The Blemish Dream

Big, building. Warehouse or hanger. Don’t know. Not specified. Lot of other folks. Most are young or middle-aged. I’m young, late twenties. I’m working on a computer. Requires me to press F3 to enter data. I’m doing it, happily. Others are gathering. Most are strangers who introduce themselves to me. Many attractive young women. They take an interest in me.

Something is spilled on my shirt. No problem, I’ll change it. I take that one off to go find another one. A middle-aged woman interrupts me. She’s talking about mentoring me. I’m pleased. Two young women, crushing on me, come and sit by me. They’re very flirtatious. I enjoy the attention. Then, something subtly changes. They suddenly withdraw a little. I don’t know why.

A man my age comes along. He takes me aside. “Dude, you have a large blemish on your back.”

“I do?” I reach back, trying to feel it, twist around, stupidly attempting to see it. “Where is it? What is it?”

“I can show you. Come on.”

We walk. He’s talking as we go, trying to explain what the blemish is and where. I’m thinking, inflamed pimple or black head. He’s telling me, no, it’s not quite like that. Than what is it?

Others intercept us. He’s taken away for a moment but says he’ll be right back. Meanwhile, the mentor woman comes up. “You have a blemish on your back,” she says. “You need to put a shirt on and cover that up. It’s a distraction.”

Okay, but I want to know more about the blemish. “I can show you,” she answers.

We go off together to look. But then we’re separated. I turn around and she’s not there.

I decide that I need to pee. I head for the bathroom. It’s a cluttered place with a guard at the door. A friend is behind me. He tells me that I have a blemish on my back. I should put a shirt on. I answer, yes, I know. Head in to pee.

The ‘bathroom’ doesn’t resemble anything like a bathroom. Completely cluttered with junk. Looking around, I ask, “Where is the toilet?” I really need to pee by now. Finding a drain, I piss into it. Screw it. Like it’ll make a difference in that place.

I leave to go back to entering data. Two more friends approach and mention the blemish on my back, making it a total of five who mentioned it. The mentoring woman gathers us. As everyone goes to her, I slip off and find an oversized black tee-shirt. It’s been in my wardrobe but I’ve worn it. It a souvenir from somewhere, with writing on the front.

The mentoring woman tells the gathering to go to another area. I help lead the way because I understand where she indicated. We’re directed to a corner. I recognize it as the ‘bathroom’ location. That confuses me, but yes, the same guard is within, validating our identity and letting us pass. I’m surprised as anything. We’re going into the bathroom?

But, yes. In the bathroom is a tube with a ladder. We climb it and find ourselves in a dining hall of picnic tables. I find a table and sit. Another young woman comes over and asks if she can sit with me. The other two young woman witness this. They look jealous as the newcomer sits with me. She’s very touchy, patting my hand, my shoulder, letting her hand linger on me. Another woman joins me on my other side and starts flirting with me. I’m amused to be the center of so much attention, and a little uncomfortable.

The dream ends.

Saturday’s Theme Music

Welcome to a new, improved Saturday. Leaner, lighter, lower, stronger, faster, cleaner, more advanced, stays fresher longer, this Saturday is unlike any Saturday you’ve ever experienced. You must try it to believe it. It’s already changed tens of thousands of lives.

“Although I’ve only been awake for about three hours and I have a hangover badgering my brain like a berserk chipmunk, this Saturday has been unbelievable,” says Beverly Beaumont of Texas.

“I don’t think I’d make it to Sunday without this Saturday,” said William Pitt of Pennsylvania.

Duncan Heinz said, “Has to be one of my top seven days of the week.”

Continuing the warm spell again today. Forecasted high of 96 degrees F with a sunrise of 5:41 AM and a sunset coming on at 8:49 PM.

For the first time in recorded history, it is also July 10, 2021. Sip on your coffee and think of that.

Four songs are looping through my mental musical stream this day in history. On top of the list is “Brass in Pocket” by the Pretenders, 1979. Second is “Signs”. Then there’s “Resurrection Shuffle”.

Dreams called out Brass. “Signs” arrived because someone posted “Signs, signs, everywhere signs,” on Twitter yesterday. My pink gray matter summoned the Five Man Electrical Band rendition (1971), followed by the live Tesla version from 1990.

