dream: 4/1/2023

i had a dream where my family and i were wandering through some industrial area. i wasn't sure where we were going or whether it was even possible to get where we were going, but we were walking walking walking past all of these trucks and buildings, in what normally i would consider would be shady or dangerous. but i guess it was a dream, and we were just ploinked into this situation, and i didn't really question things... 

at some point, my wife and i acquired a car and lost the kids. don't ask me how that happens, but it just did. we were in the car, parked, and we were talking about something. anyway, next thing i know, something happens in the window behind me (something that lynn sees). this woman- clearly upset- walks around the front of the car into my view. lynn gets out and confronts the woman.

"are you okay?" she says.

after a pause, the woman responds: "no." and then she walks away.

later, we (lynn and i) are going through a nearby drive thru. suddenly, the woman (and her daughter, and 2 men dressed in some kind of uniform) rush through the area. turns out they are helping the woman get away, or maybe they are trying to get some help for the woman. turns out that the woman was in an abusive relationship- she had been calling some hospital to inquire about the health of her dying father, and the abusive boyfriend/husband took the phone away from her and yelled at her. it was at that moment that lynn had confronted her...

anyway, when the woman saw lynn again, she cried, and hugged lynn. i guess that it was because of lynn's concern and question that the woman "woke up" and realized that she needed to get help.

this moment struck me, because it was completely believable. lynn is really like that. she acts out of concern and kindness, and oftentimes changes things for the better... i can't say that i would always be heroic. i'm kind of nonconfrontational. i like to think that when things matter- especially for kids- that i would step in. but with adults, sometimes i just don't like to get involved- or i get into this mindset that i simply don't understand what's going on with other people- that they are inscrutable to me... yes, it's an excuse...

*****

before we fell asleep, i was talking about 

12/28/2022

i just finished reading "klara and the sun" by kazuo ishiguro. it's a wonderful and sad story. i have many thoughts about it, but essentially i think mainly about the things we take for granted... and the purity of a love so unconditional that it completely disregards the self... somewhat like sunlight.

yesterday i struggled to progress on "kappa noodle." but i realized that what i was writing was getting far too complex... characters with the same name, and what that was supposed to signify, etc... i was losing the point of the story. i really made a concerted effort to map out the plot, in my own messy way... i had this idea of having at least two plot lines, and make them each progress naturally, while resonating and echoing each other... somewhat akin to what haruki murakami tried to accomplish in "hard boiled wonderland." but i was having so much trouble... on the one hand, i wasn't sure what the point of either plotline was... and to make them resonate seemed to compromise the plotlines, make them contrived. so i gave up.

i now have another idea, a much simpler one. well, it's still complex, in the sense that there are still two plot lines. but i think if i incorporate my brother in the second plotline, then there would be a kind of collapse, a directness about things... after all, the story is largely about my ambiguous feelings towards my brother- so why not incorporate him directly, and have him speak for himself? maybe it would make him more sympathetic, rather than this effigy that i complain about and burn in my mind... the trick is this. on the one hand, i want to make his position understandable... but there is something that i want to hint at in this story, something unspeakable, that is the present source of all my rage towards him. it is unspeakable, and yet, i want to hint at it, perhaps through metaphor, perhaps through some apocalyptic event that occurred (or will occur?) in the kappa world... but i don't, frankly, have the subtlety for that. and i fear that incorporating this will simply muddy up the plot...

there's a point where you have to negotiate between truth and whether an artistic piece "works." life in itself, "truth" so to speak, is messy. art demands a kind of distance, an abstraction... a piecing out of what's essential... and therein lies the tension... we don't want to simplify an artistic work to the point where it "loses the baby" (bathwater-baby)... but we also don't want to supply the entire ocean, with all of its vagueness and depth, for our readers will simply drown in it, and not know what the point or purpose of it all was...

***

i am tired.

every day, i find, i am wrestling with trying to find a way to feel. a stance to take. a symbol to believe in. something to feel. i suppose it is in my nature to require something like that... and maybe this is what it means to be old. it is this struggle to continue life, when all of its fictions seem to no longer hold any more...

i continue to serve. i suppose that's life's one redeeming factor, is reinforcing other people, making other people feel more solid in their lives... but for myself?

dream, 12/27/2022

i hate some really weird nightmare type dreams...

