Overheard No. 6

Said the man to his very young daughter...

"I would like a new mommy too, but unfortunatly I think we have to keep the one we got."


Woah. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Really though, I understand men or women wanting out of their relationships, but when the kid is asking for a new mommy.... I mean she was all of 4 or 5.... It was ridiculously funny at the moment, how absurd the conversation between parent and child about the other parent,... But looking back on it... Damn.

Overheard No. 5

"So you're saying I have a girl name? Thank a lot mom! Now I'm a woman ??"

Seriously. What the F is up with mom? I wonder if he wears her clothes when she's not around...

It's like.... an answer

Over one hundred years ago, I posted a blog named "It's like....." and it was, although it seems like I get stuck in this style, a bit juvenile. It was all transcendant, about a deserty place and flowers and full of questions about would a flower grow in the desert and transform the desert into a lush grove, or would the lifeless ground swallow the life of the flower, leaving it grey and shattered....

Well, really, you should just leave the desert and move to more fertile ground. It's so obvious to me now.

Nighttime is scary, I guess....

Well, this one surprised me. Last night I had a nightmare. I real live childhood-like nightmare, complete with a monster. I know what you're thinking... "Oh FFS! here he goes again with some long winded explanation of a bizarre dream that nobody is going to understand, because nobody EVER understands somebody else's dreams." Yeah that's pretty much the case except this one will be slightly shorter than the last one.

Basically I'm on the edge of a wood at night. There seems to be some sort of dwellings around, they are typically small, and a little run down. The only people that I can see are family members. There were a few others but their faces I could not make out. So there I am, I don't know what I was doing, but it matters little since an uncle of mine came running like mad out of the woods followed immediately by the monster. So I did what any self respecting family member would do. I ran away. I ran into the dwelling behind me and grabbed a shotgun. I think the monster gored that uncle, not really sure. Something happened there, but he was still alive. The monster was looking for the rest of us, but apparently didn't understand the idea of a house and that people go inside houses and they might be found inside a house, because he sort of looked around and ran back into the woods. Really quick here I'll explain what the monster looked like. He was about 8 feet tall and looked like a wolf that had gone insane, and walked upright like a man, but still had wolf legs. Very creepy although you have no sense of it, because you weren't there. At any rate, we came out of the small houses (the one I was in was basically a 5 by 5 foot room, very strange) and acted cautious. The other person that was there grabbed up my injured uncle, put him in a wheel barrow and headed into the forest after the monster. I stayed behind at first but figured I would follow him in a second... I was the one with the gun after all, but this monster seemed like he was going to be tough to gun down, even with a 12 gauge... and then I woke up.

It was three in the morning and I sat there for a minute, uncomfortable. I live alone and it was the first time in my adult life I ever felt like I wanted to hide under my sheets. After a few seconds that struck me as silly and I fell back asleep. Plus I had that thing where it feels like your eyelids are sticking shut....

Spired

What happens when the thing you don't believe in, draws you in, like you are a moth to the flame (which is a horribly overused metaphor), and you can't resist, for the mere fact that you are alive and blood still pumps in your veins, like a robot at command you march into danger, into a certain world of destruction, and this is how you are programmed, and you come under fire, but you aren't a robot, you are flesh mind body soul fear anger desire and yet you push and stumble and stagger and stand again ready or not for the next blow and here it comes and to your knees you go but you are still alive and the blood pumps and muscles pull and hoist you up and the crushing blow comes and you show teeth, not in anger, but defiance, not pride, but courage, and you grip to hold on and grasp at a final straw of dignity that what you are is right... even though you will be cut down you will go with your fist raised and your eyes to the sky.

It's because you do believe in it. You may never recieve it. But you believe in it. You fight for it. You are a guardian of it. You keep it alive.

Without you, it would die.

It's a sacrifice, isn't it? I can really find no other explanation...

It's mirror mirror time.

I woke up straight out of this dream early this morning. It was really creepy, but kind of sweet also. You can decide for yourself, my memory of it is fairly vivid and I wrote it down fast so I am able to prod the 'ol noodle for recall.

First, the dream is a cartoon. At least it starts that way. A Dr. Seuss cartoon to be specific. If you aren't that familiar with Dr. Seuss, I suggest you check out some of his work, this will help with visualization. And I assume you are familiar with The Simpsons, there's a touch of that as well....

