The Re-Occurring Dream

Dreams are funny things. I'm not talking about "dreams" as in our aspirations, but the left over synaptic firing that happens when we close our eyes at night. I always remember my dreams. At least the gist of them. I know a lot of people who never or rarely remember them. I feel sorry for them. I also have a strange connection with my sleeping universe in that I can wake myself up from dreams. This is a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it.
If the dream is really a nightmare, it's a good thing. I once dreamt I was being chopped up, or was about to be, by an elderly woman wielding a chainsaw. She had already cut up everyone else in the room, and by that I mean a 'lover' of sorts that I had somehow entangled myself with.  I was avoiding this fate by pretending I was dead. In a snap second I decided I had to get out of there and the move had to move fast to make it past her. I had blood and human tissue splatter all over and looked up to see her standing in a doorway with what I am assuming was maniacal laughter- at least that's how I imagined any words coming out of her mouth- and I JUMP as high as I can, some how jumping perfectly between the doorway and the chainsaw that is flying around. Then I realize, this is not possible stupid. Wake up. and I wake up. I'm a little scared so I call for my dog to come and sit near me. Then I rub my eyes and check my legs for giant cuts, get a glass of water and go back to bed. What's funny is the "not possible" element was me jumping between the doorway and the chainsaw- not the whole dream.

Now if the dream is really a good dream, I also wake myself in the same sort of state of disbelief. I once dreamt I was having a typical day, wandering the streets of some made-up mental city that was in part not made up- it had elements of places I've been just all combined plus some things I'd like to see in those places all combined into the perfect 'reality'. I run into some friends and we make plans to meet up later at a concert and have a few drinks. I continue my wandering and find my as-of-yet-met-in-my-waking-life- human that I am apparently engaged in a long term affectionate, but cheating relationship with. We decide we're going to finally leave our currently disgruntled partners. Insert faery tale like kiss...So I'm touched, and it's finally going to be okay, and I can stop lying and blah blah... then I say, this isn't real stupid. Wake up. I'm not condoning cheating here- I'm not doing it in my waking life or anything- I don't do that. It was that weird notion that whatever we had been through (and isn't it funny in dreams how there is a back story that is clear in the dream but makes no sense when you wake up), it was finally going to be a success and obviously from that perspective we were like Romeo and Juliet more or less except fate wasn't going to throw the Death card at us. Woohoo love and stuff. So when I wake up from this I'm disappointed that I didn't get to have the concert with my friends nor am I about to make out with the hottest person alive. Nope, just me, hugging my pillow and swallowing a motrin with a glass of water.

Everyone has them. At least one. I have two re-occurring dreams, or at least themes in dreams. Neither ever make sense and almost always end up the same. Sometimes they are ever-so-slightly different enough to fool me into thinking it's a different dream. Then comes the punch line.
The first one:

Jumping turned flying. Typically, some sort of small animal tells me to jump and reach the sky or jump up and get something from a tree. I always meet the animal, and lets call it a rabbit, because usually it is one, with disbelief. I can't jump. I'm afraid of heights. These are truths. I can't jump higher than a tree! I certainly can't fly and I don't really want to: I like the Earth. I don't like looking down at it in microscopic form. The urging of this animal to do this compels me to give it a try so I start jumping. Each jump gets more and more weightless until finally, I'm sort of floating. Then I realize I can't get back down. This is met with horror. It's also met with a small degree of excitement because I feel like I've mastered the art of weightlessness and nothing can really touch or catch me. I can't really tell what I want to do. I also realize at this point that this has happened before and I knew it was going to happen again- it's an unnatural and hidden talent of mine: I can defy gravity. I hate it in many ways because I really am afraid of heights and although I have faith in my ability once I'm up there, I long to be on the ground. Then it happens wake up stupid, you don't have to be afraid because you're dreaming and this is impossible. I have twists on this dream where I see a friend and show them how to do it. What's funny is I'm terrified and usually the friend really wants to know how so to hide my fear and to get someone up there performing this unnatural talent, I tell them to start jumping too and eventually we're floating around like we're in the bubbles in Wonka's factory. It's fun then, and sometimes I even fly to a large tower where I get a glass of wine, sit on the air as if I'm in a chair and sip it with who ever my partner in crime is. That's the wake up stupid part. Sometimes I can't show them how to jump right so they never can fly and I get really sad that I'm stuck up there forever, alone and without them. Another twist is suddenly I start tumbling to the ground at increasing speed. Just before I hit the bottom I bounce back up higher than ever and I start vomiting. Then I start choking on my vomit. Then comes the waking up part because I realize I'm not actually choking but actually have swallowed a feather from my pillow.Weird I know. I've never bothered looking this up because I'm afraid it means I need therapy.

