When you accidentally bring your mom to sex camp

To be fair, I didn't know it was sex camp. It just seemed like a bunch of nice people who liked to hug a lot (and sometimes take off their clothes). I was sitting alone in the living room on the plush white carpet with my back against a white couch, staring in the general direction of a TV set, my face as expressionless as the blank screen.

A lady named Denise, who I knew from my church days, sat down next to me. She was dressed smartly in an all white business suit, her white blouse unbuttoned just one button past respectable. Slowly, she began initiating contact. 

At first, it was just a few innocent finger brushes, and then she began massaging my hands. Soon she had her breasts pressed up against my face, and I was enveloped in pillowy, soft skin. I felt that perhaps something about this was forbidden or wrong, but searching the room for signs of a husband or any bystanders, I couldn't come up with any logical or physical reason not to proceed, so I dug in. 

Soon, however, it was dinner time, and we had to curtail our activities. I went down to the main assembly area and found my mom eating some free samples from a pie vendor's table. The proprietor, a twenty-something bearded hipster with red hair and glasses, was chatting up my mom, and she appeared to be going for it. I pulled her aside into an adjacent room and spoke to her in a hushed tone:

"Mom, do you know what you are doing?" I asked bluntly. "Clearly, the guy is using his free samples to try to scam on you. He just wants in your pants." 

But this was my mom, the free-love hippie feminist from the sixties, and I wasn't telling her anything she wasn't aware of.

"When you get with a guy like that, you just know it is going to be quick," she confided. "Wham bam -- and very little 'thank you, ma'am' -- if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean," I stopped her quickly, before the information overloaded my circuits. My mom was about to have quickie anonymous sex with a random pieman that she'd just met 5 minutes ago. It was a lot to process.

While she weighed the pros and cons out loud, ultimately deciding (over my objections) to go ahead with it, I decided to remain nearby, in case something (even more objectionable) happened. I wasn't going to stop her from having a bit of wild fun, but I didn't really want to supervise, either. I just wanted to be close enough that I could intervene, in case things didn't go well. 

It seemed like she knew what she was in for, so I really had no job other than to stand around and wait with her for her snack table hookup to show up. He arrived a couple of minutes later, and my mom began to disrobe.

<telephone ringing sound>

"This is Amazon calling to authorize your purchase of one thousand four hundred dollars for a MacBook Pro," a synthetic female voice tells me in Steven Hawking monotone. "If you did not make this purchase, press one to speak to one of our representatives."

Musings on Death & Life -- More mushroom induced cranial flatulance

 

How each person deals with the knowledge of death is a personal choice. There are the steadfast optimists, "death deniers," impenetrable fortresses of joy and hope, who never even look at their watches, much less acknowledge the other side of the equation of life and death. The truth is that life and death cancel each other out, and the equation has a zero sum. The sum total of "all that is" is neither positive or negative, since death is always followed by rebirth, but all life ends in death. The question is: What is the constant? What continues?  Did the egg produce the chicken, or was it the other way around?

The submarine in "On The Beach" reminds me of the cycle of birth and death. When the submarine surfaces, consciousness comes into the world anew, like a baby from the womb or trees sending out buds in the spring. It is incarnation, hope, rebirth. The submarine submerging is the death of consciousness, going off into the oblivion of the inky blackness. What happens in the interim is just a playing out of the hand one is dealt, making the best of a tenuous and ultimately untenable situation. 

I always thought of the song "Down By The Seaside" was written about the movie "On The Beach" because of the reference to people going sailing, or racing, there being no time left. It reminded me about how the people in the movie sought diversion while waiting for the cloud of nuclear fallout to eventually wipe out their little idyllic existence. Ikuru, in the titular film, sought to leave behind a legacy in the form of a little park where the neighborhood children could play. Noble enough cause, I guess. What else can a terminally ill bureaucrat do with his few remaining days? Gambling and whores are so cliche. 

The people in "On The Beach" engage in various activities, but in the end, they face a death which occurs off-screen. There are no dead bodies littering the streets, but it is assumed, like Tony Soprano's cut to black at the show's finale. One can debate that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is telling the viewer to have faith, perhaps there will be a season 7. Oh, well, he's alive as long as we remember him, right? James Gandolfini, the actor, is dead, though, flesh decomposing somewhere, whacked by a heart attack.

Buddhists say that change is the only constant, permanence is an illusion. Nothingness, the void, is the backdrop or canvass upon which all of our lives are painted. But the paint isn't durable, the picture fades, and new coats of paint are applied, covering all but the faintest traces of remembrance of the previous images. The TV set goes black, but it can be turned back on. The program ends, but there is always another. The broadcast day comes to a close with the national anthem, but after the test pattern, the color bars and then, finally, the fuzzy static of dead air, a new broadcast day eventually commences, the cycle of birth and death.

What goes on during the hours of programming is just the meandering musings of the subconscious, a dream to fill the empty space, a little light in between two eternal darknesses. Everything has an end, though. The lifetime of the match is brief, but there are always more matches. Until, that is, one comes to the end of the pack. Then who will light the candle against the darkness? The end of the cosmic game, if there is one, is a mystery. Will the circle be unbroken? Everything we see and know about the universe is finite, if only by calculation. Entropy wins. 

But somehow, out of nothing, this whole thing began, postulates the good ol' Big Bang Theory. Creation ex nihilo gives the God, the eternal constant, credit for birthing all that is. But what is God? Is it just another name for the Void? Out of death, springs life. But nothingness isn't death. Nothingness contains birth, death, dreams and consciousness. It is the container, the picket fence around our existence. I know nothing of this, because nothing can be known about nothing. 

Logic cannot solve the infinite mystery. Logic leads one to the conclusion that life is a joke, a game, a riddle to which one may make up any answer that suits one's mood. There is no cosmic lawmaker, no absolute authority to decide the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life. Life just happens to be, and we are here for a spell, so deal with it. Live it, love it, or hate it and jump ship. It doesn't matter. Is the cat alive or dead or both? How about neither? The cat is a dream, an illusion. We are all just dreaming, but let's just go along with it. What else can we do? 

I can't sleep because I took some mushrooms along with my caffeine and cannabis today. I spent the day fiddling with my guitar, making various sounds, some pleasing, some unpleasing, but ultimately, just a diversion to pass the time until my clock runs out. Might as well do with thy hand, whatever it is that it finds to do; whether it be plucking a guitar or jacking off, it's all equally meaningful or meaningless. Who cares if the wind blows from the south or from the east? The leaves still fall from the trees. Hitler and Gandhi walk into a bar. They both bump their heads.

I love the steadfastness of White's allegiance to death in "The Sunset Limited." Pick a side, take a position. You might as well. That's what life is all about, right? Even if one chooses darkness and hopelessness, the very decision to opt out is an action, a move on the chessboard. The Waltzing Matilda, death, cannot be escaped, only danced with; and dance we must. The rest is window dressing. What comes after, if anything, is not for us to know. Maybe it's all light, maybe all darkness. Maybe some part of us remains, like the soul, but perhaps even the soul gets old and listless and dies eventually. 

I'm all over the place. It sounded better in my head. I'm like Black: "You gave him the words, but what about me?" I want to make my case, but the case for nothing requires no defense. I think I'll just go back to sleep. Maybe I'll wake up, maybe I'll emerge from the hibernation of winter, from the slumber which is my training for the ultimate sleep. Maybe not. A caterpillar never knows whether or not the alarm clock will wake him up.

So steer a course
A course for nowhere
And drop the anchor
My little Empire
I'm going nowhere

Goats, dirtbikes and hardwood floor sliding

 

I couldn't log in to my Blogger account with Firefox, and I spent an inordinate amount of time getting from the bed to the keyboard, so I have lost a few of my marbles along the way. Here's last night's recap:

I was living with my folks, and some roommates, in my folk's palatial home in Minnesota, conveniently located in the parking lot behind the Del Taco. One of the roommates was a Russian girl who made custom acrylic spheres out of personal mementos. She would pour the liquid resin into a cup, add a few sprinkles of weed leaves to the suspension, and then throw in some marbles or nick-knacks to make a whimsical desktop ornament. 

