My shrink keeps canceling on me

 

I can't imagine why. Am I that difficult? I suppose if I can wear out my own mother with my negativity, there's a chance that even a paid professional would find dealing with me above their pay grade. 

Oh, well, I'm supposed to say, "It's not me, it's her. She really did get sick two times in the last month on the day of my appointment." 

When she called, though, she committed the faux pas of not using her "sick voice." Come on, if you're going to do the old calling in sick routine, at least work it. I've been around, I know how it's supposed to work.

That was going to be my distraction for the day. My one activity. Now what the hell am I supposed to do to while away the boring hours until I can go to sleep again?

Triggered by my asshole neighbor

 

I like to think of myself as level-headed, emotionally stable and non-reactive...said somebody other than myself about somebody other than myself. 

Yesterday, while out on my walk, I saw a car creeping slowly through the neighborhood. Either someone lost or up to no good, in my estimation. No one drives 2 miles per hour up the length of the whole street. I readied my camera to photograph his license number for future reference, in case any crimes wound up being reported. As I walked up the block, I could see his car stopped in front of my neighbor's house and heard loud voices.

I kept approaching and saw that my neighbor, Rocky, was engaged in an argument with the driver of a BMW convertible. They were arguing about what the guy was doing driving so slow, but apparently they also had some history. This guy was the neighbor who had called animal control on my friend, resulting in him having to get rid of his dog. 

The dog was a Great Pyrenees named Sheila, who was accused of excessive barking. To her credit, she was protecting livestock and keeping the area free from coyotes and foxes. After the complaint Rocky had to keep the dog indoors at night, resulting in the loss of about 24 chickens. He eventually gave the dog to someone else, because the dog was miserable, being unable to do her job of guarding the property.

I walked up to a full on shouting match between these two men. I admit, I already had a bias against the guy who'd complained to animal control. Shit, you live in the country. Dogs bark. Fucking get used to the idea. But this guy was one of those "I'm right and I'm never going to be convinced of any other possible viewpoints than my own" type of people. His voice oozed with contempt, condescension and smarminess. 

I wanted to be a neutral, voice of reason type of bystander, but found that I was seething at this guy's arrogance. Now I was in danger of getting riled up and calling the guy a jerkwad fucktard who ought to go die or at least move. But I kinda restrained myself. The few comments I attempted to make were shouted down by this bellowing idiot anyway.

So, I took out my camera and videotaped his obnoxious rant, along with my neighbor's attempt at reasoned discussion. Turning on a recording device can sometimes have the effect of making everyone more thoughtful and conscious of what they are saying. No one wants to be perceived as being an out of control asshole. But it didn't slow this guy's roll at all, no siree.

I began to think, man, we are in trouble. There are people in this world who are just unreachable with logic or common sense. It is evident in our political discourse. Even the side I normally would support is guilty of not seeing the other side as human, much less admitting to any errors in their own viewpoint.  If I can get triggered so easily, I imagine it's not going to be easy to heal the differences in this country.

We're gonna need that extra terrestrial threat to bring us all together after all, Ronnie.

Killing zombies in a riverfront apocalypse

 

I'd avoided the actual killing of zombies up until this point, but now I was face to face with an undead Rick Johnson, armed with only a flimsy steak knife. He was freshly dead, so all that tripe about stabbing them in the brain and them quickly going down was not applicable. His skull and sinews were very resilient, not some rotten eggshell that was easily penetrable. 

I stabbed him in the eye and kept trying to find that sweet spot in the back of the eye socket. But he kept on struggling full force as the knife bent and slid around, missing its target. The whole process was taking an unbearably long time and was making me squeamish. I finally got him to go down, after slowly, deliberately pushing the steak knife all the way through to the back of his skull.

Prior to that I had been in the river, which, in itself, was a bad idea. It was flowing too fast, and there was a raging meat grinder of a waterfall, that one would certainly get sucked into, just a quarter mile downstream. I was there wading in waist high water, attempting to talk my friend Rob Peavey out of going that way. 

In my attempt to dissuade him, as I described what would happen if he lingered in that part of the river, my exact description of events began to happen to me. I was inextricably sucked toward this class 5, unsurvivable funnel of churning death. 

Once again, as inevitable death approached, I found myself teleported to a different locale, within the same zombie infested reality, unaware of how I'd gotten there. I found myself holed up in a house with several other people, one of whom had left the door open just enough for Rick Johnson to gain entry.

