"Do you always look forward to the longest day of the year and then miss it?

I always look forward to the longest day of the year and then miss it."

The Great Gatsby was also prominent on the reading lists of so many English classes between Grade 12 and 3rd year that I remember some of the dialogue, word for word, even after not reading it for at least 8 years.  On the list of novels I've reluctantly had to write papers on, I think it comes second only to Frankenstein*.

Through inadvertance, I have NOT missed out on the longest day of the year this time.  The Southwestern Ontario heatwave has both continued and intensified, and I have been keeping cool since about 8:30 (p.m.) by lounging on my kitchen porch in an anti-gravity chair and sipping beer**.

I recall that I never missed the longest day of the year when I lived in the Canadian Rockies.  How could anyone?  You could sit drinking on a patio in full daylight until 11 p.m.  And quite often see the Northern Lights after it got dark.

And an hour later:

Kind of awesome.

The drawbacks to the rest of the summer Canadian Rockies were:

• just because it was summer it didn't mean there was no snow.  I remember one year waking up on the 4th of July to a full-on blizzard
• crystal blue, gorgeous and inviting bodies of water were everywhere.  on really hot days, it was very difficult not to jump in.  jumping in would have spelled death by hypothermia in less than 5 minutes, however, as the rivers and lakes were all directly glacier-fed
• sunburns.  when you think of how far the earth is from the sun, you wouldn't think that getting 1700 metres closer to it would make a significant difference.  It really, really does.

But on to other matters.

Does alcohol metabolize differently in intense heat?  The bottle collection to my right suggests that I've had much more than necessary for a school night, but I'm not really feeling it at all. 

Scratch that.  I just Googled the metabolism of alcohol in hot weather and started giggling hysterically when the site I landed on included a pop-up that said "If you close this box, you will not see it again." 

I just remembered an awesome game that me and a former co-worker (still friend) used to play at work.  Chicken Breast.  We'd stand at opposite ends of our long tunnel of a photocopy room, stand up straight, our chests thrust forward, and walk swiftly towards each other and wait and see who would be the first to flinch and turn away before we bounced off of each other's breasts.  Why did I think of that?  Maybe because I was thinking about eggs.  Oh, good times.


*If you have not read The Great Gatsby, I suggest you do.  It's a great book.  My reluctance to write papers on it stems only from the fact that I actually quite liked it and grew tired of dissecting the symbolic meaning behind East Egg and West Egg.  Like the island of Manhattan stretches out like fallopian tubes and East and West Egg are the ovaries that you find at the end.  Though I never used that angle.  I don't remember it from any of the criticism, either. Maybe I've got a Master's thesis in the works. 

**My heels are digging into the outer corners of the frame of the anti-gravity chair like I'm in stirrups for a pap test or child-birthing.


I remember that I've promised a video montage, and a video montage I will provide.  Though I'm a technotard and am not making very good progress.  By video montage, I might mean PowerPoint.  That I can work with.

5 out of 6 Dreams Uninterpreted

My Kiefer Sutherland Donut Dreams were eventually replaced by a disturbing series where my teeth kept crumbling and falling out of my mouth.

Without a handy copy of 1000 Dreams Interpreted*, I turned to Google** to divine the meaning behind my inner workings of my mind.

Dreams involving tooth decay are quite common.  They could mean a number of things, including a reflection of some kind of major life change, fear of getting old, and/or fear of making a fool of oneself... all of which could easily have applied in November of 2010. And still do, I suppose.  Though I haven't had a dream about my teeth in a very long time.

I came up with nothing when I looked up dreams involving celebrities violently coercing you into eating baked goods.  Feeding***, yes.  Force-feeding, no.

I similarly came up empty-handed when I tried to look up what it means if you have dreams involving being executed by celebrities. 

As I write this, I remember another recurring dream I had in my early 20's where I'm somehow caught up in World War II.  Different battle zones are divided up like a game of 3D Tic Tac Toe.  I know that reaching one of the bottom corners of the cube equals safety.  When I finally make it down (after much struggle but no serious injury), I find Roberto Benigni sitting safely behind the walls of a sandbag bumper, eating a burrito.  He offers me some of his burrito, and before I have the chance to accept, one of his arms turns into a pool noodle.  He then uses his good arm to remove the pool noodle arm, and starts beating me with it.  It doesn't hurt.  But still.

I found some stuff on dreaming about celebrities, but none of the celebrity situations offered seemed to really be applicable to me - there was nothing about celebrities threatening you in any way, anyway****.

I found plenty to indicate that recurring dreams are your brain's way of bombarding you with something that you're supposed to learn about yourself.  Fine.  I can accept that.

