Only the vaguest recollection...and poof!

 

I have the faintest remembrance of last night, dreaming that I was settling in for a long kiss. With whom was I sharing this kiss? What led up to it? Sorry, no clue. Of course, I woke up and was distracted, so I couldn't dredge up any details. I'm only making notes now as a part of my solemn duty to record any and all dreams, however patchy or insignificant.

Infinity +1 and a sliding scale salvation package

 

4-22-20

Infinity plus one. That’s the concept I’m going to try to tackle today. We live in an “infinite“ universe. Infinite in all directions and in every dimension. But thanks to the magic of linguistics, I am able to add to the sum quantity of all that is with “just one more thing.” Concepts like eternity or infinity are just that: concepts. So in the vastness of all that is, can there be some kind of agreement between the concept of infinity and the notion that there could possibly be a final, ultimate anything? I mean, here we are doing mathematics, counting things, cataloging things and for what? It is endless. A job that will never be done. Even if someone endeavored to sweep up all the sand on all the beaches of the world, using nothing but a toothbrush and a teaspoon, with enough patience and an extended lifespan, the job could ultimately be completed.

But this infinity thing, that’s really got me buggered. Just when you think you’ve gotten that last grain of sand off of that final beach, that you can finally put your feet up and say, “Ahh, Nice work. Good job, me!“ Just at that exact moment, the universe dumps another truckload, and an infinite number of trucks line up to dump an infinite number of truckloads each containing an infinite number of grains of sand for you to have to contend with. Fuck me!

Some religions have, at their core, an afterlife which promises either eternal bliss or eternal damnation. A binary choice, with a line of demarcation determining which afterlife experience you will be enjoying, based on an algorithm residing in the brain of some deity who will decide whether or not that pack of gum that you stole in the third grade constitutes a damnation-worthy act or not. In or out. Up or down. Heaven or hell. Not very imaginative for a god of infinite creative capacity. It seems that perhaps he needed a rest after the sixth day and got a little blocked when coming up with an equitable eternal judgment plan. He should have hired Rod Serling.

I think a more interesting alternative would be an afterlife consisting of infinite possibilities. A sliding scale of punishment or reward with infinite gradations or combinations suited to the individual and his alleged crimes or good deeds. A semi-comfy hell with a few amenities for those who have sinned, but not in a big way. Or a "pretty OK" heaven with a few options grayed out for those whose lives are only deemed worthy of standard salvation but not the premium package. Just basic cable and a self-serve deli. And the streets, not paved with gold but perhaps a very high-end durable linoleum.

Why have I become so obsessed with this idea of infinity lately? It is because I like to watch TV, and I find myself running out of things to watch. Now, I know that there are still more shows out there, an infinite number, perhaps. But they are usually boring shows that consist of things that I wouldn’t be interested in. Give me enough time, though, say an eternity, and I might start to get a little interested. Because I might be getting bored out of my freaking skull, like so many of you are probably doing right now having to stay at home and not go anywhere or see anyone. Welcome to my comfy hell. Let me show you around. Today’s entertainment will consist of watching a cat, already poorly feigning interest, lose their last shred curiosity with the whirly toy.

Lesa makes me mad again

Even in my dreams she's doing stuff that just pisses me off. I guess I dreamed she was visiting me at my communal living situation where I had about 8 or so of my friends bunking in my place. I suppose I had the idea that she was supposed to be bunking with me, but instead she chose to bed down with Brian Murry, aka Bongo Lips aka Jethro Q. Walrustitty. 

I mean, come on, really? Can't I have a nice escapist dream where I get the girl? Do I have to experience the envy and sense of entitled jealousy that plagues my real life? She wasn't really doing anything that violated any relationship codes. As in real life, we didn't have one established. But I guess I figured it was my commune, and if she was going to be visiting, she ought to at least be sharing my bed, not Brian's. 

Happy Birthday, me.

I’m all alone in this world: A lament for Lesa and the loss of hope in general.

 

4-20-20

I found myself alone on the side of the road waiting for a bus to take me to my death. I was just a sad person with no hope of any kind, sitting there waiting for my time to run out. It seemed to me that I would never hope again or love again or find any happiness in this world. Downcast and forlorn I sat, wishing the world would just fucking leave me alone. 

