Mouthful of ashes, my old fishing rods and reels and an ugly shirt, starring Sharon and Uncle Steve

Last thing I remember I was rinsing my mouth out in the sink. I was in the living space adjacent to a small fishing repair shop where I had taken a couple of rods and reels years before. 

Moments before, I had been sitting on the couch with Sharon as she smoked a cigarette. To be cool, I took one from her and casually held it backwards, doing the Kramer trick and attempting to smoke it with the lit end inside my mouth. That never works out, and I wound up coughing and spitting up a bunch of ashes. 

I felt nauseous as I went to the sink and found an old plastic cup stained with toothpaste residue and full of cigarette butt tea. Of course, the whole thing was good for a laugh, and Sharon was enjoying that part. 

I found myself at this little repair shop, at first just looking for some fishing lures, but later I realized that I actually had some rods and reels to pick up there. The cigar chewing proprietor seemed to vaguely remember me.

I recognized my deep sea pole with the Penn 4.0 reel that I had bought for shark fishing, after I'd seen Jaws in 1975. It was attached a pole I'd picked up in the '80s that was probably equally old. It was in the rack of items waiting for customer approval, along with a mini pole that I'd bought in Chico in the '90s,  attached to small Diawa fishing reel that I inherited from Grace and Bill. It was one of the ones that we used at Lake Isabella when I was a kid. 

The proprietor picked it up and started making like he was playing a big fish with it. 

"This would be a fun pole," he said. 

I told him it was. I told him that I had been a customer there, perhaps 40 years ago or so, before there were even computers, so he might not have any records going back that far. He seemed excited to have someone come in from that long ago as he operated his ancient cash register and tried to look me up in his antiquated filing card system. 

I was convinced that I hadn't been there for decades, but I found a picture of myself on his charter boat that would seem to prove otherwise. It was a picture of me and my two nephews, Morgan and Dylan. Sharon and Uncle Steve were also in the picture, I think. It was a black and white 8X10 in a dusty frame. As I dusted it off, I could clearly see that it was conclusive proof that I'd been there in the last couple of years. 

Some time before that I was in Lance Mathyssen's garage. I had to back up a small trailer to unload a riding lawnmower. He had a chopper with extended forks and a tiny teardrop gas tank parked right in my path. I moved it out of the way a few feet, but naturally it fell over in the process. I was able to lift it back up and half-wheel, half-drag the bike over a few feet, leaving a few scrapes in the concrete which I attempted to cover up by dragging my shoe over the dust and oil on the floor.

Before that, I had been with Uncle Steve, but I don't remember what the bulk of our communication was about. I was in an art studio that he had set up, and there were a bunch of pictures he had taken of me adorning the walls. 

He was trying to impress some chick with his artistic camera work, and I was the unwitting subject of his display. In the photos, I was wearing a shirt that I had worn back in the '90s. My "party shirt."  It was an orange, white and blue Hawaiian style or bowling type shirt with an obnoxious modern art pattern of jagged lines and triangular areas of cartoon-like color. It looked like Fred Flintstone meets Charlie Brown at a surfer beatnik convention. 

Anyway, the shirt still existed in the dream, and I showed Steve that I still had it, even though it had seen better days. The fabric was thinning and frayed from all the wash cycles it had been through over the years, and the buttons were barely hanging on by a spiderweb of cheesecloth-like string. 

The pictures were actually not that bad, so I forgave him for using me as a subject without my consent. I know there was more to this dream prior to the art studio, the shirt, the rod and reels and the cigarette trick, but I'll be damned if I can draw it out now. I guess there's enough minutia to make up for it.

Just an Asian lady drawing a bath

I know I dreamed more, but my only recollection was the last image in my head before I awoke to a houseful of hungry cats protesting their empty (yes, completely empty) food bowl. That image was a matronly Asian lady wearing a black robe filling a bathtub. She was preparing a special bath to make her scent amenable to deer, presumably so that she could hunt them. That's about it, anything more would be fabrication after the fact. 

How did the empty cat food bowl escape my notice? Eddie Rabbit did her preliminary puking the day before, a telltale sign that she was worried about something food related. They were both fighting and competing for my attention, too. Oh, and I'd noticed that the bottom of the bowl had become visible, meaning that the countdown to apocalyptic famine and starvation had begun. 

So, having ignored all the signs, I shouldn't have been surprised to find that the bowl was completely empty, not one bit of kibble remaining. I do feed them gravy made with the gelatin from my instant pot turkey, like, every single day, twice a day. But never mind that, this was clearly abandonment, neglect and abuse and cannot be tolerated. 

Eddie followed me to the storage closet where I keep the food in a plastic container. She jumped up on the stepstool and started eating the food the moment I began scooping it in the bowl. She remained locked on the bowl as I carried it back to its spot in the hallway, focusing on it with the targeted tracking of a missile guidance system. 

Meanwhile, the guinea hens were determined to make sure I didn't get back to sleep after filling the cat bowl, scraping and scratching their way across my roof doing their little morning sprints. I cursed them and went on the front porch flapping my umbrella in an alpha male display of territorial aggression. It worked, but it is only a temporary victory. 

As long as I'm also their source of scratch grain, and as long as they sleep in the trees adjacent to the house, we will have this constant turf war. I don't want to shoot at them with the BB gun or hurt them in any way, but they could be making my 40 year roof into a 5 year leaky piece of cheesecloth with all their runway antics. Those claws are ridiculously sharp and abrasive. 

Even the older neighborhood guineas have joined in on the routine, having seen the benefits of being full-time members of the flock that gets fed chicken scratch by me daily. Perhaps I will have to move the feeding locale, or stop feeding them altogether and they can go back to foraging and roaming the neighborhood. 

It is like what I fear would happen if you invite a homeless person over for dinner. They'd overstay their welcome and the next thing you know they are showering and pooping in your bathroom every day. I'm just not the sugar daddy type, I guess. I'd probably hand out lemons for Halloween just to keep the kids away.

My shrink is breaking up with me (LED still on)

Captain's Blog, Stardate 2128.1 

My therapist called to tell me that today would be our last session. I don't know that she was helping me all that much, as far as curing my depression goes. We barely scratched the surface of any real CBT or DBT work. Most of our sessions were just like this blog: me bitching about my issues with life and her providing an ear. 

Like my previous therapist, Shannon, Lindsay was just a person to talk to. I don't have very many of them in my life. The ones that I talk to on a telephone I can count on one hand. The ones I talk to in real life, I could count on an amputee's hand. Zero. 

I will miss Lindsay, as I miss anyone or anything that is suddenly and irrevocably removed from my life. I don't like it when things are over. Even things I complain about or people that bug me, when they are gone, leave a vacuum. 

What am I going to do with the random afternoons that we had scheduled for our appointments? What will I do when I'm done binge watching Dexter? Even my rituals of self-care, like soaking my eyelids to try to remediate my stye or chalazione, when they are done, leave a void. 

The "good old days" of cleaning Sharon's poop, surely, I don't miss them, do I? Yes, in some ways, I actually do. Because there was a purpose to my life. One that I may have despised at the time, but a purpose that kept me on my feet and my blood pumping through my veins. It may have been pumping fueled by anger, but it was keeping me alive. 

Now, what do I have? The caregiving package came with a whole person, who is no longer here. I would have loved to have kept the person and dropped the role of caregiver. It wasn't what I had signed up for. We were supposed to be partners. She became a job, and one that I resented. 

Now, I have no one and nothing to be responsible for besides myself and two cats. The guinea hens could just as easily flap around on someone else's property, squawking and pecking for bugs. 

I take care of myself, but I don't enjoy much satisfaction from doing the same things every day, my bare minimum of keeping myself from falling into utter decrepitation. I don't even enjoy the process of writing down my toxic thoughts, such as the ones I'm having right now. 

It used to give me a bit of satisfaction to feel I was relatable, or relating to people somehow. I felt the need to "get it all out," so to speak. Now, I feel there is less and less in there to even bother getting out. Or it is just stagnant and won't flow out, crusting up like clogged arteries. Blah, blah, blah. 