Once I got into it, I also tried to find the meaning behind a dream that I've had since... I'm going to say infancy, because I can't remember ever not having it:

I am jumping up and down, each time getting a little bit higher, until I bounce myself airborne.  Once in the sky, I'm at the mercy of the wind and such, but otherwise keep rising higher and higher.  Trying to steer myself is useless, but after a few moments of apprehension about being up in the air, I feel... (go ahead and be embarrassed for me) kind of like an albatross, content to let the wind push me this way and that, curious to see the world from this angle.  All the while confident that eventually I'll bump into a tall tree, skyscraper, mountainside or hot air balloon and make my way safely back to ground level.  Only that never happens.  I just keep getting higher and higher, eventually panicking when I realize that I've crossed through the cloud level and the next thing up is the stratosphere - and then incineration.  And definitely no way down.

I have found nothing online to explain this, either.  Jumping, yes.  Flying, yes.  Falling, yes.  Floating, yes.  Nothing that really addresses my particular situation*****.

I have also found nothing to explain a dream where I am staring absent-mindedly out the window of a taxi, stopped at a traffic light, and my eyes meet, just briefly, with those of a young woman picking at some vicious camel-toe.

But then again, that wasn't a dream at all.  It's just something that happened last Friday, when I was on my way to meet Chris and Sara for drinks at the museum.

As an afterthought, it's accepted that babies dream, in utero included.  But I couldn't find anything to explain at what point in infancy/childhood the young learn to differentiate dreams from reality.  Primary research shows that it's not any time soon for the twins.

As a second afterthought, I have self-diagnosed myself with an actual medical, hypersomniac condition known as "sleep-drunkenness".  When they waken, the sleep-drunk are disoriented, confused, unco-ordinated, etc.  Like being drunk.  Which is exactly how I feel in the morning...

As my grade 8 science teacher would say, "Wise up, Wisenheimers".  Actually still being drunk on wakening can only explain my state a percentage****** of the time.  The rest of the time, it's just me.  No wonder I'm always late for work.

*Am I wrong?  I very distinctly remember the existence of a tome called 1000 Dreams Interpreted as a standard on the bookshelves of the mothers of several friends in high school who would also have texts about how to better understand their star signs.  But, according to the internet, this book did not exist until 2003.

**Google taking third place behind a Freudian or a clairvoyant.  I had access to neither.

***Dreams involving feeding indicate "that someone in your life is in need of love and acceptance. That someone could be an aspect of yourself".  I don't think that really works for force-feeding.  Although, I did find that a dream of donut,  "especially if it's a glazed donut, tells us that we [are?] lost, and still struggling to find ourselves and our purpose in life".  Nothing about burritos, though.  If you don't believe me, here:  http://nelamoxtli.com/food.html.


****To be fair, though, none of the celebrities of my dreams have been threatening me, exactly.  Maybe Kiefer understood that I really needed more donuts in my life but knew I was going to walk out with only a coffee if not otherwise persuaded.  The executioners were really just victims of circumstance.  They didn't necessarily want to be there.  And beating with a pool noodle is hardly an act of aggression.

*****if I were inclined, I could try to piece together an interpretation using jumping, flying, falling and floating as starting off points.  But that only leads to a conflicting swarm of emotions ranging from exhileration, power, self-confidence, the need to take risks, belief that you will overcome your fears and obstacles, to, lack of confidence, fear of challenges and/or success, impatience, questioning of one's abilities, and doubt.  Oh Granken, you are a riddle.

******I said "a" percentage, I didn't quantify.  Did I?

Same Dream, Different Donut

Don't ask where these ideas come from.  There's no need.  I'll tell you.  My head.  Which includes, sometimes, some very vivid dreams.  Anyone who knows about my Jack Bauer miniseries knows what I'm talking about*.

Anyway. 

I recently had a dream of global civil war (G20 versus The World).  The G20 had enlisted/drafted celebrities as executioners/assassins.  A Celebrity Death Squad, if you will.   

It was an automatic death sentence if you were a member of the resistance (which I was), and had the misfortune to get caught (which  I did). 

However.  As a show of good faith (?), the G20 forces permitted you to choose both your celebrity and the means by which they killed you.  And a few other details.  Like when.  And where.  Whether your death was scheduled in advance or whether you were taken by surprise. 

It's quite a decision.  I was thinking so hard I woke myself up. 
I feel like a person's choice might say a lot about their personality. Are these the sort of questions you're asked when completing your eHarmony profile? They should be.


Do you go to your favourite restaurant the next Friday and have Christopher Walken march in, just before you have to pay, and shoot you in the face?  Do you have unprotected sex with Paris Hilton, then sit back and wait for infection to ravage your body? Does Bill Shatner come to your house late at night, and make you some tea - which is laced with a lethal (but painless) poison - and then climb into bed with you, put one arm around you, and read The Giving Tree while you fall asleep/die? 

Is this morbid?

I'm curious.  Not whether it's morbid or not (I expect it is), but who would you select to usher/catapult you into the afterlife.  And how they would get you there.



