you want to do today?"

We'll walk out the front door together into the vibrant forever green of a spring morning that stretches into infinity. We'll be who we are, but not who we were, for all those things were just fragments of dreams we won't remember. 

We'll shine and sparkle with the sun, never growing tired or weary, for those ideas won't exist. With the boundless exuberance of children, we'll walk, bounce and fly from one adventure to the next, always arriving home in time for lunch.

This is the day that never ends, because it never begins. It's the day my eyes won't open anymore in this world and my body will stay on the couch, lifeless. I won't need it, I'll have a new one. 

This world and its cares will go on, and my body will eventually be discovered and disposed of. Possessions will be sold, and new people will move in. As calendar pages turn, all kinds of things I never intended will be done with my house and things, and I won't care. 

There will be a slow dissolve from my previous life's dream to my awakening into my new reality, and thoughts of my past life, with all its trouble, will fade.

It is coming. I may as well imagine a good version of it. If hell is created by thought, then perhaps heaven is, too.

Buttons

How did all my buttons get disconnected and re-wired to only trigger sadness? I can think of a million things and get the same reaction: 

"How sad!"

I was out walking, and I thought of my boots, the ones I bought last year to keep my feet from getting wet when I would walk through the wet grass. I had spent an inordinate amount of time in Big 5 only to come home empty-handed and frazzled. Nothing seemed like the perfect balance of comfort, cost and waterproof (my new requirement).

I told Sharon about my dilemma and she was full of wisdom, as always. "Spend as much money as you need to, that's what it's for."

I eventually found some boots at Walmart at a decent price that filled out all my requirements. But I was still one to look at the downside. Even if I had the perfect footwear for going for walks, and even if I actually went walking, what would my stupid brain be thinking of? I had a whole list of problems at the time, things that could distract me from seeing the Grand Canyon, even if it were right there in front of me.

Sharon again had the answer, "You're going to think about how those boots are keeping your feet nice and dry."

Now, I think about her saying that to me and it makes me sad. Because only she ever cared enough to poke around inside my messed up head and try to get me to see something differently. I've walked through plenty of wet grass since then, and each time I think about how nice and how dry my feet are staying. But I also think about my life coach, Sharon, and how much I miss her. No one ever has or ever will understand me to the degree that she did.

So, when I look down at my boots, I think, "Here's me, in these boots, no one knows or cares about me." 

The same goes for my sensible Wrangler jeans, my black t-shirt, my black Green Bay cap and my orange safety vest (she bought me that, of course, so I wouldn't get run over on the road). 

I'm out on a walk, trying to do the responsible thing and exercise, get fresh air and all that. But what's going on in my in my head is blocking 90 percent of the benefits. I'm just dying of my own patheticness. I'm "failing to thrive," because every single thing I encounter just brings me back to melancholy.

Once again, I've inadequately described this feeling of mine. This feeling of how a picture perfect day, with puffy clouds, birds singing and frogs and crickets giving it their all, with babies in strollers dressed up in cute little jumpers and everyone's face so full of hope--how all that can devastate me and make me a bawling basket case. 

We all step out, put our best foot forward, wake up with good intentions of a happy day. But so vulnerable are we, so unaware when we put on that happy outfit, that we can't possibly know what tragedy is just around the corner or has possibly already occurred, awaiting our discovery.

It is the sadness of identity. "This is me! Here's what I'm about! I like this or that, dress this way, hold this opinion. I'm someone! Love me!" And my heart wants to open to all of that. To love each and every thing, because it exists. Because it has an identity. 

I want everything to be ok for all time, to stay new, to not die or break down or have a bad day or frown. I want everything to be perfect, even in its sad, not so perfect, but uniquely individual state. But it's not. 

Puppies and kittens will have troubles, a little kid will cry at his birthday party, everywhere there is trauma. An ice cream cone will be dropped. A man will be irritated in a parking lot somewhere. There is no perfect day, ever.

So where do I change out these glasses for rose colored ones? And how do I re-wire my door bell to play Star Wars? I'm tired of seeing the bad in everything. Are there acupuncture needles that can penetrate my skull?

I don't know how Sharon put up with me for so long. I guess being bedridden and unable to leave had something to do with it. She told me many times of how she longed to be rid of me, but stubborn me wouldn't let her go. Then it became impractical, then impossible for her to leave. She had to leave this earth in order to get away from me. 

Yeah, there's no one that's ever going to care for me like I am only, most likely, imagining that she did. She was as tired of me as everyone else, she was just stuck with me.

And now it's just me that's stuck with me. I wonder if that will end when I leave this earth, or if I'll be my same sorry-ass self in the afterlife and beyond?

Need someone more stubbornly positive than I am negative

 

I guess I've given the impression that I might consider life to be worth living or that, for better or worse, I'm having a go at it. Not hardly. 

A hamster might look like he's having fun on that little wheel, but it's the desperation of boredom, not some thrill of movement or sense of accomplishment, that fuels his the little routine. And, sure, his tiny version of consciousness may allow him to be distracted by the one allotment of activity given to him by his benevolent captors. 

Likewise, I'm just making use of the small elements of comfort available to me in my particular prison.

The fact that I'm here, most days, complaining about the way things are, must indicate that I haven't given up, though, right? If I just lay down and die, shut up and give in to the process by which all life must terminate, will that be the proof you need? 

