My Dream Life Is A Senseless As My Real Life, But At Least It's More Interesting

What a strange dream.

At some sort of interactive experience at an entertainment/theatre/something group in a building in the boonies. My old boss turns shows up. Turns out they need someone to hand carry a package to New York. (For the purposes of this dream, New York is in another country).

We converse and he decides to hire me for the job. Me and Lin (but not Lin, really) jump in car and drive to get supplies. But there's a twist! I don't have a passport. My old boss falls into this really weird frame of mind where he's trying to decide if he wants to push for my passport, if it's the right thing to do, blah blah talking to lady at airport stuff.

I'm all "Whatevs, you decide. Meanwhile I'll drop your wife off at her car and pick up those supplies." For some reason, the supplies were located at the old 23rd St. shopping plaza with the Wal-Mart. Apparently this was a nightmare.

As boss struggles with the issue of sending me, and makes phone calls to important senators to push my passport through, me and Not!Lin spend AGES driving into town.

I return, with car, to airport/theatre/whatever and my boss has decided I should go. We are waiting for paperwork to go through and he decides we should go grab something to eat. We end  up in a shitty chain restaurant, sitting in the shitty seats in the back. He is acting kinda weird. As usual, I'm just along for the ride. There is the vague feeling that I'm not quite grasping all the intricacies and import of the situation.

Then I wake up.

When I have dreams like this, I'm pretty sure they are either total nonsense or else so painfully obvious in their symbolism that it's embarrassing. Either way, I'll be damned if I know what the whole thing is about.

And I slept CRAZY late this morning. What a weird way to start the day. What a strange feeling.

Conclusion: Obviously I need to get a passport.

Remember That Time I House Sat In Long Beach?

Since you hang on my every word. As promised, updated with pix.

See how the other 1% lives.

When the ice tray is full it's harder to tell, but this is Dr. Who ice. Hee hee. I DRANK THE DALEKS, I DRANK THEM UPS.

Yeah, me and Anka ate all your lox. Sorry.

Anka!

Best room in the house. Stunning windows and view. The blue line on the horizon is the ocean.

View from the guest room. Ocean.

The bathrooms reminded me of the 1950s style so prevalent in northwest Florida. These are from the 20s.

These are imminently sensible stairs.

View from the side porch.

I don't if, having lived with wooden/tile/noncarpet flooring, that one can ever be satisfied living with anything else.

Rando: Going Through The Photos On Your Phone

It's sort of a combination of CSI and Christmas. There are all these photos I don't remember taking and I get to reconstruct what the fandango I was thinking at the time, or why the photo even exists. It's mostly a surprise, with a few "Oh yeaaaaahs" thrown in there.

I write you this with an S-Video cable tied around my neck, my electronics box open and spread across the floor, "borrowed" batteries in one of my remotes, and cable boxes, vcrs, and wiring spread across my floor.

Yes, I have been trying to get my tv to work. Old cable box gave up the ghost. New one not faring much better. I've applied my limited (read: none) electronics acumen to the problem. We have reached the Technician Required phase.

My theory: supply coax cable has gone squicky. Or Time Warner has suddenly stopped supporting my old ass TV.

Gee, I wonder which one?

Anyhoodle, I'm supposed to be filling out a job application right now. So I'm posting instead. (Don't yell, I am going to apply. I just need to express myself a bit before I descend into resume hell so I can just be rejected. Again. Bleh.)

So, here are some pix from my cross country trip:

Houston.

Tejas.

El Paso at sunset.

Makes me desperately long for my old camera.

I don't know how I ended up taking a picture of a beam of light or wtf I was trying to capture. But it's pretty cool.

The treacherous path to The Thing!

That light pole really vexed me.

Before I left to drive back West, I mentioned to my bro that my washer fluid line has been broken for a while and I haven't been able to fix it myself. He went out back and liberated a rake tine to "jam it in there" and fix it. At the time I saw no way to do it, but far be it from me to turn away a piece of machine metal. You just never know.

Well, guess what? That tine came in handy when I needed to brace my antenna to stop it from whomping the bejesus out of my rear windshield. You can't tell much from the pic, but that is a rake tine, some electrical tape, and some of my sweat from repairing that in 100 degree weather at an Arizona gas station. I had to stand on the back seat and streeeeeeeetch. It's still in place.

I'm a little scared to test this in a car wash.

When I got back West, turns out Handy J's tv had gone kaput. The replacement part is no longer made. Figures. So we donated the monster to a crafty minded friend of his.

This tv is bigger than me. So was the replacement.

And now for the WTF pic. I have no idea how I ended up researching this. I'm guessing random button hitting. At any rate, it looks like the closest I can get to a soulmate is Peter O' Toole.

I don't think that really requires further comment.

Does this mean Richard Harris would like me?

