I live on Clay Street. Diane Street is three blocks away. It’s to the north, so it’s ‘up north’. But it’s at a lower elevation, so it’s ‘down the road.’ I pretty comfortably hold these two ideas in mind, even though they might appear to be at odds with one another. I suspect that this is why so many of The Neurons are packing up and abandoning me.
Adventures in a Ferrari Testarossa: A Dream Journey
I am driving a Ferrari Testarossa roadster.
Ferrari red, it’s a wide, low vehicle. My wife is my passenger. We’re backing out of a garage. The passenger mirror hits the garage door frame. My wife gasps. I grimace. We finish leaving the garage and see that there is a Ferrari Testarossa mirror-shaped scallop removed from the garage door’s frame. I get out and check the mirror while my wife grumbles. The mirror is there but is upside down. A twist and I fix it, good as new. Nothing wrong with it, which amuses me; the mirror is stronger than the materials bracing the garage door. How funny is that?
We drive for a while at a fast but sedate pace. Then…in a jumbled shift, I’ve driven the Ferrari onto some kind of large transport. It’s like a train without a track, with a living room, kitchen, etc., and the mad chaos of eighteen people, including children. Many of the others there are known to me as actors and musicians, Oscar winners and Hall of Fame rockers. I’m amazed to be with them but also think, “About time.” A young blond Helen Hunt is present, herding three children running around. She’s managing but tells her children with a wicked smile and a gleam at me, “Hang on, children, Mommy has to drive this as fast as she can. It’s going to be hairy. Do you want Mommy to drive fast?”
“Yes,” the children all agree in repeated shouts while I’m agape, accepting, this is what I signed up for but I didn’t know what I was signing up for.
“Okay,” Helen Hunt says, “here we go.” She has a wooden stirring spoon her hand and is standing in the center of a room, children around her, toys strewn across the carpeted room. “Zoom,” she shouts, and thrusts her wooden spoon up.
The vehicle rockets forward. She waves her spoon and it rocks left, right, left. The children are laughing. I’m paralyzed in amazement. But we’re moving.
A conference among others is called and I attend. “Where are we going?” David Niven asks. “We’ll know when we’ll get there,” replies Bruce Willis, and a third who I couldn’t name tags on, “But we have to move fast.”
I offer to drive my Ferrari. It’s faster than this vehicle, so I can pull it along and we’ll get there faster. This is given serious conversation. I’m eager to do this but all decide, hold off for a while, let’s see what progress we make.
I go into another room and sit in a chair. A noise warns me, something is going out. “That’ll bring the ants out,” I think, looking down at the floor. Sure enough, as expected, a phalanx of black and red ants rush across the tiled floor. They’re going to be a bother if they go in the direction they’ve begun so I use a foot to divert their path. More obediently than cats, they turn in the new direction, and some wave thanks to me, because they understand why I diverted them.
David Niven finds me. “There you are. Come on, into the Ferrari. We need more speed. See what you can do.”
In a dream shift, I’m in the Ferrari but I’m alone. Others are hooking up the vessel and then shout, “Go.” The Ferrari is now black, I notice, and wonder when the color changed. Yet, I know it’s my Ferrari. I smashed the gas pedal and take the car up through revs, up through gears, snaking the car around traffic along an undulating and busy Interstate. Looking back, I confirm the vehicle is still being towed. I’m impressed that there’s no wind and little impression of speed. I feel in command, in control. This is a breeze, I think, speeding toward some brightly lit collection of skyscrapers looming larger on the horizon.
Dream ends.
Life in Trump’s Alternative World
My wife and I climbed into the car. I started the engine. After over revving it, I began driving in reverse. My wife asked, “Why are we in reverse?”
“Everyone says that you get better mileage in reverse.” I swung the transmission into drive. “Now I think I’ll go this way.” I turned on the windshield wipers.
My wife peered into the sunlit blue sky. “Why are the windshield wipers on?”
“We need gas,” I declared. “We don’t have enough money for a full tank.”
“I’m starving,” my wife replied. “I thought we were going out for dinner. Where can we get something to eat?”
“We don’t have money for food. Just hold on.” I pulled into a miniature golf course. “I think I’ll play a game.”
My wife objected, “I didn’t think we have the money.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get more money.”
I went in and paid for the game. Before teeing off, I went back to the car. Jumping in, we drove off.
My wife looked around in puzzlement. “Where are we going?”
“Straight ahead.”
“This is the opposite direction of where we were going.”
“Don’t worry, I’m taking a short cut.”
