Song of the day

Coldplay's "Warning Sign"

(Video link)

Whoa! I just watched the video, which I hadn't seen before. And it reminded me that when I was in high school, I had a dream about a girl I had dated being hit by a car during the final week of our senior year. A little unnerving to re-experience that three decades later...

For Sally

I haven't been blogging much these past few months. A couple of weeks ago a friend at work said something about it to me and shared that her friend Sally had also asked about it. I said that I thought it had something to do with my giving up on people (the masses in general, not anyone who reads this, of course :-). When she shared that with Sally, Sally sent back the message that I should write about that.

I actually have a folder full of links to articles and stories that I've thought I'd like to write about. And while it would be nice to say that the reason I'm not writing is that I'm too busy, the reality is that I just haven't had much of an inclination to do so. There's some truth in that offhand remark I made when asked why I wasn't blogging. That feeling of resignation is also behind my loss of interest in politics. It's really all so disgusting, the tenor of things... the utter inanity of political debate in our country these days. We're faced with difficult, complex challenges and what do we hear about? Whether this candidate is a witch, which party is ahead in fundraising, and... I'm drawing a blank. Jesuchristo, I can't even remember what was said in the days running up to the election less than a month ago. It was all so pointless and yet so many people in America just seemed to accept and echo it as if it was what really mattered.

In August I read Nixonland, Rick Perlstein's 900 page book about Nixon's political career, the era he lived in, and the environment he left us with. Somehow the book both reassured me and depressed me at the same time. On the one hand, knowing that politics in America today wasn't that different from what it was back then made me feel better. It meant that I wasn't living in the "worst of times" or in the "last days." If it's been like this for awhile, then maybe it can't be that bad? Maybe we'll still muddle through as we always have?

But at the same time I found myself blanketed with something like despair. Because if this really is how it is--if those in power really have no interest in improving our lot and instead it's all just about the fight for dominance and power and money--then, well, that's pretty bleak. There is this froth on top of Washington which is what you first see: the conversation is about climate change or healthcare or whatever. But underneath is something bitter, and like the proverbial iceberg, most of what's actually there is hidden. I send in my contribution for $25 while untold millions are flowing in from corporations. The money arrived in suitcases in Nixon's day... now the Supreme Court has put its stamp of approval on the whole endeavour. Give any amount and do so anonymously. How can that be healthy for democracy?

Democracy, heavy sigh. I'm tired of hearing about how people have the right to carry a gun into a bar. I'm tired of hearing that the Founding Fathers were somehow so akin to Robert (the Rules of Order guy) that they'd be in favor of tying the hands of government with respect to adapting to the times. I'm sickened by state politicians suing over healthcare reform while their constituents go without coverage. I don't want to tune into Sarah Palin's Alaska or hear that there must be a secret plot because Bristol is still on Dancing with the Stars. I look from screen to screen at the gym and marvel at an industry that gives us endless episodes of overweight people eating fried food at different restaurants and stupid people pretending to act naturally while they're on camera 24x7. The debate over deficit reduction? Good luck! Both sides are hostages to their "beliefs," and the public has no hunger for spending cuts. And I'm simply worn out when I think about the environmental changes today's kids will see because we were too slow to wake up and act. A scientific consensus about global warming? Who cares. We know more than ever about the changes that are likely to come and we're burning more coal than ever, even exporting it to China now. Money triumphs principles, apparently always.

Okay, I guess that's enough of that rant.

I had a dream the other night. I saw a group of gay men off in the distance. There was this strange sense that I ought to go join them. But I didn't; I realized that, like with my writing, I really didn't have much of an inclination to go there, to "be in the group," to belong. Wherever I'm going, right now I'm turned inward. I don't know how to solve the world's problems; I'm focused on my own. There are still those people who I reach out to and want to be there for, but overall I feel chastened. Disappointed in myself and for the mistakes I've made over the past couple of decades. Pessimistic about the ability of people anywhere to make a difference.

And yet, the other night, I finally watched Gandhi. I was in high school when it came out and not very sociopolitically aware. It held zero interest for me at the time (I was rooting for Tootsie on Oscar night). But there in his story, at least, seems to be some evidence that even in the midst of millions of people, individuals can make a difference. Though as I write this, I think it likely that the biggest impact I saw depicted in the movie was not the British Empire leaving India but the reaction of the Hindi man being told by Gandhi that he could find his way out of hell by adopting a Muslim orphan to make amends for the one he'd murdered.

To change something you have to be able to touch it, in one way or another. I'll think about that for awhile.

