Which Is Where We Are Now

I’m doing the sociology final. I get to turn it in for feedback. I get it back. There are lots of tiny mistakes. There are silly topics in my essay like mushrooms and senators. Some comments moved to footnotes. My professor even had counterpoints backed by cited research about, for example, the mushrooms. “Structural issues, see below.” I wake up before I get to those pages and their feedback.

I get a job as a trucker. It’s a physically demanding job at times.

I’m with dad… he disappears.

I drive up to some low income house with signs of drug dealing. It has a Keith-Richards-Grateful-Dead feel. I park perpendicular to their driveway, blocking the driveway. Then, people start arriving.

Grandma died; this is her funeral celebration. It’s a barbecue. Nice laid back feel.

There’s dad, helping out with the work. He is a bit distant to the group, but quietly sympathetic.

Where am I?

A map reveals we are in in West Virginia on the property of some cult that Grandma was friendly with. It’s a big chunk of land called Giaim which stands for India + some other Asian countries, since that cult’s religion is heavily influenced by Asian culture. We are in an area labeled Free Passcodes.

I email Richard and go into work. It feels like renovated hotel: nice and sunny.

There are English workers here — women. They are uneasy with my revolutionary tendencies.

I have a pleasant conversation with the woman next to me. While I’m talking with her, I get a pithy email from a HR woman diagonal across from me. I vault over the cubicle and have a engaging conversation with her — mostly about where I’m from. I’m charming and articulate.

Now I’m on a road-trip with a girlfriend visiting England. We drive past the Ontario, Idaho T intersection and take a left; then it becomes beach properties.

We’re at a Norwegian fishery which has become a mall. People ask a shop selling authentic Norwegian subs where the authentic pizza shop is. I realize the pizza shop is a frachise of the shop in Fairfax I like: Mamma Lucia.

Walking up the wide industrial staircase, I try to use the phone to help me speak Norwegian. The phone tells me I’m doing it wrong.

We pass my a handsome man in his late twenties with his attractive girl friend. He takes a picture of her. It results in a fabulous bullet-time picture of himself.

We go into the tourist attraction of the closed down fishery. I try to take a picture. It comes out dim. My phone tells me I’m doing it wrong and will unnecessarily drain the battery if I continue acting this way. I realize the entire tourist attraction has its lights off.

I’m in a bookstore. I bump into an into old man and his wife. They invite me up to their apartment. It’s a clean, quiet city, crowded with townhouse-like apartments. Nice color palette on the buildings: muted, colorful tones of maroon and light slate blue, mint Kelly green.

It’s very mystical. The winds blow the apartment building side to side.

There is a black stone slab hanging on the wall like a picture with gold inlay Buddha engraving. He draws a line across it: my path. He lets me know its nothing spectacular, just nice. I accept it; I’m ready to accept it.

He asks for my email address. He had trouble with it so I write it down for him. I have trouble with it. I go through many attempts: misspellings, the pen malfunctions, the pen is running out of ink.

—

I’m back in high school. I’m still helping with field hockey. I look at my a papers: I’m still working to get my diploma even when I have my GED.

—

I with John and the gang. They are leisurely discussing things.

I think of something – I have to write it down. Lots of scribbling when they talk.