High and Inside / Searching in Vain / Tutorial

Monday night, June 23

Dream 1: High and Inside

I was doing my flying thing again, this time inside a very large retail store; in particular, I was hovering near the ceiling, and passed a pretty cool toy helicopter which was sharing my airspace. All in all, I was pretty pleased with myself, and with the whole experience. Gradually I floated down to the floor, and passed my old VP, Rod S., who was helping a customer behind a counter, off to my right. I didn't speak to him. I kept walking, and turned a corner to my right, where I saw my old friend Stuart R., and my old boss, Christy J. They worked at the store, too, and were both behind another counter in the right-hand corner. Christy recognized me and said, "Boy, you get up early!" (The store had just opened.)

Dream 2: Searching in Vain

I was wandering around and around the grounds of a country club (seemingly modeled after Arlington's Knights of Columbus grounds, but much larger) and I was looking for my dad. I was a little exasperated, because we were supposed to meet there. He was nowhere to be found, so eventually I gave up.

Dream 3: Tutorial

U2's guitarist The Edge was sitting next to me, showing me one of his prized guitars. He played some licks and made some interesting sounds, and said that his guitar was the 2nd most effective instrument ever.

*****

Dream 1, High and Inside: This store seemed like a gigantic version of the Evans Distributors and Jewelers catalog showroom where I worked on Glebe Road in Arlington, back in 1981.

Dream 2, Searching in Vain: I know exactly where my dad is, but I often feel that I'm still searching for the dad that I wish I had. I called him on Father's Day, and he put me on the speaker phone, because my twin brother was there. I was in the middle of a sentence when Dad called out, "Well, thank you for calling." I guess a TV show was more important than talking to his son on Father's Day. I don't think that that type of uncaring rudeness is easily explained away. It hurts.

Dream 3, Tutorial: I wonder what Edge thought that his most effective instrument was?

Arina Rock

Thursday night, June 19

I'd been watching some rock videos on my computer and was shocked when I stumbled across one featuring my friend and coworker, Arina H. I didn't even know she was in a band, much less one that rocked with this kind of punky attitude. Even better, they had a sly sense of humor. Arina was the lead singer, and she and the rest of her group were all dressed head to toe in red white and blue, and were rocking out in front of Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. At the end of the clip, the group huddled together for a close-up. All of the band members were shown wearing colorful veils over their faces, making fun of Americans' fear of Muslims. A short time later, I heard that Arina and her band were going to be performing for everyone at the office, and I was really, really looking forward to it. Just before show time, my hopes were dashed. Arina came up to me and said, "We go on at 2:00. You're covering for me [at my desk]." I'd have to miss the show. To make matters worse, my boss Christy called me into her office and chewed me out for something I'd done wrong.

*****

Arina and I have never worked together; she works where my wife does, and is a good friend of ours. She's from Eastern Europe. I have no idea if she ever sings or if she plays any instruments; I'll have to ask her about that.

Christy was my boss at the foundation that I left in 2005. Or, should I say, the foundation that left me. I liked working for her. She may have chewed me out a couple of times in the 7 or 8 years we worked together.

There are feelings of resentment bubbling up in this dream; not against Arina or Christy, but general feelings of extreme annoyance at having the type of job in which I have little or no backup, and have to make sure that my position is covered before I can get any time off to do anything else. I asked for Christmas week off 8 months in advance, and I've yet to get confirmation. I've got seniority over almost everyone in my position at work, and yet my boss is not confirming that I'll have the time off. It annoys the shit out of me. That's what this dream is really about -- the possibility of missing something that I really want to do because of inadequate "coverage" at work.

The Party's Over / Sympathy for the Monster

Monday night, June 16

Dream 1: The Party's Over

I was in my 20s again. The Super Bowl had been moved to Paris, and somehow several of my old guy friends and I had scored tickets and flown over for the festivities. After the game I was walking back from the stadium toward our hotel. I thought about all of the things I wanted to see and other avenues that I might wander, but it was late at night and I was walking by myself, so I decided to play it safe for the moment and head straight back to our room. Maybe I'd be able to do some sight-seeing in the morning. Once I got there, a party was going on, and the guys had asked some women to join us. I was thinking of ordering some champagne and asking one of the women if she'd like to try some when the phone rang unexpectedly. One of the guys answered, said a few words, and then he called out, "Hey Eddie... [our boss] has taken a turn for the worse!"

Dream 2: Sympathy for the Monster

I was at the home of a friend or acquaintance, and was walking down a large stairway, toward the main floor. Near the bottom of the stairs I came across a large slow, or semi-retarded man. I'd met him before, so I struck up a conversation. I told him that I'd been watching the classic movie "Frankenstein." He thought for a moment and, looking down, he said sadly, "Maybe he's my brother."