The dream starts as multi colored Seussian birds fly across the sky. Everything about the dream seems peaceful enough, the birds smile and have big eyes with eyelashes. They actually look a bit like fish, in that their tails are vertical instead of flat like real birds. At some point they cross behind a tree and this tree has one branch. From my point of view the school of birds is framed in the area above the branch and to one side of the tree trunk. At this point the birds, all of them, say to me, not with their mouths, but they think this directly into my head, "It's mirror mirror time". All of their voices at once sound like some sort of discordant harmony, like too many notes too close in pitch to each other, played on a piano at the same time. The voices were rather effeminate and nonthreatening, at least in tone, but it was unsettling somehow. At the time they say this, a duplicate school of fishbirds fly in under the branch, in the opposite direction, and upside down. Both schools, while continuing to beat their flippers/wings actually hover in place now, on one side of the trunk, each respectively above and below the branch.

Now, at this point, I become aware of some kind of singing below. I can't make out the words, but the music sounds like it's some kind of parade. I look down toward to the ground. I can see where the tree and the ground meet, just behind a sidewalk. There is a house off to the side, I can't see all of it. And the street where this parade may be happening is below me, although I can't see much of it, and I don't really see any parade. At first there are people on the sidewalk, singing in tune with the parade, and on top of their singing I begin to hear the birds, also singing. The two songs are very similar yet the words are different, and I realize the birds are singing not only directly into my head with their minds, but also into the minds of all the people on the sidewalk. I can see on the people's faces the slightest hint of change, where they go from mindlessly following along in unison with the parade, to the point where the singing of the birds in their minds begins to influence them.

It seems like it's here that I realize that I can no longer see the people. They have vanished at some time, and as dreams are wont to do, it didn't use any logic for the change. They were there, then gone, and of course you silly, that how things work here in dreamland. I never saw the birds again, but I sensed their presence just off to my left. And they, with someone's hands, maybe mine as they were in front of me in the dream, started laying down napkins on the sidewalk. Their scale relative to the sidewalk was huge, I'd guess 5x5 feet square, and they were the kind you have for BBQ's, and also came in a variety of colors.

These napkins are laid out on the sidewalk and then opened up by these huge hands, as the singing continues. And as the singing of the people, and of the birds begins converge in unison, I am finally able to make out some of the words. They are saying "We don't know what we sing is hurting us" and "It's time to repair the sickness and the hurt". What I got from this, and it's impossible to convey second hand, because that's just how dreams are, is that, somehow, what the people were singing, the words they were saying and planting in their own minds, and in each other's collectively was like planting a seed and then watering and nurturing it. Of course I couldn't make out what they were singing originally, so I can't say for sure just how bad these words were. It was a sort of innocuous self perpetuating self destruction. Something that started so small and so simple, as to go unnoticed, until it's dark and evil vines had rooted themselves so deeply and completely within the people, that they didn't even notice. They didn't even wake up one day and say "Hey! what the hell is that?" No, it was as if they were zombies already, happy and content in their lives without knowing they were already enslaved, in the minds, and in their souls. An empty body carrying a parasitic, unseen host that fed directly on their souls.

I am reminded here about how Steven King often presents the evils and related characters in his books as something beloved and endearing, something a child could love, something that should care and ease your worries and pains. And it lulls you.... and also of Lovecraft, were perhaps a Shoggoth may be sucking and feasting on the happiness from your catatonic mind for a thousand years....

And so it seemed to me that these birds, in a strange way were massaging the minds of these people.

At any rate, the napkins were being laid out, and opened at each new line of the song/chant. The napkins represented the words, but were in fact blank like an ordinary napkin. As the music/chant/words progressed, they became more disturbing. Each successive napkin opened, at first revealing nothing but the napkin itself, then one by one they began to open on progressively more grotesque things, such as pus filled meat and diseased flesh.

Of course, throughout the course of the dream, at every step here, I had an emotional reaction. I could feel the birds in my mind just as the people on the ground did. It wasn't uncomfortable in that it hurt, but it was in a way like, if you were 40 years old, and had never in your life ridden a bicycle and then one day got on one and rode around all day long, you have used parts of your body, muscles and tendons and the like, that you didn't even know existed. You have become aware of more of yourself, not a good or bad thing, but you have exercised and exhausted yourself and these new parts.

I took the diseased meats to represent the injured and shunted minds and souls of the people, and with the progression of the bird's song this dis-ease in their souls was slowly being cut away, like a cancer from the body.

And as always... this is where the dream fades, I don't know the fates of these people, perhaps it is yet to be writ....

I suppose that's enough anyhow. It's lot to take in.

Just one.

