2 dreams w/o a segue: Bathtub, New 3rd Party.

Last week I dreamt that I was in a shower in a bathtub in the middle of this dank low-ceilinged room made of concrete, and there was no curtain all around the suspended metal rod on which a curtain would usually hang, but I was confident that although a bit of water got on the floor, not much ever did, and it'd dry up pretty quickly and cause no harm.

Then, I glanced down to the right beyond the tub, and I noticed the puddle was a bit bigger than usual, and the concrete floor was not only moist, but had a bit of running water on it, in a growing pool just sitting on the surface of the concrete.

Then, I looked over to the back-left, towards the corner towards the door, and I all of a sudden saw with shock that there was this huge deep stagnant pool of water like hunched up into the corner of the room, and there was even slightly swirling green algae suspended in the center of it, like cellular material circling around inside the protoplasm, and I realized that I must have caused that.

Later, right before I woke up, I dreamt that I had heard of a woman who was sick of the 2-party system and so had started her own common sense party that she thought would take off like wildfire, "Denisie-crats" from her name "Denise", and I just shook my head thinking that that would never work in a million years, it was so out-of-touch and silly.

. . .

(My shower in my new apt. always leaks a bit of water on the tile floor right outside the shower b/c the door doesn't seal tight, so I have to mop it up w/a towel after I get out...  I had taken a shower the night of the dream and there was a bit more water on the floor than usual.)

Ideas for my writing section.

A few weeks ago, my writing section was dead, so I told the freshkids, "Man, this class is dead, we should all go mainline some espresso."

Then I tapped my fingers against my veins like I prepping to inject something into them.

At that they stared at my blankly.

"Or," I was like, "We should all go each drink a double espresso.  Then, you can go back to the dorm and tell your friends, 'My writing instructor bought our class a round of shots - of espresso!'".

At that, one kid smiled, mildly.

"Tough crowd, tough crowd," I was like.  "'I just flew in from Las Vegas, and boy are my arms tired.'"

Then, after more silence, "Take my wife, please."

Then, after more silence, I was like, "You know, those are the jokes people tell to indicate someone's telling bad jokes?", and since none of them had heard them before, I explained the jokes for them, and then, like I always say, I said, "What the heck, were you kids born under a rock?".

I say that last one a lot - the kids, for example, had never heard of "The Education of Henry Adams", or "Seven Years Before the Mast", or even "Pamela".

I did read the New York Times Book Review pretty much cover-to-cover each week back when I was in high school - I subscribed! - but still, you think they'd get at least some major cultural references.

Instead, their brains have been permanently ruined from watching Miley Cyrus twerking.

(On another note, I bet these kids would majorly suck at Jeopardy.)

One of my dreams for section is to have a pocket mirror and a can of espresso grind coffee, and when the kids are tired, pull that out, dump some coffee on the mirror, use a credit card to make lines, and then roll up a dollar bill and offer a bump to all the kids. 

Then, when they look at me blankly, I'll hunch over and (pretend) snort a line of espresso myself, make an energized face as if to myself, and then resume teaching like nothing happened.

I'll have to be smart about it, though, and have a fresh can of coffee that they see me take the seal off of, and to tell them at the end of class that I really didn't snort espresso like cocaine, so no-one can accuse me of mixing coffee and illicit substances, or encouraging the kids to do something that'd harm them if they really tried it.

My school's kids aren't as cool as the art school kids.

The other day we were discussing a book-length 1861 of a former (female) slave, and the prof gave the kids backgrounds on the genre of "slave narrative" and its conventions (story of captivity and escape, orientation towards abolitionism, etc.).

I then popped in and was like, "This was *definitely* a recognizable genre, in the late 19th c. or the very early 20th c., I forget what, they published a fairly famous piece of erotica 'The Memoirs of Dolly Morton' that played off of the conventions, it was all about escaped slaves detailing the different ways their masters would hit their buttocks."

At that, I got a room full of blank stares.

"Seriously," I was like.  "This is history.  I'm going to teach these books together when I finally put together my class on sex in American history."

Then, this (nerdy) (a bit know-it-all) (white) (female) freshperson was like, "And why did they do that?".

"Because it's erotica," I was like.  "Some people found it hot, if you knew slave narratives."

"Non-consensuality is never cool," she was like, knowingly.

Later that class, the prof passed out a handout - the rape scene from Samuel Richardson's "Pamela"!

Great convo w/an evangelical grad student.

