Toward an easier dream journal

My favorite time of the day is those intervals of sleep between when I first wake up and when I decide to spend the rest of the day awake. During these snoozes, I often write essays on a yellow legal pad (in the dream world). Upon waking up, I am so intensely curious of what I just wrote that I go back to sleep, hoping I can recover a piece of the manuscript, and often I just start writing where I left off. This arrangement would be fine if I lived in the dream world and slept in the waking one, but that's not the case.

So I have fashioned a device that I think might be able to record my dream writings. It consists of a six-inch needle attached to a ball point pen with copper wire and dental floss. I would theoretically hold the pen in my hand over a pad of legal paper, and the hand would mimic the movements of its dream-counterpart. The only problem is I haven't been able to think of a way to get the needle-end into my brain without doing severe damage. If only I were a baby and had a soft spot in my skull.
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Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: It's dangerously cold outside.

Solution: Stay inside.

Complication: The walls close in, singing, "You have so many relationships in this life. Only one or two will last. You go through all the pain and strife, then you turn your back and they're gone so fast. Oh yeah, and they're gone so fast, yeah, oh, so hold on the ones who really care. In the end they'll be the only ones there when you get old and start losing your hair. Can you tell me who will still care? Can you tell me who will still care?"

And then...

"Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, Ba du dop
Ba du bop, Ba du dop
Ba du."

Upon examination...

"Mmmbop (tick) a ta ba do ba
dubi da ba do ba
(tick) a ta ba doo
yeah y yeah,

"Oh, yeah! In an Mmmbop, they're gone..."

Which is nice once or twice or thrice, but not all day. No, definitely not all day. I prefer the dangerous cold.

They sing like this.
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Transcription - Part I

I keep a digital voice recorder in my coat. Don't ask me why. And I couldn't think of any nice, funny, inoffensive things to say tonight, so I transcribed this, my stream-of-consciousness recorded on January 3rd, 2008 while parallel-parked on a residential Chicago street. There was snow on my windows:

Over loud background noise.

The ice melts. Dots on the windshield. Strange to hear my own voice. I don't like it. I'm scared of where it will take me. It's two in the morning here. I'm in a car. Maybe you can hear the heat. The heat is on. It's loud. The car's covered in snow. I'm not outside the car, scraping the snow off. This is my new year's ritual: I like to watch the ice melt.

I'm scared a little bit, being out here at two in the morning on January 3rd -- I was too drunk to do this on January 1st or January 2nd. And it's the first year I've done this as a new year's celebration. So there's that. You never quite know what you're gonna think when you're alone. Sometimes you think you're going crazy. But I don't think it's going crazy. I think... it's just when you don't give that inside voice time to talk every once in a while, bad things start to happen. You can get drunk and make it talk. That's good. It works. But it causes more complications than it fixes. Or at least as many. So.

Here I am , waiting for someone to smash in the driver's side window and shoot me a couple of times and dump my body out in the street. I hope that doesn't happen. I guess I should have cleaned the car off (laughter) if that happens.

I'm watching to see if the rear defroster is going to turn off. It's on a timer of some sort. It's not really doing much good against an inch of snow and ice. The front [defroster] is faring a little bit better. There's some distinct pooling going on towards the base of the windshield. There's spotting above, behind the rear-view mirror, near the I-Pass, behind the sticker that says when I should get my oil changed that I'll probably ignore well beyond that point.

I wonder if somebody is going to be looking in the window after the snow melts. That would be pretty scary, especially if that somebody were a cop. Not that I'm carrying anything illegal on me. Well, (sound of a zipper) other than that (laughter).

Part II upcoming.
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Who? What? Why?

Who?

Art (Arthur)

What?

Hates to go by his full name.

Why?

Arthur, on PBS and PBS KIDS Sprout, is an eight-year old anthropomorphic aardvark (an aardvark who displays human characteristics, such as eating people food and having sex without the intent to procreate). Art is not.
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The New Radio

Has anyone ever run a successful radio station whose sets were completely listener-based? I think there should be a radio station where listeners can request six, seven songs in a row, hindered only by a time and (loose) content limit. Broadcasting your juke-box favorites to millions of potential people (sometimes just pets at home alone) gives a powerful rush.

We the radio listeners have listened for too long without representation! We accept music as pleasure. While we acknowledge that there is a certain thrill in entrusting your pleasure to someone else, we believe in pleasuring ourselves!

On our station, there is a blind DJ to praise or criticize your playlist on the air, maybe assigning it an arbitrary number. And that DJ decides via Braille, within a period of one to sixty days, how long until you are permitted to request another set. However, the DJ does not reveal his sentence on the air. Finally auditory justice! This is our concession to the free-market and advertising.

It would all be internet-based and very easy if we could just believe in it. Believe that together, we have power and probably Rush -- six songs in a row -- only to be played again sixty days later.

The Milky Way's advice on fashion

Hey, guess what?
You're in the middle of nowhere.
You're not going anywhere, only outward.
Wear what you want.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: Hard time maintaining eye contact with ladies

Solution: Thinking of eyes as face-nipples

Complication: Believing that any nipple can see you, especially your own, which is why you must cover them with black electrical tape in the morning, lest they stare at your horrid physical flaws all day. Unless, of course, you're one of those people who wears shirts.
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