Tree Halo

Each leaf in my schematic has been thoroughly photosynthesized. Red coursing commencement traversal, it's blood, let's face it. It's blood. (Type) Oh shit. B&A! No one gets it. Too much time. Anyway I don't want to get all economological (even though I'm surrounded by girls on the pill) and shit, but seriously, the branches get shorter as they extend from the root, and at the root we have a cause. The cause doesn't have to be environmental but I think it works here especially well, given the 3.333 (bar) tree.

The old man knows what I'm talking about, he's been here since the tree got itself up from the Piazza di Porta Capena and moved across the Circo Massimo to that little nook where Via S. Gregorio bends magnetic north (erection).

Circo Massimo.

Mothers massage the limbs. It's blood. Crooked blue to red in the leaf veins. Let's discuss the specifics of the golden halo around each leaf, pretty pretty please. The grades, the doors, lay down. It was a track, there was a chalice, there was Nero! The thick Augustinian air surrounds white marble tourists. Powerwash the marble and autopop the gold plating. Get in line! Get. Set. Vertex. Return. Compare. Retrieve. Perceive. It rains there, no more.

I like when girls where white tank tops. I like when they're leaves with golden halos. I really love it when the gold glows bright bold yellow, and when the old man burnt little nubs of white marble onto roots, predicting their weightless brilliance. Those are the breathtaking ones. There's not even a semblance of frequency/amplitude modulation on that magnetic tape. Back then it was about corrugated speechless devices.

Green village.

Back, back, back...It's blood, or is it chloroform? I need to meet the rest of my leaves. Hopefully one of them will be wearing a white tank top and be bold-gold halo'd. Clean and concise on average, never oppressive. Don't tell me to protect the leaves, stick to tangible global issues or you will lose your halo. You'll lose your halo if you're too pointy. Your halo will tarnish if you don't follow the old man's marble engraving.

The Life of ICam Picorniviridae

Out in the open against the frontier he stood, a bold, newly formed man. Over his shoulder and across his back rested a gunny sack from St. Mark's. Placed carefully in the leather bag was one of those white medic kits with the snake logo thing. Talk about arbitrary! The next thing for Cameron to do was inch closer to the edge of the cliff d'Avignon, blow his rhis, and stop. He remembered his childhood, sitting in the middle of the second row (his instructor was a contrarian through and through), being admonished, "Cameron P., take your fingers out of your mouth!" Cameron knew he'd get his revenge, like Eddie Adams, but not in the same way. Cam waited for the day when all the lights would be off and he could shine all alone. What a guy! Not particularly skilled at arithmetic (he didn't need to be), he left himself alone for most of the days, sucking on his finger or blowing his then-deformed rhis.

Cameron hated obnoxious displays of homosexuality. He wasn't a homophobe he just didn't want to participate in those over-the-top liberal activities. Cam may have been gay himself, frankly, but that wasn't the point. You can be a cool cat, a well-respected guy, and a true rock star without asking people to bring flavored condoms and a hidden talent to a courtyard at midnight. Cameron was a cool cat, let's get that straight.

The children of the current generation were plagued by television, it single-handedly disseminated intelligence, and did so as unevenly as Cameron's outer membrane before he jumped off that cliff. For the next generation, portable devices will be equally dangerous. The intelligent child will be the one who follows a very specific regimen of traditional and synthetically-devised overnourishment. Imagine the two paths that confronted you as a child. There was the tube and there was the novel. In the future, there will be faux-enriching programming at every turn, but the television won't be the only instrument of destruction. We love to exaggerate and we love to stuff conduits of information until angioplasty. That software is like LDLc for your child's brain.

The leaders of tomorrow's tomorrow, on the other hand, will go on pre-school visits as infants, and the slightly-older tour guides will crawl backwards and abashedly request, "pwease say stop if my swipper gets stuck on the cornah." They will score in the .7-.9 range (even in the future, new standardized tests will come up with ridiculous scoring scales that will be as commonly known in upper-class households as the login/password for Select.com) on their VYAATs, and they will know how to integrate in three planes. They will know about television, but will scoff at it. Their parents will teach them that little [2] and [2.5] will not be very successful because all they do is sit around all day and submit to faux-enriching programming. But they'll also have manners, gargantuan-sized manners. They'll have traveled the world and seen all the artwork that their bedroom's curator had selected for them five days a week (on the other two days, the children will have pulled all-nighters studying foreign languages).

It's like a tight-rope walk with these chosen children. There's a net for all you Saltimbanques out there, there's a glorious, tightly-bound safety net. Clearly there's no way to get back up to the tight-rope if you fall, but if you walk it long enough the cheers from the crowd will probably last close to your life expectancy anyway. Beneath the net are all the generation-behind people. In America we call them the lower class. Moving from beneath the net to the tight rope would be as easy as running at full speed for 10 years then jumping onto a trampoline, hurdling towards the rope, landing it on two feet, and keeping your balance. In America we call this the athletic scholarship.