I've been single for about seven months now. After ending a marriage you learn a lot about yourself. I suppose you could struggle with it, but, for myself, I've learned that when someone throws a hand grenade at you, you can't really fight it off. Just give that thing a big 'ol hug and hang on for the fiery ride.

What does a hand grenade have to do with dinner you ask? Well.... nothing really. It's just a metaphor, and honestly I don't care for that one. It's not one of my better analogies for sure, but hey, it'll do in a pinch. So what happens is, once you're single again you spend a lot of time with friends, you finds ways to fill up your time, to fill up space, to fill in that chunk of you that's missing. But at some point, you're going to be hungry. You are going to be alone. And you'll go out of your head if you stay at home. These three things will invariably converge. So just give that thing a big 'ol hug and go out for dinner.

Now, at first it seems a bit scary, because, nobody is alone, not out in public.

Wait up a second there, you say, that's just a load of crap. Wait up yourself, I say. I've been dining out alone many times recently and what I've noticed is how starkly obvious the contrast is. There will be almost no one alone. Friends, lovers, mates, families, what have you... they are all there. And sure most of the time, I am out with friends, but you know, they get busy, and my life seems to have it's own schedule lately, and I've found it's better to just give in (speaking for myself, this is not advice to you) and go along for the ride. This is no carnival ride. No ride in the country. It's scary. It's horrid. It's fantastic. At times it's the best thing I've felt.

But I ramble on. The point is, there you are. They are many. You are just one.

Like on that Sex in the City episode. It's exactly like that. You get the funniest looks. Trust me though, it makes *them* more uncomfortable than it does you.

And speaking of consistant...

I just realized I used almost the exact same sentence in my last two blogs. Lame.

And speaking of French cafe's...

I went back to that French cafe the next morning (it was near my hotel and I wanted the pancakes, they looked delicious), and I potatoes and eggs with my breakfast, and also toast. They brought butter and jam for the toast. I think the French make excellent jam, by the way. They also brought ketchup for the eggs and potatoes. Do they even have ketchup in France? And on their breakfast? Or is it just me?

Wait to be seated.

That's what the sign says as I walk into the little French cafe. It's a nice enough place, for sure. Pleasant to look upon, the food is quite delicious, even if they are fudging a bit on the 'French' part. But they certainly aren't fudging on that sign. Nope. Wait to be seated. And wait. And wait. I did not count the time. Usually when I think to pay attention to the time, I'd have such an inaccurate account of it's passage that there isn't really any point. But eventually the girl comes over and leads me to a seat. The service is fine, and again the food is good. I got over the wait pretty quick.

I went back the next morning for breakfast (it was near my hotel and I wanted the pancakes, they looked tasty) and I walked in and waited to be seated. And waited. And waited.

They're nothing if not consistent.

Shopping in Chinatown.

He was waiting outside on the sidewalk while she was inside shopping. Why didn't he just go in with her?

Overheard No. 4

"..... to take over the world."

Okay, by itself that's not really profound, hell it's not really very interesting. But what I liked about it, is, as I walked by the person saying this, he was pointing to a picture of Kim Jong-il. Now, I don't know for a fact that Kim Jong-il wants to take over the world, but he certainly rules N. Korea with what appears to be an Iron Fist. I'm not going to get into any sort of political rambling here, but it just seems strange to me how so many will obey so few. Don't we realize *we* have the numbers? It's like we are beaten already, not by guns, but in our spirits, in our souls... I'm speaking mostly for western states here... certainly there is a more complicated situation easterly from where I live. Why do we hate each other so much? Why do we look away, because TV or shoes or work is more important than our fellow man. I'm as guilty as anyone of it. I want to live a happy life, it's the only one I've got, as far as I know... and that seems more important to me than another's suffering if they aren't directly before me. At least I can admit it. I don't like it when it's put on display like that, but it is the reality.

Heavy duty.

It's gurbling...

I'm fasting.

Apparently I'm rather punchy today.

I said to my cubemate "You're just grouchy because I'm not eating" and she said "I'm grouchy because you won't shut up" and I said "I'm probably passed out on the bathroom floor dreaming this interaction and foaming at the mouth" and she said "yeah, and you're probably making gurbling noises."

The purple stuff.

I bought grape juice tonight. Damn that shit tastes good. I used to get it from my mother all the time when I was little. It still tastes just like I remember it. That's a nice memory. And a delicious drink. And a sub-par blog.

Two out of three ain't bad, as they say....

Overheard No. 3

"The more you bang on it, the better it tastes."

While it's obvious to infer the common sexual reference to this one, my guess is some sort of meat tenderizing is going on. I can't think of anything else that improves it's tastes when beat upon.

