Dreams and Conversations
2003-06-11 � 4:18 p.m.

I had some crazy-ass dreams last night! They were all epic, drawn-out sagas. Thankfully I don't remember many of them, but I do remember the one that involved me having to fetch a helmet from a clearing out in the woods by my parents' house. It involved a lot of running and crouching in the brush in order not to be seen (ha!), though what I might have been hiding from remains a mystery.

But the helmet! Only in a dream could someone not only desire this helmet, but go to the lengths that I did to get it: slogging through wet undergrowth, laying in mud, chased by various dogs and bovines, leaping and climbing fences topped with barbed wire...and all for a helmet that looked like General Spidrax's (halfway down the page) from The Sectaurs, only built out of a thick, yellow plastic. In fact, it was made out of the same brittle yellow plastic as those Rubbermaid cups and bowls that used to come in the twenty pound bags of dog food!

I ripped a few of my Cure CDs to MP3 as one of my first acts under the new OS. I now have over nine hours of The Cure available to be played at high volume whenever I wish (such as right now). If you think this isn't important to my mental well being, I challenge you to a DUEL! With wet spaghetti noodles! No sauce, though — I stain easily.

It was late and dark last night, and I was home by myself at some sort of extreme hour of the morning, and I was thinking about the way in which I talk to people. Specifically, I was thinking about how I don't ever really talk to people at all, and how all of my verbal strategies are geared towards avoiding having to actually impart any information about myself. Facile was the term I came up with that applied to my conversational skills. And not as in, like, simple and/or easy; no, more along the lines of one of the secondary definitions that include the shadings of insincerity or superficiality.

It makes people either angry or frustrated, which I used to find amusing but which I now find to be depressing.

What follows is not an actual conversation, but a reproduction of a generic conversation that I could have had with many people:

Them: So, what is it that you do?

Me: Not much. As little as possible, usually.

Them (polite laughter): Yeah, me too. But what about work?

Me: George pays me to hold down this barstool. It's a good deal for both of us, because it gives me an excuse to be here, and he gets the wages he pays me back in the beer I buy. Plus the barstool doesn't float away.

Them: Uh, yeah. So do you go to school, or what?

Me: Not any more.

Them: Oh, so you did go to school?

Me: Doesn't everyone?

Them: Er...

Me: And if they don't, they should. There should be a law.

Them: Um...there is.

Me: Really? Well, that's good. School's good. Progressive country you've got here.

Them (relieved, and grasping at straws): Oh, are you not from here?

Me: Yes, I am.

Them: ...

Heh...

But you know, I realized the other day that I can't help it — I just automatically respond to people asking me questions that way. I suppose it's not terribly surprising. After all, people don't really have conversations much anymore. It's usually just an excuse to run your own monologues with a face on the receiving end. No wonder I find it depressing.

Anyone ever read that book by Johnathan Lethem, Gun, With Occasional Music? Awesome book (awesome author, actually). In it, the main character is this kind of private detective, but the society in which he lives has a taboo against asking questions, so his very work requires him to be extremely rude. That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course...great book, highly recommended. I wish I could write like him. I also wish I could write like a bunch of other people...

I added a few diaries to my favorites that you might want to check out:

Meism: not much of a person here, at least not a person that can be defined with words, or that would use words to define themself... Old photos, sometimes with captions, sometimes not. Very...touching. Check it, fools.

Poul: struggling through the hole made in this world by Nastenka's departure. Be strong.

Kitty-Kaboom: Wild, fun-loving. Verve! Or something...I find her attitude pleasing.

-t

Currently Aurally Inducing: The Cure, The Figurehead
Selection of the Lyrical Vocabulary: "I can lose myself in Chinese art and American girls."

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