I join a gym and come unprepared to the talent show

The goulash that I am serving up has no theme, just a few slices of unrelated snack products. If y'all want some more tasty morsels, try bringing something to the potluck next time. Otherwise, STFU and enjoy my meager offerings. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Last night's dream. Here goes:

I had joined a low budget gym which turned out to be nothing more than a room with a rubber mat for a floor and a shower/bathroom combo. After finishing up in the rubber mat room, I hit the restroom to pee. It seemed to be semi-busy in there with a bunch of guys milling about in the shower area, and one guy using the urinal on the wall. I waited til the urinal was free, only to find that the guy had simply been pissing on a loose tile, and there was no actual urinal. 

I moved on to the shower area where I discovered that the rest of the guys had used it for a giant urinal and made the floor quite wet. This was no shower, either. Just an area with tiles for a floor and a drain in the middle. I felt justified in relieving myself, but kept glancing out the open door, which was not even blocked by the partial partition of a bathroom stall. 

Girls were tittering and making snide remarks about how I was fouling up the restroom floor with pee. I felt that I needed to explain myself, but to no avail. Apparently, this was a unisex multipurpose type of situation. I don't know what the girls were expecting to do in there, but I was out of bounds with my soiling of the floor.

Next I found myself outside on a pier. But there was no ocean around. This pier was in the middle of wheat fields and farm land. I guess the ocean had been there at one time, but it was a ways off at this point. I saw a man making a wood pile and lighting it up with gasoline. 

I became upset and found the nearest wildlife officer, an older woman with a taut, permanently puckered brow. She seemed to be well-suited for her job of bitching at people for lighting unauthorized fires, so I pointed out the offender to her. She agreed that he needed to be punished, and so I asked her if we'd be hanging or shooting the guilty party. She seemed a little taken aback, but said she'd go and issue him a citation. Good enough, I thought.

From there I went to Sal Mendez's apartment. He's the all purpose guru/hero/big brother type that I worked with at Yuba City Honda. We all suspected he might be secretly gay because he was just a little too macho. That and the fact that he kept trying to kiss the guys and then making jokes about it. But I digress. 

In the dream he was just sitting in his sparsely decorated studio apartment talking with another fellow from work. He was eating fried flour tortillas in a syrupy concoction which looked to be something between maple syrup and candy apple caramel. I envied his ability to snack so decadently, but I refrained from asking for any. 

I used a paper towel to clean my hands and looked around for a trash can. There wasn't one anywhere to be seen. I was about to stuff it in my pocket, but Sal noticed my distress and got up from his seat. He'd been sitting on the trash can. I tossed the paper towel in, relieved. Now all was right again.

I had a talent show to get to, so I left Sal's and walked along the highway. The ocean finally made its appearance, and I am guessing I was in some version of Santa Monica, near PCH. I had been supposedly getting ready for the talent show over at Sal's place, but when I got there, I was just figuring out that I was going to be on next and had done zero preparation. 

Jeff Gross was onstage. I could hear him from outside. He was flubbing all the chords of some song he'd written. Maybe it was a cover song, I don't know. It was pretty pathetic, but I hurried to get inside so he'd see me in the audience supporting him. I was going to need support myself, so I made it a point to catch the last few verses. 

In the meantime, I spoke with Rick Johnson, my former band mate and singer from Malicious Mischief days. I complimented him on the old songs he'd written for the band, and he took the compliment with his usual humble pie approach, "Yeah, I know. I'm awesome, and those were great songs" etc. We finished up reminiscing and I told him I had a gig to get to.

That's about it. I know there is more, but I gotta poop. Thus endeth today's trasmission to Oceania. Listeners in Eastasia can continue listening on these shortwave frequencies: 6110, 5111 and 7150 mhz.

Robin Williams football team

I guess I don't have much in the way of a story. I was in high school, Samohi, to be precise. People were wandering down hallways and giving greetings to one another. It was football season and everyone was concerned with choosing up teams. I had shaved my head, which I just did last night in real life, coincidentally. I saw RJ Leon in the hallway, also sporting a shaved head. 

"White power," I said in a voice which, after the fact, I worried may not have conveyed the fact that I was joking. 

I wandered on down the hallways, in search of my team. I watched as a semi-truck, with a giant mousetrap lever-like contraption protruding out of the side of it, swept up a student and carried him off. This was a common occurrence and the reason for which most football teams were always short-staffed. 

"Damn," said Robin Williams, captain of my new prospective team, "Truck got another one. We'll need to replace him." 

I figured this meant he was recruiting me, so I followed him on down the hall, mindful of the sweeper/reaper trucks. 

See, I told you there wasn't much of a story there. All for the best. I have another day to get through, so I may as well be about it. I've been harvesting cannabis for the last 3 weeks straight. It's become a tedious, boring job which I can't do for more than a few hours at a time without eyestrain becoming a problem. 

I know it sounds like a guy in paradise complaining that there are too many coconuts, but that is exactly how it is. Coconuts here, coconuts there. If I never see another bloody coconut, I'll be a happy camper. No, on second thought, I'm sure I'll find something else to bitch about.

Jay Herbert's warehouse business

Very sketchy details are remaining from my dream, but here they are:

I was talking on a CB radio and a voice came through that I recognized. 

I responded by saying, "Hello, Jay. How have you been." 

It was an old friend and ex-employer, who had a TV repair shop in Chico, but had fallen on hard times since no one gets anything repaired anymore. He gave some enigmatic answer, but I gleaned that he had a new business that he was pursuing. 

I left off talking to him and went to the supermarket and that is when I discovered him living in the bushes outside of the Safeway. He had a chair setup in the parking lot, so I made myself comfortable. 

He told me that he had his warehouse business in those same bushes and I decided to have a look. It was one of those bigger on the inside than the outside situations, and sure enough, there was a large stockpile of canned goods in boxes in row up on row, just hanging out waiting for orders to fill. 

We talked for a little while about the possibility of nuclear war and such and there was the sense that Steve Clark, aka KFI, an old CB rival of his, would make some kind of appearance. Everything Jay ever did in his entire life was in direct competition to this guy, so that was nothing out of the ordinary. Kind of like cereal being placed on the table and awaiting the arrival of the milk. 

I don't really recall much of a theme beyond this. My sleep was rather fitful. Meanwhile, my guineas are disappearing, being taken off one by one when I am not looking by some wildland creature. I will most likely have to trap it and release it 15 miles or so from here if I intend to stop this process from re-occurring.

Lisa Fletcher's Pajama Party, Miss Shayla moves to Lake Isabella and I catch a giant catfish

First up was Lisa Fletcher deciding to rent a hotel room in Fort Bragg. She bought several pair of brand new pajamas and intended for me and Jeanette Antoine to wear them while we drank and caroused about the town. The hitch came when Jeanette declared that they didn't fit her and she wouldn't be wearing them. 

I said, no problem, you can have mine, to her chagrin. She really just didn't want to be seen wearing these cheap gray-striped pj's in public. I tried on the ones that were intended for her. She had tried them on already so they couldn't be returned. I found they fit quite nicely except for the pants were a bit short around the ankles. 

"No problem," I proclaimed, "I'll just sag them. That's still a thing, right?" Probably as much of a thing as wearing pajamas out in public, at any rate. 

So off we went for our day trip to town, sporting PJs, Jeanette tagging along in street clothes. We decided to do some fishing, since we were in a fishing village. I had some nice spots in mind, garnered in a previous dream. We didn't wind up going there but settled for a pier where people were both fishing and swimming and generally milling about. Not the most fishing appropriate, but I was in it to win it. 