*For anyone who doesn't know:

During the 5 or 6 weeks I lived with Chis and Sara way back in 2010, I had a recurring dream where I was standing in line at a Tim Horton's.  Kiefer Sutherland was in line behind me.  Next thing I knew, he was up in my face, in full Jack Bauer-I'm-gonna-torture-you character, shrieking, "YOU WANT A CHOCOLATE GLAZED!"  And the next night, it was a Boston Cream.. And then a Cherry Stick.  There were a couple more after that, but never a Honey Cruller.  Sigh.

Shotgun

At one point this past weekend, I found myself staring at the side of a perspiring beer can, thinking things over. 

For example, I fell to thinking of the last time I shotgunned a beer.  I could be wrong, but I believe it was well over a year ago.  I must rectify that.  I try to shotgun at least once each year, just to stay in practice. 

We all have things that we want out of life.  I want to be able to shotgun a beer when I'm 75, dazzling all the other residents of my future retirement home. 

Other people want different things out of life, like the safety of their children.  I, of course, don't have any children.  But it brings to mind another topic.

I remember at one point over Christmas, Chris and/or Sara describing to me various ways that other parents are mentally irregular*.  For example, when they pulled their Sexfire into the parking lot of a Toys/Babies R Us.  Their car was the only non-SUV in the lot.  They encountered a huge line up to get into the store.  On the Toys R Us side.  They casually sauntered in through the Babies side, where, as everyone knows, you can also access the Toys side.  They shook their heads, thinking, "Retards!"  Both for the idiocy of standing in line for no reason, and for the gas-guzzling needlessness of the SUV.

I disagree with the existence of sports utility vehicles on principle.  I even feel that before you're allowed to buy one, you should have to offer some sort of proof why you need one.  There's a letter to parliament that I've written, in my head, on the matter.

But, having spent a portion of the last year riding shotgun in a sedan with a child safety seat positioned behind me, I sadly kind of understand the need for the SUV, or other unreasonably large vehicles, for people with kids. 

I'm not going to suggest that safety seats are unnecessary outside of infancy just because I survived just fine with only a lap belt as soon as I could hold my own head up.  That would be akin to my grandfather (rest his soul) saying  (in 1990) that acid rain didn't exist because he'd never seen any.

What I am going to say is that child safety seat laws in Ontario are excessive.  And I have my reasons.  The rule, quoted directly from the Ministry of Transportation website, is this:

Everyone including parents,grandparents, relatives or friends, who drives with a child under the age of 8 who weighs less than 36 kg (80 lb.) and stands less than 145 cm (4 ft. 9 in.) tall is required to ensure the child is properly secured in the appropriate child safety seat or booster seat based on his/her height and weight.

If the part about being exempt past age 8 didn't exist, I'd have to argue that I wouldn't have been allowed out of a safety seat until grade 9.  And I'd have to point out that I currently know of some licenced drivers who just barely pass the height/weight requirement.  They're very petite.  But they exist.  
 
I'm not going to point out that the reasoning behind the regulation, as spelled out by the MTO, is that the seatbelt itself poses hazards for tiny bodies.  If that were all, the age part wouldn't apply.  Would it?
 
I happen to work in an industry where I have first-hand knowledge regarding the efficacy of safety seats.  Believe me, if there was a way to make car travel safer, I'd be all over it.  Seriously.  I've seen pictures that no one ever wants to see**.
 
But the truth of the matter is this:
 
Child safety seats are effective in preventing minor injury in the event of a low-speed collision.
 
Child safety seats are ineffective in preventing injury in the event of a high-speed collision.
 
Children are less likely than adults to sustain serious traumatic injury, and more likely to recover from traumatic injury, because their musculoskeletal systems are still developing.  They're kind of made of rubber.
 
If travelling in a normal sized car, whoever is unlucky enough to be positioned directly in front of the child's seat is accordionned against the dashboard. Knees in chest.  I'm talking about toddlers, not infants.  The child's legs just stick out that far.  Which, regardless of collision speed, poses significant risk of traumatic injury, especially if you're an adult, with bones brittle compared to those of a small child.

Hooray for protecting our children.  But is it reasonable for a mother to suffer a potentially fatal crushed sternum to ensure that her child averts a sprained elbow?

Unless willing to disregard laws regarding privacy protection (which I'm not), I'm not in a position to explain how or why I know this.  I just do.  Anyone who thinks I'm being ridiculous can go fist themselves.


*Thank you, Rocky. I've decided to start using "mentally irregular" in place of "retarded", so as to avoid offending anyone.  But what I mean is retarded.

**For example, never, ever ride a motorcycle.  If you doubt me, try and picture your face on the grill of a truck.  Just your face.  As though it slid off of your skull.  Which is still attached to the rest of your body, 100 metres away.

Sorry if that's a little dark.  I don't like having that image inside my head, either