dreamed last night that my father was trying (again) to kill himself (as if he wanted to do it better a second time) and this time he was taking me with him. whether he knew i was present or not i can’t say, but i was somehow able to stop him this time. he was driving a car in circles, faster and faster, until he was nearly losing control of the vehicle. my sister saw him driving and at first she laughed and smiled, as if to acknowledge that dad was just showing off. but then dad ran over a little girl and then he plowed through a fence and my sister’s smile vanished. from the back seat i was somehow able to extend my left leg far enough to reach the brake pedal. i think i stopped the car but i don’t know.

in some ways the dream resembles an incident from a couple of years before he died. looking for a street he accidentally drove the wrong way onto an Interstate exit ramp. i should have been scared but somehow the serenity of his absent-mindedness comforted me. i would not have minded too much if one of those trucks or vans blasting their horns at us (illustrating thee Doppler effect) would have smashed us down.

…..

i woke up the other day thinking “why does it smell like beer?” i mean, i drink beer sometimes, but i don’t ever spill it or make a mess of it. the apartment smelled ofbeer, though.

soon enough i discovered that it was Glade air freshener. i’d never tried the ARCTIC WATER scent before, and i’ll take a pass on it going forward. it really smells like beer.

…..

sometimes i look at my life and remember an account i heard regarding the Indonesia tsunami. a tour guide was leading a group on a seaside stroll when a mass of garbage washed up on shore. the tour guide commented that this was a disgusting example of unlawful disposal of trash. she texted someone to alert them that authorities hsould look into this. moment slater the shore was inundated with what must have hundreds of tons of garbage full houses, cars, large containers. realizing that something unnatural had occurred the tour guide abruptly shifted gears, announcing to the group that something major had occurred, and then texting the person again. this time the text message was one word: CATASTROPHE.

aha, it is not that i think my life is a catastrophe. not quite. not yet. it was the sudden appearance of tons and tons of garbage that struck me as a metaphor of sorts for the things i see around me these days. i have a daily sensation that the morning’s ambition and positive direction have succeumbed to my over-extended livelihood and my directionlessness. it’s a physical sensation that undercuts whatever support my gut gives to the upper part of my body.

i worked hard today, though. accomplishing *what* i do not necessarily know. but the worky-work felt righteous. i also was up pretty early when an inextinguishable hardon forced me out of bed 3 times. i should really ask a doctor about that. i tried looking it up on the interwebs but any time you do a earch anhything regarding erections, well, you are pretty much lost in a sea of pharmeceutical id.

i started processing the sound files i’ve been accumulating the last ssseveral months. sound files of recorded calls made from payphones. much of it sounds creepy and depressing. i feel like i’ve been talking into uninhabited voicemal boxes my whole life. i remember a girl i dated, J, who once accused me of needing her answering machine more than i needed her. years later i’m thinking she may have been right. i called and left minutes-long messages on her answering machine each day, thinking she enjoyed the litanies when she got home at night. she said she liked it, but one day after i evidently disappoinnttedd her in some way she suggested that those epic answering machine messages meant more to me than she did. sooooo, i quit leaving her those messages. which was sad, because i thought she enjoyed them, and i think she really did, but her anger went off at any convenient target. i took the hint and rarely called her again.

the voicemail/payphone sound is pretty gritty. but i need better hardware. the laptop i’m using just doesn’t cut it, nor was it designed to be an audio production box. it’s the first real shortcoming i’ve found with the Qosmio.

…..

i saw some job posting today that fit my dream of filling a low-level security gig. monitoring CCTV feeds, reporting suspicious activity, spying and surveilling. what’s not to like about that?