“What happened to your miniature golf game?”
“I played it. Set a new record. I was stripes.”
“But you weren’t gone five minutes.”
“I know. It was the fastest golf game ever. I scored more points than anyone in the game’s history.” I steered the car into the path of oncoming traffic. “They were amazed. Said they’d never seen anyone play like that. They’re giving me a special golfing medal.”
A truck almost hit us. My wife screamed. “Get on the right side of the road. What is wrong with you?”
“Don’t worry,” I replied, “they’ll get out of our way.”
The car’s engine coughed and sputtered.
“What’s wrong with the car?” my wife asked.
“I think it’s the wind,” I answered, throwing open the door.
My wife gasped. “What are you doing? The car’s still moving. You’re going to get yourself killed.” Leaning across, she grabbed the wheel and began steering.
After turning on the radio, I leaped out of the car and rolled across a lane. A car screeched to a halt, almost hitting me. Leaving their car and coming toward me, the driver said, “Oh my God, I almost hit you. What’s going on? Are you alright?”
Beaming, I took off my shirt. “Aren’t I ripped?” I nodded toward my car as my wife managed to steer and stop it. “It’s my wife. She made me do it. She’s crazy. Doesn’t know a thing about flying. She shouldn’t be allowed near a boat.”
Stepping in front of a car, I waved my arms. “Help, help. Call the police. This guy’s trying to kill me.”
The Travel Dream
I was traveling on a large boat. It almost seemed like an enormous barge. Rusted and worn with use, it was safe but old, tired, and without comfort. It was also packed with fellow travelers. Most were women. I knew some, and my wife was among them.
The barge sailed on a rippling brown river so wide that the banks couldn’t be seen. We’d been traveling for days and getting close to the end. While many rode along as gossiping, resting passengers, I had a role of keeping things as organized as possible. This had me racing around. I was often on metal walks above the rest, and would look down and see what was going on as I rushed from task to task.
At one point, I was forced to go down among them. I’d stripped off clothing because I was hot. Wearing only my boxer shorts, I couldn’t find my clothes.
I didn’t care. It was important that I go down and do what was needed. My arrival in my underwear drew attention and comments. I shrugged them off. I overhead my wife undertaking explanations about ‘who I was’, but that didn’t matter to me.
Abruptly, we arrived and disembarked in a chaotic surge. I found myself driving a powerful white sedan filled with people. Racing away from the docks on surface streets, I saw a speed limit sign, 80 MPH. Stepping on the accelerator, I merged with traffic onto a huge white cement Interstate. We were going down a short hill through a curve. Ahead was an enormous hill and multiple exits listed. I called out to my wife, who was in the back seat, for instructions about where to go, demanding, “Which exit do I need to take?”
She replied, “I don’t know, I haven’t been paying attention.”
That infuriated me. I wanted to verbally berate her but then thought, why wasn’t I paying attention?
Dream end.
Fridaz Theme Music
Snap, crackle, and whoosh. September’s final Frida descends on us. September 26, 2025. 54 F outside. Sunshine, blue sky, changing trees, classic Americana fall look. We’ll climax at 80 F today.
Dreams again propel today’s music choice. I’ve been dreaming deeply, frequently, vividly. While thinking about last night’s featured dream this morning, all about a boat ride on a wide river on an overcrowded boat, followed by a fast drive on a wide highway in an overcrowded car, Les Neurons brought Mazzy Star into the morning mental music stream and “Fade into You” plays.
[Verse 1]
I wanna hold the hand inside you
I wanna take the breath that’s true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life, you go in shadows
You’ll come apart and you’ll go blind
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what’s not there
[Chorus]
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew
h/t to Genius.com
Reading last night, this morning. Realizing again how much U.S. conservatives feast on violence and hypocrisy. Decry violence, but always blame others for it, and never do anything about it except their Twister edition of the blame game. In that way, they’ll always have their violence, always have their game to play, which distracts and enrages their base, and keeps conservatives going. If not for violence and taking down freedoms, and giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, the GOP has no platform. Sure, the claim they’re for law and order. Anyone without their head up Trump’s ass knows that’s a play they’re putting on. The GOP staunchly declare they’re for small gov’t, another farce as they launch government into being meddlesome and invasive while reducing the ways in which it’s helpful. GOP also lectures that it’s for state’s rights, but that’s only when doing so serves them. No, they’re for big, controlling, violent government.