"Oh, no!" she cried, as she dropped some of her marbles into the snow. "How can I make nice ornament now?" She threw in a few more weed leaves and took the last remaining marbles from her pocket. "I guess that will have to do."

Back in the mansion, I was just getting acquainted with the floor plan. It was still wide open, as most of their furniture hadn't arrived from Ikea yet. I took a moment to do a full-length slide in my stocking feet across several rooms worth of pristine hardwood flooring. I tried to encourage others to try it, getting a running start like a basketball player on a full-court press, and then going to my knees at the end, finishing in a rockstar pose. It didn't catch on.

I plopped down on the couch next to my mom and she gave me the warmest hug that I can remember. It was so full of emotion, and I felt completely content in that moment. Greg was sitting beside us, still a little unsettled from the hardwood floor sliding. Just then, the family goat came in and snuggled in between my mom and I and gave me a playful bite. He looked up at me with the most endearing goat face and said, "Hahhh," or its equivalent, in goat. The goat's sudden appearance broke the tension, and the room erupted with laughter.  

I went out to the garage, where one of my roommates had a new dirt bike that he'd been showing off. I took it out for a joyride in the parking lot and amused one of the local girls with my sideshow antics. It was a powerful bike, and I couldn't help popping wheelies every time I hit the throttle. Likewise, every turn became an opportunity to do donuts and smoke the tires. 

Pretty soon, though, I had trashed the bike, and the throttle cable hung limp, the adjustment knob snapped out of its bracket. I snapped it back in place and got the bike operational again. I put it back up in the garage, scratched and dented, hoping no one would be the wiser.

Sometime earlier, I had been eating out on the patio, on a table that utilized existing pine tree stumps for legs. I noticed a few ants on the surface of the table and hastened to find their source. They were crawling up the trunks of nearby trees that were still alive. Somehow, none were actually on the table legs, so I couldn't figure out how they'd made it up to the tabletop. Paratroopers, perhaps? I decided to let them be, since there were too many to kill with one can of Raid, and they weren't really making a direct incursion.

Those are the scant details I can remember. I'll come back and fill them in later, as I recall them.

Murder, LLC.

 

I dreamed I was working for Frank Sinatra Jr., learning the ropes as a street level player in his underworld operation. It was my first day on the job, so one of his captains had to lead me to his secret conference room, a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles' run down industrial district. 

"Make sure you forget what you see here today," Paul Gualiteri, aka Paulie Walnuts, told me. 

He led me down some narrow hallways, taking more than a few unnecessary turns in a maze-like journey through the decrepit old manufacturing facility. There were many closed doors, with untold scenarios of violence and torture taking place behind their walnut veneer. The occasional muffled gunshot and sound of brains splattering against the door, or the thud of a body sliding down the wall to the floor, were the only sounds besides our footsteps to break the oppressive silence. I hurried to keep up with Paulie.

If I was lucky, Paulie told me, I would avoid being on the wrong side of one of these doors, but odds the were not in my favor. Everybody screws up a least once, but no one gets a chance to screw up twice. The blood seeping out from underneath the doorways attested to that.

Mindful of Paulie's advice, I tried to devise a way to both remember the directions to Frank Jr.'s office, while at the same time forgetting them, in case I was ever interrogated by the cops. Paulie's misdirection was too clever, though, and I was truly at a loss to remember the many twists and turns we had taken. I was worried that I'd never be able to find the place again, should I have to come back unescorted.  

Finally, we arrived at the conference room door. There was nothing special about it. It was the same as any of the other impersonal wood laminate doors in the building. There were no monikers or room numbers to indicate that behind this door was the meeting place of the most powerful and ruthless crime boss on the west coast. I took a deep breath and followed Paulie inside.

Frank was sitting behind a cheap particle board desk with the same dark themed walnut finish. The edges were worn ragged, and the substrate was visible in spots. This desk had seen some action, I thought to myself. Probably more than a few skulls had been cracked against it over the years.

There were three or four other people ahead of us, so I sat down next to Paulie in a molded plastic chair with metal legs and waited for our audience with the boss. Frank Jr. addressed the room:

"I'm gonna save you all some time," he said curtly. "Numbers are down. You all need to get out there and produce. Consider yourselves warned."

Paulie handed Frank an envelope, and we exited without incident. If you exited at all, it was without incident. If the envelope was unsatisfactorily light, you might get a reprimand in the form of a .38 slug to your cranium. Or you might have your head bashed repeatedly against the desk until you wished for a bullet, if you still had the capacity to wish for anything. I was glad to be out of there.

Back on the streets, I was alone, riding a bicycle through some rough neighborhoods as I made my collection run. I was responsible for getting the money from streetcorner drug dealers and taking it back to Frank. It was still my first day on the job, so I wasn't commanding the respect my position required. I received mostly jeers from the shoddily attired pushers. 

I was afraid I was going to be jacked for my bike, so I made a quick exit, bunny hopping over a downed power pole, impressing myself with my own stunt work. This was no time to self-congratulate, however, as I needed to collect a certain amount of money by nightfall. The time was drawing near to the hour when I'd be back in Frank's conference room having to present him with an envelope, and this time Paulie wasn't going with me.

Reluctantly, I returned to the warehouse and entered through the glass doors at the front of the building. The lobby was full of new applicants, teens mostly, runaways, hoods and skateboarder types, joking with one another about their prospects in the burgeoning drug market. I wondered if they were aware of the high turnover rate, and the consequences of a less than perfect performance review. 

"Hey, old-timer," one of them jibed at me, "you look lost. You got Alzheimers? Forget where the office is?" I doubted any of them had been to the conference room, and this talk was most likely just bravado.

I ignored them and made my way down the first hallway, vaguely recollecting the directions from my trip with Paulie earlier. I hesitated as I tiptoed past the frightfully quiet doors, expecting to hear a gunshot or a thud. If I made it to the office, I'd most likely get my first and only warning, but failing to show up, I'd probably not even get that. 

I finally found myself at the door to Frank's office. It was open, and he was alone in the room sitting behind the battered desk, an American flag on a small pole the sole decoration in the spartan quarters. He looked up at me with cold, piercing blue eyes.

"What have you got for me, son?"

<Cut to black> 

That's all I remember. Yep, I probably shouldn't have binged watched all six seasons of the Sopranos. I'm having a bit of time digesting all that cannoli and murder.

My time travel thought for the day, the VHS version

 

Here's why we don't have time travel. It's not that it hasn't been invented yet. No, that would be too simple. See, it already has been invented, many times. But the smart people from the future who keep tabs on such things keep having to go back to prevent its invention each and every time, after the effects of its abuse have fully become a blight on the world. Once the door is open, all manner of beasts walk through it. 

No one has ever gone back and just changed one thing for the better and left the rest alone. Until now. <cue dramatic movie trailer music> One man leads the charge, someone who will be called the "Timekeeper," protecting the past's integrity, while insuring a better future by placing helpful hints in the path of everyday pedestrian linear time travelers (you and me).

Ever wonder where this or that great idea came from? That seemingly random inspirational thought? In some cases, they were  carefully fabricated by a team of experts: architects, writers and engineers at some Google facility from the future, doing their civic duty to insure that the tomorrow that they've come to enjoy as today continues to exist at all. They are kind of locked into a causal loop contract. They have to do what they've already done in order to have a future that is guaranteed that they will even be in it. 

--------

If time is strictly linear, then we'd need a multi-verse to accommodate all those bifurcating timelines inherent in time travel. A million arrows of time, shooting off in all directions like a ten-dimensional hyper-sphere (or 8-dimensional or 25, fuck all if I know). Did we already create a million different universes with each blink of an eyelash?

If not, perhaps we can do with just the one universe, using RAM instead ROM for a past: reformat, recycle and rewrite, no one the wiser. The single track VHS version. One reality, one story, exists at a time, a self-contained unit, filled with its own actions and consequences. The tape has a beginning, middle and end. But -- the tape can be altered, edited and reworked, resulting in a different final outcome. 

