Fatherly Dreams and Life Changes


It seems that whenever I'm under extreme stress or facing some major life-changing event, I have a dream about my father. To say that I'm under stress right now would be an understatement along the lines of saying that Obama is less than truthful in his speeches.

Last night I dreamed that I was back at home, on the street where I grew up. Not only was my father there, but my entire family was there. And so were many of my old neighbors. For some reason, we were mostly all outside. Many of us were carrying junk out of our houses and piling it up in the street to be hauled away. I've been trying to declutter my office at work in order to get better focused on the major project ahead of me so this is probably where this part of the dream came from.

My father was dressed in his ugly old khaki pants with the high waist and belt that he wore, I think, for my entire life. I almost can't picture him wearing anything else. He was also wearing a light blue button down shirt, like many of the guys I work with do. Dad never wore shirts of color. Every shirt he owned prior to retirement was white. Anyway, Dad was wearing the modern professional white man's uniform, khaki pants and light blue button down, and his old black framed glasses. He wasn't all that old, maybe 50, and in excellent health. That's the way I remember him, I guess, since he didn't have any real health problems until he was well into his '70s. Dad was strong like an ox for most of his life.

For some reason, there was another man there that I have never seen before. He was dressed exactly like Dad and spent most of his time standing around in our driveway talking to Dad. I was hauling stuff out the back door of our house and out to the street, throwing it on the curb in a big pile for the trash men to pick up. We actually did this when my dad died, so it was weird to be reliving the experience while Dad stood and supervised.

Across the street, my best friend and his family were outside doing something very similar. I went over to see them and spent some time talking to them. In reality, I haven't seen most of them in several years, but in my dream it was as if we all still lived together on that street and had never left. I was glad to see them again.

Thanks to social websites like Facebook, I have recently reconnected with neighbors from that street whom I haven't seen face-to-face since I was maybe 6 years old or so. One family moved away to California. I'm sure I was no older than 6 when they left. Talking with the only girl in their family on Facebook, I was surprised when she said "if we could get everyone together for a reunion I would gladly fly in from California just to see everyone." I talked to some people who had graduated high school while I was still in elementary school, but who knew me as the younger brother of someone they were close friends with way back in the dark ages. I was surprised that they would talk to me and glad to hear how things were going in their lives. In my mind I pictured them looking exactly as they had the last time I saw them in person, a very long time ago. The neighborhood reunion is a very real possibility.

I don't dream often, or don't remember them, but I always remember the dreams with my father in them. I know they're only dreams, but they have a huge effect on me. It's weird that I can never hear his voice in them, yet don't notice this until after I have awakened and had time to think about it. My dad keeps getting younger in my dreams. Soon we'll be the same age.

And eventually, I'm going to die, and see him again. Hopefully then I'll be able to talk to him and actually hear what he's saying.

Pro to Ghetto in 3 - 2 - 1

My weekend was crap. How was yours? Generally, I find that the way my weekend ends determines how I feel about it the following week. And since my weekend ended badly, this is how I feel about it - it sucked.

My dreams these days are alarmingly boring and mostly empty. But last night, perhaps because of the thunderstorm taking place outside my window, I dreamed that I somehow ended up in a motorcycle race. It was an odd race, with no ramps or whoop de doos or any of the normal things you'd find in a motocross race, or even an enduro race. And all the other riders, I assumed, had nice new bikes while I had my antique Honda 250 to work with. Plus, I had never ridden the course, not even once, so I was forced to jog the course beforehand to try and get a feel for what I was up against. This is where I discovered that it was laid out more like a cross country 5K than a motorcycle race. Yes, in my dream, they let me jog the race course while the races were going on, which upon waking, I realized was more than a bit odd and totally insane. And I did wake up, unfortunately, prior to my own heat ever starting. Thus, I dreamed that I was entered in a race which I jogged and researched and checked my bike thoroughly in preparation for my own run, but then never actually got to ride. Doesn't that suck? That is my real life in a nutshell - all preparation and no actual race. My life sucks.