The Trump Regime likes to brag ’bout how great it is. How wonderful they’re making the United States. Trump is especially bullish about his accomplishments but when you line up the facts, he comes across like a fourth grader bragging about getting the best grade in class when it turns out he failed. This thought comes after reading a Daily Kos piece about Trump’s FEMA withholding funding from hurricane victims. Trump’s alternate female version, Kristi Noem, bragged about how fast they were doing it. Turns out the states are saying, nope. We’re not getting much help from them.
Hope peace and grace shows up in your day. If it shows up in mine, I’ll offer it some coffee, something to eat, something to feed upon and grow. Got my coffee. Awaaay we go. Cheers
Saturda’s Wandering Thoughts
I am again mystified. This isn’t shoutitfromtheroof news. I’m often mystified.
I know I mystify others, too. Especially my wife. She often avoids asking questions to clarify, preferring to express her doubts and confusion with her facial expressions. I used to ask her, “What’s that look for?” when I was young. I don’t make those inquiries these days.
My mystification is again with other people. Specifically, other drivers. They often mystify me. Cars stop four car lengths back from the car in front of them. “Why do they do that?” I ask myself and my wife. We laundry list reasons for fun. It’s not satisfying because I never know the real answer.
Other driving aspects which mystify me is the lack of adherence to speed limits. It’s not that I’m worried about speeding. I speed. No, the other drivers’ weird behavior in regards to speed limits trigger me. “It was thirty-five,” I tell my wife. “And they were going thirty. Now it’s a twenty-five miles an hour limit and they’re still going thirty.”
“I think most drivers don’t pay attention,” my wife says.
I agree with her in principle, but I don’t know. That bugs me.
The latest driving mystery involves turn signals. “I’ve noticed a new trend,” I tell my wife. “People are coming to a traffic light, stopping at the red light, but if they’re turning, they’re not putting on their turn signals before until they start to turn. Why do they do that? Don’t they understand what a turn signal is about?”
“Maybe they forgot where they’re going,” my wife says.
That’s possible. But I don’t know. That bugs me.
Returning from the library the other day, she rushed in and said, “You’re right. I had three different drivers not turn on their turn signal until they began turning. What’s going on? Why are they doing that?”
“Right?” I respond. I’m very pleased.
It’s always good to have someone else join your party.
Car & Places Dream
First, I traveled by boat. I was traveling with a group but never saw more than one a a time. I think we might have been military but we didn’t wear uniforms or use ranks.
In the first stage of our traveling, we went by boat, but that was only mentioned; I was never on the boat in the dream. We arrived at an island spa resort. I was dressed very casually in jeans with a light pastel Polo shirt. A woman greeted me and told me that I would be in a villa but in a different location from the officers. She also told me that I was the only enlisted present. One of the others came by at that point to check on me and then told me I was invited to dinner that night.
Next, I left the resort. I was driving. In a weird sequence where the POV changed, I saw that I was driving a 1971 Ferrari Daytona coupe. This was a car that I greatly admired when I was a teenager. Red, it was in perfect condition. Other people pointed at it as I drove by, which greatly pleased. Abruptly, my wife was with me as a passenger. I found a place to park by a curb so we could go in and have dinner.
Then, I was driving again. This time I was in a 1993 black Mazda RX-7 like I used to own. A cousin was with me. I drove along a beach at the ocean and then found a black to park so we could get something to eat. After I got out the car, I was speaking with him and told him, “Don’t lock the door yet.” But he slammed the door shut. Horrified, he said, “I’m sorry.” I replied, “You locked us out.”
But I then discovered that the car was a targa, with a removeable roof panel. So all I needed to do was reach in the car to unlock it, which I did. I then remarked, “I guess I should put the roof on if I want the car to be locked.” I put that on but as I did, I thought to myself in the dream, funny, but Mazda never made a targa version of this car.
Dream end.
Three Out of Five Times
Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
I’ve gone across the United States a few times. Furthest was from San Fransisco to New Hampshire via New York. I did that a few times in the military, always by train, and then SF to Connecticut via NY a few times for business, also by train.
I’ve always loved traveling by car. Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, my parents loaded us into cars and off we went! One trip, barely remembered, was in a large Chevy station wagon from California to Pennsylvania. I think I was three years old. What I best remember about that was that I shared space in the station wagon’s back end with my older sister and a large black trunk. The trunk was useful as a fort and a table. Traffic being what it sometimes was, peering out the windows and waving to others was a recurring pastime. There were many coloring books involved with that trip, too.