Cameron jumped off the--frailty! seething powers say, "Across the chasm in the darkness there's a small bright light, in the ocean, it's gone, it's gone." Then I fell asleep. Strung-high in the fern-pillowed cure. Dynastic power shift cycle, cycle, cycle, lemming! You're a lemming, Cameron is a lemming. Across the chasm in the darkness there's a small bright light, in the ocean, it's gone, it's gone. Flinch, flinch, frailty! Hey wouldn't it be cool if we just, "wheeeeee!" or if we pivoted, blindfolded, and, "wheeeeee!" or if we fell backwards in the head-first ice. Droves, seething in the darkness. I am gone. "Wheeeeeeee! suicide!" It's not in, it's not out, it's across the chasm in the darkness. See my identification and believe what I say, or what the plastic says, I mean if you don't that's fine but next time I come here I'm going to strap a bomb to my ass and take you down. Not up, not across the chasm in the darkness. We're going downtown, shuffling, like an American girl. Oh no! You forgot the stanza, you forgot everything it was the best I promise we'll go to Asia. I promise we'll go as long as I get to stand on the triangularized cliff and stop, blow my rhis, and take it all in, in to my gunny sack that I got at St. Mark's place. It's epic and it's not going to stop. I'm going to walk that tight rope, I'm going to work out and gain the strength to walk on it. See when I was falling to the safety net, I hung on to the rope with both my legs. They are the strongest part of my body. I shook that rope a little didn't I? Yeah all the other cruisers with the good balance got a little fucked up when I fell but hung on. That rope is mine.

When Cameron's body impaled itself on the sceptor, he turned around and realized that his pale purple ass was indeed exposed to the bronze statue, and he giggled softly. The authorities attempted to draw a chalk outline but it's difficult in three planes, it's difficult because he had his fingers in his mouth, and it's difficult because the last time Cameron had anything to eat was in nought-five. The sun had set a long long time ago and the moon was brand new. Cameron was all alone on that sceptor, and he was shining.

Jones Blue Soda

It seems the best way to prevent a bubble from bursting is by stroking its fragile edges as it inflates. Everyone remembers being like five years old and correcting ill-advised sticker placement. You know, you scrape at one of the corners (clearly circular stickers are more difficult) until enough adhesive is disturbed, providing a brief, crucial opportunity for the index finger to slide underneath Spiderman's foot and making room for the thumbgrip. Once you get that thumb involved, you know you can't just rip poor Spidey off the surface, you need to do it slowly, intensely, passionately. You knew if you didn't slow down in the right spots you'd get skid marks - and project would be over (or not really over because later in life you learn that those little razors work wonders, as does repetitively patting leftovers with additional adhesive.)
Anyway if this same care isn't taken in foreshadowing the burst of a bubble, in magazine cover stories, talking head ramblings, intranet video feeds, and low-level discussion circles, you will leave skid marks. You will get exactly what you've feared.

And unlike Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, you only need this one level of reverse rationalization to successfully prevent a bubble-burst. Now, if you half-ass it, if you don't give it prominent placement, if you don't whisper sweet Counting Crows lyrics to the bubble as you're calming it down, harnessing its growth, massaging its imperfections - it'll still pop and you will have wasted your time outside the bubble.

So either get your ass inside the bubble and hope someone else takes care of the aforementioned duties long enough for your survival, or be proactive and care for that shit - because the government devotes $80 billion a year to bubbleblowing.

Nasty Yellow Fluid

Clearly the next generation of video game control will be peeing into a brown box to power a small plane, and you obviously can’t have sex if you really, really have to pee. So I had to stop, get dressed, and take a walk to the hall’s bathroom (which looked like a saloon from a Western). As I was gone I could see [16.7] and [13.2] walk into my room wearing giant blue shirts. Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have left because they’d come in and they’d fuck around with things in my room. I was so protective of that tower. [13.2] almost immediately broke the second cell and there were these tubular yellow fixtures that for whatever reason reminded me of the little green balls in The Rock (like, why?). But I mean I wasn’t there for all of that—I couldn’t be because I was in the saloon bathroom thing.

First it was your typical ceramic tile, college dormitory bathroom, only the urinals were like elevated and didn’t have any lip at the bottom so you just had to pee against a white ceramic fixture that was too tall (for me anyway). Definitely a co-ed bathroom, by the way. So there I am peeing against a wall and there’s just a gross amount of splash. I mean there was a drain but it was kind of pointless since—well whatever—I don’t think the urination is the point of all this. Then there’s a video game menu screen, it has a little grayed out crosshair overlay on a map of the United States (yellow landmasses , thin black shadow, blue sea water, green fresh water, white polar caps). You can select two options: one was something like “MISSION” and the other was “SPECIFY PATH” (definitely in all caps, white, really wide sans-serif with the attempt at the black shadow but it’s so sparse it looks blue especially against the yellow). Your cursor was a small red crosshair, and your controller was, of course, a stream of urine.