I felt really bad after killing him. Being so freshly reanimated, it was like killing a normal human being. I didn't get that whole zombie killing emotional pass. It felt like I'd just killed my friend Rick with a steak knife, which was a pretty nauseating, guilty feeling.

I've been having terrible insomnia lately, waking up in the middle of the night for hours after getting to bed at the already late hour of 1:30 or 2. Last night Whiskey barked for the first time in more than 6 months. Longer, possibly, I don't know. 

I can't remember the last time he barked. But this was a deliberate, albeit raspy and out of practice bark of territorial invasion. He did this on 2 separate occasions, and I went outside both times with a flashlight to see what he was objecting to. All I found was a cat in some proximity to the backyard, but certainly nothing that he wasn't used to seeing every day. 

The guinea hens were all lined up, perched on the back fence. Whatever it was remains a mystery, although I did chase the cat away for good measure. I have to check on the guinea hens, since the cat is obviously going to persist at his attempts to hunt them down. I may have to take things up a level by repatriating him to his home next door and sealing off the perimeter.

Supermodels poop, too

 

For some reason that's the only gemstone I'm carrying with me from last night's dreaming. I was in a conversation with a scantily clad supermodel, when she seamlessly shed her clothes and announced: "I have to poop." 

Being a voyeur as always, I ran around to the other side of the room, where a mirror afforded me a close up view of all the anatomical details. 

I realized that supermodel poop was just as messy as normal people poop, and in this case, possibly more so. It was a sticky, chocolate pudding affair, with lots of smeary wiping going on. I had a moment of detached caregiver disgust, as I rated it up there with some of the worst bowl movement cleanups I had ever participated in. 

She was unperturbed and tried to keep up the conversation as if nothing were going on. I finally had enough of the puddingy image burned in my mind and found elsewhere to look. This was going to take a while, and the initial fascination had left me. I supposed that she would eventually clean herself up and regain her supermodel status, but the bloom had come off the rose.

I began to ponder why exactly it is that angels don't poop, when they are able to eat food as humans do. I thus began revisiting all my arguments and disagreements with this matter world's configuration and parameters. Is this kind of thing really necessary? I mean who thinks up this kind of an ecology, given an infinite range of possibilities for design, where poop is the universal constant?

The Anger in Our Dreams

 

I wonder where it comes from, the anger in our dreams? Is it left over, unspent anger from the day or is it freshly generated for the occasion? No matter. I'm just here to report, not editorialize. 

I dreamed about Sharon, Meaty, Dummy and a baby chick. Sharon was in bed, while I was up and surveying a mess in the living room, created by our two cats, Meaty and Dummy. They had gotten into some fresh eggs, and there was a mess of shells and yolks strewn about the tile floor. 

The disheveled furniture indicated that a great struggle had taken place. I spied a lone baby chick trying to hide its tiny yellow body from the predators. I scooped up the little creature and began to pet its feathers. I spoke soothingly to it as I brought it into the bedroom to show Sharon.

"It looks like I'm going to be in the chicken raising business sooner than I had expected," I said mentally making plans for a chicken wire enclosure in the house. "I'll need to set up a heat lamp, build a cage, etc..." Sharon was keen on the idea, but as usual was quick to add her knowledge and experience to the discussion, quelling my enthusiasm somewhat.

In the process of me grabbing for a roll of recently purchased chicken wire, I dropped the chick. It scurried off into the waiting maw of Meaty. 

I chased the cat around, cursing and screaming, "I hate you! Let it go! Let it go! I hate you! You evil, vile killer!"

It was no use. The chick was already eaten, only a few feathers protruding from the fat cat's smug mouth. I went in to the bedroom to report the sad event to Sharon and found her already crying.

"I heard you yelling at the cat," she said. 

I knew that she was just as upset at me for my anger as she was about the little chick's demise and not at all at Meaty, who was, after all, just being a cat. Some kind of discussion of blame and proper chicken handling procedures ensued, with me being the shamed student and her, the wise bedridden Buddha. 

It ended there, the anger still present, along with the adrenaline from the chasing of the cat, as I awoke.

I went outside to turn off the sprinklers before they came on at 6 o'clock and ruined my chances for mowing this Saturday morning. The guinea hens were all perched in a row on the back fence, unaware of my nocturnal chicken tragedy. 

Good, now on with the day, before I lose momentum.

Gonna plummet in the drink

 

I don't remember much of my dream due to constant having to get up in the middle of the night to pee. I probably have a bladder infection or am dehydrating myself trying to flush out some bacteria. 