in the first segment, i was with my wife/girlfriend. during the day, we had driven our car into some very dangerous landscape full of cliffs. muddy pink cliffs... somehow we woke up and had to leave. i'm not certain why at this point, but there was a high degree of fear involved, like maybe something was there in the night that didn't want us there. so we drove on those treacherous cliffs. and somehow i found a way, a path of sorts, that would navigate us on the least treacherous route through the cliffs. it would take us close to the muddy waters of a raging river. so i went down the slope, practically riding on the underside of the car. then, the waters took us and carried us, and somehow everything tumbled into darkness. when we came to rest, i realized that we were under water, and needed to get out. there was some blanket that had ballooned out above the car, and as i somehow made my way out of the driver's side window to see where we were (not sure where the water went)... well, i stuck my head out of the window, and i saw that we were on the edge of a high cliff, teetering on the edge of it, and my action of breaking myself out had already caused the car to teeter more towards falling falling, and i remember actually having a debate (terrible debate) with myself, of saving myself or staying in the car and dying, but fortunately the choice was stolen from me, because we fell...

at least i think we did...

next, i was with eugene, a friend from college. we were riding some crazy ride, like a roller coaster, only it wasn't a roller coaster. it was supposed to be something routine, like a baggage claim or a food service place or something... anyway, we were riding on this thing, with seats that swung upon some sort of pole. the chairs kept ramping upwards and upwards at increasingly incongrous angles... and then, at one point, i felt something give. i realized that things were not going routinely, that this was not right, and, just as i thought, the whole thing started going backwards. somehow i reached the pole and got myself to safety, just as the whole mess started careening backwards into a crash, and a dirty mess of food and people...

we (eugene and i, or a pseudo eugene, some nameless faceless companion) went to our car to leave this godforsaken place. we needed to eat. but as we tried to start the car (now, some huge truck), there was something wrong. i went outside to check, and realized that when we had parked our car (i don't recall us ever actually parking it), we had impacted some wall. so i was searching the ground for scattered parts, like a part of the grill. actually, there were a lot of parts from a lot of cars that had hit things... anyway, i couldn't find what we needed...

i realized that a part of the reason we couldn't leave (yes, and our car suddenly had no bottom... it was just seats and a floorless car with all the moving parts showing) was that our car had no tires/wheels. only bare axles. so some friendly person showed up and started putting these baby tires all over our axles... and then it was at this point that the car started turning into this crazy restaurant show...

have you ever watched a movie where you know it is disgusting and evil, but you're trapped? well, that's kind of what happened. it was like this crazy family of mutants (like texas chainsaw massacre) ran the car/restaurant/show. they asked us if we wanted food, and my partner (unwittingly) asked for a hot dog. so one of the people, a long limbed, skinny boy, with a face and hair like the saw puppet, gave him one in a plastic bag/balloon that he had clearly defecated in... when they asked me if i wanted anything, i said no, i had already eaten...

then there was some crazy show that they tried to display to us on some makeshift television. at the moment, i can't recall what it was...

i woke with a bad taste in my mouth... and a feeling of desperation and spinning uselessness, a dark mirror to my waking life...

dreams 12/20/22

so there were many dreams during this winter storm, all brimming over. all i can recall are fragments or sentiments from each.

in one, there was a woman recalling an affair with a confederate soldier, which happened when both were in new york (incongruous). she said that his kisses tasted like "brooklyn and rain."

in another, there was a shipping container with faded mountains painted on its side parked in the middle of a street. this was an obstacle in the way of the construction of someone's home. so i went on a journey up into the mountains, and found a middle aged chamorro man, disillusioned with life, and dangerously apathetic about mine. in any case, he listened to what i had to say. perhaps he was related to the person whose home was in jeopardy. he took me to an aging wwii bomber, and flew it down from the mountain. i recall him barely clearing the peaks of mountains, and, later, buildings, until we approached the shipping container, and it became certain that he intended to crash the plane directly into the shipping container...

[i think i was awake for this part... lynn said there were no blankets behind her, so i reached around her to pull them up, and found musubi there. "there's something warm and furry here. and it vibrates." i demonstrated by rubbing musubi's neck. "you're getting a call on your pager."]

and i had a thought, perhaps the uniting element of all these fragments, that chatgpt was somehow tapped into the collective unconsciousness, and was filling it with pseudo-gibberish or pseudo-sense (depending on your perspective), like some vast silicon iceberg melting its circuitry into the oceans, causing its levels to rise up and drown everyone in unsettling dreams.

dream, 10/24/2022

...this was a weird one, even for me.

apparently, i was trying to hook up with a guy. i was nude on a bed, uncomfortable and anxious. the other guy was tall with long, wild, blonde hair. he was also nude. he was in his early 20's at most. in fact, the scene seemed to be at a college dorm room (although i know of no dorm room that was this big), and the two of us were relatively new to campus (as were all the other people around us).

