Tag: decisions

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Percoffeecatiated

Happy Mother’s Day in the U.S. Hope all you mothers enjoy of celebration and joy.

Today is Sunday May 12, 2024. Clouds without breaks occlude the sun in the Churchill Valley where the cities I’m visiting are located. It’s 50 F now. Weather elements will lift our temp to 65 F. That sullen winter taste in the air has melted away. We’ve returned to a cold, wet, spring essence.

My Mother’s Day mental perambulations are searches for how to help Mom. She’s tired, often in pain, fighting to moving and thinking, but everything tires her to deep levels. She wants and needs help. Finding it is now my mission.

There are agencies to help. They’re mired in bureaucracy. Nothing has an easy approach or quick timelines. Phone calls, emails, and chats will be the upcoming week’s norms.

Her own habits, experiences, and expectations are a significant obstacle. She expects to bounce back but the bounce is gone. She wants or needs, which I guess should be married as a word, waeds, to do the cleaning she has always done, to be hygienic and neat. These things take hours and hours. Her zip has diminished to a lumpy trundle.

Her decline has been going on a while, since ‘The Fall’. That seemed to trigger everything; she’s been fighting against its ripples for over a decade. Classic story, definitely in America, probably in many other countries as well. She confided to me last night that she fell hard five times in the first three days after returning home. That is no good.

The morning mental music stream (Trademark flailing) has a song called “Paralyzer” orbiting it. The Finger Eleven beats started my mental journey while I was still abed. My brain was gyrating around the things wanted and the things needed, and the destinations and journeys of all the players when the 2007 tune kicked in. It’s not an even matchup between the song and the morning, except I was dealing with a sense of paralysis and a resistance to moving. Then I told myself I’d treat me to a cuppa coffee if I left the bed, dressed, and started doing things. I’m a sucker for a promise of coffee.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward against the winds of resistance, and Vote Blue in 2024. The promise of coffee has been fulfilled. Here’s the music video.

Here we go. Cheers

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Two Dreams

My dreams of late have been numerous but mostly adventure stories which don’t seem to include me, with a few exceptions. Last night’s dreams were all about me. Two struck me as more interesting than the rest.

This one really intrigued me. A younger version of me was strolling through a hall. Passing brick walls, I could have been in a school, college, university, or museum. I was alone, though.

Mounted on the walls were hundreds of boxes. All were the same size, about eight by ten inches, two inches tall, with printing and a scene on the front. Wondering what they were, I slowed to examine them.

“Oh,” I said, speaking aloud as realizations came. “I see. Those are dreams I can chose. Very cool.”

Smiling, putting my hands in my pockets, I resumed strolling, looking at the boxes as I went by.

While the first dream featured only me, the second was busy with people. Most were strangers, even though several were purported to be co-workers.

Background: A former boss, Walter, was featured in the dream. I’d worked for him at my first startup after retiring. Walter was a nurse who’d become involved in starting medical device companies. He’d made a fortune with a device called the Rotablator last century. The startup where I worked for him in the 1990s was a medical device company manufacturing stents mounted on balloons for use in coronary angioplasty. We made our own balloons and stents and were searching for ways to used stents and/or balloons for treating some stenting side-effects with radiation. Fun time.

In last night’s dream, I again worked for Walter. He was trying to start another new business. The last one hadn’t worked. I went to him and asked, “Walter, what are we going to do?”

He replied, “Don’t worry, I have some things coming up.” (Typical Walter).

My desk was located outside, as was everyone else’s desk. We sat on black mental folding chairs. As I had no work, I just goofed around, playing little games.

Other people came to see me, along with a middle-aged woman with a sunny smile and a blonde beehive hair style. She told me she was either a regulator or inspector and was just coming to check on me to see if I was okay.

Walter then came around and told me to be on the watch for Jason. Jason was supposed to be arriving. I responding, “Who’s Jason? What’s he look like?”

“Jason is a friend,” Walter called back over a shoulder, going away again.

Looking for Jason, I went around the corner of a large cinder block and metal building. About a dozen people were there, milling about, busy with different activities and conversations. One came around the corner on the building’s other end.

Making my way to him, I introduced myself, and added, “You’re Jason, aren’t you?” As he replied yes, I finished, “Walter is waiting for you. Follow me.”

Dream end.

2

The Dad & I Dream

Don’t know my age when it started. Seemed like I was a young adult.