The other week at a once-a-term divisional social event, I ended up running into this one (cleancut) (white) (male) evangelical grad student who went to Wheaton College and still identifies as an evangelical but has become more liberal over time, and we had a great conversation.

First off, as he knows from a friend who works there, it turns out that a Jesuit college in the city has an insanely high syphilis rate among undergraduates that their stats shows is possibly the highest in the country, but they're covering it up for fear of scandal.  Though, they also haven't resisted a Planned Parenthood clinic opening nearby.

"You know," I was like, "I wonder what their HIV infection rates are, if the straight undergrads are f*cking without condoms.  I bet they're not thinking of that, and then they could *really* get fucked."

Then, I added, "All it takes is one, to get that into the mix."



Then, I added, "Happy Thursday!", to a drunk Indian studies grad student who was in on the conversation and seemed horrified.

From there, the evangelical kid said that his parents and everyone would always say that Nietzsche thought the way he did because he went crazy from syphilis.

"They're masters at that," he was like.  "No one took Nietzsche seriously because of that."

Later, he also said that his brother is in the U.S. Army in Washington state and ended up doing logistics and moving into command posts during his 1st period of sign-up, but hates it.

"Of the 50 guys he oversees," he was like, "40 have had police called to their house for domestic violence incidents, and like 20 have had the cops there like 3 times.  Seriously.  But, it all goes to military police, and nothing ever changes."

He then said that his brother felt like his entire job was covering up abusive behavior towards women, and he was disheartened and disgusted and would be leaving permanently after his 1st stint.

"The army attracts a certain type of guy, he says," my colleague was like.  "It's like they're looking for a way to get away with that stuff."

Odd dream...

I dreamt that I was in my darkened childhood bedroom at night as an adult, and through the door I can see lights coming from the living room. 

It's Christmas time, and my parents and my one uncle (my dad's younger brother) are around the TV watching a Handel oratorio, which I know is named something like "The Angelic Oratorio."

I'm then downstairs in the dining room, and my parents and my uncle are around the table talking post-oratorio, and my uncle asks me if I know what the name is, and I tell him.

Only, for some reason it's not my uncle (my dad's youngest brother), but rather my other uncle (my mom's older brother).

Later, I'm flipping through a campus newspaper and there's a large pull-out section of nominations for teaching awards, and there's like a 3x2 row of pics w/names and categories underneath, and I scan it over and see a few people I know, including this one upper-level Ph.D. student (white) woman from the Anthro department who has multiple large hoop earrings and very distended earlobes, and I know that no-one nominated me, even though the kids like me a lot.

Then, I notice that the last picture has my name under it, only my face isn't above it, but rather an off-focus black-and-white photo of a student evaluation that simply says "[My first name] is fun and cool" in handwriting that looks like it's from a young child.

I then am happy, but guardedly, since I wonder if anyone else will notice the reason that I was chosen for the award wasn't substantive.

2 interesting texts.

1) I was out barhopping in a neighborhood one Fri. and like 6 or 7pm I texted my one (light-skinned black) friend from Arkansas to invite her out if she was free, and then like 12 or 1am she texted back -

Ha I slept until midnight and am only now biting the town

2) Around Christmas I texted my one friend who teaches modern Czech literature to see if she wanted to meet for drinks and she said she couldn't because of a therapy appointment, and somehow we started talking about her therapist, during the course of which conversation she wrote -

She is a little person, dwarfism.  Has an MD and PhD and barbecue tongs to reach her light switch.  Going to Hoboken tomorrow.

. . .

Theme from "Valley of the Dolls".

One night years ago after drinking at the student bar, the one person from Iowa I knew confessed not only that she loved the "Valley of the Dolls" movie ever since seeing it as a kid in her mom's trailer and being forbidden to watch it, but also that she had the DVD at home from Netflix...

...and so we went to her place and watched it over a sixpack and then watched her other movie out from Netflix, the original Hairspray!

Anyhow, a few months ago, for some reason I remembered this, and texted her about that (she's in Pennsylvania, now), to which she replied -

Ha! I bought the Valley of the Dolls soundtrack on vinyl LP at a Salvation Army a few weeks ago.

- and then after a text about how I liked the theme from "Ebony"  she texted back -

Great song too

- and then after I talked about how much I liked that song and Valley of the Dolls etc. she texted back -

You're drunk.  You've just used tge phrase "profoundly moving" twice.  Once in reference to Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls

. . .