In Remembrance of a Lost Love

Many years ago, I had an inexplicable infatuation for some bland, unimaginative, buttoned-down librarian type who liked non-kung-fu-related Chinese movies and who thought that rocking out to Aerosmith meant that she had a sassy, iconoclastic "wild" side. She told one of my friends that she felt that I was really intelligent, and that she often enjoyed talking to me because we had deep, interesting conversations, but that I was just too "immature" for her. I responded to this bit of news by telling my friend that this woman probably had cooties and that she was a stupid stinky girl anyway. Also, I may also have somewhat colloquially expressed a desire that she go engage in violent erotic congress with herself. I can't remember. I was a much angrier young man back then.

Not long after that, she married one of the most boring people I've ever met--some over-skinny, humorless, pasty-faced middle manager at the credit card company where we worked. I assume they now have 2.5 beautiful, boring children and live in a boring little house somewhere in Boringsville, AZ where they will live lives of quiet boredom until they can both retire to a boring retirement community in Boring Beach, Florida. Every morning at 5, they will have boring breakfast together, then split off for their boring days. He will go play boring geezer golf with other retired boring corporate middle-management types and reminisce about the various corporate down-sizings they experienced or barely escaped over the years. She will hang out with her boring granny friends and talk about the latest boring episode of American Pop Star, Inc. while knitting socks and ugly sweaters for the grandkids, and unattractive and boring but functional shawls for each other. Every Friday night, they will have a boring soup for dinner at 4, play a couple boring games of UNO, solve the boring newspaper crossword puzzle together, watch a boring rerun of CSI: Des Moines, then retire to bed promptly at 7.

And I will die young and good-looking in a steel cage match with a genetically-engineered velociraptor because I'm awesome and she's not.

Christmas is Dead, Long Live Darth Vader Day!

Since the passing of my mother four years ago, and the repose of my grandmother almost two years ago, the various holidays of the year have lost their luster. Until now, I had never realized how important a role matriarchal enthusiasm played in making holidays vital and festive occasions. I never would have set up a Christmas tree if it weren't for the joyful prodding of my mother every year, just after Thanksgiving. Indeed, I have never set up a Christmas tree in all the years I've lived alone, except for the one year that my mother sent me a small plastic tree with fiber-optic sparkly stars. Christmas trees are just not something most bachelors fuss with.

Now that I am comfortably set in my bachelorhood ("I'm a loner, Dotty--a rebel."), I assume that the holidays will run together like all the other days of the year, except that everyone outside of my wonderfully cozy little world will be seen periodically scurrying about with a frantic fervency that now to me just seems...tiring. I have neither need nor inclination to join in their insanity. I am finally in a position to make up my own holidays whenever I feel like it, and the ritual observance—set by me, of course—invariably consists of a 12-pack of delicious micro-brew, a frozen pizza, and a Korean horror flick of some sort. So to all of you, I would like to wish you and yours a very Happy Friday, or as I now choose to proclaim it, Darth Vader Day.

The Dream With The Feast

I had a dream last night that I was walking around and I came to an open-air eating area. I saw a large, wealthy family eating breakfast at a huge dining table just loaded with delicious food, including plates stacked with thick bacon and mounds of breakfast sausages. I went and sat alone at a different table at a distance, watching them. I noticed that one of the young women at the table was someone I knew (her name's Kayla). I hatched a brilliant plan to gain her attention. I reached into my backpack and pulled out the only food in my possession--a single slice of white bread. It was a crusty end piece, and I ate it slowly, making sure to leave the crusty side visible at all times. I never glanced in her direction, of course, but just kept taking sad bites from my crust of bread.

At this time, another friend of mine, Gary Allen, just happened to walk by and saw me munching on my sad little slice. "What are you eating?" he asked. "A ghetto breakfast bar," I answered. He grabbed it from my hands, took a couple of huge bites out of it, and handed it back to me. While I stood there staring at him, completely dumbfounded at his monumental douchiness, Kayla had appeared at my table. "Hi guys," she said.

I turned to look at her, acting surprised to see her. "Oh, hey," I said.

"My family is eating over at that table," she explained, pointing to the Promised Land of succulent breakfast awesomeness. "We have way too much food so I was wondering if you guys would like to come and eat with us."

Before I could even respond, Gary had launched off like a feast-seeking missile. I scrambled to collect my possessions and take off after him, filled with a heady sense of accomplishment at the effectiveness of my scheme. I am a pathetic genius.

Dreaming of Harry Potter, Japan, and the Blues

Last night I had an epic Harry-Potter-related dream in which there was a movie promotional contest that was actually real and enabled muggles like me to help Harry and his friends defeat Voldemort.

Then my weird brain totally switched gears and I found that I was a former cop working as a bodyguard for an escort service in Japan, supposedly. I say supposedly because I didn't actually guard anybody. Instead, I spent most of the dream discussing handguns with my partner, trying to sort through Japan's complex laws and cultural rules to figure out how to sell a car, and worrying to myself that I would make a lousy bodyguard because I didn't actually have any martial arts skills (but I discovered, much to my surprise, that I was actually remarkably adept at aikido somehow).