Dad and I were sharing a smallish but modern apartment. A winter storm howled outside, snow pummeling the world in unending shovelfuls. A general sense of disturbing chaos reigned.

I had a few cats. I was trying to feed them but they were running around, attacking each other, hiding. In the midst of this, in the living room by the stereo, I discovered a large window was broken. I stopped to check on it, inspecting it, confirming, because it was hard to tell, yes, a panel is gone. You’d think that’d be easy to see with snow falling, cold weather, a murdering wind, but it required earnest consideration of it for me to figure it out in the dream.

Yes, the window was broken. Several panes were missing or shattered, laying in pieces in a growing snowdrift. The cats tried to get out. As I lunged to pull them back, they retreated on their own, discouraged by the storm. Confusion seemed to paralyze me.

Dad came in, talking about a need to go somewhere, to get food, I think. Impatiently, he told me to hurry up. I was grabbing a cat, checking on the cats, looking at the broken windows. Concern over the stereo getting ruined rose up, so I moved components. Dad shouted at me to come on. I locked the cats in another room and followed Dad out. As we went, I was telling him, “Dad, there’s something you should know, there’s a window broken in the living room.”

It felt like it took some repetition of telling him this before what I was saying sank in. Then, he responded in alarm, “You should have told me this before.”

Next thing I knew, we were going back home because he was worried, and I was defensively trying to tell him that I’d been checking out the window, and I tried telling him but he wasn’t listening.

Then we were in the living room. The heater was running, hot air coming out of vents but snow dusted the floor and crusted the sofa, table, and chairs. Many things were turned over. Things were missing. The stereo and television were gone. We realized people had broken in; we realized, looking out the window, it was teenagers. They were running away with our stuff.

Dad said with bitter disappointment, “You didn’t do anything. You knew this had happened, and you didn’t do anything. Why didn’t you do anything?”

I was an adult now, and shocked. He was right; why didn’t I do something? Why didn’t I take action? I could have called someone to repair the window, or put up boards. I could have done something, but I didn’t.

Dream end.

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Invitations Dream

My wife and I were visiting a pop musician. Male, no one real but a dream personality. I didn’t know him but ended up spending time with him by his choice. He then invited me to go on tour with him.

I laughed. He told me he was serious. I protested that I didn’t know anything about touring, concerts, etc., but he didn’t care. He’d make a position for me, pay me, cover my expenses. He thought I’d contribute by talking to him and giving him feedback.

I shrugged and accepted. Nothing ventured, right. We’d be leaving next week. I was pleased.

It was a Friday. My wife and I traveled on to somewhere else as a weekend getaway. We ended up at an opulent, opulent resort. We were a little anxious about the price. I met a man, big and bluff, white, with a graying and thin short burr cut. He weighed over two hundred pounds and stood almost seven feet tall. A barrel-shaped man, he carried his weight well.

He and I began chatting. Turned out he owned the resort and was a wealthy entrepreneur. He was going away on a business trip. Wanted me to accompany him. He thought I’d add a lot to his attendance at the event. I disagreed, citing all the practical reasons why I shouldn’t go. He suggested that I think about it for a while and talk it over with my wife, taking us to a room.

Golden walls and golden pillows dominated this room. We knew it was specially designed for resting, with filtered air and heavy soundproofing. Despite large windows, which showed verdant valley and mountain scenery, outside sounds weren’t heard.

We sat on the pillows to talk but then I needed to pee. I jumped up to find a bathroom but started peeing without control. My pee was weirdly golden. I peed so much that we soon had a two pools with a lively little stream connecting them.

I panicked. “What am I going to do? My pee is everywhere. It’s ruining everything.” As I spoke, the golden pillows absorbed my pee.

My wife and I were a little freaked. What if that’s why the pillows were golden?

We left the room. The entrepreneur asked if I’d made a decision. I told him I’d love to go but I had a previous commitment next week. He replied that he’d have me back for the other trip and that wasn’t a problem.

Dream end

Note: Yes, I did get up and pee after I awoke – cat wanted in or out, you know…

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A Traveling Dream

The beginning was chaotic. My wife and I were younger people. She had a girlfriend staying with us, no one knew from RL. We also had a small brown puppy on a red leash, a very smart dog.

She and her friend were trying to start a business. As I wasn’t involved, the details are scant to me. I was busy fixing things around the house, working in bathroom pipes around the sink and tub, then dashing over to work on the computer, helping my wife and her friend with their computer and the printer. All the time, the puppy follows me around and I talk to you. My wife will sometimes say, “Oh, no, where is the puppy,” because the puppy isn’t where she left him. “Relax,” I answer, “he’s right here beside me.”

