Dreams of the Times

First, in a response to the current situation, I dreamed that I opened a cupboard in the house and found an opened package of toilet paper. Toiler paper, as you probably know, is one of the most sought commodities in America in the age of the coronavirus. In the dream, I found an opened twelve pack and laughed as I saw it, remembering that we’d had so many rolls of toilet paper that we’d put some in another cupboard. One roll was gone. I told my wife I’d found it and then put it in the proper cupboard, which, in the dream, accurately reflected our current TPSIT. That whole thing amused me; we’d not stocked additional toilet paper. Fascinating how my mind seemed to gloam onto the tp as emblematic of current thinking and trends.

The next dream segment remembered featured me in a car, which is one of my standard dream features (I dream of being in a car, finding a car, or driving a car a great deal). Sometimes in this dream, I was driving, but sometimes I was a passenger. This changed without reasoning that I could discern. It never bothered me in the dream, and I didn’t think about the other drivers. It didn’t seem to matter to me. I was preoccupied with other things, mostly music.

I had a tiny flesh-colored plug in me. It fit into my upper arm by my shoulder, where you’d typically get a vaccine. I could access it through my clothes. Post-dreaming reflection showed that I was completely oblivious to doing this in the dream; it was normal.

The plug had a tiny flesh-colored line, thin as a spider web, attached to it. Removing the plug from my arm, I’d stick it in my ear and hear music. This process absorbed me. After a while, I began understanding that the music was originating somewhere outside of my body. My body was picking it up as if it was an antenna and then playing it in my head.

Then I figured out (with a lot of surprise) that the music that I was attracting and playing was being amplified out to millions of people. As I assimilated this in the dream, I understood that it was part of a position that I’d been given as some sort of keeper. I completely understood it and it made sense in the dream.

I rotated this responsibility with another man. Older than me, he went through the same process of discovering as I’d endured. As he did, I watched him. Seeing his reaction, I guessed what was going through his head and then told him about what I thought it was. He nodded, beginning to understand what I was saying.

That took place in a car. It seemed like an huge car. Dozens of people were in the car with me, but there was so much room, I could easily walk around it, going from window to window or seat to seat. I’d been driving, but now I was somewhere toward the back of the car when we stopped for gas.

When we stopped for gas, we discovered pieces had fallen off the car. I began looking for and finding irregular chunks of metal. Applying them to the car, I started repairing it. I told others what I was doing so they could do it, too. They ignored me, so I worked alone, finding metal and fixing the car.

I ended up going off by myself in another car. I was driving now, taking a small car up a winding mountain highway. Night was falling. Missing a curve, the car crashed through the white guardrail and fell thousands of feet down into a dark bay.

The car hit the water and immediately dropped toward the bottom, passing quickly through fathoms of water. Unfazed by what was happening, even feeling a little amused, I exited the car and swam up through the light grey-green water until I broke the surface.

It was night. The combined events, crashing and swimming, had taken me a long way from where I’d gone off the road. Using searchlights, others were looking for me way over in another area. Bobbing around in the dark water, I waved my arms and called them, but no one saw or heard. Giving that up, I swam a long distance to the shore and left the water.

They were still looking for me. I could see them but they didn’t know where I was. Exasperated and drenched, I began walking along a road toward them. I guesstimated them to be miles away. Accepting that, I increased my pace.

The dream ended.

Floof Against the Machine

Floof Against the Machine (FATM) (floofintion) – Heavy metal, anti-authoritarian floof band formed in Floof Angeles, California, known for songs which call for revolution and change.

In use: “Floof Against the Machine contributed songs to several movies, including Floofzilla, a reboot of the movie franchise about a giant creature wrecking havoc on New Floof City.”

Friday’s Theme Music

Social distancing has been around for a while. Why, The Offspring were singing ’bout it way back in the last century, circa 1994. “Come Out and Play” was partially about keepin’ separated — there’s always a reason, it’s just the logic that’s different. As they noted in their lyrics, learn from your mistakes (I’m interpreting) or you’re gonna repeat them.

It goes down the same as the thousand before
No one’s getting smarter no one’s learning the score
Your never-ending spree of death and violence, and hate
Is gonna tie your own rope, tie your own rope, tie your own

Hey man you talkin’ back to me?
Take him out
You gotta keep ’em separated

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Yeah, some folk are gonna tie their own rope. (“This virus is a hoax,” “…a political stunt,” or, “Way overblown.”)

You gotta keep ’em separated.

