One man's journey into married life, middle age and responsibility after completing a long and perilous trek to capture his dreams. Along the way there will be stories of travel, culture and trying to figure out what to call those things on the end of shoelaces.
I dreamt that I was in college again last week. I know, I know, there is nothing less interesting than reading about someone else’s dreams but stay with me here. There were a couple of aspects that probably give you every insight into my psyche that you will ever need to know.
1) I was heading back to my dorm room with my roommate to drop off some books and then head to the cafeteria for lunch. This was my standard protocol back in the day.
2) Once I get to the room I realize that I have not finished my lab report writeup for that afternoon’s class so instead of having lunch I was going to have to quickly try to finish it before class and skip lunch. This is more stressful than my life usually was and is probably a sign of one thing or another.
3) While realizing that I hadn’t finished the lab writeup I also realized that this is the same class that has appeared in multiple other dreams where I had attended the first day of class, which was ended early without any experiments, and then missed classes for the rest of the semester without realizing that I hadn’t dropped the class. This is my usual stress dream of the class that I forgot that I was taking. On one hand I was unnerved to realize that I only have this dream when I am stressed out of my mind. On the other hand at least I could rest assured that I had at least started trying to make it to class again.
4) My roommate was Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
5) My dorm room was surprisingly clean. I mean, my desk was immaculate with everything neatly stacked and no stray papers floating around. I could only dream of having a desk that clean and I guess that I apparently did.
6) Yeah, I guess I should explain point number four in greater detail.
Yes, I dreamt that I was sharing a college dorm room with Sheldon and that did not shock me in the least. I mean when I woke up it seemed perfectly logical that he would be my roommate and I was much more upset that I had waited to the last minute to finish a report and that I had missed months worth of classes and would probably fail as a result. The fact that my roommate was a) the embodiment of modern geekiness and b) fictional seemed par for the course. Which, given my experience in college, makes a lot of sense.
Being an engineering major makes for a very odd college experience. I saw somewhere online where they said that the average engineering student spends 20 hours a week on homework and my first thought was “only twenty?” I remember one four question assignment taking a team of ten of us twelve hours to complete and we still only got two of the questions right. I remember being in the EE building at 12:30 at night and not leaving because the bars closed at 1 and I didn’t want to walk past everyone leaving the bars while carrying my backpack. I don’t even think people would have made fun of me; it was just that the act of walking back to my dorm past people who had a much better night than I did was too depressing to expose myself to. As a result you end up with this strange, insular group of friends and, well, the Big Bang Theory becomes surprisingly accurate. Luckily I ended up with Penny.
Sorry for the missed post last night but my need for sleep once again won out over my need to write. I really don’t want to turn the blog into a four night a week endeavor but I have a feeling that it might turn that way over the next few weeks. My schedule is just fill and my creativity level just isn’t there at the moment. It happens from time to time. Just know that my taking a break from writing typically means that better writing is ahead.
On the plus side I did finally get some sleep last night resulting in one very strange dream. It’s not every dream where you steal a priest’s car for a joyride. Now, for the record the keys were in the ignition and the car was unlocked so it was pretty much asking to be stolen (and the fact that it was parked in a spot labeled “parish priest” made it pretty obvious that it was a priest’s car.) I was more upset in the dream that the car drove horribly and was impossible to turn to the right and could barely turn to the left. There may be a political metaphor there but I’m not sure.
Anyway, this was one of those dreams that is incredibly vivid to the point where you start freaking out and thinking that it is real. Except that I realized that stealing a car is really not part of my nature so it had to be a dream and I had to keep on telling myself to wake up as this clearly wasn’t really happening. It took me a while to wake up though and I have to say that I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the ceiling of my bedroom. Sometimes it is nice to know that some things are just in your head.
Otherwise the only other thing of note is that I have started working on a 1,500 piece jigsaw puzzle that takes up the majority of my kitchen table. I believe the scene is called “a crapload of sky” and it is a rather bedeviling piece of work. I’ve finished most of the sky though as I am kind of doing this one backwards. For some reason I have found working on the puzzle to be really soothing. I don’t know if it is because it feeds into my obsessive nature or not but I am able to make myself calm down and relax by sitting down and making a little progress at a time. I’m at least a third of the way done now and making good headway. Next will be the 3,000 piece puzzle of doom, which will encompass most of my apartment I think.
