Dream

Quite a dream. Mother's here. Bo is not actually seen, but his presence is assumed. It must be the 90s. We're having a bit of a family fight, mostly mom and me with Pop in the background. It has something to do with how poorly she is keeping up the housecleaning. She mocks me. At one points, she makes herself go cross-eyed - her left eye going down. She is mocking my wonky eye, smiling so blissfully over her son's handicap. I'm innocent of it at the moment, merely saying, "You can do that with your eye?" Later, I go out for a little walk. It is dark evening. I am not more than half a block away from the house, when a somewhat oddly shaped helicopter hovers overhead, and it lands in our back yard. I have to come back to see what this is about. When I get to the front of house, there seems to be a wild celebration going on. I'm standing off to the side trying to make sense of what is going on, when Pop sees me and calls me, waving me over to him. When I reach him, he says he won something. He holds out a notice, and he says, "See my name on it?" I do, and I feel some deflation in it. He has his arm around me and is holding me tight, wanting me there as part of the trophy, it would seem - he's the big man. It turns out that he won a month-long vacation trip. Mother relates that Jack will be going with me. This news deflates me further, as I cannot care for the idea of Jack being more his main son, instead of his real son, but I don't care that much. But there is more news. Mother is playing around. She says that we are all going. This news doesn't make me happier. I say that I don't want to go. I'll take care of the dogs. She and Pop can appreciate the value of that, and I am happy that I will have a month to myself - maybe I am the biggest winner of all. However, the dream then has a last part that's a big turn-around. A guest has come and used my bathroom. Yes, we're living her on Hill Street rather than at Bay Horse. The neighbor somehow shit all over the bathroom, and it is obvious that I am going to have to be the one to clean it up, if I want it clean again. I hunker down for the job, muttering to myself, "It looks like I am going to be spending some quality time with my bathroom. And that's the end. Thinking about the last part of the dream, I wonder if it's possible to smell in a dream, but I apparently couldn't smell anything.

Saturday

The cats weren't terrible last night. I am glad I kept them in, because it has started raining this morning. It is still only a light rain. I don't want to disparage it, but we could use a good soak ... ... Since I am on Pop's computer, I have begun watching "Full Body Massage" and really loving it. It occurs to me why Gabe was so oddly selfish in not offering to mail the movie back to me: because she greatly loved the movie herself. It hurts a little that she couldn't feel moved to share that fact with me. This was toward the end. when all my charm for her was gone, but it is harsh that she could not even share that she liked my movie, just making dismissive jokes about how its Mimi porn. I obviously wasn't very special anymore after she saw my face. Daimon says, "Oh, please! Like you are any different. You only wanted to be able to say you fucked an LJ friend - and without having to pay for it!" Yeah, yeah ... it still doesn't feel good to lose like that, like always ... ... Oooh, now this is some good rain. The timing is perfect, too. Before this happy change of weather, I was planning on watering the patio strip on this Saturday morning. As far as rain goes, this summer hasn't been too bad. It's easy for us to go through all of July and most of August without so much as a pleasant afternoon shower. What a sweet difference a couple of good midsummer rains can make! ... ... Sugar published a more polished piece on that Canadian player fighting for a spot on the Patriots team. I'll keep one quote on the background of the location: "The Pats logo is a stylized 18th-century U.S. general in a swooped-back tricorne hat, a nod to Boston’s history as the birthplace of a nation. Few cultures in the world are so adept at commodifying its creation myths as this one." A nice little jab, and some inspired writing. [WFP] This is the first time I have read a piece of hers and came away with a sense that she has really become something else: a mature professional writer. To be sure, there were concert reviews that were magically charming, but these contained a lot of girlie gushing, a lot of cutesiness. Although this piece was a sports piece, it still communicated to me a sense that this is a serious, knowledgeable person and a real writer, and somebody you don't fuck around with. This is not Queensugar. This is one of the world's gifted elites - definitely worth her special blue check-mark on Twitter ... ... It's one in the afternoon, and I still don't feel the need to put on the air-conditioner. It's quite a change from yesterday's "weltering heat". What a good rain can do! ... ... Wow, I am glad that finally got around to trying the fancier Dawn dishwashing liquids. Man, I can still smell the pleasant scent of pomegranate on my hands. I love it! I'm thinking about keeping a bottle in my bathroom and using it for hand-soap. The only problem: it's so good as a hand-wash, I worry a little whether it is good for washing dishes ... ... My underarms are starting to sweat. It's time to put on the air-conditioner! If Pop were here, this would be a tough move: it's still overcast and the temperature is in the mid-eighties ... ... Seeing the mail jeep out the window, I mutter, "There, then, is my book!" I was quite disappointed when I opened the mailbox and saw no package, but Amazon is pretty solid in this kind of information, and I was sure the mailman had it, so that I only slowly pulled away, and there he was: the mailman coming down the sidewalk with my book. Daimon says, "Is this Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'?" No, I decided to take another tour before tackling that. Daimon says, "I think you are running a little chicken, if you ask me." The thought of Kant and that book does make my blood run a little colder in my veins, but I still expect to get to it. "After this one? And what is this one, by the by?" It's Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus". I came across a mention of it recently, and researching it, the focus on suicide and the taste for meaningfulness in an absurd universe was too seductive to put off any longer. Besides, I know that when I do begin Kant, I will be with him for a good long time, albeit with a couple of Plato breaks. Oh, yeah, after Camus, I expect to take on another Plato dialogue before finally dealing with Mr. Kant. Daimon says, "If you don't happily come across another inviting detour." Touché ... ... Let's get a chess game going, shall we? At least a few moves. Daimon says, "You have been of late favoring movies over chess. I know. It's funny. A lot of times, I think movies are a complete waste of time, but then there are times, like now, when I can be tempted to make movies a major way to kill a day, taking some reading breaks for a little diversion from the screen. Though, this is mainly about the late evening, when I am nearly brain dead. Unfortunately, this puts my interest in chess in jeopardy. "Maybe you just don't really like chess." No, I wouldn't go that far. My fascination for the game is still quite strong, but there is only so much time in a day. I'm reminded of that great quotation that there is not enough time in life for chess, but this is not the problem of chess but of life. I'm thinking, unless chess is your burning passion in life, it does tend to go on the bottom of your 'to do' list.