The fact that, although drowning, I keep taking a gulp of air once in a while, shouldn't give the impression that all is well, and the rescue party should be called off. 

"He's ok, he's just water camping. He'll be aight. Why look, he just cared about something right there. He looked up the correct spelling of the ghetto hipster version  of 'alright.' He's fine."

I need someone to yell at me. To argue with me, but not just throwing platitudes at me without backing their shit up. I need these arguments to be strong and convincing. What the fuck is so all fired great about life? Why should I be elated and not disgusted by it? 

Give me your best positive motivational reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Snails in the garden isn't cutting it. I'm looking for something that is a little less "if you don't do this, then worse things will happen" and more along the lines of "this feels good, this is what life is all about."

So, whomever is going to be my sparring partner must understand that I take my job of devil's advocate seriously. I will shoot holes in all your wonderful arguments. And as fast as you patch the holes in your flawed apologetic of life's basic worth, I will look for cracks in the patching material, subvert the adhesive in your duct-taped vessel and try to sink your battleship. 

I am alive, but I don't think I can be convinced that this is such a good thing. I beg, I defy you to prove otherwise.

But I suppose that since I've given up on happiness and myself in general, I am not worth the effort for some outside entity to come in and try to salvage. I mean, who in the world would sign up for a job like that? 

Even for a paid career motivational counselor, I'd be looked upon as an outlier, a troublemaker and one to be banned at the gate. The disclaimer "unless you want to help yourself, I can't help you" would be invoked, to insure that I don't dilute their success ratio with my resilient depression.

Sharon was the greatest opponent that I ever had, but life kind of proved my argument by taking her. The fact that she played the game so valiantly, right up until the end, doesn't prove that the game is worth the candle, only that she believed that it was. Stubbornly and fiercely, calmly and rationally, right up until the very last minute. 

But death won anyway. It always wins. So, I guess I don't have anything to prove. The proof is all right there in the pudding. And the pudding is poop.

Ultimately, it's all poop. The winners are the life forms that feed on poop, like worms and bacteria. Is that the positive rebuttal? I can't wait to see how wonderful the world of bacterial parasites is, as compared to this human existence. Will they have TV shows and omelets? Do their feelings get hurt? Any existential angst in the world of decomposers? I'm literally dying to find out.

Thanks a lot, Eddie

 

No, really, I mean it. You were most likely trying to help, if it was you that knocked the beer glass off of the shelf. And if it wasn't you, then thank you, Sharon's ghost, or who or whatever kinetic force decided it was time to try initiate in me more than the cursory weekly skim job that passes for housekeeping. 

Someone had in mind to try to break me of my little old man hoarding ways, and what better way to start, than to toss a glass on the tile floor. Throw down the gauntlet. Let the examination of all things accumulated begin. Here, I'll start for ya...smash.

No. Sorry, guys. I'm not gonna buy into it. And leave my Precious alone, you!

Then there's the story about the enlightened guy who says this:

“Do you see this glass?” he asked us. “I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. Yet for me, this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”

Easier to copy and paste than to summarize, sorry. Easy come, easy go, sure. Whatever works for you, zen dude. But the idea that all my precious shit is already burned up in a fire or destroyed in an earthquake just makes me more likely to be a hoarder and cling sentimentally to my accumulated junk.  I'm probably gonna need that cataclysm pretty soon, or I'm never gonna even vacuum the dust in the corners.

Nice try, though. I did wind up clearing a nice spot on the window sill for the cats to gaze out on the back deck. They had been prevented from doing that for years, because I used the space to store stuff. So your little tantrum, or whatever it is that happened, did gain you that little concession. Keep smashing stuff, maybe I'll be forced to clean some other areas, and you'll gain even more valuable cat real estate.

To be fair, I didn't actually see the cat do it. She's just my go-to scapegoat. And I only blame her and not the fat one, because the fat one rarely does anything, like, at all. I could be dealing with a poltergeist that really hated that beer glass; one never knows.

Alternate timelines, quantum physics and the nature of reality

 

*crickets*

Yeah, I got nothing. It was a thought that evaporated before it even got warm enough to make a proper cup of tea. Vanished, like a--like...oh, crap, my metaphor machine ain't workin' tonight. It vanished like... like, something that vanishes. And, you know, then it's gone. Like THAT, ok? 

Shit, I'm tired. It's been a long day. I was all set to explain the nature of existence in all its fascinating detail, but the concept proved too much for my minuscule specimen of a brain. I know when I'm licked. Goodnight.

---

Oh, and what is a quantum vacuum? And could I benefit from owning a quantum vacuum cleaner? The latest theory on how the universe came from "nothing" is now that it sprung from a quantum vacuum, operating within the familiar domain of space time. 

I'm not gonna try to convince myself that I understand even the fundamentals of any of these theories beyond hearsay interpretations of a book that I never read. But evidently, "nothing" doesn't mean nothing after all. It means a quantum vacuum.

So, in describing this quantum vacuum...does it have a HEPA filter? What size is the dust reservoir? Does it need to be plugged in? And where would one plug it in, anyway, since the whole universe is going to need to exist in order to for there to be an electrical outlet somewhere. Would it need a special quantum outlet, you know, like the self-existing vacuum?

Why does adding the word "quantum" to everything lend supposed legitimacy to an impossible koan, as if the apparent inconsistencies in our understanding of the deepest mysteries of life can easily cleared up by appending the word quantum to any area that requires a bit more 'splaining?