Enjoy the Oscars this weekend everyone. I’m going to try to get some sleep.
Note to Notre Dame: So if I did a crappy job as a student for four years would I also get a trip to Hawaii? Just curious because if that is true then I worked way too hard in business school.
Per the comment on my last post: No, I did not call her while I was in New Orleans. I was gone for a week and since we had talked just before I left I didn’t feel it was really necessary to talk. We weren’t at the talk every day point and besides, I was insanely busy with what I was doing, which in the year post-Katrina was a lot less of what I would typically do in Nola. I’ll never claim that I am faultless in the downfall of any relationship (hell, I’m probably the cause of most of them) but breaking up with a guy immediately after he spends a week doing volunteer work seemed especially cold hearted.
I’ll continue to post some dating stories and a few other similar pieces on the weekends. I like having a bit of a longer format and I take more time in the proofreading that way. While part of the reason why I’m posting them is because since I’ve moved I don’t expect much in terms of potential blowback there is another reason. While I used to put these in my writer’s journal (something that everyone else would call a diary) I now only really keep the blog. So I don’t have these written down anywhere and I would like them stored for posterity. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I just have a fetish for public embarrassment.
Anyway, so I’ve been having a bunch of nightmares recently. Ok, maybe not nightmares but at least rather stressful dreams. I tend not to have blue tentacle monsters trying to devour my soul in my dreams. However, I do have the dream where I have two papers to write and a massive test to prepare for in two days, which I have discussed a lot in the past. But more and more I have been having the following one.
I am driving a car that is barreling out of control and it is readily apparent that I have no idea as to how to drive. I either steer lazily, running into cars on the side of the road, or for some reason I find myself driving the car from the backseat so that while I can steer stopping is a bit of a challenge. Now I never crash in these dreams and find myself with the airbags deployed and my spleen now forcibly moved eight feet left of where it was previously located. In fact, from what I can tell no one gets hurt, my car continues to run, and I never have to face a police officer regarding the immense destruction that I am unleashing upon the land. I just whip about uncontrollably while I freak out about it.
Pretty clear what this one means. There are times when I feel that my life is completely out of my control. I’m in one of those moments right now. I guess passenger in a runaway car is a good description of it. There are a lot of things going on in my life and some of them I have no control over and the ones that I do have influence on for some reason I’m not even bothering to me. I’m just letting myself sit there and freak out about it. At least it is nice to know that my subconscious warns me about this. Then maybe I can figure out how to address it.
Best of 120 Minutes: The video that best depicts my life as a teenager. Or more accurately how I wish my life was as a teenager: hanging out at Sonic Youth shows and hooking up with a cute girl in a Nirvana t-shirt. Sigh. Why didn’t anyone just grab me by the back of the neck and force me to these shows when I was younger? Who let me spend all my time studying and listening to music in headphones? Well, that was me but seriously when I build my time machine (and that is when, not if) first thing I am going to do is go back in time to kick my own ass.
So I guess it is no surprise to anyone that my anxiety levels are through the roof right now. It is kind of amazing when I get this stressed. I sleep poorly, eat badly and when I do eat I find myself having microwaved pancakes at two in the afternoon. I have no idea why that is always the case. Apparently I find that pancakes are the cure to my anxiety. Serves about as good of a purpose as the medication I take for it to begin with.
Anyway, so with this much stress going through me it was expected that my stress dream would return. It was the same one that it always was; I am in school (high school this time around) faced with tests or papers that I haven’t prepared for in the least. Typically the test is in a day or two and I simply haven’t prepared. Last night was a first though. The chemistry test was sitting on the desk in front of me and I had not studied in the least.