I keep reading where President Obama is chiding the oil companies for not drilling in spots where the US Government granted them licences to drill, but no evidence of oil exists. Meanwhile, in the spots where the oil companies already discovered oil, he revoked their drilling permits and told them to stop all drilling and pumping of desperately needed oil. He's done the same thing with coal. I think Obama believes the average American to be so stupid as to not understand how energy production works in the slightest and thus, not realize that it is he and not the "greedy" oil companies who is responsible for this latest low blow to our nation's economy and the price of gas at the pumps. Jimmy Carter couldn't have done it better himself.


Wrong
As for Libya and our invasion of their country, this is the same president who declared Bush's invasion of Iraq to be criminal and promised to bring our troops home. That was a cornerstone of his campaign. Much like Clinton, though, he only meant to bring them home long enough to get more ammunition before sending them out again to invade even more countries than before.


While I'm on the subject of government interference in our nation's daily life and the resulting train wrecks it causes, the news is every day awash with stories of new outbreaks of infections which our antibiotics cannot stop. We went from fears of staph and flesh-eating bacteria to MRSA and tens of thousands of otherwise healthy Americans dying each year due to a lack of new antibiotics to treat them. American corporations used to produce more new antibiotics each year than any other nation. But that is no longer so. Guess why? Big Government, via the FDA, has steadily expanded its power and size, as governments are always doing, to the point that it is financially impossible for small, agile companies to even attempt to produce new antibiotics, and large mega-corporations are now, too, finding it so difficult and expensive, due entirely to unnecessary government obstacles, that most have stopped even trying. And so, as the FDA grows in size and budget, Americans are suffering and dying in order to pay the cost of this unneeded and counterproductive expansion of federal powers.


Government bacteria
Big Government generally only ever 'protects' the citizens from change. But the bacteria behind deadly infections are changing all the time. The world is constantly changing. To be protected from change, more often than not, is to be dead.

There is a trend here. The bigger, more powerful and more centralized government becomes, the more The People suffer, as Big Government intrudes ever-deeper into our private lives in order to justify its own bloated and inefficient existence. When there is no real need for a government agency, political players simply make shit up in order to stir enough fear that they can slip in a bill creating a new totally unneeded government bureaucracy with staff and budget and lots of power to deal with the imaginary problem. Once the agency is established, there is no getting rid of it, even after the lie is revealed and the people discover that they have been duped.


Official Government Document
Speaking of global warming and the EPA, there is a battle raging in Washington over the EPA's very likely illegal attempt to regulate Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant despite no Congressional approval and the fact that doing so will destroy what is left of our nation's battered economy. The voters made it clear in the last election that they oppose this and Congress has blocked passage of laws allowing this, so the EPA has simply issues regulations, without benefit of law, doing it anyway. This gives the EPA power over not only every company in America, but every American citizen, as we all expel carbon dioxide every time we exhale. Thus, we are all guilty of a crime and need EPA approval and permission to breathe. See how this shit works? It's all about power and control, baby.

Lesbian Dreams Aren't Always Bad Dreams

Clearly I need to be more careful what I do, see, or think about right before bed. The other night I was looking at my stomach in the mirror and not feeling very happy about the sad state of my "abs" and then I go and dream all night that I'm running around naked. That was not fun for anyone, let me tell you.

The very next night, last night, right before bed, I was on my computer reading a blog comment from Spiky Zora Jones about a dream she had involving sex with her, Shrinking Kitty, Kylie, and Steph the retired blogstar, as my favorite show, "Penn and Teller's Bullshit," was ending and "The Real L Word" was coming on my TV, which I thought I had mostly ignored.


Well, I say I mostly ignored the TV, but apparently I had not ignored it nearly enough, because when I went to sleep, guess what I dreamed about?

No, no, not about Spiky, Kitty, Kylie and Steph all having lesbian sex together, but you're close.


We're lesbians with great cheekbones!
I dreamed I was hired to be the lone hetero male cast member on "The Real L Word" because they wanted to see how it would stir things up to have a straight guy in the midst of a group of rich Hollywood lesbians and their partner-swapping drunken Yiddish sex parties.

Seriously, this is what I dreamed.

