Categories
Dream Journal

Map-Parachuting, Lawyer-Attacking, Megaphone-Speakering

An interesting exercise in Physical Education class. In tall grass, a huge area is flattened in the shape of the lower 48 states of America. This shape is repeated identically in a line. The class then performs parachuting practice and we land all over the maps (mostly at random, as we don’t have excellent control). The multiple maps “cancel out” and then, as it’s PE of course, we all jog back into the first field and stand at our newly-determined spots.

I landed north of San Diego. I expect I’ll be so close to the border with Mexico that I’ll be standing right next to it. However, the map is of great scale and I’m impressed when I end up outside throwing distance. While my back is turned and I’m listening to instructions from the stage to the north (i.e. Canada) a smooth-haired guy that looks like a lawyer sneaks up on me from somewhere south unseen.

I have to take cover among the big crown in the front row of the America-auditorium, a the section categorized “Express” for reasons I don’t understand. Panicked, I seize an empty theater chair in the middle of the row. It feels like he won’t mess with me with this many people and I calm down. But soon I’m requested to move to the outside of the row, on the more empty left side. I psych myself into being ok with it. My flank feels exposed and it’s still too much; I move around among the audience to assuage my worries.

On the far edge of the big USA room is a park-like setting. People chilling, listening to music. A Scottish guy with a thick accent yells something pretty clever, and I realize I’m the only one that understands his voice and slang. I happen to have a Bluetooth speaker that I can use as a megaphone so I translate. As it turns out though, my translation is treated as equally informal and idiosyncratic. Only the Scottish guy and me get the meaning, but at least I get his humor. Might’ve made a friend.

By now the coast is clear and I’ve stopped worrying about aggro lawyer guy. The event ends and I stay for clean-up. I’m asked by a younger black girl if I can help find her speaker — once again I use mine to address a wider crowd. I but manage, surprisingly, to find an identical speaker also broadcasting my signal. She says that one’s not hers, though. Hers has four funnels, kind of like rectangular air horns, arranged in a spiral. I manage to find something fitting that description but no, she says that one is for use amplifying timbales (the Latin percussion instrument).

The space is emptying out, and I’m in the wooden rafters still searching. I come across a brown extension cord strung deliberately through the beams, with an odd note attached. It’s a copy of something the judge (and DoJ head) Merrick Garland said about a bill, recently written, that restricts many people’s freedoms. While it’s not his bill he’s plainly complacent enough to just explain it without also saying how it can be fought.

Categories
Glot

Free Bike

The best things in life are free? I’d like to agree. Free: friends. Free: bike rides. Free: sore butts.

I rode around the entire northern side of San Francisco today. Don’t ask what inspired me, because inspiration can be depressing. It cleared my head of all that. The pain in my limbs, and in the sudden cramp attack deep in my torso while I watched the sunset on Baker Beach, that clutching muscle-demon I won’t soon forget, was enough to rid me of many woes. Has a way of focusing the mind. Makes me realize a few things…

I’ve been seeking people’s approval too much. Consequentially, my voice has been higher, my words often unnecessary, my intentions confusing even to myself. There’s a balance there (or there should be). You should seek my good graces and I’ll try to find yours too. If I need to get something done it doesn’t matter if I’m gonna be spending 6 hours holed up on my computer to do it—I’m getting it done. It doesn’t matter if I’m not the most social being in the universe if I’m still myself—that’s enough. It doesn’t matter if my blog posts sound like LiveJournal entries—that’s how people keep in touch with me nowadays anyway. I’m free to do any of these things. More free than I thought.

Free things have always been a big draw to me. I’ve never liked paying for things, cause ironically enough it seems to cheapen them. Tiny reminders is the way you keep yourself. Little bike, big town.