Now let’s analyze that part. How apropos is that development? To show that I am at a point in my life where I need to make a decision the dream test is no longer a theoretical test in the future (where I know that with an hour or two of prep I could make a good showing). It is now sitting there in front of me and I have to answer it. I have to take pencil to paper and face the unknown.
So how did I address the situation in my dream? Well, here is where it gets freaky. See, there were two parts of me in the dream. There was my dream self (who was twelve years old for some reason that maybe Freud could explain) and then my real self. My dream self acted first and simply handed in the test blank. My real self saw the flaw in that and (after merging with my dream self. Again, it was pretty freaky) went up to the teacher, said I just lost it for the moment and go the paper back. Then I started to work on it only to notice that my calculator wasn’t working.
What does this mean? Well, maybe handing in a test blank is a sign of my inability to make a decision. Part of me would rather hand in the test and avoid the decision and take failure over the challenge of the unknown. But my rational side knows that is wrong and will risk embarrassment to try to do my best in any situation. My broken calculator has two very simple explanations. The first is that I am missing a few key pieces of information in my decision and I find it impossible to make a good decision until I have those pieces (emphasized by the fact that my calculator was actually missing keys). The other reason is that in reality the batteries have died on my HP calculator and I should probably get that fixed.
How does the dream end? How does one finish a chemistry test without a calculator? I came up with a pretty simple and ingenious solution. I showed all the work without making a single calculation and then stated that it was my religious belief that certain problems just cannot be solved on paper. Valid answer, right?
That might be the best explanation of where I stand right now. I have reached a decision point but my calculator is missing keys and I’m not nearly as prepared as I would like to be. But at some point I am going to do my best and hope that whoever is running the show guides me in the right direction. Maybe if I have my mind set in that way my anxiety will lessen, I will get some sleep, and return to being me for a change.
I’ve been having a lot of strange dreams lately. And when I say a lot I mean every single night. I’m not at the point of being afraid to go to sleep because of what my mind might whip up while I am in that state but it does make me wonder if I should cut back on the snack food before dinner.
Some of the dreams have been rather straightforward. I once again have found myself dreaming that it is finals week and I am woefully unprepared (and often sans pants). Now this isn’t really that surprising. When I’m stressed I have school and test related dreams. Given my whole job situation and my life being in flux the fact that I am dreaming about failing an important test doesn’t shock me in the least. My lack of pants can be accounted for by one simple fact. I really, really hate pants.
I had another one that, while bizarre, gives a great example as to the connection between your dream state and reality. I was dreaming that I was an astronaut in some insanely bizarre NASA project. Bizarre in the fact that we were essentially going to be launched via slingshot, go tumbling in the air, theoretically latch on to another aircraft and then parachute out of it. Maybe not the best idea in terms of space exploration but it still makes more sense than the International Space Station. Anyway, in the dream I chicken out of the mission because my left shoulder, which I injured over a decade ago and has never healed properly, was giving me all kinds of grief. So I woke up to find myself that the pain I felt in the dream was completely real as I was wincing from the discovery that I had twisted my shoulder in such a way that it wanted to distance itself from the rest of me. Not exactly the best way to wake up.
It is this last dream that bothered me the most. I spent much of the next day trying to figure it out. The dream was simple. I was with some friends and we had all gotten back to town and we were deciding which bar to go to. And I suggested, “Let’s go to that bar over there where I used to be a regular. The one by the train tracks close to The Brick where there are picnic tables outside and that small back bar.” Even though I was dreaming I went, “Wow, I really need to head back there. That place was a lot of fun.” Then I realized that place doesn’t exist.
I spent hours running through every bar that I had ever gone to trying to figure out what I was thinking of. While my dream bar had pieces of other bars to it (i.e. Corby’s did have picnic tables out back, some of the staff I remembered from other bars) it really was entirely invented by me. It dawned on me that I had dreamed of this bar before and could remember some of the dreams that involved this bar. This is rather frightening in a way. It seems as though I have created this entire dream landscape inside my head where there are places that only I know of and my dream bar is one of them. That just seems a little disconcerting to me. Apparently there are more parts to Morpheus’ realm than I am aware of.
