A 90-minute meeting after work, something which in my thirties was a walk in the park, is a hill almost too steep to climb now. I explained to a coworker, who mercifully drove me home after our monthly political action committee meeting ended, that there was a time when I attended and participated in 17-straight days of post-work meetings and actions, weekends included. "That's when I had more testosterone," I told her. It was late spring 2001 and it corresponded with all the organizing around the shooting of Aaron Roberts and attempts to establish some viable form of police accountability in the city.
When I got back to the apartment, I ate an apple and some peanuts; watched a portion of an episode from Homeland (season 1) on my computer; and then promptly hit the hay.
In slumberland I struck upon a dreaded "nightly double": a vivid dream about my last girlfriend (the predator) followed by a lengthy, vivid work dream.
The dream about my old girlfriend conformed to the pattern common to dreams featuring old girlfriends and my ex-wife: I am once again in their company; and while I am sexually attracted to them still I know that a consummation of that desire will have dire consequences. So the dream is spent fretting, "Should I stay or should I go? If I go there will be trouble. If I stay it will be double." The only peculiarity to last night's iteration is the old girlfriend's level of insanity; in the dream she was downright homeless-schizophrenic crazy.
The work dream was elaborate, convoluted and no doubt had its origin in the waking reality of helping to get two separate contract ratification votes in the mail this week. In the dream there is some sort of grand barbecue underway for the union membership and in preparation for that a new type of carpeted floorboard has been laid down in the dining area. The main course of the barbecue is oxymoronically soup, big bowls of Vietnamese noodle soup. The climax of the dream is my realization that the pho has spilled and saturated the newfangled carpeting.
When I got up this morning I discovered that a glass water bottle had shattered in my refrigerator -- it's an ancient, pre-frostless Westinghouse probably older than I am -- and drained onto the kitchen floor in a riverine pattern.
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