Time out for a tranny

I was just dreaming that I was taking more ASEs, or some form of highly regulated automotive testing. I was in a room with rows of 4x8 folding tables, which were laden with all kinds of testing materials: scantrons, No. 2 pencils and stacks of uniquely numbered paper tests and test booklets. 

Right as the test was about to begin, and we were receiving our final instructions on what to do with what test booklet, I had the sudden need to leave the building and re-park an Odyssey minivan with transmission issues that was being worked on by one of my co-workers and myself. Besides needing a tranny replacement, it also had a problem with the fuel tank door switch. **

**  Behind the fuel door, there is a little switch that has a wire harness which goes to the sliding door control unit. The switch input tells the car when the fuel door is open. If it is open, or if the switch doesn't work, then the power sliding door is disabled, so that the door can't open and damage the fuel door. See diagram above.

I was working against the clock, trying to get the door switch swapped out before my co-worker came back and provided me with another car to work on. This was becoming a bit of a hacked repair job. Honda protocols would have you replacing the entire wire harness, rather than doing a cut and splice job, but, oh well, we were in a hurry. Using a set of dykes, rather than the appropriate wire strippers, I got the wires cut and stripped and was waiting for the new switch to be delivered to me.

I had to leave the van there and go and re-park yet another Odyssey, also with transmission issues. The levels of "gotta do this before you can finish that and get back to the other" were stacking up. It was looking very doubtful that I'd be getting back to my test any time soon, although I still had every intention of doing so. I knew that I possessed the skills to complete all these little individual tasks and still make it back in time to finish the test. 

It was as if time was moving at normal speed for me and the rest of the world, but the people in the building taking the test were moving within a much slower timeframe. Like some Matrixy ninja mechanic, I seemed to possess the ability to freeze time locally, in a stop action still shot, through which I could navigate freely. I'd be up and back before the first pencil hit the first scantron.

That's about it. I woke  up, having only gotten 4 hours of sleep. I really gotta work on my real life time-freezing skills, so I can get all my nightly routines done in timely fashion and get to bed at a decent hour. This 4 AM bullshit is really wearing me out.

The Simple Truth

 

"Do you know what I wish, just once? Is that a guy could be honest enough to just walk right up to me and say, 'Hey listen -- you know, I'm confused about this too -- I could lay a big line on you, and we could do a lot of role playing, but the simple truth is: I find you very interesting, and I'd really like to make love with you.'" 

Jessica Lang's character Julie says these words to a shocked and eager Dustin Hoffman, who is disguised as his Tootsie character, sipping tea in her apartment. He makes a big mental note of this, thinking he has finally found a foolproof way into her heart (or her bed).

Fast forward a few scenes, and they are both at a party. Julie slips out onto the balcony where it is a little quieter, and Hoffman's character, Michael Dorsey, sans makeup and dressed in his normal male attire, follows her. He tries to make a little chit-chat with her, but she is unresponsive. So he figures now is as good a time as any to try that guaranteed foolproof line on her.

"You know, I could lay a big line on you, and we could do a lot of role playing, but the simple truth is: I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you." He delivers the line with the careful deliberation of a stage actor. He begins to say, "You know? It's as simple as..."  but before he can get the rest of the sentence out -- splash! She throws her drink in his face. 

"It's as simple as that," he finishes, his face dripping onto his shirt and jacket.

I watched this comedic 80s movie the other week, and I'm trying to glean some insights from this little bit of dialogue. I think I am as confused as Dustin Hoffman's character, as to what women really want. To make matters more difficult, I'm not sure that women even know what they want, even when they say that they do. Or it might change from day to day, moment to moment, person to person.

Perhaps it is matter of timing. Perhaps the moon and stars and hormones all have to align. I just know that I have misread cues my whole life in this regard, and I'm still not getting it, or getting any, as the case may be. I'm just getting older, and yet, somehow not wiser. Maybe, just maybe, it's not them at all, it's me. I'm just not the right guy, hence nothing, however well executed or planned out, ever seems to work.

I've never had a drink thrown in my face, but then I have never attempted to use that particular line, either. I've likely tried a few other even more ham-handed approaches, including the "just be yourself" approach. But after getting shot down, let down easily or receiving any number of less than affirmative reactions, at some point I just quit trying. 

You live and you learn. And then you give up.  If at first you don't succeed, quit, it's pointless. It's hopeless, you're hopeless. May as well just fall face down in the mud and die.

The end.

That same old fishing dream -- Hope, Anne Perkins and my European vacation

 

I don't remember much, and I'm still at a deficit of sleep. Perhaps I will go back to sleep and try to re-enter the dream I was having, in which I was on my bike, searching out the perfect fishing spot along a river near a mountain lake. I'd been there before, but this time I had company. We both kind of knew the area, so I'm not sure who was leading who, and I have yet to even discover the identity of my traveling companion. 

I'd better get back to the play before the daylight fully awakens me and the whole set of my dreamscape is disassembled and packed up for the day. 

----

Well, no dice. That dream abandoned me like a  <insert clever analogy here>  something that rapidly escapes and leaves one in the lurch. Only it wasn't a lurch that I was left in, but a European vacation venue. I believe Hope DeLeon, my first teenage lover, was there, but only as a sideline figure.

I was staying in a small upstairs room with an annoyingly narrow and steep staircase, which I found myself frequently ascending and descending because I kept forgetting things and having to return to my room. I was also sharing the room with a young mother with a baby, who was forever getting into trouble by tumbling down the stairs. I witnessed one such accident with horror, unable to help as the tiny toddler bounced end over end all the way to the bottom. 

"You really ought to put in a baby gate," I chided. 

The mother offered some resistance to the idea, since I was a foreigner and obviously didn't know how things were done over there. And anyway, where would one put such a gate? It was like talking to myself about doing some home maintenance project that I'd been forever procrastinating. By the time I'd have convinced her, the child would be an adult.

"Perhaps, right at the top of the stairs?" I persisted. "And you'd better check on the child, since that was such a nasty fall." 