Floofnyrd Skynyrd

Floofnyrd Skynyrd (floofinition) – An American southern rock floof band known for bluesy power ballads, active beginning in the late sixties.

In use: “One of Floofnyrd Skynyrd’s most popular songs, “Free Dog”, about a young retriever getting out of its yard and running around the neighborhood, is one of the longest floof songs ever recorded for commercial release.”

Thursday’s Theme Music

We’re self-isolating, practicing social distancing. Yeah, this isn’t because I’ve sworn off people (“I’ve had it with you damn people!” he yelled in dramatic fashion, shaking a fist as he did), but because the gov’t. is following epidemiologists’ advice, trying to flatten the curve by slowing COVID-19’s spread.

Thinking about going for a walk through the neighboring streets and hills, having coffee (in my house), or doing yard work, the Clash’s punk-rock classic, the rockin’, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” 1982. I imagine many people have pondered this the last few days – should I stay or go to the store, etc.

It struck me as a humorous choice, and a rockin’ one.

 

Pink Floof

Pink Floof (floofinition) – British hard rock/progressive musical group formed in the late 1960s.

In use: “Two of Pink Floof’s best-known songs are “Dark Side of the Floof” and “Is Your Lap Comfortably Numb”, songs released in the early to mid-1970s.”

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Hope you’re all doing well out there in netlandia.

I thought today, being Wednesday in the era of the coronavirus pandemic, would be a good day for something lighter and sillier. While several songs leaped into mind, one leaped higher (and was accompanied by strange noises).

Here’s “Rock Lobster” by the B-52’s, 1978. Feel free to dance in the safety of your own place, maintaining a safe distance from others.

That is all.

Monday’s Theme Music

Read a WSJ/NBC poll results. Posted today, the poll was conducted during 11 – 13 March 2019. It was about the coronavirus. The surprising results weren’t about support for the POTUS (not much changed there). No, more surprising was that most polled, particularly Republicans, didn’t think COVID-19 would have a major impact on their lives.

The poll was conducted as the NBA was shuttering the season for a while. The POTUS mad a speech that Wednesday and the stock exchanges showed a brief rebound. Since then…well, the news speaks for itself about what’s been shut down. It’s easier to list what isn’t shut down or impacted by the coronavirus. I guess it isn’t a surprise, then, as the POTUS has previously denounced COVID-19 as a hoax, or overblown as fake news by the media. Fox News happily supported those points for a while.

I then read another commentary on Italy’s situation (over twenty-five thousand cases now, and twenty-one hundred deaths). Then came an article that the U.S. (with over four thousand cases today) is where Italy was two weeks ago.

Finally, I read about Patient 31. She’s a woman in South Korea who carried on life as usual, attending church, eating at a lunch buffet, and working through a fever, a carrier who didn’t go and get tested, a woman now identified with a spike in South Korea’s coronavirus cases, a woman now considered a super-carrier.

Then I thought back to all the Americans who plan to continue business as usual, just as Patient 31 did.

From that came an old Bob Seger melody, “American Storm” (1986). Seger’s song was about a different epidemic, the increasing use of cocaine. But all the warning signs were ignored, and it spread. Feels like another song, about another storm, is due.

 

Pearl Floof

Pearl Floof (floofinition) – American floof band noted for its flunge style of music and dress, formed in the Floofattle area in 1990.

In use: “Pearl Floof originally called themselves Floof Jam, but when a promoter accidentally called them Pearl Floof (confusing them with the human band, Pearl Jam), the band decided to keep the error as the band’s name.”

Sunday’s Theme Music

Well, from sometime yesterday, out walking in the hills, admiring the sunset’s effects on the northern mountains, came some lines from the Styx song, “The Best of Times” (1981).

The headlines read, “These are the worst of times”
I do believe it’s true
I feel so helpless like a boat against the tide
I wish the summer winds could bring back paradise

h/t to Genius.com

Yes, the helplessness and frustration that seems to permeate so much of life sometimes can make it seem like the worse of times. It’s not for me, of course, but stress, and that sense, comes from that lack of control and the inability to steer things, to be able to take action and change the course before we wreck.

I’m sure most of us have experienced it at least once in a lifetime, where we said, “I know where this is going, and you’re not going to like it.” Then it happens, and all the misery you predicted comes to pass and others ask, “Who could have seen this was going to happen?”

Well, hell, many of us do see these things, but we’re ignored. We don’t get used to that; it’s just frustrating.

Then it all passes, and the courses that you thought should have been taken are, and things go great for a while.

No, I’m not a master prognosticator. I just color my memories with the best of times.

 

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