Last, though, came the “Resurrection Shuffle”. Although the lyrics and melody are fresh in the stream, looking up the performer and year was required, delivering the information, Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, 1971. As I never hear that anywhere, I decided this would be today’s tune. Hope you’re familiar with it.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as warranted, and get that vax. Don’t find yourself being mourned because you put off getting the vax for whatever reason. Don’t find yourself mourning others because you got sick and passed it on, and they didn’t survive. Stories of both those flavors are circulating with greater frequency. Get the vax. Here’s the tune. Cheers

Think about nothing now
You're nice and high
You're advocating love
But you don't know why
Now you getting vibrations
All down to your feet
That's the brow beatin'
Heavy leather resurrection beat

h/t Lyrics.com

Friday’s Theme Music

Happy Call of the Horizon Day! Call of the Horizon Day is held every year on July 9. In 2021, we find it on a Friday. Go find the horizon. For me, it’s going outside, onto the street, and looking north. There it is, defined by the beginning of the mountains that define our valley. Call of the Horizon Day is about renewal. It’s a refresher for resolutions and projects, plans and dreams. Look at that horizon and think, who am I? What do I want? Half the year is gone. When I look back on 2021, what do I want to see. Sort of a turn on beginning with the end in mind.

The end of daylight today comes at 8:49 PM. While it’s currently 66 degrees F, we expect a hot 99 high. If you’ve been out since sunrise at 5:43 and felt the sun’s heat thrust in our area, you know it’ll be a hot one. But the sky is free of wildfire smoke (knock on wood). As everything is crisping and vegetation is browning, locals (including this lad) are hoping our wildfire luck continues to hold.

Musically, I’m streaming “Mr Jones” by the Counting Crows, circa 1993. Yes, it’s dream related. Dreams were all about conversations being struck up. I dubbed it the conversation dream.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vax. Here’s the music. Cheers

Old Computer Dream

I’m at a work station. One those stands with a big tan CRT monitor on top, tower PC, keyboard on sliding tray. Something from the 1990s. Whole thing is just wide enough for the monitor. I’m one of many at such computer work stations. Large room. Wide and tall. I’m in the last row, on the end. Fourth one in line. This gives me space to my right. It’s open there and behind me.

Everyone is doing through thing. It’s a hubbub of clicking, clacking, talking, laughing. I’m doing my thing, reviewing files for a dead friend. The computer files on the screen on red. They fill the screen. When I print things out, the paper and folders are red. I suppose, when I’m wondering about the red while I’m dreaming, that the red is supposed to be symbolic of something. I don’t get it. Urgency? Warning? Don’t know. I’m also wondering why I’m going through folders about a dead guy. He’d been a friend but he died a while ago. My rational side intrudes: it’s your birthday. You’re sixty-five. Dead guy was a year older than you. Never lived to be sixty-five. Collect the dots.

Aha, dots probably collected. My wife is pestering me for specific information. This annoys me. She flits in to demand I look at something, sure that it’s important. I already looked and moved on while she wasn’t there. But she keeps coming back, asking to see specific files that I already read and closed.

Many others are behind me. Two women and a man are among them. The women are attractive. I gather that they’re foreigners. Maybe British and Scottish. They’re friends. I think one is with the guy. He seems American. He comes and goes. I keep catching snatches of the women’s conversation. They’re speaking of going someplace, doing something. I’m familiar with the areas and offer some unrequested advice, which they shun.

“Keep yourself to yourself,” I tell myself, sorting files on the computer. I’m testy with my wife as she comes and asks for information on a specific date and event. Without responding to her verbally, I search for the appropriate document, drilling down through information. She doesn’t realize what I’m doing and hectors me. I snap back with an explanation. She then goes away.

Meanwhile, the British and Scottish women have become friendlier. As if they sensed they rebuffed me and now want my friendship — or something — they step closer. I’m aware that they’re surreptitiously attempting to see what I’m doing. They make a subtle show of patting me on my shoulder, touching my arm.

It all confused and wearied me. I move off the dead man’s files. Why should I be involved with them? I find myself instead working on the files for another who worked for me. Investigating this person makes no more sense than checking the dead man’s files.

I understand it all when I awaken. The sense of dissatisfaction, frustration. The searching in myself for answers about directions and desires.

The Pizza Dream

To start off, I’m at home with Mom, working on some project. She’s young — thirties — I’m young — twenties. Others are present. I’m working on a project. Bustling about (typical Mom style), speaking with others, Mom doesn’t wholly approve. She’s saying I’ve already done too much of that. She doesn’t want any more. I’m laughing her off because I don’t think she understands what I’m doing and doesn’t want to know. I’ve decided I’ll continue in secret and surprise her with the results.

As that’s underway, I’m also given pills to take. These are pale white capsules. Eschewing taking them, I secret them in a drawer. In there, I discover I have a cache of red capsules and blue capsules that I refused to take. It’s quite a collection. I close the drawer before others notice.

I then work on my project. I’m collecting information from the net. I’ve found a great deal that I like. They’re giving me ideas about what to do and how to do it. I collect ideas with enthusiasm, sticking them into the same drawer as the pills, not letting others see.