And the tape necessarily has to have a discrete outside, and a manufacturer of the cassette housing and tape medium. The tape just didn't go ahead and invent itself, now, did it?

The people and events on the inside aren't privy to whatever may exist outside of the tape. We can't conceive of it. We're like two dimensional beings, trying to grasp the concept of depth. We can speculate about the playback and record mechanisms and some theoretical Operator, but we're stuck here on the inside, existing as characters represented by magnetic spots on a metal oxide coated poly-mylar tape, and we can't get there from here. 

Or can we, in fact, be lifted out of this reality, cut and pasted to a clipboard (or snipped and spliced, to be consistent) and inserted into another reality somewhere? Maybe there's a whole video store full of different tapes. The possibilities are as endless as this lame exercise in mental fuckery is pointless.

--------

Once you break the seal, the past becomes open to infection. It has already been broken, and many of the infinite number of possible timeline scenarios have played out. Perhaps all, we may never know. Will the tape stop playing, or is it all on a loop as well? Will the editors ever be satisfied and stop rewinding and recording over the cassette?

Is deja vu the result of the same scenarios being acted out similarly in so many versions that even erasing the tape won't completely eradicate the permanently burned in spots? 

And finally, is there anyone even at the controls? If not, then how do the rewind and record buttons keep getting pressed? Stay tuned. The answer is forgotten promptly upon recognition, so we may only know for a brief period of time, at or near the point of death, for just as long as we are outside the game. 

Which presupposes, I suppose, that the game has an inside and an outside. If it's all one thing, well, we're fucked. You can't quit a game that is all you: game pieces, board, dice, table, room, etc, subject and object are one, everything existing as a mere action of the One. I am the one Andrewing, but earlier in the day I was Lawnmowing. I feel special because I think I am the Andrew doing the Lawnmowing, but in reality, I'm just some poor schmuck who got roped into this existence with promises of sex and candy. The universe is doing the lawnmowing, the Andrewing and every other such manifestation of life, sentient, inert, dynamic or static.

Where can you run from the everything that you are? Into semi-isolated units with dumbed down limited human consciousness, that's where. Meat lockers for your temporary use while playing the carnal incarnation game. But ultimately, you'd better get used to being around. There's nowhere else to be. You'll have an eternity to figure out how to not be bored. Maybe you'll take some drugs and spend all afternoon fucking around on the guitar and thinking about time travel theories and the nature of reality. Or maybe you'll be the one to actually invent time travel and come back and erase this blog before I can even postulate the idea.

-------

Next time: Why I loved the ending of the Sopranos after initially hating it. I could go on and on about that one...

Spaghetti and Salmon Salvation, the Bullet and the Boot

I dreamed I was attending a full-immersion automotive school being run by Paul Teutul Sr., the perpetually angry American Chopper dad. I wasn't doing too well and was a likely candidate to wash out due to physical infirmities. I felt extremely weak and undernourished, like I was going to pass out, as I waited my turn in the lunch line.

"This outta fix you up," Paul Sr. said as he dished up a giant plate of spaghetti and handed it to me.

I thanked him and took the food back to my bed. It was a dormitory style hotel room with multiple beds and cheap pile carpet. I took a few bites of food and immediately spilled the rest onto the floor. I tried to scoop up the mess using the bedspread, but it only made matters worse, creating a giant stain that looked as if someone had just been murdered there.

I picked through the remnants of my dinner, attempting to salvage a bite or two of what looked like it might have previously been grilled salmon, mixed in with the spaghetti and bits of carpet fiber and cigarette ashes. Finding it too unappealing to eat, I took my bedspread, plate and fork back to the serving line to show Paul Sr. what had happened. Meanwhile, a rather dismayed housekeeper, another member of the Teutul family, got down on her hands and knees and started working on the giant spaghetti stain on the carpet.

"I'm sorry about the mess," I apologized to the girl, "but as you can see, he served me way too much spaghetti for this plate." 

I pointed out the very small, flat plate and indicated the mountainous serving size by extending my hand skyward. The girl just shook her head and carried on scrubbing the tomato sauce into the carpet. Paul Sr. didn't disagree, but he didn't offer me another plate, either, so I sat there in the back of the serving truck cleaning my food with a garden hose. 

The truck was a 1963 Dodge army green panel van, the kind used for bread or milk deliveries, or Army Corp of Engineering mobile base station operations, that might later get sold and repurposed as a hippie RV or a bandwagon for a low budget punk band. It was ugly enough that I didn't think anyone would mind my using it as a spaghetti strainer. 

Despite getting some bits of spaghetti and salmon in the AC floor vents, the process worked like a charm, and soon I was dining on pristine pasta and seafood that looked as if it had just come out of the kitchen. Not a trace of tomato sauce or dirt from the carpet remained, just gleaming noodles and fish, all neatly arranged on the plate. The fish looked as if it had been freshly prepared by a chef, the convenient serving sized cubes that had previously been unidentifiable floor debris, reassembled into a complete fish, head and tail included.

In the next scene, I was with Paul Sr. and his daughter under an overpass, watching traffic go by on the highway underneath. The girl produced a pistol and took a shot at a small metal light fixture up on the roof of the bridge. The bullet struck the target and ricocheted, striking me in the right foot. It stung a little, but my work boots protected me, and it bounced harmlessly into the dirt. I fished around for it and found what looked like a hollow point slug, still warm to the touch. 

I showed it to Paul Sr., and we concluded that it wasn't actually a bullet, but rather a conical sliding fishing weight with a hole in the center that just happened to be present at that location and was somehow warmer than the ambient temperature.

"If this were a hollow point," Paul Sr. pointed out, "then the tip would be damaged from the impact with the metal fixture." He pointed up at the dented light fixture and then at the pristine slug. 

"It doesn't add up," I countered. "When it hit my boot, it was burning hot, and you can see where it dented my boot." I pointed down at my boot, but there wasn't any evidence to support my claim. "Well, anyway, my foot still stings from it." My case was getting weaker, though, since my foot actually felt fine by then.

The dream fizzled, and I awoke with the familiar annoying feeling of something in my right eye. I put some eye drops in it and tried to rinse it out, but it is still there. Hopefully, it will fade as the day wears on and there will be no evidence of anything, like my dream of the bullet and the boot and my miraculously resurrected spaghetti and salmon dinner.

Roommates with Uncle Steve and the Story of the Observational Curse

 

I dreamed Uncle Steve and I were sharing a house, and apparently, that wasn't all we were sharing. One day, I came home to find that all his possessions were in my room. He was away on vacation and had decided to let me use all of his stuff while he was away. I was looking around at his wall of stereo and video equipment, trying to make sense of the hodgepodge of cables and components, when a knock came at the door.

I opened the door, and two naked black girls came in and made themselves comfortable, one on the bed and one in my arms. The one in my arms wasted no time and jumped up, saddling my face with her shaved genitalia. "Well, hello to you, too," I thought, breathlessly busying myself with this most pressing matter in front of me. The one on the bed produced a DVD and asked me to put it on. 

I unhitched myself from the limbs of the social climber, and attempted to find the correct player in which to insert the disc. There were stacks of tape decks, CD and VHS players on the dresser, but I was having difficulty finding the DVD player. Some porn was playing on a small tube-type black and white TV monitor. 

I finally found the DVD player, but I couldn't for the life of me get the disc to go in. It kept falling out, and it finally wound up slipping behind the dresser, irretrievably lost in the crack between the wall and dresser with its Doc Brown stack of audio video devices. 

"I'm sorry," I apologized, "but I'll have to move this dresser to get your disc."

The ladies seemed unconcerned, and amused themselves with each other on the bed while I hoisted one end of the heavily laden dresser and reached behind it to retrieve the DVD. Naturally, there was a lot of clutter going on back there, and I had to sift through a bunch of old magazines and pieces of paper before I finally found their disc. I gave the disc back to them, and they left me alone in the room with the magazines and notes.

I rifled through the notes and found one that was handwritten to me by my uncle. It read:

"Drew, take care of my stuff while I'm away. Feel free to use whatever. Back soon."