The baby was crying, but didn't appear broken, despite the long, bumpy trip down the stairs. She reluctantly went down and scooped up the child, who calmed down instantly, and the whole incident was forgotten. 

"Let's go swimming," she said, wrapping the baby in a beach towel and heading down the stairs. 

Hope also went along, and I followed them, excited at the prospect of going swimming with the young ladies. But no sooner had I arrived at the pool, which was 3 flights of stairs down, and in the hotel lobby, than I remembered that I'd forgotten to bring my bathing suit. Back up the stairs I went, grumbling, but still determined to make a go of the swimming party.

But arriving down at the pool a second time, I realized that I'd forgotten my beach towel. I contemplated the long triple staircase ascent and decided that I'd rather drip dry than bother with that whole nonsense all over again. We played around in the pool for a bit, but sooner than I'd have liked we were all climbing that damned staircase again, with me wet from having no towel.

Back up in the room, I got a closer look at the mom. She had looked a bit like Ann Perkins, and had a fetching smile, although her teeth were slightly stained and cracking. Of course, this seemed not the least bit coincidental, since I've been obsessing over dental issues of late. I decided we needed to take a selfie together, so I whipped out my old digital camera and we leaned back on the bed. The baby, fully awake and in pristine condition, popped it's little head up and photobombed the shot. It was adorable, so I took a few more shots for good measure.

Eventually, it became time for me to get on my way. I said goodbye to the mother and to Hope and made one final trip down that staircase from hell. That was one thing I wouldn't miss, I told myself. As I checked out at the front desk, I contemplated leaving some negative feedback about it, but decided against it. I was in another country, and they'd probably just laugh at my silly American ideas about staircases and such.

I loaded my travel bags into my tiny two seat sportscar and sped off down a narrow road that was bordering a good sized creek. I don't know what the word is for something larger than a creek but still not quite a river, but whatever it is, it was one of those. 

The road was being mowed by some workers in a farm utility vehicle. Some kind of contraption that looked like a grain harvester, but smaller to accommodate the narrowness of the road. They were doing a rather patchy job of it, though, and I kept running into unmowed sections of green grass that were several feet tall.

In trying to skirt some of the more dense grassy areas, I weaved back and forth on the narrow road in my nimble little sports car. At some point I decided to just go for it and blasted blindly through the grass, like a teenager plowing through a cornfield in their father's pickup truck. 

This strategy didn't work out so well, and I soon found myself stalled out sideways on the edge of the roadway, teetering over the bank of the river/stream. I managed to extricate myself from the car, clawing the grass and soft soil of the bank. The car, however, didn't have this survival instinct and promptly slid into the drink upon my exit.

Damn, I thought. I'd have to try to retrieve the car, which was doing a slow motion submerge into the swift green water of the creek. I did manage to hoist the car up, one-handed, a feat that was only possible because those European sports cars are so miniaturized and constructed out of light materials. It literally fit in the palm of my hand.

But it also fell out of the palm of my hand, and back into the drink it went, this time vanishing below the surface for good. I sat there a while contemplating whether or not to dive in after it. Not knowing the depth of the creek, I opted to abandon it, and I continued the rest of my voyage on foot. 

When I reached the next town, I inquired of some locals about the depth of the creek. I told them about my abandoned sports car. One woman wanted to know the exact location, because surely it would be worth salvaging. I didn't think so, and I told her as much. I'd made up my mind that I could do without the encumbrance of some cheap toy sports car that would need a whole lot of restoration at that point.

The dream ended with me at an airport baggage check, telling my story to a mildly amused claims checker. I felt liberated, having relieved myself of the hassle of selling the sports car or returning it to the rental agency, whichever was the case, I don't know, exactly. But it was out of my hands; insurance would cover it, and I was free to exit the country. I'd managed to salvage my bags before the car went to its watery resting place, so I felt doubly lucky.

Fin.

Walking Meditation

 

Great. I was certain I was about to have a Brian insight, or else I just felt like bitching.

A Brian insight? Really? What’s that? I don’t wanna get in an argument right now, Siri.

Let me start over. I really thought I had something brilliant to say, but it was a false alarm. Like that epiphany that I almost had a couple of years back. But now, I guess I just feel like indulging my sorry side again. Why can’t I be like that dog with his head out the window, cheeks flapping in the wind?

I suppose I’m just feeling a little insignificant right now. A little melancholy creeping in. Maybe it’s because of the ending this week  of my 12 weeks of teletherapy sessions. Endings always seem to do that to me. 

My life is already pretty empty, so this will leave a big hole. For all our ideological differences, Dave was a decent guy and will make a great therapist now that he's finishing up his internship. I'll miss him. I feel like we kind of bonded over all of those philosophical discussions about death, despair, anger and the ultimate meaninglessness of life.

What difference does my life make, really? What value does my social interaction (or non-interaction) make, really? Why would it be so desirable to make a difference, anyway? I’m just one in 1 billion in a sea of faces, unrecognizable, easily obscured by the shadows.

What would it matter if my little pixel winked out? It isn’t contributing that much light or color to the picture. Perhaps it will just fade into the shadows. Lord knows, there’s enough darkness out there to conceal my exit from the picture. I guess it all comes down to my cats. They would miss me terribly. But with the proper grief therapy counseling, they would snap right out of it, after a few weeks in a thriving, vibrant household.

It might be time to resurrect my "death notification" email, just in case. I really did get tired of those false alarms that it kept sending out, though. Invariably the program would glitch, prematurely sending out the email telling my important contacts to swing into action because I was either dead or incapacitated somewhere. Meanwhile, I'd have been out taking a walk or mowing the lawn while my relatives were left wondering if this was yet another cry for attention or the real deal.

Oh yeah, note to self: Find out how to incorporate a countdown timer to give the days, hours, minutes and seconds until May 29, 2054. That is my expiration date. I was specifically shown this, in an image in my mind a few years back, while contemplating my demise.

I spent about 70% of my life on the couch now. And the other 30% is split between cooking, cleaning and self-care. Ha. Things like walking, exercising and playing the guitar in my living room, with a smattering of Zoom meetings, phone calls or texts from friends thrown in. Oh, and showering and brushing my teeth. I still do that.