So anyway, it was awkward and weird and I think I ended up being assigned to live with Whitney, the tattooed and dreadlocked cutie with the high cheekbones that make her mouth look like it's in a perpetual smile who routinely sleeps with another ex-girlfriend right in front of her current girlfriend every time she gets drunk. The dream was less about sex than you might think, what with it being a dream based on what I had just seen on the TV and thought I had ignored. Never on the show did I see any of the Showtime Lesbians having sex with any man. Consequently, never in my dream did any of them express the slightess desire to have sex with me. Not that this in any way differs from how it would likely be in real life either. Sorry if my dream disappoints any of you, but this is how it went.

There was lots and lots of lesbian cheating drama, only marginally involving me, and I finally got to ask them about how the hell they can jump from girl to girl without giving a crap about how the girl they're cheating on feels, and right in front of her, even. I can't remember if anyone ever answered me, but it led to more drama and then the dream ended, as I woke up with a strong need to pee before going back to sleep again.

After getting up to pee and then climbing back into bed, I dreamed that I got a call from the famous Steph, retired blogger, whom I once swore I would never blog about again, only to have her pop up in this funky dream. For some odd reason she and her best friend, Kylie, a much celebrated former blogger in her own right, were coming to town for some work-related formal dinner meeting or something and they had decided that they were going to stay at my place. Yeah, it's only a dream so somehow this all made sense at the time. I was excited, as you might imagine, and ran around trying to get ready for them to arrive as if the phone hadn't just rang with Steph far off in Australia telling me they were on their way.

In the real world a flight from Australia to Memphis is about 20 hours long, but in my dream Steph and Kylie showed up at my door not 10 minutes after I hung up the phone. Kylie had a big grin on her face and was cracking on me from the minute she came inside. Steph seemed friendly enough, but less enthusiastic. For most of the dream I was fumbling around trying to get them set up in their rooms and make sure they had everything they needed. I tripped over things and fell down a lot. I was hyper and they gave me a hard time about it.

When it was time for the big event that they were supposed to go to, Steph told me that I needed to get dressed because I was supposed to come with them. They were both dressed up in what I suppose my brain thought were evening gowns. Evening gowns and very expensive shoes. This IS Steph we're talking about and apparently the part of my brain that generates dreams just assumed her shoes would be strappy and glittery and have serious heels on them. Kylie's too. I think this may have been the only dream I have ever had in which I even noticed the existence of shoes. How appropriate, considering who it was about.

I could not find my suit. I fumbled around. The house kept changing. Things got off-track, and before I knew it, they were off without me in a big, glittery, silver Lexus.

Before I even had time to feel upset at being left behind, I woke up. And I had a smile on my face. I felt great. It was pouring rain outside and yet for some odd reason these super funky dreams left me feeling energized and ready to start the day with a smile. Clearly I must be sick or something

I have to say, this was one of the weirdest night of dreams I've had since .... the night before.


Sorry, no time to wait. See ya.

Bad Dreams

I had a dream last night that I was photographing a nude model. She was pretty enough, although I don't remember much about her face or her name or anything. At some point things got weird, as dreams tend to do. She suggested that I get naked, too, and she would photograph me. I thought this an odd idea, but for some reason I agreed. So I was standing there naked, not looking nearly as attractive as she did, and feeling stupid. Rather than put my clothes back on I simply began to act the way I felt. I did penis puppets and the helicopter and stuck my stomach out as far as possible, making a fool of myself in order to ellicit laughs from her. As long as she kept laughing I felt oddly less stupid.

Psychologists say that to dream of yourself naked and embarrassed is normal. To dream of yourself naked and unashamed indicates that you are proud of your body. But I have never heard anyone explain what it means to dream of yourself naked and only seeing your nudity a good chance to clown around and try to make hot girls laugh.

Even in my own dreams this is all my body is good for, to get a laugh. Rather than dreaming of myself in perfect physical condition with women throwing themselves at my feet, I dream of myself as performing like a human cartoon character.

I don't know how long the dream went on. It gets a bit hazy after that. I just remember that I was naked throughout and I didn't care, but I wasn't happy about it. I only did it because the girl wanted me to, and for some strange reason that was good enough reason to get me to strip.