The other dream is less clear because I don't think I play myself in this dream but more like different versions of myself. It changes from small me to adult me. I've had this dream as long as I can remember. I think it is why I've never liked to swim- diving into water especially annoys me and has never seemed fun to me at all. Gym class was my bane in grade school during swim time. I hated it. I could swim but pretended I couldn't just so I didn't have to jump into water that was above my head. Anyway, back to the dream. It always starts out with me in a car seat so I assume I am a small child. I'm in a car seat and it's winter. I'm riding in the car with my parents in the front and we are about to go over this bridge near my Aunt Carol's house. We are going home. The bridge is the sort that makes the whir sound from the car tires hitting it and I'm fairly sure it's metal, the whole thing including the road. Just as we turn to go on the bridge the car goes careening into the river. I'm stuck in the car seat and the car is filling up with water.  My parents have disappeared. My lungs ache and I am about to die from drowning. a few fish swim by... I notice they are happy, just swimming and wonder why I can't just swim away.
Suddenly I realize I have a knife and cut myself free. This wasn't an accident: I'm actually being followed by some evil enemy although it's more like a military and I'm more like an assassin that has information they want. I have to find my parents. They took them. I don't really think about the fact that I was a little kid 10 seconds ago and now I'm an adult again. A long adventure persists wherein I'm on the run. Sometimes I can't run and I keep falling only to look behind me and see a bus about to run me over so I roll to the side in the nick of time. Sometimes I'm hiding behind a wall of sandbags and shooting at them- maybe with a gun but usually with a bow and arrow. So I'm clearly an antiquated spy. Eventually I find my parents and run up to my father to tell him I'm being followed. This part never changes: He shoots me in the back of the head as I turn to look for my mother. Sometimes I say to myself, this has happened before, this is the ___ time he's shot you. My neck gets hot and my head starts to hurt. I run for my mother who is smoking a cigarette and tells me to take a shower because she can't take me to the doctor all filthy and covered in blood. I start to panic because it doesn't make sense. I try to gauge the extent of my injuries so I make the mistake of touching the back of my head and note a gaping hole and clumps of hair. The bullet pops out. It's actually a BB. I am less worried now- at least it wasn't a shot gun shell. I start trying to wash my neck and face and then it happens you are stupid. This is a dream. Wake up. When I wake up my face is usually wet from drool. Yes, gross I know but that's the truth. Blood on my face in a dream is drool in real life. I'm really upset at my father typically, for shooting me. I'm really pissed off at my mother for telling me to shower when I am missing part of my head. Then I'm just happy it's just the damn dream. I wash my face, drink a glass of water and go back to bed. The other possible way it works out is I just sit there after my father shoots me and wait to die. Yeah, dismal I know. But it's strange, he walks away apologizing and I pick up a toad and look at it while waiting to die. I don't do anything but sit there. Eventually I realize this can't be real because I'd be dead already: I've been bleeding like a sieve and it's all over everything. Wake up idiot. You're dreaming again. 
I haven't looked this up either because I'm sure Jung would say it points to parental issues: like we don't all have those.

What I have to wonder is how many people actually have these dreams? You know, re-occurring ones. If I can tell myself to wake up, why can't I change the outcome? I'll take any suggestions as to these answers and would love to hear your stories if you have any... until then, I'm taking a nap and hoping for a trip to a castle with a jester and all...

Image no. 1: from Mr. Preising's Dream Views Blogspot, 2010
Image no. 2: Pauline McGee, 1987

Tackling Sneezing... and Each Other.

So... I know you've all been patiently waiting for me to return to rambling about something more in the political argument segment (yes, that was sarcasm) so I'm going to do it... as cliche as it is, I'm going to talk about health care reform. I can't really begin to cover all the issues tied into this, otherwise you'd be reading a novel- and then you really wouldn't care- so forgive me for some points left out.
I have to say, I can't understand why ANYONE would be against providing adequate health care to every citizen in the country. I don't really care what political position you hold, or what your beliefs are. There's no reason to NOT support promoting life and health.

Now on to the arguments I've seen all over facebook the last few days...

This is a form of socialism/threat to "freedom"  Okay so I'm going to try to not be irate when considering this perspective. First of all, this is far from a socialist state... I have to wonder if anyone that makes this statement even knows what socialism is. Didn't the McCarthy Era end years ago? I mean really people, this is all you have to scream every time anyone makes a step toward social reform?

