The ultimate in linguistic nerdiness.
Here’s the hebrew transliteration:
frickin’ iron bars
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My latest adventure inside my brain was both frustrating and productive.
I was dreaming that I was at a conference when I became lucid. I thought, okay, time to float up, but it actually took a few times before I could float. This seemed ridiculous as I knew I was dreaming and capable of doing this. When I eventually succeeded, I floated over to the window and stood on the ledge. Even though I knew nothing was real, I still felt fearful jumping out the window. When I did, I had a hell of a time trying to fly up to the sky. First there was the inevitable power lines, but once I got through them, these nonsensical iron bars kept reappearing in front of me as I tried to ascend. I kept pushing them aside, and they kept reappearing. Finally, I got tired of fighting them, and just went back to the conference, where I just kept floating around the room. I thought, I should think of something else fun to do when I’m lucid for when flying doesn’t work out. Maybe I could study some Ruby somehow (yes, a fun thing to do for a nerd).
After I woke up, I thought that maybe fighting back the iron bars was the wrong approach. Maybe I could somehow ask them nicely to let me through? I don’t know why my brain is fighting my having fun while asleep. Seems weird.
The good thing is that I was lucid for longer than previous experiences, perhaps several minutes, where it had only been a few seconds or a minute before. So some progress was made.
flying in dreams
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At this point, every time I realize I’m dreaming, I immediately try to fly. Part of me feels this is incredibly unoriginal, but it is so fun that I can’t seem to think of something else to try.
I had another weird experience recently which involved lucid dreaming and flying. I dreamt I was at my office, which, as always happens in my dreams, was much larger than it is in reality. I dropped something on the floor, but when I looked down, it was nowhere in sight. I thought… “that can’t be, things just don’t disappear… Hey, I’m dreaming!” At this point I decided to get up and jump out the window and fly. My coworkers just stood by in a huddle as I rushed to the window. When I got to the window and looked out, something strange happened. I guess I had realized I was dreaming so fast that my subconscious mind hadn’t bothered to draw in all of the view outside. So what I saw was a partially-drawn urban landscape that just faded along the right side into nothingness. The “nothingness” was just a blank, light-gray fog, something one often sees around here in the Bay Area. My brain just hadn’t bothered to draw in that part of the scene, and I guess since I already knew I was dreaming, it just left it that way.
After I was done being amused by the nothingness, I did indeed leap out the window and fly around for a brief time. Every time I noticed the lucidity fading, I was chant the line “I’m dreaming” over and over again. This did help me stay lucid for a little longer than usual, but I find it’s still hard to stay lucid for more than a minute or two at this point.
In the dream I had last night, I was talking to my sister when I realized I had just talked to her just behind me… that there were two of her. When this thought occurred to me, I said to her, “Wait, there can’t be two of you, I’m dreaming!” I grabbed her hand and said, “Come on, let’s float up!” and we did, laughing.
After a few moments, as we tried to go higher, there began to be obstacles in our way. This is another common problem I’ve been re-experiencing when trying to fly up: that suddenly there are telephone lines, overhanging roofs, and all sorts of weird shit suddenly appearing for the sole purpose of keeping me from flying up “too high.” Why my brain feels a need to do this, I don’t know.
This time I kept climbing through the obstacles and knocking them out of the way, over and over, until the way was clear. Somewhere in the melée I ended up on my own. By that time I was floating very far above the earth and I laid down on my back and looked up. Above me were the stars, and I was looking straight up at Orion. I couldn’t believe I had made it this for, it was yet another level of euphoria. As I just laying there, floating, staring at the stars, I slowly starting falling back down. And here was another great thing: although I was falling, I was not afraid, because I knew I was never going to hit bottom. I could just enjoy the feeling of falling. Eventually this scene and my lucidity vanished and I was on to the next dream.
So, I guess it’ll still be a while until I try to do anything else when I’m lucid, because the feeling of flying of dreams is just too amazing.
families
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K and I have noted recently that the structure of the middle-class family in the U.S. has changed. Particularly, the expectations and desires of young adults today (which I’ll identify as anyone 18-30) are completely different from our generation. This stems from entirely different parenting styles than we experienced.
When we were growing up, it was the norm for parents to expect their kids to be out of the house and self-sufficient when they finished school, which could be high school (K), technical school (my brother), or college (me). Parents made it clear that after that, you were on your own. Although this frightened some of us (me, for one) a little bit, we did fantasize about having complete autonomy and living our lives on our own terms. But also, one was considered a complete failure if one lived at home much past the age of 21, and open to mockery.
The other reason many of us would rather starve than return home is to avoid the dysfunctionality that was our homes. Hell, we often moved thousands of miles away from our parents to ensure we had as little to do with them as possible while we forged our paths as adults. Paths, I may add, that were often stupid, naive, and reckless, but ours nonetheless.
This has clearly changed. I work with a 29-year-old who lives down the street at his parents’ lovely home. He is clearly not embarrassed in the least to be doing so. He has a girlfriend and she certainly doesn’t care that he doesn’t have his own pad. (The latter is especially bizarre to me; I could never imagine having sex in the vicinity of my parents when I was young. ) His parents evidently enjoy having him close by as well; they seem to spend a lot of time together.
That would have never happened our young adulthood. Our parents made it quite clear that once we were adults, we were to get out. Prior to that, when we were young, parents often said things like, “You’ll see what a pain it is to have kids when you grow up.” Statements like this clearly indicated to kids that 1. We were considered annoying 2. Our parents were hoping we would be as miserable as they when we grew up.