Later in the dream I found myself in church. And I had no shirt on. Apparently I had pants on, thank God, because the seats in those pews are mighty cold on a bare ass and will give you the shits. I didn't feel comfortable walking around without my shirt, so I sat in the very back. Not surprisingly, all my friends were sitting back there, too, as they probably would be in real life.

Ah, good times!

According to the dream, some sex-obsessed feminist had written new verses for the Bible and the government apparently had ordered that these new verses be included and accepted by all churches.

That wouldn't surprise me at all, actually.

So anyway, in the dream, we were looking at the book of Romans. The woman had added some long, babbling crap about how a woman is to judge her lover's acceptability by his sperm. The verses said that a woman is to examine a prospective lover's sperm very closely and only choose a man with big sperm, the bigger the better. Apparently his semen was supposed to taste a certain way, too. And the fewer mutated sperm in his semen, the better mate he'd be.

Apparently she's supposed to take his sperm to a lab and have it examined or something. No imperfection was to be tolerated.

The new feminized verses went on and on about good fucking and sucking and licking and all the things the man had to do for her before he'd be considered acceptable. Not surprisingly there was nothing in the new verses about anything expected of the woman in order to be acceptable. Her perfection was assumed.

My friends were showing the new verses to me in disbelief as the preacher way up front was reading through them out loud, complaining about the audacity of forcing this on us all as he went. When he came to the part about big sperm, and my friends in the row in front of me were showing it to me, I began cracking jokes. My friends were laughing, but trying to keep quiet about it, and all the while I was annoyed by the fact that I had no shirt on. I wasn't shocked that our feminist government was forcing fake Bible verses on us, or that they all treated men like human sperm factories. This was no surprise to me at all. I was just mostly irritated about not having my shirt, although it didn't slow down my jokes any.

When I woke up the next morning, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I resolved to punch my personal trainer in the face the next time I see him.

A Visit From The Past

I had a dream about my dad the other night. It's been awhile. I was in my mom and dad's house upstairs in the kitchen. I was facing the sink looking out the window when my dad walked in. He was looking for something, a screwdriver or something.

I don't know what it was.

I turned to look at him and said, "Hi Dad, I haven't seen you in a long time. How'd it going?"

He didn't turn to me, I suppose because he rarely did when he was doing something. Dad had a one track mind. Plus, he was an engineer. So when his one-track-mind was being applied to working on a problem, well, good luck in distracting him.

So I was looking at my dad. His hair on top was black with gray on the sides. And he was wearing his old horn-rimmed glasses. He must have been in his late forties or so. I don't know why I dreamed him at that stage of his life, but there he was, late forties, pulling a screwdriver out of the drawer in the kitchen.

He found the screwdriver and said something to me about trying to fix something, or being busy. Then he headed out of the kitchen. So I followed him, wanting to talk to him.

"I haven't seen you in a long time," I said. "What are you working on?"

"I'm kind of busy," he said, as he started down the stairs. So I went with him.

In all my previous dreams about my dad, he was about the age he was when he died. And he was walking along with me, trying to talk to me while I carried boxes and boxes of stuff to my car, or from my car into my new house which I had just bought in my dream. He was trying to give me advice, like he so enjoyed doing. Only I couldn't hear him. I could see him speaking and I was aware that I was listening, but I couldn't hear any words. I don't know what he was saying. I only know that it seemed important to him to talk to me, perhaps to say "goodbye."

The house I dreamed about moving into, I dreamed long before we found the house we live in now. And when I bought this house, I realized that it was almost the identical house from my dream. It was as if my dad helped me find it and wanted to make sure I bought it. Or perhaps he was warning me not to? I don't know.

Once I bought my new house and moved in, all dreams of my dad stopped. He was just gone. And I began to become increasingly aware of how many things I only ever talked about with him. I had so many things I wanted to tell him, or show him, but he was gone and now I have no one to talk with about any of it.

2 years later and I dream about my dad again, but he's 30 years younger and obviously too busy to talk with me. I'm following him, wanting desperately to talk with him. I can hear him this time. I can hear every word he's saying.