 In terms of a threat to freedom- remember the Patriot Act? Now that is an extreme threat to freedom in so many ways yet oddly enough, the people against health care reform are the ones that didn't even notice it passed. Nor did they seem to mind that in general, the previous administration, alloted power to the president to ignore congress and the judicial branch entirely (based on the notion of "unitary government" or at least, Bush's interpretation of such) as the president sees fit. This sounds more like a dictatorship (never mind socialism) than anything having to do with health care reform. The government still doesn't control the economy. That's a key part of socialism. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the corporations control the government. Now that, should scare you all... I know it scares the hell out of me on a daily basis.

This is handing out benefits to the "lazy": I am not lazy. I have worked since I was 14 years old. I have paid medical bills that have exceeded my ability to pay, even having had some sent to collections and later paying them off with whatever extra cash I had. I work very hard but that doesn't mean I can afford, as a single person, to pay $300/month to insure myself.  Not to mention that although I pay in full to see a doctor if I have the flu, or pay in full to go to the dentist, I am generally treated sub par. I once asked a dentist, upon visiting for a cracked tooth, if she thought I would need my wisdom teeth out soon. Her response was," What do you want me to look at, you don't have insurance." I'm educated, I've been to college. I'm paying for that now. I pay rent, I pay for a vehicle, I pay taxes, I pay social security, I pay for my own food, I pay for utilities, I clothe myself... This means that even though I am a productive and contributing member in our nation, I simply don't make enough to meet these costs plus insurance. I don't mind paying taxes toward health care, but I simply cannot afford to spend even 25% of my wages to have insurance. Does that make me lazy? I am still the working class, however low on the spectrum I am compared to the CEOs of banks and Wall St. firms that just stole billions, who ironically, I am expected to help bail out with my menial (a comparative statement) pay while they complain about this bill.  Regardless as to income, we ALL deserve an equal opportunity to see a doctor when ill.

This isn't a game or a competition between classes: it's simply the right thing to do.This isn't a hand out to me. It's a thank you. It actually makes me proud for the fist time in years that our nation actually recognizes it has citizens instead of simply lofty goals for consumption of resources globally.

Now, lets get to the real point here: people think the term "social welfare" means "welfare" in terms of medicaid and food stamps. They think it refers to socialist food stamps (which may be my next band name as of this second.) Social welfare actually refers to the well-being of the social body. In order to have a productive and loyal social body (which is necessary to maintain strength as a nation) a state must ensure that body's well-being. I can say I full-heartedly agree that our current "welfare" system is seriously flawed and I can honestly say I support drug testing and checking in on persons that collect medicaid and food stamps for over a year to see if they've applied for jobs or have attempted to get an education or skill through the various programs offered to help these people get on their feet. I can't tell you the number of times someone has offered to sell me their food stamps with a case of beer in their hand.  Yes, that, is a wild abuse of federal money: unchecked recipients of full-on benefits paid for by you and yours truly. The problem is... the current welfare system hasn't been reformed in YEARS, it isn't up to snuff. Social welfare programs that might aim to reform this are constantly cut from the federal budget in lieu of military spending (or saving the economy...) and those programs would also be targeting education and other programs that might curb this behavior. Those programs also mean a "middle-step" program for the working class that can't afford medical coverage. I mean think about it: I work full time and can't afford medical benefits. If I were collecting food stamps and medical benefits and went to work only to find I can now afford food but no doctor... why would I work? So while I understand the frustration with "welfare" as we know it... That is not what anyone is talking about with health care reform. What health care reform is about is our future. Our social body and our well-being as individuals so we can be as strong a population as possible. (Whether or not the US being a strong state again is something I really have conflicting ideas about for the sake of this aspect of the argument... I support it.) Stop calling me and all the other working class people who can't afford medical coverage lazy: we can all call ourselves lazy and selfish for not having addressed this 20 years ago.
* To clarify: I am not talking about someone temporarily collecting welfare benefits to get on their feet. Nor am I talking about the disabled. I am supportive of a state helping its citizens realize their potential and I am supportive of a nation state taking care of it's less advantaged. Actually, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which the US signed), Article 25, a state has the responsibility to provide adequate health care to it's citizens. This means ALL of them. (I urge you all to read that Declaration, you'd be amazed at exactly how many articles the US is violating: Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

This is an economic disaster in the making The free market. Let's consider some of the basics of such, in particular the fact that competitive pricing drives prices down. Now, a public option will in fact force large insurance carriers to offer competitive pricing to it's customers. Is this a bad thing? It may even allow for smaller start ups to begin and therefore produce more jobs. I understand that businesses are afraid of being "forced" to help cover the cost of insuring employees. I just don't understand why to the fullest extent: A healthy employee is a happier and more productive being. More detail in next segment...