Wife makes a tentative decision. Someone is interested in their business but they have to go meet them, which is a five-hour drive away. Will I take her? We jockey back and forth in the conversation, we me explaining that I don’t want to stay overnight because we have the puppy and there are things I must do, followed up by asking her, are you staying the night? How long will you be there?

She’s anxious with excitement, indecisive and scattered, frustrating me. I finally force the issue: I’ll drive you up and then return tonight. I’ll be driving ten hours. A neighbor comes and takes the puppy.

Then we’re in a car on a highway. I’m driving. I’m in the right-hand land of this divided highway, behind a car. The car is slowing. There’s a motorcycle in the left-hand lane but they’re several hundred yards back. I want to change lanes but the car in front of me is suddenly slowing. Checking my driver-side mirror, I discover that the motorcycle has caught up. I accelerate a little, create space, and change lanes.

That lane is now also slowing by a tremendous amount. What’s going on? I wonder, trying to see what’s ahead. First, we’re no longer on concrete; we’re on a soft dirt path. There are construction signs. The road is being worked on. Everyone, including us, is on foot, following one another like we’re cars.

We’re slowing. Ahead is a vertical pipe. We must climb up that. I’m carrying all of my wife’s luggage plus some long, heavy metal thing. I realize that I’d need to climb without using my hands. My wife and her friend anxiously watch, waiting for my decision about what I’ll do.

I realize, nobody else is carrying anything. They left it in their vehicle. Why didn’t we do that? I intuit that the construction people will transport the cars up to the other end of the pipe. This infuriates me; why do we need to leave our car at all? Why can’t they just transport the cars with us in it?

“Come on,” I tell the others. “We’re going back to the car.” I figure that there must be another way.

We’re back in the car. I drive fast in the opposite direction. There’s a detour sign on my left. I turn the car that way even though my wife wants to stop and think it over. We’re suddenly at our destination. “I knew it,” I crow, pleased.

2

Three Dreams

Seduction, destruction, confusion, and security. Short summaries of sharply remembered dreams where I felt these things.

My first remembered dream from last night’s slumbering had me being seduced. This woman and I were traveling with others. All of us then got in bed together. She turned to me and told me that she wanted to have sex with me and moved her hands along my body. She said, she’d thought about it, and I deserved it. I was eager and ready but, hello, there are other people in the bed. She said that she’d spoken with them and that they’d agreed. As she said that, the other three left the bed. I kissed her and she reciprocated.

Dream censored.

Second in the dream line was about destruction being wrought by an evil baby head.

I found myself in an empty old Victorian style home. Going through the rooms, I discovered a huge black trunk in a room upstairs by a window. I opened it. Line with gray inside, its only contents was a smaller black bag which reminded me of a bowling ball bag. As soon as I opened the bag, a baby’s head floated out. White but mottled, it had no body, a constant leer, and thin hair, and was alive. Dread emanated from it, soaking me. I was immediately dispirited. I quickly found it had master telepathic control of others and telekinesis as it threw boulders with its mind and created slaves of other people. Understanding that it had no good intentions, I managed to get behind it while it wasn’t paying attention and get it into the trunk. Slamming the lid shut, I locked it but realized that I could still hear it in my head. I realized it had been in that other black bag to block its thoughts and powers.

I fled, trying to get distance from the baby head, driving along old and narrow country roads, going up a mountain. I soon found myself lost with a black spirit. The baby’s voice was diminished but I felt its presence. Leaving the car to look around and figure out where I was, I decided that I needed to go back and destroy the baby’s head.

End of dream.

Finally, I had a dream about a wealthy old man. White, he was quite old and thin, and favored a monocle, black silk top hat, and a black walking cane topped with a diamond. Suited in a black suit with morning coat, he wore a white bow tie and traveled about in an all-black ‘car’. This car was essentially several rooms, like a narrow black land yacht with a design out of the 1930s. As said, extremely wealthy, he was in charge of everything, he declared, and he didn’t any changes. Large, serious expression men in black suits provided constant security.

I, a young man, was with him in this cluttered and narrow beast of a car. He’d chosen me to write his biography, so I was there to listen to him tell his life story and give me his wisdom so that I could compile it all. Like him, I was dressed in a white shirt and black suit, but with a black tie. His aide, an older man, was dressed as I was.