I cast out my little yellow jig with the rubbery fake worm/fish dangly thing and reeled it in with my signature jerks which pretty much guaranteed me some action. Sure enough, I started getting bites. Then, without warning my line starts getting pulled off the spool in classic Jaws fashion. 

My uncle was there and perked up. "Looks like you got a big one," he acknowledged contrary to his usual pessimistic prognostication. "Careful you don't get it hung up." There it was. 

Anyway, I followed it around some trees that were growing in the water next to the pier and around a group of swimmers, waders and other people fishing. They all looked quite amazed as the line was being fed out, then slowly tightening, then reversing direction as I reeled and reeled. It was coming my way. 

I got the damn thing landed amidst gasps and cheers and behold, it was a giant catfish. Like four feet long kind of giant. It was old and beat up and its tail was missing, having been bitten off by a shark. His mouth was deformed from many battles with the hook and his fins were pulling away from his skeleton, revealing his sharp, poisonous spines. 

"Yep, it's a catfish," I announced, "His spines are poking me in the hand." 

He looked smaller now, not the four foot behemoth, but a more realistic foot or two. No matter, it was still the same giant fish to the crowd. 

I chided them all, "Don't make fun of the rubber worm! This thing has caught me just about every kind of fish you can imagine. It always works." No one argued with me.

 

 

Somewhere else in the world, Miss Shayla Sullivan, a local equestrian and animal rescuer, bought some land and was busy cleaning up her candy apple red Camaro in the front yard. 

I say yard, but it was more of a dirt patch. I recognized the place from my childhood. It was Gracie and Bill's property in Lake Isabella. The structures were all there, the house the trailer, the garage and the fish house, plus a few of Shayla's things thrown in the mix. The place looked a bit small for her and she wasn't all that thrilled with it, property-wise. I talked to her as she cleaned out her car. 

"So, you have this brand new car and you let animals of all kinds ride in it?" I asked.

She obviously cared more for the animals than for the car, though her cleaning it meticulously afterward said that both were things she cared about. 

"People give me lots of attention for this car," she stated to me. "When they see this car, it is an icon they recognize." 

I disagreed and told her that she was the icon, the car was just window dressing. She demured, but the compliment wasn't lost on her. She knew it, but was just playing the role of the innocent, "Who me? Pretty? Shucks." type of girl. Part of her charm. 

Her dog, Lucky Penny (deceased in real life) ran about sprinting like a filly. She was so exuberant that she actually looked like a little paint horse. The coloration was such that she was brown on one side and white on the other, so when she ran one direction you'd see a white dog/horse and when she'd turn and run the other way she was all brown. I noted that she looked happy and free, not at all like the shaggy rescue that Shayla had taken in. I guess that's what love will do to a critter. 

She showed me around the property and I informed her of my childhood connection to it. I wanted to see the inside of the fish hut/man shed that Bill had built to keep his drinking and nasty magazine collection from Gracie. It had been converted into a bathroom at some point so there was no fish sink or Playboy centerfolds to be seen. 

I tried to snap a picture of the inside of the fish hut, but my camera was set to video and all I got was this weird few seconds of a red scene in the center of a photo aperature slowly opening, like a James Bond title sequence. It was creepy, but I kept it for posterity. 

Next she showed me the inside of the trailer where she had stored an entire inventory of cowgirl show shirts with a variety of prints, some cheesy, some flashy, reflecting decade upon decade of horse shows and the history of horse show fashion. It turned out that a friend of hers had owned an equestrian clothing store which had gone out of business, so she got the show shirts. But probably, as in real life, she was the proud wearer of most of those shirts during some show or another spanning decades. We exited the trailer and it was time for me to leave.

"If you're gonna leave, you'd best get going. Traffic, you know. Gotta move," Shayla admonished me. 

My car had been parked in the driveway which they were grading. A giant pile of gravel was nearly burying my red Toyota Corolla SR5 (yep, the one I owned in the '80s). I brushed the gravel and it fell away easily and my car became unstuck in a minute. I thanked Shayla again and was on my way. 

The trip through town was a twisty turny affair, and there was indeed a bit of holiday traffic. Or it could have been commuting to the great employer of the region, Disneyland. Everyone worked there, so it was quite a cluster fuck on the highways. I made it down to Huntington Beach or somewhere in OC without much thought. 

I found myself in an alley going up to a main street with people riding bicycles and such. I decided to take my pants off and sit hunched over with my knees pulled up to my chest. I just wanted to see if anyone would notice. 

Sure enough, soon a girl riding a bike circled back around and started talking to me. Ignoring the elephant in the room, she questioned me about something she'd heard on the radio recently, asking if it was me doing the broadcast. I could sense that it would have been to my advantage to have claim that it was, though I had no idea what she was talking about. I denied any knowledge of it and she went on to describe some racy sounding DJ patter, which I'd have gladly owned, but alas, I was going to be honest. 

"I don't even have the equipment to broadcast," I explained. And with that she pedaled away. 

Damn. I looked down to note whether or not my junk had been visible during our entire conversation. Sure enough, my butthole was hanging out and my balls dangled freely for the world to see. Surprised the girl had maintained a straight face throughout our conversation.

Next I decided to put some pants on and get a move on. I began walking past some unfinished cul-de-sac construction. Someone had laid out some green plastic army men and accessory buildings, also made of the typical dark green plastic. I picked up one of the buildings and Godzilla-like, smashed it on the ground and kept walking. Take that, you stupid, tiny war machine. 

I was spotted, however and some mall cop style security men in a golf cart started following me. I took a turn and began doing some clever cliff climbing maneuvers on a brick wall behind the cul-de-sac. They had to follow on foot, but seeing my impressive moves decided not to hassle me and instead complimented me on my agility. I was hanging one-handed and flipping back to front, front to back alternately as I switched hands to advance, traversing the wall at about the same speed as a person walking would. 

"I used to do that," the guy noted. "It's really good exercise." 

Yeah, it was, I agreed, though it was entirely unnecessary, since you could just as easily have walked on the sidewalk a few feet below. It didn't provide me with any special powers of evasion, either, since the guy was following along and talking to me the whole time. 

That's about it folks. Woke up, had to write this down while it was still fresh. I think I got all the major parts and didn't conflabulate too much in the process. Until next time.

A day at the beach (Eminem soundtrack)

I only remember the dream that I was having before I got up to pee, not whatever I was just dreaming when I woke up. I was spending a day at the beach with family, I believe. I was being encouraged to play in the ocean in the shallows, as I was not a good swimmer, much like my real life self. I watched the people who were a little farther out riding waves on boogie boards and surfboards and longed for that kind of fun. 

I let the tide take me out just a little way and got a little panicky, so I caught the first wave in. It broke after it passed me sucking me down over the falls and into the washing machine. I didn't go all the way to the bottom, however, and maintained my above water status the whole time. 

I enjoyed it so much I began searching out any abandoned boogie boards, because I was ready to get myself out there to ride. The song "Without Me" was playing over and over in my head on loop. "I'm back, dana-nana nana nana nana..."

Ok, a vague notion of me working again at The Dealership came up. I was doing very light automotive work, basically eyeballing cars for damage to be sent out to a body shop. I was dealing with service advisors and customers. 

 

One customer was a black lady in a red dress who looked like Michelle Obama. Not her, but just a ringer. I looked over her car for damage and found only one minimal scratch. It was a 97 silver Civic coupe with a nice patina of dust, which made my inspection for fresh damage very easy. 

