A bounty of dreams again last night. I again had one about being a Formula 1 driver. I’ve now had several in the past few weeks. In the previous ones, I was a fast up and comer. Last night, though, I was now champion. It was, look out, Alonso. Slide aside, LeClerc. Out of my way, Max and Lewis. I have arrived.
The dream was mostly a montage of me in a sleek F1 car slicing around tracks and taking checkered flags. At the end, I was congratulated on being World Driving Champion. I was then shown an image of my sick black cat; his tumors were gone. Then, I was given my prize: two cans of cat food to feed him.
I was quite ecstatic. My cat was better, I had food for him, and I’d won the WDC. Ah, the stuff of dreams…
As a young man in this dream, I was on team. We were competing against other teams to claim part of a mountain. The mountain was good sized, thick with forest and grassy, rising at a steep angle, with cliffs and sharp drop-offs on either side. Don’t know why claiming this mountain was being pursued. That was never mentioned.
All the teams managed to claim some of the mountain. Some had better parcels than others. My team was dissatisfied with their parcel and were inveigling the other teams to get more parcels or better parcels. I tried telling my team that more mountain was available. None paid attention to me so I trudged up the mountain on my own.
The weather had been cold but clear. Now, as I trudged, the environment turned dark and icy. I kept going up past where the others had claimed parcels and began claiming more for my team.
Some of my team caught up with me and wanted to know what I was doing. I explained it all, which delighted them. They were surprised because they didn’t know the mountain went on past the claimed parcels. The weather cleared as they looked at the new parcels I’d claimed. Two of the other teams tried coming up to get some but realized they were too late and that I’d already claimed the best. I then found a new cement four-lane highway came up to the parcels I’d claimed. When the rest saw what I’d found, they began celebrating.
It’s a gorgeous Sunday out there, pure blue sky and sunshine, the sort of day, in my working past, when we would leap up and say, “It’s a gorgeous day. Where should we go? What shall we do?” But today, we’re on our computers, in our books, in our chairs, in our office, reading, eating, communicating, writing.
The sun burst over the mountains at 7:19 AM and we’ll lose the sunshine at 5:32 late this afternoon. It only dropped to 38 degrees F last night and quickly reach fifty today, promising to, um, 70 degrees F. What? Can the weather service be right? Is this really mid-winter in Ashland, Oregon? Well, the record high, in 1992, was 72.
Today’s song trickled in as I thought about the landslide dream this morning. “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac was written by Stevie Nicks and released in 1975. Although covered well by The Smashing Pumpkins and the Dixie Chicks, I have connections to that original song. In ’75, I was nineteen, married, serving in the military without my wife in the Philippines. So when you’re sitting in your room after work at night, getting your uniform ready for work the next day, sipping some alcohol, listening to music, connections are created.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax and booster when you can. Time for a coffee break. Cheers
Today is Monday, January 24, 2022. Happy anniversary to you, if it’s your anniversary. Happy birthday, I wish you a lifetime of increasing joy and happiness.
The sun’s slow-mo chase, pushing night back as the earth did its spin, began in our valley at 7:32 AM. Night’s turn to chase day will begin at 5:15 PM as the spin takes the sun out of our sky one more time. Now 37 degrees F, it was 35 degrees, with a projected high of 62, making it pretty much a repetition of yesterday. Yet, the mild pleasant weather is a worry; yes, it’s nice, but we need the snow, WE NEED THE SNOW. Otherwise, it’s gonna be another hot, dry summer coping with wildfires and water rationing.
I experienced five dreams last night that I remember. I typically remember two to four. Normally two are sharp and the others are more like photos that aren’t in focus. This time, all five were sharp. Amusing to me. “You’re a busy head at night, aren’t you?” I told myself. I typically awaken — usually because a cat has done something — take care of the cat, recall the dream, think it over, and zip back to sleep. Last night remained SOP. Two of the dreams were military things, which, yawn, I wrote about without giving them much greater thought. I posted about the tornado dream, but also dismissed the two erotic dreams. Been having those more frequently. Weird to me because I’d think that’d be contrary to expectations, that I’d have fewer erotic dreams as I age instead of more. Something to add to the research list.
Today’s morning mental music stream song is “Found Out About You” by the Gin Blossoms from 1993. That song and Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way” were playing in my head after one of the erotic dreams, first one, and then the other. I asked my mind, “What exactly is going on in there? Are you doing drugs behind my back?” My mind assured me that it was not doing any drugs except a beer once in a while along with my daily caffeine. “Okay,” I replied, “but I have my eye on you.”
Here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the vaccine and boosts when you can. Gotta go get my mind its fix. Cheers
Another day arrived. Called Saturday, January 22, 2022, it was laden with promise and dread, hope and weariness, much like other days. Daylight broke around 7:33 AM. A narrow stretch of white clouds, like snakes spotted slithering away, caught the first eastern light, gray, pink, and silver. Frost huddles in shadows as the temperature hung around 32 degrees F. The temperature has since marched briskly up to 37. The sun counsels us, don’t worry, we’ll get to the mid-fifties today. Then the sun will slip away (about 5:13, they say), and we’ll head toward midnight and a fresh new day.