I know, for myself, the more you bang on me, I may or may not taste better... depending on what you like to taste...

In discovery...

I was thinking the other day, or remembering, actually. While reading Ilium , I came across a funny moment, where a Greek soldier is ordered to hand over all his armor and clothing to our naked hero, right down to his underpants. The soldier is admonished to "kill all the lice" as well. Yuck. I had a good laugh, but this immediately triggered a memory of my childhood.

I don't remember my age, maybe 5 years, when I was in kindergarten. I got the lice at some point, from some kid, somewhere, and roughly the memory was of a woman washing my hair and treating me for lice. We were in her kitchen, and she was massaging the magical anti-lice shampoo through my hair, and washing it out it the sink. Now, I don't remember her name, or even her relation to me. She was not family, but I know that me and several other children were bussed over to her house after school. I attended Riverside Elementary in Snohomish, that much I remember, but I don't know who this woman was. I remember she had a husband, or perhaps her father, who didn't hear to well, and didn't seem to do much other that sit at the end of the couch, watching 'Wheel of Fortune'.

After school, me, and sometimes other children were dropped off at her house. Sometimes she would make an egg-salad sandwich, most time is was just cookies and juice. I was always a cookie dipper then and even when all I got was juice, I still put my cookies in. There was a very small room just off the kitchen with a small old couch, the kind that was scratchy to the touch, colored dark brown and orange, and a very small television. We would watch Woody the Woodpecker, or Tom and Jerry in the afternoons, but we couldn't take our treats into the room, if I remember correctly; we had to eat at the table in the kitchen.

The house was an older two-story home, plus an attic I think, painted green with white trim. The garage was detached, and inside was the all important box that controlled the electric fence surrounding the small field behind the house. The fence was always on, it kept the cows at bay apparently. I was a curious child and grabbed the electric fence at least once, I remember it was an amazing feeling, like my very atoms were afire. There was a safety handle you could grasp to walk through the fence, but it was extremely low-tech, and strung very tightly, one slip and you'd zap yourself. To this day, I'm quite afraid of electric things, especially car batteries, with both positive and negative post exposed, waiting for a slip up

They had a long, narrow garden to one side of their house, the first time I ever saw a live sunflower. I don't think most people see them in real life, and my memory of it is pretty amazing. They are quite large and large. In the winters we would get a good blanket of snow, sometimes several feet deep, and back then we did all the usual fun things in snow, like snow ball fights, snowman building and snow-forts. And between the house and dirt driveway, was a lone, large tree. I'm not sure of the type of tree it was, but I would guess it was Oak, or at least, Oak-like, and it was replete with a tire swing. Several other trees on the lawn were good for climbing, which the boys did as much as possible.

Now that I'm going back through this memory it seems like there was a lot of fun to be had back then. She had a neighbor that I think was her daughter, who had a son a bit older than I, and we would play, and it seems as though I have a memory of a birthday party. It seems they were more than just babysitters, although I still cannot remember who they are, and how my mother knew them..

I suppose I could ask....

fealty

Now there is a word nobody uses anymore....

no mind

I turned off my TV last night. I stopped watching television and started watching my cat instead. I had just been sitting there on the couch, watching the TV, and I don't even remember what was on, but I was so unaware of my life around me. My cat was sitting on the floor, leaning up against my briefcase, I guess it's called. It's one of those soft leathery ones, not like a traditional briefcase. But that's not really important, unless you like to envision things accurately. What caught my eye, he was playing with a tiny cloth bag that had catnip in it. It was tied with a tiny burlap rope like some old timey money bag from the old west. He'd lean over and lick it, then he'd grab it up in his had and hold it up to his mouth like some kind of.... well some kind of.... burlappy, bag of catnip lollipop or something. And he'd roll on his back a little bit and clean his belly. Then he'd hear a sound outside and it would stop him immediately and he would stare at the wall in the direction of the sound. When he tired of waiting for the sound to return, which it didn't, he would go back to cleaning himself a little bit. Then he rolled around a little bit against my bag and rub his cheek on the buckle. Eventually he noticed me watching him, and he stared back at me. It was cool that he noticed me looking at him and he stopped all activity to look back. We both sat there, me on the couch about six feet away, him on the floor, just looking in each others eyes. We had a connection. I don't know how many people can look into each others eyes for so long. I can't remember the last time even, when I was in love and looked into my mate's eyes for so long, which is a little sad. That seems like something we all aspire to, but seldom actually find. The beauty of this connection is there were no words getting in the way. No barrier to soften the intensity of the connection. He is a good friend, and a sweat little creature and I'm lucky to have him around. It was a very peaceful moment. He is way better than the television.