It’s funny now, since we didn’t have kids, that our parents probably don’t remember framing parenthood as a hellish, doomed state. They used to be perplexed and disappointed that we didn’t have kids; they’ve stopped communicating about it because they’ve given up the fight. They certainly didn’t make it seem like a good fate, and it never occurred to them that someone could opt out of the whole thing.
I’m sure the 29-year-old never heard these kind of statements, and was probably met with support and encouragement throughout his childhood. Many parents today go overboard in this respect by curtailing all criticism even if it’s constructive. However, it seems that being a cheerleading parent, for all its drawbacks, is better than a bitter, fucked up one. Which may explain why some adult kids today can live with their parents: their parents openly enjoy having them at home. It’s hard for me to even picture this, even though I can observe it myself.
Happy 11/11/11!
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Tzipi lives!
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Tzipi came back.
After several months of not seeing him, I had to face the cold fact that Tzipi might be dead. Of course, I hoped he had just moved away because of O.J.’s bullying, but life in the wild being what it is, it was just as likely that he was gone for good.
I felt pretty crummy about this because, of course, I had come to really love Tzipi. He was the first wild animal that I successfully befriended. Well, I considered him a friend but it’s unlikely that he saw me as anything more than a human birdfeeder. Be that as it may, he was very intelligent and charming and just easy to love.
Now, O.J. is the *only* jay we’ve seen in our yard for quite a long time. Two days ago, K and I were about to head out when we noticed that there was jay in our yard that was not O.J. Although he didn’t look exactly like Tzipi, he started acting in a very Tzipi-like way — specifically, perching in the spots that Tzipi liked to perch. So, against all hope, I grabbed a few sunflower seeds near me (which I had been trying to lure a squirrel with, but that’s another story) and went outside. The jay didn’t fly away when I opened the door, although he fluttered around a bit. Then I opened my hand and he flew to me!
Tzipi!
He was most displeased with the seeds, so I told him to wait a second while I went inside and grabbed some almonds. I grabbed a whole lot of almonds in my enthusiasm. He took two and flew off. I had a huge lump in my throat and yes, shed a few tears.
All my life I have had dreams about my pets after they die, that somehow, against all physical laws, they manage to return from death. I can’t tell you how many times I have dreamed this dream. Even when I visit my pets’ graves, I can’t help but think that somehow they will pop out of the ground, alive and healthy. It’s one of the crazy, malformed tricks of the human mind. My mind, at least.
To see Tzipi fly to me after all these months was nothing short of a dream come true. It was so stunning and emotional.
He hasn’t been back but I hope he will be. At least now I know he is safe and sound.
Long live Tzipi, the best Scrub Jay ever.
Oh, man.
Strange times here in Oakland.
I’ve been caught in a web of twitter feeds for days now. This started last week, not with Occupy Oakland, but with the second earthquake in 24 hours at the same spot. I was in an old warehouse at the time under a rickety wooden loft and I thought “This is got to be one of the worst places to be in an earthquake.” We waited for a few moments while deciding to flee the building or stay put, eventually opting for the latter. I queued up the twit feed to get info, as well as the usgs.gov site (I signed up for the email updates while there). We’ve had several more earthquakes since then, all with the same epicenter. And even though “experts say” that there’s nothing to worry about, it does make me uneasy.
So with that baseline, I witnessed (via live video and photos) what went on here in my city, my beloved city, on Tuesday night. Oakland Police Department, already under a federal direction to improve its relationship with its citizens, assaulted its own citizens with a use of force completely out of proportion with the situation.
It really sickens me to think that this city, that I love so much, is now viewed by the world solely as that place where the cops brutalized its citizens, involved in peacful protest, to the point of nearly killing one. And it breaks my heart to see my neighbors being attacked by these cops, and then defended by a Mayor that I previously strongly supported. I feel a deep despair.
Although I dropped by to observe Occupy Oakland a few times, I didn’t actually participate in the protests for a variety of reasons. One of the main ones being that I have gone to many, many protests, protests much larger than this, and see nothing come of it. These experiences disheartened me to the point that I haven’t gone to a protest in a long time. But, with the sadness and despair, I also feel rage. I am enraged at so many things in this country: endless war, greed over compassion, the political lies, the poverty, the unfairness of it all, the fact that none of it has to be this way. And I feel a primal urge to be able to vocalize this rage.
Now I see there is something far worse than the government not listening to the voice of the people; it’s the government authorizing attacks on the people.
This morning I was awakened by another earthquake.Today the wind has kicked up, and there is a high fire danger, and I live in the fire zone.
These things concern me, but not nearly as the loss of compassion and humanity I have seen in these past few days. Excessive force and dehumanization is unsustainable and weakens everyone’s humanity and compassion.
It’s with these thoughts, and the overwhelming emotion I feel, that I plan to go to the General Assembly tonight. Maybe among like-minded people I will regain some hope. Maybe I will be able to do something to help. We’ll see.
Tzipi?
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I haven’t seened Tzipi for about a month now. I still see his kids and Mississippi, although less than I did. But Tzipi just seems to be gone. One day I was at the end of the street and I thought I saw a jay that was Tzipi. I came around a bend and saw a jay in a small tree next to the path. He sat in a tree somewhat close to me, closer than I would expect a jay to be. We stared at each other for a moment. I said, “Tzipi?”, which was silly because obviously he’s not going to answer. So I don’t know if that was him or not.
I’d like to think it was, that O.J. finally pushed him out of his territory, rather than his being dead. I guess I may never know.
