E: Brothers in arms

The readers of this blog -- provided there are any -- have long had the benefit of observing my own mental drama play out on their computer screens, over and over again, as I zig zag back and forth on the bipolar scale from hating life, to loving life, and back again. Okay, maybe I never strictly "loved" life, but I've been pretty tolerant of it at times.

The past several weeks have been rough and I can promise they will get no better, at least not for any particular reason, in the near future. With my flagrant emotional swings I'm hardly the paragon of stability, so to promise that would be like selling snow in Venezuela. Whatever that means.

That in mind, let me recall last night when, in a fit of frustration, I stopped writing and started, well, hating life. And it was not a dull groan of "(sigh) I hate life." It was a sort of howling "Auuugh!! I hate liiiii-hiii-hiiiife!!"

Melodramatic as I am, I usually manage to get on with my life after these episodes. It's not healthy, but it's the best I've got. And it was after a day of solid contemplation today (for there was little else to do) that I came to terms with that.

It started with a dream. In times when I have not written, or in this case, cannot seem to write, my dreams often become more vivid, or so I believe. Last night's felt like it contained a cast of thousands. It was populated by people I know, people I go to school with, people I've seen around, people I've met briefly, people I've never met at all. But all these people were, for the most part, background faces. The stars of the dream were abstractly drawn generalizations, combinations of groups of people who were more representatives than actual characters.

Like many of my dreams, (and perhaps about this I should see a shrink,) it was about a chase, or a hunt. We were in a dark labyrinth tower. Yes, both a labyrinth and a tower, it was both. It was a game of paintball, but in actual fact, laser-tag. Again, both. I broke away from the team to try to find my way to the next level, because the objective was to capture a flag at the topmost level. I ditched some of my gear to climb up a small ladder, and watched from the upper level as my teammates were rounded up and "executed." I continued my ascent, confident that I had gotten enough of a headstart that I could win this thing for my team. But as I searched for access to the upper level, I got lost and even wandered out of bounds. When I finally found my way up, they were waiting for me. I froze with fear. Bang. Game over.

Don't ask me what it means, because I have no idea. There was so much more to it that I can't even describe because it's only left a vague impression on me, but this one was vivid. And I woke up feeling quite good.

A lot of my dreams have me running someplace, usually away from someone. I attribute that, probably incorrectly, to something Stephen Wright said in Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee & Cigarettes;" "I like to drink coffee before I go to bed, that way I dream faster." That's a paraphrasing. I drink a lot of caffeine, which may explain why my fine motor skills are not always terrific (as in, it's a little embarrassing when I play a game on Wii and the cursor keeps jittering.) Maybe that's why I dream fast.

My friend Jimmy came to me with a problem in the middle of the day. He's attempting to run for Sheridan Student Union VP, but he needs a certain number of signatures, and was looking to be about 12 short. He'd already gotten everyone in the program he could, plus various randoms in the hallway, but he was lacking the confidence to approach the necessary number of people. So I grabbed him and we set out, and I started talking him up to virtually everyone we saw. Before long, Jimmy was doing the talking and I was just there to nod along. It's funny because, on my own, I couldn't approach people at that level either -- particularly that most of them were girls -- even for something as simple as getting them to put down their signature. We're quite the team, maybe we should hit the bar scene together. Nah, I forget: I hate bars.

As the day went on, the newsroom emptied out after the uneventful story meeting. I swear, I don't even know how we fill a damn newspaper sometimes. Eventually, Jess and I went up to Stephen's Magazine class, which we were both dreading... the point of the class was to get interviewed on the progression of our final feature story, the outline for which we'd only handed in the day before. The outline was something else: I had to come up with a new idea on the spot simply because I hated mine. and it was particularly tough because despite the existence of an assignment sheet, I had no idea exactly what he was expecting. Apparently nobody else did either when, in the "bad omen" on the century, he walked in and declared "Everyone failed the outlines." He then attempted to lighten the mood by using the word "shitheads." It uh, didn't take.

The upsetting thing is, the class started at three but I was still there at 5, waiting. I didn't even realize how much time had passed when I finally got up and left, even though my "interview" hadn't come. It wasn't something I felt I needed to hear, even though I did. (Sometimes what is true and what you feel are completely different things.) So I packed up my gear and, very slowly, tiredly, made my way home... where I was told I'd missed a ride to dinner.

Not that that was catastrophic or anything, but I hate that it happened. I would rather have left a half hour earlier -- when nothing was going on anyway -- and been on time. Who wouldn't?

So I was disgruntled, but the evening has proceeded relaxingly. I don't do homework anymore, I usually find sufficient time during the day to complete most assignments in the newsroom. I had some more material for this entry, concerning mundane things like jeans and bathing, but this entry is running a bit lengthy and hey, I can bring them back at a later date if I really feel like saying them.

My point though, is that I needed to recognize that I lead a bit of a charmed life. I could be pessimistic -- believe me I have, and will likely be again in the not-too-distant future -- but for now I've got perspective on things, and it looks like things are going okay, so, for the trillionth time, after the trillionth freak-out, I'm saying once again that, hey, I'm doing okay.

And if I'm still a little blocked when it comes to writing, I'm not going to sweat it. I should probably take a long break. At least that way, I can dream incredibly fast things.

It was an old Chinese proverb that said, "The longer our nights are, the more our dreams will be."

And it is I who says keep on rockin'
-Scotto