With regard to my social interactions, I feel like the hot potato, the crying baby that needs attention. No one wants to be the last one to have checked on him before, well, you know. Or maybe they do, I don’t know. Perhaps there is some social obligation box that they are checking, for which they will get credit.

I just know that I am nobody's somebody. Any attempts to make me feel that way, relevant, included, etc. are all just pity techniques. I am odious, and I know it. My attempts to camouflage this, my true nature, simply adds 'disingenuous' to my list of character flaws.

I am Andrew. I like animals, green fields, rustic fences, oddball movies, sappy music...oh, you know. What difference does it really make what I like or don’t like? I’ll be dead soon enough. These yappy dogs won’t have me to bark at any longer. The trees and bushes won’t miss my silent curses as cars drive down this gravel road, leaving me with a dusty exhaust plume to inhale.

My one or two blog readers will most likely easily find better fodder with which to tire their eyes after I have posted my final post. But don't call the buzzards just yet. I’m still wearing my orange safety vest, but mainly because I don’t want to be Stephen King'd by some errant automobile.

I am still here. Grudgingly.

I’ll never be a world-class anything. Not even a world-class asshole. I just lack the consistency. I’m not even like water, my friend. Water has more flexibility. I am more like slime Jell-O. I am wishy-washy, yet resistant to change at the same time. And yet, there are cracks in my existentialist negativity, through which the light shines occasionally, according to some people, if I can believe them.

But I’m not chasing after truth or some kind of enlightenment. I would just like to feel good, if that is even possible. I know it would just be a delusion, fooling myself, a distraction to keep me from thinking of my looming appointment with the grim reaper. But hey, everyone’s doing it, why can’t I?

Fun? What is that? I really don’t know anymore. Routine, that I know. Boredom, yes, very familiar. Hopeless, intractable depression, sure, I’ll claim that. Even though I might have brief flashes of something that looks like a tolerable existence, my should-ing and shouldn’t-ing gets me in trouble. I should be appreciative. I shouldn't complain. Whatever. All I really have to do is live and die, but right now I'm not doing either.

I’m going to exhaust this pixel metaphor. I had an OLED TV recently. The "O" in OLED stands for Organic. Each of the pixels is an individual living entity in an array. Varying voltages across the grid cause them to illuminate in various colors and levels of brightness. Pretty special, huh? They provide the clearest picture, since each individual pixel can be turned off or on or vary its color in any gradation.

However, they are susceptible to screen burn, or image retention. I found this out the hard way because I used it for a computer monitor, which would display the static image of my browser for lengthy periods of time. My brain is kind of like that. Repetitive negative thought patterns have burned themselves into my physical neural network, distorting the picture of my perception, neuroplasticity notwithstanding.

And in other pixel related metaphors… I am that one dead pixel in God’s big TV monitor. Together we all make up the picture, each of us playing our various parts at different times. It is better for a pixel to be flexible and have a range of expressions than to be static or stuck in one particular mode. Sorry, God. You should’ve made a better product. Maybe next time around, eh?

I was able to return my TV for a full refund under warranty. I was downgraded to a non-OLED TV, where the pixels, though less expressive and individual, are at least obedient. Kind of like those robots that God wants in his churches. You know, do you as you’re supposed to do, don’t be stuck or stubborn, obey without question. We can’t have those pixels thinking for themselves now, can we?

A guy in a truck just stopped in the middle of the road and backed up to ask me if I was OK. What do you suppose I told him? Although I am far from OK, my stomach in knots, my brain and emotions in a broken state: “Fine,” I told him, “I am just out for a walk.”

Can you tell that the loneliness must be getting to me? I’ve been talking to my text editor the whole time that I’ve been out walking. Well, not the whole time; my brain isn’t all that active. And I really don’t have that much to say.

(later)

Dit-da-dit-dit-dit. This just in:

I actually got a nibble on my whimsically haphazard personal ad. She responded positively, and we exchanged a couple of emails and pictures. She’s quite pretty. I won’t go into detail, since I directed her to this blog (which, in hindsight, may prove to be either a fatal error or else a brilliant strategy; that has yet to be determined).

If you’re reading this: Hi, G___! I won’t use your name, since that would be a bit presumptuous and quite forward of me. But I will say that your picture looks lovely, and you sound like you would be a delightful person to get to know.

Traveling with Mom and Greg

 

I don't have much in the way of details or plot, so here are the bare bones:

I was traveling with my mom and Greg in the wonderful LA basin. We were driving around and visiting the different tourist attractions and cultural sites. If it were the Midwest, we'd be seeing things like the world's biggest ball string or the world's largest safety pin, but since it was LA, we had to settle for the various historically themed museums. 

I was a bit lost as we drove around, and I struggled to get my bearings. I figured we were in Whittier, somewhere near the Rose Hills Cemetery, where my grandpa is buried. Looking out my window, I confirmed this to myself when I caught a glimpse of the Griffith Park Observatory on its hilltop perch off in the distance. The mountains and foothills were covered with snow, giving the place a Yosemite type look.

We stopped at a third-rate museum that claimed to have some kind of depictions of the early explorers and the westward movement of settlers. The museum was in a boarded up industrial type building that looked more like a venue suited for a rave or an underground nightclub.  It was in a run down black neighborhood, and the line of people outside was relatively short, consisting mostly of thuggish looking gangster types. 

I surveyed the line, trying to decide whether or not to get in it or to join my mom and Greg, who were over at a concession stand nearby. I got some hard looks from a very black, licorice-faced fellow in his early thirties, overweight, with traces of baby fat in the round cheeks that offset his overly white teeth. Wearing black jeans, a black short-sleeve shirt, untucked and unbuttoned in the front, over a black t-shirt, with a thick gold chain around his neck hanging down mid-chest, he looked like a slightly leaner version of the Notorious B.I.G. 

I opted for the concession stand. It was a self-serve buffet with some very unappealing food choices: soupy Salisbury steak, soupy processed turkey and a mostly empty pan of what had once been some watery, over-boiled chicken. There was also the obligatory salad bin, with wilted iceberg lettuce and a few tiny bits of purple cabbage thrown in for color. All the food was sitting in steam trays in the typical cafeteria fashion, which is probably why everything was so soggy and soupy.

