Monday, June 29, 2009

All in

There is a poker table set up on a grassy hilltop in a large park. I am playing with a group of guys I know. We are using chips with real money on the line. An old woman comes up to talk to me. She palms a few of my chips and walks off. I get up and chase after her. I catch up to her a few steps away and gently tell her that I need those back. I take her hand and open her closed fist. She is holding five or six blue, plastic poker chips. I take them back but leave her one or two of them. I feel bad for her and realize that she is my grandmother (my Dad’s Mom, who passed away when I was in college.) I walk with her through the park.
A man joins us as we walk. It is the actor Andy Griffith. He looks old, but a bit younger than he did on Matlock. I ask him about my Grandma, how she is doing day to day. It seems they are dating. As we walk her home, I tell him that she is having a bit of dementia. We reach the sidewalk in front of a suburban ranch house. I don’t recognize it, but it is where she is living.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Bunker down

Hiding underground in a post-apocalyptic world, I look up at a manhole cover or grate. I’m ducking inside a manmade cave with rough walls of dry, light brown dirt. I use the barrel of a gun to poke up the grate just a crack. The gun I hold is some kind of rifle and machine gun hybrid. Through the crack of sunlight above, I see the barrels of several other guns and the side of a black boot.
A little robot on three wheels rolls up behind me. I assume it has a mounted camera, even though I don’t see it. At first, I pick it up like a remote control car, but then smash it with the butt of my gun.

Someone has left the keys in the ignition of a nascar racecar. I climb in and give a girl a ride to her house. We park at the top of her steep driveway, then the car slide forward down the lawn through several flowers. I try to steer back onto the driveway, but the engine is not running. I get out of the car and step into the middle of the cul-de-sac. A mob of real estate agents in black suits fill the street. Some have clipboards and all are shouting out offers on the house. My parents walk out of a house on the other side of the cul-de-sac and announce that they are putting their house up for sale also. The entire group of agents swarms towards them.

Riding a ten speed bike down a black top country road. I’m holding an open umbrella above my head and as a car in the other lane comes towards me, the umbrella flies out of my hand. I start to pull over onto the side of the road to pick it up, but see behind me that the umbrella has snapped off of its pole. The umbrella sits in the middle of the road like a small, black tent as the handle bounces across the asphalt. I pedal hard to keep riding since it is not raining.
I ride onto a dirt road in a park or field shaded by large trees. I take the handlebars off the bike to fix something. A teenage kid comes up and starts giving me advice on how to fix them. I am the same age as him and we are friends, even though I don’t recognize him. He starts banging on the post that the handlebars attach to with a pair of vice grips. He is denting the metal pipe and I know it won’t fix anything, but feel powerless to stop him. I say something, but he replies that before they could only go on one way. It’s as if the handlebars used to fit into a groove on the stem and he is trying to make it fit on any direction.

The same kid and I are in a carpeted basement listening to music. He holds up a CD made of cardboard. The word “panthers” is written on it in black marker. I’m trying to tell him that a band is good because a guy named Paul recommended them and said that millions of people like their song, so don't you think you might be wrong? The kid still thinks that they suck.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Searching

Leaning over the edge of a cliff or rooftop trying to watch where my golf shot is going. Almost straight below is a swampy area, and then the ground gets solid further away. I see my orange golf ball bounce right at the edge of the water and land on the back of a crocodile. It rolls down his body towards his tail and then back up till it comes to rest next to his eye. Suddenly, a blue golf ball lands in the muck near it. I assume it was hit by someone I am with and that we are in a contest to see who can get their ball closest to the hole.

Sleeping on the top bunk of bunk beds and a woman that looks like Julie crawls in with me to fool around.

I see Bob walking through Disney World and run to catch up to him. He’s surprised that I’m wearing slacks and a long sleeve, button down shirt.