*****

Dream 2: Sympathy for the Monster

It occurs to me that the slow man's comment can be taken in different ways. Is he showing sympathy toward the monster because he, like Frankenstein's creation, has been feared and misunderstood his entire life? Or does his comment mean that he loathes himself, and considers himself to be a monster, too -- someone who feels that he's the ultimate outsider, who will never fit into "normal" society?

There's something deep going on in this one.

Hello, Old Friend

Sunday night, June 15

Ed B. came over to my parents' house, and Mom led him upstairs to my room. He was wearing some type of off-white jacket; he looked a little like Jim Fowler -- you know, one of those folks who was always bringing animals onto "The Tonight Show." I heard some people coming up the stairs, so I walked out of my bedroom to the landing to see who was there. Ed saw me and said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" and gave me a big hug. I responded, "Well, Happy (belated) Birthday to You!" Mom liked Ed, and looked up at him and smiled. She said, "I remember when you had blue hair!" At that point Dad walked up the stairs, passed behind the group and went into their bedroom. He didn't greet Ed; I don't think he liked Ed's earrings.

*****

I don't know if Dad ever commented on Ed's earrings, but I do recall that my friend Brud once attended one of my (our -- I'm a twin) birthday parties, and wore an earring that dangled prominently. Dad didn't like that a bit, and said so.

I also don't recall ever hearing that Ed went through a blue hair phase, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Ed and Mom seem to get along smashingly in my dreams. (See "The Objector," April 23rd.)

Confrontation

Saturday night, June 14

I was a detective, on vacation, and I had a bad cold, which made me pretty miserable. My time off was coming to an end, but I was still sick, so I tried several times to call in to my boss, but I could never seem to remember the number exactly. Finally it got to be after 11 a.m., so I gave up trying. I'd explain it to her later. It didn't really matter, because soon I was working a case anyway.
Somehow I'd found out that a man and his family -- who were also staying at my hotel -- had stolen $400,000, and were on the run in their minivan. I walked around the building, looking for clues. On the surface, they seemed to be a normal, nice, middle class family. They were black; the father was a little overweight and balding; the mother resembled Michelle Obama, and their only child was a studious boy, about 13 years of age, who wore glasses.
Later in the day I found the family in question out in the parking lot, and confronted them. I didn't want anyone to get hurt -- myself, especially -- but wanted to talk with them, and try to reason with them as I blocked their attempt to make their getaway. I said, "In today's economy, do you really think $400,000 will make that much of a difference (and will be worth being on the run all the time)?" The wife said, "Hell, yeah! My husband just got a new set of tires for my car!"

*****

The man in this dream is modeled after a neighbor who came by our house during the recent neighborhood yard sale.

Crusaders

Friday night, June 13

Laura Bush and I flew up to a floating space station that was part of a Star Wars-like anti-nuclear apparatus. Laura was a closet liberal, and she was looking forward to arriving and announcing to the world that she had convinced the commanders of the station to deactivate the system, or at least their part of it. When we arrived, we were sorely disappointed to find out that she didn't have nearly the clout that we thought she had; the commanders wouldn't budge.

*****

Making Plans

Thursday night, June 12

I was living in a group house in Falls Church, VA, but I'd had about enough of that arrangement; it was time to move out. After all, people's clothes were piled up all over the place; in some cases, they were several feet deep. I wanted a place of my own; an apartment with clean white walls, peace and quiet, and a pool, too.

On moving day I went out for a late afternoon lunch with my brother Andrew. Having accomplished this goal, I told him about another; I was thinking of asking out my coworker, Tracy M. Drew said, "You're crazy. She's engaged!"

*****

I've been thinking about joining a pool here in Nashville, and have looked into some alternatives. The heat's been getting to me.

Tracy M. is a coworker of mine, and she's a really cool person. She got engaged about two weeks ago, and says that my wife and I will be receiving an invitation to join her and her fiance on their happy occasion.

Crash

Monday night, June 9

Comedian Steve Martin owned a big, old red convertible with long tail fins and white trim. It was a beauty, and he cherished it, so he didn't want anyone to fool around with it. One day he drove his girlfriend to the store, leaving the car in the middle of the lane of a crowded parking lot; he'd be right back. He warned his girlfriend to look out for the car, and walked in to buy something. As soon as he did so, she giggled and slid over into the driver's seat. She figured that she'd play a trick on Steve, by driving away from the storefront. She threw the car into reverse, and attempted a three-point turn; in her haste, she whipped the wheel around and slammed into a line of cars: CRUNCH.