I contemplated my rather sad choices as my mom grabbed the last soggy hoagie sandwich. I was conscious of my diet in the dream, and none of this food looked like it would be very healthy for me to eat. Greg wasn't hungry, or at least he said he wasn't, but eyeing the crusty tray of baked beans, he opted to fill himself a small to go container for the road. Neither my mom or Greg seemed too interested in going in the museum at this point.

That's about it. Nothing happened, and no real emotions were generated, other than mild disgust at my food choices and the slightly uneasy feeling of being in the wrong neighborhood.

Dit-da-dit-dit-dit-da-dit -- (ka-zhing -- clunk) -- dit-da-dit-dit-dit

 

That's the sound of my Telex machine sending me my coded dream message. I'm just remembering it bit by bit, so it's coming in slowly, line by line. Here are the facts as we know them:

The setting was a beach town, and I was with family. My cousin Caryn, whom I've never met, was there, and also Lesa. There were activities, such as surfing, that were being partaken in by the more adventurous members of the family.

Lesa was swinging on a swing-set, and I was slightly mesmerized by the back and forth, up and down motion. (Hey, I know what you're thinking. It didn't really go there, though I might have wished it did.) She was being flirty with everyone again, but I guess it didn't bother me. She said something to my stepdad Greg, hoping to get some kind of reaction out of him, but it didn't have the effect she was hoping for. She played it off like it had anyway.

"He was probably just too turned on," she said, continuing to swing on the swing-set.

"You're right," I said, "Hell, it turned me on." 

I felt magnanimous telling her that, since I was over her, or so I thought. Unfortunately, just saying those words conjured up feelings that left me in an agitated state of desire. Here we go again, I thought, the back and forth, will she/won't she, hot/cold nature of our relationship being perfectly represented by her motion on the swing. She loves me, she loves me not. Ugh. I guess I was starting to fall under her spell just a little.

I turned my attention elsewhere. There were some nice sized waves breaking right outside our patio on the beach. By nice, I mean one or two foot little shorebreakers. They held their shape, but didn't appear too daunting. I considered actually suiting up and going in. 

"I'm a terrible swimmer," I confessed to my cousin Caryn. "Do you think they'll have wetsuits for us?"

"Sure, they will," she replied, "You should go."

"Why not?" I thought. I was convincing myself to do it. A wetsuit would guarantee buoyancy. I remembered bobbing around as a teenager, surfing (if you could call it that) in Santa Monica. I'd had fun, anyway, and the wetsuit had made me feel just a little invincible. Well, right up until I would get pummeled by the first rogue wave of the day, that is, then I'd be back in full wuss mode.

Dit......Dit. My Telex machine ran out of ink, apparently, because that's all I'm getting from my recollection. Dit. Dit. Dit. Oh, wait, one more detail is coming in: 

There was a dog in the apartment, and I was petting it and telling it nice doggie things, as I am wont to do whenever I get around dogs. It was some kind of terrier with black and white bangs trimmed in a bowl cut over the eyes. I put my face against the dog's cheek and tried to mind-meld with it.

"She has a skin condition," my cousin warned me, "You might not want to do that."

I looked at the dog's face more closely and saw that the other side of it was mangy and bald, with little red bumps on the pink skin. I think I even saw a mite or two making their way across the barren terrain. I paused for a moment, but decided that the dog, mange notwithstanding, still needed love, and I continued to pet her.

Dit.

That's about it. I wish I could remember what Lesa had been saying to my stepdad. I feel that part of the dream had more to it, but I just can't read the faint writing from my archaic dot matrix machine's transcription. Damn dream machine, anyhow. And damn Lesa, swinging back into my consciousness like that. I think she was wearing booty shorts, and that's what all the ruckus was about. 

Dit.

Some friends throw me a makeover party

I woke up a bit early today, so I decided to go back to sleep, and boy, was it worth it. I fell asleep listening to Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, and it seems that, in doing so, a beacon was sent out to guardian angels everywhere. 

I dreamed  that I had come home to find a few friends busying themselves around my house. People were moving my furniture and possessions around, and the place looked like it was either being robbed or emptied out for a yard sale. My initial reaction was, "Hey, who let all these people in, and what are they doing with all my stuff?" 

A guy named Hugo from work whizzed by with a bunch of floor tiles under his arm from a box of new wood laminate flooring. He greeted me but did not answer my question. Reggie Martinez was sitting at the desk in my downstairs room. I hadn't seen him for years, and I greeted him excitedly:

"Hey, Reggie! Long time no see. Whatcha been up to?"

He got up, as if to greet me, but then sat down on the couch and started reading aloud out of some book of philosophy.

"You've become a philosopher, have you?" I teased. 

Reggie was always the joker at work. He liked nothing better than to come up with the most perfectly crafted insults, designed to rattle your cage, which he would spring on you at the most inopportune moment. Like if you were hoisting an engine, or struggling under a car, he'd say, "Dude, do you even know what your doing?" or "Your mama is a dead lay." 

If you took the bait and reacted, he'd be on you the rest of the day, tapping you on the shoulder at random times asking, "Are you mad?"  Perhaps it was his coping mechanism for being a short, trollish man with the ego of a rap star, I don't know. There was a nice guy under there, if you could get past his odious surface persona.

Whatever was going on in the house, with all the people and the moving about of possessions, I figured he knew about it, and I was pressing him to tell me. He never looked up. He just kept on reading from his book of philosophy, droning on and on in a very articulate, scholarly voice. 

I left him there, still reading, and went to look for Hugo. I noticed whole crews of people in various rooms taking pictures and things off the walls.  Some of my older stuff was being moved out and newer stuff was brought in. A real estate agent looking lady was in the kitchen giving directions for how the place ought to be staged while a guy in another room was cutting floor tiles with a wet saw.  It looked as if they were doing a full scale makeover on the place.

I caught up with Hugo and asked him again, "Dude, what are all these people doing?"