I opened one of the magazines and saw pictures of myself in several of the full-page spreads in the middle. The shots were grainy, candid artsy looking photographs of me in my youth, taken by my uncle. Some were blurry, as if the camera or subject was in motion, but all were relatively flattering. Apparently, I made a good subject for one of his school projects, as these photos had made their way into more than one of the magazines in his collection.

I left the room and went into what was supposed to be Steve's room. Since he was away, and he'd made an unrecognizable mess of my room, I decided to lay down on his bed, which was decidedly less cluttered. I was drawing the blanket up to my chin when I noticed a pair of teal colored bikini briefs down at the foot of the bed. Somehow, I just knew they belonged to my uncle. Cheeky monkey, I thought to myself and tossed them on the floor.

At this point, Steve walked in, back from vacationing in God knows where. He greeted me cordially, and we discussed the "friends" that he'd arranged to keep me company while he was away. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness, and told him about the magazines and notes that I'd found. He had stories to tell from his vacation, but I can't recall any of them. I was too busy looking at a strange rash on my chest that had developed into some red bulbous growths that looked like they were filled with strawberry jam. 

I woke up soon thereafter. I do have a rash on my chest, but not quite as bad as all that. I think I will get it looked at by a dermatologist, nonetheless, as it has been there for more than a month. Denise pointed it out to me on her last visit. When someone points something out to me of which I am unaware, I always think to myself, "They have cursed me," because of a couple of incidents in which my uncle pointed out defects about my house or property that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg.

On one of my first visits to the new property on Stonehedge, while my uncle and I were walking around, he noticed a few suspicious stems sticking up out of the ground. 

"I wonder if you guys have any poison oak on this place?" he mused.

It later turned out that the place was rife with poison oak. I battled it for years, spraying gallons of glyphosate into the environment, causing untold collateral damage. I get rashes to this day from sticks that have lain dead for years, which I end up burning with the fallen tree limbs and vegetative debris each winter. 

Another time, Steve was in my living room and he spotted a small crack in one of the floor tiles. Leave it him to point out the fly in the ointment. 

"Do you think your house may be settling unevenly?" he asked, pointing to an adjacent tile with a similar hairline crack down the center. Sure enough, over the years that crack has extended all the way across the living room and into the dining room. Uncle Stinky strikes again. 

When we first moved here, on one of Steve's visits, he posed a question to us while were riding down in the car:

"I was thinking of maybe selling my house and parking my RV here when I'm not vacationing in Mexico or Arizona. I'd pay you a small amount, say, $100 a month or so. How 'bout it?"

Sharon and I both cringed inwardly. We didn't waste any time quashing the idea. 

"I don't think that's going to work for us," I said. "We are pretty private people, and we like our space. Nothing personal, you understand, but we just need our space."

He looked hurt. The rest of the car ride was uncomfortably quiet. My uncle had been going through a bout of depression after having a series of mini-strokes, and he'd even had to take anti-depressants to combat feelings of hopelessness. Always the lone wolf, he'd whittled his circle of friends down to Sharon and I and one other couple that he'd known for years. The rest of his friends and acquaintances he had dismissed over the years because they didn't measure up to his qualitative standards. 

I'm sure our rejection of his self-invitation to stay with us was another of the million little things that contributed to his later suicide. Sure, he'd kicked me out of the house in the early 90s after grandpa died, and I could have felt some vengeful karmic justification now that the shoe was on the other foot, but that didn't factor in to our decision not to allow him to stay with us. The truth was, we just didn't want Uncle Stinky and his foul-smelling, cheap hand-rolled cigarettes stinking up the joint. 

Plus, after living butt to nut with our Paradise neighbors for many years, we just wanted to enjoy the newfound privacy of living alone on 5 acres. Tired of smelling our neighbor's laundry detergent or hearing the infrequent blaring of the TV, used to cover up the sounds of their late night lovemaking, or the incessant yelling from our other neighbor at her obnoxious teenage son, we'd just had enough of people. We wanted the freedom to be our own loud, obnoxious selves and have no one around to annoy or be annoyed by. 

And we did. We yelled and screamed at one another and nobody called the cops. We blasted our music at full volume and made all manner of amorous noises during our own lovemaking rituals, the sounds dampened by distance and the competing sounds of crickets and frogs during the summer and blocked by closed, double-pane windows in the winter. 

But you know how the rest of the story went, and our serene solitude had the obverse effect. Our heaven was a big hell. One by one, our beloved pets passed away, and then finally, Sharon, taken by MS at 44. Now, it's just me and my middle aged cats and my itchy chest rash, an unwitting observational curse cast upon me by Denise through the innocent act of pointing it out. 

Soon enough, mathematical logic dictates that I, too, will self-terminate, if a sudden fatal event doesn't befall me before that. I'm not being dramatic when I say this. It's more of an actuarial prediction, based on statistics. Time and tide. Who'll stop the rain? And all that cliche gibber-jabber. I'm rambling. Now's the time, the time is now to ramble on, on my way. <soundtrack slowly fades out> <long fade to black> <roll credits>

Crippled inside

 

I dreamed about Sharon again last night. 

I was at home with her in our house in Paradise, and she was still bedridden, but she had managed to make it out of bed and wander around the house. I found her in the kitchen, standing upright, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. I grabbed her by both arms, and we did a little dance right there in tiny space between the dishwasher and the K-Mart rolling island which functioned as a pantry/food prep area/dining table. Afterward, I escorted her back to bed, but not before registering my shock and elation at the minor miracle that had just taken place.

"Honey, I'm thrilled that you can walk again, and I'm sorry you had to deal with this mess," I said, scooping up a dark blue Fender Telecaster and putting it in ragged guitar case that looked as if it were made of cardboard. I made a mental note in the dream to purchase Tele (with a decent case) someday.

On our way back to the bedroom, her legs gave out, and I had to help her back to her knees. She crawled the rest of the way. Besides not being able to lift her, I was a little concerned that she might trip over some of my junk. Guitars were strewn about the place, some in cases and some just lying flat on the dingy carpet. I went around collecting them up, attempting to make the place a little more user friendly, in case she were to have another unexpected sojourn through the living room.

Later, I was on campus, helping a friend do an oil change on his older Honda Accord. Something about the drain plug and the oil filter being a different size was making the simple maintenance item a major hassle. I made myself useless by loosening the oil filter a couple of turns. I then began to fiddle with the driver's seat belt buckle, prying off the cover and breaking one of the metal clips in the process. I hastily put it back in place, discarding the broken clip, hoping my friend wouldn't notice.

Eventually, I gave up on helping my friend, since he seemed to have a better handle on the oil change than I did. I decided to go home early and called Sharon to announce my change of plans.

"Hello-ooo," Sharon answered the phone in her sexy voice.

When I responded, her voice dropped several octaves. "Oh, it's you," she said, the disappointment palpable in her tone.

I felt crushed, as it confirmed to my suspicious mind what I knew in my gut: Sharon had found another guy to give her affections to, and she had been expecting his call instead of mine. I commiserated with Gene, a former co-worker at Esplanade Manor and a fellow student in this dream. He had some advice for me, but I don't remember what it was. 

"Dude, this kind of thing happens all the time. She's just....fneth iumpthh thion fon terron mon phenon..." his words trailed off into the unintelligible gibberish of Charlie Brown's adult-speak. 

I was in my own universe of pain, unreachable. I woke up, still feeling crippled inside and very much  in the painful grip of one of my oldest and most familiar demons: jealous, again.

Malicious Mischief -- just your basic hotel hoods

 

I dreamed that I was running with a rag-tag group of lowlife hotel thieves. We'd find a cheap room, or better yet one where the guests had checked out early, and use it for a base of operations. From there we'd surveil the other units, going into the rooms to pilfer and steal when the occupants were away. 

"Hey, look," I said to one of the other members of my crew. "They use the same key for all of the rooms."

I looked around the room for any items of value, but finding none, I left the room in disgust. The previous guests had taken most of the furniture, leaving the mattress, but taking the bed frame. The rest of the room was stripped bare.

