I Had Some Vivid-Ass Dreams

Before I begin, I want you to know that I usually type the name of my blog into the browser to get to it, then I click Sign In and off we go. This blog is called brownagasttherad which is quite a feeble pun having to do with a wizard from 50s fantasy that some people read (I've never actually read it in its entirety but I do know about the wizards!). There seems to be another blog on here that goes by the wizard's proper name, and I visited it by accident a few minutes ago. So Nik, that's really shitty that it rained all day RIGHT after you took the top off your Jeep Renegade. Blah is right! Holy I'm pumped about your 90% in communications too! No wonder you're so stoked, I read one of your posts and I wouldn't give you a 90! Yeah discussion groups are laaaame.

I wonder where he is now, our Nik. That stuff happened in 2003.

Grace Is Another Word For Cliff Apparently

Yes the vivid-ass dreams. Some friends and I were looking out the window of my home at the cliffs that you can just see on the other side of the bay/cove/inlet/estuary that I lived fairly near to. I was sort of pointing vaguely in the direction of one of these cliffs, saying, "Yeah she lives way over there, on the grace. Imagine having your house perched like that, right up over the water. Like what if it fell off?" And my friends expressed genuine concern for this mystery cliff-dweller's house falling off the cliff. As I looked down at the table in front of me, it became clear that I had a very detailed miniature of the whole cliffside area. It was made out of that scratchy synthetic material that museum miniatures are sometimes made of if it's a shitty museum, or alternatively it's used to make the scenery for little model train sets. The little ones you know. The OH or the HO or the HH or - the little ones. And on this detailed miniature I had built, I indicated her house. It was a fairly big old thing, yes old for sure. White, the paint was peeling off, but there was more ancient white paint underneath. There was a decrepit old fence and long grass and bushes. The windows were that ridiculous romantic kind of dusty. I decided I would go.

I was by myself now, and the hike was long and arduous up to her house. The grass was long and the wind was crazy. It was a frustratingly sunny seaside day but there weren't any birds about. Eventually I ran into her up on the hill on the way to her home.

This entire time my brain had been telling me that in this dream I was looking for "her" but until this point I didn't know who she was. She turned out to be one of my friends from college, a piano player with whom I had a very lovely little friendship, and then I screwed it up and we haven't spoken in months. Well here she was now, en route to her big ole house, and I had managed to intercept her. She had a dog with her, and all I remember about him was that he was fairly small.

We started up to her house, and she had all kinds of things to say. I don't have to tell you how stoked I was to see we were talking again. All seemed well. In fact all was well.

And then in one of those crazy dream montages I learned that I visited her up there on the grace - which my brain told me is another word for cliff of which I had previously been unaware - every day, and we would sit in or near the house and catch up and have an amazing time. And the sun would play off her skin in the way that it does, and this would in turn strike me in the face. She always struck me in the face. Not actually. The figurative face.

This continued for a number of visits until - so I am told - I stopped coming round every day. I don't know what I was doing, whoever was writing this dream never informed me. I did return eventually, though, and at first she was nowhere to be found. Her house had fallen into a bit of disrepair. Everything looked a lot older at least.

I surprised her by appearing on the deck of her big graceside house when she returned from walking her dog. She looked exactly the same, but something went off in my brain to tell me that it had been a great number of years since my last visit. She still seemed very happy to see me. And then Wedding Day In Funeralville came on at 9 and I got up.

WELL. WHAT DOES IT MEAN. I haven't thought about that particular person in quite a long time. My thoughts have been elsewhere, here in town. Now I'm going to have to email her and ask how she's doing.

The Minutes Of The Last Meeting

Selfless Alev Of Universe y

The days keep coming when I have to say goodbye to people I love. They are much less frequently proper goodbyes, that is to say that very few of them come with death or those huge monumental fallings out that you see at the end of a tempestuous relationship, so I guess this one was one of those goodbyes*. "Take care of yourself, keep in touch! Goodbye!* [* We may see each other in the distant future. I will think of you much more often than you know. I will correspond with you much less than I would really like. I will miss you but I won't say so.]" A lady I know is going away to school - that is the point I was getting to - and today on the phone I got to hang a little asterisk on the end of our conversation.

How many people are roaming around this noisy trafficky city with whom I have lost touch but with whom I had promised to keep in very regular contact? Well a lot. I assume they're all still out there. Every few months I catch some information I don't really need with regards to the whereabouts of some soul whose name I hadn't spoken beforehand or since. If any of them die somebody will probably inform me. And I'll hang my head and project a few fuzzy flashbacks of the one or two laughs I had with the departed.

This lady is quite different though. She is a colleague, she is a co-conspirator, a fellow creative brain, a very very good friend. I like to think that in a parallel universe somewhere, she made different moves and I made different moves, and perhaps we set up shop. How that would have been stimulating, life-altering, all kinds of things. I almost went for it as well.

In situations like this when I failed to act when I could have, I catch myself thinking that I've actually been very generous, for I am forgoing a chance at incredible expansion and happiness so that the other mes in parallel universes can have that chance. What a charitable soul am I.

Meriwether McGraw's Life Story Pt 1

He was born to new parents from the Northern Hemisphere, but whether he was born on that half remains a mystery. Who they were also hangs in almost complete uncertainty, save for the fact that he shared their name. You would look at Meriwether McGraw and say that he had no childhood, for when could such a face beyond words, beyond description, beyond saving have ever been soft and ripe with discovery. His heart was probably an artichoke heart, in his veins were only full of dust and bad dreams. His face would probably crack if he smiled, if he moved it at all. His eyes were dark and they hid a little too far back in his head, in the same way that his real nature, his personality (if there was one) sat carefully out of view. If he had a mind in there, and thoughts, would they remember lost loves or amazing adventures, eerie bloodletting rituals or the untracked swaths of Science? All that can be certain is that a creature like McGraw never dwells on the future. Does his mind only want out of its cage? Perhaps he wakes up in the morning only to remark that he is still not dead, or perhaps he goes for a long walk when the sun rises to breathe in the gift of a new day. Or perhaps he never sleeps. And his wooden leg. People have seen him knock on it, as if for good luck. Was he a sailor? Was he a pirate? Was it hacked off and eaten by savage islanders with bones in their noses? Was it crushed in a fire when he saved the lives of eighteen little nuns? He was probably born with a wooden leg.

Gallantry In The Face Of The Enemy

I got some really awesome advice lately from one of my very good friends.

"Never stop writing cool things."

I used to write all sorts of things, and some of them were cool even. In fact I had aspirations in my very young days of actually being a writer. After that I wanted to be a professional musician. For real. I went to music school to see if I could do it, and I should say now that I am no longer in music school. Alas.

But I am still writing. And I'll post the cool things up here.

Please come back from time to time.