Great, wait times will be longer at the doctor Have they ever been short?! I also can't believe the complete selfishness in this commentary. So, you're saying you'd rather see a child die because their parents couldn't afford to take them to the doctor than wait for your annual check up appointment? I understand the issue with the plan perhaps over-booking doctors/nurses/medical personnel. It's my feeling that along with this, the government should be taking some of the money we spend sending our countrypersons overseas to fight in the name of... I'm not sure what... in a completely futile war, should be spent paying for medical personnel educations (jobs for educators) as well as to help ensure they have the proper equipment and tools to complete their jobs (jobs for medical equipment sales._ This means bringing home the troops, ending the wars and focusing on our state, and our citizens instead of worrying about what other states are doing. *Let me insert here that I have NOTHING against our troops so let me explain before you start yelling at me for being "unpatriotic": I believe the wars shouldn't have been fought to begin with. I commend the courage and efforts of our brothers and sisters that help defend our nation. What I don't commend is a government that goes to war senselessly and thinks so little of human rights- including our soldiers': don't forget their treatment upon returning home by good old Uncle Sam. It also means focusing on creation of facilities (jobs in construction.) It also means targeting the scams that pharmaceutical companies have been pulling for years via over-charging and holding onto valuable medicines. I realize this is a lot to ask but doesn't it piss you off at all that antibiotics cost so damn much? What about cancer drugs? I mean we're talking about life and death in many cases all because someone "owns" the rights to a drug and can control the price. This is a huge part of the problem.
Oh and I'd like to see ERs stop charging people $100 for motrin. Bastards.

The problem here is we've made the field of medicine so commercial, at least in terms of pharmaceuticals and medications... it has lost it's roots: helping the ill and saving lives. This is an important part of reform. I really can't think of how ANYONE besides a pharmaceutical corporation could disagree, regardless as to your stance on politics or social welfare in general.   *Let me state here I am not talking about all of the doctors and nurses that bust their arses to help people every day. I'm talking about the cost of their educations, malpractice insurance, and cost of operation- all of which are largely controlled by much more powerful sources/corporations. I am also hyper-aware of the commercialization of education and believe me, I know the cost hurts.

All the screaming of racial slurs and homophobic statements.  I can't say anything about this. The people that do this speak for themselves as uneducated fools. I really think this clinging to one's self never works... I mean maybe it makes you feel like part of the group for a while. In the end, he who stands alone is the first to fall.

In the end, I have to say, I think this was a long time coming. I believe that this country has waited far too long on this issue. I do not think the current bill is perfect. I do not think it will solve everything. I do think it opens to door to more discussion and more reform. I think it's a start on a very long road of the recovery of the America we were taught to believe in as children: the reformist, progressive, adaptable nation. The former colony that rid itself of poor treatment from it's leaders when England refused to take care of it's people. This isn't about right or left. This is about human beings and about the responsibility of a government to it's peoples. It's time to go back to loving each other and supporting our nation. That means all people in our nation. It's important to ensure our childrens future. It's important for unity. After all, we can fight together or we can fight apart but in the end....  fighting with each other instead of addressing the problem(s) really doesn't seem intelligent. It's time we stand together and start rebuilding. Tomorrow isn't far beyond the horizon...
Until next time, I wish you all good health and happy days,
Scrappy

All images once again pilfered from google images. 

Space and Hyperventilating

Although my blog was taken over by the restoration of the restaurant for 6 weeks, it is now returning to it's regularly scheduled program as the restaurant is now up and running! Stop in and get yourself a drink and a meal!! We're all very excited and looking forward to things returning to normal- if you can call the LDC that! Thank you to everyone! 
***Please be advised that this blog will now revert to it's initial state: including massive doses of sarcasm, politics, cursing-  even making up new and interesting curse words- and lastly, general random thoughts that in all likelihood, no one but me cares about. If you were just checking in to check on the LDC, thanks for dropping by but feel free to censor my rambling out in the future... 

I was contemplating a blog on space... why? Space used to make me hyperventilate when I was a kid. No seriously, I'd literally hyperventilate in the car... and now, if I really think about it... it probably still would. 
It all started because my science teacher in 4th grade told us that the sun could have solar flares and that a meteor could hit the Earth at any time.  This insight led to my little kid brain freaking out completely and honestly believing that we would all be dead in the next 24 hours if I didn't do something to stop it. Ironically, prior to this knowledge I really wanted to be an astronaut. I didn't think space was dangerous, I thought it was curious and full of new things to see. And of course I took great pride in memorizing all the planets, trying to learn every constellation out there, and even attempting to learn about the planets' various moons and the length of each "day."  I learned we really don't know anything about space. Except that it's dangerous out there. The sun can give us sunburn AND potentially create an Earth-sized bonfire. Star Trek isn't real, neither Kirk nor Picard could save me from being disconnected from my space shuttle.  Space is still growing and it'd be easy to get lost if I went on a space mission. Suddenly choosing a profession like "fireman" was making a lot more sense to me. Except, I had this nagging feeling that it wasn't safe for anyone here either. 