But this much I remember: I was in some kind of desert canyon resort. There were others there, but they were not people I know. Except possibly a Hannelore Krueger type of person, who was not her, but reminded me of Sharon's cousin.

I was deciding to catch some rays and relax on a ledge near the river. It was one of those treacherously inaccessible spots, made more enticing by its difficult location. I climbed up from the river side, navigating the steep ascent and feeling pretty good about myself for the accomplishment. 

As I lay there, I saw a salmon swim by. Damn, and I'd forgotten my fishing pole. Down I went to fetch it. Only instead of making it back to the same spot, I found myself trapped in another area of the river canyon. 

This place was accessible only by climbing a poorly constructed but wonderfully ornate wooden trellis. What are trellises for, if not for climbing? And yet these resort owners had put all of their money into the nice wood stain and optics of this decorative structure and failed to secure it to anything. It wasn't even held together with much more than good thoughts.

I was in a desperate situation, swaying this way and that, and unable to go forward or back. I was dangling out over the river, destined to fall in if the structure gave way.

I called for help and Faux Hannelore tossed me a phone. The phone belonged to a guy I recognized from TV shows, who played Todd, the super-nice fat guy on "The Last Man on Earth." 

 

I thanked him but promptly dropped his phone in the river. I was sure it would be a goner, sunk to the bottom--but, lo and behold, when I reached down for it it, there it was. A floater. And waterproof, too, by the looks of it. 

I yelled to Todd and Hannelore, "It's OK!"

That still didn't solve my predicament. I was just going to have to hang and sway for a while, until I could think of something else. But I never did. By this time, I was ready to wake up anyway. I had to get up to pee, so that saved me.

It's a busy day, I have an early shrink appointment. And my blinking Sharon LED is letting me know, "It's time to walk Whiskey and get on with it already, Mr. Longwinded." God, I love that little LED.

Testing...one, two, three

Trying to add my other email as an author to this blog. That will save untold time and energy logging in and out. I'm not sure it will show up as goldingranch or as unknown. Regardless, I'm the only one here.

Horoscope: Don't read this if your name is Jenny Bennett

 

"Try to get as much sleep as you can tonight," was the generic advice of my newspaper horoscope yesterday. Duh, I think that's usually the plan. Well, this time I can appreciate the timeliness. 

Sue me if I like having porn dreams about my high school friends, I don't care. 

"We're going to have sex once per day," Jenny Bennett told me. "Somehow, somewhere." 

I believe it was at my parents house in Minnesota. We were both staying there as a kind of resort with all the amenities. She was letting me know that she was one of the luxuries that I'd be privy to. 

I liked the proposition, but of course I was going to try to finagle my way around the "only one time per day" rule. I found out that kissing didn't count, so I sampled a lot of those. Because I don't drink enough water at night, I found my lips parched, but it was still enjoyable. I found myself saying, "This is really happening," as I usually do in my dreams when I'm doing something I would like to do in real life but can't.

"Later, you'll join me in the shower, where I'll make the cum come out of your dick," she told me. 

She really meant business. I could hardly wait. At some point in the dream, I figured out that the part where she told me this, along with the kissing, had all been a dream. And yet here we still were, in my parents house, the same parameters in play. I would just have to broach the subject with her again. 

"So, when do you want to do those things we talked about in my dream," I would say to her, as I contemplated my approach. That would do. Of course, she was reclining on a beach towel with some people nearby, making it a bit awkward. I reconsidered my options.

I thought I should first offer her some coffee, so I went to make some. It wasn't going to be regular coffee, but some hallucinogenic version with tree bark or toadskin or lizards. Something hideous, but sought after by those in the know. Anyway, between the coffee quest and having to get up to pee, I never did get to re-proposition Jenny.

I wound up in Paradise, in my old house with cousin Tim. I was inside the house, which was now partially roofless. 

"Kind of an improvement for lighting," I made note to Tim. 

We disagreed as to whether or not it was actually lacking a roof altogether, or if that was just an illusion. The roof did appear to be there when you looked directly at it. 

As a neighbor attempted to move a pool table, upside down on a small trolley trailer, the night's entertainment came to a close, and I was faced with the end of another sex dream that had failed to deliver the goods.

Where does the washer fluid go?

I was working again at YC Honda per usual. This time there were Facebook friends from my high school punk days also working there. I was having trouble remembering where to fill the washer fluid reservoir. I had it in my mind that it had something to do with the dome light assembly inside the cabin. Good thing I asked, unfortunately others seemed as mistaken as I was in this belief.