"No dice," I said. "They've got nothing to steal,"  the Sex Pistols' anarchic anthem of misanthropic narcissism "No Feelings" playing in my head, tagging my cerebral cortex as it squirreled around in my cranium.

That didn't stop my crew from going in to ransack the room further, overturning the mattress and rummaging through the drawers. If they couldn't find anything worthwhile, no doubt someone would wind up urinating on the wall as a calling card.

There was a dirt field surrounding the hotel, and I walked along the perimeter, which was fenced in rather poorly with cheap field fencing and extra long T-posts, held together with clear packaging tape. I tried to knock it down by kicking against the wire mesh, but the tape was pretty resilient. I got the feeling that someone was watching me, so I gave up and moved on.

I walked around the area and saw an Antron-99 CB antenna on a makeshift tower. I followed the coax and traced it to a small house nearby. As I was shaking the flimsy structure to try to knock it over, I noticed someone looking out of the window at me. I played it off like I was just admiring it and not attempting to vandalize it. 

"Hey, fellas," I said. "Lookie here. They've got themselves a nice little CB rig. You remember those, right?" They did not. The members of my little band of thugs were all too young to remember such things.

I went into a nearby garage, a barn-like structure that was decrepit and riddled with bullet holes, and looked around. From inside I could hear what sounded like some kids playing on a nearby hill. I peeped through one of the holes in the wood and saw another group of young thugs making a ruckus in the dirt. They were picking up rocks and throwing them, and some of the rocks struck the side of the building. I decided it was time to vacate, so I went back to our room and gathered up the other members. 

"Let's go guys," I said. "This place is a bust. Let's don't forget any of our stuff. Bob, you make sure to take the serving cart." I pointed to a rolling three tiered wire mesh chrome cart, exactly like the kind I have in my kitchen at home.

Bob was busy making snacks for everyone. There wasn't much to divvy up, so I wound up with some raw beets and a half a sandwich in tin foil. 

Outside, one of the couples with our group was standing next to their white 1990 Honda Accord coupe (the exact color, make and model as the one that I owned back in the early 2000s) when it started creeping forward and rolling downhill. I jumped into the car and pulled on the parking brake, and the car slowed down a little. I noticed that the car was in drive, so I put it into neutral, and it stopped just as I was about to hit a small tree. 

"You guys need to get that parking brake adjusted. You probably need new rear brakes, as well," I told the couple. "If it weren't for that little embankment around the tree, it wouldn't have stopped at all. Don't worry, they're easy to replace. I can help you with that."

The couple seemed relieved but weren't in any hurry to take me up on my offer, now that the immediate crisis was over. They mumbled a "thank you" and promised to get the brakes looked at sometime. 

That's about it, folks. I didn't pay the editor enough to tie my little story together with a cute little bow, so all I have is a few cutscenes,  pasted together with duct tape. And now my Saturday morning program will commence, sponsored, in part, by Winco Foods and Cafe Bustelo. Fender amplification and guitar products, along with locally sourced cannabis, are provided by Golding Ranch Charitable Trust.

(more suitable soundtrack music can be found here.)

Cats misbehave, and Steve, Tim and I go to Wendy's

I dreamed Uncle Steve, Cousin Tim and I were at my house getting ready for a night out. I was primping in front of a mirror, and I decided to try to see if I could still put an earring in one of the holes in my ear that had been pierced when I was a teenager. I found an old diamond stud that had been laying around since Sharon died, and without any disinfectant or prep of any kind, rammed it through the skin of my left earlobe. 

It didn't hurt nearly as much as I'd anticipated, though it did start looking red and irritated. I dabbed it with some rubbing alcohol, glanced approvingly in the mirror and began doing a funky ethnic dance, to the mild amusement of Steve and Tim.

We decided that it would be a good idea to channel this newfound energy and go out on the town in search of chicks. As we were about to leave, I noticed that my Stratocaster was lying on the tile floor of my living room. Apparently, the cats had knocked it off the stand -- again. Picking it up, I found that the neck was broken in half, and it looked like something Jimi Hendrix had just finished with. These cats, I thought to myself.

"That's it," I said to no one in particular, "I'm taking this to the luthier in Grass Valley. This is beyond my ability to repair."

"What about the cats?" Steve asked, concerned about feline justice and the lack of any disciplinary action on my part.

"Oh, well," I said with uncharacteristic nonchalance. "Whatcha gonna do? They are cats, after all."

We left the cats and the broken guitar and headed down to Wendy's for some burgers and fries. I didn't order anything, because nothing on their menu even remotely fit into my diet, but I eyed the giant hamburger that Steve ordered quite enviously. It looked like at least a pound of hamburger sitting atop a bun the size of a catcher's mitt, topped with a huge slice of tomato and a whole salad's worth of lettuce.

"That's some burger you got there," I said, picking off a piece of lettuce and gnawing it Bugs Bunny style.

"It'll do," Steve said, nonplussed as he hoisted the giant burger in the general direction of his face. 

I was curious as to how he intended to actually eat it, since no part of it looked at all like it was going to fit in his mouth, but somehow he managed. Maybe he unhinged his jaw, I don't know. I sat there, hungrily contemplating the idea of ordering my own burger, but I decided against it. I settled for a french fry instead, purloined from Cousin Tim's basket. 

Yeah, not much seems to happen in these dreams of mine. I keep thinking that Steve had a message for me, but damned if I can remember what it was. My stomach has a message for me now: It's breakfast time.

Andrew Letter 1 - Report from the new house 1997 (I'll transcribe and back-post it later)

 

Homebrewing in the collective

 

I dreamed I was living in a collective with some of the guys from work. For fun, someone had initiated a home brewing challenge to see who could brew the best beer. The process was more like distillation than actually brewing from scratch. The science behind it was pretty sketchy, since it relied on evaporation, and no provisions were made for collecting the vapors. Basically, we were taking bottles of beer and opening them, placing them near various heat sources and then drinking the leftover contents once a certain percentage of the liquid had boiled off.

I placed my beer bottles in a 4 cup glass Pyrex container and hung it on a nail near the door. I could tell right away that this wasn't going to work. The nail was bent and sagging in the weak drywall, and I knew it wouldn't take much to knock the container off the wall. It was just one of those things that you do, knowing full well that it will have a poor outcome.

Sure enough, after 5 minutes or so, I returned to find all my beer bottles empty and on the ground. I was dismayed. After scrounging around to rustle up a couple more beer bottles with which to start over, I gave up and went around  to see how my friends' projects were coming along. David Chanh had boiled his on the stove, as had James Reed. 

"Can try a sip of yours?" I asked James, noticing that he was drinking out of one of my Weller House coffee mugs.

He nodded and handed me a cup full of the warm brew. I took a sip and was underwhelmed. It tasted like warm water with only a hint of alcohol. It confirmed my suspicion that rather than enhancing the beer and making it more concentrated, we were actually boiling off the alcohol.

"This tastes like weak tea," I told him. 

"Tastes fine to me," he said, convinced that his project was an unqualified grade A success.

"But we all know that alcohol is the first thing to evaporate," I said, "and boiling beer with the tops off, or letting it sit out in open bottles all day, will only result in weaker beer. If you pour rubbing alcohol on the counter next to some water, the alcohol will evaporate first." I demonstrated my theory right there on the kitchen counter, and the elements behaved as I'd predicted.

"That doesn't prove anything," James said, continuing to sip from my mug.

I wasn't thrilled that he'd appropriated my mug, but I was mostly miffed that my beer had been mishandled while I was away for 5 minutes. I suspected that it was one of my other roommates who had simply taken the beers and drank them, placing the bottles on the floor to make it look like an accident. I went off in search of the offender, but nothing came of it. I woke up, and that was that.

Andrew Letter 45 -- Still dreaming, still ranting in the early 90's

 

When Arnold Buckwitz stepped into McHenry's Diner, the waitresses would put their hard earned quarters in the jukebox (quarters they likely never would receive from Grandpa) to play this song, "Sink the Bismark" by Johnny Horton. It was their revenge, a passive/aggressive, racist/ageist protest against him for being a grumpy old German, whose only crime was that he was a lousy tipper.