Best of 120 Minutes: I think it would be best if we have a nice, mellow start to the week. Here is Bettie Serveert’s “Ray Ray Rain”, which is one of the sweetest songs that I’ve ever heard. It’s like an aural sorbet. Hopefully it will lead us all to a pleasant week.
Here is what I call an ominous start to your day. I had a dream last night in which I was convinced that I had a paper due this morning that I forgot to do over the weekend. I ran through my class schedule and realized that I completely overlooked a two page report for religion class. I realized that I could probably bluff something together at the last moment if I was able to sit down at my laptop and start typing.
I woke up and was literally halfway out of bed and on my way to my office when I realized the following. 1) I’m no longer in school. 2) I haven’t had a paper due for a religion class in 17 years. 3) Even if I had a paper due, I’ve earned a number of degrees since then so I doubt that my completing this assignment is really that big of a deal. But I swear I was convinced for a second that I needed to work on a class I am not taking. I don’t know if I can take this as a good sign.
However, when I did actually get to my office I was able to see a lighting strike a block away from me. It was cool as all get out. I had the blinds open (as this is probably the only time in my life when I will actually have an office with a window) and just saw this massive flash out of the corner of my eye. Turned to see black smoke start rising from behind a building across from me and a rumble of thunder that shook the building for a good twenty seconds. I just find it amazing that this is nature and we don’t really pay any attention to it. Sure, nothing wrong with giant bolts of electricity to come rocketing out of the sky at random moments. No issues with that at all.
Switching gears, did everyone hear the story of Kurt Cobain’s ashes being stolen? Well, it is currently being assumed that they are stolen. There is certainly a measurable probability that Courtney Love simply misplaced them. However, like most people I am quite concerned that Kurt’s final resting place was within a pink, teddy bear shaped handbag. I’m not making that up. That’s where the heart of Generation X was placed.
Maybe we can use this as an analogy for Generation X. Not only did our generation have an all too brief moment in the sun (roughly late 1991 to 1994 or 1995) but our remnants were placed in an all too cute bag and placed in some disregarded corner. Everything that we stood for, all of the pride and righteous anger, discounted and turfed in favor of something cute and innocuous. People look back at Generation X and think primarily of flannel and the start of coffee culture. That’s if they remember the generation at all. For the most part we’ve been lost and no one even noticed that we are missing.
But we are all still here. We’re in our thirties and forties now. Graying around the edges maybe but we’re still out and about. We just are lacking a spokesperson. Someone who people recognize as being from our age and caring about our issues. But spokespeople have never been our style. We’re a quiet generation. We do our own thing. We take care of ourselves. We keep few friends but those we have we will go to the wall for no questions asked. It’s tough to organize that type of generation.
I hope we find Kurt. I hope we find ourselves. I certainly hope that we end up in something other than a pink teddy bear. I think we deserve a better ending.
Since my partner in crime (in the blog world, at least) decided to post about her dream last night I feel that it is my duty to do the same. As always, reading about others’ dreams is an iffy proposition but I really think this is a good story. And it is absolutely true.
I dreamt that I was back at my parents’ house. Apparently they had cleared out the crawlspace and came across some old stuff of mine. I started digging through it and was thrilled to find this old basketball game I had as a kid. (It was kind of like Strat-O-Matic where you got to replay entire seasons with real players by using cards and I kept meticulous stats and ran tournaments and everything). But while digging through the box I came across this remnant of an old cartoon of the day desk calendar. It looked like a Dilbert collection drawn by The Far Side’s Gary Larson. It was showing December 23, and it looked like it was from the early 90’s. Here is what the top cartoon read.
Panel 1: A Dilbertish guy is sitting in this vast contraption with a lot of levers and doohickeys and a big wheel behind him. It is clearly a time machine based on the fact that there is a sign on the front of it that reads “time machine”. Dilbertish guy is just looking straight ahead with no expression on his face.
Panel 2: Just smoke and sparks and bolts of lightning with the word “POOF” in the middle. Obviously the word poof can only indicate time travel.