I brought the repair order back to Randy Mitchell, a devious drunk service writer who used to work there in the real world. He was really a devious drunk, but in my dream not as much. Just happy ass Randy, only slightly conniving. We both agreed on the course of action to take with the lady's Civic. 

I went to go find her as she wandered around the dealership. You'd think I'd be able to spot her, what with her red dress and, you know, being like the only black lady there. I finally picked her out of the crowd and tried to get close enough to her to advise her on her car, but she kept eluding me. 

I wound up following her down the street where I encountered Joey from Friends, working a small booth on the side of the road. It looked like a tiny dispatchers shed, with just him and a telephone in it. 

I asked him the famous "How you doin'?" and he looked up at me, happy for the recognition. He said his job was multi-faceted and he did a few impressions for me of the different characters he had to portray as he answered the phone for the many different functions. 

I had to go and bid him and some other guy named Dave goodbye. I wasn't sure about Dave being the guy's name, but after I kinda mumbled it, I heard someone else call him that, too, so I felt better. At least it sounded sort of like Dave when I mumbled, "Goodbye Joey, goodbye  ...Mmdeeaavee......" 

I continued following faux Michelle as the soundtrack continued on in my brain. "Danna nana nana nana nana nana nana. It's disaster, such a catastrophe, for you to see so much of my damn ass you ask for me....a nuisance, whose scent? You sent for me?" I guess the world needs me, since the theme of the song is that it would be "so empty without me." 

Oh, and the LED is still on. My Itunes (both the PC and Ipod) have played the Margi Lantos reading that I got back on Sept 5, 2018. I think Sharon wanted me to get something out of it, as the two events have been concurrent. The message of the the reading was for me to have faith, love and mercy, awareness and harmony. There were a lot of little details that I believed she was straining for at the time, so I didn't give the reading as much credence as I probably should have. Some details were nice, but unproveable from an earthly perspective. 

But Sharon, I am listening for your voice. Sometimes I'm pretty thick (and stubborn) but I do value your input and need your comfort most of all. You could always talk me down and make things easier for me to handle. Thank you for showing up the other day before my eye appointment. I think I'm going to go with my gut, that this LED is your way of saying you are still around. And thank you for that. I love you, always. Even if I'm a rat and a scoundrel, I still love you. Be merciful, I'm not done here yet. I don't know what my purpose is, but I hope I can fulfill it and make you proud. Today is Saturday, so you know what I'll be doing. I hope you can stand the racket.

Weird fish dream

It wasn't a weird fish, but my method of catching it. I was fishing from a rather teeterous floating piece of aluminum dock, approximately six feet long. It was unbalanced and had a high spot in the center like a teeter-totter, but I managed to keep myself upright while casting out for fish in a small river. I wasn't using any bait, just casting a bare hook into the water and reeling it back in as if it were a lure. It seemed to work because I was getting bites. 

I hooked into one, and the dock broke free from its mooring. Off I went downriver, alternately towing and being towed by my unknown catch. 

Eventually, we went down a bit of a waterfall, and things evened out a bit. I reeled in the fish, at least close enough to catch a glimpse of him. It was a small-mouth bass about 6-8 inches long. Not the biggest prize for all my trouble, but a nice fish. I don't think I wound up keeping him. 

I still had the dock to think of. It had become entangled in some fiber optic cables which were strewn up and down the river in the sandy bank. I used the cable to haul my raft-like piece of dock back up the river. Getting back up over the waterfall was a bit of work, but I managed. 

I inspected the cables to make sure I wasn't toting any high voltage electrical lines. Nope. Just multicolored hollow bundles of cable, wrapped in a grey wire loom tape. The wires were actually so big and so hollow that they could have been pneumatic tubes, like you'd see on some older vehicles, connected to vacuum operated accessories. They were soft and squishy, but relatively sturdy, apparently, since I managed to used them to pull the dock quite a ways back upriver. 

It appeared that the dock was the terminus for these wires, so I felt it was necessary to put the dock back where I found it. I don't know if I ever got it all the way back or not, as I woke up soon after the initial success of re-navigating my journey back up the waterfall.

I'd forgotten to record a minuscule dream snippet that I had while dozing off with a washcloth on my face the other day. I was falling asleep with the tune of "Everything's Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar playing in my brain. Nancy Leon was singing to me. I don't know why I felt that was important to write down, but it happened several days ago, and I kept telling myself not to forget to include it in this dream journal.

Machining a new crankshaft pulley, my eyelid and a lame MLM scheme

I was working at YC Honda again last night. I ought to be getting paid, all the time I spend there in my dreams. I never seem to be doing good work, though. Last night was no exception. 

I was doing a new car Pre-Delivery Inspection, aka PDI. The car, being brand new, should have no problems, and these inspections are considered gravy. This car, however, had a problem. 

I don't know how I determined it, but apparently it was necessary for me to inspect the crankshaft pulley. I found it to be outside of tolerance, which was causing the car to run poorly. Something in my brain told me that it just needed to be "tweaked" a little. 

So off it came, and I set about machining off some extra grooves, which would allow the belt to ride in its natural position. Only I didn't think the whole process through, and soon I had machined off way more than the belt's width of grooves. Now the belt would be torn up or begin edging its way off of the pulley. 

I went around to the various parts of the dealership trying to garner some support for my actions. I got the guy in parts to look at it, but he wasn't much help. He just wanted to dance and lip sing to some girl song, like Cindi Lauper or something. 

Next, I went to see Sal, who had his own department, which was run like a pirate ship within the dealership. He was doing all the PDIs in an assembly line fashion, with minions performing the various tasks. I asked him for a little help, but he was preoccupied with the PDIs. 

"Don't forget the most important part," he admonished the crew. 

He held up a can of BG, a fuel system treatment designed to remove deposits from the intake manifold. Snake oil at best, it was completely unnecessary, since these were new cars and would have zero deposits accumulating anywhere at this point. I reminded him of this fact, but he jumped all over me with his defense of the product. 

"Have you ever tried it?" he demanded of me. 

I told him I had and that it had made no perceptible difference in how my car ran. When we would run it in higher mileage cars, it would put on a big smoke show which resulted in the car belching out huge clouds of the accumulated deposits in the form of white smoke from the tailpipe. After a period of running even worse, the car would clear itself up and eventually smooth out. My car didn't have enough deposits to do more than just burn up the can of BG, and so I felt it was an unnecessary additive. 

He stood by his position, and I basically had no support from him for my crankshaft pulley machining fix. I sought help from another guy in the parts department, who offered to machine me a brand new custom pulley out of billet steel. It was going to be all fancy and racy looking. 

I realized at this point that I'd gone way too far and should have just taken pictures of the anomalous pulley before I fucked with it. Honda engineering would know what to do with it. I assumed ordering a new pulley would have been the logical fix. Why I didn't think of that before I cut it all to pieces, I'll never know. 

---

Now I have to get going with my day. I have to make an appointment with an eye doctor. I have a small growth on my right eyelid. I think I was bitten by a bug there over three weeks ago. The eyelid swelled up at the time and was painful. After a few days the pain and swelling went down, but now there's a pimple like nodule on the margin of my eyelid, inside of the lash line. 

To make matters more ominous, Sharon's LED has just now come on, as if to say: "Aren't you going to do something about that? You really ought to have that looked at." 

I've been missing her LED for a while now, wondering if it would ever come back on. Wondering about life, and death and suicide. I'm not getting any younger, and these health problems will just become more frequent and perhaps permanently debilitating. 