Last time I checked in I was in one type of self-isolationist funk or another. I was pissed at Reinna for ditching me, and I was going to ruminate on that and let myself go all feral. Well, the guinea hens proved too overwhelmingly cute for me not to share with my Facebook friends, so that put a stop to that. 

I'm still as lonely as a person can be, out here with just the animals, but at least they provide me with a sense of purpose. Like right now. I gotta go find those keets, who spent the night God knows where, while I had a fitful night of insomnia.

I'll get back to you later. I have plenty of things to talk about, just not the energy to live and talk about living at the same time.

Yesterday was Sharon's birthday

 

And once again, I didn't do anything special for her. It's like I can't get that day right, even though I really wanted to this time. I was gonna make some kind of ritual out of eating a pizza in her honor. Light a candle. Drink a beer. Make myself cry over the fact that I missed her. But I was distracted all day with the problems of a new computer that arrived broken. And with guinea hens. And my regular routines.

I did see one shooting star in the early morning hours, when I dragged myself out of bed to see the Perseids. It was her thing. The Perseid meteor shower comes around every year as her birthday approaches. It usually peaks a night or two before. 

She told me that when she was gone that she'd visit me every year as a meteor shooting across the sky. If I look up, I'll see her flipping me off. Or blowing me a kiss, I forget which. 

Both years since she passed, I've seen at least one shooting star of extraordinary length and brilliance streaking across the sky in the early morning hours of Sharon's birthday.

I did dream of her, but only briefly and I'm trying to remember it. She was still in bed, ill, and I was told that I needed to make a list of "what was wrong with Sharon" by some health care professional or psychiatric person. I came up with a very simple list with three categories: MS problems, incontinence issues and spiritual issues. 

Of the three, my conclusion was that only the first two were really problems, while the third one she had licked. She was doing better spiritually than I was (or anybody I knew, for that matter). I was trying to word it properly, but she let me know I was on the right track. 

"And don't you forget it," was her unspoken agreement with my assessment.

That's all I can recall of it. Today is another shrink appointment. Last week's appointment was not really very satisfying. We didn't speak of anything that moved me to tears, we were focusing on some minutia of my routine and getting all hung up on semantics. 

I was disappointed because the week before I had broken down again when we were discussing Sharon and my guilt over my lousy caregiving. It started with a personal assessment of one word descriptions of myself. "I am, I think I am or I'm not," I was to respond as she fired off adjectives that would define my character as I saw it. We got to the stuff about being "nice," and I just lost it.

Being "nice" was Sharon's spiritual advice to me in a nutshell. All of her caregiving instructions could be encapsulated in the phrase "BE NICE," which she even had me print out in a giant font and pin to my reminder board in the bedroom. It's still there, though I don't stay in that room long enough to notice it much.

If I was to believe in reincarnation, I would say that I must have been a Nazi in my previous life, and that taking care of Sharon was my punishment and karmic lesson in this one. The fact that it came so unnaturally to me, that I resisted it with every ounce of my being and felt an angry urge to rebel, when the normal response was empathy, is consistent with the theory. 

I don't know what I believe, but I know it seems like I was fighting something in my deepest nature, whose origin I couldn't trace to any experience I had in this life. 

Plus, there was that fascination I had with the Nazi side of WWII when I was a child. I was fascinated by the whole dark imagery and mystique of a culture so un-apologetically evil as I pored through history books with pictures of atrocities. Not your "nice kid" by any means, though I never blossomed into any kind of white supremacist.

Anyway, Whiskey and the Keets are calling me to get off the couch and get started with my daily routine. Thor, my new mega computer is up and running, though I'll have to duct tape his cover to the case. He is so large that I'll have to get out the jigsaw and carve a larger opening in the back of the desk to run the wires through. It's twice the size of an average desktop, standing 24" from top to bottom. I can't stand to look at it taking up all the real estate in the middle of my floor much longer, so I'll definitely be stuffing him into that cubby hole one way or the other.

If I'm gonna be dumb

 

If I'm gonna be dumb, it may as well be fun.

I can't control too much at all,

But with constant editing, the perception is what I make it.

An umbrella on the front porch tells the story.

Especially when it's August.

And the rain for which the umbrella was so needed,

Happened months ago.

Like the weeds and the cobwebs,

It was left unattended,

Like a shirt that needs mended,

Or letters unsent--ha, I was gonna say un-sended,

But my snobby auto-correct brain won't let me.

That's it for now, not much to say.

August 14 is Sharon's birthday.

I left the door open for the guinea hens,

In case they want to come out and play.