Fuck. Now I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I can’t dream -- I can’t do anything. I’m just so fucking pissed off right now. Goddammit! I'm sitting here, trying to think of a story to tell myself about why I’m feeling this way or, rather, not feeling anything. So what do I do, but sit here and work myself into a lather because I can’t even do any of these things to my satisfaction. I can’t speak my mind intelligibly. I can’t give myself the comfort that I need. 

All I can do is try to convince myself to sleep, but I can’t even do that because I’m not a good person, and I don’t deserve to sleep. I haven’t earned it. All I’ve earned is an ulcer. All I’ve earned is discomfort. 

So what do I do now? How do I even begin? Beginnings are over. Now is the time for slow dirges to be sung. No comfort to be found in anything. I wanted to try to tell myself, or you, or anyone, the story of how I wound up in this predicament. How did I get to this point where I cannot feel anything? 

I was sitting there, as I said, by myself, alone, none to give me solace, just me with my own thoughts. Nothing is coming out right, nothing is coming out at all. I sat there waiting for death to take me, for this life has used up all of its opportunities. The seeds of hope were too old to possibly ever grow anything. 

So what do I do now? Keep breathing? If I had a choice, if I had an off switch, would I have the courage to flip that switch one time for good? I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know what I am capable of. Simply existing? For how long? 

It seems to me that there was a time, not so long ago that I had encountered you again. I was given another chance to feel things like everyone else seems to be feeling. The desire to live crept back into me. I was lured into your car, and we went down the road a ways. I allowed myself to dream as we talked and planned and spoke of a future together. 

These dreams were pleasant, and I closed my eyes for a moment. Then you were gone in my dreams. I couldn’t find you anymore. It turns out, you were never there, and the whole thing was a dream. You had other things going on, and I was only a temporary flirtation in your mind. I found myself back out on the road again with no one in sight and nothing on the horizon. 

I couldn’t go back to wherever it was that you had found me, and I couldn’t go forward because there was nowhere to go. So I’m just sitting here in the middle of the desert, staring off into the infinite distance. If I keep walking in one direction, someday will I ever get out of this damn empty space? I doubt it. I don’t have the will. 

I don’t even have the will to gather my thoughts together and tend my garden. My mind is overgrown with disorganized thoughts, and I can’t even see the things that are tearing it apart. I don’t even have a visible enemy to fight. Just a lack of will. 

This is a stupid exercise. I’m speaking into a voice recorder that gets half of my spoken words wrong, and I can’t even vocalize the correct thing to begin with. Forget it just forget it. Fuck it all anyway. Fuck you and goodbye. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...

 

** Transcribed from a text editor rant while walking. Edited slightly for grammar and clarity.

 

A teacher's winsome approach

When a new person starts working at the dealership there is always the usual amount of territorialism and headbutting as the existing pecking order re-establishes itself. The teacher that was hired as an "efficiency instructor" was no exception. Everyone needed to be at their best or else have a ready excuse for who else was to blame for their inadequacy. 

I fell in the latter category, but found no one to blame but myself for my unproductive approach to things. So I felt a certain antagonism toward the teacher, though I couldn't really find any fault with her method.

One thing she was responsible for was the weighing of everything. This included our toolboxes and a tiger, who happened to be there, perhaps in a mascot capacity. Whatever the case, everything must get placed on the scale for measurement. I wasn't thrilled about it because my toolbox was as unwieldy as a tiger at getting itself up on the the scale. 

I protested and complained, as was customary for me, because of the amount of work involved. Disassembly, unloading and reloading, where to place the jack in order to get the damn thing in position over the scale--it was definitely a two person job at least.

So, I found myself at the door of her classroom, where she was teaching a preschool level room full of students. Perhaps it was a daycare situation, but it had the air of a science class because she wasn't going to let the opportunity to educate go to waste. 

Anyway, I show up there with my partially disassembled toolbox, griping. She offered to help me and things start going remarkably smoothly. She seemed to know way more about the physics involved in getting the job done than I did. 