Food is being served. Pizza! I dislike the pizza being served and mock it. A friend and I go off for a walk. We’re walking through a very busy city, following sidewalks, crossing streets heavy with vehicular traffic, crossing railroad tracks, following traffic-light guidance, talking as we go. My friend is holding a wedge of pizza as we walk and talk. He finally tells me that he’s holding onto it for me. “As you didn’t like the other pizza offered, I thought I’d give you this one to try. It’s very good.”

I’m disinclined to eat more pizza at that point. He keeps on as we’re walking. I finally accept it and take a bite, complaining that it’s cold as I do. The pizza is alright. Nothing I’m not wowed by it, he brings out another piece. “Different pizza,” he says, offering it to me. I’m wondering, “Where are you getting these pizzas?” I’m looking around him, amused, trying to see if there’s a pizza truck or something beside him. He, amused, is evasive, refusing to say, but repeating, “It’s my mission to bring you pizza until you find one you like.”

I’m laughing at that. “What a mission. How’d you get roped into that role?”

“I volunteered,” he replied. “I wanted it.”

We’ve been crossing streets as we speak, careful of the traffic. Now we reach a chain-link fence abutting a white cement sidewalk and stop. The sidewalk looks fresh and new. In fact, that’s the general impression of everything that I see. It’s a bright, sunny day. I’ve been enjoying the walk. We’re both holding a slice of pizza. I take a bite of mine and ask, looking around, “Which direction do we go?”

Dream end.

The Mt Tam Dream

Mount Tam, full name, Mount Tamalpais, is part of the Marin Hills. Twenty-six hundred feet high, it won’t awe with its rise about the land the way that Mounts Hood and Shasta do, or McLaughlin. I knew abut it from living in the SF Bay area and Peninsula for fourteen years. We’d read about it, and visited twice, maybe three times, during our local explorations.

Didn’t stop me from dreaming about it. First came name confusion. I was being told to go to Mt. Tam. Mt. Tam? Yes, Mt. Tam. We exercised some Laurel & Hardy exchanges about what was being said. I’d quickly reached the point where I understood that I was being told to go to Mt. Tam. My point, which I struggled to convey with little humor, was, why do I need to go to Mt. Tam? But they — the unseen folks I was speaking to, but who sounded and seemed male — were fixated on ensuring that I understood the place’s name without clarifying why going there was important. The back and forth eventually felt as painful as a bad tooth.

They gradually led me to believe there is something in Mt. Tam, the something never being explained, continuing my stretch of exasperation. I’m supposed to go to Mt. Tam to get something that’s there that I’ll know what it is when I get there. Seems significantly vague.

Then, going over the dream, I wonder, was Mt. Tam a literal destination being directed to me from my dream masters or a metaphor for matters churning through my subconscious? Bonus discussion points, for me, anyway: how much of this dream was influenced by The Overstory, as I’m currently reading that. For that matter, how much is generated from wrestling with the novel in progress?

The Friends Dream

This is not about the television series. This dream was about Mary & Bruce, names given to them for this dream. May worked for me. I met Bruce through others. He and I became good friends. He and Mary married.

Bruce has died in the dream. I just found out about it. He’s such a wonderful person, I’m completely shocked by his passing.

Mary has become a VIP. I want to see her to learn about Bruce’s death. In parallel, I’m told by another that Mary got him a good deal on a Jeep. I decide that I’d like to try to get a good deal when I see Mary to learn about Bruce’s death.

I call her office. There’s a little verbal altercation between me and her assistant. They don’t know who I am. Mary is a VIP with a heavy schedule. I’d like to see her. Mary comes on the line and tells me, “Of course I’ll see you, Sergeant Seidel,” just like we’re still in the service and she’s working for me. “I’ll make time.”

I go to her via a traveling montage. Arriving, I learn that Mary is struggling to get some photographs developed. I look for and find the photographs. They’re of her and Bruce and their children while on vacation. There’s also some photographs of symbols on walls. I understand that photographing them is forbidden. This is why the photos aren’t developing right. But I still believe I can fix them.

Mary and I met and walk along outside. She’s lovely as ever. Yes, she can get me a car discount, she tells me. We don’t really talk about Bruce’s death, just that he abruptly passed away. She misses him but she’s okay.

She has to return to work. I walk with her. We come across a man. He’s a VP who works for Mary. He’s tried to develop the photographs and couldn’t do it. I tell Mary that I want to try. She agrees. Tells me to take the photographs and see what I can do, but she wants them back. I agree. I’m wearing a leather jacket and slip them inside. Then I get on a motorcyle and ride away.

Dream end.

The Assistant Dream

I was walking alone through an empty school. While not recognized by my mind while awake, I knew it in the dream. I encountered other people. They began congratulating me. “Looks like you were selected. Congratulations.”