Panel 3: The exact same image as the first panel. Line for line, same vacant expression as before except that now above his head there is a word bubble that reads simply “I’m lonely.”
Think about it. I couldn’t think of something that amazing while awake. I’m jealous of my own subconscious.
Ok, on to what I wrote yesterday and some further explanations. I knew it would get a reaction and even my personal astrologer chimed in. Here is my horoscope that was texted to me this morning:
“You’re better than they are. You want to escape from mediocrity. Stop listening to echoes of sadder days. Take a fresh, optimistic outlook.”
(When I say she is my personal astrologer I am not kidding. I actually know Kelli. She did my chart as part of a project in my old job. Why I gave up a job where conference calls with astrologers were regular occurrences still confuses me.)
In a way, what amazes me most about what I wrote is how coherent it was. I was going on four hours sleep, maybe, and just got out of bed, walked to my office and sat down at the laptop and wrote it. The only light was from the screen and I had no notes, no outline, just what was running through my head. There are no edits in the piece. That truly was where my head was at yesterday morning.
If you noticed I didn’t post it immediately and might not have at all if someone didn’t request it. I tend not to show so clearly what I mean when I say that I was in a bad headspace or spent some time in the dark corners of my soul. For someone who has spent nearly four years exposing himself (from a writing perspective, get your minds out of the gutter) to anyone in the world who wanted to drop by I hide an awful lot. I don’t want people to know about my insecurities and the thoughts that keep me up at night. I fear that it will change their impression of me. I spend so much time cultivating an image of a guy who is always on the ball, always in control that to show that in a lot of ways I’m not is scary. Though it does show that I am a human being after all.
Do I dwell on stuff like this a lot? Not really. I’ve come to an understanding that yes, people will make fun of me to improve their own self-esteem. I’ll never have a reason why even in business school people would yell at me “Why do you have to be so smart?” as if I was doing something wrong. I never go up to someone and complain “Why are you so social?” or “Why do you always get to talk to the girl? How about letting me have a chance?” I’d be laughed at for that but apparently my main skill is ripe for abuse. But I can deal with it since no matter what anyone says I have heard worse (and most likely from myself, which is a huge issue I’ll address some other time.) But recently I have been getting more and more upset when I see others being picked on. I’ve realized that life is not easy for anyone and I can’t stand people who are intentionally making someone else’s life worse even if it is as a momentary joke. It just seems mean. We’re all struggling out here, why go out of your way to make it tougher for someone?
(Yes, I know that most of what I write is ripping on celebrities. Just remember, they are celebrities and not, you know, people.)
There are a lot of reasons why I was in that mood on Saturday but one of the big ones is this realization of the stressful position I have found myself in. Now I have talked about how much I enjoy having total freedom right now but there is a big counter to it. I do have this realization in the back of my mind that I am about to turn 35 with no wife, no kids, no job, an apartment whose lease is coming due, and no clear plan for the future. That scares the ever living shit out of me. I never planned to be in this position. I always assumed that I would have one of those things on that list by now. I know that I have a family that loves me, friends that support me, people who care about me no matter how stupid I am from time to time and enough skill to accomplish whatever I set my mind to but to be facing such a blank slate is frightening. I think that Saturday morning it hit me and I used that story to best explain that feeling of momentary helplessness. That the universe itself seems to be out to get me.
But the one nice thing about that feeling is that it goes away. It’s not fun when I go into the dark corners of my soul but I always come out stronger for it. View it like weightlifting; you have to hurt the muscle to improve. I’m feeling better about myself now than I did a few days ago. When I go to bed tonight I will know that I have a car full of gas, a fridge full of groceries, all of my clothes washed and put away, a clean apartment, and a day of wonder ahead of me. I’ll wake up at 7 tomorrow, get out of bed, take a shower, put on pants (yes, I will wear pants), make breakfast and take on the day. Because there is nothing I like more than proving to myself that I really am something after all.
Best of 120 Minutes: I’ve been trying to think of a song that I would have blared when I was in these moods in college. This will work. Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.
