The ebullient emu of ennui; or, STOP WITH THE SCHOOL-DREAMS

Before I begin this post, I imagine that many of you are already thinking YOU DREAM ABOUT SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU WORK AT ONE. Yes, that's true. I do work at a school. But I worked at a hotel for the majority of my high school years and never once dreamed about the clouds of dead human skin that billow out of bedlinens, or of that time that I was randomly groped in a glass elevator by a drunk guest who thought my seventeen-year-old groin was "good for touchin'." I worked at a ghastly, dimly-lit campus eatery for one semester in college but never did I dream about having to scoop old mayonnaise out of a tub into a greasy, vomit-smelling garbage can, each horrid spurp sound killing my soul a little more. I also worked as a home-healthcare worker for a ninety-something woman, and I had to apply pungent unguent to her ulcerated ass-bedsores, and nary a time have I dreamed of that (AND BY ALL RIGHTS I SHOULD HAVE BY NOW). Let's get it straight: it's not about me working at a school, so shutthehellupandreadwhydon'tcha. 

In the past six months I have had several startlingly intense dreams about returning to school, and as they are increasing in both their frequency and in their bizarreness, I thought I would air my musty dreamscapes out in the hopes that months from now I won't have to endure a night filled with images of our old grade-school custodian filleting a dead monkfish while he is dressed like Carmen Miranda.  

My dreams have fallen into three fairly predictable, yet still vexing, categories: 1)"What do you mean, I have to go back to grade school?"; 2) "So You Think You Want To Get That Doctorate", and insidiously, 3) "You Are Going Back to School Only To Study Abroad Again But Then You Get Robbed of All Joy."

The first category of dream is the one that is most easily dismissed. The dream usually begins with me getting some sort of a letter stating that the grade school I had attended (which was private and Catholic) had not been accredited by the State of New Jersey when I finished, and therefore I never actually finished grade school. (As an aside: the amusing part of this is that my mother, when working at the school, was an important member of the accreditation team, and I know for certain that the school was fully licensed/accredited/perfumed by the incense-y approval of the Baby Jesus Himself). In my dreams, I and and the other twenty Class of 1994 graduates and our teachers were recalled from all corners of the US to re-attend my final year (eighth grade). We're told that we need to wear our uniforms again even though they are not the style/color of the uniforms now being worn at the school and even though, hello?, it was NINETEEN NINETY FOUR. Better still, we're told that we have to live like it is 1994; no cellphones or anything else that was invented/in common use after 1994 INCLUDING ALL BOOKS WRITTEN AFTER THAT TIME will have a place in the classroom. Oh, and tiny desks. Sweet mercy, the tiny desks. Frantic pleas and the proffering of diplomas showing completion of high school, Bachelor's, Master's and, in one case, a Doctorate, mean nothing to the monolithic State of New Jersey, and we're told to sit down, shut up, and open our Social Studies books to page 113 so that we can talk about how cities work. ("Sometimes people in economically barren portions of inner cities fall on hard times and have to provide hasty services behind 7-11 Dumpsters. This woman lost all of her fingernails to an STD that the CDC classifies as 'Black Death-adjacent.' Can you think of a civic policy that would help this chancre-ridden woman? Can you think of one that would contain her contagion?") 

The second category of dream causes me to awaken in my own chilled brine as it is the one that seems most plausible. I usually enter the dream as I am settling in with my new roommate in a soulless cinder-block apartment near to some gray, fictional campus. My mother is usually there, which would be quite a feat given that she passed away several years ago and therefore probably doesn't want to schlep plastic bags full of my clothes up to my room. My roommate is often a person from my childhood whom I've assigned a random age (20 years since I last saw you? OK: you're...uh...eighteen!) and he is often less than thrilled at the prospect of living with me. (I am quite dull.) Then, inevitably, there comes That Moment: it is as if for the first time I realize that I have given up a career, the man I love, and a home filled with delights like a personal library to instead eat ramen straight out of the electric kettle in a shabby student apartment decorated with Goodfellas posters and dartboards and strange wall stains that nobody can identify and smells about which nobody dares ask. Apparently in my dreams I firmly believe that pursuing another advanced degree means that I am utterly unable to work, that I am incapable of perpetuating love and that I am bereft of any semblance of dignity.