Perhaps they got too much excitement the other day,

When I couldn't get them to go back home til 9 at night,

When the cat was stalking them,

And they were just too plumb tuckered out,

Or dumb to figure out,

Which way was home.

Sean's monster computer will arrive today,
And an Amazon order for some 9 volt batteries and tiny measuring spoons.

Poltergeist

 

I was dreaming of Sharon, but she didn't look the same. There was just an understanding that it was her. She looked more like Vivianne Van Asperen, but her parents were still Hannelore and Bob. So, it was Sharon, I guess. We were in a couple's living room who were selling paranormal decor for the home. 

One item Sharon was interested in was a giant pendulum for divination. It was an unwieldy behemoth that was made to be hung from the ceiling as a chandelier type fixture. It had a fold out wooden cross that looked like inlaid paneling. Then when you wanted to use the pendulum, viola, it folded down and an 8 foot long strand of crystals would pop out and hang down so you could do your witchery.

We were sitting at a table and trying to negotiate buying it, when the chair I was in just wouldn't stay put. It was an office type chair with casters. I felt like I was on a ship, rolling this way and that. 

"Is this kind of thing normal? To be unable to stay in one spot?" I asked.  She assured me that it happened all the time.

Prior to that I had been in another situation that seemed to have to do with the cult I was in back in the '80s. But it was present day and they had a nice bit of property that they were renovating to make it even more expansive. I noticed a smallish house that was being stripped to the studs and expanded to a three story version. 

Robert Leon was in his usual form, speaking in whispers to a close associate:

"Am I doing it? (Am I doing her, he meant). Well, if you ask me, am I going in that room there, getting naked and having sex with her, that kind of thing, I'll say, no."

He spoke the words with the tone of a politician who knows he can think of fifteen different loopholes to exonerate him, while still bragging that this was exactly what he was doing.

The grounds were expansive, including a lake and a nice cement walkway/biking path. I encountered a man on a Harley who was a bit perturbed that I wouldn't yield the right of way. I was walking and he was riding, so I wasn't sure who actually was supposed to yield. 

I was going about placing talismans for some kind of ritual in tied up bandanas. One of the items was a raw onion. Some kind of result was expected if I got them all placed, but I don't know what, exactly.
Luis Ramirez and some of the Honda staff were also in on it and helping me in some way or another. 

Art Mele's presence was implied, but it was more representational than actual. He could have been a mashup with Robert Leon. The big cheese character, heard but not seen by us everyday folk. 

It could have been that my talisman placing and conspiring with Luis was an attempt to bring down Robert's evil empire, but it was unclear. Things were in a process of discovery, so I guess I hadn't gotten to my true purpose yet. Possibly that's what the giant pendulum was for.

Anyway, it's nice to be back in the game, even if it's confusing and unreal because it's the dreamworld.

I'm done lying to myself (about lying to myself)

 

When I lie to myself now, it will be with the understanding that this is what I'm doing. I'm telling a version of events to suit my agenda. 

Right now, I'm feeling a passive-aggressive angry feeling because Rienna cancelled our meetup. We never even had plans. It was plans to make plans and possibly meet up while she was in California. She sent me a quick message saying she'd be too busy, and I lived too far away. She felt bad, blah, blah, blah... I messaged her back as politely and understandingly as I know how, but Facebook Messenger's tattletale service that shows when a message was viewed doesn't indicate that she even read my message.

So, here's how it plays out in my head. Obviously, I built this up way too much. It meant much more to me than it ever did to her. I don't rate a response or even for her to bother reading my response. I obsess too much over perceived rejections and slights, where I should just not give a shit and move on. I keep checking to see if she's at least read my message, as if that will somehow indicate something.

When she left me in 1994, it was sudden and, once again, I was the one who was attached and upset at the breakup. I didn't have the self-esteem then to feel OK within myself to let it roll off of me. I took it personally. What I should have done is let myself seal off that part of me for good so that I'd never invest another lousy feeling on this person. 

I can't help it, though. Even though I'm mad at her for not caring for me like I do for her, what can I do? I feel guilty for even writing this down, even if no one ever sees it.

I should just resign myself to the fact that I'll live and die here alone. I have no real friends, and I just entertain people on Facebook once in a while to get likes or comments. Real friends, well, I wouldn't know what that would even look like in my life. I'm no one's friend, and no one is mine. 

I got mad at Denise Graubart for not responding to a message a couple years ago when she was visiting up here. She came within 50 miles of my house, and I offered to meet up with her and her family somewhere, but yeah, itinerary planned, time not allotted. But I figured a response at least...