Try it at parties, you are sure to impress. That guacamole tastes a bit off. It's probably quantum-guacamole, existing slightly outside of our precise physical dimension, but not quite far enough outside of it so as to actually disappear from perception. Just enough to alter the taste. Damn quantum fluctuations, always fucking with the taste of our hors d'oeuvres.

And by all means, stick with your original timeline. That's the ticket. Don't keep flipping the damn channels. Anything else and you are just practicing escapism,  of which there really isn't such a thing, anyway. All the music must be faced eventually. 

Putting things off indefinitely won't work. Indefinitely always rolls around. If you get stuck in a time loop, it can be hell, but hell can always be escaped from. It only takes a thought, and you are on your way. Where? Who knows. That's the whole idea.

A bird and a snake

 

Eat like a bird, move like a bird. Eat like a snake, move like a snake. Birds peck and fly, stick and move, always in motion. A little snack here or there, to keep the gas tank with the appropriate amount of fuel to enable easy flight, but no more. Not too many fat birds, unless you count chickens and the like. And these guys rarely take flight for more than a few seconds. And they frequently wind up as dinner for a faster moving fox or even a properly motivated human.

Snakes, on the other hand, do very little in a day. They conserve as much energy as possible and wait for the opportune moment to strike and kill their prey. They will then consume it whole and be incapacitated by the digestive process for hours, even days. Consume all your calories for the month and then just lay around absorbing the nutrients.

I'm typically more of a snake (could you guess?) But on the rare occasions that I combine my 2 favorite mood enhancers, caffeine and cannabis, I become a bird. The food to activity ratio becomes much more in tune with the actual need of the moment. A bite here or there, and off I go to the next activity. 

It makes me flighty, flitty and prone to fits of ADHD/OCD. I would love to live that way all the time; it's far more entertaining and engaging. 

It is unsustainable, however, using drugs as a mechanism to switch over my fuel trim programming. Its effect on the cognitive process has a sharp peak in its positive effect, followed by a lingering and cumulative "stupid" effect. It's like magic, but you have to use it sparingly, or it will consume you.

Right now, I'm trying to harness the magic by playing something on the guitar. I'm not recording, so there will be no proof as to whether I'm enlightened or impaired. I feel a little of both, so soon I will have to utilize the remaining magic to clean my house in a mindful manner. That is before the mindfulness falls away, and I return to the mindlessness of my robotic, unconscious cleaning routine. 

At the end of the day there will be not much to show for my expenditure of magic and motivation. The house will be a little cleaner and my mind a little messier. My overall happiness level still will remain unchanged.

And I'll turn back into a snake.

Video Game

 

I dreamed that Sharon, Chris Knoll and myself were in an apartment situation, kinda the same dynamic as when he was here. He was helping with Sharon, who was ill and requiring more care than I could properly give her. 

In the dream, there was this video game which was required to be played faithfully, or the little pesky parasites, which were nothing more than little self-replicating red dots, would multiply and escape the confines of the video game and make their way into 3 dimensional reality.

We all had to take shifts to keep up with the waves of new creatures that would pop up. One particularly nasty incarnation was the wave of snail like aliens that began to develop as a result of letting things go for too long in between sessions. You didn't have to play the game constantly, but the longer you waited, the more complex the enemies were that you had to face.

I'm glad I'm awake. It was not much comfort having Sharon and Chris there, as the responsibility for killing all those invaders wasn't being shared equally. There was a constant state of uneasy vigilance that had to be maintained. I wanted to keep sleeping, but it was making me more tired.

Weird violent pot dream

 

Chico was a town much like your normal college town, post marijuana legalization. With the exception of one restaurant's kitchen policy, anarchy reigned supreme. Pot was being smoked everywhere, and people were gallivanting about unheeding of most traffic laws. 

The one restaurant in question was a pot bar, of all things, but they maintained a strict policy of no walking through the kitchen by anyone other than kitchen staff. It sounds reasonable enough now, but in the dream they were having a hell of a time with people trying to "run the gauntlet" to get from the dining area to the bar by going through the narrow strip of heavily defended territory.

I found myself being turned back after walking past the bright orange cones. I received the standard warning: 

"First time. No problem. Second time we toss you out. Third time, there won't be a third time. We will shoot you before you cross the first cone." 

Sheesh, I just wanted to get to the bar, so I could use the can.

People in the bar were rolling joints with papers about a foot long. I decided to use some standard size Zig Zags and rolled a joint suitable for traveling. It was on my little walkabout that I encountered an out of control person who had a bit of an "accident." 

Already deranged, presumably from all the pot use going on, this guy had gotten himself banged on the head pretty good and was acting like a wild animal and alternately attacking people and crashing into things uncontrollably. One thing led to another, and he found himself dead at my hands.

This was an uncomfortable situation for me, having just killed a man. It was still frowned upon, and questions were going to be asked. I decided the body must be gotten rid of. 

The incident occurred in a shipping and receiving area of the restaurant, so I suggested that the body first be stashed in a drainage pipe in the bathroom. He would fit right in this strangely appropriately sized compartment and we could decide what to do next. My unknown cohorts and I were not thrilled about having to come back later, but it was all we could think of.

Some time in the future, I was still wondering about the body. I was in a class with the other co-conspirators and somehow or another the body had been retrieved and parceled out into random boxes to be shipped via a private trucking company. One particular box was labeled especially to go to a specific place and it was highly critical that it get there. 