I've quit Facebook, my shrink has quit me, and I've quit shaving out of protest. I mean, who cares, right? Who honestly gives one goddamn fuck? 

Kirk, out.

Yo ho ho ho, an itinerant firefighter's life for me

I dreamed I had joined up with a group of itinerant volunteer firefighters in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area. Among them was Abby the goth forensics chick from NCIS. 

We spent most of our time staging at various locales and never fought any actual fires while I was with the troupe. We spent some time at a Salvation Army, a bus depot, and a laundromat as well as some parking lots and a grass field. I had to keep up with the group, as they hopscotched to different places, lugging their small amount of gear around in a cardboard box. 

Someone had stolen my insulated boots and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find them in the shoe section of the Salvation Army. I was ready to settle for some green waffle toe creepers, which I knew wouldn't cut it, because they lacked the proper insulation. 

Abs told me it was technically "isolation, not insulation," as thermal insulation wouldn't be sufficient to withstand the voltage of a downed power line.  Everyone had heard the stories about how that always turned out. Charred limbs, death, etc.  

I thought I was onto a pair that would work but they were way too small, a child's size. Another pair was way too big and belonged to another in the group. 

We also spent a lot of time eating, as groups of action oriented folk tend to do in their downtime. I grabbed a cardboard tray of yogurt that had six dividers in it, like you'd see for a cheap disposable drink caddy at a fast food joint. The yogurt was just plopped into the little dividers atop a layer of spaghetti sauce making an impromptu, unappetizing lasagna. 

I tried a bite or two and decided I'd probably go ahead and shovel a whole bunch of it down eventually. I dumped the tray into a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff and was eating and toting it around. It was not very satisfying, but we had to take what we could get. 

I lost track of the others for a bit when they moved from a grassy area with sprinklers just as the sprinklers came on. I walked through the sprinklers, shirtless, enjoying the warm Phoenix weather. I kept thinking about how different it was from where I was from, where it was rainy and cold at the moment. I found Abs again, in a laundromat, and busied myself sorting out some chopsticks. 

I remarked that I knew someone who lived in Phoenix, but the name was eluding me in the dream. I remember now that it was Mary Ann Talbot, someone I really don't know very well, actually. She's a friend of a friend on Facebook, twice removed. But it bugged me in the dream that the name wouldn't come to me, as I tried to explain to Abby the nature of Facebook's many layered friendship types. 

I awoke not too soon after, none the wiser, except for remembering my friend's friend's name. I think the others finally chipped in and got me some real boots but they never came into my possession. Alas.

Slept in the Batcave

It was cold and I was lazy, so I put on On the Beach and just stayed on the couch last night. Consequently, my dreams weren't as memorable. 

Other than working at an apocalyptic landfill with a rather guilty Houa Vang, I really don't know what happened. It seemed like he had some kind of Phantasm-like interdimensional smuggling operation going on, but it wasn't really clear what it was. I kept trying to get him to come clean, but he wouldn't, and so I haven't much to report. 

It was windy as fuck last night, so I guess I'll be going out to survey whatever damage may have occurred.

Mutt, CDF's reluctant spotter plane pilot

I only remember the last little snippet of a dream last night which involved a fleet of CDF spotter planes that was attempting to set out on a reconnaissance mission over the ocean. Mutt, a character on Schitt's Creek, was a pilot of one of their smaller crop duster type planes and was supposed to join up with the rest of the team for some training maneuvers. 

He was having a bit of trouble getting started, though. I had to assist him in getting out of the hanger. His plane was small enough that you could fold the wings and walk it through a standard doorway, rather than the large roll up doors. I practically had to carry the plane out, due to Mutt's resistance. Once outside, he seemed to be playing dumb as to being able to fly the plane at all. 

There was a series of small ramps which one would have to use to get the plane off the ground in short order. They were staggered at a strategic distance from one another in line as a kind of Evel Knievel type runway. To make use of the ramps one had to get a good run at them, but Mutt seemed ignorant of the fact and meandered his plane up slowly to one and almost plummeted off the ramp into the ditch. He'd wind up in the drink for sure. 

I told him he'd have to get a good head start and then pull up when he reached the ramp, attempting to explain the basics of flight to this semi-moron. Rather than do what I was saying, he performed some kind of trick where he just turned into a golden hawk and flew away. 

Wonderful. Now we'd have to look for another pilot. It seemed that I was going to have to be the one to take his place, but I only had the basics of takeoff down and no experience with actual flight, let alone landing. 

It was very windy, and the sea looked angry. I didn't know if I was up for the task. I mulled all this over and woke up rather than face the idea of being Mutt's replacement. Perhaps turning into a hawk wasn't the worst alternative, though that option didn't present itself for me to try.

Lord, send me an angel

 Lord, Send Me An Angel - The White Stripes

I'm not sure about my dream's meaning, but I'm just gonna give you what I've got. I was in a house which I believe was mine. It was on the beach, and by that, I mean that the tide came up and actually filled up some of the rooms with water during the night. I had some female company staying over and one male with whom I was kind of competing for the affections of these women. I was doing my best to be charming and likeable, singing to my guests and setting up beds and chairs in a hospitable fashion for them. 

I had my preferences as to which of these females I'd like to end up with out of the three. There was a fairly attractive brunette that I would have settled for, there was my mom (a 28 year old version, not the 74 year old one) and there was Diane. 

I shuffled my attention between the three of them, but at one point I did wind up making out with my mom a little bit. Even amoral, weirdo me recognized that this was a no-no, so I knocked it off before it got out of hand. (More shit for the therapist, I know. Geez, gimmie a break, I'm just reporting, here.)

Diane was going to go surf fishing in one of the bedrooms when the tide came in. She put on a wetsuit, which I thought was a bit of overkill for surf fishing, but I encouraged her nonetheless. She did look good in a wetsuit. 

Meanwhile, the brunette was needing some kind of attention, so I set up some chairs in her room so that she could enjoy the ocean when it came to lap the sand in her room at night. As I was doing this my male competition went into Diane's ocean fishing room to attempt to capture her heart with his smooth talking. 

This frustrated me, so I set about to put a stop to it by going in there and being a spoiler. It was a bit awkward, but it worked to a degree. Mr. Charming other guy went in search of love elsewhere, in the room of the brunette, leaving me alone with Diane in the surf fishing room. I really had no game past this point. 

I think I may have asked her feebly, "Ya catchin' anything?" or something innocuous. I didn't really expect that there were fish showing up nightly in the house, but hey, it was a dream, anything could happen. 

"We'll find out," she said and that was that. End of dream. 

LED is still on. I worry when it comes on that some dire situation is on the horizon which will require the comfort of an afterlife friend. I don't have any proof of this correlation, it's just a weird feeling, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

What health crisis, home emergency or mental health situation is so bad that the universe sends Sharon to hang around with boring old me at this time? I do think of suicide rather frequently these days. It's always there in my mind as the backup plan for any irremediable situation that I might find myself in. 

Like getting old and decrepit, for example. I could go to the dentist and get all my teeth pulled and replaced with dentures or implants or I could just kill myself. I could live with my eyes failing and become a blind and disabled person or I could hope that I get hit by a car or get COVID and die. 

My luck, though, the car would just wing me, leaving me paralyzed or disfigured. And COVID is just too unreliable with its low kill ratio and high recovery rate. Not the guaranteed results that I could be assured of with a bottle of tequila and a handful of vicodin. But even that might just land me in a coma or give me liver damage or a less than peaceful transition. 

My hope is just that I will go to sleep one night and exit this world into some dream from which I never wake up. I would hope it is a better dream than the one I am currently living, which seems at times to be a tailor made hell, straight outta the Twilight Zone. 

Dear Lord, dear Lord, send me an angel down. Can't spare no angel, we'll send y'all Susan Brown (yeah, I know that's not how the words go).