Then I switched gears yet again. I was back in America, carrying a badass katana like the one Michonne uses on The Walking Dead. I walked to the entrance of what I thought was a new karate dojo in the neighborhood, and, in order to avoid any unpleasant misunderstandings, left my weapon at the door before going inside.

Once inside, I realized that it was not a dojo, but a sheet music store (apparently, it's easy to confuse the two). I asked the guy if they had any books about the harmonica. He said they only had one or two and pointed them out. One was a book and CD combo of classical harmonica and recorder duets. The other was actually just a religious Chick tract about a harmonica blues man who spends his life in dissipation and either dies and goes to hell or finds Jesus at the last minute and goes to heaven. I wasn't sure which because I didn't actually read the whole thing. Instead, for some reason, I had cut out all the faces from the tract and was trying to meticulously tape them back when I finally decided to just cough up the pocket change and buy the stupid thing. I looked at the price and it was $25.00. Apparently, it was some sort of rare collector's item. Oops.

A Most "Curious" Dream

I had a dream that I was traveling to the desert with Curious George. I stopped off at a convenience store to buy a bottle of booze (just like in the kids' books!). I noticed that the previous bottle of booze I had purchased at a different store was still full, but was missing a cap. I had purchased that bottle at another store in the same chain as the one I was at now, so I asked the manager for a replacement cap. He didn't have one, but told me to go back to the original store and request one. He then handed me exactly $100 in assorted bills (to go buy a replacement bottle?) and sent me on my way.

I hit the road toward the desert, but just before the freeway exit I realized that I was driving around with a big cap-less bottle of booze in the front seat of my car. I decided to pull off into a residential street and take care of things. I pulled in front of a house and opened the trunk of my car. I took a paper towel and twisted it, then folded it in half and stuck it in the mouth of the bottle. Then I positioned the bottle next to the spare tire so that it (hopefully) wouldn't fall over. I noticed that there was an old empty liquor bottle in trunk (because I apparently have a strong affinity for old John Barleycorn). I decided to pitch my empty. I looked around and saw a recycle bin in front of the house where I was currently parked. I lifted the lid of the bin and saw a stack of bottles and cans sitting in the middle of the bin, with lots of empty space surrounding it. Being careful not to disturb the precarious stack, I oh-so-gently placed my bottle on the top. As I gingerly replaced the lid, I heard a loud clink as one of the bottles was dislodged from the stack inside and fell to the bottom of the bin. Just then I saw the owner of the house open the curtains of her front picture window and glare at me suspiciously. I had a strong feeling that she was about to call the police about my suspicious car. I realized that it was time to flee the scene, but then a very dark thought flashed into my head. I had Curious George with me. Curious George was a monkey. Cute, sure, but in reality a wild, brutal beast born in the dark heart of the savage jungle. Perhaps I could turn him loose on the household and let him satisfy the "curiosity" of his primal simian blood lust on the flesh of my enemies. I imagined the horrific, gory carnage for just a moment.

I got in my car and headed for the highway.

Apocalypse No

A little over a year ago, my old man and my uncle Ivan let a couple of female transients stay over at our apartment for a couple of nights. One of them, named Katie, was a Tarot-card-reading, magic-loving schizophrenic who, as she informed my Uncle David, died twice ON THE MOON. She was cool. She knew Harry Houdini's real name and was absolutely delighted when she found out that I did too. She claimed that he was in the living room with us, and that he wanted me to buy a 1.75-liter bottle of rum and share it with her and her traveling companion (Margaret, I think her name was). As epic as a night of drunkenness with a schizoid transient and her eerily quiet friend undoubtedly would have been, I had to decline Mr. Houdini's request due to a lack of funds.

Katie informed me that she had been drawn to Las Vegas because God told her that she was supposed to meet and marry magician Criss Angel (whose magical powers, she assured me, were real). A couple of days earlier, she had managed to find his house and leave him a note in his mailbox before being chased out of the gated community by security guards. She was confident that he would read her note and find her, though.

Katie also explained to me that the end of the world was coming soon, and that my dad and my uncles were going to be "feet" in the coming kingdom. Then she totally blew my mind. She told me that, as awesome as my father and uncles were, I was greater than they. Wow, right? But yeah, really. She said that I was destined to marry Ruth, the woman from the Old Testament, and that in the coming kingdom I would be both a foot and...A HAND! Awesome! I had no idea what that meant, but she assured me that it was a VERY good thing. Also, through her, God told me directly not to "hit on" his "daughter" (Katie) like "the others" (my uncles) did. Even though she was actually an attractive young woman, I had no difficulty complying with this divine edict--it must have been a powerful gift of grace that gave me such restraint. She believed that God had led her to us because she, Margaret, my dad, my uncles, Criss Angel and I were all supposed to go to the Indian reservation in Arizona and wait for "the bombs to drop." This, she explained, would happen sometime in October of 2012. Well, I had forgotten about it until today. Obviously, the end of the world thing didn't happen as promised. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. On the one hand, the world wasn't destroyed. On the other hand, I'm not going to marry a biblical saint and become a hand and a foot in the New Kingdom. I can't seem to catch a break.