*****

Jumping the Gun / Dark Skies

Sunday night, June 8

Dream 1: Jumping the Gun

I was about to go out on stage to play a concert with the E Street Band. We were all behind the curtain; Bruce was front and center, and I was the last person on the right, with my electric guitar strapped on, and at the ready. Unfortunately, in my eagerness to get started, I jumped through the curtain ahead of time, and began playing the introduction to "Prove It All Night" in my lame, one-string way. Only then did I realize that the rest of the band had not joined me. Feeling incredibly embarrassed, I slunk back behind the curtain, where Bruce and the entire band were staring at me. Not only had I jumped the gun, but I had begun playing a song of my own choosing. Bruce looked at me with a mixture of anger and humor. Instead of yelling at me, he thought for a second, and came up with an idea. He said, "OK, each of you can pick any one of our songs, and we'll play it tonight." I thought to myself, "If I knew he was going to do that, I'd have picked something else!"

Dream 2: Dark Skies

I was living in a townhouse community in Falls Church, Virginia, and I had joined a number of neighbors outside who were looking up at ominous black clouds. Suddenly someone called out, "A Twister!" I said, "I've got to go get my cat!" and ran toward my door.

*****

Dream 1: Jumping the Gun

Off the top of my head, I might request "The Price You Pay," from "The River."

Dream 2: Dark Skies

Back when I lived on Hyson Lane in Falls Church, I found a black and white kitten one time, hanging out in a large bush next to our front steps. I named him "Munchkin," and kept him in the basement for a few days, until a neighbor happened to come by, describing the cat, and asking me if I'd seen him. (Munchkin had no tag when I found him.) I gave him back, of course. I've got some photos of him in one of my photo albums. They've been kept in storage ever since I came to Nashville -- almost 7 years ago now. Hard to believe.

Way Back When

Wednesday night

I was walking to my apartment with an acquaintance, and was telling him about my past. We crossed a parking lot, and for a time walked only on small concrete dividers between the parking spaces, which had been painted bright yellow. I said, "The only roommate I ever had was Duncan S." He said, "Duncan?! He's been around forever!" I continued, "I used to have lots of friends, but they all got married, moved out to the suburbs, or moved [farther] away..."

*****

Duncan was one of my first roommates, at a townhouse in Falls Church, VA, but I had many more after that. Some were real characters.

Once upon a time, when my friends and I were all still single, there was always someone to call to get together for dinner out, a movie, a game night, etc. I'm glad I'm married, but I do miss those days and those people sometimes.

Clean Up Time

Tuesday night

I was cleaning up my boss'es large office, straightening up a glass curio shelf that stood in front of her large desk. The shelf contained many vintage plastic Halloween candy containers and lanterns, in orange and black, dating back to the 1940s or 1950s. Next, I moved behind her desk, and made two neat stacks of her record albums, leaning them against the wall. One stack had a Jackson 5 album in front, the other displayed an LP by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The sound quality of the records wasn't perfect, but the nostalgia more than made up for it. My boss walked in with another manager, and the two women complimented me on the job I was doing, remarking that the place hadn't looked that good in ages. At that point I happened to look out through a window, to an adjacent swimming pool. I saw a cat, standing on his hind legs, balancing on a yellow volley ball, cleverly riding it back and forth, back and forth, between the edge of the pool (to his right) and the edge of the patio (to his left). I called out, "Look At That!" My boss looked outside and smiled, but expressed no surprise. She said, "Oh. He does that alot."

*****

The vintage orange and black Halloween collectibles are mine, as were the albums, once upon a time. I don't have my LPs any more.

Try Something Else

Monday night

Sheriff Andy Taylor noticed that his deputy, Barney Fife, was in a rut, so he suggested that Barney take up an extracurricular activity. Barney decided to write stories for the local paper in his spare time. Finally the day arrived when everyone would get to read his first stories in print. Andy and his family gathered around on the porch, and they and Barney each eagerly read their own copies. Soon their expressions changed; Barney was a terrible reporter. His stories were awful. Even Aunt Bee and Opie couldn't believe what they were reading, and rolled their eyes. Worst of all, Barney had talked Andy into being photographed in convict's overalls, complete with serial number, and this picture was splashed on the back page with the headline, "Sheriff Taylor as prisoner." The article was meant to be informative, to explain what it was liked to be a "guest" in the Mayberry jail, but it completely backfired; it made the sheriff look like an idiot.

*****

Barney was never a reporter in any "Griffith" episodes I've seen, but Opie wrote, printed and sold a juicy gossip column about the neighbors in an episode from season five called "Opie's Newspaper." It aired for the first time on March 22, 1965.

The Enforcer

Sunday night

I had some sort of a management position at a college, and happened to overhear a male graduate student say, in an offhand way, that he had cheated on his final pre-graduation exam. It was my responsibility to lay down the law. I pulled up a chair, faced him in his, and informed him that he had rendered his entire college career null and void. He seemed disgusted, but with me, not his own actions, and said, Give me a break!" He didn't think what he had done was all that serious, or even out of the ordinary. I said, "Hey, I've cheated before, and I've lied to my parents, but you learn [that it's not the thing to do]."