Fugitive from justice obstacle course and where’s my damn hammer. LED ON!!!

It is Sunday, Jan 24, and my internet is down. I’m jotting this down in Word so I don’t forget. There isn’t much to recall, it was a rapidly fading dream about some kind of lengthy obstacle course designed to make me feel like a fugitive from justice. I was, in fact, going to be a witness to something or other, and this course was to give me a sense of what the defendant would have gone through. 

I and some other lady were traveling in the same direction and were in apparent competition to reach the end of the course, so we could determine who would be the first to testify. I had a healthy lead, but as such had to deal with all the obstacles first hand. 

First I took a runaway truck ramp which led nowhere and almost cost me my lead. I slid down the side of the hill rather than backtrack, and I maintained my advantage. 

Next there was a “hot lava” type of climbing game where we skirted a small bay by doing some caving style rock climbing, hand over hand around this semi-enclosed body of water which was grotto like in nature. The walls were damp, but the handholds were sufficient if one was very slow and methodical about it. 

 

I got to the next checkpoint first and met my uncle Steve. He was riding his motorcycle, which looked like it had seen better days. The fenders were all bent up and flapping around. He was only mildly concerned when I pointed this out to him. Apparently, where you were going was more important than how your ride looked when you got there. 

I kept that in mind as I fumbled to find a sewing machine which I felt would be a key to something or another. Sharon’s sewing machine was the preferred device, but I didn’t know of its exact location. Hannelore would know, but I didn’t know where to find her either. She was dead, after all, though I didn’t feel that should make a difference.

In related news, Sharon’s beloved LED is on and has been since Saturday. It blinked on briefly on Friday night when I was discussing chocolates with my psychic friend. She ate too much and was having a bad trip, for which I felt bad since I supplied her with them. The LED was only on for ½ a second, but I was on it like a bloodhound. 

The next morning I was excited to check it out. It would make my day if it was on, especially since I tend to like Saturdays more than your average day, because of you know what. So, I came downstairs, like a kid on Christmas day, and there it was! 

I was so glad that I ran over and kissed it. It bashfully blinked off. I was a bit chagrined and began to doubt the whole phenomenon all over again. I tapped it, talked to it, and finally gave up when it stayed off for the next few minutes. Since it is located behind the drumset, I sat down and played for a few minutes, hoping to conjure it back to life. No such luck. 

I went upstairs and cooked my breakfast, only partially disappointed. Perhaps there was a message still to be gleaned. “Don’t kiss the LED, it doesn’t like it?” I don’t know. I thought that I may have some severely grounding energy and that I’d been the soul-sucking vampire responsible for the light going out. Or not. It was back on when I came back down with my breakfast. 

I was excited to play my electric guitar, drink coffee and smoke weed. I do this every Saturday morning, rain or shine, LED or no. But this was going to be great, Sharon was going to indulge me by hanging around with me while I practiced my various lounge act songs for my repertoire. 

It turned out to be a long, moderately successful day in which I consumed too many carbs, got my gut muscles all in a knot from bad posture and slinging my heavy guitar. But I did have a few moments of peaceful enjoyment of some basic sensations, sitting on a chair in the backyard just chilling in the unseasonably warm, yet crisp air. 

I spent a good deal of time looking around for my tiny hammer. I really wanted to hang some pictures and I like using the hammer that is best suited for the job. I have three or four other hammers, but they will not do. It is the tiny hammer that ensures accuracy and besides, just where the fuck was my tiny hammer, anyway? 

I told myself, “Stop looking where it isn’t and look where it is for a change. Think like a tiny hammer, dammit.” 

 

I never did find it, but I did find a wedding picture of Sharon and I at the lighthouse out in the barn. It was forlorn and covered in cobwebs and ashes from the fire. I cleaned it up and discovered a bonus picture of me and Huckleberry as a puppy behind the wedding photo. I brought them into the house and hung the wedding picture in the hallway, as the long missing centerpiece between our 2002 vacation photo collages. It seems like it was supposed to be there all along.

Well, no internet means no family google meeting. I’m kind of relieved since I always feel like the odd man out in these conversations. With my luck it will pop back on right as I finish this and it is 9 o’clock on the dot.

Quote of the Day

 "Man, you ain't no kind of Buddha. You a dumbass Buddha, that's what you is. Imo smack the shit outta ya, see what kind of a wiseass Buddha you wind up then."

Largest Walmart in human history becomes penitentary for the unwitting masses...and Matt Damon's telescoping penis trick

Sharon wanted to just go inside to grab a few things, but the crowd was too big for my liking. This dystopian Walmart Superstore had a parking garage-like structure which, upon entering turned into one giant maze that herded the massive crowds into a prison type trap. You go in easily enough, just follow the lines of people. But once inside, the way out becomes more and more difficult to see. Add to that the crush of humanity, all surging in one direction toward the central location. 

The gigantic structure was at least four stories high and was made to accommodate more than a million people. There seemed to be a pretty big crowd that day, and it was growing by the minute. I estimated 400,000 easily, all shouting and calling to one another as loved ones became lost in the sea of faces. Some people managed to stay together in their little groups, but not Sharon and I. I lost her right at the entrance. She thought she'd be able to just go in and come right back out. 

I should have waited in a pre-designated location, but I went in after a few minutes. I kept catching glimpses of her on the long ramps of the parking structure as she'd fade in and out of the crowds. I got the sense that she wanted a little alone time from me but this was not turning out to be the fun day of shopping she'd envisioned. It was the world's biggest clusterfuck, and it seemed to be inescapable. 

I managed to stay on the periphery and kept trying to call to her but the giant cement walls and the din of other shoppers, all lost to the process of intake, made it impossible. I remained outside on the grass. I ran like a beast, clawing the earth in frustration as I looked up at the huge prison building from outside.

Click scene to a similar mega structure, this time, yep, my old place of employment. It was now the world's largest Honda dealership. It had more open spaces, but it was the same vibe of a centrally controlled entity from which you don't easily obtain freedom. I was one of a small group of two or three that found themselves somewhere we oughtn't have been. There were consequences for that. Surely, we were all shirking our duties and would be reprimanded if caught. 

I teamed up with a young female with dark hair and we spent a good amount of time running from one place to another eluding the authorities. I thought since I knew some of the main people who ran the place, namely Machelle Hankins, the daughter of the boss lady, that I might get special consideration and just be told to get back to work. I wasn't sure, though, and didn't want to test the theory by being caught. Sometimes knowing the bosses daughter just makes you doubly guilty.

Aaaaand...next I was in a rundown version of my Paradise house. It was different in many ways, but  the vibe I got from the place was that I had owned it or lived there at one time, but now was just holed up there temporarily, squatting surreptitiously. 

What do I do when squatting surreptitiously in an abandoned home that I used to own? Masturbate, apparently. I whipped it out and started stroking, quite aware that this was not an appropriate action, which made it all the more appealing. As per dream protocol, of course, nothing ever culminated in climax. I got distracted by something or another. 

At some point Matt Damon, wearing boxer shorts that had a safety pinned fly from which his penis protruded like a Jack-in-the-box made an appearance. It was a neat trick, this retractable member. Up periscope. Down periscope. In the hole, out of the hole goes the snake.

I don't know what to make of that, as I'm not particularly attracted to Matt Damon. Perhaps it was the guy from Dexter, I don't know his name. I have been binge watching that show lately, though I don't find myself wanting to look at his junk, either. 

I know there was a little more, like the fact that I recognized Joe Antos when I was shirking my Yuba City Honda responsibilities. He was shirtless and had a few cuts on his chest and face, like he'd been in a fight. He was drinking a 40 oz, not too much worse for wear. Just another day for "Hardcore Joe," fighting, drinking and running from the authorities. 

Ok, that seems to be the limit of my recollection. Some details I'd have liked to have slipped my mind, namely the masturbation and Matt Damon's penis, but hey, I'm just reporting the news. Your dedicated "man on the street" dream journalist, at your service.