Dreaming about Commies

Last night, I had a dream about an undetectable Soviet battleship that could "float underwater" (not sure how that's different than a submarine, but it looks like an ocean liner with gun ports sailing underwater). In my dream, the Soviets "decommissioned" them all by blowing them up in the middle of the ocean so that their super secret design would not fall into the hands of the Americans. I'm not sure why they were being decommissioned, since it was the mid-1980's and the cold war was still in full swing, but that thought didn't occur to me in the dream. Unbeknownst to the commie government, one of the ships had been stolen by a sadistic rogue Soviet navy captain and a crew of equally sadistic rogue Soviet commandos, who sailed it all the way to America and attempted to take over an American town and hold it for ransom. Since it was the 1980's, they had to call Arnold Schwarzenegger to come in and save the day. The really cool thing about the dream was that it looked like it was filmed in the style of a 1980's action flick. Dialogue, clothing styles, special effects, and even cinematography were all reminiscent of movies like "Commando," "Rambo," and, of course, "Die Hard." Very cool.

An Afternoon Nightmare

I was trying to take a nap. At first I dreamed that I was on a date with a lovely young lady on whom I'd had a secret crush in the past. The date started off badly as I, being unbelievably nervous, forgot to compliment her on how stunningly beautiful she looked. We had just arrived at the restaurant, when I saw comedian Sarah Silverman sitting on a bench outside the restaurant. I greeted her, of course, and she acknowledged my greeting, but didn't say anything funny or awesome that I could tell all my friends about at future parties ("Oh, man, I can totally see Sarah Silverman saying that! That's so awesome!"). My date didn't know who Sarah Silverman was, so I pointed out Sarah's picture on a promotional poster hanging on the wall. My date did not seem impressed. As we approached our table, my mind began racing to figure out how to tell her how lovely she looked and, dear God, don't let her think I'm a jerk for not saying anything at the beginning of the date and what exactly do you you call what she's wearing? That's called a blouse, right? I can't call it a shirt, or I'll look like an idiot--unless I call it a blouse and it's not a blouse, but some sort of special chick shirt with a fancy French name. Should I just call it a "top?" That sounds worse than shirt! I switched my attention to the task of providing an adequate description of her skirt when I realized that I was in way over my head and was going to make a fool of myself no matter what. I resolved to myself that I would make it my sacred duty to learn the taxonomic designations of every conceivable item of women's clothing, as well as the myriad fabrics from which they are made. That's the last thing I remember about the date, as my brain suddenly decided to make a rather jarring change of venue.

Suddenly, I was at the heart of a story featuring the Incredible Hulk. He was saving me from hideous, vivid blue-and-gold-skinned humanoid mutants of such horrifying power and malevolence that all I could think to do was flee. So flee I did, even though I knew that, no matter how far I might be able to escape, if The Hulk lost the battle (and lose he well might), these terrifying and hellish creatures were capable of sniffing me out, hunting me down and ripping my flesh to shreds—no matter where on this vast earth I may try to hide.

Thank you, brain. Thank you so much for ruining my nap with your psychotic powers of imagination.

Another Crazy Dream

I had a dream last night that I was some sort of resistance mercenary in a middle eastern country roaming the town at night setting fire to big box stores with a flame thrower disguised as a vacuum cleaner. Then I was part of some group of American subversives in Vietnam trying to overthrow the government at Hanoi. They chased my chunky butt down with a helicopter, but I somehow managed to lose them. Because of that, we had to scuttle the operation, and we waited for some dude to come to the safe-house in a VW bus to extract us. Also, I was hoping to score with one of the cute female fellow-subversives, but no dice. 

Later in the dream, there was a giant balloon/blimp in the shape of Bender from Futurama that floated down out of the sky and crashed into my apartment here in Boulder City. All I could think was: "Man, I gotta get a picture of this."

This Dream Was Kickass

My dreams last night were a huge, dizzying mess: an old flame, a sexy betrayal, going to prison, working at the FBI, a serial murder conspiracy, an evil and politically-connected industrialist, the military, torpedoes, a speed boat explosion, casino gambling, mind control, and karate. Sometimes your brain just says: "This will make no sense, so just shut up, hang on, and enjoy the ride."

An Apocalyptic Dream

I had a dream where most of the people on Earth had mysteriously vanished or died. A bunch of survivors and I had taken refuge at an abandoned theme park/resort where there was nothing to eat but Chick-fil-A. A five-year-old orphan girl, who was also a mathematics prodigy, adopted me as her guardian and told me about an evil kidnapper from whom she had escaped, and who would stop at nothing to find her. I figured he was probably dead like most of the rest of the world, but then she pointed him out on TV. He was a sheriff, and he and his well-armed posse (now a post-apocalyptic band of marauders) were now headed for our theme park....

A Kick-ass Dream, With Explosions

Last night I had a dream that I got engaged to a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Days of Our Lives actress Rachel Melvin. She helped me blow up a bridge at the old tymie evil mining camp where we were trapped. Then we escaped by swimming down a river to a small town in the mountains to start our lives together in peace. It was awesome.