We got the toolbox on the scale posthaste and at some point the toolbox and the tiger were both on the scale. The need to weigh the tiger was as important as the toolbox, so she was keeping the tiger in place while I positioned the jack under the tool box. I began to change my opinion about the job she was doing, and started to compliment her.

Unfortunately, in all the confusion of jack positioning and tiger wrangling and complimenting, I'd forgotten to read the scale. We were going to need to re-do the entire thing. She took it step by step and we recreated our precarious pile atop the scale. I decided to complete my compliment then and there before something else happened and the opportunity got away from me.

"You have a very positive approach to problems," I said beginning to break the ice awkwardly. "I wasn't too thrilled at first at the notion of having to weigh the toolbox. But you made it quite a bit easier with your straightforward, no-nonsense method. You are a 'get the job done' type of person. You've won me over."

She smiled a toothy grin and said deferentially, "I give credit to the tequila."

I laughed. I was sure we were going to get along well after that. We engaged in small talk as we unpacked the pile of toolbox and tiger from the scale.

The Kingston Trio Thriftstore, Whiskey and the Waters of March movie theater

 

I dreamed I was at  a thrift store where the background music was a continuous loop of Kingston Trio songs. I was buying a list of things in hopes to cure my real life ailment. It was some kind of a witchcraft shopping list with items like "eye of newt," etc. But this list included things like 2 bowling balls, a crappy bicycle and various bottles of spices, some opened and half used. 

The clerk who was responsible for ringing me up was a bit of a carnival huckster type, a portly man with glasses, and he had made many of the recommendations for my list. As he named the prices for the bowling balls, $100 each, I was getting a bit dismayed. They didn't even come with bowling bags. 

I wasn't exactly thrilled when he tried to find a towel to fold into a makeshift sling in which to carry them. The bicycle was some kind of less than ergonomic old school ten-speed with fenders and granny handlebars, the kind that would sport a bell nicely or perhaps a clown horn. Again, I was underimpressed.

I pulled out my credit card. "Fine," I said. If these items didn't cure me, I'd be dead soon enough, so who cares how much they cost anyhow?

Next, I found myself in Philadelphia. Why? How? I'm not sure. But I had my phone with me, so I was gonna take a lot of pictures of local landmarks to prove that I had traveled somewhere. 

"What would Martin do?" I thought as I snapped pictures of some older looking buildings. A tour bus stopped in front of one in particular, and the announcer began his little speech, so I knew I was on the right track. 

I somehow meandered up to a bit of a hilltop community which didn't seem quite like Philly anymore. There was a mountain trail that looked like it was going to be a difficult way to get back down to the city, but I followed a dog who looked a lot like Whiskey and found that I was actually a lot closer than I thought. He found a trail that was adjacent to some apartments, and soon we were back in the city.

He seemed to vanish as I got back on track with whatever I'd come to Philly for. I went into various shops and restaurants. 

What was I looking for? A job? Some pizza? Some kind of connection to jumpstart the next phase of my life? 

I met several people who seemed to each have one hint or another which led me forward in a treasure hunt of clues that was very patchy and sketchy at best. I met with Martin, and we discussed the whole process. He seemed to have a better handle on the game, so we strategized for a while.

I wound up walking on a busy street and there was Whiskey again, happy and fully alive and healthy. It occurred to me in the dream that he was actually supposed to be dead, so I examined him to make sure he wasn't an imposter. He rolled over, and I petted his belly and looked him over. 

I glanced down the street and there was another dog who also looked like Whiskey. I looked back and decided that this was my Whiskey, despite his rejuvenated appearance. 

He sprang up and looked like he was going to run out into traffic. Remembering how he died in real life, I grabbed him by the neck to restrain him.  He wiggled and struggled a bit, but I averted the crisis momentarily. I was pretty sure that this wouldn't be the last time, though. He had a knuckleheaded look on his face that seemed to fixate on following his dog senses somewhere else, indifferent to the traffic.

Sometime later, I was in a mountain community that was vaguely reminiscent of Lake Isabella, but without any landmarks to give me a clue. I was friends with a younger guy, a teenager perhaps, that was going to help me figure out what I needed to do. We had to make some kind of a plan for the day.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him. Or he asked me, I forget.