The five random CDs for the week: 1) Jeff Buckley “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk” 2) Rhett Miller “The Believer” 3) Josh Ritter “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter” 4) The Shins “Wincing the Night Away” 5) Various Artists “Soundtrack to the movie Garden State”
I’m telling you for the last time; no, this isn’t my car. First off, I don’t live, nor do I have any desire to live, in Johnson County. Second, if I buy a Beemer to show off just how important I am I will not then denigrate myself further via a personalized license plate. Well, maybe if DR COOL was available I’d change my mind but I would settle for nothing less.
(This is what I love about this world. There’s humor all around you if you just take the time to open your eyes and look for it.)
I finally got over my cold this weekend. It only knocked me out for three weeks and I was still too tired/lazy to go out on Saturday night but I’ve recovered to the point that I even worked out this afternoon. This means I will be able to reduce the amount of cold medicine that I’m downing, which means that the absolutely bizarre dreams that I have been having this week might lessen in their resemblance of a Fellini film. Let me explain…
(Yes, talking about dreams is typically the most boring, self-indulgent thing that one can do in polite company. Just go with it for now.)
A few nights ago I had a dream that I was walking around the Notre Dame campus. It wasn’t exactly the campus but there were trees and buildings so my brain just decided that it was ND. I assume if there was a cornfield I would have considered it to be Illinois. Anyway, while walking around a cute girl fires what can only be described as a makeshift arrow that strikes me dead center in the chest. Yes, I was shot in the heart with an arrow. Freud would have a field day with me.
Given that the rest of my dream consisted of talking to her, finding out that she was 20, and then discussing whether she owed me a date or not given that she technically shot me while addressing the fact that she is much too young for me even I’m a bit lost as to just what the heck was going on. Obviously there is some symbolism here that my subconscious is trying to smack me in the head with. At some point my dreams are going to consist solely of people walking around carrying flashing billboards reading “Your life would be much better with a girlfriend you idiot.”
Amazingly I don’t even think that was my weirdest dream of the week. The weirdest one would have been where I was reading a magazine listing the 200 greatest songs of all time where the best song of all time was determined to be Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie”. I am not making this up. It’s the type of dream where when you wake up, look around the room and ask yourself just what did you do last night. Quickly followed by wondering if Oh Sherrie was the greatest song of all time what in the world could have come in second?
Best of 120 Minutes: I figured that I really can’t talk about 120 Minutes without going into a Smiths/Joy Division/New Order discussion. Except that I’m in a pretty good mood tonight so I’ll just play Frente covering Bizarre Love Triangle. Close enough for a Sunday.
The five random CDs for the week: 1) Lyle Lovett “Pontiac” 2) Richard Buckner “Devotion and Doubt” 3) Ryan Adams “Easy Tiger” 4) Carbon Leaf “5 Alive” 5) Caroline Herring “Wellspring”
Some of the more observant amongst you may have noticed some changes to the blog over the past few days. Basically, Blogger has enforced an upgrade on me, thus resulting in my using the newer, cleaner, more user friendly version of the software as opposed to the archaic version that I enjoyed. The biggest change is that at the end of each post you’ll see labels, which is where I’ll tag each post with what it is about. Theoretically, over time you’d be able to click on the “U2” link and see everything that I’ve ever written about U2. Problem is I have nearly 600 posts, none of which are tagged, and I can’t hire an intern to classify everything for me. I’ll at least go back and tag the live blogs, forgotten television shows, and songbooks. Beyond that, this is more of a go forward effort.
I’ll also have to upgrade my profile, as last time I checked it said that I was 250 years old. Wow, I knew I had been in this town for a while but I didn’t think that it had aged me that much. Maybe that is just in reference to the psychic who said that I had an old soul. Though 250 is probably young from a soul’s point of view.
I’ve also accomplished one of my main goals for the week, which is to complete my 2006 concert discs. This two disc set contains 33 songs by 32 artists, all of whom I saw in concert at some point during 2006 (Aimee Mann gets two songs because she is too awesome for just one.) This was a bit of a tougher mix to build than in previous years. It just seemed like I had a couple of bands that sounded so entirely different from everything else that they couldn’t easily be built into a mix CD. But, after spending most of Saturday night working on this, and some additional tweaks over the next few days, the discs are production ready. As always, if anyone wants a copy, just let me know.