Many traffic laws were violated and class rules flaunted in the process of my arriving at the truck to confirm that the label was indeed correct. You know, driving on the wrong side of the freeway, and sitting in other than your assigned seat, those kind of rules.

That's about the sense of it. Not much. Drug use, violence and rebellion. Your typical teenage wilding drama, but with a little guilt thrown in. I was pretty conscientious about the shipping label.

The Omelet and other matters

Every day, after waking up and decimating the snail population in my backyard, I will do my minimal exercise routine while watching Perry Mason. First things first, though. Snails have to die. I walk around with a bucket of salt and collect the wandering seedling parasites from my garden and wherever else I may see them. Then, satisfied that my sunflowers might survive another day, I go back inside and do my pushups, situps and jumping jacks.

This goes relatively quickly, it's just maintenance, after all. I'm trying to not lose the ability to get up out of bed in the morning, although there's not really much I'm getting out of bed for. Necessity, I guess. The necessities of life such as food and, well, that's about it, are located in the kitchen and need to be prepared by me each and every day.

The omelet is the pinnacle of my achievements most days. It is a tasty creation containing the following ingredients:

1/3 chopped bell pepper (colors may vary--red, orange, green)
1/3 chopped white onion
1-2 mushrooms (depending on size)
3 eggs
spices include thyme, cumin, ground cloves, turmeric, fresh ground peppercorns, Worcestershire sauce

These will be stirred in a bowl and fried on both sides in a covered stainless steel frying pan. Adequate pan spray is used to avoid sticking.

After flipping, the omelet is garnished with a few chopped leaves of kale and topped with a slice of cheddar cheese then removed from heat and covered to allow the kale and the cheese to soften. 

As the omelet finishes in the pan, I heat some water for my peppermint tea. I also toast the bread for my avocado/cilantro/garlic toast, served with a tablespoon size pat of butter. I use 1/4 of an avocado, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro and 3 cloves of minced, raw garlic to top the whole grain, organic bread.

While the water is boiling and the omelet cools to the point which allows for easy sliding from the pan, I will play with the cats for a moment or two in the bedroom. Then, as time permits, I'll shoot a few tin cans from the front porch with my BB gun. It only takes a a few minutes to eliminate the targets, and then I go back inside and assemble the toast and omelet combination in my all purpose wooden food bowl.

If this were a cooking blog, I would probably go into much more detail about the length of time required for each side of the egg/veggie mixture to cook, the precise measurement of the spices and the best technique for mastering the all important flip of the omelet in the pan. I'd leave out the details of my snail extermination ritual and my exercise routine, as they are irrelevant. But it's not a cooking blog, so they stay. And you'll just have to guess at the specific details by which the most successful omelet result is achieved.

The breakfast is consumed, guess where, yep, you got it--in front of the TV. So after 45 minutes of cooking, I eat the food in about 15 minutes. Then I take another 20 minutes or so to finish my tea. By the time all this is done, my program will be over, and I'll be contemplating what to do with my day, which is already half over.

Brush my teeth. Wash the wooden bowl. Wander around the house. Settle back down in the chair. I'm pooped. I haven't done anything and I'm already scheming on taking a nap. 

But it is too soon. So, I pacify my conscience with the trivial project of transcribing my paper journal and writings to digital format. I get discouraged because I'm finding that they have less intelligent content than I had imagined when I originally composed them. 

I pick up a guitar and play the same wilting (yes, wilting, not lilting) chord progression that I've been working on for weeks. It sounds tired and out of tune. I give up. It's been a waste of an hour at most.

Now, it's time for my mid-afternoon snack of 1/2 granny smith apple, 1 oz slice of cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup of chopped celery, a handful of dried cranberry raisins, 1/4 cup of mixed almonds, walnuts and pumpkin seeds, which I will eat while watching the Rifleman on MeTv.

After a nap (it is exhausting, the less you do in a day) I will feed the dog and then go for my walk. It is going to be my only activity so I make it count. One hour, no exceptions. Except for rain, wind, extreme heat or cold, or wildfire smoke...you get the picture. But, in all other cases, unless I have plans to go somewhere, I will be walking sometime between 6:30 and 7:30pm Pacific Daylight Savings Time.

My salad is so boring, I really don't want to talk about it. How do you make a bowl full of prewashed spring mix greens, half a cucumber, a roma tomato, six olives, three cloves of minced garlic, a sprinkle of parmesan and a dash of olive oil, topped with a 4 oz. re-heated chicken breast sound exciting? Moving on.

I'll eat dinner watching the TV show of choice, from whatever I am able to download. I've watched quite a few over the years, so it's pointless to try to list them. Some I purposefully avoid, but I won't go into that, either. I will get to the part, however, where at 11:00 pm I will make sure that I am seated in my chair (not too hard to guarantee, statistically speaking) and eating my nighttime snack of 2/3 cup of plain whole milk yogurt, 1/2 cup applesauce and giant tablespoon of peanut butter. The yogurt would be too plain, so I sweeten it with Stevia mixed with cinnamon.

I also make a cup of tea, chamomile, with a teaspoon of honey, which I will sip after the yogurt concoction is long gone. What comes on at 11:00 that is so all-fired critical that I be seated for? Ha. Nothing much, just the Carol Burnett show. I like the opening monologue, where she talks to the audience. I marvel at the easy manner in which she addresses a crowd and takes what appear to be impromptu questions, though it could all be scripted, I can't say for sure. The rest of the show can be tedious, as they work through some tired old sketch, but I persevere. Perry Mason is on right after that, and it is the perfect kind of snooze TV to round out my boring day.

