Another dream.

I dreamt that same night that my one friend who delivers singing telegrams had a cat who was giving birth, and I had to go into the California hills to meet her roommates and arrange everything so the cat could give natural birth underwater.

I then had an image that n the sea, these tiny miniature hairless kittens were floating about.

Then, I was in the room, with one of those kittens grown, who had the nails from its front paws in my arm, and was swinging and looking me in the eye in an almost human way, and I knew it had been a (female) (human) gymnast in a past life.

Then, I was napping, and the cat was next to me, nuzzling in a disturbing way.

Later, I went back down to the sea, and discovered that my one friend who delivers singing telegrams, a (female) friend from high school, and others, had spent time on the pier enjoying themselves, getting ice cream, etc.

I was sorry that we missed that, but then we were in a boat going between huts built on poles and suspended very close to the surface of the lake, and thinny Javanese-looking women were beating on drums for us as a tourist schtick.

A dream.

I dreamed I entered a room in a house, and there was a demon in it, and the temperature was very, very cold. I kept making the sign of the cross, but nothing changed, and I panicked and began to wonder if the demon would torment me more, since I had the pride to think I could fend it off my self.

I woke up, and my apartment was very cold, since the temperature had gone down and they hadn't turned the heat on again.

Memorable Moments from a Long Night of Bars (2 of 2): A Late-Night Karaoke Bar.

Much later, at this karaoke bar, the (white) female bartender had an accent, so I asked her where she was from, and she said she was Polish, and when I identified as half-Polish, she got all hard-ass on me and was like, “You are Polish, but you don’t speak Polish,” and set my beer on the counter hard and went to turn away, to which I replied (in Polish) – “Thank you” – at which she momentarily stopped mid-turn and scowled, since everyone knows that word, I guess – so I then added (in Polish) – “Sweetie” – at which she broke out in a smile and this look of confused surprise and amused fondness burst into her eyes, as she turned away to run down the counter and serve another customer.

Memorable Moments from a Long Night of Bars (1 of 2): A Marble Bar.

At this one bar where there was a ton of marbles embedded into the counter and into the bar-top and onto the cooler lights, there was this short black plumber with a beret on and long hair coming out from under it, who had just got off of work and was talking in a low voice and a kind of spacey manner about whatever.

When a sports mascot came on TV, he started telling me how he wanted to be a mascot, so he could go up to people and fuck with them.

“And do what, exactly?”, I was like.

“You know, fuck with them, do whatever I want to,” the guy was like.

“Like hit them with a big inflatable hammer that makes a squeaking sound?”, I was like.

“Yeah, just like that,” he was like, “Whatever I want to.”

“Like what?’, I was like. “I mean, just your top 2 or 3 things you’d do.”

“Whatever!,” he said. “You think it, I’d do it.”

I then told him that it was like the internet, how we know there’s a ton of stuff we could do, but we’re kind of immobilized by the infinite possibilities, and I challenged him again just to name 2 or 3 other things he’d do to people if he was a sports mascot.

He couldn’t.

Unfortunate food waste.

I had been so busy with Hebrew, I might have have left a pot of bean soup in the fridge for up to 3 weeks (though I think it maybe have been 2).

It was three-quarters gone – there was just maybe about 3 inches of soup left in the bottom of the big soup pot – when I opened the fridge on a Sunday afternoon, only to smell something funky.

I opened the soup pot, and there was a layer of small clearish gray scum here and there on the top, and a bit of bubbles in it like it was fermenting.

Since there was so many kidney and pinto beans in the soup, I decided to dump it in the toilet, and when I flushed, everything went fine at first, but then the toilet started backing up, and I had to run into the kitchen for a saucepan to start bailing, before the rotten soup and toilet water backed up onto the floor.

Fortunately, though, the toilet stopped backing up like less than an eighth of an inch from the top, so then I was left to reach in there deep with my bare hand and arm, into the tannish-brown mix with cilantro leaves floating here and there on top, and grab handfuls of beans from way in the back where the toilet water goes down, and put them in a a plastic grocery store bag put in another plastic grocery store bag, so no nastiness would drip on the tile.

Fortunately, the soup didn’t smell that funky, since it was diluted by all the toilet water.

Eventually, the water started draining, so I swirled around the water toward the back with my hand, until it really started going down, and then I waited, and flushed, and everything went down except a single chopped leaf of cilantro, which stood there like a rebuke to me for my wastefulness of food.

That whole thing made me 45 minutes late for a martini lounge patio get-together held by my one friend who delivers singing telegrams, but I had to do what I had to do, and people appreciated hearing the story.

Creative reusage.

Since I hate to throw anything out, I was wondering what to do with this little plate that I had gotten with a dress shirt from Express; I had punched out the little inserts to put into the tips of my collar to make them look nice, but the rest of the plate was left over.

So, I put it around the inside of my closet door handle (there was a string attached to the top of the plate).

Now, whenever I open my door, there’s a soft, high little metallic tinkle from the plate hitting against the wood of the door. It makes me happy, it’s almost like a windchimes effect, only not as obnoxious.

Odd 1st date.

So my one friend with the cat went on a date last month with this guy she met over the net.

They had a late breakfast one weekend at a local restaurant, and after they had ordered, the guy kept glossing over like a decade of his life, so she pressed him out.

Finally, he was like, "I was in prison," and then when she looked a surprised, he added, "I killed a man."

After a long pause, she was like, "It must have been very difficult to spend most of your 20s in prison."

Then, because they had already ordered and the food hadn't gotten there yet, she still had the whole breakfast ahead of her.

. . .

The guy was really cool and was now in law school and wanted to fight for better treatment of prisoners and prisoner rights and my friend said that she's "all about second chances", but his having killed someone was just a little bit too much.