"You'll find out soon enough," he said enigmatically and darted off onto my next door neighbor's property.

I followed him for a bit, but he eluded me. I wandered around on my neighbor's property a bit, but no one was home. A company work truck sat in his garage on jacks. It looked like it had been in a fender bender. The front wheels were off, and the suspension was splayed out at an unlikely angle.

Wandering down an alley toward my house, my thoughts turned to another neighbor's house. I thought to tell my busybody friends about it, since it was a real haunted house, a dump of Lovecraftian proportions. I'd dreamed of it before, with its slime coated walls and flooded underground tunnels leading to torture labyrinths. I wondered how they'd handle taking that on as a project. I never did mention it, since there was no one there in the alley with me at the time, and I promptly forgot all about it.

Back at my house, I was finally putting the pieces together. In Amish barn-raising fashion, my friends and neighbors had conspired to throw me an all out "Reconstructing Andrew" party. Everything that was wrong was being addressed. Clothing was being thrown out, walls painted, flooring replaced. I wondered aloud whether or not this would extend to fixing my dental issues.

"Relax," one of the workers said, "The appointment has already been made."

I protested a little, but they assured me that all of these changes were for the best and that I'd be happy with the results. I was amazed at the lengths these people were going to and the level of detail they were endeavoring to achieve in perfecting my life. Every thing I had ever bitched about, they were in the process of fixing, as well as making some improvements I hadn't even considered.

I never did get a direct answer out of anyone regarding who had initiated all of this, and I woke up before they'd put the finishing touches on their big reveal. My audio book was still playing, the narrator droning on philosophically, something about suicide and the reasonings for and against it. 

I guess I'll get out of bed now.

Personal Ad

 

OK, it’s time for me to come up with a new personal ad. "Lonely old farts need love too. Balding, bifocaled, gray bearded 56-year-old with bad teeth seeking the company of a compassionate female."

I am a homeowner on a fixed income, SSD, if you must know. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder after my wife died three years ago. I try to keep fit, eat healthy, etc. but the loneliness gets the best of me sometimes. I live alone on 5 acres out in the country. It’s nice out here in the spring, fall and winter. Summers suck, but hey, I’ve got AC and no set schedule.

I am not looking for a nurse or a maid. I can look after myself. I wouldn’t say no to a nursemaid though, wink wink. I feel that I am a genuinely nice guy, although I do get a bit frustrated at times. I am too old and creepy to flirt properly, and I never learned the proper social protocols anyway.

What am I looking for in a woman? Uh, a pulse. Sure, I admire classic beauty, but I'm a realist. I am no prize turkey. Besides, the real beauty is inner beauty anyway. Tall, short, young, old, fat, skinny, black, white, blonde, brunette, I'm not picky.

I don't know If I could date a cigarette smoker, though, to be honest. The smell makes me nauseous. Smoke all the weed you want, that doesn't bother me, but I'd prefer not to get involved with any heavy drug users. Just not my scene. Moderate drinking is OK. I used to do it, but I gave it up a few years back. I may have a sip or two on rare occasions, but I value my liver these days, and it appreciates me cutting way back on the booze.

What are the odds that this ad will generate a sympathetic response? I figured I would go ahead and take the chance to and place it anyway. If you are a scammer, a bot or some phishing algorithm, I sympathize with you. Even AI robot scammers gotta make a living.

Oh, and I have what I guess is a normal sex drive. I just don’t have anywhere to drive it. But you don’t have to worry about me trying to jump your bones, that is unless you specifically want me to. I’m very respectful that way. I really could just use some companionship, part time, maybe working into a full-time, live-in arrangement.

Oh dear, did I just open the door for the homeless hordes? I'm guessing that the only woman that would deign to take up with me would be one who had fallen upon hard times and is possibly living out of a car or a shopping basket. I’m certainly not a sugar daddy, by any means. More like one of those sour lemon candies, what are they called, Lemonheads?

Anyway, my shelf life is limited, so I better slap on this reduced price sticker and see if I can sell this meat before it goes completely rank.

Details: 56 years old, in (Yuba Foothills)

----

Yes, that is an actual personal ad that I just now came up with. Why, you ask, would I bother to place an ad so blatantly unappealing? Why lead with my faults? Am I trying to sabotage my own dating career before it even gets off the ground? 

Yes. Yes, I am. I don't want to go through all of that nonsense of trying to make myself look like something I'm not. I hate the idea of charming my way into a date, only for them to find that I am not what I advertised myself to be. Better that they should know about all the dents, rust spots and tears in the upholstery before they even bother to take the car on a test drive. 

As lonely as I might be, I'm not really expecting to get anywhere with this strategy. I'm just bored, and I find it entertaining to write half-serious, half-satirical personal ads targeting a non-existent audience. I have a long history of doing this, so it was only a matter of time before I started playing around with the idea again. 

Sleep tight, ladies, I'm not really on the prowl. I'm still hibernating in my cave. Someone shot the groundhog, and it has been winter in my heart since forever.

Two hour lunch

 

Another day, another YC Honda dream. The way I figure it, they ought to be paying me for all the time I'm putting in. This last one encroached on my afternoon nap time. I can see having to work during my primary sleep time, if dreaming is my main job in life. But interrupting an afternoon nap is like being asked to work on a holiday. I should be getting overtime pay, since they are cutting into my recreational dream time.

So, I was back on the job, only I wasn't. I was at lunch. Me and Jackie Chan (David Chanh) were eating at a restaurant in town. After lunch I decided I needed to take a nap in my car, so I found a shady spot and got some shuteye. 

When I woke up from my nap (in the dream) I was in my old Paradise house. I was extremely groggy and couldn't figure out how I'd gotten there. I looked at my watch, and it was an hour later than the time that I was supposed to be back to work. So, even if I hightailed it back to work, I'd be 2 hours overdue, since I lived an hour away.

I figured I'd better call in sick. Yeah, that's what I'd do. I would tell them that I went out to lunch and suddenly started feeling sick, so I went home. Why didn't I call them right then, before driving home? Uh, because I was too sick. I was throwing up. Yeah, throwing up. I was working out all the details of my excuse, so I'd be ready in case there were questions.