Fuck it. This is me, pouting. Inside on the outside. Not so pretty, huh? Not so wizened or brilliant. Just a sad, old pathetic guy who wishes more people liked him. And not just that superficial bullshit about hugs and best wishes, emoji, emoji. I'm sure that's the currency these days, but it's fiat in my book.

My shrink is just another person who will listen to my crap, but hasn't a clue of how to fix me. Doesn't even make that promise. So I go, but instead of feeling better, I just feel more hopeless. Because now there's one more person in this world who has zero chance of liking me, since they know a little about me. 

I should dump the whole thing because it's going to cost me money to go there. I've already gotten SSD back, so it's counterproductive. If my shrink thinks I've improved too much, it will reflect in my files, which are accessed by the evaluators who assess my worthiness of receiving benefits.

I have too much to bitch about, and even I'm tired of hearing it. Inside my head or out on the pages of this blog, I disgust myself.

Owww

 

I'm trying to not give in to storytelling, cementing my narrative into something I intend to believe, or worse yet, peddle to others, as if to convince them of anything. I'm just going to say, "Owww." That's what "it" feels like, whatever "it" is. 

It feels like pain, in my forehead and face and chest. Like a scrunching of eyebrows and a contraction of chest muscles. I'm just going to experience it, not name it or pin blame on anyone. It happens. I'm not immune. I'll just let it happen. Maybe it'll go away on its own.

Hey, this is great. No more meddlesome one or two unidentified blog readers. I changed the setting to private. Now, no one is to blame but me for my being unavailable. I'm keeping Facebook alive because I use it to sell things. I am just going on a "like strike," where I refuse to like anything even if I really do like it.

This unsettled feeling, like a nausea wave that won't recede, is sinking its teeth into my psyche. I don't feel at peace within my own body. I am conscious of a shift, of cords being cut, roots that were taking hold withdrawing and dying from a toxified environment. Expansion has stopped, and a curling up of leaves, a wilting and dying process has begun. 

If my soul doesn't receive nourishment from somewhere it will become darker and darker until no light is left in it. I'm going to let that happen. I won't seek any kind of attention or support. Let's see how rotten I become.

I don't know how to describe it other than, "I feel bad." Sick, but there's no tangible sickness. Just a lack of will to live. And an empty feeling and lack of pleasure in anything. I just want to be rid of this heavy cloak of depression, but I can't shake it. No one is going to do it for me. 

So, I guess that's it. I will myself to not live. If I have to interact, I will fake it just enough that the person will not detect how bad it really is. Then I'll quietly let ties fade and break of their own natural decay. No one will notice. I'll keep my stupid words and horrible feelings to myself.

Ughh

 

I don't like being me right now. I feel like going full turtle on the world, sinking back into my shell by taking this blog down, de-activating Facebook and hiding from everyone. Maybe stop going to my shrink, too. She's not helping. I am simply feeling pouty and like a kid that wants to be loved, but the more he acts up, the less lovable he is. 

I had so much wanted to see Rienna, too. I think I was already in a teeter-totter state, but her cancelling our visit made me feel like I just don't have any hope of anyone ever giving a crap about me. Sure, I invested too much in what was to be a one day, possibly an hour or two visit. I just don't have much to look forward to these days, and I was really looking forward to that.

My daily routine is just a slow way of dying. I walk, I exercise, I eat my omelets and salads. I avoid alcohol and limit my caffeine and weed smoking to one time a week. I look forward to Saturday morning for that reason. The drugs make me "feel" something. But a little less, each time I do it. 

I already know the path of addiction. The more you do, the less you enjoy it, until it finally starts working in reverse. It actually makes you feel bad. That's where I stand with alcohol. It makes me feel worse every time I drink, so I don't do that. It's pointless. But my mind remembers that it made me feel good in the past, so there's still a slight craving.

Ah, fuck it. I'm making this blog private again, so no one will get to read this. Boo hoo. I'm gonna be here, no one giving a fuck about me, until I'm not. Then who'll notice if I'm gone? Doubtfully, anyone at all. Goodbye.

Fire escape

That was the theme of what I was dreaming about last night. There was this pins and needles feeling, like at any moment I could be forced to flee. The wind was raging, and I was in a house located on a steep hill. I looked outside and saw a little orange spot ignite, which quickly turned out to be the whole hillside. 

There was one other person in the house with me, and I screamed at them that we needed to leave. That I had to fumble with the gate lock at such an inopportune moment only added to the panic. It seemed that I could run but not escape. 