What is going on during the time I'm vegetating and struggling to just exist through the course of a 24 hour period is, of course, that life is passing me by. Grass is growing, insects are breeding, entropy is slowly turning my house back into the raw natural elements from which it was constructed. Paint peels, wood rots and water accumulates under my crawlspace during the rainy season. A younger, more vibrant man of action would be doing something to stem the tide of this decay, but all I can do is document it, poorly, and watch TV while I wait for death.

When will the big snail collector in the sky come for me with his salt bucket, I wonder?

A True Survivor

 

When cats are all hanging around in the afterlife, swapping stories of how they used up their nine lives, my cat Patsy will be able to tell of the most horrifying and terrible experience a cat could ever survive: a brush with the vacuum cleaner. Falling out of a 3rd story window, being nipped by a fox or having your tail run over by a truck tire, sure, traumatizing. But nothing, NOTHING, compares to the close encounter of the 3rd kind that my little fat kitty had to endure today.

Like swimming lessons, a trip to the dentist or the first day in a new school, the vacuum cleaner is something to dread. When it becomes apparent that the human is going to plug the monster in, just hide. In fact, knowing the day of the week on which vacuuming might occur is important in order to plan ahead, find a nice closet to hide out in for the day and avoid the whole thing. That must have been what was on Patsy's mind when she decided to make the corner of my downstairs closet her safe room this afternoon.

Unfortunately, me and the vacuum had plans for the closet which conflicted with the sanctity of her serenity space. When gentle nudging couldn't dislodge her, I decided to go ahead with my vacuuming, despite the sit-in. She sat wide eyed in terror but refused to move. The vacuum hose got closer and closer. And finally, OH MY GOD, it touched her flank. As if to torture the poor creature, it skimmed her from stem to stern, vacuuming up a few precious hairs, stealing her vital essence and causing an excruciating amount of anxiety.

Finally, the fat cat uncoupled itself from its crevice and bolted. Like a bowling ball made of a fifteen pound frozen turkey, she made a beeline down the hallway, headed straight for the bedroom, never to be heard from again. Or at least until several hours later, when the coast was clear.

She emerged unscathed and unruffled, a true hero. She had lived through the worst thing a cat could ever imagine and came out the other side a survivor. Songs will be sung, stories told and many, many generations will remember the day that Patsy faced the horrific vacuum cleaner and bore its hideous touch for a couple of seconds. I'm pretty sure most of her other lives will have been used up in moments of dread, staring at the cat bowl's bare spot of slightly diminishing rations, contemplating the certainty of imminent starvation.

The saga continues...but I may not

 

Two months to the day of getting a letter from Social Security stating that I was being cut off because I am "recovered and able to work," I get another letter stating that my disability case has been reviewed and my disability will continue. I did start an appeal but never did get another appointment for reevaluation. Just yesterday I got the "Welcome to Medicare" package, which I thought was ironic, since I was supposedly cut off. But today, I get the letter from the other side of the agency, saying I would stay on their rolls for the time being.

It is a load off of my mind, although it doesn't speak well to my condition. I wish I had recovered and could enjoy this time, but that's not the case. In a day, I get so little accomplished, I'm barely surviving. Even writing seems pointless. Who will care enough to read this stuff? And what possible story could I write that would be any better? If I could write a better story for myself, wouldn't I be living it already? I can't even envision anything different, let alone enact changes or engage in a constructive process.

Simply documenting my decay is too tiresome, so I may just quit writing altogether. It was the only thing that made me feel like I had a purpose, but as days go by and my energy fades, I see it as a pointless routine. Maybe I'll check in once in a while, as a milestone is passed, or if something gives me enough of a burden that I must unload it. But it's not really that therapeutic bitching into the ether. The ether is so unresponsive. So, bye for now.

Pissed at snails in my garden and the fucking setup of life in general

I tried to be nice and not kill each and every snail that I'd see in my garden or backyard. I hate to step on them. I hate the sound that it makes, and knowing that I am crushing a life. 

Then I go to try to grow some sunflowers or herbs in the backyard and these little life force entities go seeking out the work that I put so much time into, to destroy it, in order to gain their sustenance.

Why does life have to be based on a "one thing feeds off of another" model? Why does my barbeque require an animal to have bad day? Or the rabbit who feeds the fox, or the crocodile who eats the human, any of it? 

Sure, it's neat and tidy. I fuck you, you fuck me. It's all fucked. The circle jerk of life. Whose fucking great idea for a reality was this? The great "everything alive must kill or consume other life forms in order to survive" plan?

Don't give me that vegan crap, either. Just because your salad doesn't have cute little eyes and puppy dog tails wagging, doesn't mean it's not a life that you are cutting short with your implements of farming. Where's the outrage for the carrot holocaust?

I don't like what God has made us become. Killers, the apex of the food chain, and sentient, at that. So, we can contemplate the morality of our deeds, killing and carving up the earth, in order to make nice, bug free homes and gardens. Cultivating plants and lovely creatures, as products to be used for our pleasure.

I don't honestly think a plant would look at me with loving plant glances when I water it if it knew that its fruit, that which it creates to propagate itself, its baby life force--I am going to harvest and eat. It doesn't willingly part with its baby, offering it up to me as a sacrifice to the water god. 