My mom was there at the house, sitting at my computer desk. I told her I needed to use the phone, so she handed me the cordless landline. There's an oxymoron for you, "cordless landline." Anyway, I had the phone in my hands and kept trying to dial the number for my work, but it was impossible. I would either misdial and have to start over again, or I'd flat out misremember the number. And I could give you that number in my sleep, believe me, I've had to dial it enough times.

In one of my attempts, before I even dialed a number at all, I heard voices on the line. I kept quiet and listened. I thought at first that I'd actually gotten through to my work somehow by accident. 

"Hello? HELLO?" I spoke loudly into the phone, but they ignored me.

My mom asked me to give her the phone. She wanted to mess around with them, and she casually inserted herself into their conversation. They acknowledged her, laughing at some joke that she was telling them. It was like some CB radio channel, or a party line where random people just chime in, in a free-for-all fashion.

They started gossiping about Sharon's old neighbor, Dave Vixie, and I tried to get in on the action, but I couldn't come up with any interesting factoids about Dave, except that he was a horse's ass. He actually did have a team of mules that he would harness up and drive down the street, but I don't know if that qualifies him for horse's ass status.

I was getting frustrated with my mom's hogging of the telephone. I still needed to call in sick. As is typical in dreams, I realized way late in the game that I had a cell phone on me (double duh). I tried dialing the numbers, but I had the same lack of success. At one point my phone morphed into a tiny CD player/copy machine/Easy Bake oven. I was fascinated by this miniaturized replica of a non-existent hybrid appliance. I knew something was wonky at this point. 

I was still extremely frustrated, to the point of tears, because I couldn't make my phone call. I knew that if I could just get through, they'd accept my excuse for not returning from lunch. Hell, I might not even need an excuse. It was slow down there, and they likely didn't need me down there standing around anyway.

"Maybe you just need to wake up," my mom suggested.

It didn't occur to me that I was asleep, and that this was my wake-up call. I asked her what she meant, and she began to cry, mumbling something about pregnancy and how some procedure wasn't an option.

"You are trying to have more kids, now?" I asked her, incredulous at the thought. My mom is 76.

"No. I'm not trying. I AM pregnant. And the procedure I needed to insure the appropriate gender wouldn't work. We're going to have another boy." My mom was just full of surprises.

"Still trying to get a good one, eh?" I said, joking at my own expense. But then I became aware of the slight to my other three brothers, so I added, "Well, I'm sure there's at least one good one or two in the bunch." I can be such a turd.

"Greg and I really wanted a girl," she said, still misty.

I was still frustrated over the whole work and phone situation and couldn't muster up the correct response. So I lack empathy, even in my dreams. Great. 

Eventually, I woke up and solved the whole problem of having to call in sick. Maybe my mom was right after all. I did just need to wake up. It took me a little while to shed that frustrated feeling, though. I was awake for several minutes still thinking that I needed to make that damn phone call.

It occurs to me that I've written voluminously on these dreams about nothing. My life is boring, my dreams are boring, sheesh. What's the point, already? None whatsoever. It's like an episode of Seinfeld, only without the jokes.

Ikuru vs The Sunset Limited

 

 

 

 "The world is basically a forced labor camp, from which the workers, perfectly innocent, are led forth by lottery, a few each day, to be executed." ~ "White," The Sunset Limited

 

 

 

 "Life is so short / Fall in love dear maiden / While your lips are still red / And before you are cold / For there will be no tomorrow." ~ "Kanji," Iruku

 

 

 

I had the (for lack of a more appropriate word) pleasure of watching a couple of movies recommended by my therapist this last week. The fact that this will be the last week of our sessions made the common theme of these movies that much more poignant. Both movies deal with the subject of man's search for meaning and fulfillment in a world of suffering, impermanence and death. 

Although they each approach the questions "to be or not to be" (and if so, why or why not) from different angles, both films present the viewer with this polemic. Of the two, The Sunset Limited seems to be the more honest because it doesn't draw any conclusions. Two men in a room argue over the inherent value of life, one a world-weary atheist "Professor of Darkness," bent on suicide, the other a Christian, whose simple faith sustains him in the less than desirable circumstances of his tenement life.  It is a baldly frank Black and White discussion between two opposing viewpoints, which ends in an uncathartic stalemate.

Ikuru comes off a bit of a preachy by comparison. It is a well-crafted story, and is arguably the more entertaining of the two films because it takes the viewer on a journey, rather than just putting two people in a room and letting them duke it out intellectually. In the end, however, its bias is obvious. The message couldn't be more clear: "Life, however fraught with tribulation or apparent meaninglessness, is definitely worth living, and here's why." 

Ikuru has notes of "It's A Wonderful Life" or "Scrooge" as it lets you simmer in the pot of existential angst awhile, until you are well-seasoned, then plucks you out before you wind up overcooked. It is ultimately a life-affirming, feel-good film that takes the long route, visiting many points of pathos-inducing sadness and disquieting discomfort along the way. Though it is more subtle than those other two movies I referenced, it is still a fable, a cautionary tale with a moral, a teaching device designed to bring you to a predetermined conclusion. 

I liked both films but was not ultimately budged by either. Nothing seems to do that anymore. Whether that is due to my self-limiting myopic view of the world, or  some biological function in which I am deficient, nothing seems to move me viscerally these days, not to the fault of either film. The Sunset Limited's lack of a tidy conclusion was unsatisfying (kind of like life). One really does wish for a happy ending, but Ikuru's obvious nudges, prodding one down the path of positivity, felt a little pedantic, and its sweet and sour marinade had a slightly saccharine finish for me. Your tastes may vary.

In any case, I'm not trying to pit these two movies against one another and pick a winner. What would give anyone the idea that should I have to do anything with either of them, other than just watch them and be entertained by them? They both make valid points in their own way and are worth watching for their own intrinsic value.