i remember feeling very nervous, wondering if it would hurt. the other guy seemed a pro at this sort of thing, and wanted to go at it right away. but i appeared really reluctant, so he decided to slow down and allow us to talk, to have a conversation. i asked where he was from. he said "pennsylvania." (i recall there being an apple involved, which he sliced and consumed right off the knife). oh yeah, i remember there being this awkward moment, where i said, "yeah, i knew that" (because maybe he'd already told me a few times before, and i'd forgotten - maybe, i worried, leading to him questioning how much he meant to me - even if this was apparently a one night stand sort of thing). anyway, i tried guessing where specifically in pennsylvania, and i said, "oh, i only really know philadelphia." and then he said, "it's someplace warmer." i had no clue. finally, he said, "it's only the most exclusive military academy in the united states." and i still couldn't answer, but it seemed obvious, so he refrained from stating it outright...

...at that point, it's weird, i know, but there seemed to be many other people wandering through the room, including girls. everyone else was dressed, as though this were a perfectly normal affair to be passing through, nothing to see here. the other guy i was with then proceeded to feature this huge plastic ball, which he termed something like the "victory ball," a prize he had earned while at his military academy. within the ball were what looked like the hilts of multiple knives, among other things. the other people in the room admired it; there was one snooty girl who seemed revulsed by it. in any case, i recall the boy i was with taking out some sort of special cleaner to polish the ball...

...and while he was doing it, it seemed like we transferred locations, and were now guests in my wife's friend's house. i recall getting up and wandering around. i got in line for something to eat (i can't recall what), but ahead of me was this older, somewhat chubby white man. apparently, his siblings were out and about at this party, and at one point, the host of the party made a little quip or joke about how she hoped at least the other siblings could finish the job (apparently, he had been tasked with completing a plumbing job for the host, and sort of quit in the middle of it). i recall the chubby man then proceeding to play with and chase a younger (8 year old?) girl around the house.

i saw some sort of aquarium aquaponics arrangement. i could glimpse the fish, but noted the water looked greasy...

and then, even with the shift in scenery, the ugly purpose/center of the dream came home again. my wife and the host urged that the rest of the party move off to the outside lanai (separated from the bedroom by a large glass window, apparently no concerns of privacy) so that they could leave the two of us (the hook up guy and me) alone...

...and that was it.

i don't think i have ever had homosexual leanings. i was once hit on by someone in college, and although i wasn't interested physically, i always wondered what it would be like to have had him as a friend- he had such dark and brooding eyes- because if nothing else, we seemed to share a deep and torturous loneliness... my wife has often joked/noticed that she sees a lot of men "checking me out" (apparently she's more attuned to these things than i am), to which i have replied that i seem to have more luck on this side of the field, than the other...

again, i don't think i'm gay at all. but i do wish (and this is true of me with ALL people) that there were a way to really be close to and understand and befriend people and take a journey with them into their lives, without having to commit to them sexually or otherwise. i have often wished that i could walk through the doorway of other people's lives more freely... but i understand that (or tell myself that) the intimacy and understanding that i have with my wife comes largely because i have committed myself to her... and that my relationship with everything else is dependent upon that... sort of like a planet committing to a particular orbit, through a "decision" to gravitate around one star.

dream; 9/17/2022

running around in a five story japanese styled mansion, with a real (?) sword sheathed at my side, admiring the dark wood floors and the detailed stylings, all the while pursued by a set of other players (?) intent upon killing me... on one floor, "slaying" someone with a set of fans. and an another, the last, stabbing someone through with his own kodachi...

there are flashes of the previous dream, in which my friends and i were wondering through the rain drainage canals, perhaps with a few other people (girls) who were relative strangers. at one point, we saw what looked like water keys duct taped to a rusty support pipe. upon closer examination, they seemed to be skeleton keys. i made a comment about how, on previous trips, i had encountered combination locks with no apparent purpose... there were places where i or my comrades slipped... places with apparent railings, to assist in keeping balance, but the curved submerged floors were so slippery that they took people down anyway... and then we started to notice fish and coral in the waters, and i came to the strange realization that maybe this entire rain drainage system communicated with the sea. and as soon as i thought it, we saw and could feel the thundering of water through old pipes, carrying water in the rhythm of breathing, as though somewhere, waves were pounding, and pushing things through to where we were. and i recall us seeing some of those ocean water pipes, and slipping on one of them...

my reading for "backwards carp"

 reading for "backwards carp"

this was a reading that we did for Jason Fong's writing workshop.

the actors: Greg Watanabe, Emily Locke, Janet Song, and James Lontayao.