Uncle Steve not dead

 

I dreamed I got a phone call from my uncle Steve. When I answered the phone, I was plugging in an amp or something, and I picked up the phone like any other time, expecting a telemarketer or the usual bullshit call. But this time I heard my uncle's voice loud and clear, or soft and mumbly, as he sounded in life. I was so bowled over that I almost started crying. 

"Are you who I think you are?" I asked him, "because I thought you were dead!"

I knew he was dead, and yet here he was talking to me. He laughed and said that he had just gone away for a while, and I'd better not have sold all his stuff. I pressed him further about the money that he had left me, and how could he do this, just leave us all thinking he was dead. I don't remember what his response was, but I think it was just that he was taking an extended vacation in South America. I busied myself trying to wrap my head around the new reality. 

Prior to that, I was in the process of packing up my things and planning a move to a larger place. I couldn't believe that I was even going to sell my place, since I was as attached to it as I am in real life. But the possibility that I could sell my place and "trade upward" into a multi-million dollar estate was too tempting. I think there were some boxes still laying around when my uncle called. 

Wait a minute, I'm starting to get the idea that maybe this means something. I'm a little concerned now about the blatant symbolism and the fact that my dead uncle was in it. Will I be joining him soon, moving into a bigger place where he is alive, and I was just mistaken for thinking that he was dead?

My attempts to help Bob Orrick result in more damages, Mom works for Kia to shame Donald Trump

Bob Orrick, my father in law, was working on his house in my dream last night. I was trying to lend support by assisting in whatever way I could. Mostly, though, I was fucking things up. At one point, I was trying to get Bob to take a break so he could eat lunch. He was very skinny and looked like he could use a McRib or three. 

So I took my hammer and flung it across the street, skimming it on the pavement like I was skipping stones on a lake. This was to kind of signal that he should adopt a more casual attitude and kick off the old work boots, so to speak. Unfortunately, the hammer skidded to a stop only after crashing through a plate glass door to a neighboring bank. We went across the street to inquire about the damages. I couldn't imagine them being more than a hundred or so. 

"It will come to $1000," the lady bank manager told me. 

My heart sank. This really wasn't going well. I made promises to pay it and figured I really better buy Bob some lunch now, in order to get back in his good graces. I rounded up Harold and some other family members, and we were about to head out and take Bob out to a rib joint, but he was fast asleep on a chair by the front door. We'd have to bring him back something. Such a shame.

Later, I was having a conversation with my mom. She was working for Kia, putting her mathematical skills to work on their latest ad campaign. It was one of those "even an idiot can figure this out" kind of campaigns, similar to the Geico ads that make choosing their insurance the shamefully obvious decision. "Even Donald Trump can save money with Kia's lineup of fuel efficient economy cars" was their tag line. I could see why that would appeal to my mom. 

We were having a discussion about travel, and I kept seeing images of the greater Imperial valley, somewhere between Lake Isabella and Northern California. I was picturing a river which snaked from North to South and East to West, on which the best salmon fishing could be found, along with many scenic views of majestic canyons and sweeping hillsides with green grass, rocks and waterfalls. I was planning a trip down this river. Perhaps a Kia would be suitable, since it was quite a long trip and I'd need a fuel efficient vehicle.

Dennis the Menace rides again

I was living in Loma Rica with Sharon and still working at YC Honda in my fading dream from last night. There were a lot of things needing to be done on the property that weren't getting done in a timely manner. So my employers and Sharon had an incentive system which included free groceries as prizes for doing certain things. One of the required activities was just that I show up to collect the prize. 

I hopped on my bike and told Sharon that I'd be going to town to collect my prize so that we could have dinner. We would need to go shopping again in a day or two, but this would tide us over. She waved a dirty dipstick at me as I rode away. I was wondering if she'd behave while I was gone, since Charlie was known to be lurking about in this dream. It seems that he lived in Oroville and would show up if I was gone from the property for any length of time. 

I figured I could make the trip to the store and back before he did, but as I was trying to leave I saw some shady looking old man cruising around the perimeter. It wasn't Charlie. This guy was too gaunt. 

I dismissed it and rode down the large hill that led to town. At the bottom of the hill was a fence. I was supposed to turn right at the fence, but I was going too fast and not paying much attention. At the last second, I pulled up on the handlebars and over the fence I went. Oh well, I'd always wondered what was on the other side of this 6 foot wooden fence. It turns out it was nothing special. Some large rather dried lawn of Bermuda grass and not much else. 

I scrambled to put my bike back over the fence and climb it before the owners found me trespassing. The fence was old and barely supported me as I hefted my bike over and teetered on the top of it before plopping myself down on the outside. The lady who owned the property was there looking disconcerted and bitching at me in Spanish. I caught a "Dios mio" or two and managed to elude her, hopping back on my bike. 

I made it to Raley's and was about to go in and secure my prize when I saw Angry Fence Lady again. It may have been her daughter, I don't know. But she was talking with some friends in the store and suddenly I was being pointed at to snickers of "Dennis the Menace" from the peanut gallery. I was on my way out of the store when two of the friends approached me, somewhat timidly. 

I turned to them and said, "I know, I know...Dennis the Menace, right?" 

They erupted in laughter and I knew that my job was done. They just wanted me to know of their little nickname for me and that was it. I proceeded in the direction of home, having accomplished what I set out to do, which wasn't much apparently. I don't even know if I secured my prize or not. I get the impression that in my  dream, as in my current life, I wasn't known for actually getting a lot done.

Godzilla vs Everything Else

I used to love Godzilla movies when I was a kid. Something about the unapologetic way that the giant monster comported himself had me admiring the cut of his jib. If he was gonna walk somewhere, he was gonna walk there, obstacles be damned. Power lines, tanks, aircraft--phhht! Outta da way, you! 

He didn't necessarily go out of his way to cause destruction. I think that he was misunderstood in that way. The things he destroyed were simply in his way, and he had places to be. But iff'n something did get in his way, he had plenty of primordial rage in his dinosaur DNA that insured that he was going to go to war with whatever it was that was blocking his path. 

No self-consciousness about how he was going to be perceived. Fuck that! Even self-harm wasn't a concern, he'd routinely get all fucked up because he just wouldn't back down or go another way. But he'd just keep barreling along, smashing things and getting more pissed in the process. 

I wonder, did he wake up mad or did he just go from his morning stretch to "I'm gonna destroy everything in my path" at the first instance of resistance to his day's plans? Did his plans ever include not getting pissed and going on a rampage? 

I'd like to think that in a perfect world, even Godzilla could have a good day, taking in the local beauty, going for a swim, maybe getting some ice cream with Rodan and Mothra. It's just that those pesky power lines were in his way, and getting zapped with 300k volts is enough to set anyone off.

Sending some chocolates to me dear old mum

I made some special chocolates for my mom after a conversation we had which was as enlightening as it was disillusioning in nature. My mom and Greg, it seems, had been on the pot back in the late '70s. So right about the time they were providing me with their stern parental guidance about my nascent proclivities, they were having their own little den of iniquities going on on alternate weekends while I was staying with my dad. I know they couldn't have still been doing it by the time they were disciplining me for going over my weekly allowed limits at the age of 14. 

"Now, don't do this stuff irresponsibly! We're going to have to take it away from you. We'll be much more responsible with it!" 

<head thrown back, waving cowboy hat in the air with one hand and smacking my mom's backside with the other>

Anyway, I spent the last couple of days making the oil and putting it in some chocolate candies. I packaged them up in a nice Christmas tin and a boxing it up for shipping. I dreamed last night that I was at the post office explaining all this to the person at the counter. No handcuffs were produced, but I got the impression that I'd said too much when they asked me about the contents of the box. I should have just said, "Chocolates."

Well, I spent the last hour scheduling a home pickup of the package. I had the priority flat rate box already, so that part was easy. Next create an account with USPS. So far so good. Enter information, schedule delivery, all ok. Print label---eeeeerrrrt. Nothing. It billed me and thanked me but forgot to do what it said when I pressed the save to PDF button. I spent the next hour cursing and searching for my "Click n Ship" label. I could have been down to the post office by now and back.  