To sleep, perchance to dream

Jonah Lehrer distills the latest research on dreams and why we have them: it appears that they serve as a mechanism for allowing us to replay what's happened to us during the day, sort out the useful knowledge from the chaff, and look for useful correlations with existing knowledge.

They should give awards for this

Last night I had a dream that someone stole my phone, PDA (I know, I still have one that's not also a phone!), and wallet from my backpack when I was at school. The first thing I thought of when I woke up was the scene in The Goodbye Girl when Marsha Mason's character has her purse snatched, drops her groceries, and kneels on the ground in tears to pick up a box of spaghetti that's scattered across the street.

That image made a strong impression on me as a child when I saw the movie at the theater with my parents. I felt it at the time, and my remembering it upon waking today after my dream suggests that that moment was the first time I connected with someone else's feeling of violation and loss after being robbed.

Every year they hand out the Oscars for the previous year's movies. How cool would it be if they also gave out awards for the movies from thirty years ago? Certain movies have an affect on people that isn't immediately obvious. And there are movies that would never win "best" in any category considered by the Academy but, in the end, have more of an impact on the culture than anyone might have anticipated.

There are also movies that simply contain an indelible image that forever symbolizes a feeling for a person. 1977 was an amazing year in film: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Smokey and the Bandit, Annie Hall, Saturday Night Fever, The Goodbye Girl... (not to mention my own guilty pleasures like The Kentucky Fried Movie and Fun with Dick and Jane). Star Wars would seem like a shoo-in for my personal favorite. And it probably is. But I'd have to say that that scene with Marsha Mason picking up the spaghetti is probably the one that touched my soul most deeply, and someone should get a statuette for that.

Story of my life (lately)

Last night I had a dream that I was supposed to play a short piece of music on my guitar. I must have been in a class; everyone else also had to play this same piece of music for a small audience.

The piece was only a few bars long. Though it was posted on the wall, we had to play it from memory. I realized that I had forgotten to memorize it, so I sat down to do so.

Then I remembered that I hadn't learned how to play the guitar. Whoops. So I picked up the guitar to try to figure out how to play the notes, only to notice that the guitar hadn't been strung.

Suffice to say that stringing the guitar--which turned into a group project--was just big enough of a disaster to wake me from my slumber.

LATER I dreamt that I had to go somewhere on my motorcycle, but in the dream I didn't know how to ride one. So I was googling "motorcycle controls" and "learn to ride motorcycle" on my cell phone.

Hmm.

Dreams for the week

I've been having some interesting dreams this week. Here are a couple, starting with the bad one.

Monday night I had one of my strangest nightmares ever. Most of my dreams are very visual; this one was mostly tactile.

In the dream I was sleeping, or at least trying to do so. I was in an unfamiliar house and seemed to be lying on my side underneath a staircase with just a thin blanket for warmth.

As I lay there, I began to have the sensation that there was someone behind me. The longer I lay there, the worse my anxiety got. I was trying to keep perfectly still because I knew that if I moved--and if there really was someone behind me--then I'd feel them there and know for sure.
Inevitably I did shift my position, and sure enough, I could feel the weight of another person against me. I immediately woke up, threw the covers off of myself, and whipped my head around to see who it was.

No one. Just an empty room. But terribly unsettling. Weird!

LAST NIGHT I HAD A FAR FUNNIER DREAM. My friend Scott from SF was starting a new job with me, and I was going to show him how to get there. Apparently Rube Goldberg designed the transit system we had to use.

We were each riding on what were essentially skateboards. At first we were sitting on them, and I set off on the path to work with Scott behind. We quickly arrived at the first "rough patch": a narrow, winding stone staircase without side walls to guard against a long fall to the bottom of what seemed to be a ravine. I wasn't scared; I'd bounced down those stairs on my skateboard hundreds of times. But I thought to myself, "Maybe I should have warned Scott about this part!"

When we reached the bottom we changed positions and laid down on our bellies on the skateboards. They must have been somewhat buoyant, because we now had to navigate a marsh. Right at the edge of the marsh, submerged under a few inches of crystal clear water, was my friend John. He had his usual mischievous grin on his face... he was trying to scare us!

Apparently we really wanted to get to work, so we kept going. And apparently no one wanted us to get there, because now as we inched along in just a few inches of water, we began to notice a horrible stench. And there, right under my nose, was a big chunk of a really stinky cheese. And then there were some rotting buffalo chicken wings! And on and on. My friend Jim had laid out a trail of smelly food to dissuade us from getting to work.

That's about the point where I woke up. I wish I'd found out what our job was, it must have been really important! ;-)