Around the same time I started actually contemplating song lyrics and became terrified by Bowie's "Ground Control to Major Tom"(otherwise known to the human race as... fair enough, I get it: Space Oddity). That was the icing on the cake. Done. If I went into space I'd probably be forever disconnected from the entire planet and lost. Eventually I'd run out of air and die. Holding my breath wouldn't help- I asked my Dad, who had no clue what I was talking about and inadvertently just told me,"If you were in space in a car, in a space ship, in anything, if you didn't have oxygen you couldn't breathe." He had no idea all of my questions about whether the car was "air tight" or if you could breathe your breath back and forth with someone else forever were spawned from legitimate fears of the end of the planet. Over. No more space fantasies. 


I was also unintentionally and completely unknown to myself meditating occasionally when I was a kid. I only realized much later in life when I started teaching myself to meditate that that is what I was doing. Mainly, I'd do it on the bus or in the car, staring out the window as things passed by. I'd be off in my old world- thinking without doing so- and I'd suddenly have this feeling like I "got it", so I'd be frantically trying to recollect what I was thinking or what it was I "got" and could never fully do it. Then I'd try to get to that point again but of course, you can't when you're forcing it... It made me either really excited or really nervous. Really nervous...Really excited. I wasn't sure which.  I was certain (incorrectly of course) I knew how everything worked- without words or explanation, or even knowing what this "everything" was since I had no idea where my brain had veered- but I absolutely had to figure it out so I could tell someone. Anyone. They could validate it and then I'd know why I was on Earth, what Earth was doing, and maybe then space wouldn't be so scary... 

Close your eyes and consider this: You are floating outside the Earth looking back at it. Could you even do it? I mean yes, you probably envisioned whatever satellite picture you've seen of Earth from space and you're thinking I'm an asshole for asking if you could do it. Okay, now really envision you are NOT on Earth and you are just looking at it. The actual thing. Not a picture. Okay, now slowly consider turning your back on Earth. Nope, can't see it... just endless nothing-something out there. Now you're floating away, you turn back to grab a glance and the Earth looks like a levitating beach ball floating in nothing-something. There is nothing protecting this beach ball from anything. It just is. It's just there. There are billions of people meandering around living in their 'little world', and that whole big mess is floating unprotected and in the most insignificant way possible in a potentially infinite amount of nothing-something. Oh and you're alone while they're doing that. Just you and the nothing-something. What's at the edge of that? No clue. Is there an edge? How could we ever know when all science and math is created based on man's constructed tools of measure? What if one isn't one?! Then everything is wrong: nothing is anything but a representation of something which makes no sense if the representation is less than accurate by even a hair. Unless of course, we're satisfied with "good enough." For the most part, we are.

This is where I'd start hyperventilating as a kid. This is where I still hyperventilate when I'm really focusing on it, and not just because of space but because it brings forth an infinite number of questions regarding existence and reality (hence the blog name.) Luckily right now I'm too busy typing and living in my own little 'world' to be really seriously considering the complete lack of security the Earth in and of itself offers (let alone the effects of the things that exist on Earth) because it's just another insignificant thing floating in nothing-something with all the other insignificant things floating out there- even if we rarely consider that because we're too absorbed in our day to day lives. Which really, in the context of space, don't really exist. I mean they do but only in the sense that a spec of dust behind a chair does. 


The forever horrifying part:  The non-point point....
Frantically searching and analyzing every little thing to find a "point" to it "all". Good luck. You're crazy if you even want to know. My fear as a kid was that I'd realize there wasn't one- I (we) am (are) insignificant- and I am pretty sure it still is... space is endless and infinite. We like to think it's "there" and we're safely "here" but really, we're part of it. More than likely, a completely insignificant part of it and the 'point' is probably not quite as abstract let alone as important as we'd like to think. So all of the things we do to "improve" and "advance" and make Earth "better"... moot. At least from a big picture point of view, and by that I mean REALLY BIG picture. However, if I stick to not thinking about space, I remember there's here and now. After all, it's the day to day meandering that makes our lives our lives, right? Right? I'll settle on that in lieu of hyperventilating for today. 

All images pilfered from google images. None of them belong to me except the feeling the cartoon girl has in her chest as she breathes into that paper bag...