Imperfect knowledge.
Imperfect truths.
Imperfect understanding.
It was a perfect mess.
The Dream the Night Before Last
This dream comes from the bizarro files.
I was with my wife. We were on a military installation. Walking around as we did while we were young, we were checking out the clubs and exchange. We then decided to leave to explore other places.
Promises of rain shaded the clouds’ colors. We started walking across a broad asphalt expanse. Partway across, I realized I had to piss. Telling my wife that I’d catch up, I hurried to find a latrine but failed to get there in time and pissed my pants. I left the latrine with pissed pants but seeing how I looked in daylight, I decided I needed to go back, remove my pissed pants, and let them dry. So I did.
The latrine was crowded and busy. It wasn’t like a latrine so much as community room with latrines and showers to one side, vaguely reminiscent of an Army place I once visited. Music played from boom boxes. Others watched sat on sofas and chairs or were on beds, watching television. The walls were painted cinder block.
While I was taking all of this in, my pants disappeared. Discovering that, I figured they were stolen. Whoever took them left fluffy gray sweat pants in their place. I had to wear something, so I put those on. With them were Ugg boots. I guessed they went with the sweats, so I put them on, too.
Then I left, walking across the asphalt to find my wife. Naturally, seeing me in gray sweats with Uggs instead of jeans and my regular shoes, my wife wanted to know what happened. I explained in a long, round-about ramble.
And there the dream ended, with me bewildered in a parking lot, explaining myself on a cloudy, windy day.
Erotic Field of Dreams
Erotic dreams have been storming my nights. Last night’s was a doozy.
(Love the word, doozy. I think it originated with the Duesenberg, but I could be dreaming.)
It was all from a third person P.O.V., as if I watched through cameras. The dream picks up with me being at a place and this woman flirting with me. Dark of eyes and hair, voluptuous of lips and figure, she was tres provocative. The place seemed to be a residence where I was staying for a few days with others, for purposes that I don’t know. She was staying downstairs while the rest of us were being herded to upstairs rooms. Breaking off from the group, I stole back to her. She awaited me. That’s when the erotic part starts.
Afterward…
I was there to be a quarterback. This fact was expected. Instructions were given to me about where to go. I ended up in a well-lit building. Taller and younger than I am, I was dressed in a white tee shirt with gray sweat pants. Four other QBs were present. They were dressed the same. I recognized Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rogers. They each stood by themselves, throwing footballs to people I couldn’t see. I wanted to chat with them, but they were focused and intense. I started throwing the ball, too, ending up throwing at stationary and moving targets.
I did that for a while and then realized the others were watching me. We talked then in a sort of shorthand, with each of them visiting with me to tell me welcome, and then apologize for the hazing. One told me, “You’re one of us now.”
They left. I was alone, on a large field under bright lines. Exhilaration sizzled through me. I ran for a bit, and then threw the football more. The dream ended with me standing alone under bright lines.
I understood most of the dream, or assigned sufficient meanings that I can claim to understand them. It’s not that difficult. Most of us hope to be desired, wanted, and appreciated.
Chips
You ever think, wouldn’t it be cool if they could chip our minds so that they can be found and recovered when we lose them?
Book Find
Don’t you love it when you go into a book store, especially a used book store, for a specific book, and go right to the location and find it on the shelf within seconds of beginning to look?
Sweet feeling. Today’s target was The Darwin Elevator by Jason Bough. A friend recommended it as a fast, enjoyable read.
That Old Chestnut
Fun fact! Did you know that the expression, “That old chestnut,” originated with with Henry Chestnut? Henry was a pharmacist who liked telling comical tales about the way things were in his grandparents’ era, often exaggerating facts to absurd lengths. People in his town often passed on his stories, and the response on hearing them was often, “That old Chestnut,” usually with laughter. Eventually, Henry’s stories were published in a weekly column called, “That old Chestnut.”
The things you can learn on the Intertubes, right?
Drum Roll
Do you ever seem to wait literally forever (right, no hyperbole or exaggeration here) for something like pizza or an ATM delivering your cash, so you begin a drum roll, because it seems apropos?
No? Is it just me, then? Are you implying that I’m impatient?
Monday’s Theme Music
Streaming back via the Wayback Machine to 1971, I was reminded of a lot of music that I enjoyed. The Who, Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, The Doors, Jethro Tull, Yes, John Lennon, Elton John…a solid foundation of future classics were out that year. Against all those albums was a simple sound delivered by Bad Finger. Right off of Straight Up, here’s “Baby Blue”.
I admit, the album disappointed me a bit. It seemed too simple and a little derivative. Once again, my exposure, through an eight-track cassette on a continual loop, came via a friend. He played this album whenever he drove his father’s Ford 500. This was about two years after the album came out. I honestly think he only had three or four eight-tracks. He played this one so often, it developed all sorts of warble.
I still laugh thinking about it.
The Help Dream
I awoke from this dream scoffing at my subconscious mind. Yes, I saw its point, delivered through a dream, but I wasn’t buying into it. Not yet, at least. Maybe after more thinking…and dreaming.
This dream found me in a large and busy city. My mother, wife, and sister-in-law (my wife’s sister) were with me. We were discussing my writing and selling books. While showing me what they’d done, the female triumvirate was telling me that they’d taken my books’ sections and created covers for each one. As I was looking at the foot-high high stack and what seemed like twenty books about three quarters of an inch thick each, they (I don’t know which, as they were rotating between explanation duties) said, “And then we combined them in one big book.” They showed me how they’d done that. The final cover was a blank, slightly shiny, tin piece.
Ummm. I wasn’t appreciative. “Why?” I said, trying to look for other words. It wasn’t the sort of help I’d been looking for, and I didn’t know why they’d done it.
‘They’ continued explaining, “That way, people can take them apart and pass the books around.”
“How will that help?” I asked. “They’ll just buy one book, take it apart, and pass pieces around.”
“They’ve already bought two,” one of them said as people going by paused to look at the book.
I was shaking my head about the whole thing as the dream agenda shifted, with a change of scenery. Now located at Mom’s house (not any house that she’s ever lived in, BTW), in the basement, I’d come up with something. I don’t even know what it is now that I’m awake. In the dream, I called it a grill sometimes and a screen sometimes. It looked like a bed’s headboard, but none of us ever called it that. The others in the dream referred to it as a grill. I’d made them and painted them, and then added a saying. I’d done two like this. When I showed it to Mom and the other two, they were pleased and excited, going overboard with their enthusiasm. Could I make more? Of course, and I would.
Then they left me alone. I busied myself with other things. Mom came down to check on me. “You’re not making more sayings, are you?” she said. “We want to be there when you make more sayings.”
It exasperated me because she was hijacking my process and results, even though I’d done it for her (from what I understand). Plus, I preferred working alone. Always have. I was a bit short with her in my response.
Off I went to do other things. When I returned, Mom proudly announced that they’d been helping. She led me along to show me the result. They’d painted grills that I’d already made. The results looked terrible. The paint was sloppy and incomplete, but had many runs and was too thick in many places.
I was horrified. Yet, I knew that expressing that would hurt her feelings. I said, “Well, thank you, but I think some of that has to be redone.”
She was saying, “I know,” but was meanwhile leading me to where my nieces and nephews were hard at work painting more grills. I felt helpless in the face of such a proud effort to help. My wife and sister-in-law came by, endorsing what was being done while I stood in the middle and wondered how I was going to regain control.