Later, I was in a much more residential type area, but the threat remained. I was with a larger group of people, but when the fire ripped through the neighborhood, within a few seconds I found myself alone. 

Once again, it was the wind that seemingly made everything combust in a matter of minutes. I must have made it to some other safe ground because I never got to the point where the fire "got" me. But it was so close that I had to flee through it at times.

Relatives by the lake

 

I'm not sure who they all were, but I was visiting some relatives by a lake. Maybe it was Minnesota, but the characters were vaguely familiar. One was a slightly Amazonian woman who reminded me of Pink or Kristen Johnston, but had nose hairs that needed trimming. 

We were planning to do a little camping down by the lake, and folks were scrambling to get the gear together. I was told to inform Monika, the slightly Amazonian Pink woman, about getting the tent. Someone else was bugging me by calling me on my flip-phone to get me to pass her the message. 

I wound up handing her the phone. "Meineke! Meineke!" I mispronounced her name on purpose. "It's for you."

I began looking for some kind of thermal desiccant in the refrigerator/freezer. "It ought to be here, right next to the pork chops," I thought.

Prior to that I was near the lake and was attempting to make things look nice around the shore. I picked up a couple of pieces of trash, but whatever I touched wound up in the lake and drifted away, irretrievable. 

I had found a square egg carton filled with little marijuana seedlings that hadn't seen sunlight in some time. I was thinking about how I might find homes for them by planting them somewhere, but, you guessed it, they wound up in the drink too.

All in all it was an odd vibe. Relatives, who were not my relatives and a chaotic, disorganized camping trip which never materialized. That's about it. Pink Monika was wearing men's underwear and an old t-shirt, but despite this and her nose hair situation, she was still quite sexy. I was kinda looking forward to going camping with her.

Yuba City Honda again

                                                                                           

I may as well dream about work, as it is clearly something lacking in my life. I was back to work in rehabilitory capacity. Things were different. The place was in a different location. Some of the same characters were there, but some were old ex-employees, back doing their old jobs, such as Kou from parts. I never actually got around to working on any cars. I was in a forever state of trying to get a job dispatched to me.

I needed a timing belt done on my car and was working out the details of how I was gonna get paid to work on my own car. Tom also needed a timing belt done on his car. I was scheming to get both jobs, but they made it clear that things didn't work that way anymore. No more job stacking and hoarding. One timing belt job at a time. That was fine by me, I was never a big fan of those kinds of jobs anyway.

I was kind of roaming around and wound up in the office, leisurely kicking back and listening to the office girls chit-chat about spiritual music. Someone called "Katie Love," who was the latest rage, a kind of new age version of Katie Perry, was being raved about vapidly. 

I stuck my nose in the conversation for a second, "Uh. Spiritual music, eh?" 

They included me in their yappy raving for a minute, but I turned my attention elsewhere, as I still had to get some work done that day. It was almost 2 o'clock, and I hadn't touched a car yet.

Walking across the courtyard, some employees were talking about more innocuous stuff. A black couple (I guess I have to say they were black, in order to get the description out in as efficient a manner as possible) was having a lightly flirtatious conversation about what things made the guy a good "daddy."  He definitely had the dad bod going on. He looked like Neil deGrasse Tyson or that Jordan Peele character. 

(There, I even spell-checked their names out of some sense of racist guilt. How dare I spell their names incorrectly if they are black. To be fair they were both slightly orange, having that odd hair color that looks like they tried to bleach it, and it didn't come out quite right.)

Anyway, I'm just being as descriptive as I can. They were all kind of heavy-set. What's the polite term for that these days? Why am I being so overly concerned at this point? A fat black dude was trying to woo a big black chick. She was mildly amused at his self-promotion. (Apart from my own racial PC self-consciousness in this narration, I'm sensing another theme. I'll get to it in a minute.)

So, I'm about to start my job, or at least settle in on which timing belt I'll be doing, when I realize I've not clocked in. I've been back to work for 2 days already, and I have done zero work and have failed to clock in either day. Reiner wasn't going to be thrilled, but I sensed that it was a common occurrence and that I'd just need to obtain his signature verifying my presence.

I think my theme is interaction and self-esteem. Everyone had enough self-esteem to interact with others socially in a work setting. Even I had seemingly overcome my reluctance to engage in office banter with the opposite sex. My takeaway: I'm not doing anything like that in my reclusive, self-absorbed disabled life. Since I don't have that type of input in my regular life, I need to get it somewhere.