I think of my uncle and his solution. I wonder how long will I last before I choose that option. Then I think of Sharon and how she played her hand right to the bitter end. Would I be able to do that? Surely, not with such courage and grace. 

But do I have the courage to even end my own life, even when I'm dissatisfied with it? I'm like a scared child. I just don't want to feel pain or be in misery. The worry over my eyelid problem magnifies everything so much. I feel alone and frightened about the future. I don't get the kind of comfort from my online friends that I do from just seeing the little LED. I don't know what it means, actually. But whatever it means, I always take it as Sharon has a reason to be here, and I'd better pay attention. 

So, I'll try to make an appointment at Walmart Vision Center. Maybe I will email my provider at Ampla Health too. Would that be a good course of action, dear? I see you flickering. Meanwhile, perhaps another soaking with the warm compress wouldn't hurt.

---

Another dream from two days ago which I forgot to write down. I was being recruited into some multi-level marketing scam by a girl who was peddling fake Oxycontin and other opioid-derived pills to homeless people. 

She had a profit sharing plan that included a strawberry cheesecake with which she illustrated the gist of the whole "top down" strategy. It was to be given to me upon recruiting my first member, a fellow who used to live down the block from me who I will call by his Facebook name, since that is all I know. 

Anyway, after bringing TowJam Hooker on board as a fellow pill pusher, she delivered the cheesecake and promptly sliced off half for herself. She then instructed me to slice the remaining half in two and give one half to my new recruit to do with as he wished. I started to get the idea of how the rich stay rich, and the poor keep getting smaller and smaller pieces of the pie. 

That's about it for that dream. I never made a good pusher-man. I kept having trouble getting the orders correct and spent way too long on the phone with my suppliers in Canada.

My Flanders Doppelganger

I don't know if I dreamed of my '80s doppleganger or if I was having an out of body experience in my sleep. It was weird. 

I was standing behind and to the right of a guy who looked like I used to look in the '80s church days. He was skinny, wore a nerdy sweater and had big plastic-framed brown glasses, a buzz haircut and mustache. I distinctly felt as if I was staring at myself from outside of myself. I was like, "Oh, wow, is that what people see?" 

It was disturbing, but I got used to it and was wondering if I might possibly be dead. But if so, why was this body still walking around? And why was he looking like a much younger, uncool version of me? 

I remember when I was in the church and used to dress and look this way. There was one day when we were having a car wash and some people were laughing because this guy got out of his car to have it washed, and he looked exactly like me. I went over to see and, sure enough, the guy was a ringer.

Michael Lopez buys an excavator and becomes a crack shot slinging rocks, Sharon and I look at birdpoop

I had a potpourri mashup of characters in my dreams last night. 

I was living in a rural setting, with farmland adjacent to my property. My neighbor, Michael Lopez, and I were doing ranch type work. Well, my neighbor was. I was watching. 

He had just purchased an excavator and was doing all the fun stuff one does when they come into such power: moving rocks around, digging long trenches for no apparent reason and creating huge debris piles to burn. He was burning one long row of last years crops when I noticed that some of his older orchard trees were catching fire. 

This should have alarmed him, but he was too busy picking up rocks with the excavator and flinging them at other rocks. He was a natural, possessing the skill to hurl one rock directly at another so that he could crack a boulder right down the middle. He proudly showed me two boulders that he had split with the precision of a jeweler. 

In the kitchen of his farmhouse was Suzanne Reed, somehow married to him in this configuration. She was in the kitchen and going about her day doing housework of some kind. 

She was kind of vaguely aware that they were having a problem with birds in the kitchen and pointed out some bird poop on the floor. She wasn't too bothered by it, though, and left me to investigate it on my own. 

I saw Sharon from a hallway view, standing there wearing her summer attire, shorts and a tank top. I ran to her and gave her a hug, full of emotion from not having seen her in real life. In the dream it was just another day, and she looked at me strangely for the over-the-top greeting. 

We examined the bird poop together, and she commented about the fact that Suzanne appeared to not be a very conscientious housekeeper, due to the fact that there was an accumulation of poop from the top of the pantry door to the floor. This was apparently a long running situation, which hadn't ever been addressed. 

The time got on to where I was going to have to get to school. I was supposed to be at the local high school for some kind of continuing education. I was about 2 hours late and I contemplated having Sharon write me an "Andrew is late today because..." excuse, but it was an afterthought. I was already on my way to school. I was taking the "water route." 

To save time on my commute, I elected to jump in a lake. It was a large lake with a huge dam at one end. The current leading to the dam was moving rather rapidly, and I had to jump in and then try to direct myself toward some rocks before I got sucked into the spillway. I was able to maneuver quite easily, like a skydiver in freefall, and soon I collided with the rocks. 

The collision must have been pretty forceful because this is about where I woke up.  

Ordering a battery and a handful of cactus thorns

I was walking with a teacher, some kind of guru or Mr. Miagi type. He was carrying a cactus fruit, like a Nopale but with the longer thorns. His fingers were positioned carefully, avoiding the large spikes. 

I asked him if this variety had similar micro-spikes, which I dreaded. He said something evasive, which made me decide to find out for myself. If he could pick one up, why couldn't I? 

I picked one up and after a minute I looked at my hand. It was covered with tiny hairlike needles, like a field of miniature wheat. I tried removing them, but as per my experience, they all started breaking off at the skin level, leaving me with a thousand splinters under my skin.

Next, I was in the parts department of my favorite dream car dealership, you guessed it, Yuba City Honda. I needed a battery for some reason for a brand new Accord. I was attempting to get the parts guy to order one for me, but he turned it around on me and asked me to order it myself. I began my mild protest but decided it was better if I just went along with the idea. How hard could it be? I struggled for a while with the catalog and then a telemarketer called and woke me up from my dream.

Spotfires, Greg Miller's Fire Brigade, The Pit of Pastel Hell and I help Vivianne with a TV antenna

It started with the usual fire dream business. I was on high alert since spot fires had been reported in the area. I looked out along a golden ridge of tall, dry grass waving in the breeze, just waiting for the first sign of a spark. 

Suddenly, there it was, about the size of a car and spreading rapidly. I spied it with binoculars, I think. Greg Miller and I were going to leap into action and go after it in some sort of firefighter capacity. Yellow vests were donned, and I jumped on my motorbike. But after some clumsy maneuvering, I decided to just jump in the truck with Greg. I say Greg Miller because that was the sense of who it was, though it looked like a young Roger Daltry. 

My travels with Greg landed me in a different location, somewhere near Chico, with notes of Lake Isabella, kind of a potpourri of past haunts of mine. I was there to help Vivianne Van Asperin fix a TV antenna. I took down the old one using a crescent wrench, which I promptly misplaced, while discussing the finer points of the new HD antennas with Vivianne. She had her opinion about them, and I had my own set of facts, which I shared with her, regarding range, dB amplification etc. 

It went ok, though I don't remember actually finishing the job. I wound up never finding my exact crescent wrench, but no matter, there were plenty of similar ones available.

Prior to the fire watch, I had been perusing a path around an excavation. The digging was hidden by a six foot tall wood fence, designed to keep people from peering in, and falling in, too, I suppose. I was  continuing the walk around, when I came to the entrance of the fenced-in portion. I found it to be an easily accessible, almost touristy area, the kind of place where people take selfies overlooking the giant spectacle. 