I um, clicked, “SPECIFY PATH” and then I just got this little green plane, I’m talking 9/11 air traffic control radar thing. Oh by the way my bladder wasn’t quite “good to go” yet, but that whole tall flat urinal thing wasn’t working so I moved over to little brown box trough urinals (made of the same dark brown wood that the entire saloon was made of). So it’s like a trough, right, with little square holes that had ramps which led down to a black hole reservoir of urine. They had little magazine pictures of men or women inserted into squares that came out of the back of the trough squares. Ok that made no sense. You have to get this. There’s a trough, it’s made of dark brown wood. It’s divided into little squares by narrows pieces of wood, and in each square there are ramps which lead to a drain. I first lined up against one that had some woman fashion model in the glass pane the stood upright behind each sqaure. I shifted to the end of the trough where there was a guy magazine cut out. Right so the gendered cutouts just meant who should be using each box.

The plane’s actual path was directed by something I can’t identify, but it could only “stay in the air” if it had enough fuel. So the little green plane whizzed around the coast of the United States and would sometimes, ok it was going counter clockwise because LGA 4R points northeast and the approach only makes sense that way (to a novice like me). It would sometimes make a grossly wide turn around the Florida panhandle and go shooting off to Africa but would be fine once it turned around.

So I’m playing the game with [0.25] and [0], well I guess [0] is really just watching my facial expressions but [0.25] is like into it. [0.25] would be because we used to play Top Gun together. Then I hear screams from upstairs, and it’s [1] in the bathroom with a pretty big black dog. It didn’t seem threatening but it was a big furry black dog and [1] was trying to corrale it but it leaped down the stairs towards me and went over to an opened door that led outside. There was a dying bear with opened eyes staring right at me as its entire upper torso kept the sliding door open. [20] was standing in the background sobbing, holding a bloody butcher’s knife. There was one little fast pig that was totally freaking me out because it was jumping over the dead bear and touching my leg. The fast pig and the big black dog jumped back over the bear and went outside and out of the picture. So there’s me, [20] (crying), [0], [1], [0.25], a dying black bear, and this absolutely grotesque huge-headed pig that was begging for no one to kill it. It was begging not to die but it was also asking for money. Then [1.85] came into the picture holding a huge butcher’s knife and stood over the crying pig. “Please just one dollar and don’t kill me!!!” It had a really shrieking high-pitched voice that was really weird for this huge pig. Then [1.85] chopped into the pig’s side and it began wailing. It’s entire torso opened up and there was this yellow fluid that filled up it’s bloody inside. [1.85] kept chopping and the pig kept wailing.

Sunny London Handshakes

I don't know where it was but I kept thinking Europe, it was definitely somewhere that I needed to change my currency. So I'm walking around alone, and I guess it looked alot like Epcot, but the streets were curvilinear and the doors had these weird baskets in front of them. I went into one of the apartments with the intention of seeing [18] but all the doors in the hall were locked. The hall was also definitely made of white-ish marble. Anyway I didn't seem to mind because I just walked around outside again, it was a beautiful, sunny day. I reached this path that led upwards and I could tell it was a park because the closest buildings ahead of me were set really far back. When I got to the ground level of the park there were these enormous, highly detailed vehicles speeding all over a giant lawn. For some reason I called them "wave-runners" because they all had like ocean names. There was this little one that I called "sting ray" because it looked like a sting ray but also because it was easy to dodge it when it came because it kept the same trajectory all the way across the lawn. And yes, you had to dodge each of these vehicle/creature things as if they were waves. Only, if you got hit by any of them it really hurt. I started off doing pretty well but I somehow go into a crouched position and it was harder to move around and then I started getting hit the by the sides of these gigantic machines. Especially the "Queen Mary" - which was like the biggest one. It kept coming. Eventually it started running over my entire body and I was like badly bruised and hurting. I stood up and got hit head-on by one of the "sting rays." I decided to leave, and everything looked the same leaving as it had going. It was still sunny, it was still this foreign city. I passed through the revolving doors of this bowling alley whose logo had three pins. The place was painted almost entirely in yellow, and I really only got to be in the lobby of the place, which straddled two streets. So I could walk in the revolving doors off of one street, and when I passed through into the lobby, there was another revolving door that led onto the next street. Sunlight was pouring into this place and the yellow was really vibrant. The logo with the three pins was also really prominent. I kept thinking, "this would be perfect for [15] and [18]." Before I left the place through the revolving doors ahead of me, I went through a closet door. I just walked quickly and this guy in a yellow raincoat passed me. Just before I pushed the door to leave the bowling alley I turned around and said, "Keanu?" And the guy in the raincoat turned around, replied "yeah," and it was Keanu Reeves, who else?