"Oh, thank you, gardener king, here are the first fruits of our vine. May you find them pleasing. May the great cultivator live a thousand years." No more than a mother hen says, "Sure, take my eggs. I want to see my unhatched offspring in your skillet."

Fuck me. And, because I have to kill snails in order to have a garden, fuck them, too. Worms will get me when I'm dead. Fuck them, too. I'm gonna have a serious talk with the creator of all this nonsense, if I ever get a chance. 

He'd better have some pretty good answers as to why He chose this suffering based duality model instead of the alleged "heaven" model that He's perfectly capable of creating. You know, the one where lions and lambs cohabit the fields of green grass which never need mowing, and there's a continual banquet, but no one ever poops.

This little light of mine

Ok. I'm crazy. I don't care. I believe in the little LED. I don't know why it sometimes comes on and hangs in there for a day or an hour or a however long, flickering at times, steady at times. I'm just going to believe it is Sharon trying to let me know she still exists. People believe in all sorts of ridiculous things, and this is me and mine. If it gives me a boost, how wrong can it be? I talk to cats, dogs, birds, cows, lizards, frogs and just about anything that I encounter, why not an intermittent LED on a Christmas light strand?

So, Sharon says "hi." In case anyone cares.

I'm trying to trap the fox again. Whiskey needs to eat all his food without competition. This fox has been coming back and finishing off the food at night again. I wasn't sure if it was him or not, but today I saw some "foxey" looking poop in the backyard. This time I'm going to drive him about 5 miles out and drop him off near a creek. If he's smart, he'll take the upgrade in location. If it turns out to be a skunk or a racoon, well, I'll just have to find out when the trap is sprung.

Subliminal Dream Progamming

 Some dreams hardly qualify, but I'm gonna keep to my plan of writing what I remember, regardless. Falling asleep with my Itunes playing, I wound up with Marc Maron talking to me about condo issues in a seaside aquatic community of surfers. 

I don't recall much, other than that we were friends, and he was encouraging me to try different things to get my writing career jumpstarted. Mainly, he advised sitting in various locales while composing my drivel.

I hopped on a surfboard at one point and navigated a rather rocky water chasm that ran through the center of a town hall meeting that we were attending. Marc and some of the other attendees were on surfboards, while some were seated in folding chairs. 

I found the surfboard to not be particularly buoyant and was immediately pulled underwater upon entering the chasm. I realized that some effort would be required of me in order not to sink to the bottom, so I kicked a few times and made it back to the surface.

There were issues being discussed at the meeting, one being what to do with all the wild horses that were terrorizing the little town. At certain times of the day the young colts and fillies would get all rambunctious and stampede, forcing all the residents to seek shelter. 

I found myself with a few other people hunkered down in an abandoned car at one point, waiting out the melee, which usually only lasted a few minutes but was as intense as a tropical thunderstorm.

---

That's all that's coming back to me. I only woke up to pee and check the snails in my garden. I should go back to sleep. I'm still not done dreaming, though I may be too awake to get back to the meeting. 

Besides, classical music is playing now, a nice cello concerto by Mstistlov Rostropovich, so I'll probably wind up in another century. Today is my housecleaning day, so and I need to get a little more sleep before I get up to do my Saturday morning routine.

More work dreams

Luis Ramirez, from work, was talking to me about microdosing with mushrooms and how that was helping him manage his depression. Funny, I never noticed his being depressed. Possibly this was why. He was on mushrooms the whole time. I just happened to have a handful of them up my sleeve, but I kept it to myself.

I was noticing things around the dealership that appeared to need attention, such as a spray bottle stuck down a drainage hole, which I retrieved with a t-post. I was getting noticed for my quick-thinking and innovative solutions. I picked a few bell peppers that were growing unattended on the periphery of the service drive.

Reiner had been talking to me about maybe coming back, helping out with the phones on their busiest days. I could work from home, he said, although I told him I thought the customers would appreciate it more if I was actually present at the dealership, where I could physically check up on their cars for them.

I walked through a kind of rowdy bar situation with Art, the owner. People were about to start the kind of brawl that winds up with someone getting tossed over the bar and breaking the big mirror. We skirted the commotion before sitting down at the long, narrow bar. It was reminiscent of the Last Supper, so I said, referring to Art, "Jesus has arrived," to no one in particular.

Yep, clearly there's an element missing in my everyday life. Hmmm. I wonder what it might be?

Waking Up Andrew

 

Here's a half-baked idea that I had for a TV show based on my life. It's a mashup of Groundhog Day and Quantum Leap with hints of Matrixy Twilight Zone or some other "what the fuck is this reality that I'm in?" going on. Somewhat different then "Being John Malkovich," in that I'm not a famous person, and no one really wants in on this experience.

It begins each morning as the main character (me) wakes up and sleepily goes to the mirror. The person who goes to the mirror looks like me, but when they see themselves in the mirror they react with varied reactions, as each day I am am possessed by the consciousness of a different Facebook friend or family member. It is a curse that I've placed on all of them for failing to understand me as a person. So, I give each of them a chance to do a better job of being me, by trapping them inside my head for a day. They are unaware of all this, and each one must figure out their own strategy for navigating their day as me.