I don't know what my dad was working on. It seemed mighty important to him. If there's anything to dreams and people who have died appearing in your dreams then I'm wondering what was so important that he needed tools and had to run downstairs.

But the main thing I remember from that dream was how everything had gone back to the way it was before, when I was a little kid and he was still a relatively young and healthy man, back when I would follow after him trying to get his attention. It never occurred to me how things had switched around before he died, how he wanted to talk to me, wanted a few minutes of my time to talk, and how I was always so busy and impatient and irritated when he couldn't hear me or understand me because his hearing was going.

I don't know if there's anything to dreams. I don't know if dead people showing up in my dreams has any significance or is simply my memories and imagination combining to make images that make some kind of sense to my brain. I just know it was nice to see my dad again. And I wonder what he was doing that was so important.

Put Another Shrimp On Bobbie

My Drafts files are overflowing, so of course I ignored them all and just sat down to write from out of my ass.

I had another dream last night. All night long I dreamed I was packing up my house and loading it all into a moving van. Boy, that was fun. I woke up feeling awful. I'm not looking forward to actually doing that.

Now let's look at some headline news:


Kim Jong II may be gravely ill, jeapardizing talks
This is one of those situations where you just want to smack someone upside the head. How many generations have wasted valuable time trying to 'talk sense' to maniacal dictators like this asshole instead of blowing them up and getting it over with? There is no talking with this guy. In the words of the great philosopher Chris Tucker, "Just shoot his ass. SHOOT HIS ASS!"


Plans unveiled to convert human waste to energy
At last, my shit is going to make me rich!



Poll shows big shift to McCain among white women
When all you hear your entire life is that (your) sex is all that matters, and that men are secretly conspiring to 'keep the woman down' then you might be forgiven for voting with your vagina rather than your brain. But you should at least be aware that this is exactly the sort of thing that the politicians want you to do. Of course, in this election it really doesn't matter anyway.



Al Franken wins Senate node amid 7 state primaries
It just goes to show you that any old clown can be a Senator when the major parties care only about power and control and nothing about the country. We can laugh or we can cry. Bring in the clowns!


Why so serious?

Obama puts heat on Palin as she boosts GOP ticket
Barry there really fucked up when he picked old lady Biden to be his vice, and I do mean 'vice', president. Now it appears there's only one person in this whole square dance with a complete pair of balls, and it's looking like it's Sarah Palin.



Fannie and Freddie bailout frustrates U.S. voters
U.S. voters have been frustrated for a long, long time. But here we have the Federal Government trying to cover their asses by bailing the whole thing out with more of working Americans' money. The Feds mandated that banks give affirmative action loans to applicants based more on race and sex than on any ability to qualify, and all that corruption and favoritism led to more corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then filtered on down to the individual banks. But none of the crooks are going to pay because if anyone follows this scandal up the chain it'll eventually land squarely in the U.S. Government's lap. Not that Fannie and Freddie aren't corrupt as hell. I worked in a major U.S. bank long enough to smell their shit and believe me, it stank.


Man blames bad driving on spilled beer
Now there's a well-thought-out excuse. That'd probably get him off in Arkansas. Or New Jersey.


Australian surfer was towed by shark
A 51-year-old Australian surfer had a shark get tangled up in his leg rope and start towing him out to sea before breaking loose and swimming off. American animal rights extremists are probably boarding a Qantas jet right now to go protest and demand that the surfer be arrested and tortured for cruelty to animals.


Authorities: Burglar wakes men with spice rub
"FRESNO, Calif. - Authorities say they've arrested a man who broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing." - Dudes, that wasn't a sausage.


Fish flies out of lake, breaks Arkansas teen's jaw
This is the sort of shit that could only happen in Arkansas. I'll bet this kid is going to be popular as hell at school. "You won't fucking believe what happened to me!" he'll say via text messaging to all this friends 'cause, you know, he can't talk.


Man in wheelchair robs Texas 7-Eleven of condoms
Now THAT'S what I call thinking positive!