It was grand indeed. A very deep, pit which had, at its bottom, a beautifully painted hellscape. It was reminiscent of the painterly landscaping technique used in Robin Williams' "What Dreams May Come." The colors were a gentle kaleidoscope of pastel southwest hues, but extra bright, like those neon paint pens you can buy for arts and crafts. 

I decided that I needed to get closer and take a selfie, falling for the allure of the gently sloping funnel shaped brick walking area at the top of the giant hole. Surely it was paved this way to encourage this sort of thing. 

Like a honey trap, I was lured in and immediately found I had slid irretrievably partway down the funnel. I had misjudged the pitch of those pleasantly placed red bricks. Though I didn't fall all the way down, there was a sense that I had fallen past the point where I could extricate myself. 

I didn't mind, though. Since I was there, I figured I may as well get that selfie. I snapped a bunch of pictures of the work in progress at the bottom of the chasm and felt satisfied enough with myself to just relax, as if I'd planned a picnic at just that spot. 

 

I awoke soon thereafter to my semi-swollen right eyelid and my giant weed harvest, both of which have been dominating my life of late. It is Saturday, however, and I have a guitar that must be played, coffee and cannabis to be dutifully consumed and breakfast to be made and lingered over whilst doing items one and two. Better get to it.

Warning to new or returning blog readers (sticky)

I needed to make this a permanent sticky post, so that it would be the first thing anyone sees when they visit here, a kind of a heads up of what to expect before stumbling across something willy-nilly. Also, I'd like to add that if something in here offends you or creeps you the fuck out, PLEASE talk to me about it, leave a comment or send me an email. I'd rather have a discussion than lose a friend over something I've said that may be incorrect or offensive. 

Here's the standard disclaimer:

Since this blog functions as a multi-purpose repository for anything and everything I might write down, it will from time to time contain highly opinionated and deeply personal items that readers may find objectionable. I myself find some of the things which have migrated through my consciousness and into my writings over the years to be objectionable and immature, if not outright obscene. 

For instance, I write down all my dreams, in as accurate detail as I can recollect. Some of these dreams include real life characters who might be friends or relatives. <gasp!> 

I will, on occasion, use it as a notebook, where I record events or impressions of things going on in my life. Often, I'll include stories of events that occurred in real life, along with descriptions of real people, and weave them into the dream narratives to give context or background. The overlap of real life stories and dream narration may occasionally cause confusion, and one may be left wondering if the event occurred in reality, in a dream or in some conflation of the two.

In the event that you are reading and stumble across your name, either in a dream journal entry or a real-life event that I have written about, just know this: I am relating the story because it -- you -- made an impression on me.

The dreams are totally out of my control, so I'll claim innocence of malfeasance on that. I can't choose the programming that my subconscious decides to entertain me with at night. 

As for real life accounts that may differ from your recollection, I can only say that I'm not an actual journalist. I'm a person writing about things from a creatively subjective viewpoint, and as such, I invoke artistic license frequently.

I hope to not offend anyone or give reason for upset, but it is likely that eventually, if you read long enough, you will find something to disagree strongly with. Although I really can't prevent that from happening in all instances, I don't go out of my way to insult or demean my friends and relatives.

But if seeing your name in print for some reason makes you feel litigious, please contact me, and I'll scrub all references to your name and replace them with a pseudonym. (But you and I will both know that it was you I was referring to.)

At this point, I don't believe there are enough people who read this blog, or care enough about my perception of them and how it might be documented in these written accounts, to warrant concern. Although it is technically a public blog, there is not much chance of it getting public attention. My two or three occasional readers have not chimed in and told me to knock it off with the name dropping and personal anecdotes...yet.

The reason I've written this long-winded introductory warning is because there was one person whom I directed here to show them something I'd written, and when they saw it, they freaked out, and now we're not friends. I hope that doesn't happen too often, but I'm likely to say more things in the future that have that potential, so be forewarned. I have a Tourette-like condition where I just blab out whatever is on my mind, and I'm sometimes not aware of the effect this might have on others.

That's it. This was just a cautionary word for those who have not yet been unlucky enough to find that they were the subject of one of my entries. My aim is not to offend, embarrass or hurt anyone's feelings, but I'm also not wanting to tip-toe around and self-censor at every turn. You understand...don't you? OK. Proceed at your own risk.

 

----

 

The reviews are in:

 

 

"Sick."

"A cringe-worthy embarrassment to sentient beings everywhere."

"When someone told him, 'I wish you would write a book,' it was clearly meant to shut him up and keep him from speaking these things out loud. 'I wish you could write a book...so I could burn it' is the complete thought there."

"Trash. Just a bunch of self-indulgent gobbledygook with a smattering of obscenity, told by an oafish boor who is unfit to punctuate preschool literature."

"Well, I liked it. I mean, some parts, that is. OK, I never really read it. It got kind of repetitive. And not enough sex." 

"He had me, then he lost me. Then I got curious and picked it up again, but I immediately wished hadn't. I regret every minute I spent in that dank cistern of horrors that attempts to pass itself off as a human brain."

 

All of the reviewers wished to remain anonymous. They were compensated for their reviews, although, not enough, apparently.

Alright, those are fictional reviews. I have to resort to that kind of thing because no one ever comments anymore. I think my one or two occasional readers are afraid I'll launch an all-out assault on them for critiquing my (for lack of a better word) work. Please, by all means, critique away. I'm waiting, fingers at the ready on my keyboard.

 

Trapped a fox

 

Of course it was a dream, though it's not that far outside of reality. I dreamed I trapped the fox that has been eating my guinea hens babies. In this case he was also killing cats and in general being a poop. He was making daytime appearances and even coming into the house. He had to go. 

I got out the trusty animal trap, which I have used to send many feral cats to an unknown, undesirable terminus at the animal shelter. I found this little fox to be quite personable, though, and decided to drive him down to the river to release him. 

A few strangers I encountered along the way all agreed it was a very considerate and humane thing to do. He entered the trap easily after first deciding that my car was a nice place to habitate. I gently herded him in, and he nipped at me playfully without really biting. He'd have made a good pet, were he not, you know, a killer. 

On the way to the river, I stopped off at the grocery store for god knows what. I was on some kind of disabled wheeled-device, similar to a skateboard. It was difficult to maneuver, and I wound up stuck in line. I wasn't buying anything, so I decided I needed find a more direct way out. 

I tried to go around the checker, but there was no room in those aisles for passersby, so I exited by a more direct route designated for shopping carts and such. I found the main obstruction to be a person who I knew from YC Honda, Glenna, the old parts manager.

"Thanks a lot, Glenna," I said, giving her the familiar shit-talking greeting. 

We made small talk, mostly related to the fact that we'd not seen each other in roughly 15 years or more. I had a fox to release, so I had to go. 

Meanwhile, down at the river, it was an uneventful release. I opened the cage, and he scurried away, never to be seen again. 

On my return trip, somehow I was driving a big yellow school bus. I had to follow another bus and was just getting the hang of turning the behemoth as we pulled away from the curb for the first time. One of those on-the-job training kinds of situations. I managed OK, though I had to stand up in order to reach all the controls.

I saw a cop scoping me out as we made our way through an intersection. I just knew he was gonna find something wrong with the way I was driving the bus, or perhaps just the fact that I was  driving it, but he let me through the intersection without incident. 

I don't remember much more than that. I had to wake up and turn off the big sprinkler so my automatic sprinklers would work. I made it with seconds to spare, then came into the house, had my morning piss and then sat down to document this dream. I guess I'll stay awake, though my eyes and body feel like sleeping some more. Perhaps just a short rest...