There's my crummy movie review, boss. It could use a re-write or three, I know. I fail to give examples or flesh out any details from the storyline of either movie. I'd give it a C- for content and, as always, I'll leave the grading of grammar and usage to the professionals. And for anything I have written, will write or am currently writing, the following statement holds true: If you don't like it, check back in 5 minutes; it may be completely different. I tweak on these stupid posts all the time, creating my own little Mandela effect ripples throughout the body of my work. 

As my viewpoint evolves (or devolves) over time, I am certain to see things differently. But this isn't usually the reason I'll go back and do an edit. I like to preserve the integrity of the original thought, so I rarely edit for content. More likely, I am just unsatisfied with the original language, punctuation or layout, and I will go back and word things differently for clarity, to make it read more easily. Oh, and I usually add pictures after the fact, as well, leaving some as generic placeholders to be replaced at a later date. 

Blah-bitty blah blah.

Ridgeline

A Ridgeline with a loose fender liner and splash shield came into the shop...

That's all I remember. It sounds like the start of a joke, but I don't remember the punchline. I just know that I was dreaming that I was working at YC Honda again (no surprise) and I was supposed to perform multi-point inspections as a courtesy to the customers and as a way of upselling repairs and maintenance. 

At first, I was just going to make my notes and let the vehicle go, but then I thought better of it and decided to install the missing clips so that the undercarriage plastic wouldn't drag on the ground. Perhaps the service writers could come up with a fair price for the parts and labor, or maybe not. I just knew that I wasn't going to let the vehicle leave in that condition when it was in my power to install a couple of missing clips. 

Anything else on my mind? Not presently. I'm officially designating Friday as my laundry and vacuuming day. If I'm going to live my life for the few moments of attempted fun that I engage in on Saturday, then I guess it behooves me to set the stage by making my environment as pleasant possible. I keep the place relatively tidy throughout the week, so I don't have any major makeovers to undertake. 

Ha. That only applies to the areas of the house that I frequent. The shoddy facade is revealed if I go out on the back deck or peruse the perimeter of the house. It looks like a Stephen King set, complete with cobwebs, buzzing wasps and black widows nesting in the eaves. The lawn is full of gopher holes and meat bee nests. Random ant mounds appear and are abandoned, as their entire civilizations are born, flourish and die out, leaving only a dirt mound as a memorial, a cautionary metaphor for humanity's tenuous existence on this planet.

My contract with the insect life states that I will leave them the outside if they respect the boundary of my indoor space. Except for a few brief infestations of fungus gnats, and my daddy long-leg allies in the spider community, there have been relatively few incursions. If there is an unwitting trespasser, I will gently repatriate them, utilizing the cup and paper deportation technique.

It is extremely smoky today. The Dixie Fire in Butte and Plumas counties has grown to 142,930 acres. The wind has been favorable for my area until last night, when it shifted and sent the plume southward towards Yuba county. I'm listening to the scanner to make sure that none of the smoke present is from any new fires starting in my area. So far it has been a mostly incident free summer, with the few small fires in my county being extinguished in rapid order. 

I may have to forego my evening walk, since the health benefits of outdoor exercise will be negated by the poor air quality. I don't have a suitable indoor venue to do this amount of walking, so my routine will just have to suffer. I hate to lose ground, though, as I have been improving my walking time over the last few weeks. I'm currently able to get my 5 miles done in under 1 hour and 29 minutes flat. 

So little excitement goes on around here that I have taken to challenging myself by making these kinds of silly goals. It was a slow news day in dreamland, so I really don't even know I'm bothering to add all this empty filler. Speaking of which, I may as well designate Friday as Catbox Emptying Day while I'm declaring official weekly chore days.

" " ( )

    

 

 

 

 

That's the sound of me trying to describe a dream I don't remember. It's like looking for a black cat in a dark room when he wasn't there, as the saying goes. 

All I remember is that I was looking for Diane, a girl from Bible Study (aka, The Cult). I'd had a crush on her back then, when it was forbidden (primarily because she was married at the time). When I reconnected with her on Facebook a few years ago, she was single and I was married. Now we're both single, but she's moved out of California. I flirted with the idea of flirting with her, but never it never got past the "good friend with noble and pure intentions" stage. Always the bridesmaid, me.

But I have had some nice dreams about her in the past couple of years. God help me, it's my only avenue of fulfillment these days. So, naturally, I get jacked, Inception-style, by the Dream Police and robbed of the memory of a dream I barely had, about a girl for whom I have an unfulfilled longing and couldn't find in my dream, even if I could remember it. 

It's like thieves stealing your car, then taking the information from your glovebox to come back later and rob your house, and while they are there, they hack into your computer and steal your identity. On the way out, they conk you over the head, so you have amnesia. Ah, crap, I'm even failing at coming up with an adequate, non-convoluted analogy.

FML!

Walking With My Demons (another text editor tirade)

 

Not gonna have time to edit this on the fly. Trying to maintain 3.5 mph.

Does it really help knowing anything? I mean, so I am aware that I am inventing my own triggers, reasons to feel sad, to elicit some kind of emotion from my lethargic skeletal shell; what difference does it make? It appears to be working, because I can tease out a bit of a reaction when I think about certain things, although it is getting harder.

For instance: Spirulina, the green seaweed supplement. My previous therapist recommended it when I was telling her that I really could use a lift. She said this stuff was like a natural anti-depressant. So I ran out and ordered some right away and started taking it.

So, naturally, when I take the stuff for a few days and notice no improvement, there is a bit of disappointment. Even though I didn’t invest very much hope in the idea that it was really going to help, it strengthens my position that I am pathetic and unhelpable. Plus, the bottle is running out, just like her time with me ran out, and things ending always leads me to a misty sentimentality. Over a bottle of Spirulina. Really?

This kind of reality manipulation takes a little work. I have to sell myself a story. The story can be very simple and have just a few elements in it. I’m normally quite receptive to the idea that I am a person for whom nothing ever works as promised. "All I want to do is feel good," I tell myself, "And see, I'm trying. I'm taking this supplement, and nothing is any better."