I wound up calling customer service and emailing them at their contact email. I'd still be waiting if I hadn't somehow stumbled onto the trail in the "shipping history" section of my account. Geeez, Louise! I don't know how they expect old people to navigate the circular menus that pop up and offer everything but the "reprint label" option. Anyway, once I found it, it was back on the racetrack. Package will be getting picked up tomorrow. 

I'll be attending my depression group tonight--I guess. I'm not sure why. I guess I feel I owe them an explanation before just vanishing. I don't want to create drama, but I'll be creating it if I don't say goodbye or if I do say it. 

I just don't feel the group is helping. Nor am I that helpful to the group. I just show up out of routine, because I haven't got anything else better to do. I go through the same routine every week and nothing really changes from week to week. Everybody seems a bit too happy for a depression group. 

At the end of each meeting there is a check-out period where everyone is encouraged to state their current mood, post-meeting. Everyone will say the obligatory, "I feel better than before the meeting" or "I'm so glad there's a group like this. I feel so supported, etc." I'm guilty of reciting the mantra, though I feel inauthentic about it. I don't want to make people feel bad, like what they shared wasn't meaningful to me, so I lie and make nice. 

It is a Zoom meeting and the camera is on me the whole time. This means that I have to keep a rigid face projecting the appropriate look of hopeful, determined interest with a hint of empathy when the situation calls for it. I feel as fake as a dimestore mannequin. Blah. 

I don't want to say all this in group, or let the dark rider run roughshod through their happy little meeting, but I'm just not feeling it. I'm not content, and I don't feel like faking things anymore. We'll see how they deal with my little implosion. Drama. Sheesh.

I film a UFO, David Chanh and Daniel Kellitt remain unconvinced

I was in a suburban tract home neighborhood, one which was only partially built and inhabited, being interspersed with vacant lots. I was in one of these lots when I looked up in the sky and saw what I'd have to call a UFO.  

It was a large domino shaped rectangle in the sky, slightly out of focus, like you'd see when you zoom in on something and tax your camera's resolution. Only this was my naked eyeball, so I don't know how that effect was achieved. 

It performed a graceful U-turn, and then some other little anomalous dots joined him in a little cluster that darted about like organisms in pond water. I missed this initial set of movements, but no matter, I thought, as I whipped out my phone to record whatever I could for posterity. 

I watched through my phone's screen as it somehow tracked the movements of these strange objects in their crazy patterned travels across the whole sky. I had some interesting footage, maybe a minute or two in length. 

I showed it to David Chanh, who seemed interested at first, but as he watched he seemed less and less convinced. Something about how I told the story made him feel that my judgement could be compromised. 

I tried to show it to Daniel Kellitt, who was in line at a prison cafeteria, dressed in a blue and orange jumpsuit, the colors of which were split down the middle like some jester's outfit. He didn't want to get out of line to view my video and basically parroted what David had said about my erroneous interpretation of the sky phenomenon. 

I made a comment to the effect that he was dressed somewhat like a space alien in those prison duds. I knew what I saw.

Not quite Danny, his Asian mother and a friend, feed me and fudge the socket count

I was at the home of not quite Danny Sudduth and his Asian mom for a period a a few days, or a few meals worth of hospitality. Danny would set the table with four places and I'd go ahead and sit down to a plate of pancakes, or of potato chips in a bowl, whatever was clever. He was a decent enough host. 

I was there long enough for my socket collection to somehow get into circulation at the house and in the process of sorting out whose socket was whose, there may have been a few miscalculations as to the count. Some of my sockets wound up in his trays and vice versa. I felt a small amount of distrust, along with gratitude for their hospitality about the meals. 

There was another male friend there whose identity eludes me, but he seemed jovial and trustworthy enough. He had a small dog, a chihuahua perhaps, that I became fond of. The dog loved to jump in the car, even if the car was only going to be moved a few feet. I got down on the ground and found myself getting puppy dog licked by the little tyke as he was making one of these little trips from the garage to the car. 

I remember showing the friend my unique method of recycling, which most would find a little on the liberal side, including anything and everything made of plastic, just on the off chance that it could be categorized and recycled by the collectors. I did feel I was stretching it a bit, but I'd gotten away with it, so I was encouraging them to do the same. 

The recycling collection lady showed up while we were organizing sockets. She drove a criminally cheap car that looked like her personal vehicle to do the collections. It was a cross between a K-car and a Chevy Lumina, but it was being billed as a budget Cadillac. I made some joke about the name of it and the collection lady and Danny's friend laughed about it, and she began to do an oil change on it right then and there. 

I was poking around in some other car that Danny had come across. It had belonged to someone famous. Also famously stupid. They had tried to convert a four door Honda Civic type vehicle into a two door, but not by doing anything with the doors. They simply put a metal cover over the rear seat, which made the whole rear area look like one giant rear shelf. 

This was presumably done to make room to smuggle drugs or something nefarious like that. It was a cheap job that did nothing for the vehicle, other than cover over some really crappy rear seats with a custom molded cover made of felted tin. A lot of work for very little purpose. 

We marveled at that for a while, and I decided that I needed to re-evaluate my own vehicle. I was comparing it to a camper in a parking lot we had landed in after a rather deliriously rambling ride in Danny's motorhome. His friend and I had been riding in it, with Danny at the helm. He was doing donuts and in general keeping us off balance as he held us hostage during the trip around the parking lot. 

When we finally got out was when I decided I would for sure be looking into a vehicle better suited to my own transportation needs. I'd want something with more cargo capacity, something like a larger version of the Fit. Or perhaps a vehicle I could stand up in and move around. 

As I examined an old Dodge campervan, Danny's friend mentioned that it would be a good fit "because I could not only stand up, but I could stand up AND take a shit at the same time" pointing out a bucket and noting the extra high fiberglass ceiling. I wasn't quite sold, but I'd think about it.

That's all folks, the next thing that occurred was the scratchy-scratch sound of guinea hens on the roof. I was ok with exiting this dream, since it wasn't going anywhere. I mean, Danny and his mom were good enough hosts, but face it, they were no Kaley Cuocos.

Mid-grade Facebook pouting speech

 "My fellow Americans..." 

Just kidding. I'm not going to make a political speech. I just wanted to start out with an icebreaker. There. Consider it broken. 

Now to the reason for my hopefully brief post. For personal reasons, I am going to take an extended bread from this social media platform. I wanted to make sure that everyone who may have need to contact me in the future has the means to do so. 

Some of you are family, others friends and loved ones and others may be neighbors, ex-coworkers, associates or acquaintances. It's a mixed bag, this Facebook audience. If I friended you at any time or you friended me, that means something to me. 

It was fun reconnecting with all of you and meeting some new people along the way. I intend to remain in contact with as many as wish to do so. But I'm shutting down my peephole while I deal with my own issues.

As you all know, I'm capable of rambling on ad nauseam about my self-perceived...

Oh, fuck it. I'm not gonna finish that thought. Or this post. I'm gonna post my quick "get off the stage" message and exit. I'm not capable of doing a slimmed down anything. I'm just here trying to practice for when I re-activate my account temporarily. I need to get on, get my info to whoever might need it and get off. I don't want to leave my account up and viewable for more than a week. 

So how might it read? 

"Dear friends. I'm going to take an extended break from Facebook. It may wind up being permanent, I don't know. I just wanted to make sure that anyone who might need to contact me has the means to do so. I'll leave my messenger open for the next week to give out my contact information. After that, I'll be de-activating my account again and won't have access to Messenger."

Too long. I've got to pare it down to something like a tweet. 

"I'll be off of Facebook indefinitely. If anyone needs my contact information, PM me while this account is still active."

last words

 

I want to get them on my tombstone, so spell them correctly, ok?

"Eh, budibbiduh-dah, budibbiduh-dah, budibidduh--that's all folks!"