“For what?” I asked back, shaking hands. Well, people told me, they were sending an assistant out to help one lucky person, and you won. It was announced today.

Surprised and happy, I was inclined to turn it down. “I don’t need an assistant, thanks.” Apparently, it wasn’t optional.

I went on my way. A woman accosted me. She held hands with one child. Several others were with her. “I heard about you and I wanted to meet you,” she said.

Hi, nice to meet you, I answered back, inquiring about who she was. Turns out she was a friend’s wife. Those were her children. Well, it was nice to meet them all, I said, shaking hands all around. Pleasantries were paraded out, then she took her children and led them away while I continued through the school.

I entered the gymnasium. Another woman with children was there, saying very similar things as the first, about wanting to meet me. I inquired more, why did she want to meet me? Well, she’d heard about me from her husband. It dawned on me that I didn’t know my friends’ families, and that those families were making an effort to change that. After chatting with her, I sat at a table, where another wife and family approached, talking about wanting to meet me. Meanwhile, my assistant, a tall, beautiful woman, arrived in the gym. She was famous and I recognized her. While she approached, I was still talking to a woman introducing her family.

The assistant arrived at the table. Excusing myself for a moment, I broke off my conversation to address the assistant. I told her, while flattered, I thought others required an assistant more than I did, so I was turning her services down. She answered that I didn’t have a choice, that she would be with me for a while, which was where the dream ended.

The New Clothing Dream

A friend and I were staying with a gay couple. I seemed to be in my early twenties. The couple lived in a city apartment a few floors up. A big city, the place was busy and noisy. I was there to get rid of my old clothing, and then I was taking a trip to get new clothing. We were flying out for that purpose the next day. Meanwhile, my buddy wanted us to go out on the town before leaving. Parallel to this, our hosts were throwing a party (unrelated to our visit). They’d also received a new table and were putting it together.

As I’d chosen to get rid of my old clothes except what I was wearing and what I was traveling in the next day, I decided to find something to wear from the clothes I was getting rid of to wear out on the town. It should be something festive. I found an old pale yellow shirt with a red parrot embroidered on the left chest, a shirt I haven’t owned in over thirty years.

I paused while dressing to watch them trying to put the new table together. It wasn’t going well. They thought parts were missing and were calling the manufacturer for help. I thought that I would be doing it differently, as they seemed disorganized, but I believed part of the issue was that they already had too many people involved, so I remained uninvolved.

My friend was urging me to hurry up. It was night, and the night was calling him. He was wearing jeans and a maroon puffy jacket. I was only in a shirt. “Is it cold out? Do I need a jacket?” Without awaiting an answer, I went into my old clothes for a jacket. I pulled it on, but then decided it was too heavy and replaced with a lighter jacket, an old black “Members Only” jacket I used to have. I then worried, maybe I should change shirts because the parrot was no longer seen. But I left it at that. He and I scampered down the steps and into the brightly-lit night to have fun.

The Ice Cream Dream

I was terribly sick in a dream. Not at first, though. First, ice cream chaos reigned. Ice cream was due to be served to people but supply issues and disorganization plagued the effort. Growing urgently angry, I stepped in to straighten everything out. The ice cream were mostly in little sealed cups. Varieties of flavors abounded. I tasted several before stepping in to fix the issues, and the ice creams were creamy and tasty. I felt I needed to step in because the incompetence on display insulted my sensibilities. Ice cream was being dropped everywhere. Melting. People were going without ice cream. That shouldn’t be, I thought. We have so much ice cream. Too much ice cream is being wasted.

I began organizing pods of people. Some were collecting the ice cream and taking them to marshaling points. Others were handing the ice cream out. Yet, people kept failing at their duties. Despite my efforts, the situation seemed as worse. I worked harder, faster, more demanding. Still no respite from the shortages and errors. The head honcho came down wanting to know the situation. I tried smoothing things over. He believed and accepted. Then he told me, “A little girl is at the front, Piper. Make sure she gets an ice cream.”

Right. I’d get right on that. I plunged my hands into a tub of ice cream cups. OMG, they were all warm. They’d all been opened, too. WTF! The honcho came back, shouting, “Where’s the ice cream for Piper?” “I’m on it,” I shouted back, then cursed, shouting, “All these ice creams have been opened. Why were they opened? Find me one that hasn’t been opened and take it up front to Piper.”

At that moment is when I began feeling sick. I rushed to a toilet, yanking my shorts down as I went. Too late; crap spilled out everywhere. The honcho came back and saw. “Oh, my, let me get someone to clean you up.” I replied, “We’re still looking for ice cream for Piper.”

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