I was utterly humiliated, and turned and departed with head held low.

I


  had a long series of vivid dreams last night. It bears noting that I haven't been remembering my dreams very well for the past several months. The first dream situated me in Oberlin, the College I once attended and where I subsequently "hung out" on and off for several years. I was forever having run-ins with security back in the "hanging out years," since, after a number of "incidents," I was officially barred from campus. The constant unease of having to look out for blue coated security officers eager to cart me away in chains left a permanent imprint on my fight or flight response system, and it frequently manifests in my dreams. This is especially true these days now that vigilance has again proved necessary in dealing with thugs and tough guy wanna-bes eager to gang up and kick my ass for the glory of testosterone and the advancement of fascist notions of the way "the press" should behave. In the dream, I found myself walking into Fairchild House, a dorm near the middle of campus, with the intention of using an internet-capable computer in some fanciful computer lab upstairs. A familiar older male figure, an "adult presence" of sorts, stood in the lobby and asked me whom I intended to visit. I said "just a friend upstairs." He responded angrily that he'd never seen me before and that I would have to leave. Suddenly I noticed that a crowd had gathered and were all silently listening to this man. I was utterly humiliated, and turned and departed with head held low.

Later, in another dream, I was kissing some girl, but she was being so ridiculous and aggravating about it that it was obvious that she was just doing it to humiliate me.

Evidently there's a nagging fear in my subconscious of being humiliated.



Instead, we get the cola wars and subconscious associations of middle age black people with "regularity" medicine.

I


  took a variety of naps today when I wasn't on a computer or watching teevee. A show on the History Channel about Edward R. Murrow left me feeling cynical about the good that new media can do for our culture. Television, after all, held the promise of holding politicians and industrialists to greater accountability. Instead, we get the cola wars and subconscious associations of middle age black people with "regularity" medicine. Murrow's show, which courageously exposed McCarthyism and the brutishness of southern white segregationists, was later replaced with feel-good nonsense such as I Love Lucy.




O


ur lawn had been growing up into a sort of jungle, but the other day Deya borrowed Angela's (our British next door neighbour's) lawn mower and cut the grass for the first time since we all moved to Kappa Mutha Fucka. It's doubtful we'll mow the grass again for many months. Compulsive lawn care has long been one of the targets of my ridicule.



F


or those of you expressing concern about my safety in the wake of my recent experiences with the "I'm such a tough guy with my smiley" crowd, I think I should point out that I've been through worse before. On several occasions when I was a kid, my Dad would lay out guns in case we needed to defend ourselves against irate redneck neighbors. Gunfire protests would erupt from the trailer across the road at odd hours of the night, as would obscene, threatening phone calls. A couple of different neighbors actually fired guns directly at my parents. But over the years this war went cold and eventually died out. Now, after 18 years, my Dad is known to occasionally have amiable chats with the guy across the street.

The "skinhead" kids are obviously going through a phase. When the next rich kid trend comes rolling off MTV and around through town, you can bet they'll be growing their hair and buying nice new clothes. They won't want to be left behind.

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