The third category of dreams is more recent, and involves me attempting to go back to school so that I may use an education as a SUPER CLEVER YOU GUYS ruse for international travel. Most often I am attempting to go back to Turkey, but when I succeed in getting there the country looks nothing at all like what I actually encountered ("Wait: Ankara doesn't have palm trees, does it? And why are there so many tattoo parlors and people selling bath salts on the street?") I find all of my friends and they have all forgotten me. I find all of the places I used to know and they are all gone. I usually end the dream eating some sort of savory meat on a stick while reclining in a field in the middle of the Eurasian steppe, wondering if my previous study abroad was a strange Truman Show episode. One recent dream in this genre involved me getting to Athens to study there and finding that the school I was to attend was a wealthy, white-Gentiles-only boarding school where I couldn't even afford to pay for the school beanie. (Yes, school beanies. Whatever). Oh, and Athens looked like Mexico. Yes, Sombrero-Man, I would like some souvlaki!

Ultimately, there are a number of completely rational reasons as to why I am continuing to dream about a return to education. I grew up strong alongside twenty amazing people, many of whom I miss and think of often. There really is a part of me that thinks I might have enough in me to complete a doctorate. I have never felt so alive as when I was studying abroad, and it is not a coincidence that in my dreams I am returning to places that have shaped my identity. I often feel as though my knowledge base, while broad, wouldn't even allow me to write a single, focused Wikipedia article. 

Of course, the real reason I have been dreaming like this likely has nothing to do with feelings of intense, sustained loss, fears of non/accomplishment, or a constant, burning desire to level my gaze on the Kocatepe Camii or the Athenian Acropolis again. 

Well, I have to go. My usual late-night snack of sour-cream and onion instant potatoes and two shots of Tanqueray gin, eaten/slammed while watching 1980s Peter Gabriel music videos, awaits. 

Until next time, I remain, 

Dom

He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.

One of the most tiring, allow-me-to-be-asuck-this-revolver conversation topics that could possibly ever be presented is the whole "LOOK AT ME I am Soooo Unique! Like a snowflake that has fallen on the nose of a virgin unicorn on Leap Year while it is being ridden by a winged mermaid! So Special!" sort of thing. However, this is MY BLOG and you all will SHUT THE HELL UP AND READ IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU

Recently I was talking with one of my favorite persons and she mentioned that she was reading a book about famine in China during the Great Leap Forward. For "fun." My pulse quickened: could it be that someone else out there was also consuming non-fiction that would make the rest of the populace long for the sweet embrace of the Great Dirt Nap? Could it be that I could have rational discussions with someone about the stark beauty of dark things without hearing "oh, that's so depressing?" Also, and perhaps most critical: WAS I TURNING INTO THAT FREAK KID WITH THE BUG-EYES FROM AMERICAN BEAUTY 

I don't know if these will help in making up YOUR mind about me, but I present:   

{A TOTALLY TRUE CONVERSATION COMING UP RIGHT HERE} 

The Lion: So, we're putting on a pretty great performance soon. 

Me: Sweet. 

The Lion: Just think: an enchanted evening of Baroque music. 

Me: Uh-huh. 

The Lion: It's being performed in A Large City Which is Only an Hour From Here.

Me: *yawn*

The Lion: So, do you wanna come? (wags the area which would have been a tail were we possessed of them) 

Me: I dunno. I mean, I may have...the things. Yes, the things. 

The Lion: I was saving this for last: the church where this is being performed is the home to the glassed-in ossuaries of two Roman martyrs. Like, you can see their skeletons. 

