Another dream: Hometown conference center.

A few days later I dreamt that I was in a new conference center on my hometown's northeast outskirts, on the way out to the public high school where I had taken music and language classes.

The conference center was lodged in a hill and had high ceilings going up to glass through which darkness was visible, and had a sharp slope (like a 45 degree angle) that eased around to a lower entrance, and all the rooms had Native American names (the one by the lower entrance was named the "Tekakwitha Room", for example).

I wasn't sure how to get to the public high school, so I went out the entrance at the upper end and walked in heavy boots for like twenty minutes in the dark through a dead cornfield with hacked off stalks that were never taller than my knee.

After that, I felt like I was going in the wrong direction, so I turned around and made my way back to the conference center.  I was going down the incline towards the lower entrance but suddenly wasn't sure if that was the right way either, so I turned around and approached two teenage (low class) (white) girls who were standing around by the entrance to one conference room midway down the incline.

"Yeah, you were going the wrong way before," the first girl was like, affirming that I should go through the lower entrance and walk out from there to get to the high school.

"I'm surprised you didn't know that," the second girl then added, snottily.

"What the fuck," I said to the second girl, "I'm just asking directions, I don't need your attitude."

Later, I was at the public high school and was going to the band room where I had played back in high school, in order to join some big instrumental group that was meeting there.

I edged around the hallway and kept looking into the big main rehearsal room, though.

Then, I woke up.

Disturbing Dream: Shaving the back of my neck.

Last week I dreamt that I was looking in the mirror to shave the back of my neck up to my haircut line to keep it looking fresh, and I saw that I had three large circular clumps of tufted hair at the base of my neck and spaced out evenly going up to my hairline, and I had already hacked off the bottom half of the lower one without realizing it, and from the mangled, hacked up flesh-and-hair thick dark red blood was beginning to slowly ooze down my back and was already all over my razor, and I could feel a dull ache from that part of my body...

People's response to my barhopping.

The other Thursday I was barhopping down in the far southeast part of the city - to get to the first bar, I had to bike like over an hour and fifteen minutes! - and I managed to make it to 5 bars in a leisurely barcrawl before heading home.

A block-and-a-half from my house, I was biking past a local divebar, and who do I see through the open door but my one (white) colleague from Mississippi, who was standing with his back to the door but was recognizable because of his distinctive country-style hat that he wears sometimes when he's out-and-about.

So, I popped in to say hi, and he was there with like 4 people I know, including a very drunk Ph.D. student who had been imbibing since he had started watching the World Cup 11am game over 12 hours earlier.

When people asked me where I was coming from and I mentioned that I had been barhopping, he was like, "You're still doing that?!", since he knew I had mentioned like 2 years ago that I was trying to go to every bar in the city, but he had never given it a thought since, it seems.

Later, when me and some people went to the taqueria across the street and that guy headed off home in a cab, I was sitting in the booth sharing chips and salsa with everyone when I got a text from him -

You are a hero.

. . .

My parents' visit (4 of 10): Live band karaoke.

That night, after the art museum and drinks with the comedy writer, we went to the live band karaoke event frequented by senior citizens, which is like 6 blocks south of my apartment in this bar that's been around since the turn of 2 centuries ago all in the same family.

As we were walking in to the door off the parking lot, my dad had us stop in front of the blank brick wall, which had some wires hanging down here and there around screws haphazardly drilled into the brickwork.

"Look at that," he was like.  "That should be in a museum!"

My parents' visit (3 of 10): Art museum.

I swiped my parents into the art museum for free - I can do that w/my faculty ID for the art school - and left them there for several hours while I went to take care of stuff at the art school.

Afterwards, they came out laughing.

It turns out that right after I dropped them off, my mom had insisted they go to the museum cafe and get a beer and then go look at modern art.

"Modern art is always better with a buzz," my mom was like, "Just a little one," and she held up her fingers in a 'small bit' gesture.

She then said that they walked around a lot and all she could hear behind her the entire time was my dad being like, "I don't get it."

My parents' visit (2 of 10): Hung out with a tv comedy writer.

After walking around in the park downtown, me and my parents went to a nearby bar to hang out with my one friend who's a prof of modern Czech literature, who happened to be there with a friend, a TV comedy screenwriter in visiting from New York.

After a round of introductions, it came out that the comedy writer supported the White Sox while my parents supported the Tigers, but he still bought an opening round of drinks anyways.

"To the Tigers," my mom said, after everyone clinked their glasses.

The comedy writer was very much like one of my parents' Baby Boomer friends and told endless anecdotes, like about a friend of a friend who went to this very cold Bears game and decided to piss himself to warm up and just let his bladder loose and soaked his pants, which warmed him up a ton - until his piss froze all over him.

He was also talking a lot about going to visit his father out in Joliet, a phrase he said several times.

"Geez, [the comedy writer's first name]," my mom was like, "The way you say that, I keep thinking your dad is in prison!".

The comedy writer bitched about his stepmother a lot too, this old uncomfortable woman with an annoying voice who waited on his dad hand-and-foot but followed him around all day.

"What you doing?", she had asked his dad the last time he was visiting, as his dad inserted two pieces of bread into a toaster and she leaned over to look at the bread real close.

"For Christ's sake," he was like, "What the hell did she think he was doing?  He was only putting two pieces of bread in a fucking toaster."

"You know, [the comedy writer's first name]," my dad told him, "Old women fall down stairs all the time, whaddya say, I'll come help you out."

. . .

Later that night, my parents reflected on what a fun time that several hour conversation was.

"I'm not sure [my dad's first name] should have offered to kill [the comedy writer's] stepmom, though," my mom was like.  "That was a little much."

My parents' visit (1 of 10): My mom on Chicago.

A number of weekends my parents visited me in the city, and it was the first time they ever saw Millennium Park, which is an attractive and highly redeveloped section of Grant Park with a concert shell, big fountain for kids to play in, sculpture gardens, and whatnot.

"Gosh," my mom was like, "When I lived in Chicago, Grant Park was cops on horses beating people."