But he answered with, "Let's go for a walk." He wanted to take a long walk to some creek or place which was quite a ways away.

"We're going to need a map," I said and began rummaging around for a map. I found a laminated old style map which was pre-folded and in perfect condition.

"You can bring that if you want," the younger guy told me, "but I'm going to follow the trail of dog piss." He pointed to a substantial puddle at the base of a telephone pole. And so we were off.

Next, I was lining up at a movie theater, back in the town, presumably Philly still. As I waited to be let in, the ticket taker was reading from a list of things that I was to bring to the theater if I wanted to get in.

"A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road, it's the rest of the stump, it's a little alone..." he intoned from the Waters of March, a Basia song that seemed to go on forever.

I was never gonna get in there at this rate. I finally woke up out of sheer impatience, and sure enough, Basia was still rattling off her list of "Waters of March" images one at a time and confusing me as I tried to remember the earlier parts of the dream.

Damned insomnia

I had a brief snapshot of some erotic dream images starring Sharon, but alas, I have no storyline or much of any description other that what will call "cupcake frosting." This will just have to suffice as a placeholder until the rest of the dream can be reconstructed at some later time. Meanwhile, I'm plagued by insomnia at night and anhedonia by day. I'd write more about it but I simply don't care enough to do so.

Evaporated

There wasn't much of substance to the last one, anyway. I dreamed I was in a boardroom at, yep, YC Honda again. More of a lunchroom, but it served the same purpose. I was trying to sell the two Anguiano boys, the Giant and the little one we just called "Aguinano," on a style of social distancing that they needed to be employing at work. 

I don't remember much about it, other than it involved the latex gloves they normally wore anyways and possibly a measuring device for achieving optimal distance at all times. The rule of thumb was one giant arm's length distance (a giant's arm being nearly six feet in length). 

Mel Mascardo was sitting at the table looking at his gold Honda Mickey Mouse watch and silently judging everyone, as was his usual mode in times past. That's about it. I've faithfully reported my scraps for the night. May I pee now?

Stan's Helicopter and I gear up to visit the training center

 

My neighbor Stan had a slightly used helicopter which he was trying to sell me. He assured me it was only in need of a minimal amount of sanding and then I could paint it if I so desired, or use it as is. Either way the sanding to the black fiberglass exterior seemed to be important, so I was helping him to get it as smooth as possible. 

But could the helicopter make the trip to the Honda training center from Butte College's old main campus automotive technology department? That was the question. 

I teamed up with Tom Baird, the transmission and drive train instructor, who had later become department chair, and perhaps I'd make the trip down there in his car. Brian Clampitt, another Butte College pal from the old days was another option, although the car he was driving was only outfitted with an old XM radio.

"You're still stuck with that old thing, I see," I poked fun at him. 

I'd gotten out of XM in the early 2Ks, not wanting to be stuck with the subscription fees. He had stubbornly doubled down and was pretending to like the programming, just to feel satisfied with his decision. 

Riding with him didn't seem like a good choice. I had my own car, but I would have needed a co-pilot since I had no clue as to how to get to the training center from our current location.

Where was our current location, anyway? It seemed like the storage facility at Butte College for all of the old records of our Honda training back in 1999-2001. Paper certificates to show our credentials adorned the garage-like walls, affixed unceremoniously with bits of scotch tape with greasy fingerprints on the adhesive. 

I looked around the few remaining certificates for my own, but upon viewing each and every one, I found I didn't have one hanging on the wall after all. I overheard one of the teachers offering another former student in my same predicament the option of forging a new one.

"Can you imagine?" I said to my traveling partner, who seemed as lost as I was. "That's really going out on a limb for the students."

I made mention that we were going to have to find Baird, or we'd be lost for sure. He was nowhere around, and I presumed he'd left for the training center without us, in clear violation of the rules of a caravan, which we had all agreed to travel in. I tried to contact him using an antiquated cellphone/pager combo without any success. 

I didn't get to the training center, nor did I wind up purchasing Stan's helicopter, which surely would have facilitated my trip. Now here I am, awake, gut hurting and I have to pee. My exciting life.