Ending With A Hint Of Relief

And so this long day draws to a close, with the pain tamped down to a manageable level sometime after midnight.

It's funny because chronic pain can really wear you out, but sometimes you are so relieved to feel better that you can't pass out. It's like your body is all "Oh boy, we don't feel like total shite right now! Paaaaarty!"

Or something. Not sure what a spleen says to a large intestine. Shout out to Handy J and Bef, who both helped me out today. Special shout out to HJ, who continues to grow as a person, much to the benefit of himself and those around him.

KIDS: DON'T TAKE DRUG TRANSUBSTANTION INTO YOUR OWN HANDS.

Warning: this shit is graphic. This is a Russian junkie who decided to shoot up some pills. That's right, he liquified some pills and injected. This is bad for many reasons, not the least of which is the caustic effect acetaminophen and NSAIDs have on blood vessels.

So he ended up at the hosptial with some gangrene. This video is not safe for life, liberty, or the pursuit of a sound sleep. There is some removal here. It's not particularly bloody, it's just, well. . .

You can see bone. Shin bone. It's like a halloween costume.

For some freaky shit click here. I don't advise clicking there. This is what happens when you decide that since you take drugs, you know chemistry/biology/anything.

Here's to tomorrow and better days.

That Really Hurt My Feelings

Chitauri energy blast wound corresponds to my pain, somewhat.

But I'll get over it.

I guess, despite my best attempts, I ask for too much.

Maybe that's at the core of whatever is wrong with me: I want too much and therefore will always be disappointed?

Or maybe not.

And the days went by
Like paper in the wind
Everything changed
Then changed again

I wonder if anybody could hear the Wildflowers album and not like it. Is that possible? I know some people say they don't care for Tom Petty, but isn't Wildflowers just a trump record? I can't really be objective, I guess, since I love Tom Petty to itty bitty pieces.

I'm in an immense amount of pain right now and we are hitting one of those transcendent moments--this kinda pain can make you just as goofy as any med. It probably says something profoundly disturbing about my psyche that these are times I feel compelled to record and communicate. When I am probably so least able. But I'm willing to cut myself the slack of acknowledging desperatizing circusmstances. I just made that word up. I don't care.

Wow, I've totally lost my train of thought with this. Because Blogger just quit working for about 20 minutes.

WTF? Even the Interwebz is against me!! Shock!! Horror!! AaaaIiiiiEeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

It's a couple of degrees below Melting today, so there's that. We are grateful. Praise jebus.

Here's something awesome I saw today:

I can't even win at Angry Birds. How dafuc does this happen? I must be the leftover DNA. It's probably good I'm not reproducing.

Epiphany: Shark Week?

So I'm watching this interview. Okay, it's Kevin Pollak interviewing Craig Ferguson. Kevin's got what seems like a pretty cool podcast going on: Kevin's Pollak's Chat Show.

Craig Ferguson?, I hear you query. Oh, that Craig Ferguson. Seems to me that somebody has been spending more'n wee bit of time with Mister Ferguson. 

Don't judge me.

Anyhoo, Craigyferg did Shark Week at one point. Pollak asks him what led to doing something like Shark Week.

Craig replies with this long, but strangely reserved, description of shark shenanigans.

Kevin re-asks, specificing: what was your impetus for swimming with sharks in the first place? Because most of us wouldn't do that, swim with sharks.


And I was all:

Who wouldn't leverage their new position/status/access to get access to an opportunity to go on Shark Week? Seriously? Or do you mean someone wouldn't use their new millionaire status to go swim with sharks in general?

Either way, the answer is the same: this question is invalid because SHARKS!!!! Is there seriously somebody out there who, all other things being equal, would not totally go for some awesome Jacques Cousteau/Eugenia Clark(?) sharky encounters? I mean, really, is this even a question?

But then I stop. I mean I stop the interview, pause in thought, all things cease to move.

Because, what if there really are people who wouldn't want to swim with sharks? I mean, given the chance to do so in a controlled and (relatively) safe environment? I mean, I would also really like to pet a tiger. I don't foresee many actual opportunities in life were this might be possible without threat of grievous bodily harm. I mean, statistically, it seems a lot more likely that petting a tiger would get me killed (especially a caged one) than swimming with some sharks would. Those would be statistics I made up entirely in my head, but whatever. The point is, doesn't everyone want to pet a tiger? Maybe dog lovers a little less so?

Which is all to say: are there really people who wouldn't want to swim with sharks? Like, a large amount of people? Like a majority?

Mind blown. Must confer with Handy J and watch the rest of the interview.

I Laughed So Hard I Gave Myself A Coughing Fit: Worst Cats

http://worstcats.tumblr.com/

It's pretty new, so I ended up reading the whole thing.

Seriously, my chest hurts right now.

Sometimes Lin likes to email me things that shut down my day. I'm in recovery over here.