Tuesday’s Theme Music
Tuesday has come upon us, sunshine, clouds, and wind in my region. Looks like an artist took spray cans of gray, blue and white and began spraying, but ran out before anything was finished. The temperature is a comfortable 50 F although the wind has a bite that’s worse than its bark in the way that some wintry winds can manage. The weather prognosticators claim that the high is going to be 50. We’ll see.
But, happy solstice! Yes, it’s December 21st. Some years it’s on the 21st, others, it’s on the 22nd. Don’t know what it is this year, but this is supposed to be our shortest period of daylight. Previous years of observations show that, no, it probably won’t be. But we celebrate solstice as a holiday in our household, picking it up from the pagans. It’s all about meeting with friends, eating earthy foods, drinking wine, making wishes for the future, and stoking a fire against the cold darkness.
For the record, today’s sunrise was 7:36 AM and sunset is scheduled for 4:42 PM.
Today’s song comes from reading various accounts of people who dismissed COVID-19, dissed wearing masks, scoffed at the vaccines, and smirked at social distancing. Then, some — can’t say how many — contracted the virus, and went through some horrible shit, becoming hospitalized and intubated. Then — can’t say how many — some died, leaving relatives to write the follow up posts. Moms, fathers, sons, and daughters.
Out of that stew of reading and thinking about learning and not learning, arose Alanis Morissette with “You Learn” from Jagged Little Pill (1996). What’s ironic about this release (sorry about that) is that the other side of this single (what a quaint idea that is now, the flip side of a single record) was a song called “You Oughta Know”, an angry, sexually explicit rage-on about a terminated relationship that swept across the country. It’s ironic because it was the B side. The A side is supposed to be the major hit.
The lyrics that inspired the song for today:
h/t Genius.com
Here’s the music. Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as need be, and get the vaccine and boosters when you can. Don’t force another to finish writing your story. Now, I need to rescue a lonely cuppa coffee from the kitchen. It’s my good deed for the day. Cheers
A Time Dream
First, one dream ended. All I remember of it was that Glenn Greenwald was mentioned. Then I discussed someone’s book. No details from that remain with me. In the end, I was trying to explain what I meant but couldn’t think of a specific word. I tried writing it on a white board and wrote in lower case letters in red, ‘threat’. Standing back, I said, “That’s not what I meant to write.”
But a new dreamisode began. I was studying with others. We were a small class, five, learning in an old farmhouse. The other students and I were talking and joking when we were supposed to be studying. I picked up the book to try again. The subject was macroeconomics and my interest in learning it was low.
The teacher, a young, short white man with a black beard, entered and asked if we were ready for our exam. Other students who were younger than us approached our farmhouse. My class watched them out the window. We discovered they’d taken the same course and had already finished the exam. Not only that, but they were ahead of us on lessons.
My classmates and I were dismayed. We were expected to read several chapters, amounting to hundreds of pages, in a few days and then pass an exam on it? I laughed. “I need more time,” I said to the instructor.
“How much time?” he asked.
I laughed again. “A few years.”
Dream end.
The Moving-Planets Dream
Although it’s the moving-planets dream, it segued into a pants dream. That’s how I first thought of it.
We were given papers. “Follow the instructions on the papers,” we were all told. I’m not certain how many others were there. I’d guess about forty. I had an impression that I was middle-lower grade. We were doing something with planets and their orbits. Changing positions. De-conflicting paths and influences. The papers explained how to do these things. After a hesitant start, I picked up the idea and easily did my part, watching through large windows as I changed the paths and directions of gassy giants and small stones. An upper-level man came by and complimented me on my work. Told me, “You obviously have it. Go help some of the others. Some of them don’t get it.”
So I walked about, holding my paper, helping others learn how to move the planets. This was an introduction to a larger project. Once we knew how to move the planets, shift orbits, and change rotations, we were working on a larger project of aligning the planets for the most beneficial influence. By now, I’d read several people’s paper instructions. I’d learned that all were different in the details but with the same general practices and skill sets. Although my rank hadn’t changed, I was highly regarded and now considered adept at moving planets.
It was with some surprise then, followed by trepidation, when I concluded that some of the instructions were wrong. I went off and found the head guy and told him why I thought it was wrong. He decided that what I said made sense. He wanted to gather the whole group so I could explain it to them.
I agreed. Preparations were made. I decided I didn’t like my pants, so I made new ones, cutting them from cloth that I found, and then sewing them. The results were stunning. Form-fitting. Crisp creases. Neat darts and pleats. Perfect length. Cuffed. I was impressed by how my appearance improved by the change of pants.