Me: I AM TOTALLY THERE DUDE

{SOME, UH, NOW SOME SCENARIOS}

  

Scenario 1: 

You are walking through a verdant, springtime meadow. Butterflies alight delicately on dewy blooms. Nearby, a small brook wends its way lazily through a small copse of trees, where perhaps a shy doe and her fawns drink. The sky is blue and birdsong; the ground is Gaea and greenness. What is going through your mind? 

a) I have discovered earthly paradise.  

b) Perhaps I am now deceased and I have come to a place of Eternal Reward. 

c) I wonder if those tight clumps of blooms are being nourished by human remains, perhaps as a result of this field having been the site of a battle. 

Scenario 2: 

You go to the ocean. As soon as you get out of your car, your mouth and nose are filled with the briny tang of the deep. A cacophony of gulls, their gullets filled with marine invertebrates, echoes across a foggy slip and tumbles into your awaiting ears. You begin to walk along where the brine kisses the earth - slowly at first, and then with greater intensity. You realize that you are looking for something. This "something" is: 

a) A fancy shell for your collection. 

b) A nice piece of sea-glass to compliment a piece of jewelry you're making. 

c) The skull of some drowned animal. 

Scenario 3:

It is a bleak midwinter's afternoon and, if the temperature holds steady, you'll be getting miserable, cold rain all day long. You have nowhere to be and nothing planned, so you arrange a largish nest of several blankets on an overstuffed couch and settle in with a book. It most certainly is NOT a book about Pol Pot's nefarious S-21 prison. Anyway, your housecat alights upon your body and settles into drowsy purring. You begin to think: 

a) "Boy, this sure is nice. I wish every day could be like this." 

b) "This is nice every once in a while, but I am an active person with an active lifestyle. Too much of a good thing can be just that, you know." 

c) "I wonder how much motivation I would need to provide for this housecat for it to become a hellish minion, doing my bidding as I see fit. I know too many people who need to have their faces shredded up like pulled pork." 

{TOTALLY REAL CONVERSATION I HAD, PART II}

Friend: What is your favorite movie?
Me: Well, it's a tie between Schindler's List and The Hours. Or, oooh, The Last Emperor.   
Friend: Holy shit, man.

{TOTALLY REAL CONVERSATION I HAD, PART III}

*note: I shall call this person Creepy Ex, because that's what he is now. Then, however, we were dating. And by 'dating' I mean 'he was draining away my youth and vitality and replacing it with vitriol.'

Creepy Ex: You are obsessed with death.
Me: Fuck you, bitch.

It's that last conversation that really got me thinking. Well, mostly I was thinking about what kind of industrial solvent would be needed to removed slaughtered human effluent from the trunk of a 2000 Ford Focus, but after that I acknowledged that my initial reaction to that comment was to feel insulted - as though my dignity had been questioned. In a culture where 'emo' kids are ridiculed but where stores like Hot Topic exist to ironically cater to their "unique" needs, being "obsessed with death" is equivalent to being That Kid Who Plays Magic: The Gathering With Himself At Lunch. Long, friendless days; torpid, sexless nights, and lingering gloom and omnipresent body odor. It's not a pretty (or accurate) picture.

When I purchased the aforementioned Khmer Rouge book from a local booksellery, I stood for a few moments near the checkout counter before I made my purchase. The woman at the counter was bathed in sunlight and was reading some sort of knitting magazine. If she only knew, I thought, that I like to needle-felt because I get to stab something several hundred times and shape it to my own image.  I didn't want to hand the book to her, as if the sorrow contained in the pages could be transferred to her merely through osmosis. Myself? I was nearly rigid with excitement about the book, and I didn't want her to see that, either. When I finally got up the courage to pay for it, she looked at it, looked at me and said "THIS should be a light read." I wanted to lie and tell her that it was for a class, but before I could she chuckled mirthlessly and handed it back to me. I left, feeling slightly judged. It's not a body rotting in a rain-barrel, I thought, so what of it?

What of it, indeed.