I was enjoying myself as others brought me tea and pastries while we drove around the city in the mechanical beast. Observing everyone, distraction set in, and I entertained myself by figuring out how the old man could be abducted, and then created a story concept around it. Pleased, I shared that with the old man.

Well, he was outraged, shouting, “Balderdash, that could never happen.” Then he stormed out of that section and into the car’s rear. I knew that he was upset because I’d pointed out a security vulnerability. The elderly aide chastised me in gentle, polite tones for upsetting the old man, who the aide revered. I explained to the aide how I was right, showing and demonstrating the car’s vulnerability on which I based my story. His expression told me that he knew I was right. He went off to comfort his boss.

Dream end.

Yes, I see how black dominates these dreams, as does power and desire.

0

Letting Go

Arising early in accordance with planning, as tested a few times during the previous months, I walked up through the trees and brush. The false dawn was giving new light to see. I kept climbing until I reached a cleft below the hilltop. I’d scouted this location a dozen times. It still seemed like the best.

There was nothing auspicious about this day. I’d said my secret good-byes and did all that I could to prepare. It really didn’t seem like enough. There would probably never be enough. I was preparing to break so many laws. The life I’d known would be gone – if I did this. But wasn’t that why I was here?

Yes, I told myself. Yes, that’s why I was here. Carefully, I unpacked and set up.

I settled into a comfortable position to wait. Dawn’s warm arrival awoke me an hour later. 6:59, my watch told me. I’d overslept by fifteen minutes. Not a big deal. The slaves had not arrived.

The wind stayed calm as hoped. Sunshine’s heat soon had sweat bubbling out of me. It could also be nerves. I wiped my palms several times. They kept becoming wet. Gnats and flies began finding me. Large black and yellow bees buzzed my scalp.

Punctual, the slaves arrived at eight, announcing their entrance with soft chanting. They are such simple, happy people. That is the curse, though, isn’t it? I’m sure it is. Is it my right to make them otherwise?

They might not become otherwise. They could stay happy and simple. I didn’t believe that. Everyone freed of the curse becomes angry when they learn what’s been going on. How they’d be used. But, but, don’t they, didn’t they deserve to experience the full range of being human, even if it does piss them off? Others disagree, but I think, yes it does. Yes. Look at who I was and what I’d become. I would not have been up on a hill with a rifle a year ago. I’m here now to free others as I’d been freed.

All the slaves I’d seen before were present, giving no worries. I counted them every day as they went to the different fields and orchards. The races began by working together in small knots, just as they’d arrived, but then males and females separated, moving on to greet people in other groups. Soon couples and quartets were developed, laughing, whispering, joking, and complaining as they picked. Snatches of their talking poked at me as I stayed in wait. Finally, moved by the spirit to do the thing I’d planned, I repositioned myself and raised my rifle.

I remained hesitant. Worry’s last vestiges clung to me like cobwebs. But I’d shot others first, testing the magic bullets and the vaccine loaded in them. The slaves would suffer pain for a few minutes, but then they would be released. I was doing the right thing.

No, I wasn’t doing anything, yet.

I wanted to shoot as many as possible, of course. I counted on being accurate and silent. I’d practiced, practiced, practiced, always in furtive secrecy, protected by The Net. Forty-eight slaves were in the field. I hoped to shoot them all. I didn’t have confidence that was possible, but I would try.

The couple furthest from me, off by themselves in the northeastern corner, were targeted. Four hundred forty-two yards away, I found them in my scope, shifting my rifle with their movements until center mass was presented. Hesitation reigned for another fist of seconds, then two. Finally, almost as though my finger tired of waiting for me, it slipped onto the trigger and moved. The deed began.

The suppressor kept my work unnoticed for a bit. I worked from the northeast across the field, taking the farthest people down before moving back in the opposite direction, targeting closer slaves. Some noticed the others falling but couldn’t, wouldn’t, comprehend why. Their thinking was too stunted.

No, it was not the slaves who worried me.

Knowing they’d soon be on me, I quickened my firing. Fifteen were shot. Nineteen. Twenty-four.

A drone showed up on the horizon and began hovering.

Keeping to cover, I fired faster. Twenty-five, -six, -seven. The first woke slaves were standing, falling over again, woozy as the bullet’s magic worked and released them from their spells. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

The drone sped my way. I stood and raised a shoulder launcher into place. Its targeting system found the drone. Going green, the targeting system said, ‘beep’, and fired with a snug click. A yellow fireball took the drone’s place. Black smoke climbing, pieces showered down.