Who puts a crawlspace under a football field?

 

I dunno. I dreamed I was doing a little digging in my back field, which just happened to be a football field which was taking a hiatus. I was going to put in a kind of a fence/gate. It was illogically placed in the middle of the field and was going lengthwise, so it had no sensible purpose. 

I dug down deep enough that I hit a wooden floor. It was actually a polished walnut wood or something very coffin-like, which is what I would have thought it was, had I not somehow found an area where I could see under it. 

The entire field was raised up on pillars and supports like a house. There was this regulation football field sized yard, with sod and grass and dirt going down about two feet and then this empty space with all these supports, which was about a foot and a half off the regular ground. 

I puzzled and puzzled about this, but woke up with no answers.

He was a skater dude

 

Sk8ter Boi - Avril Lavigne

I dreamed I was in a beach town and had rediscovered the skateboard. It was just a cheesy banana board, but I could do some cool downhill stuff with it on the narrow trails that went through the iceplants on steep hillside. The line from the song, "He was a skater boy, I said see you later, boy" kept playing over and over in my head as I went zipping along. 

I was in the process of resurrecting a dead fad, getting some of my former third and fourth grade classmates interested, since I made it look so fun. One of the dads was also getting in on the action, although he seemed a bit hurt by my constant singing of the little ditty. He was still fresh off a divorce and for some reason that song cut him. 

Sorry, Daddy-O, it was stuck in my head. Now I gotta go find it and get it Roto-rooted  outta there.

Light is on, Dreamed about Sharon

Here's what I know. So, yesterday when I was about to take a nap the LED came on. I felt like I was being told to get up and get active, but I didn't. I drifted to sleep watching some movie. I woke up and the light was back off, but it came back on later on in the evening. I went to sleep in the guest room again, since it is very dark in there and I tend to sleep better without the lights and electronics.

I had a dream with Sharon in it. First I was on a mission, to try to find her, I guess. I went from one location, a school or prep academy type of place, where everyone was mobilizing in a very military fashion. It could have been a drill, but it looked to be a situation, the kind they had been preparing for. Everyone was being herded out of their rooms and down some hallways towards an entrance which they were supposed to guard against--what? I fell in line, though I wasn't trained, and didn't know what I would be facing. 

It turned out to be aliens. They were shooting little frisbee like disks that had propellers in them. They were of a cheap plastic, but somehow everyone was deathly afraid of them, since if they hit you in the head they were liable to slice open your skull. That was how they got into your brain, and, you know, controlled you. Standard B movie stuff.

I was struck by one but not in the head, so I felt the cheapness of the plastic and decided it wasn't as scary as all that. But I also didn't want to stick around. 

I made my way to a hillbilly house on a hillside. It was constructed, or slapped together out of all kinds of reclaimed boards and pieces of old Victorian buildings. It looked like a beach mansion at a quick glance, but up close you could see that the boards holding it together were just lying all piled up together, being held up by good intentions and not much more. 

I went inside and found Sharon. She was in a state of disability that let her still walk around, though she was kind of pretending to be bedridden. I was putting my arms around her and kinda feeling up her butt, getting a little cozy, so to speak, when I noticed fresh butt paste on my fingers. Someone had been putting paste on her butt and it wasn't me. Now we had a problem. 

I asked her flat out, "Who has been putting this paste on your butt? And what else have you been doing with them?" I took an accusatory tone but didn't expect the answer that I got. 

"Yes, I've been sleeping with him, too. It's Dave." 

Dave was her ex-boyfriend, the guy who she left for me, or possibly the guy before the guy she left for me. But he was still in the picture when we first started dating in real life. In real life, she copped to having slept with him once during the very early stages of our dating, saying something like, "We weren't serious yet." She had told me this as a way to kind of come clean with me, while at the same time breaking up with me. 

I don't know why she told me this in the dream, but reaction was not what she expected.

"Oh, it's Dave. Well, that makes sense. He always had a thing for you. I'm not surprised. I can't hate him for that." And off I went to go and try to find Dave. 

I came to a room in this giant house and knocked on the door before gently nudging it open. Dave was right on the other side of the door, so when it opened he kind of fell into me. He was startled and started to struggle a little, but I held him fast. 

"It's ok, Dave. I'm not mad at you," I told him, "I understand. Maybe we can share her." 

He was even more startled by that but calmed down and seemed to accept it. 

I left him for the moment and went back to try to find Sharon. She was nowhere to be found and I wound getting lost inside the crazy hillbilly house, which was looking more and more like the Winchester mystery house. Stairways doubled back and left you where you started and doors led out onto dangerous precipices. 

I found myself on one such precipice and the door slammed behind me. I was stuck out on this ledge made of boards that were stacked end to end in a very precarious manner, like a house of cards. Sure enough, as I inched along the narrow ledge the boards began falling out from under me, making quite a racket. 

One hillbilly lady was alerted and saw me clinging to the wall, breathlessly looking down at the fall I was bound to make if one more of those boards gave way. She started shouting something at me, and then she realized the gravity of my situation and yelled for someone else to "send for Cletus." I think it was Cletus, but it could have been some other hick name. 

When she said that, I awoke at least enough to know that it was a dream and I was going to bail on the whole situation without needing to solve my ledge situation. I went back to sleep and dreamed more, but it didn't stick.

Being chased by the devil

That's about all I remember. I had a plethora of dreams last night, but I only remember the vaguest bits. I was being pursued by a rather small devil. He resembled Mike Cardenas, aka "Little Chocolate Teddy Bear." He was a personable devil and was mostly just pursuing me with conversation. I knew if I got too involved, I'd become hopelessly ensnared, so I was trying to avoid him at all costs. But everywhere I went, he kept popping up. More of a low-key psycho-thriller than all out horror. There was a bunch more to it, and several versions, but that was all I remember.

Hillary Clinton talks some shit and tries to get me fired again

I was working at, you guessed it, YC Honda again. I'd been away for a while but was taken back because of the sympathetic nature of the owners, Art and Joellen. My employment was tenuous and conditioned upon my getting along with everyone. No problem, right? It's not like I had to be good at working on cars or anything. 

I was working doing something when I heard that a customer had brought a car back and that I was "the last person that worked on it." No mind that I'd been gone for years, it was still a "comeback." 

I went over to look at the car. The customer had the hood open and was attempting to work on this piece of shit 1980-something white Prelude right there in the service drive.

I was relieved when I saw it. No way were they gonna blame me for the condition of this hunk of crap. I asked what it had been brought in for previously and what it was currently doing or not doing. It wouldn't start. And it had previously been brought in for a brake job or some such unrelated repair. I was in the clear. Now my only job was to condemn this bucket, and I could be on my way. 

 "Well, first off, it has a carburetor..." I began my speech, "No one works on those at all anymore. New ones are over $900, if they were even available, which they aren't. So...next!" That was easy. 

"And another thing. It is a 1985. Bad year. Make sure you don't ever buy a 1985. They notoriously suck. If you do buy another one, buy it so you will have parts to fix this one."  I was full of good advice. 

Next, as I was wandering around, I overheard someone say that Hillary, who was the boss's daughter in this dream, had been opposed to them hiring me back. I was livid upon hearing this and began to search around for other people who might be able to support me, or else confirm what might be a widespread opinion, that I didn't belong there. I found someone else, Johnny Castillo, who tended to agree that I was washed up. 