The Return of Fortune Cookie, Part 1

So you remember the blog I posted about fortune cookies.... of course you do. You're smart, studious, and most importantly, you read and remember my blogs. Huh.

This actually happened a over a month ago, I just didn't have the nerve to blog it....

So I get this fortune cookie.... I'm at Little Hong Kong, which is a Chinese restaurant located, ironically enough, in Little Osaka, and finally at the end of the meal, the fortune cookies show up as is custom. Just so you know, Little Hong Kong has the most kick ass fried noodles and pepper beef you've ever had. Actually they have the most kick ass versions of a couple dishes you've probably ever had. If you don't live in LA, don't worry about it's location so much. I promise not to bring up that little factoid at the end of this blog.

And so, I pop my fortune cookie open, thinking I'll get some advice, or maybe just a random observation from some chimp in a locked room banging on a typewriter, consisting of a vague compliment, like my shoes and shirt match in a handsome fashion or some such.... but...

No.

Not today.

Today Fortune Cookie has decided to drop it's bomb....

"You will have a close encounter of a serious kind."

Whoa. That is not a friendly fortune. No "you will inherit a large sum of cash" or "everyone will soon bow at you feet" in this cookie. It didn't even tell me to sit down first. Interestingly enough though, it still works with the old "...in bed" joke.

Okay, well, I mean, come on. Close encounters obviously come in as many kinds as the mind can conjure. It's not terribly original. It's not inventive. It's not even something else I can't think of right now, to steer you away from the obvious in a half hearted attempt to wow you with my next sentence. No.

It is most certainly one thing: a fortune.

Yikes. This strip of waxy paper has definitely been manufactured with a fortune on it, stuffed into a cookie and sold to me in a Chinese restaurant ran by the Japanese. And an ominous fortune it is. I have to admit, I was a bit concerned when I left the restaurant... what sort of fate was to befall me? I certainly, from that moment forward, had a sense of ominous doom lurking behind me, like some dark shadow... waiting...

**********

Stay tuned for The Return of Fortune Cookie, Part 2... when I get around to writing that up... and it has nothing at all to do with Little Osaka (sorry for breaking my promise), but I'm not completely through it yet, so I don't want to prematurely set it in stone....

...lest I awaken the beast that has only just slipped into slumbering...

RDM and the Amazon River

So, there I was with Ronald D. Moore, and we stood on the bank of the Amazon River. He looked to me and then into the distance at the far bank and said quietly, "Let's go." He then stepped into the river and leaned down to swim across. I followed hesitantly. As we slowly crossed the water I asked him if there were not snakes, piranhas and worse in the river that would attack and eat us. His reply was a confident, "Yes. We'll be fine." Somehow I wasn't reassured. I could see or maybe just sense hundreds of strange and different creatures moving about in the slow black waters below. We still had quite a distance to cover to the far side and I concentrated on making as little commotion as possible, lest I attract the hungry bellies and razor teeth and claws of whatever mysterious beasts prowled below me.

Alas, as we neared the other side, the mist lifted a bit to reveal twisted roots, vines and brush, a very small and muddy shoreline, and a rock face pocked with crevices. Ronald D. Moore was undaunted. It was here, about 20 feet from the shore that I first saw a creature come to the surface. It was a snake and he was (thankfully) swimming away from us. It was an amazing creature, he was perhaps twenty feet long and about as big around as your average arm. He was bright white with a few dark markings along his body and had a sort of small fin along his back. Strange for a snake to have a fin... What worried me was the snake was headed to the same area Ronald D. Moore was leading us, but I'll tell you now that I never again saw that snake in my dream.

Once on the shore we immediately began making our way up the rock face. It was tough, but not too difficult to get to the top. Once there, I saw around me, turned up soil, as if construction vehicles had recently demolished whatever housing or vegetation had occupied this area, in the dark distance I saw a house, or small building of some sort. I think there was a large vehicle next to it. This is where my memory of the dream gets hazy. Ronald D. Moore began speaking eloquently about something or other, and small animals I'd never seen before scurried about as we looked out over the valley.

I was not really sure why I was there, and pretty much just did what Ronald D. Moore told me to, despite my fear of the unknown and of bodily harm to myself. I don't think I really trusted him, I just think I didn't have much will of my own. As you can see, I never made a choice of my own, and never voiced dissent, besides asking if I'd be safe. Maybe that's all I need, just to know I'm safe... or maybe I'm too trusting...