Taking a knee, I picked up the other rifle and resumed shooting slaves. Center mass was desired but by now, I was hastening to get whatever I could, telling myself, “Anything but a head shot, anything but a head shot.”

Lawnmower buzzing from above and behind told me of another drone’s arrival. Dropping one weapon, I went for the shoulder launcher.

Fumble.

The shoulder launcher slipped from my slick fingers. I lunged for it, trying to grab it and pull it in, bouncing the launcher into the air. Realizing it would go over the hillside, I stretched further.

Too much.

Flailing for a branch, I teetered on the edge of balance.

The drone’s sound changed.

Stopped, it was targeting me.

Feeling defenseless, I sucked in air and announced with suppressed desperation, “Here we go.”

I leaped over the ridge into the thickets below. Crashing through them, balance was lost. Branches raked my cheeks and stabbed at my eyes. My left ankle flared with sharp pain.

A small missile explosion marked my previous space with a deafening sound. Rocks and clods of dirt flew by. Twisting, fighting gravity, trying to protect myself, I fell and tumbled, rolled and bounced, grunting and grabbing as I went, finally snagging a branch with one hand. As momentum jerked to a stop, I hung on, sweating and gasping like a sprinter finishing their run, and looked down.

My heart quailed.

A thirty-foot drop was below me. Its spiked, rocky bottom offered bloody promises. If I’d gone over there….

Left of it was a man. Large, black, a former slave, one of the first who I’d shot. He’d gotten here so fast.

He stared at me. The shoulder launcher was in his hands.

The drone swept around to finish me off. “Shoot it,” I shouted, hoping he understood. Swinging, feet fighting with the earth as it fell away, I tried climbing the branch like a rope. Its smaller branches tore into my hands and interfered with my grip. I barely hung on.

Heat blasted out of the sky above me. The former slave had figured it out. He’d saved me.

I laughed for half a second at life’s absurdity. I would not be able to climb back up.

“Let go,” someone shouted from below. “We’ll catch you. Let go.”

Several were shouting that. I couldn’t see them. I had to trust them.

That’s what life is about, isn’t it, I rhetorically said to myself in an absurdly placid moment. Letting go.

Do it, I urged as they shouted from below. Do it, do it. One. Two.

Eyes closing, I let go.

4

The Dream, the Cat, the Boy

No people were visible in this dream. No bodies.

I never saw myself. I faced a wide and featureless brown plain. The sky was a striking crystal blue, like a clear sky seen opposite sunrise after the sun clears obstacles and takes the stage.

On the horizon were low brown mountains, the same color as the plain. A sense of dustiness was implied but no dust was ever seen.

Three objects equally spaced apart floated above the mountains. Outlined in jagged red, their interiors were hot white gold. Black letters scrolled within the white gold. I could see they were words but couldn’t read them.

A male guide was beside me; I never saw him. He said, “Those are your choices. You need to make a choice.”

Utter bewilderment on my side met this. “I don’t know what you mean. What are they?” Staring at them brought no elucidation. I half woke and thought of them. Drifting back into sleep, the scene returned, except I was much closer to the mountains and the three objects. They seemed larger to me. I still couldn’t read the words. The side boundaries were jagged but the top and bottom borders were smooth half-arcs. The guide mentioned choosing them. I replied, “Can’t I integrate them?” No answer.

I drifted from the dream toward consciousness, working on recalling what I’d seen and then returned to it. I was much closer. The objects were huge. Instead of being spread across the horizon, they were stacked. I said, “I think I can move them, but I don’t know what they are. I don’t know why I’d move them.”

The cat, Tucker brought me out of sleep. The dream stayed with me. Tucker did something he’d never done that I can recall. He laid down opposite me, his face facing mine, his head on a pillow. Purring, he stretched his front legs out, put his paws on my shoulder, and kneaded me. I drifted back to the dream. No changes manifested. The words kept scrolling, like the lines in a book. I still couldn’t read them.

That dream moved to my mind’s right side. The guide was with me but silent. On my mind’s left side, another dream arose. I was a young boy, sitting on the ground in a field of green weeds by a barbed wire fence. I clearly saw and knew it as me. The sun was rising to my right, and I turned and looked toward it.

I stirred myself into waking. Both dreams remained, one on the right, the other on the left, slowly receding. Both remain, faint and distant as galaxies in the sky, present on either side of my mind.

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