My wife and I took a few almost cross-country trips. After I returned from my military assignment in the Philippines, I traveled to West Virginia where my wife stayed with her parents via commercial aircraft and Greyhound bus. Some of the logistics are a little foggy in my head, but I ended up visiting family in Pittsburgh and bought a used Porsche 914 there. I drove it down to West Virginia, and then my wife and I drove it across the southern United States to my new duty location outside of San Antonio, Texas. The first five hundred miles was through a blizzard. We then drove the reverse trip eight months later, when I decided to exit the military.
Funny enough, years later, there we were, in Texas again. This time we’d returned to the United States from an assignment in (on?) Okinawa. We’d been there for almost four years. Two things to know about driving in Okinawa was that it was on the left side of the road, with a right side steering wheel and the fastest speed we’d gone was 100 KPH, about 61 MPH. Renting a car in San Antonio at the airport, we were suddenly driving on the other side of the ride, the steering wheel on the other side, in the rain, at night, at 70 MPH. It was an awakening.
We then bought a new car, a Mazda RX-7, and drove it from San Antonio, Texas, to…ready? West Virginia. A big blizzard struck Texas that year. Interstate 10 was closed. Fortunately, Texas has Interstate ‘access roads’. We drove out of San Antonio through the blizzard via the access roads until we could get onto I-10. Man, I’ll tell you, traffic was pretty light.
I’ve flown cross country multiple times since then. The last time that my wife and I drove across cross country was from West Virginia to California. This was 1991. We’d been assigned to a base in Germany. She returned a few months early and was living not far from her parents in West Virginia. She’d bought a little Honda Civic. We loaded her and our three cats, Rocky, Crystal, and Jade, into the Honda, along with her belongings, and drove to Sunnyvale, California, via the Rocky Mountains. Let me tell you, the Honda, with its 1.5 liter engine, wasn’t happy about the Rockies. We’d swooped down the mountains as fast as we dared to build up speed to get up the next one. Geez, what a trip.
I’ve also gone from Texas to Pennsylvania via Greyhound bus after finishing military basic training in 1975. But the one thing I always wanted to do was take a train across the country. We traveled by train in Japan and Europe, and loved it. It’s hasn’t come to pass in the U.S.
Maybe, someday, though, maybe someday…I’ll get to take a train ride across the United States.
Munda’s Wandering Thoughts
“It sure is coming down,” my wife declared a while ago. It’s an expression we heard often from our parents. I don’t hear many say it any longer.
Watching the snow, she chose to walk to her exercise class. It’s about .6 miles. She caught a ride back home.
“How was your walk?” I asked.
“Slippery! It’s very slick on the sidewalks. The roads don’t look too bad.”
That was three hours ago. The roads have gotten worse. Snow hasn’t ceased. The temperature continues to hang around 32-33 F. All of this triggers memories of snowstorms I’ve endured. It’s good to have experience but one thing that you learn from experience with this sort of weather conditions is that anything can happen without warning.
You gotta remain vigilant.
The Lost Tables Dream
This was obviously a dream about change. Anxiety. Confusion.
My wife and I were young people. We had a habit of driving to work together. We were taking turns driving. One would drive one day, the other would drive the next day. The dream showed this happening. Different cars for her and me; my car was a black sports car. Don’t know any details of it. Less is known of her car.
Although always going to the same place, part of our daily drive process was to consult on our phone about where we were going. That’s because the path changed every day. So whoever wasn’t driving was tasked with looking up the destination on the map and give driving instructions.
The dream showed this. I drove, she drove, I drove, she drove, etc. She looked up the directions, I looked them up, she looked them up, I looked them up.
Traffic was busy each day but the weather was good.
Our daily destination was a parking lot by a restaurant. We’d park near there and go on our separate ways to work. After numerous days of this, I was driving. My wife was looking up the instructions. But she was struggling with a signal and I, meanwhile, had made some guesses and found the way. She announced, “Got it,” right as we arrived at the restaurant.
But as I pulled up, I noticed that it was completely different. All of its tables were gone. The usually thriving place was completely empty.
Stunned, I told my wife, “Look. Something happened.” She was busy getting out of the car and heading to work so I repeated myself several times, further elaborating, “There’s no one there. The tables are gone. The place is empty.”
She left for work. I walked over to the area and then walked through the empty place, wondering how it had all changed, seemingly overnight. What I wondered most was, where are all the tables? They had so many tables. There was no sign that any tables had ever been there. As I stood there looking, I saw others hurryng by in the sunshine.
None gave the place a second look.
Michael Seidel, writer 