My guys from Jersey are staying in a hotel to go to a college football game. We’ve already been to one game the day before and are getting ready for another. I can’t find my phone anywhere. Paul and Fred are talking about making dinner reservations and realize that by the time we get a table anywhere for 20 people, we’ll miss the game.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Flying carpet

A rug shop is having a Going Out Of Business Sale. It’s a shabby basement store with welcome mats and kitchen rugs leaning against white metal shelves. I see a hot air balloon rug and wonder if Mom and Dad already have it. But before I can take a closer look, two women beat me to it. I see another one just like it two piles over. I pull it out and lay it on the floor to take a picture to send them. But instead of using my phone an emailing the pic right away, I try to take it with a digital camera. But I can barely see anything on the screen. So I try holding the camera up to my eye, but can’t see through the lens. I decide to just hold the camera out and guess to line up the shot. As I am angling the camera, an old woman comes up and starts vacuuming the rug with a small vacuum cleaner. I say, “Excuse me, I’m trying to take a picture of that.” And she says OK, but keeps on vacuuming. The suction is pulling up bunches of long fibers from the rug and ruining the pattern. When she is done, she puts the rug away despite my protests. And then I can’t find it again.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Rock on

On stage in a nightclub playing with The Beatles. But Dave is on drums, so it must just be Lennon and McCartney playing with us. They are both younger versions of themselves. Suddenly John storms off the stage. The others stop playing and after a pause follow him. I lean into the mike stand and apologize to the audience. I think John is upset that Dave’s playing was bad. I go backstage and find them in a big room with autographed band pictures on the wall. There are beat up tables, chairs and a couch at one end and an empty bar at the other. The guys are leaning against it looking dejected. John still looks upset and says to me, “It really hurt my feelings when you criticized my fashion before the show.”

Dave and I are at a Jimmy Buffett concert, hanging out with a group of senior citizens. Someone is taking pictures of us. When I turn around to find Dave, he sitting on top of a picnic table with the waist of his khaki pants pulled up past his navel.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

More reward points

I walk into a kitchen I don’t recognize and on the counter I see a wide bowl full of plastic bottle caps from cokes and other containers. On the kitchen island, there is a wicker bowl also full of plastic bottle caps and lids. Brooke’s aunt has saved them for me.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Displacement

My Jersey buddies make plans to play poker the next day. We’re staying in a hotel and before the sun is completely up, Paul busts into my room to wake me up. I’m in bed with Brooke and try to get oriented to the lack of light as Paul tells me to get moving. She doesn’t wake up and I’m even more confused because the guys aren’t going to play cards, they’re ready to leave for someplace else.

I’m moving to a new desk in a strange office and it is covered in a mess of old papers and cables. A small boom box on a pile of binders is playing bad music. I sit down and see another radio sitting on the shelf above the desk. I try to turn off the boom box right as Clarkin sits down at the desk next to me. We start to talk, but Sue, the HR person at my job comes up and says to Clarkin, “what are you doing here?” and then to me, “he doesn’t even work here!”
Next, I’m walking into a dull apartment. Clarkin and I have just moved into it for the new job. I realize that I don’t even know what city it is in and wonder why I even took a job away from Brooke and wonder how she is. My thoughts stop when I see a black metal shelf next to the front door. It holds bottles of laundry detergent and other random household stuff. Most of the rest of the apartment is bare and I think that we have to decorate better because we don’t live in a frat anymore.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Shopping is a pain

In a funky neighborhood in NYC or a foreign city, I walk into a t-shirt shop looking for a cool, graphic tee. All of the racks and walls are full of rugbys and polos in preppy patterns. A black guy about my age comes out from the back and pulls a few shirts out to show me. I tell him I could buy something like that back in Ohio.

Walking through a country fair with row upon row of booths selling local crafts. I enter a booth that is larger than the rest where they are selling ice cream out of big metal troughs like the newer ones that hold water for cattle and horses on farms.
An attractive girl catches my eye as I decide what to order. When I step up to the counter, I accidentally bump into her. Her boyfriend starts yelling at me. I ignore him, until he says, “you people always wait to pay.” I suddenly get upset, turn to him and tell him how uncalled for that was and that he didn’t have to go there. He looks confused, so I say, “oh come on, like you didn’t know I’m Jewish.”

Monday, June 1, 2009

Blame the drummer

A British manager talking to his band about improving the act.