The head guy and others came by to tell me they were ready. I had my pants on. My pants were different from everyone else’s. They stopped me and gathered around, asking, “Where did you get those pants? They’re perfect.”
“I made them,” I answered.
They were astonished. Wanted to know more. Felt the material. Had me turn so my pants could be admired from all angles. The rest of the people came in as this happened. They applauded my pants. The attention embarrassed me. With my new pants on, I was ready to explain to everyone where our plans to align the planets was amiss. I stood up to address them against a backdrop of stars and planets through tall, broad curved windows.
Dream end.
A Dream of Nerds
I was on location somewhere. Huge friggin’ building. Mixed used. Offices, classrooms, and dorms. Not sure of my purpose there. Clearly a visitor as others introduced me. Looked me over. Showed me the ups and downs. Overall, the raisons d’être seemed about learning, teaching, and solving problems related to electronic communications and computer networks. We would form impromptu erratic groups that changed composition. All were young. Very smart. Male and female of multiple races and ethnicities were present. After forming in halls or lobbies, we’d be told something like, “So and so wants us in the blah blah blah,” and off we’d scurry. Never caught names. None of the faces were familiar. They were distinctly nebbish and nerdish, though. A vibe. The machines absorbed their intention. They made silly jokes.
They wanted to befriend me but I was dubious about being there. I didn’t select going there. Wasn’t certain of what was going on. But did learn that I would only be there a short time. A few days. This was a catalyst for them all to want to spend more time with me and be my friend. All kept trying to grab me so they could talk to me, pulling me close, pulling me away from others, following me as a herd, swamping me as I walked the halls and stairs. I was flattered and overwhelmed.
In the evenings, we could go to a club. Have beers. Well, that appealed to me. That immediately appealed to my new cohort. They were all for it. Going then involved an elaborate process of acquiring passes to leave and enter the right buildings and halls, and possessing the correct identification and means to buy beers. Totally bewildering to me on the first night. My new friends took me through it.
By the second day, I was more familiar, comfortable, and assertive. I was finding where I wanted to go. What I wanted to do. Then, beer again in the evening. My friends were less sure. Beer? Again? But we did that last night. Another group, who’d missed out on the previous evening, heard and wanted to go, so everyone went. Huge crowd.
Third time I spent more time in the classrooms. I was introduced to computer networks. They were having problems. We begin changing out components. The teacher led this process. I thought it haphazard. Shouldn’t we be tracking what we did and the results? It became more chaotic. Noisier. The volume deafened me. I focused on what was going on with fixing the computer networks. Can’t articulate in our real existence what was going on. Only that a fix was needed. We were removing and installing silver modules about the size of ancient removable hard drives. After doing a number of them, I discerned a pattern and began suggesting changes.
That’s where the dream ended.
A Confused Dream
Middle-aged, I was teaching others. Two younger people, male and female, were under my tutelage. I was teaching them to deliver something. The something was a small white contain, about the size of a six ounce jar of skin cream, with gold metallic lettering. Don’t know what the lettering said.
This was to be delivered to customers for use in a larger project. It was important to the customers. My assistants and I had three cars to choose from. Wanting one of them to drive, I let them choose which car. A small white car was selected. One began driving. Raining, we were on a crowded freeway. Underway, we discovered that they didn’t know where they were going because they had not taken the print out with them.
I acknowledged that as my error, as I was supposed to be teaching them. Lesson one, I told them: first, make sure you know where you’re going.
We stopped to address this. The male student began peeling the bottom of the white jar open. He was removing layers of lead. “What are you doing?” I asked, amused.
“I’m going to look inside the jar to see what it’s in it. That might give us a clue about where we’re supposed to take it.”
“One, there’s a black lid on top to open the container,” I said. “And opening it will ruin it for the customer. We’ll go back and get the address.”
We returned to HQ. This was a small office building, parking underneath, additional parking outside, on a small campus. Inside, another office working, female, at a computer, asked me, “What are you doing back so soon?”
I picked up the paper with the address. “We forgot the address. We didn’t know where we were going.”
Leaving with the paper, I became confused. Where did I park? I found my car, a red Porsche. Except, I remembered, I didn’t come in my car. That’s right, I came with the students in the little white car. I’d gotten into Porsche and had moved the car. Looking for a convenient parking space, I pulled it. It was reserved for another, but I thought management would take care of it. When I left the car, I discovered that it was white. That perplexed me for several seconds. I was certain that I’d been in a red car. How could it turn white. Dismissing that, I went into the rain, looking for the other car.
Michael Seidel, writer 