Memphis man accused of leaving son while fleeing police
OK, if you're running from the cops you can't very well drag your 3-year-old son along with you without ripping his arm off, now can you? And if you'd ever seen how Memphis cops treat Memphians then you might understand better why this man ran for his life after a minor accident. "TASER TASER TASER!




And now, for no particular reason at all ...


WARNING: This is going to stick in your head for days

Krazy Dreams

Dream a little dream of me
My weird and crazy dreams continued this weekend. Apparently I've returned from Australia because almost all of it last night was somewhere here in America, but I have no idea where.

I was in an auto parts store. I don't know why I was there. There was a robbery occurring. I didn't care. I just stood there and watched the bullets fly past. I didn't bother to duck. I left with someone going to I don't know where. And then we came back. I got into my truck and left on my own. I don't know where I was going. I just remember not caring about any of it and not feeling any concern about being lost or shot at.

Some strange things happened next. I don't recall them entirely. I remember being in some sort of zoo or aquarium. There was a bunch of school kids around me asking me questions as if I was their teacher or something.

Later I remember sitting and talking to Kylie, so apparently I was in Australia again for awhile. But I don't know how I got there. I was at Kylie's house sitting down in her living room. We were talking about Steph being gone and how much we missed her. It was strange because I doubt Kylie would have me over to her house all alone and I doubt that she'd open up to me about anything she was feeling in regard to Steph. I don't know exactly why I think this though. I felt relaxed there. And very sad. I think this was the only time in the dream that I really felt anything at all.

Sometime later I was back in America, back in that nondescript place where I had been in the auto parts store. All kinds of things were happening. There were military vehicles and machine guns and flame throwers. There was a big chase, almost like a military battle. It was a hell of a fight. I never knew if I was with the cops or with the other side because I never cared enough to check. I watched a man get gunned down by a man firing a machine gun mounted in a Humvee. As he fell to the ground he waved his flamethrower around and tried to toast the guy who shot him. He set a bunch of the pursuing vehicles on fire, but they kept on going anyway, still shooting at people up ahead of him. I saw someone in a Humvee stand up and shoot him again as he lay on the ground still holding his flamethrower and then he finally died.

At some point the vehicle I was in ran up onto the sidewalk next to a telephone pole. My black minitruck was parked there, neatly positioned squarely on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown WhereTheHellAreWe. I had been riding with some black girl whom I apparently worked with and who had something to do with me and all those kids being at the aquarium. Was I a teacher? Anyway, she was very happily talking to me the whole time. But I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying much, something about someone's birthday. I guess I didn't care. She was stopping there on the sidewalk to let me get out. And then she drove off. The city around me was half intact and half destroyed by war. And there was fighting and smoke off in the distance. I barely noticed it. It looked a lot like several large American inner cities I've been to, including Memphis.

The dream ended with me standing on the sidewalk next to my truck. Across the street I saw a cop about to ambush the last of whomever it was that they had been shooting at. Officer Paige Davis, the host of Trading Spaces, was hiding next to a telephone pole with her gun on her hip, singing at the top of her lungs, apparently to try to appear as if she was just some casual passerby I guess. Who knows why she was singing?

And then I woke up. I felt sick and my pillow was wet, as if I had been upset at some point. Only during the dreams I felt absolutely nothing, as if I were walking through a haunted house on Halloween and none of the scary things around me meant a thing.

I hardly ate anything yesterday. I can't imagine what set this off. But I don't feel well regardless. I thought I was going to puke when I first got up. And I pooped my brains out instead of the usual morning pee. It was one of those can't decide if I need the toilet for puking or pooping situations, but ultimately the poop won. Tonight I have to drive back to Rockettown and get ready for work tomorrow. I'm not excited about that. In fact, I'm not excited about anything lately.


Hello officer

Dreams

I keep dreaming about Australia, a place I've never been. I keep dreaming I'm wandering around Sydney, a city I've never visited. I can barely remember the details of my dream each morning when I wake up, but I can remember that I was alone, always. I try to remember if I talked to anyone, saw anyone, but I can't recall a single face or conversation. I am walking down sidewalks, standing on a bridge that I have only seen in photos, bumping people as they pass me, always going in the opposite direction. Every night for at least a week I have dreamed this.