Kaley Cuoco, best Applebee's waitress ever

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning, really, I didn't. Kaley Cuoco from Big Bang Theory and elsewhere was my server at Applebee's and was really going the extra mile in making me feel at home. 

It started in the parking lot, where my mom and Greg were half-heartedly listening to me list a bunch of things that were on my mind. I guess it was a tall order for them to have to listen to, details about wedding plans with Sharon (who was absent but not deceased) and specific things that we wanted on the menu, etc. 

My mom even said, "That is some pretty specific stuff." 

When she said that, I was taken aback. She was supposed to be my mom and supportive and all that. I was getting a "that's too much for me to think about" vibe from her. 

But not Kaley Cuoco. She took my order (and Sharon's, though she wasn't there) and didn't question it, even though I'd ordered the rib platter and the seafood platter, both of which came with an immense amount of french fries. 

She'd possibly learned from Jarod, a waiter who refused to bend one bit when it came to their fries policy and wound up getting us a free meal when Sharon complained that our waiter had told her "no." Can't get fries with the riblet platter? Well, Kaley can make it happen. 

Anyway, I ate as much as I could, and then I wanted to switch tables. As usually happens, she started clearing the table and disposing of the food, thinking that we were all finished. 

"I was going to get that," I told her. 

"No problem, sweetie," she said as if it were nothing at all to reassemble my platter from scratch out of the scraps from my food which had mixed with other customer's food at this point. 

She brought me back a plate that looked just like the original. There was even some nice fresh juicy steak on it, which I hadn't ordered, but I wasn't going to say anything since it was in perfect condition and steaming hot. 

In the process of moving from table to table, I had been in the parking lot using their shuttle van. It was an old mini-van, kind of a cross between an Odyssey and a PT Cruiser. There was no paint on it, as it was in the process of being repainted. The finish was a shiny metallic surface, still needing the dents pounded out, but otherwise ready for primer. 

One of the doors was off and was being used as a serving table. This was where my dinner had wound up when it was on the scrap heap. I took the door and reinstalled it on the van as Kaley reassembled my dinner plate. She was just the bestest, I tell ya. I got the door to slide back and forth, despite its unfinished, dented condition, and I was going to move the van approximately ten feet, so I could move to my new table. 

Before I was able to jump in, it started moving on its own. Somehow the engine was running, and it was in neutral with no e-brake on, parked on an incline. You know what that was a recipe for. You got it: runaway mini-van parking lot rodeo. 

I chased the van down as it rolled backward in a circle and managed to get in and get control of it, all the while Kaley looking on saying encouraging things like, "you can do it, sweetie. Don't worry, that happens more often than you would think." Such a damn fine waitress. She was so gonna get a big tip. 

Later, with no segue, I was putting together a montage on video of some clips of Sharon and I dressed up in Halloween costumes. She was a sea monster, and I was something else, a Viking, maybe. 

Some of the clips had to be edited to paste Sharon in, because they were re-enactments, and she was no longer there. But she was, kinda, as in not deceased, I don't know really. I was able to collaborate with her a little bit about the clips. Kaley was there, too, and of course, still being helpful. This was still somehow a part of her Applebee's job, which she took very seriously. 

At some point Kaley's boyfriend came home bringing a scantily clad dark haired beauty with him. He was shirtless and had a bit of shaving cream on his belly when Kaley walks in. This was a classic "Uh-oh, shit's going to hit the fan" moment. He looked guilty as sin, all shirtless and hosting this dark haired floozy in their apartment. 

But Kaley just says to him, "Hey, babe, how's it goin'?" as cool as a cucumber, as if this kind of thing didn't have to mean what it obviously looked like. Apparently, that kind of thing also happened more often than you might think. 

I wanted to remember this dream, since I was having such a good vibe. And because the bed was so warm, and I had Kaley still waiting on me right up until I was practically awake, I really milked it. But my stomach was rumbling, and I had to pee. I worried that I'd forget some of the finer details, but Kaley assured me that she'd stay with me to help me write them down. 

I think because I kept my beanie pulled down tight, my head retained all the necessary warmth to carry dreamland with me downstairs pretty much intact so that I could write this stuff down with little conflation or confabulation on my part. 

I toyed with the idea of bringing a laptop into the bedroom, so I could write stuff down and not have to get out of bed. Then I could presumably go back to sleep after jotting down the dream, and hopefully, re-enter the sacred realm again easily. 

I decided against it because I really don't want any electronics in that one room at all. I think my dreams are getting far less interference now that I'm sleeping in a darkened room with only moonlight and early morning sunlight to influence my REM cycle. 

It's Saturday and pretty early still for me. 7:30 AM and I've already gotten my dream journaling done. No Facebook or friends on the calendar. What's next? Watch some cartoons? Make breakfast, drink coffee and get high, certainly. Make some noise on the guitar? That might have to wait a little while. 

I know. I'll go poop. Check my email and see what's peeking at me from my inbox tab. Take my turn at Words with Friends with my main opponent, Noaksident. That's about it folks. Maybe I'll spell check Kaley Cuoco and insert some random paragraph breaks.

Nothingness

Sorry, the theater was closed last night. No dreams. Just me waking up early from guinea hens scratching my roof. I hate to wake up mad, but the thought of them prematurely damaging my roof and making leaks pisses me off. 

Come to think of it, I DID dream last night. Or recently, anyway. I dreamed that I was looking at my ceiling and noticing some water damage from a leaking roof. All my nice stained cedar boards would need refinishing and there was a white mold creeping in. I believe my mom or Sharon was there to inspect the damage. 

Today my friend called, and we got into an argument about another friend regarding something he thought the other friend should do, health-wise, which he was hesitant to do because of the expense involved. He couldn't understand my not jumping on the bandwagon to endorse his shaming of the friend into getting this procedure done asap. 

I told him he'd be better off fixing his own problems and leaving others to make their own decisions. No one likes to be pressured. I guess he didn't like that, but I don't like when he calls and has been drinking. You can always tell when someone has had a snoot. The tone becomes obtuse. 

Well, fuck it. I'm not that patient of a person in the morning, so the conversation ended sourly. 

Still on Facebook hiatus. Missed my depression group meeting last night. Maybe next I will stop answering the phone.

Brian Murry fishing trip

 

Brian always planned extravagant fishing trips. At least in the dream, he had this reputation. In real life it was his brother, Eric, who had been the one to do this. But in my dream I was invited to an overnight trip to a very messy lodge he was renting in Tahoe, or somewhere similar, that had world class fishing that could be done right from the apartment. 

The apartments were nestled along some winding channels of water that fed into the lake in a canal-like configuration. They were very narrow and shallow at some points, but all the fish had to travel through them to get to and from the lake, from wherever it was that fish commuted, in the course of their day jobs. 

I was sleeping in my dream but was awakened by the sound of one of Brian's friends, who was also along on the trip, getting up early to get the jump on both of us for the early fishing. I started fumbling around for something to eat as the other guy got his food and got underway and out the door. 

Brian woke up and was incensed that the two of us had gotten up before him and had begun the day's activities without him. He began making plans to go fishing without me in retaliation. He grabbed a half gallon of chocolate marble fudgecake ice cream and began to chow down. 

I went to use the bathroom and when I returned he was nowhere in sight. The half-gallon of ice cream cake sat unattended on the banister near the stairs. I picked up the lid and began to eat some frosting. It was really good, so I grabbed the rest of the half gallon and went to town on it with the spoon which was already conveniently left sticking out of it. 

Brian showed up and asked if I wanted to try a transdermal oticular THC vape. All the kids were doing it. Before I could protest too much he inserted what looked like a hot glue gun in my ear and pulled the trigger. The element heated up the oil inside the gun and delivered a dose of THC directly to my brain via the ear canal. 

I told him to hold off a bit, as I wasn't used to that method of delivery. I was already seeing fractals. The feeling was a pleasant one, though, and I laughed, partly because I was instantly high and partly because the gun tickled when it delivered the vape smoke into my ear. We discussed a half of a red onion that we would share for the meal after we'd caught the fish. 