They have their own thoughts, but have to wrestle with my unconscious programming and also get to hear my stupid narrative going on in their head throughout the day. As we go through my routine, they find themselves compelled to do things as I would, but offer varying degrees of resistance to the structure, based on their own character. My body becomes kind of a Driver's Ed car with dual controls.

So, it looks like me and sounds like me, but, as the day goes on, the person driving the vehicle (with me as a backseat driver) gets to make different choices than I would make, resulting in the real me getting a fresh perspective on what could be my life.  It resets every day with a different person, a different voice cohabiting my headspace. There is continuity, but incorporating the changes made by all these individuals that "ride along" is slow, because of the main character's intense resistance to change of any kind.

The show's name, "Waking Up Andrew," has two meanings, the more positive being that eventually the main character wakes up from his hellish nightmare existence, into a friendlier world, through this transformative experience. It would be kind of dark at first, but throughout the process, some of the characters that have inhabited the main character's psyche would leave subtle changes in his overall outlook, making it slightly less negative.

Occasionally, we'd visit the people who got to take part in the one day incarnation, back in random scenes from their lives, showing how that one day affected them to whatever degree it did. Like remembering a bad dream or having a glimpse at a past life, it would make them grateful that it is no longer their reality. Or it could result in them having insight or empathy for some other difficult or obtuse person, as they could kind of relate, having been on the inside.

In a twist, at the end it could be shown that this was all a part of some radical hallucinogenic therapy dream, in a benign institutional setting. The "curse" was a figment of the imagination, whereas the reality was that this was a benevolent intervention, staged by the concerned and loving friends who were the characters in the drama.

This idea may not be widely saleable as far as using my life for an exact template, so any random losery type guy, who is stuck in some godawful, miserable routine will do. I dunno, it could have potential. Until then, it's just me everyday who is "waking up Andrew." I'm gonna work on my Freaky Friday Facebook spells, though, so beware...

Conversation with an MFT

I went to my first therapy session today with Shannon, an MFT (I’ll let you figure out what that stands for). She seems nice, so I won’t go with my first impulse to define the acronym. She’s a young black woman, mid-thirties, I’m guessing, possibly younger based on her choice of office décor. She has giant posters of DC comic heroes and movie memorabilia plastered all over the walls.

My first thought, upon seeing her, was—“Oh, shit, I’m not going to get to play my poor me card. She’s gonna look at me with the judgemental eyes of one who knows the score. Who’s this guy think he’s foolin’? He ain’t disabled, he’s just tryin’ to play me.” (Why am I affecting a colloquial accent? She’s black, but she certainly wasn’t speaking in any kind of homespun vernacular.)

I may have embedded prejudices that I’m not even aware of and certainly don’t want to admit to. It shouldn’t be an issue in 2019, but let’s be honest, it’s going to be an issue as long as people keep making it an issue. I want to be past all that, where we can all just joke about stuff like our differences, but we’re living in a sensitive time. I feel self-conscious for even noticing that my shrink is a young black woman.

She put me at ease by not presenting an agenda for my immediate recovery. She claimed to simply be there to “have a conversation.” Pretty non-threatening. I gave her my story, condensed version, with minimal tears and choking up. I am getting used to repeating the facts, and like it or not, it is hardening me and blunting my trigger reaction. It wasn’t a painful session, but I’m not going to say it produced any hope in me.

I keep being amazed by the fact that other people find my conversation or communication to be articulate or intelligent. I think that maybe someone set the bar lower when I wasn’t looking. Maybe I’m just a throwback to a different era and people today really are less able to use language. Perhaps I only appear intelligent when compared to a typical millennial phone zombie with text-speak for a vocabulary. It doesn’t make me any smarter, it’s just a sad commentary on society that someone like me could impress anyone intellectually.

But, sure, it tickles my ego to hear it. Makes me feel like I have some superpower or rare skill. Mr. Uses Words Good Guy. Super Poly-syllable Man, able to string together complex phonetic phrases to form complete words. Too bad about his fatal flaw, poor grammar. Oh, well, no one will notice. The king’s English is dead, long live the tweet.

I don’t see a future right now, and I’m not very good at living in the present moment. Let’s see, where does that leave me? Living in the past, in some concretized, fictional rendering of my life, retold and reinforced into reality by the retelling. In that sense, thoughts do create reality, or at least what is real for me.

I need to try another experiment with stream of consciousness meditation. Just sitting and writing down thoughts and impressions of what appears before me. I’d do that right now, but I’m getting tired. But it can be enlightening to just see how much I perceive at any given moment. Maybe I’ll also take a picture and put it next to my wall of text, to see which one actually conveys more information.

Pictures can be just a veneer of what is actually going on. Which is why, I guess, I am so down on Facebook. Pictures get all the attention, and no one bothers to write much of their own text anymore. Everyone is sharing, copying and pasting, and failing to give much description of what is going on in their lives. I’m as visual as the next guy, but I need words to feel a connection.

I’ve stumbled upon my true calling. Professional complainer about the way things are these days guy. The job has been vacant since Andy Rooney died. I’m curmudgeony enough. Where do I apply?

Selfies with the dead?

 

I can't imagine this doesn't qualify as a nightmare, but I wasn't exactly scared. Just creeped out and kind of disgusted with the whole affair. So, don't judge me, I didn't request this kind of programming.

I dreamed that myself and three other people were in a "situation." We were burning logs or pieces of old furniture, and things needed to be stacked and arranged so that they would burn evenly. I'm not even sure how it happened, but two of my friends, Denise Graubart and Jeanette Antoine (aka Dream Girl from previous dreams) had an accident and were pinned under some logs.