Now, who's trying to notify me on Facebook? Someone liked my comment about telemarketers and my strategy of wasting as much of their time as possible as retribution for making me pick up the phone unnecessarily. I guess that's the extent of my social interaction. I do insert myself, unsolicited, into people's threads and usually don't get my head bit off. 

Warning to new or returning blog readers

Since this blog functions a a multi-purpose repository for anything and everything I might write down, it will from time to time contain highly opinionated, personal and deeply charged items which readers may or may not take personally.

For instance, I write down all my dreams, in as accurate detail as I can recollect. Some of these dreams include real life characters who might be friends or relatives. It also functions as a journal, where I make notes of events or impressions of things on a semi-regular basis. Occasionally, I'll include recollections of stories that occurred in the distant past that were somehow brought to my attention, and I will re-tell the story just to pass the time.

In the event that you are reading and stumble across your name, either in a dream journal entry or a real-life event which I chose to write about, just know this: I am just relating what happened because it made an impression on me. The dreams are totally out of my control, so I'll claim innocence of malfeasance on that. I can't choose the programming that my subconscious decides to entertain me with at night. 

As for real life accounts that may differ from your recollection, I can only say that I'm not a journalist. I'm a person writing about things from an obviously subjective viewpoint. I hope to not offend anyone or give reason for upset, but it is likely that eventually, if you read long enough, you will find something to disagree strongly with.

Case in point, my argument with God or the Universe or whatever. You may find it a tad distasteful that I'm so flippant and arbitrary with my critiques of this life and existence in general. My attitude may come off as piss-poor and entitled, lacking gratitude, etc. I hate to break it to you, but that's just me. I'll never join the ranks of pleasantly docile accepters of what is. I'll be shaking my arthritic fist til it's just a skeletal claw.

But if seeing your name in print for some reason makes you feel litigious, please contact me, and I'll scrub all references to your name, replacing it with a fictitious pseudonym. But you'll know and I'll know that it was you I was referring to. At this point, I'm not believing enough people read this or care enough about how my perception of them might be received in these written accounts to merit self-censorship. 

Although technically a public blog, there is not much chance of it getting public attention. My two or three occasional readers have not chimed in and told me to knock it off with the name dropping and personal anecdotes yet.

That's it. I don't have anything to report or recount today. This was just a cautionary word for those who have not yet been unlucky enough to find that they were the subject of one of my entries. My aim is not to offend, embarrass or hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm also not wanting to tip-toe around and self-censor at every turn. You understand...don't you? Ok. Back to laying about and listening to the sound of my sprinklers.

---

Ok, I did think of something. Not too spectacular, just another day's small accomplishment. I cooked a pan of low-carb zucchini lasagna. My secret ingredient is carnitas. Instead of ground beef, I use chopped and pan-seared bits of pork in the traditional red sauce. 

Because of my diabetic past, I've gotten accustomed to substituting the zucchini for the lasagna noodles. I have a bumper crop of them this year already, so this was just housekeeping to avoid throwing away vegetables. I can't keep up with them, so I make things with zucchini and freeze them.

Same with my tomato plants. The early girls are producing more than I can eat in salads every day, and I had a backlog. So into the sauce they went. I'll have about nine meals out of this one afternoon's work preparing it. Pretty efficient, really, work to reward ratio-wise.

Sharon visits again, almost didn't remember to write it down

 

I dreamed of her again. This time was like so many others in the past. I was with her in the house, and she was ill, bedridden, needing care. Some kind of odd shipping delivery came to the house in the middle of the night while I was out for a minute checking something outside. 

When I returned, there were boxes stacked up inside the house everywhere. By the door, inside the kitchen, spare room. Everywhere. Even outside, there was evidence of the delivery driver moving things about to gain access and to store more boxes.

Sharon was curious about all this moving and stacking of boxes and was wondering what had I ordered that was taking up all this space. And to my amazement, she proceeded to get out of bed, despite my shocked protests. 

"Are you sure you are able to do this, honey? Look at you! You are up and walking!" I was always amazed that she could walk in these dreams, and I went to steady her, but she was fine.

I got excited and contemplated all the things we would do again, now that she was cured. I told her about the boxes and how they were some supplements I'd ordered in bulk, which was why there were so many. 

But as I opened them, I couldn't find any evidence to back up this claim. I only found packing material or unrelated items, which didn't appear to substantiate my story. 

No matter. I woke up soon, and we never did any of the fun things I had assumed we would. But it was nice just having her back, even if just for a moment.