I thought about it, and it was true. I had let my smog license lapse. If I was going to work there, I needed to get it reinstated before they found out. Perhaps I could still do that.  I mulled it over and decided that I had let it lapse intentionally, that it was a decision I made in order to not wind up working in the automotive field again. And yet there I was. 

And here I am having yet another stupid dream about Hillary, who stole my lunch, by the way, at my stupid old job that I never want to go back to again except as a customer to get my oil changed and maybe some free shit done to my car on the sly.

Laura Prepon, weed aficionado

I love a dream that includes both Laura Prepon and large amounts of weed. This one had it all. Except the sex. It just wasn't that kind of dream. 

So, I was living at this beach type house with a bunch of other guys. I think Grampa Buckwitz was the actual owner, because he was there digging up my weed plants, as scraggly and unrecognizable as they were and replanting them in the back yard. 

He was more open minded than the real life grandpa who called the cops on me for some seedlings after snooping around in my room and finding them growing in a fishbowl in the window. That's a story for another time. But this Gramps was kind enough to relocate them to a more discreet location. 

Laura Prepon, who was magnetically attracted to weed, found out about my plants and started talking to me about the project. I told her that I had grown many years worth of weed and if she ever needed a "weed guy" that I'd be honored to comp her as much as she needed. 

She seemed to immediately take to this idea and we began looking for my stash, which was hidden in the walls and ceiling panels of the old house. Or so I thought. 

The first location came up with empty. Someone had been cleaning things out. That was ok. There were other stashes. This one would have been older and more than likely deteriorated. We're talking ten years worth of stashed weed harvests. 

So, I told her to shut the door while I looked for the ceiling stash. I had to climb precariously on the bed, but I managed to pull down a full trash can with quarter pound baggies, full of carefully manicured buds. They looked like little round brussel sprouts. 

Yes! This impressed her. I mused at how much they might be worth and she immediately whips out a calculator and starts counting baggies. I told her we could sort through all that later. I just wanted to get some of it in her little hands for the time being. 

I lamented that as much weed as I possessed, it pained me because I really couldn't smoke it like I did when I was younger. I hoped she'd enjoy it and our new "relationship." I was going to be her mac daddy of weed. Such a proud moment.

And in the real world, I have some 14 foot Durban Poison to contend with. I don't know Laura Prepon and I have no idea what I'm gonna do when they all ripen and I have to process them. I got swamped last year with all the picking and such. Ho hum. I really don't like weed all that much and I don't have enough friends that do to give it away to. Maybe I'll look for some homeless person and make their millennium.

I attend a funeral IRL and more bitching about "The G-Word."

 

I'm getting bored with this G-word journal. I went to a funeral yesterday. Houa invited me to the funeral of his aunt whom he barely knew. It was a pretty big affair, I'd say 50 or so people in attendance. She had no children, but the extended family was still large. 

I'd missed whatever ceremony or service they had, but made it to the burial. This was a very unceremonious burial. The family all watched as the cemetery workers lowered the casket into the plot and covered it with dirt and sod. It took about an hour, during which time people stood around talking and taking photos of one another. 

I sensed that most people were not in a state of grief of mourning, but it was just a nice social occasion to wear black. My friend wore a blue shirt and stood out somewhat because of it. We talked about life and death, but that was nothing new. We routinely discuss those things, so it wasn't a lively conversation. Mostly, we just stood and stared as the workers sweated away in the 100 degree heat. 

I'd gotten a plate of free food upon arrival, which I stashed in my car, where it sat un-refrigerated for several hours. Afterward I went home and later ate the Hmong leftovers with a glass of wine. I was expecting to get sick from eating food that was left out, but I microwaved it for, like, 10 minutes. All's well that ends well. 

I missed my Saturday ritual or music, coffee and cannabis, but I felt it was more important to go and support my friend. I can always do my simple routine, and since it's Sunday, and Labor Day weekend at that, I think I will indulge today. 

Why do I feel so ho-hum about everything? Got a case of the blahs, I guess. I'm taking 5mg lithium oratate and 2000mg magnesium glycinate as a last ditch effort to alleviate my depression. It seems to be doing something, but the emotions that I do feel are mostly irritation and anger. So here's my bloody list then.

1. I'm not dead (yet).

2. My pain is less. I've been tracking it over the last couple of weeks and it is pretty much down to a 2 or 3 and most of the time it isn't the primary or even secondary thought on my mind. A whole new world of bitching has opened up to me now that I'm not preoccupied with the pain in my gut.

3. I got away with eating the Hmong food of questionable freshness. It was wrapped well, and I did refrigerate it eventually before nuking it for 10 minutes or so on high. Oh, and it was tasty, too, though I did have to add some spices. Tapatio, black pepper and turmeric. 

That's about it for now. I don't even know why I'm bothering to write all this down. It is tedious. There are no epiphonous insights, vivid or even adequate descriptions of events or emotions. There is just this flat-sounding narrator's voice going on which makes me tired just to listen to. Maybe I'm just feeling disconnected from everything, and that also includes my own inner self. Like I'm not emotionally involved in my own life.

4. Oh, and I beat Katie at Words with Friends. I call her "the witch" because she self-describes that way, but mainly because she seems to have some mojo which prevents me from beating her, and we've played, like, 46 times or so. She said it was because she was sick, but I'm taking the victory regardless. Just because Muhammad Ali is having an off day, so what. Whether he is having a good day or an off day, you have still beaten Muhammad Ali, so give yourself credit for crying out loud.

Sharon and the neighbor guy

I dreamed of Sharon again. Classic Sharon, not well, but still mobile and up to her old tricks. A neighbor guy had a crush on her. It was a black guy who she was surprised but not too upset to find  was leaving her notes. 

I was a bit jealous, but more was I amazed at her getting up and walking for a spell. She kept needing help and I'd come find her as she went about finding the notes this guy had left for her. I was reading one of the notes with her and I didn't seem too upset, like I might have been in real life. It was just an interesting phenomenon, like her being able to walk. 

There were some other sketchy blokes about, and I kept having to pretend we didn't live where we lived, so they wouldn't try to case us or the place. The guys were speaking "noir," or that old-timey wiseguy talk which denotes a lower class of thug. I was onto their tricks, see, so's I didn't fall for 'em. But I didn't like the way the neighborhood was shapin' up with them in it. 

I had to lock a garden gate with a giant safety pin and was having a time of it. I banged my front tooth real good on the safety pin as I was trying to affix it to an impossibly high position on the gate, to mimic a lock when viewed from the outside. From the inside it was an obvious pin job, but whoever did it before me had made it appear pretty secure from the outside. I settled for a less secure job, which didn't hide the fact that it was a safety pin at all. 

I began singing a song called "Why Don't We" as the dream faded out. I just woke up because I had to pee. Now to go back to sleep. I love Sharon dreams, no matter how messed up they are. She was walking and that pleased me immensely.

Not as pissed off today, don't know why

Not as many things "got to me" today as yesterday. A lot of the same factors are still in play, so I might attribute it to myself gaining some sort of immunity or resistance to the stressors. For instance, the quad still wouldn't start. A quick attempt and an "Ah, fuck it," and I was back on my way. 

I don't feel particularly joyful, but more like a person determined not to get run over by a bus. So, do I want to list three things today? Not particularly. The G-word is still a trigger for me. Fuck that damned word. 

So, can I acknowledge that not everything sucked ass today? Sure. I had a nice talk with my life coach, Katie. More like a friend who listens and really tries to come up with creative solutions. I do feel a bit pampered having someone listen to me bitch that actually seems intent on solving my problems, or helping me to solve them. 