Sarah McLachlan’s 1997 song, “Building A Mystery”, is the mental music stream’s morning inhabitant. A dream dialed the song up. Dreams enriched my slumber all night. The song was the final component of one dream that involved my wife, me, nekkidness, and a search for clothing in another person’s house. The song’s enigmatic words about an individual — perhaps a fucked-up man, which often is used to describe moi — was a nice echo to the dream’s fading scenes and is a good choice for today’s theme music.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed (make it an N95, if possible), and get the vax and booster jabs. Now you wait here. I’ll fetch the coffee. Here’s something to soothe your psyche while you wait. Cheers
I have the Blues Traveler singing and playing in Wednesday’s morning mental music stream. I ask myself why this is so. It started with “Run Around” before drifting to “Hook” and finally, “Most Precarious” from 1997. It was a commuting song, you know? A tune heard on the radio while driving to or from work, or to go shopping. I lived in the SF Bay Area at that time, in a little town called Mountain View. I worked in Menlo Park, which was just a bounce up Highway 101. Traffic on that short trip usually ate forty-five minutes to an hour twice a day, morning and evening, so there was time for songs on the airwaves. Dreams, of course, took me to that time period on the git. A co-worker from the life era showed up in a dream. Makes me wonder what’s going on in their life. Googled them but nada was found.
Today is January 19, 2023. The sun’s promise of warmth and light broke into my reality at 7:35 AM. The sunlight will do its goodbye at 5:10 PM. Mild and dry weather still dominates us. The low was 41 F and the high will be about 55 F, depending upon where you sit in the valley, and how shadows enfold you. It is now 46 F.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask to meet needs, and receive the jabs as you can. Here’s my coffee, and here’s the music. Cheers
A white bearded man wearing a blue plaid shirt was chuckling with happiness. “I just learned that I have a best-selling novel.” He was carrying a dish and walking as he spoke. “For the hell of it, I checked to see if anyone else in town had a NYTimes bestseller, and there is. It’s a good thing I checked. What are the chances that a town as small as this would have two NYTimes best selling novelists?”
We, watching him, agreed, that was amazing. We were pleased for him because he was part of our little writing group.
He took the dish to a drawer. Pulling the drawer out revealed a faucet. Water gushed out when he opened it. As he laughed, asking, “How am I supposed to fill this with so much coming out?”
Then, in a startling shift, I was the man. I closed the faucet some and ducked the bowl under the stream and back out, filling it. Satisfied, I shut off the faucet and closed the drawer.
Idreamed I was with people who were preparing to monitor the results of an important experiment. We were high in a tall building. Part of it seemed to be lab but also living accommodations. I wasn’t part of the group and was envious, but hanging on the fringe, I’d become friends with several and a de facto insider. One young man who was part of the group had become a sort of mentor, explaining what was happening for me. He kept telling me, “You need to watch The Real Life. It’s the best documentary ever made, and it’ll explain all of this enough so that you’ll understand what’s going on.” He said this multiple times, in several different ways, and ordered me to repeat the title, “The Real Life”.
When I awoke and remembered the dream, I searched the net for such a documentary. Didn’t find it.
40 degrees F. Rainy and foggy. Snow still clings to the Earth. The sun is AWOL behind a gray cloud curtain. We’re on our way to a 47 degree high.
Good morning. Welcome to Monday, January 3, 2021.
Windstorm last night. Sounded like highspeed trains encircling us. One wind slapped the house side like Thor’s hammer. No apparent damages, though.
Sunrise: 7:40 AM. Sunset: 4:51 PM.
“Higher” by Creed (1999) is the morning mental music stream’s resident song. Ruminating about the night’s rations of dreams invited the song in. The song is about dreams, although I sometimes feels like a religious paean: “Can you take me higher? To a place where blind men see. Can you take me higher? To a place with golden streets.” It could be drugs, too, couldn’t it? But I thought I’d adopt it for this new year’s first Monday: can you take me higher? Keep climbing, you know?
Stay positive, test negative, wear masks and drink coffee as needed, and get the jabs. I’m off for my coffee now. You just sit and listen to the tune. Cheers
“Here comes the rain again, falling on my head like a memory.”
If today is Sunday, this must be December 12, 2021. The temperature is standing by 41 degrees F, right between the day’s respective highs and lows of 37 and 45. Sunshine grayed by heavy clouds slithered in at 7:30 AM. Sunset will be at 4:39 PM. Yes, it’s raining again, which we welcome. Snow is hopefully falling in the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas. We need that snow for the snowpack to build up so we can endure the summer. It’s our water source. One hundred inches of snow are projected in some higher mountain elevations, so there’s a chance we’ll get a respectable start on the snowpack.
It seems like a good library day. I have two books on hold — Harlem Shuffle and Fortune Favors the Dead — and I’m returning three — Find You First, Crossroads, and War of the Wolf. I admit that I didn’t finish Crossroads. Its style is just too busy and involved for me at this time, too contrary to what I’m writing. I’ve learned that a balance between what I’m writing and reading is best for progress.
I’ve had several resident songs in the morning mental music stream. Most were about rain or dreams. But one dream portion featured an old friend. He and I were stationed together at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa for four years. We were almost best friends while there, certainly constant companions, arriving and departing at the same time, and yet, we have never seen or spoken to one another since. He went to Omaha, Nebraska, and I went to South Carolina.
Music was one of the things that brought us together. We shared musical tastes. One song that was out at the time was “Come on, Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners (1982). It was an unusual song in many ways, but the song’s lyrics reminded my buddy of trying to pick up girls when he was in a local rock band in high school. Their band wasn’t very good and then he was drafted, and off to the war in southeast Asia.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, and get the jabs when you can. Here’s the music but I can’t find my coffee. It seems it’s wandered away again. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 