 

 

 

Hello!

 

Great to hear from you the other day. I got your letter and check (oh, thank you, thank you thank you!!). I am certain that I have done nothing in life to deserve such support.

Life is strange. I understand less today than yesterday. I am still a dreamer, but I am realizing that dreams are of no consequence in this world. A person must have goals. I will probably never write the 9th symphony or find a cure for cancer. Nonetheless, I still like to dream of faraway islands, jungles and beaches. Farm land, mountains and meadows are nice, too. I dream of (white man's concept coming up) owning (here it is) my own piece of land somewhere far from the Police and the Taxman. There aren't any New Frontiers opening up anywhere around here, though.

I don't mind working. It's just the selling off of a percentage of your life while doing something you hate so you can have "security" that I cannot conscience. And what for? So I can wind up like Grandpa? Or William O. Helton? Although of the two of them, I think Bill had his head a little closer to his heart. The things he enjoyed, he enjoyed. He liked to drink, and he liked to fish. In fact, he drank like a fish. Alcohol didn't kill Bill, a truck did. Although, if the truck didn't get him, the alcohol would have caught up with him.

I just can't figure. The things that people love are their undoing. Grandpa smokes like there's no tomorrow, but as much as he likes to smoke, and as much money as he has, he still smokes those cheap, cherry-fallin-out-all-the-time, foul-smelling cigarettes.

Well, who can judge? For a person who is always on a soapbox, I have little to offer. I can't even keep myself out of trouble, it seems. Growing pot in the window would have to be one of my more flagrant abuses, although I can't imagine who was hurt by my crime. To me, going out of the house without a shower is by far a worse crime. There's that soapbox again.

Anyway, I really appreciated your not coming down on me too. I know that you know that I know that you don't approve of smoking pot. Anyway, I know you aren't condoning it. It's just one of those things in life which it doesn't pay to make a family-rending issue of. When I was a Christian (what a weird way to begin a sentence ... ) I was prepared to consign to hell -- for all eternity -- anyone whose interpretation of even one Scripture verse differed from mine. Bo knows intolerance. It is a tough thing to draw lines of what is acceptable and what is not in this age of ______ (you fill in the blank).

See now, I'm so non-judgemental that I don't even want to oversimplify or caricaturize a time period (let alone another human being). So, henceforth, no more Grandpa jokes. Well, maybe a few, but harmless ones. 

----

Page Two, nearly one week later ...

I am developing an irrational (or should I say irritational) aversion to Grandpa. I used to say "live and let live" (you know I did, you know I did, you know I did). But in this ever changing world in which I be livin' in, I grow tired of bein' trampled under foot by the silent creeping of this deranged old German living out his last days in Fort Buckwitz.

I used to think his little habits and his lack of social graces were kind of cute. I envisioned running an ad campaign, with posters and video clips -- "Arnold for President." That was before he started using my life as entertainment. Nothing to do today, guess I'll see what's up in Andrew's room. No mail today, let's see what Andrew got. Andrew's not home from school yet, better go down to Steve's and sit around for 4 hours and ask "where's Andrew?" every five minutes.

I am drawing on all my reserves to just be civil, and I believe I am doing a good job. I had those five years of training in turning the other cheek.

Actually, I have considerably more freedom under this monarchy than I did under that psycho-cultic pseudo-theocracy (church-­thing) I was going to. There, I would be subject to the same search and seizure, and I used to have to report all my activities. If the pastor believed anyone was spending too much time doing any one thing (including taking their kid to the park to play ball for cryin' out loud) they would be castigated. Punishments ranged from open rebuke to complete shunning by the whole congregation.

Why draw the comparison? Why not? I got nothin' better to do on this Saturday morning at 8:28 than compare my life now (boring and oppressive) to my life then (boring and oppressive). But I am keeping a positive attitude (ha). I am positive that I made a big mistake giving up my autonomy for the promise of a future security blessed by the fruits of education.

This nice little town (L.A. is so bad) has more than its share of bigotry, good-­ol-boyism and out and out crime. Don't leave your bike unattended for more than five minutes, don’t walk down this particular street alone after dark. There's rape, murder and even pizza delivery beatings. Oh, and the rice farmers burn their fields, and it produces a thick brown layer of soot which frequently clouds the skies. Traffic around here is worse than L.A. for the reason that these streets were built to accommodate considerably less people.

The only thing I miss are the gangs (I never really saw any Crips or Bloods in Downey). Fortunately for me, there must be others who miss it too because there is graffiti sporting the names of all those wonderful urban organizations you thought you had to live in the big city to see. Gee, what a fun town.

Nice tirade, huh? Well, I dunno. I like hanging out with Steve and his friends, but the question is how long, Mr. Scott, how -- long? Steve already has enough friends without jobs and children (70 year olds). 

----

So, Page Three, what do I want to do with the rest of my life, besides just be left alone? I mean, in the working-for­-a-living sense? Anything. I think I'd like to travel. You know, see the world. A traveling sales-hiker would be nice. Or a traveling music/movie critic (ha). At this point, I'm willing to work graveyard at a filling station.

I just want to have my own space. The final frontier. These are the voyages I mentally go through every night when I come home to old cigarette-smokin'-in-the-dark-TV-chair (you know who). Get me out of here. I'd rather have a turkey pot pie now, than a chance to own my own turkey in 5 years. Maybe I'm not being fair to the educational system. You and Paul both took out student loans, and look at you, just look at you, both now. You aren't still paying that loan off by any chance are you? I thought not.

See? It can work. I am pretty cynical, mainly because, in this town, you need a Masters Degree to work at Taco Bell. A forest ranger. That's it. I'll combat picnic basket thefts and report to Smokey the Bear on a daily basis.

Really now, I've been thinking of emigrating to Australia. I hear they have miles of land out there that a person could just get lost in. That'd be just great. Take a few friends, some utensils and set up shop in the Outback. I can do without television, taxes, Telly Savalas, Terminator Ten, toxic train-wrecked rivers and rigidly ruling reactionary Reagan rednecks.

I believe in freedom, I just don't think it's possible to achieve while there are other people around who don't: A. mind their own business and B. abide by the Golden Rule (sometimes refereed to as the Golding Rule - treat Andrew Golding the way you would want to be treated).

I stopped saying "Hi" to everybody I saw when I noticed a less than 50% response rate, which led me to the conclusion that a lot of people would rather be left in their own little world than have you invade it with a greeting. Pretty sad, huh?

I just got a call from Steve. It seems I can make myself useful today. He needs a ride to Paradise. So I’m going to take him. It's only about 10 miles, but due to the weather you can no longer ride a motorcycle to Paradise. Alas.

Well, see you later.

Ask me some pointed questions, and I'll try to answer them (instead of rambling on and on. Until I see you.

 

Love, Andrew.

Quotes of the day - The Sopranos on existentialism

 

"When some people realize that they are solely responsible for their decisions, actions and beliefs, and that death waits at the end of every road, they can become overcome with intense dread. A dull, aching anger that leads them to conclude that leads them to conclude that the only absolute truth is death." ~ Dr. Melfi

"I think the kid's onto something." ~ Tony Soprano

----

"What's the purpose? Of being? Here on our planet? Earth...whats the purpose? ~ AJ Soprano

"Why does everything have to have a purpose? The world is a jungle. And if you want my advice... don't expect happiness. You won't get it. People let you down...in the end, you die in your own arms." ~ Livia Soprano

AJ: "You mean -- alone?"

Liv: "It's all a big nothing. What makes you think you're so special?"

Andrew Letter 41 -- Greetings from GrandpaWorld, August 1991 (partial scan)

 

Hello there!

 

Greetings and salutations from GrandpaWorld in Chico, California, Butte County's mecca for students, seniors and screen­printers of the world. Time is measured here by the heat of the day (6am -- the only cool time of day -- time to turn off the fan).

The day's activities hinge around three critical daily rituals: the morning and evening diner runs and the 3pm nap. I am currently taking 9 units of GE required courses at Butte college on M-W-F. This has fit in perfectly with the diner and nap schedule and also allowed for some time helping Steve in his shop.