(And yeah, I did spend Saturday night with my laptop and piles of CDs making mix tapes for myself. Every once in a while not going out to the bars sounds like a good idea.)
One last housekeeping issue. With the launch of Windows Vista this means that I’ll finally have the opportunity to go out and get a new laptop. I’ve been wanting to for the past few months and figured if I was going to make a technology upgrade I might as well go for the whole kit and caboodle. My biggest issue is not what type of machine that I’ll get but rather what will I name it. My last two laptops have been called “Helena Mark 4” and “Julie”, my current machine and quite possibly the best computer that I’ve ever had. Right now, the leaders for names are “Julie 2.0” and “Natalie” (after Natalie Portman, who could probably be viewed as a younger and more modern version of Julie Delpy.) “Lindsay” still has a chance though I have a feeling that with that name the machine will be flaky, unreliable, and, to be honest, prone to really nasty viruses.
Stress dream update: I’m going to log these until they stop. Last night I dreamt that in order to escape a criminal charge I built a time machine. A working time machine that I used in my dream to travel back and forth like I was in an episode of Quantum Leap. It was actually one of the coolest dreams that I’ve had in a while. Especially this strange waiting room you end up in while you time travel, which I have to reuse for a story one of these days. Still, I’m hoping for an end to stress dreams and waking up with headaches when I’ve done nothing the night before to deserve them.
Stress dream from last night #1: Dreamt that I walked back to my car to find a guy breaking into it and stealing my stereo.
Stress dream from last night #2: Dreamt that I had a calculus test in a few days that I hadn’t studied for and between now and the test I had to fly to England and back to give a presentation.
Not quite sure why the second one stressed me out. I mean, I’d obviously would have a lot of dead time on the plane where my only other option would be to watch unfunny Jim Carrey films (not as if there is any other kind). That would give me plenty of time to study and run problems. Really don’t see much of a challenge there at all. Still, I find it interesting that even though it’s been three and a half years since I’ve been in school and more than a decade since I’ve had a test where I was worried about math problems that when I get stressed out my subconscious immediately sends me back to school.
(This does mark several weeks worth of stress dreams. I really need a vacation. Or sunlight. Either would be beneficial right about now.)
Saw this news article today and felt that it would be interesting to talk about. A church in England has decided to replace its normal hymns with U2 songs. Written like that it sounds like one of those bad Folger’s coffee commercials from the eighties. “We’ve replaced their normal hymns with songs by a sometimes bombastic rock band. Let’s see if the parishioners notice the difference.” Now, ignoring the whole fact that this is just a pretty transparent ploy to try to make church seem hip and interesting while not offering any real source of solace, there are some U2 songs that would really fit in here. Back in the early 80’s U2 was viewed as almost a Christian Rock band except that they had good songs. Gloria is religious in nature and 40 is based on Psalm 40 (and was an awesome set ender back in the day.) Toss in One and Beautiful Day and you’ve got a service.
Of course, I read this and think of what would be the worst possible U2 songs to use in church. “I Threw a Brick Through a Window” is probably not one you would want to use in a place with a lot of stained glass. “Elvis Presley and America” probably wouldn’t work given that I’ve listened to the song for twenty years and still couldn’t tell you what the hell it means. Personally, I would go with “Lemon” as the worst possible song if only because it would require the entire congregation to sing in a bad falsetto. That or anything from Pop, though that would be less religious and more pure torture.
I’ll end on a sad note. I would like to wish a fond farewell to Barbaro: Kentucky Derby winner, Deadspin’s 2006 SportsHuman of the Year, and beloved by women with inordinately large numbers of cats everywhere. I have never seen so much emotional attachment to a horse before. The Barbaro message board, which featured people writing get well messages to a horse that, unless I missed something, did not know how to read, is a sociology paper just waiting to be written. Still, he was a darn good racehorse. See you on the other side.
