Which Is Where We Are Now

Took a dog down elevator to second floor. There was a dog there. We stood facing it for a long time. I’m surprised no one has come to use the elevator during this time.

A woman with a dog gets tired of waiting, and she takes the steps. Another women comes out, waits, and takes the steps. I go back up with elevator instead of down. Who is going to take care of that dog?

At the ground floor there are a group of gentlemen. We play a kind of soccer with a small ball like a heavy ping-pong ball with dust pans as goals. We all know how to play very well, each know each others weaknesses, only one side has one’s politics, the other another. This annoys me because something like we wouldn’t be having to play footies here if we joined forces.

I’m on an annual bus trip for the third year. It’s so kinda tour bus. I’m an employee of sorts. It’s festive. We are just about to complete the tour. People remenice about a concert that I wasn’t a part of: Gene Wilder, Luke Wilson, and Richard Prior. I’m surprised I wasn’t part of that concert.

Everyone has shot glasses, the circular kind with a truncated stem with a sweet whiskey liquor. I’m encouraged to drink. I give in and drink.

It’s so jovial and festive, in a corny way. I spill some liquor as the bus winds its way around. Suddenly, I have a giant shot glass, bigger than my head: too much joviality and “Tonight the Streets are Ours” cues as exit music. I have a hard time keeping the drink straight and people laugh as the sticky substance laps over my hands. I drink from the giant glass and the bus goes up a hill, now in day light, and the scene freeze frames with the liquid pouring out onto my cheeks and the music turned up like the punchline to a movie.

I’m on a walk. It’s a long walk ending at midnight with a mystical wild forest surrounding us. It’s a good feeling and I forget some of the emotional dynamic details between me and others along the way.

I with a cool girl. I want to walk back from whence we came with another cool girl with blue eyes and long curly blond hair, but then I’ll have to leave the other one behind to go with her. On one hand, it feels that isn’t in my interest to go, but then the attitude is so carefree, just being with a girl is important.

Dad is telling mom that he raised and sent to college 2 sons and that’s enough for her.

I’m at airport with Grandpa: a large sleepy white haired man. I tap a young man with my foot by accident. A big, nice lady tells me I just insulted some tribal leader .. Karsi.

“Oh.”

“No, you must apologize.”

“Oh.”

He speaks French. He’s dressed nicely in dress shoes and sweater suit but I can tell its not his natural dress. I stammer out an apology in French, in the polite form, though I take time trying out the phrase.

The whole room is watching.They are impressed I speak French.

He tells me “you are going to have to suffer through it.”

There is a discussion at the meaning if this. I say I’m going into the military. Something like I will received medical training while serving.

The lady wonders if that’s really for me: “they break you, you know, they have paid personal whose job it is to break you” meaning exercise.

“That’s not a big deal, I’ve been through that already…. if only I had some message to help guide me” I stammer.

Then I realize, what am I saying, the tribal leader just gave me a special message, and then the plane boards.

Grandpa is asleep. I have to wake him up. I pick up me things myself without him conscious: a canvas bag with my books and an egg carton with one egg in it.

He wakes up. I’m in tears. I wanted a real goodbye. Grandpa, I have to go, I yell. He’s still clueless of the situation.

I’m on plane to Costa Rica.

The Lady talks to her friend about Subarus, saying how we all like Subarus because they are dependable but none of us buys one.

I say that my car is a Subaru. Then I realize I forgot something at the house and walk back there.

I walk back to the plane (it was a  short walk) and a the stewardess takes me to my seat on the far right which has a cross ailse, so lots of leg room.

I drive around cost Rica. Nice and tropical, but the highway takes away from it.

I’m in some family’s suburban house. A neighbor gets mad at the husband for my not mowing his lawn. He timidly asks me to mow it. I calmly go up there. I have to be careful.

Next I’m going to mow the family’s lawn. I go to the backyard, which is on the basement level. I spray water from a hose onto the backdoor, which happens to be open. The husband happens to have been painting there (that’s why the door was ajar). Ugg. I go in to take the timid accusations and survey the damage. The wet paint is blistered but the old paint on the untouched parts of the wall are fine, so are the 3 foot tall koi statues standing here at face height. I don’t know how long it will take to fix: scrape the paint of and wait for it to dry then reprint… maybe a year.

I go some funeral afterparty related to my previous employment. It’s just some restaurant in a strip mall. Then a week has gone by and I find myself repeating the same visit to the strip mall and the restaurant. I stop in a furniture store by accident. Then the restaurant again. The food I was eating the week before is still there. I leave to an parking lot island restaurant and an surprised to find myself talking with some late-twenties developers asking would they tell me of my work’s funeral afterparty location this week.

Jon is hanging out in my room: graytones at night.

I’m hanging out with mobsters. They don’t like my red boots; I play nonchalant anyway. The godfather has barefeet and I tell him how the red of his feet match my boots. This is a preshow appetizer party.

The play takes place in a restaurant. All the tables are cleared and it’s a large restaurant with a second story of tables lining the wall. I know the director; she resembles Sigourney Weaver and my sociology professor; I know some of the dancers. The audience is sparse. I’m taken by the music, or perhaps I’m jealous for attention, and seat myself in the middle stage in the middle of the room. The director tells me with vehemence I don’t belong in the play.

I go downstairs. There is no audience for this play but me. A mobster is acting. He’s on the phone with someone. The phone tells him to ship the jeweled chessboard he has. The mobster has a twinge of conscious; he doesn’t like its nefarious business. He smashes the board mildly over and over again into bits while he’s on the phone. There is some miscommunication; perhaps the board wasn’t worth so much anyway. Young women dance here as part of the play too.

I am taking some Greek class. It’s a fairly full class. I’m about to take a class in another institution, some downgrade like NOVA compared to GMU. I have a book close to the subject. It looks like my Marx-Engles reader. I open it up. This book happens to be written by the professor of the class for the class. The introduction is long. The contents of the book is just three early poems of unidentified dates, then maybe ten long poems its probably Homer or Plato — it’s strange that they are poems. I go back to the busy class. The students are busy reciting memorizes information for the classes test. Trivia I hadn’t bothered with. Ray tells me of a bus I might miss. I have missed it. Still, I realize I can just drive there.

I’m going to some high school with a goose mascot. We see some 60s film about kids growing as individuals. Then there is a republican convention at the school with much success and fanfare. I can’t take this so I go to the democratic convention just across the next week [sic]. The convention is empty and the nominee is the republican vice-president; some slovenly lady.  She’s talking uninspired drivel. I object on a small point. To placate, they play a video; after a minute I object that this is the same video we just saw. I continue to object until I find myself accusing her if being part of a republican plot to weaken the democratic party from the inside. This strikes a nerve; the candidate leaves in tears. I control the room and walk around to Gerald Ford and tell him he’s suspect. He, in turn commends me on my rhetorical skill.

Well, I take candidacy even though I’m just in high school. We don’t even have a campaign slogan. A construction crew has these blue pieces and we spell out in 3 story tall letters our brainstorms. We go through 100 words very quickly, each in its own beautiful font without ever getting anywhere.