Uncle Steve. Steverino. The Big Unk. Working at the Print Shop. Helping the old Stevo. Printing posters. Hanging around the old shopperino. I envy his lifestyle. He's got to be the most laid back dude I know. And I always thought I had the corner on that. He has his little niche in the local screenprinting world and has never had to go out looking for work. He waits for it to come to him. Which it does. He does good work and his customers do all his advertising for him.

The local job market, for the non-business owner, is pretty much a minimum ­wage, student-saturated, service oriented, female-dominated economy. I'm not kidding, there are females everywhere. Banks, public services, restaurants and retail stores all hire young women (pretty ones) because they are in such abundant supply. As of yet, I haven't really met any of them socially.

I have been here for almost a month, and I still don't have any friends my own age. I guess I just don't know how and where to mingle. This town is made up of the Old School (Steve's Generation), the New School (Chico State and Butte College students) and the Local Redneck Crowd (diner patrons and high school age youth). This place is just as much like Bakersfield as it is like Santa Monica. I don't know just where I'll eventually fit in. I relate pretty well with Steve's crowd (not a crowd, really, more like a web of friends). They are all pretty friendly, liberal-minded folks.

One of his Old Time artist friends (who makes huge, slow­ moving, steel-constructed, abstract statues--and restores classic European economy cars) took us windsurfing one Sunday afternoon. The lake was 68 degrees, and the wind was just right. Steve and I took turns floundering while this older fellow (a beer-bellied, grey­haired skipper-lookin' guy) sailed circles around us. He eventually had to rescue each of us by hitching a rope and towing us back to shore.

Let's see, what else? I bought a motorcycle (horrors!!) with some of the last of my worldly money. It is the only way to travel this time of year. I no longer have a demonic need to rebel against speed laws as in previous motorcycle riding days. Of course, it is still dangerous, but not much more than riding a bicycle in this town.

As long as Grandpa is on the road none of us is safe. He's a demon on wheels. On the occasions when I have ridden with him, I found myself contemplating death. Steve won't ride in the car with him at all anymore and has told him so. It's kind of sad because Grandpa likes to drive. He relishes it. He just scares the hell out of anyone riding with him. He is in his own world, and it shows.

 

 

 

(next)

Sharon buys weed from a stranger, and I get mad

 

I don't remember much of a story, just the bare bones. I was living here on Stonehedge with Sharon. We had been growing weed for several years and had quite a stockpile. Over my objections, Sharon decided to call one of those cannabis delivery guys to place an order for some dispensary quality weed.

"But we have tons of this stuff, honey," I protested. "Why would you want to insult me to my face by going to an outside source?"

"I'd like some fresh green, please," she told the person on the other end of the phone, answering my question while ignoring me at the same time.

That's about it. I woke up soon thereafter, unable to remember much else from the dream, the image of a jar of high quality pot and the sound Sharon's voice, the only scraps preserved in my memory banks.

Quarantined at Bob Orrick's

 

It was during the early part of the pandemic, and stay at home orders were being issued with the rapidity of an auctioneer MCing a game of musical chairs. One minute you were visiting relatives, and the next thing you knew, you were stuck there for 14 days with whatever random group of visitors happened to be there at the time. I was at my father-in-law's house in Paradise, when the music stopped and the edict crackled over the radio:

"Farn barnest, pononetrast, gom-dom, a tomma-tom tom, pen-om, pendeericast, penontium," the announcer's voice said in unintelligible Gibberish. Not even Pig-Latin, this was some kind of underwater adult-speak from the Peanut-verse. Being the only person over seventy, only Bob could understand what was being said.

"All person's regardless of age and/or religious affiliation are hereby ordered to remain in their current location for the next 14 days consecutively and without exception," Bob translated.

Well, that put a crimp in everyone's dinner plans. I guessed we'd be enduring Bob's veganism and repetitive dinner stories for the foreseeable future. We all looked around for things with which to busy ourselves as we settled in for the long haul.

Richard AC started cleaning the hallway walls with a dirty mop bucket containing red Kool-aid. His first couple of broad strokes with the mop left a bright red stripe in the white porous texture-coated paint. He left the scene, and I inspected the mess, cringing at what I knew was going to evoke a poor reaction from Bob. I found Richard AC in a side bedroom down the hall, sitting atop a shiny new John Deer lawn tractor.

"What were you thinking?" I asked him, as he fondled the controls. "Are you just going to sit there on your big boy tractor and wait for Bob to show up? You know what he's going to say, don't you? 'You know...'" I imitated the stern grandfatherly tone that always accompanied one of his lectures beginning with the phrase "you know." 

"Why don't you go back and look at it?" Richard said, nonplussed.  

I went and examined the area where the big red stripe had been and found that it was barely visible. Apparently, the Kool-Aid hadn't stained the stucco after all. It had an invisible ink-like quality and became colorless and transparent when fully dry. 

"Well, I'll be," I conceded. "I guess you saved yourself an hour long lecture after all."

----

That's about it, folks. Sorry, but you can blame the telemarketing industry for my rude awakening, and consequent poor recall of events.

Jealous me

 

I dreamed that Sharon had broken up with me, leaving me for another guy. I was jealous and couldn't let her go. I spent the whole dream stalking her and her new man, trying to weasel my way back into her life, but she wouldn't have it.

She was living in North Hollywood, in an apartment somewhere above the Sunset Strip. I had a motorcycle, and I would cruise the strip, hoping to catch a glimpse of her when she was out and about. Sometimes, I'd drive my chopper on the sidewalk, or on the wrong side of the road, looking in every store window or passing car for her face.

After a few months of searching, I finally caught up with her at her apartment. I couldn't see her, but I heard her voice coming from inside. Her new boyfriend was also there, and they were having a conversation about, of all things, me:

"He's just the wormiest guy," Sharon said, with an abrasive laugh. "I'm so glad I dumped him. He's not half the man that you are."

Intense jealousy and rage filled my body. I wanted to go in and confront her and her new boyfriend. I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound immature and petty. Sour grapes? No, those were the sweetest grapes I'd ever known. I just felt hurt, and I wanted her back. I thought that if I could just lay out the perfect argument, she'd come back to me. She had to. We had history.

It wasn't meant to be, however, and I spent the whole dream in a loop, repeating the process of searching for her, finding her and discovering that she'd moved on. I was heartbroken. 

----

I guess I've never gotten over losing Sharon. First, I lost her a couple of times in the beginning of our relationship, when she'd gotten cold feet and dumped me. I weaseled my way back into her life with love letters and a persistent presence at the periphery of her life. If she needed help building a barn, I was there, like a good manservant, expecting nothing, but (not so) secretly hoping for everything.

Patience and persistence paid off those first couple of times.  Once, when she stormed out of the house, declaring that it was over, and I ran down the street in my underwear, begging her to return, she laughed at the ridiculousness of it all and relented. I guess it's hard to resist that level of emotional commitment. 

When I lost her to MS, though, it was different. She was still with me, but it wasn't the Sharon I married. She'd become this incapacitated shell, full of anger and hostility, a bedridden, demanding tyrant. Or was she just reflecting my own emotions, the resentful, hateful caregiver, angry because life had taken away the joyful future we had planned? 

Deep inside, though, it was still Sharon. If I could have looked past my own selfish needs, I'd have seen the spark that still dwelt in her. Even up until the end, she'd grown immensely under the surface. Although the tree above ground, her external physical body, was dying, the root system was still intact, growing deeper and deeper, as her soul within her blossomed. 

If I could just go back and have a conversation with her, I know that she'd have words of wisdom that would help me beyond measure. She was blunt, and her simple advice was always so obvious that I routinely rejected it. But it was the soundest, most directly applicable self-help wisdom that I've ever encountered, before or since. 

I guess I am jealous if Sharon has moved on from me now, in the afterlife or whatever. The string of LEDs is dead. It had become a dangerous fire hazard. I don't know how it ever functioned for so long. All the little wires had become frayed and broken, and the LEDs were falling off onto the floor, leaving exposed wires dangling around. I unplugged it and took it down, but I can't bring myself to throw it away. It is still in my closet. 

