The Suburbs Will Kill You... Eventually - and My Family Reunion Begins

Last night I dreamed I was in the suburbs. Good schools, neatly mowed lawns, freshly erected crackerbox tract houses...and a ninja militia, whose aim was to root out all non-conformists. There was a nebulous governmental entity controlling the militia, with a vaguely defined set of ideals and doctrines that must be accepted in toto, or one was subject to persecution resulting in death. 

Anyone holding dissimilar beliefs (and they knew if you did -- don't ask me how they knew, they just did) was hunted down by this murderous squadron and executed on the spot. Sometimes whole neighborhoods were wiped out for their thought-crimes in random sweeps. 

Because the beliefs were so poorly defined, and the dogma changed daily, one walked on pins and needles, never knowing which interaction was going to trigger the silent alarm issuing your death warrant. Needless to say, it was a stressful place to try to make a go of it.

I found myself on the run at several points, fleeing the killers, MPs as they were called. The MPs dressed in military style camouflage with armbands, worn in the traditional nazi fashion, the letters "MP" in black letters replacing the swastika in the familiar white circle with a red background. 

Now that I've described the setting and general tone of the dream, it occurs to me that I've forgotten most of what transpired. I was hoping more would come back to me while I was dribbling out this description, but alas, it hasn't. One detail remains with me, and that is an image of one of the elite squad's tactical leaders, a black woman with long cornrow braids, who looked suspiciously like my ex-therapist, Shannon. 

---- 

I'm sitting in a bed 500 miles from my home as I write this. I'm attending a family reunion in San Diego, and staying in a moderately upscale condo in the Mission Beach district. My family rented out the whole building, a furnished three story triple residence called Stacy's House. 

I'm sharing the second floor unit with two other people, one a chubby sixteen year old, pimply faced boy named Jeremy and the other an older lady who was a longtime girlfriend of one of the family's elder brothers, Tom. I know very few of the relatives on this side of the family, and the ones I do know, I haven't seen for over twenty years. 

One of the main enticements for me going on this trip was that my mom was going to give me her guitar and amp, a nice Takamine with Crate amplifier in brand new condition, that she'd been holding onto for twenty years, but has been unable to play due to arthritis. I also wanted to visit some friends in LA on the way down and give them a couple of shopping bags worth of my hoarded weed supply from several seasons that had been accumulating in my closet.

I arrived in LA, after a superbly navigated 8 hour drive, which consisted of mostly smooth freeway driving. There were minimal inconveniences such as the mandatory gas and pee stops, and the inevitable LA traffic, which slowed my progress to a crawl and ate up an hour of my time, traversing the Glendale area at a miserable three miles per hour.

My friends were glad to see me. I met my friend Richard's mom Lydia whom I remembered from her brief time in the cult, before she was unmercifully cast out, as so many others had been, for lacking the proper faith and discipline. Jesus's "Woman what have I to do with thee?" was the scriptural precedent for breaking the 5th commandment to honor thy father and mother. 

Lydia was nice, and so was their dog, Mikey, who is named after Michael McDonald. Every dog has a backstory, but I never did find out why this seemingly conservative, old world lady named her dog after the famous Doobie Brother. But hey, Mikey likes me. He didn't bark once upon my entry into their apartment, a luxury not even afforded to my friend Rich, at whom he barks relentlessly upon his every coming and going.

My friends Richard and Chris took me out to eat at Chris and Pitts, a very old establishment, a rib joint and monument to the days of dark woodgrained formica laminate tables and naugahyde booth seating. As I sat there eating my Hawaiian style chicken accompanied by chili, a small salad and garlic bread, I became aware of a strange vibrating sensation which I assumed was coming from their rumbly AC unit. I mentioned it to my friends but they didn't notice.

Later on while my friends and I were chit chatting, reminiscing in the car and playing rotating Bluetooth DJ over Chris's Hyundai's audio system, I noticed the vibration was still present. I got out of the car to stretch my legs and found it was still present. It was like my legs and sacral region were vibrating at something slightly less than 60hz. It felt like a vibromassage bed on it's lowest setting.

It was only after I went to move my car from the parking lot that I figured out the source of the vibration. It was me. I was vibrating at the exact frequency of my car's engine. I only knew this because when I got in my car and started it up, the vibration went away. It was like I was synced up to it's rhythm, not unlike a sailor gains his sea legs after his equilibrium is forced to adjust to the constant shifting of the boat in the waves. Being in the car cancelled it out, but being anywhere else, I felt like I was slightly electrified.

We said our goodbyes, and I got back on the road at ten o'clock to make the final leg of the trip to SD. I arrived intact (and still vibrating) and woke up my mom to let me into the condo. By now it was midnight, so everyone was in bed. I went to bed after unpacking, still vibrating and slightly caffeinated, and eventually my spring wound down enough to get some shuteye. 

I guess I could go on and on detailing the minutia of yesterday, but right now I have to make breakfast and join my folks downstairs. I brought all my groceries with me from home, so I could eat my exact restrictive menu and maintain continuity in my diet. So far I've only broken the routine twice in as many days, indulging in a Tommy's chili cheeseburger yesterday. I was eyeing the smores and "woofums," a biscuit based stuffed pastry made by cooking a biscuit on a stick like a marshmallow, then stuffing its innards with pudding or strawberries and cool whip, but I restrained myself and enjoyed the process vicariously through my roommate Jeremy, who became the resident expert on the difficult process.

Ta ta for now.