Then there was this whole part in some poorly-lit room that was like bra ceremony for [15], who was getting the new piece of lingerie, and it was dark green. All I know is that it was too small because I got to put it on [15] and it seemed tight. [15] wore it and only it for the rest of the dream, which then took place in my house's living room. [15] was leaving and everyone had to say goodbye. I was last in line and [18] was first. the people between us were non-descript, though I thought that one was [19]. Just before [15] faced me to say goodbye I thought about the prospect of never seeing [15] again and I started sobbing.

tight hug, "be careful" "be carfeul" everyone left...
huge makeout scene (just kissing), I knew it was [15]
[18] came down the stairs and hadn't realized we were making out, which i guess I was worried about
[5.1]'s mom turned into [5.1]'s dad, in [2]'s room, then table scene with [15] still in the green bra. lots of little details remembered by [5.1]'s mom.
little handshakes at the end, definitely botched it with [1.65] at the end, my pinky was the only thing that caught, but [1.65] didn't mind.

Jungle Species

The room wasn't just mine. It was mine plus many, many elements from Ferris Bueller's room - most notably the stereo that he throws a baseball at as his parents come up the staircase. Just like during consciousness, the little wing flutter woke me up. I did that whole horizontal spin move fight-or-flight-i-think-i'll-hyperventilate mechanism - those are insects for you for me. It was definitely crawling past this painting of a jungle above my bed, which i was sharing with [18]. she was freaking out because at this point i got up and was just staring the mother-fucker down. It definitely had two really long, rigid antennae. Kind of like those at the end of a barbecue fork thing. When it crawled behind the jungle painting I started yelling, "I still know where you are fucker! I still know it!" I mean that's actually a pretty rare display of courage in the face of an insect so I kind of wonder why that confidence was present. Anyway it stuck it's "tines" out from the jungle painting and I said, "Aha!" Then the SEG switched to a wide shot of the room from the jungle painting camera and I realized that there were three people in the room, the third was [9], who I always thought looked like a monkey. She was standing in the corner behind me and watching me flip out. [18] curled up at the corner of the bed and watched the insect travel along the walls behind the different posters. Everything rotated and as it did I was sitting on the bed huddled up and the door opened and it was [8]. I quickly kicked the door closed with [8] inside. The creature and [8] would have collided but he just calmly picked up a small dart from the floor and kid of sidearm/submarined it right at the insects head and killed it. When he picked it up it wasn't a roach with barbecue tines sticking out of its head but a truly ridiculous species. It had bright green and yellow surf-gear-looking wings, about a foot wide, and the crazy antenna had disappearred. It wasn't a roach anymore either, instead it was distinctly a slug with one end that led into the wings (the end that had been the tines, i'd imagine), and one end that turned into a black and yellow screwdriver.


My analysis: So it's the typical insect fear thing. [8] is amazing at both dealing with bugs and doing random tiny things really precisely. I always thought [8] liked the monkey girl though he probably doesn't. Clearly I was either acting protective for the split second, when I realized there was someone with me. But the fact that I stood up and left [18] there to die is somewhat troubling. The jungle painting and the messy room recalls how nervous I am about keeping a dirty, humid room - fearing insects. The barbecue thing is beyond me, maybe horns or like an exaggeration of the power of a stupid roach. The fact that the roach was crawling on the walls above my bed is also indicative of specific fear that insects will get off the ground and go in my mouth. Maybe that's why the fork. I don't know why [8] had to save me, though I probably needed to be saved - and why did I kick the door closed and then see [9]? Did I need her approval or was I looking to see what she thought of the prospect of [8] saving the day? I don't think it was approval, she was there for [8]. The precision thing is just characterization of [8] - it's spot on - but the fact that it turned into the weird-ass creature thing is beyond me. A screwdriver-headed, half-matured slug with surfboard wings? The screwdrivers were definitely the screwdrivers that I grew up with around the house. The slug is probably the insect I fear least though I still am creeped out by it. The transition into the butterfly-like thing with surfboard wings makes no sense. Was it a caterpillar? It's finally getting hazy.

Alone in the City Street

sites like this piss me right off. minimal value, lots of broken conventions, a four. a four. an excerpt, and a salutation:

"A flourish of trout approached
The Royal Stent and
Duprois unholstered his handgun
and began firing into the
water. A few geese on the fringes
of the lake flapped up and flew
away. There was one kind of fatass
goose (as always is the case)
that just [went through the motions]
and then went back to
like sucking at a chunk of moss
hoping to find a piece of fried
chicken or something."
~ MEMG 3

until next time, z911