Neanderpundit

I don’t usually have layered dreams, but I dreamed that I had just woken from a dream, but in the dream I had woken from, I was clutching a large book, and I had awoken still clutching the book. Turns out the book was the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, circa 1975. I still don’t know why.

Anyway, in the dream- waking state, I got a phone call and met a woman I know from my job. We went to a mall. The anchor store in the mall was Montgomery Ward. The rest of the stores were stores you’d recognize except my dream had apparently failed to acquire the correct permissions, so we walked past Bed, Bath, and Underneath, Starfucks, Bennetin, Disservice Merchandise, We Be Toys, and Goose Hill Outfitters. My companion urged me into the outfitters and just as we walked through the big mall door a guy started chasing us; she whipped out a knife and stuck it in his forehead with sufficient force to knock him over.

We hid in a changing room until the store closed. She told me that she was an assassin and had been laying low, but a tracking device in her false leg was allowing them to find her, and would she mind me helping her take it out? I was a bit taken aback, but agreed. She slipped out of her jeans to reveal a thin line around her upper thigh that did indeed look like an attachment point for the worlds most realistic leg. She told me to grab her leg at the knee and twist, and oh, by the way, there was a latch I had to press and it was… well, somewhere indelicate.

After a solid half hour of trying she sat down and lit a cigarette. “I don’t have an artificial leg, but after listening to XXXX (An old girlfriend of mine)describe how good you are with your hands, I had to know for myself, so I cooked up this not so fiendish plot. She was right”

I woke up from the dream I had woken up from, and thankfully, I was not clutching a book, nor were there any knife scars, nor was my hand still wet and sticky, so I guess that’s a win. I did eat a lot of mushrooms last night.

and in my heart, I am one of them

So why do I have the kid of gig where I must interact with people every day? Not just interact but form lasting professional bonds? Not just people but some of the dumbest, most annoying people on earth?

Well, I guess you could say I’m just lucky. Left to my own devices, I just want to sit and read, and mostly be left alone. Instead I’m immersed in the middle of a life that would make most introverts curl into a fetal position.

I have compensated for this- perhaps overcompensated for it- by being gregarious and at least trying to preserve the impression of liking to be around people.

So when I am around people- as I often am- who are very introverted and private, I try to help maintain their privacy. I never post about private conversations with them, and rarely post about anything that isn’t blogmeet fodder; I prefer to allow them their privacy, and for the most part, they have allowed me mine. On the other hand, those people who have been kind enough to visit with me for whatever reason, I have found to be decent and kind, with huge hearts. Bloggers and others I have met through the blog, people I have met at the gunblogger rendezvous, at group get-togethers for whatever reason- they really are good people whose acquaintance I treasure, and I will do everything I can to maintain the relationship while keeping it private. Some of them have become great correspondents, some I only get to see or talk to in person and often years intervene.

If people are measured by the quality of their friends, I’m pretty damned impressive.

while eating some chips, I dropped one, unknowing, on the floor.

Later, I came back, and it had been laying there for at least an hour.

And it dawned on me it was because there was no furry little lurker waiting to hoover it up.

You bet I cried.