Mowgli had been trying to IM me all day (WHERE YOU AT and HOLLA) and, as I approached her mew, I could hear the pulsing beat of some urban music. I say "urban music" because I am too white to know the difference between rap, hip-hop, or the sundry other musics I missed out on by being raised in one of the least diverse states in the country.

Mowgli: There you is, bee-yunch.
Me: That's embarrassing. Is that...is that a do-rag?
Mowgli: I know you came here for some advice. Hurry up; one of my friends is coming soon to work in my weave.
Me: ....
Mowgli: WAITING HERE
Me: Sorry, I was trying to envision a plumicorn weave. Anyway: so why do you think that our society stigmatizes those who have a healthy appreciation for dark things?
Mowgli: First of all, you say "our society" like we belong to the same one. Oh, snap.
Me: Oh for the love.
Mowgli: Fine. It's because most of you Fat Hairy Bipedal Things are trained to associate death and dark things with unhappiness, despair and hopelessness. But you should already know, Anthro-Nerd-King, that many cultures don't see it that way. I mean, hello? Day of the Dead? Holla now.
Me: So what you are saying is that I am within the acceptable range of appreciation of dark things?
Mowgli: I'd be more worried if you collected uvulas and fashioned them into little anklets. And PS., why do you think you were so attracted to working with me? I'm pretty and all, but GET A LOAD OF THESE TALONS. 550 pounds per square inch at the tips. Crush yo FROAT
Me: You are Feathered Death. I can't believe I didn't realize that.
Mowgli: FOO'

And so I went home to dust my rapidly-growing skull collection, having finally embraced the love(s) that dare not speak their names.

***

In the black of the night tonight, carried softly over the pastoral stillness, a Great Horned Owl with an ill-fitting plumicorn weave will realize that she's a little bit country, not a little bit rock and roll, and regret will set in. I plan to be nowhere nearby.

Until next time,

Dom

{This post originally was written for my now-deceased, short-lived blog The Plumicorn Prophecies, which has been merged with this blog}.

He knew that thought clings 'round dead limbs/ Not the final meeting

[from a spam-email promoting a website that caters to those whose paraphilias might possibly include the act/thought of schtupping pallid Eastern European slave-brides]

Once there was a time - long ago, it now seems - when I could reasonably expect an ordinary retail experience to be simply that. I would enter a store, rove about in a mindless, list-free effort to secure the sundry goods I needed/wanted, pay for said items, and depart. All interactions with other people would be interactions *I* had initiated - from grunt-speaking to the people who had the misfortune to accompany me to attempting to ask questions of the super-jazzed, friendly sales representatives who skitter away like gravid roaches under a fridge at dawn at the mere suggestion that they be asked to work. Let's put it this way: when the checkout-haint asks me whether or not I'd found everything I'd sought out in that particular establishment, it usually takes significant effort for me to not say that my discovery of the items in question had nothing NOTHING I SAID to do with being helped in any way by sales staff. During our last holiday season, I sustained myself for several hours envisioning a time when I could carry a sawed-off blowgun and use it to temporarily stun someone who might have access to KNOWLEDGE OF THE THINGS.

Given this, it should come as little surprise to me that random-ass strangers feel an innate need to approach me in a startling array of retail establishments, addressing me as though I am a staff member and then becoming filled with blinding, white-hot rage when I inform them that I am not in that establishment's employ. Drawn like leatherback sea turtle hatchlings to the waning light of a gibbous moon, they lazily make their way to me for entreaty and succor, neither of which I can provide.

When this first happened, I wrote it off. After all, I was wearing a red, fleece vest and I was standing rather authoritatively in the Men's Underthings Section in a Target. Makes sense. The lady who came up to me asked me where she could find the Feline Pine cat litter (good luck with that, sistah - my cats would rather have colostomies than use that shit) and, while I did apprise her of my non-staff status, I *did* know where the litter was. So I told her. She was happy. I felt, momentarily, like I wasn't dead inside.

Then it began happening more frequently.