He chopped it in half and said, "For you and me, later." 

I agreed, that would be great, and we proceeded to discuss fishing tactics. I was fond of my rubber worm and planned to do a little jigging. The fish always responded to that method of antagonism, more out of anger and jealousy than hunger, I told him. They didn't like that little intruder moving around so freely and capably in their waters. 

Earlier I had been scouting out the locale and discovered the fish commute route which passed directly by our apartment. I'd climbed some granite bluffs which were about ten feet tall and were part of the landscape upon which the lodges were built. The handholds were easy enough to navigate, and you could get a good view of the fish traffic in the clear, shallow water. 

There were a few restrictions as to which stretches of the canals were open to fishing and which were not, but I didn't see any reason why one couldn't sneak a pole out of an open window or off a balcony. 

That was about it for my recollection. As usual, out of sequence and without a firm plot. Just an interesting setting and dynamic with my friend. He was his usual over the top self. I remember asking the other guy who he'd invited how much he reckoned Brian spent on these fishing trips. I estimated it was in the hundreds, perhaps a thousand, on all the accommodations, food and goodies like the THC vape. The other fellow agreed it had to be a fortune. 

I felt bad that we'd gotten the jump on him by rising early and scoping out the fishing without him, but he'd made up for it by getting me "ear wasted" right off the bat, so the score was settled on that account. Now all we had to do was come up with some fish to go along with the red onion.

Very large supporting cast

Another employment dream. This was less about the actual job but more about acknowledging my place in the very large supporting cast of characters who have aided in my employment journey. There was a board meeting going on, I believe everyone I'd ever worked for or with was there. I wasn't guest of honor or anything. They seemed to be discussing other matters. I was walking around the periphery, kind of waiter-like, perhaps. 

I gleaned bits and pieces of conversations, but I don't remember them. My name was mentioned in passing, but I wasn't called upon to perform any actual duties or give a speech, so I kept a low profile. I said hi to the people I recognized, which turned out to be just about everyone. 

I had to get back to some other place and didn't want to get into the spotlight of the meeting, so I went into a small drafting room that some more ex-coworkers were using to run a small electrical engineering business. 

Some ex-coworkers had arranged a couple of gifts for me which they gave to me in the break room. One was a comprehensive reference guide with numbered pictures and an appendix which listed the names of all the electronic components and circuits in the world.  I believe it was from Michelle Hankins, the boss lady's daughter at Honda. 

I thanked her and was going to start opening another present but got called away. The gift would have to wait. I still had Corn Woman, Jeanne Nelson's present to open.

Kay Doering, the ex-Hondo Die Supply embezzler receptionist was there. She had a state of the art desk and computer monitor. I teased her about the amount of hacking she could get done with this new setup. 

She laughed and showed me a few things on her specialized keyboard, which was programmed like a McDonald's cash register, with dedicated buttons for ordering special electronic components. 

It looked like a combination ex-ray/microfiche viewing machine. When you pressed a key a large image came up on the monitor with choices of many different items which would be identified by sight rather than description. 

The screen as well as the desk were touch screens. Anything you touched would be singled out, zoomed in on, rotated and a description would be available, if needed. I got the impression that Kay didn't know the first thing about the names of what she was ordering but just using the little pictures and doing quite a fine job of it that way. 

Ken Vigen was also there, also from Hondo Die Supply, as was my father. Ken was the engineer and was not so good with finances. He was working on improving that and had enlisted the help of a tax guy who was showing him all kinds of ways of committing legitimate fraud. I was apparently going to benefit from this, and he slipped a check for $2000 in my pocket. 

"This is a loan," he said, but winked at me as if to say I wouldn't be paying it back. I didn't have plans for the money, so I figured I'd use it somewhere within the business to cover expenses. 

My dad met me in the tool shed just as I was about to set out to meet a client. I was gathering up the items I thought I'd need: a protractor, a couple of drafting templates and a micrometer. My dad made special mention that this was the family micrometer and to take good care of it, like he was trying to have a father and son moment with me. 

I noted that he was sniffling, but it was because he was coming down with something, not out of sentimentality. He assured me that it was not COVID, but I wasn't super concerned. No one in my dream was wearing masks, this new reality hadn't quite penetrated that far. I told him to get some rest, I had the rest of the business deal covered. 

Why Kate don't date

 

 

Kate was a beautiful, shapely mother of one. Kate was a snappy dresser who wore a lot of gold wraps and tight sarongs to show off her figure. Everyone said Kate was quite a catch. Smart, funny, self-reliant, the total package. 

Kate's love life left something to be desired, though. Her friends kept trying to set her up on blind dates, but these dates seldom got past the initial moments of meeting before the suitor would go running from the restaurant screaming in terror. 

The problem with Kate was that, while working as a physicist, studying black holes and the like, due to an accident with the particle accelerator, Kate was left with a permanent disfigurement which was impossible to conceal. 

Kate was a human fly. 

Her head was the normal size for a human, but had enormous, honeycomb eyes, and hairy, tentacle-like sense organs protruding from her lower mandible. 

I know I said she was beautiful. I meant that in the past tense, as in "Kate was beautiful before she became a human/insect hybrid freak." She might still be beautiful to certain entomologists, but so far, no one could tolerate more than a few moments in her presence. I wasn't about to be the first exception. 

We'd been set up by a mutual friend, and I went to meet her at the diner. She was wearing her gold wraps and tight sarong. On her head she wore something resembling a beekeepers headdress, or one of those masks people wear while fencing. It was just large enough and obnoxious enough to detract from the otherwise lovely picture of this single mother with baby in tow, sitting at a booth in the local diner. 

I spied her just as she was looking up to catch my eye, although there was no telling which of her many tiny eyes had caught sight of me when I'd first walked in the door. This wasn't gonna work out, but I felt trapped. I couldn't keep walking, since she'd obviously recognized me as her blind date. 

She picked up her baby and swaddled it, just to provide an extra layer of guilt should I decide to turn tail and run. How could I just abandon this lovely young mother to another embarrassing failed date just because I couldn't stomach what I knew was going on under that beekeepers mask? I wavered and, thankfully, I woke up from this dream before any kind of commitment was required out of me. 

What was I supposed to do, anyway? Keep on pretending to ignore the reality of her freakish appearance forever? Marry her and have little human fly babies, which would undoubtedly have trouble in daycare, and in every other social situation for the rest of their lives? How long would they live, anyway? Would they retain the longevity profile from their human mother or would they have the shortened lifespan of a fly from their insect DNA? These are questions never to be answered...and best not asked in...The Twilight Zone.  

----

I know I should give the next announcement top billing, perhaps give it a separate post in some gratitude journal, but I'll just jot it in here, since I've got this problem with the whole "gratitude at gunpoint" thing. But here is my announcement:

MY CHRISTMAS STYE IS GONE!!! I've been using the erythromycin ointment for 8 days and it has now become almost imperceptible. The chalazione is also around 80% better and looks less and less noticeable each day. I'll keep using the ointment on the right eye for a few more days and perhaps that will become a memory soon as well. This is something that went better than expected, almost as good as could be hoped for.

I'm getting a bit of something left over from last night's dream. Wait. Something about me working in a giant hospital. It was a vintage, art deco style building and had way too many empty hallways and confusing corridors. I don't know what I was supposed to be doing there, or how it figured in to my date with Kate the fly-lady, so that's all I can say about it.

Reggie Martinez rips Korean store owner a new one

As usual I have to work backward, since all I caught was the tail end of this one. I was with Reggie Martinez and we were walking in a neighborhood which was both familiar and unfamiliar. It looked like a beach town without an obvious beach anywhere. There was a lot of real estate that had been changing hands recently and we were looking in on some of the new residents and businesses that had set up shop in the smallish rentals. One was being occupied by a Korean lady and her daughter and grandchild. 