*****

I suppose that I did teach myself to lie when I was young, mainly as a way to avoid getting in trouble, or yelled at, or maybe as a way to avoid hurting others' feelings. It became almost reflexive -- "My report card? Uh, well, they did hand them out, but they didn't give me mine because I have an overdue book at the library, and I don't know where it is." I didn't lie all the time, but developed a bad habit -- again, to avoid being yelled at -- of telling people what they wanted to hear, as opposed to the truth, particularly over the phone. "Have you taken the trash out yet?" Sure I have! This habit was hard to un-learn, and carried over into my work-life, particularly when I had hard-ass bosses that scared me. "That project? Oh, it's just-about done." (I hadn't started it yet.) The "little lie" can become so ingrained, so much of a daily habit, that one doesn't even think of it anymore. I suppose that few guys will truthfully answer when a wife asks, "Do I look fat in this outfit?" but clothing issues aside, I learned that what my wife expects from me, more than anything else, is honesty. That means that I need to tell her the truth even when I know that she won't like it, and that I, in turn, won't like the response. It's still better than the reflexive lie. I suppose that it doesn't make any difference, but I'd like to point out that I would only lie to my wife about the most idiotic things, after procrastinating and not doing the chores that I'd agreed to do. It's not like I was lying about having a harem on the side, or something. Anyway, so that's my screed about lying. I'm sure that I taught myself to lie when I was very young, out of fear. I don't need to fear my spouse. A marriage should be quite the opposite thing entirely. That's a simple thought, but it took me years to learn it.

Now, as for cheating: I suppose that I shouldn't see lying and cheating as two completely separate things, but I do. Right or wrong, I assume that almost everyone lies from time to time, at least to get themselves out of hot water. But to me, cheating has always seemed to be a mark of the truly screwed-up person; particularly adults who cheat. And I'm not talking about cheating in the adultery sense of the word; I'm talking about cheating at board games, and card games; cheating when it really should not matter. I've caught one adult friend, a woman, cheating at Trivial Pursuit -- she turned the card over and whispered the answers to her teammate -- she also made very public bets and refused to pay when she was wrong. I've also known one guy in the 21-year history of our poker tournament who knowingly cheated by staying in match-the-pot games when he didn't have enough money to cover his loss if he had been beaten. (He admitted this later.) He doesn't play with us any more. Again, maybe I shouldn't draw such a distinction between the liar and the cheater, but I truly see the adult cheater as a pathetic person -- one to be pitied but loathed. (Can you pity and loathe someone at the same time? Probably not. OK, just loathed.) My friend Preston often refers to "the sanctity of the game," no matter what we're playing -- Monopoly, tennis, what have you. He jokes about it, but he's serious, too, and I'm on his wavelength. I don't want to play with anyone who needs to win so badly that he or she will do anything in order to make himself or herself look good. To me that's a sign of a deep flaw, and a sign of a person to be avoided. And I worry sometimes, because I catch my nieces and nephews cheating at games every now and then. One claims that her baseball team has 2 outs when she knows full well that they've had 3; another tries to distract people who have landed on his space in Monopoly, and takes wads of other players' cash when they are not looking. My wife thinks that this is a natural byproduct of growing up in a very competitive family of 8 children, and that they will grow out of it. I hope so. It's definitely uncool.

I can't ever remember purposefully cheating at a game. I'm sure that I must have, long ago, but I don't remember. I determined when I was very young that there's no honor and there's fun in winning if you cheat. The fun comes from honest competition. Otherwise, what's the point?

*****

May 2008 Dream Roundup

Family and Friends:

My wife
My father-in-law (he was played by actor Seymour Cassell in "Bad Vacation")
Andrew C.
Barbara S.
Brent L. (sent gifts to Denis G.'s family in "R.I.P.")
Dad C.
Dawn C. (she had made the Xmas stockings in "Bad Christmas")
Denis G.
Eddie M.
Edie S.
Gordon S.
Jarratt S.
Jim B.
Jimmie C.
Linda S.
Mandy H.
Mike K.
Mom C.
Preston W.
Scotty S.
"Sis" (Dad's sister; my aunt)
Stacy L. (sent gifts to Denis G.'s family in "R.I.P.")

Acquaintances & coworkers:

Jason E.
Jennie S.
Jessica M.
Maliha M.

Celebrities:

Bono
Carl Childers (I owned a "Carl suit" in "Christmas with Carl")
Charles Dana Gibson (trees in "Memory Garden" resembled his art)
Frank Sinatra
George Harrision
Harrison Ford
Indiana Jones (that was the movie playing in "Torn")
Julia Roberts
Mick Jagger (I spoke of my friendship with him in "Mentor")
Nat King Cole
The Pretenders
Seymour Cassell (he played my father-in-law in "Bad Vacation")
Ted Cassidy
Tim Burton
The Washington Redskins
Willie Mays