I tell myself that so that I can feel sorry for myself. Poor me. But the really sad thing is that I can no longer believe my own stories, even the sadness triggering ones. I am not falling for my own bullshit. I know I'm trying to create an emotion, in order to feel SOMETHING rather than nothing, and this knowledge kind of spoils it for me.

I have to walk faster. I'm trying to mprove my time from the other day. I made my walk in one hour, 31 minutes and 27 seconds. I won’t beat that record today. I've gotten a rock in my shoe several times, and I was accosted by puppies who jumped up on me and scratched my arm, causing it to bleed.

Other than that, I’m having a fine day. Just fucking fine. Another car is coming down this gravel road and is gonna leave me a nice fucking dust trail to inhale. Thank you very much, assholes. I have to retract that last statement. They slowed way down, waved at me and left no dust trail.

Now a German shorthair and his flock of teacup Papillon dogs are barking at me. I could spin that as a negative, too, except his tail is wagging a little bit. But I can make it work in my narrative anyway. I am still getting barked at. Even the friendly puppy dogs earlier, in their exuberance, caused me injury. I most likely will get poison oak from it as well. That’s what happened last time those cute little guys jumped on me.

And now, another rock in my shoe. Oh, and one of my toenails, which I just clipped the other night, has a sharp burr which gouged into my other toe, causing it to bleed. I try to prevent a problem and wind up causing one instead. And this motherfucking text editor is going to have me editing all night. Fuck you, Siri.

This is the real me, I guess, the bitter complainer and self-critic.

Walking by the Sugarloaf Farm, the place where the guy hosts an Airbnb for campers, I scan the place for campfires and don't see any. Apparently, he can get around the rules about no fires during the summer by claiming it to be some kind of personal cooking fire. But the zombie-tards that come up from the city just want to have the experience of having a fire. They know nothing of the risk that we take up here with wildfires. "Look it’s fun to have fires. Let’s fan the flames and see if we can make the fire get bigger." I seethe every time I walk by and see that orange glow.

I feel like I’m being held together by a bunch of angry thoughts about this and that, and that if I were to drop all of them, including my stories and all my prejudices, that there would be nothing left. There would not be some inner core of joy, some inherent good or spark to be found inside of me; it would just be emptiness, blank and void of anything.

I simply can’t paint with light colors. I can weave a narrative that casts me as the villain, the victim, perennial loser, the Charlie Brown, always shit upon, the Rabbit who never gets the Trix. Never the beloved hero, always the black sheep, the uninvited guest, the demon cowering in the corner.

Like right now with his goddamn text editor misinterpreting every fucking word. You’ll never know; I’ll edit it. Meanwhile, another wasted walk, stewing in my own juices. How else can I berate myself? Let me count the ways.

Three little dogs, Sharon and I are splitville and the homeless at my window

 

I dreamed I was back in the little house in Paradise where Sharon and I spent 10 years together. The Campfire never happened, and Sharon never had MS. I, however, was still an asshole. Some things remain constant, even across multiple timelines.

Sharon and I were split up. I'm not sure the exact reason, but it didn't seem irrevocable. She was living at her parents house, and her mom, Hannelore, was still alive. Since I was this jerk of a guy, I had to do a lot of sweet talking to get Sharon to cozy up to the idea of spending some time together in a temporary dating kind of arrangement. She seemed amenable to the idea, so I must have been doing an ok job of hiding my true nature.

That is, until the trio of homeless people showed up at my window. I'd talked to all of them individually in different settings when I'd been out on my walks. There were 2 guys and one female. It was the female that irked me, since she was the one who came waltzing onto my property and was peering in at me through the shades while I was talking to Sharon on the phone.

"He's here," the overly tanned, middle age bag lady rasped excitedly to the others. "Now we just gotta get him to let us in. I can see him in there. HELLO! ARE YOU IN THERE, MR. MAN?" She fairly shouted the last part, making sure her voice penetrated into every crevice in the house.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!" I screamed at her, grabbing my uncle's bronze casting of a .357 Magnum. It was purely decorative, but it was such a realistic piece of art that it fooled most people. She was no exception.

"Let's get out of here guys," the lady tramp said. "The asshole has a gun."

"You're gonna wish you never pulled that," said one of the male bums, ominously. "We'll come back when you aren't here or when  you are sleeping, and we'll make things bad for you. You'll see."

Still brandishing the fake handgun, I put the phone in my pocket and went outside to make sure that the crew was properly motivated to leave the premises. The man and woman both headed out down the road, closing the gate neatly behind them. The third homeless guy was parking his big rig when the frackus went down, but upon seeing me with the gun and his friends fleeing, decided to turn the semi around on the incredibly narrow street, in kind of a slow motion Austin Powers style escape.

I ran into my neighbor Stan as he passed the last of the homeless exiting our street. He asked me what the commotion was all about, and I told him I'd been besieged by a zombie horde of homeless that had somehow followed me home from my walk. 

"You got to watch them," he said in his choppy Eastern European dialect. "They take everything. Ruin everything for you. Is things still same with girlfriend?" 

"She's still my wife," I said, "at least for the time being."

After all the transients were gone, I was headed back into the house to resume my conversation with Sharon. But before I could do this, a Dachshund, a Corgi and a Papillon weaseled their way out of my front door and demanded not so subtly to be taken for a walk. I guess they were my dogs, though I've never owned dogs of this variety before. 

I was frustrated with all the interruptions, so I started yelling at the dogs to get back in the house. But then I realized that they'd probably just pee in there if I didn't at least let them out for a minute, as they were indoor dogs and relied on me to let them out from time to time. I resigned myself to yet another inconvenience, still grumbling.

It was then that I noticed that the phone in my pocket was still on and in a call with Sharon. Great. Now she'd for sure have heard me threatening the homeless people, and worse, being short with the dogs. Running some dirtbags off the property might not have even registered as a transgression, but being the least bit unkind to an animal was sure to cast me in the worst possible light with her. I'd hoped she hadn't been listening.

I never found out, though, because there was just silence on the other end of the line. I knew that regardless of whether she'd heard the entire thing, or just a portion of it, the chances were pretty good that I'd let something ugly slip during all that time of uncensored candid phone broadcasting.