Reggie started talking to the lady in Korean. She perked up with surprised delight, even though Reggie's tone was one of mocking and disdain. That was his tone in any language. You'd have to know Reggie. He was an expert in cutting people down. 

He was insulting her and saying the meanest things about her family, her business and her honor in general, and doing so with such well-articulated Korean nuance that the lady couldn't help but be impressed. He knew his Korean insults and was using his words and tone like a rapier. 

She produced the small baby for him to consider and his tone changed to goo-goos and kitchy-coos. She knew his soft spot, somehow. He wasn't done with her, though. A few more jibes about the nature of her business, which seemed to be something like a tax fraud service from which her daughter and her were deriving some undeserved wealth. 

Well, that's about it for this one. Nothing else is coming to the surface, this iceberg is going to remain underwater, I guess. I gotta poop, but I'm constipated. Day 2, no go. Wish me luck.

Time is coming up

 

 
No need to mention it, but it is a fact. Given averages, I'd say I have a "good" fifteen years at the outside. But things being exacerbated and accelerated these days, it could happen of its own much sooner. 

Despite incredible efforts of self-preservation, the outcome became obvious to me a few years ago. Now it is just a matter of monitoring it and taking notes. Not that the notes will be important, but what does a dying man do, anyway? 

It's probably just my consciousness begging to live on in some way, scribbling his miserable tag line on the wall before collapsing, like a prisoner in a cell, etching his last epitaph to tell the world, "Goddammit, I was here!" Well, that about wraps things up on this exciting episode. Now back to watching "The Andromeda Strain." 

Yep. I'm definitely closer this evening than I was this morning. Incrementally closer, but closer and not farther, from the day I will expire like a carton of suspicious smelling milk. I keep sniffing the air and I get a faint whiff of it in the wind. It's getting closer. 

Bwhaaahahaha! Spooked yerself real good dintcha? More wine, less weed next time. And definitely stick to one day a week on the coffee. Either that, or do it everyday so it doesn't affect you so much. Whooo-weee! And drink more water. 

And what's up with that beard? You gonna shave it or go all Cuckoo's Nest on the situation? You've got nothing to prove to anyone, either way. You're mad as a hatter and fucked up like, well, something that gets penetrated in an upward direction, whatever that might be. I didn't think that one all the way through. Yeah. --zzzzz--pulling the plug on you, man--

William Oaka Helton, Greg Kioski and Mitch McConnell giving haircuts in a carport

I was being chased by zombies early on in my dream. I eluded them for the most part, but once zombies make an appearance in a dream they never quite go away. Everyone you meet from then on is suspect. Either a zombie or a future zombie. Regardless, that dream evaporated when I had to get up to pee, and my next dream was relatively zombie free. 

Next, I was walking around somewhere and I came upon a carport on a hill. It was one of those basic models, enclosed on 3 sides and rather dark inside. Inside, William Oaka Helton was setting up to do some barber work: getting the place swept out, plugging in his shaver, dusting off the chair, you know, barber stuff. He asked if I'd be able to relieve him in a bit, but I begged off. It was too dark in there to do any good hair cutting. 

I walked on a ways and came across a blue Fender strat, brand new, which I appropriated for myself without any associated guilt. Maybe it was mine, I don't know. Mine now. 

I went back to the carport barbershop and now Greg Kioski was on duty. I talked to him for a while about the guitar, which I was having a difficult time keeping clean. It had gotten some dirt and water on it from the dewy grass I was forced to lay it on momentarily. I asked Greg if he'd mind if I got it cleaned up there at the barber shop. He told me I'd have to hurry because Mitch McConnell was coming soon to relieve him. 

"He won't be giving ceremonial haircuts, either," he told me. "When he gets here it will be some real Bush type stuff. Rolling up the sleeves and getting down to business." 

It felt real, but I don't know about Bush ever doing any rolling up of sleeves except for photo ops. He was no Jimmy Carter. But now I'm just interjecting. In my dream, it seemed to be an apt description. Mitch was also a lot younger than the turtle we see on TV these days. More like Mitt Romney, but it was understood that it was Mitch, so I'm gonna have to leave that in place. 

Not much actually happened in this dream. I had to use toilet paper to wipe down the guitar, which was abrasive and didn't do a good job of lifting the dirt. It just smeared it around, scratching the perfect finish. I was obsessed with getting the thing clean and not ruining it further. If I'd only had a spray bottle, I thought, I could rinse off the guitar with minimal friction. Oh, well, you never have what you need in a dream, so toilet paper and scratches it was. I had to get out of there before Mitch showed up. That's about it.

It's Sunday. Family Google Meeting is in a few minutes. I'm so not enthused about these things. I feel like the odd man out every time. I'm so unrelatable and disconnected from everything they ever talk about, which is mostly Minnesota stuff, grandkid stuff and things which I haven't taken part in, or won't ever take part in, because I'm out here and they've been out there for the last 40 years. We have no shared experiences, at least none that come up in family meeting. 

Likely, the ones we do have are just bad memories for them anyway, as in me as a teenager. I'm always aware that the whole reason they moved to Minnesota was to raise their kids in an environment where they wouldn't grow up to be punks like me. 

Well, I ought to attempt an appearance. I don't do much talking. I just go on with my morning breakfast routine while the chatter goes on in the background.

Stand behind the shooter when watching target practice

Someone was doing some target practice in my driveway. I was wanting to get a good view of the targets as they were being hit, so I opted to sit only a few feet from them. There is not any good reason to be in front of the shooter in this kind of situation, but I discovered one reason not to. Besides the obvious one, where the slightest deviation in aim on the part of the shooter could make you the target, ricochets are a bitch when you are that close to where a bullet strikes. Even the debris from bullets striking rocks can be injurious. One bullet pinged off of the gatepost and went whizzing close to my head. 

Whiskey was also walking down the driveway, directly in the path of the bullets, oblivious. I had to call him to get him to get him to the relative safety of the periphery. It seems there was more to do with Whiskey in this dream, prior to the driveway shooting, but I'm struggling to remember right now.

I deactivated Facebook...again. Yesterday was New Year's Day, the one year anniversary of Whiskey's death. It came up in my memories as a reminder of what a crappy dog owner I was. In addition to this kind of torture, I just have been struggling to endure people's posting of their various activities. I'm got tired of liking things out of obligation. I got tired of being reminded of the things I don't have, as in social activities involving other human beings. 

I have been as nice as possible, faking politeness, refraining from posting my problems and only projecting the nice, serene, sagely image that people wish to see. The people that like me don't know me, and the people who know me don't really like me. They pity me. They like the version of me that I have to pump up with platitudes every day, like one pumps up a leaky bicycle tire. Well, I'm tired of pumping. And it's all hot air, anyway. 

People who need to contact me always know how to do that. I can do without scrolling through pictures of everyone having fun for a while. Sound bitter? Of course, I'm bitter! Bitter is what happens to people like me. 

Anyway, who am I explaining this to? I'm the only one reading this godawful blog. Even my Russian bots have abandoned me, since I am neither useful, nor entertaining. They got excited for a moment when they thought that my neighbor Stan might have an actual helicopter. That post got the most views I'd ever seen, outside of my own before I learned how to turn off my own pageviews. 

When human agents got involved, they must have scanned through it and determined that this was a dream journal, and nothing I say has the slightest relevance. The bones have been picked clean and they have moved on. Yes, I'm too depressed to be radicalized, sorry. 

I need to start my day. It's Saturday, but somehow that doesn't sound all that exciting at the moment. I cleaned my coffee pot with vinegar last night in preparation. But right now I can't even muster up a twitch of actual interest in doing whatever activities I'm going to do on this gray, lonely miserable day, the second of January, 2021. 

Oh, and I finished the tin of cookies last night, so there's no more of that to look forward to. Sugar is a slippery serpent, and I got bit. But my policy of not buying junk food will prevent me from having any more until someone slips candy in my mailbox again, perhaps next Christmas. Or never.