Unlike the customer service team at LG, for example. I get lots of promises, but my television still sits on the bed awaiting a repair technician after 2 months. I'm not going to stress over that at the moment. I got that all out on the phone this morning... and yesterday morning. 

I am currently Facebook pouting. This is where I still look at Facebook, but refuse to like anything. I mainly want to keep up with my peeps, but I don't feel like interacting. I am still too bitchy. And I'm really still miffed with the whole Lesa thing. So, there's that. 

I have a semi-busy schedule for a guy who accomplishes so little. Food shopping tomorrow for a dairy free <fuck> low FODMAP paleo diet. How fuckin' boring can you get? Look it up sometime. It's a cave man diet. And there's nothing fun about it. Just hunting and gathering, no deliciousness or treats of any kind. Unless you can gather them from the bakery section. No, probably not. 

I'm sorta done with my need for low carb, but it's all about avoiding certain food types and it just so happens that most comfort foods are on the avoid list. Ah, fuck it. Move on. 

Cello, schmello. I've been playing with the bow, and it sounds like a sick moose or a donkey in heat. Just terrible. But that's exactly how it's supposed to sound at this stage. Can't be avoided, says my teacher. Ok, then I'm doing great. Right on track. I just have to watch my back for horny jackasses.

Text editor ruminations on the subject of sadness

When I think about people, really think about them, I feel nothing but sadness. I try to think about things that they might like, what might be meaningful to them. A favorite meal, perhaps. Favorite shirt. An activity of which they might say, “That’s my thing.“ I picture them with their earnest little faces, thinking their earnest little thoughts, “Mmm, McDonald’s.” Or “my favorite TV show is coming on tonight.” What makes me sad about this?

Why do I perpetually come back to this theme? I don’t know. You give me a person, I’ll give you a reason why I can feel sorry for them. I just have to have a few minutes with them to find out what makes them tick, check all of their likes, their quirks, their pet peeves, the things that make them smile, everything -- then I’ll wrap it up with a blue ribbon and tell you why it is the saddest thing on earth. I said

 <text editor redaction> 

Bitch. Interestingly enough I said

<unintelligible> 

But you’ll never know.

Back to being a toxic waste dump

Maybe I'll come up with three things to be <fucking> grateful for by the end of the day. Maybe not. I'm not in so much physical pain right now, so what's my problem? My x-rays came back clean. No masses or abnormalities. Nothing. When I'm in pain, it's real to me, but apparently not traceable to any real cause. 

Right now it is my mental status that I'm allowing to cause me suffering. It starts with a teeny tiny little thought, like, "I'm alone and I'm never going to enjoy the company of other humans, women, in particular or ones that might be attracted to me specifically." 

Take L---, for example. I gave up in February, when it became apparent that she was never going to make any plans with me or follow through with them. I felt strung along, because she was saying all this stuff indicating that we might have some future together. 

But all the flirting she was doing with me was also being carried on with D----, and he actually gets to see her on occasion. He has her phone number and can call her. Or get invited to sleepovers, etc. 

I should have known better than to get involved after she informed me that she still had, and does to this day, a boyfriend of 17 years that she will never break up with. I get it. Stuck in a routine. 

Anyway, I allowed myself to get attached back in Oct/Nov of last year, but it was eating me up that I was being played with and not ever going to be fulfilled. So, I got all dick-y with her and stopped communicating for a while. 

Meanwhile, she still maintained that she was sincere and blah, blah, blah. Wants to be friends. Etc. So, I decided, "Why not? I just won't let myself get hooked into that feeling of jealousy or, for lack of a better phrase, "giving a shit." 

So she and I still exchange banter which is more cutesy than anything. There are no promises and not a lot of private messaging. I see her posts with D---- <hurl> and I respond to her responses on my posts with warm replies. But aside from the minor irritation of seeing that I'm only one in a bunch of people she flirts with, I don't feel anything. 

I'm mad at myself for even getting mildly irritated. Why, if I can't feel the joyous emotions of being alive, can't I turn off the remnants of human emotions, like irritation or frustration? 

My life is so goddamn boring, I go from sleeping, to eating to napping and scheming on my bedtime while barely moving off this chair. Chair to couch. Couch to kitchen. Outside for garden and the mail and back to eating an sleeping. 

I don't go for my walks these days (except yesterday) because the smoke has been intolerable. It was breezy enough yesterday for a short walk, but today is hazy again. 

There should be plenty of things implied in this that went ok or should be on the <fucking> G-list. Want to hear them? Fine:

1 I'm not in as much pain today.

2 My parents added me to their cell plan. I never use my cell phone for calls and so this will save me from having to pay $100 a year to keep a phone active for emergency use.

3 My house hasn't burned down with me and my cats and all my stuff in it. Lots of fires in California right now. So far, I have missed them. Or they have missed me. Fire season is a long way from being over, but I'm ok for now.

Mikey and the Motor Mounts

 

No, it's not a new band. 

I dreamed I was working at a car wash, but it was more of an outdoor auto repair shop. There were parking spaces that doubled as repair bays with lifts. The lifts were in short supply and were owned or claimed by the many mechanics that worked there. I was temporarily without a space to work, but I had a car that I was up-selling some motor mounts on. 

I approached Mike Cardenas, aka the Chocolate Bunny Rabbit, who was doing a brisk business in his own stall. I asked if I could use his stall for my motor mount job. 

Unheard of. Out of the question. It would certainly tie up the stall longer than would be tolerable. 

He would take the job off my hands, ie. do it for me, but not let me use his bay to do it myself. He offered to give me the time, so that I would get paid, just so long as he did the work. 

Sounded like a good deal to me. He was unselfish like that. And the job would take him a fraction of the time it would take me, so no biggie.

Uhh, again with the 3 things?

I'll try. Lesse. 

1. There was this time when I went to use the hose and I got sick of seeing the puddle of water leaking out of a pinhole leak, so I cut the hose and repaired it with the same fittings that I'd already used on the hose a few inches down the line. Uh, that went ok. 

The next hose repair didn't. I cut off the end of a hose that was leaking and didn't have an extra end, so I wound up robbing one off of another hose which I recently used a new fitting on. So, I swapped one bad hose for another, but I don't need an end on this one right away. I can buy a new fitting and then all will be well in hoseland.

 

2. I was eating breakfast and I really wanted to call the lab that mistakenly billed me for $377. I got the bill on Saturday when I went down to look for my supplements that I'd ordered. Instead of my happy Amazon order, I got this bill. 

I had no choice but to wait until Monday. I wanted to bitch about it to someone, but figured my friends didn't need to hear about it, so I had to compartmentalize it and back burner it for when the billing department opened up on Monday. 

That was today. I called in the middle of my breakfast. I couldn't wait. 

I didn't want to stress, so I really tried to unwind myself so that I wouldn't come off as a abhorrent asshole. That has its place, but I reserve it for later on in the process, when negotiations break down. Everyone was pleasant enough, and they sounded like they recognized that the fault lay somewhere in their department. 

They promised to get back to me when it was straightened out. In the meantime, I will give it no thought. I've got time.

 

3. I don't know what it is, but if I'm dying, it's really not the worst thing in the world. I can still get up and walk around. Most things still function. I can interact with people in a normal way, and so far I haven't done anything unforgivably awful. At least not lately. 

So, I have a semi-ok feeling about remaining in this world a little longer, but am also ok with the whole schmumpy mess just ending. I guess this is about the least grateful gratitude log you're gonna find, and I'm ok with that too.