New Moon or No Moon?

No full Moon, or maybe The Moon has left the orbit... or maybe it's that people are getting laid off left and right at my job... or maybe it's that strange tea the Thai woman gave me, at lunch, and insisted I drink... or perhaps it's that I'm reading Philip K. Dick's Ubik... or was it that I was looking at facebook right before bed, and the news about Hostess... but all night long I dreamt I was eating Shredded Wheat, all night long... when I woke up, half the mattress was gone. That's an old Danny O'Day joke that means I had sick dreams, but in this case the sick dreams took the form of not having the correct connection on a computer cable, and then not having the right program to run something, and then something else that was wrong, totally wrong but abstract, missing, wrong, over and over...

Fortunately, somewhere in there came a flood of concrete, crystal clear, straight (more or less) narrative dreams, a breath of fresh air in comparison. First there was some kind of job dream, though the job was different, my co-workers were around, and in my hand I was holding a 24 ounce cheap can of beer... I popped it open and started drinking it,  very refreshing. One of my co-workers protested that I would become sick, but I said, "No, this will help me." And I did feel better. Then I was in a huge wind-swept apartment high above the city, no one there but an anonymous group of young girls... and my boss... who was walking around totally naked. We all noticed what good shape he was in. We were worried about the terrorists, but he assured us that we shouldn't be, that we were safe, that the time wasn't right, something like that, as he went into the bathroom and closed the door, presumably to bathe.

Next, I was making my passage along busy city streets in the lowlands, trying to get by insane traffic so I could enter the Strand Bookstore. I was carrying a considerable packed lunch, and there I would be able to eat it. When I finally made my way inside the store, however, there was chaos and disarray. The store didn't seem to be open at all but merely full of employees, flitting around like busy bees, completely dismantling the place. I seemed to be invisible... or at least ignored and thought to be an employee, and it occurred to me that I might be able to eat my lunch and simultaneously apply for a job... but would the store still be open tomorrow? Not finding a calm place to sit down and eat, I kept unpacking and repacking a kitchen's worth of silverware I had brought along for some reason, until I finally ran into Elysia Borowy-Reeder who asked me if I wanted a ride up to Chicago where she was giving a talk. Then Andy Noble appeared and said he was driving her there. They were both wearing smart business suits and looked very professional. They encouraged me to go but I said that I wanted to stay there try, try to eat my lunch, and then apply for a job, plus I had a terrible headache (which immediately manifested itself once I lied about it). I thanked them, hugged Elysia, and they left.

Then I walked around the bookstore some more, seeing if maybe I could help with the packing. I came to the children's section (though it didn't look at all like the Strand Bookstore I know) and a live band was warming up, which included several drummers. They started playing, and I walked into another part of the store and actually spoke to a couple of the extremely young employees who continued to pack stuff up. It turned out they weren't going out of business after all but relocating the entire store's stock to Bryant Park for an enormous outdoor festival, celebrating post-hurricane, the apocalypse, defeat of the terrorists, and perhaps The Moon leaving the Earth's orbit. I never did get to eat my lunch.

The "Haven't written here in over a year" Entry

I have all but abandoned this journal, but in my fragile memory, I never even started this journal, like a notebook with your name on the first page and the rest empty pages. But I just now scrolled through, looking at past entries, and to my surprise, there's a lot here! Some good stuff, too. Like that Altoids thing. And the Nightrider... funny! The all white with black hat look! Okay, I'm just looking at the pictures, but I assume there is some stuff worth reading here. I live in NYC and it's been THREE YEARS since I've been to the Met? I guess that's why a journal like this is valuable, to me, anyway, or any journal. I have always, pretty much since I was 12 or so, anyway, kept a journal in a notebook (I mean, there might have been some lean years). It's as much a part of my life as talking to people. Since the "blog" was invented, and I'm not sure when that was, those things have undergone tremendous popularity, and compared to people who write in notebooks, it's off the charts. Lately, however, I've noticed a lot of negativity toward blogs, at the least in general, the idea of it, and I am predicting their numbers will dwindle dramatically in the upcoming years. I think there will still be a lot though, and some good ones. I read them quite frequently, actually, more than any other kind of journalism. Hopefully these free blog sites will hold on, too, but if they don't, I think I will continue somehow, like via my own website.

It's been nearly a year since I wrote in this one, but I think I'm going to try to use it again, now, seeing how I have enjoyed looking over the past entries. Maybe the difference between a blog and an online journal is that the journal is primarily for yourself, like your journal in a notebook. Why make it public then? Well, I guess that makes it more fun, maybe makes it seem more vital. There is a little energy derived from something being "live." Would I read it if I wasn't me? That's hard to say, but I think so, at least sometimes.

When I started this journal it was set as "private" meaning that I had to invite people to read it, and they would have to follow up on the invitation, and then log in to read it and all that, which pretty much meant that like one or two people ever read it at all. The reason I did that was because I was looking for a job, or another job, and I wanted to complain about my job in these pages, and if you're looking for a job these days they likely "google" you and if they see a blog where you're complaining about your job, that can be reason enough for them not to hire you. As it turns out, I've stayed in the same job for over four years, I'm not actively looking for another one, I don't write about work much anyway, and "blogger" is one of the websites that is blocked at my workplace anyway. So now I've just decided to make this journal "public" and not worry about it.

Talking about work, I had a really weird work dream last night, or one that was based at my job. I was on an errand somewhere, and I was in the lobby of this bank and there were several celebrities who went in and out of the bank while I was there. I was telling myself I was going to look them up online once I got to a computer. But as far as I can recall, I have yet to have a dream where I'm actually looking someone up online in the dream.

Okay, well, we'll see how it goes. This journal.