No, Squirrel-Eyed White Woman at the Christmas Tree Shoppe: I don't have any idea where one would find gingerbread house kits. I am wearing ratty jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with a large ursid printed upon it. I don't work here.

No, Harried Young Woman With Child Asuck Your Bosoms in the Mall: I don't know where the Gold for Cash confessional/booth moved to. I am wearing an ill-fitting t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. I don't work here.

No, Patchouli-Reeking Gentleman at the Health Food Store: I don't know where one would find flax-seed oil caplets. I REALLY don't work here. I am wearing leather. RECOIL IN HORROR IF YOU MUST. 

A general feeling of WHATTHEMOTHEROFGODISHAPPENING settled delicately into my bones, causing them to ache delicately. I sought the wise counsel of my "friends", most of whom said the same thing:

"Well, gee, you just LOOK knowledgeable/friendly/helpful/like you wouldn't spend several days dining on the carcass of a freshly-slaughtered tot."

Helpful.

Moving forward without a clear idea of what motivates several random strangers every week to seek me out - sometimes singling me out a crowd of people who are much like me - I decided that it was the beard. I've sported a full beard/mustache since moving to Indiana nearly ten years ago, and based on this chart,the "full beard" is the hallmark of trustworthiness. I think our society has placed a full beard upon a pedestal of trustworthiness, due in no small part to that ass-hat Santa Claus. "He looks jolly", people might think, "and surely he's never knifed a retarded nun. Perhaps I shall presume that he is helpful and knowledgeable!" I'd shave the damn thing off if I didn't love it so.

After getting several threatening texts from Mowgli (WHERE ARE YOU AND WHY DON'T YOU VISIT YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD) I decided to seek her counsel. I mean, I don't know where she would have gotten the cellphone and further have no idea how she would have worked the keys, so I figure that she might at least be resourceful enough to tell me the truth.

{approaching her mew}

Mowgli: Oh, THERE you are. It's been days, you know. I don't know why you don't love me anymore.
Me: It's the dead of winter, darling, and we don't do raptor presentations with you until Spring.
Mowgli: Do you think that's an excuse? C'mon, make something up. 'Oh, I got called away on a secret diplomatic mission' or 'I had to have a minor procedure to correct my polydactl feet.' Because HOW WOULD I EVER KNOW
Me: How did you get that cellphone?
Mowgli: ....
Me: We'll address that later. Anyway, I wanted to know why it is that random people approach me for help all the time.
Mowgli: Two things: one, you usually smell like Brut, which most people associate with adolescence and convalescence, neither of which are threatening. Two, you have...well, a look about you.
Me: Wow. And I was afraid you were going to be vague here. And P.S., owls don't have a sense of smell.
Mowgli: Believe what you want. Say: did you have curry for lunch?
Me: Um, yes. Wait: how did....
Mowgli: BOW TO ME, SUBHUMAN
Me: Can I have that cellphone now? Calling Keith in the dead of night to tell him that he should 'WATCH THE TREES' is uncalled for.
Mowgli: I don't know what you see in him. Can he lay a beautiful, life-filled egg for you?
Me: I am leaving now.

I remain baffled, but much like that little brat in The Sixth Sense, I have decided to help when I can instead of doing what comes instinctively, which is SHANK TO THE FLANK. I know I must have some pretty serious karma-debt to repay, and I suppose it could certainly be a more malevolent sort of punishment. After all, I could be the tunic-clad guy who has to sponge-bathe Newt Gingrich. "Nice and slow", his rotted, gravelly voice would croon, "and pay special attention to my what-whats."

***

In the dark of tonight, briefly interrupting the silence of a lovely countryside homestead, a Great Horned Owl with a Blackberry is going to be ordering Chinese food, which she will expect will be delivered to her mew. If you are the one who picks up the phone at the Semi-Local Chinese Place, you had BEST BELIEVE that she's not going to be pleased if you forget that little greasy sack of wontons.


Until next time,

Dom

{This post originally appeared on my short-lived "Plumicorn Prophecies" blog, which I have combined with this one.}