Maybe I will take one or two of the LEDs and try to use them for some other application. The meters in my CB have become dark, and they could use a new set of LEDs to backlight them. I can't think of a more appropriate memorial, since the CB was where it all began with Sharon and I.

I meet Richard Ramirez in Walgreens Pharmacy, and Jose Anguiano takes the long way to work

I had another dream in which I was going to be brought back to work, in a limited capacity, at Yuba City Honda. Jose Anguiano, who by now was head of the parts department, was responsible for bringing me in. He rounded up a bunch of the guys, and we were all riding in a van together, getting high one last time before starting work. 

"Here," Ange said, "try this." He handed me a lighter and a shotglass filled with a fine powdery, greenish mixture. 

I was dubious, since I had no idea what was in the glass nor what I was supposed to do with it. He lit the lighter and began warming the bottom of the shotglass, cooking the contents until they turned the glass a dark brown. Smoke rose up from the glass, which he then inhaled, tipping the glass and tilting his head back as if he were taking a shot of whiskey. I thought he was smoking crack, and I wanted no part of it.

"Relax," he said, "it's just weed. I grew it myself."

"Come on, Spark. Don't be a big wuss," Sal Mendez, the senior Honda tech, goaded me from the front seat.

I was still dubious about the technique, and the color of the weed, which was really closer to gray than green, was a little off-putting. Ange explained that the shotglasses were less conspicuous than conventional pipes. You could drive around taking shots, he told me, without arousing suspicion from the cops. People did it all the time. As to the color, well, it just came out that way, but it wasn't moldy, he assured me. 

We went around a corner, and I spilled the contents of my shotglass on Ange's trouser leg. I scooped it back up and found that it had doubled in quantity. It now overflowed the glass. Ange just laughed. 

"That's a good sign," he said. "It means you are going to get super high."

I took the lighter and began warming the shot glass as he'd demonstrated, and that was all I remember of that van ride. 

Next, Anguiano and I were in line at Walgreens pharmacy, making a pit stop. We were casually browsing items near the back of the store when a young man who looked to be in his mid-twenties walked past us. I suddenly got a chill. The man was none other than Richard Ramirez, the 70s LA serial killer known as the Night Stalker, his signature curly hair and scowling, devilish facial features untouched by age.  

"Hey, you're Richard Ramirez!" Ange said to him, surprising me with his fearlessness and his knowledge of 70s crime trivia, both of which seemed unlikely for a millennial.

"I get that all the time," the Night Stalker replied, "because I AM Richard Ramirez! Bitches!" He flashed us the "Hail Satan" sign, made his purchase at the pharmacist's window and strode  past us, down the aisle and out the door.

Soon, Ange and I were back on the road, headed for work. This time Ange was driving, and I was alone in the back of his Jeep. We were traversing a very steep, treacherous mountain pass, a narrow one-lane road with a sheer rock wall on one side and the infinite abyss of a bottomless canyon on the other. The road was covered with a mixture of melted snow and ice, and the tires made a crinkly, sloshing sound as we made our descent. I wasn't happy with his choice of routes, and I told him so.

"This is the road we are going to die on," I said, terrified.

"No, it isn't," he said calmly, looking back at me as he proceeded down the hill, taking corners too fast on the icy, slushy pavement.

We reached the bottom, and he decided that this wasn't the way to work after all, and we had to go back up the way we came. The road was too narrow to turn around, so he backed up the hill in reverse. Looking over his shoulder, he grinned at me maniacally, driving in the same carefree, casual manner as he'd done on the way down.

Back in town, we were almost near the dealership. I was getting nervous about the time. I'd been due there by 9:00 AM, and it was now 10:30. I wondered if I could just round it out to an even eleven, and perhaps they'd overlook it. I grabbed a Pepsi from under the seat and cracked it open.

"You're going to drink THAT now?" Ange asked incredulously. After all we'd been through, the ice road, the weed shots and meeting a serial killer at the pharmacy, this was what he found shocking?

"You bet," I said. "I might as well make a complete fuck-up of my first day back at work." The effects of caffeine and weed are exponentially greater when taken concurrently, for me at least. We kept driving, but we never actually arrived at work. 

----

I woke up, having the compulsion to pee and to write this down, in that order. Now that I think about it, there was another tidbit from the night before that I may as well jot down:

I dreamed that my lady-friend Denise, had brought me a baby Christmas tree in a pot. We were in the horse pasture, looking for a place to plant it, somewhere on the east side of the property, when a giant wind came and whooshed the little tree away like a tumbleweed in a tornado. I went after it, but the wind was too strong. It picked me up off the ground and hurled me through the air like nothing. 

Fearful for my life, flying through the air with uprooted trees and pieces of wrecked homes swirling in a giant vortex that was possibly a mile wide or more, I soon woke up, panicked. Later that day, we decided to plant the tree in my front pasture. I know the difference between dreams and reality, but I wasn't going to take any chances.

I fall in the lake on a bike ride and get a job working at Darlene's bike shop

 

I dreamed I was out riding my bike along a path next to a lake. It was a deceptively treacherous narrow strip adjacent to the water, with loosely packed sand that would crumble off when you got to near to the edge. There was a four foot dropoff to a beach that was 3 feet wide made of extremely soft, plush sand. Naturally, I went off the ledge, and my bicycle and I sank into the quicksand up to the seat post.

I dismounted and quickly sank up to my chest in the soft sand. I somehow managed to get free, pulling myself horizontally across its surface. I grabbed the bike's handgrip, which was the only thing protruding out of the mire. Within seconds, I was back on my bike, pedaling along the beach, my bike and I both a sandy, soggy mess.

The sand appeared to be more stable now, but I soon fell into another trap, as I found myself being funneled into a steeper and steeper part of the shoreline. Above me, the ledge had grown taller, as the strip of beach got narrower and more slanted. I was unable to stay on the bike, and this time I went in the drink. 

My bike quickly sank into the incredibly deep water. I reached for the nearest thing I could find, a barstool, auspiciously placed just within my grasp on the sandy beach. I used the barstool as a flotation device and paddled back to shore. 

Bikeless, I walked to a nearby town, where I found part-time employment as a bicycle mechanic. The proprietor was an elderly woman, a kind of sinister version of Granny of the Beverly Hillbillies. She resembled Darlene Snell, a murderous drug dealer on the show Ozark. She had about 50 cats, and they were constantly underfoot in the crowded bike shop that was her home.

Since I didn't have a bike, I would borrow one of the store's bikes to ride home from work everyday. I tried to pick a different one each time, so as to minimize wear and tear. Some of the employees knew that I was borrowing the bikes, but the owner did not, and I wanted to keep it that way.

One of the bikes looked exactly like my alien green Stumpjumper, except that it had orange tires which kept changing color, depending on what kind of light they were in.  Looking at the tires in one light, they appeared all green, but in full sunlight they turned orange.

As I rode home, I thought my brain was playing tricks on me, like those internet pictures of a gold dress, which some people see as blue and vice versa.  The tires changed color so often that they appeared to be both colors simultaneously, with radial stripes that turned to a checkerboard pattern when you slowed down. 

Riding home was a treacherous affair. There was a criminal element to be avoided, people who would just as soon rob you of your bike and murder you as say hello. I managed to avoid them by keeping up my pace and never initiating eye contact.

One day after work, I was about to grab my favorite bike to pedal home when the owner caught me, and I had to explain my situation to the fearsome lady of the shop.

"You see, I--" I stammered, recounting my story, beginning with the lake incident where I'd lost my bike.

"No need to explain," she said. "My son lost a bike there once. I'm just glad I didn't lose a son." She was kinder than her appearance let on. "Why don't you take the station wagon?" she said. "It's raining outside, and there's a pistol in the car, in case you run into any thugs on your way home."

I gladly took the keys and thanked her. I promised to ride my own bike to work in the future. The distant future that is, I thought to myself, when I could afford to replace the bike I'd lost in the lake.