In this accident, Denise was alive and needing to be rescued. Jeanette was not; she was dead, crushed by the logs. Rescuing Denise required removing the logs in a delicate fashion that somehow involved decapitating Jeanette surgically. The third friend (still trying to remember who it was) did the deed. It went relatively smoothly, contrary to those videos where terrorists are struggling to hack away at bones and sinew. 

I remarked, "You must have gotten extremely lucky to have missed all the vertebrae."

There was this weird desire to take pictures of this horrific sight of our decapitated friend. I mean, you don't see stuff like this every day, or ever, why not capture this perfect moment? I knew that it would be in poor taste, so I kind of suppressed the thought. I covered her head and body, still somewhat together, with a towel.

As I was deciding how best to pick up the head and move it, so as to get on with the rescue, there was Denise taking selfies with her dead friend. 

"Selfies with the dead, Denise?" I asked her chidingly, a bit relieved, actually, that the subject had been broached. "That's ok, you were her best friend. She was very vain, I'm sure she wouldn't mind. You think it would be ok for me to take a few of just the head? I need to move it anyway."

I picked up the head carefully with one hand by the hair, with the towel still partly covering it. Her eyes were closed. I remarked how light it was, probably because the blood had drained out, I was thinking. 

I placed it in a nice spot, apart from the debris from the accident and was considering what kind of photos would best suit her in her current condition. I snapped a few shots, but I don't think I took the old "look at me with the decapitated head" selfie that I was kind of conflicted about taking.

We still needed to finish extricating Denise from the stacks of lumber and from Jeanette's headless  corpse, which was still pinning her down. I abandoned the photography and covered the head back up with the towel and got back to work. 

In all this, there was very little emotion for Jeanette's death. It was just an inconvenient situation that needed to be dealt with. The emotions I was struggling with were the feelings of inappropriateness I was having with my desire to photograph my dead friend's severed head. I really wanted to be tasteful about it, out of respect, you know.

That's about it. Decapitation dreams about tasteless photo ops with the deceased. Fuck me. Should I tell this to my shrink today?

The great hamburger fiasco

 

Going back to sleep has its advantages. When I wake up early and stay awake, I tend to not dream, or to forget my dreams. When I go back in and double dip, I can sometimes re-enter a particular state and continue on in the dream. If I stay too long, I'll risk getting too far gone and sleeping through the whole morning. Some day I may get "stuck" in dream land and never wake up.

So now, while it is fresh: I was living with my Mom and Greg, in a nice, big fancy house. There were pianos in every room. The piano in Greg's room had a slide out seat, from which he had removed the bottom rollers, making it difficult to adjust. That way he'd know if someone else was in there messing with it. I found myself in the awkward position of trying to readjust it after playing the piano without permission.

I also found myself cooking some hamburger in a fishbowl filled with lit candles. Not the best barbecue technique, I can tell you. The fat drained into the bowl, first feeding the flame and causing the meat to expand into a giant pancake, mushroom type mess, which then covered and smothered the flame. All that smothering and covering of a grease fire with fresh hamburger did was cause a giant plume of black smoke to erupt. I thought the whole place was going to catch on fire.

"Greg! Greg!" I was screaming, "Fire extinguisher? Anyone!"

No one showed up right away. I contemplated if the meat would be worth saving. By the time they got there, the smoke had died down. I looked for evidence of staining from the soot or grease, but didn't find much to be guilty of. Maybe I was gonna skate on this one. 

But then I noticed Sharon's leg had been burnt. I began to check it for "doneness," as of it were going to eaten instead of the candle-waxy hamburger mess in the fishbowl. It wasn't quite done, though I carved into it a few times, so now we'd have to eat it. She was remarkably not concerned, or at least didn't say anything.

I perceived that I was blowing it, though, and this was my last bail out. I was living with them because I couldn't make it on my own. This was not going to be tolerated in the future, but it wasn't enough to get me kicked out.

Some stuff happened earlier in the dream, before I got up to pee, but I've lost all reference points. It was just an odd sensation of a whole different time and place. 

Oh, I remember...There was a guy asking me about a couple of pictures in my scrap book. One was of Cherie, a girl I was dating in high school. And another picture was of a girl he referred to as "the sleaze." I assumed it was Patrice, who Cherie didn't like very much and called "Slutrice."

This guy was going to ask me some automotive question related to 4 wheel drive powertrain diagnostics. I thought, how typical, people find out you were a mechanic and they assume you know everything about every type of vehicle. I started to interrupt him to tell him that I was no longer a mechanic. 

I told him, "Ok, go ahead and finish your question and I'll give you the same answer that I was just about to give you." 

His question was so far out in left field that I suppose it didn't matter, though. He wanted to purchase a brand new powertrain, from a Jeep or similar 4 wheel drive, and mount it in his home as some kind of display. Weirdo.

That was when he changed it up and started asking me about the scrapbook. It turned out he was one of the two girls' father, but I never did find out which. I'm guessing it wasn't the one he referred to as "the sleaze," but you never know.

It seems like there were a ton more little tiny details I'm forgetting, now that I'm awake, and I'm using a computer. My email is calling me, begging me to find out who is responsible for the (1 unread)  tab peeking out from my Yahoo account. So, on we go, where who knows.