Atomictumor

So, I figured that after that dream involving the pizza place, it’d only make sense to have dinner at Red Lobster, which is where the kids unanimously decided to go (last time I let THEM pick).

So, we headed over.  Turns out, Pigpen had been asleep on the couch roughly the same amount of time that I was, so he was in a peachy little mood (still is, he’s jabbering to me right now as I type this, “He’s my daddy, tyrannosaurus, I love him on 6 times!  Let me tell this story…” and then proceeds to tell another story… I’m gifted with the ability to pay attention, nod at the pertinent parts, make eye contact, and still type with few spelling mystakes).  We shoe-ed up and headed over to the R.L.

When we got there, we were shown to a table.  The waitress said “Boys night out?”, and I told her thats pretty much every night these days, with a smile.  I wonder what she made from THAT?
Once she left, MastaG, having received a childrens menu, started up.

G: “Now, this is getting on my nerves, why is it that they just ASSUME that I want a kids menu, with the cute little crayons and ‘oh boy, I’m just a little baby, I want to color wah wah wah’.  I’m a MAN, and I need a MAN’S menu!”

Me: “Uh… OK.   I guess you’re 10, and you’re man-er than most 10 year olds these days, so OK.  Works for me.  Hell, I’ll even buy you a real meal, punk”

G takes the adult menu, looks it over, selects the Shrimp and Steak meal.  Fully 4 dollars more than the salmon kabobs I ordered.  We strike deals, leftovers go to me, if he wastes the food, no more adult meals until 11.

G: “Now, look at this little plastic cup.  Why did they just ASSUME that I want a little plastic cup, with the little baby lid?  ‘Oh no, little baby might spill the drink, wah wah wah’.  I’m a MAN, and I need a MAN’S cup!”

Me: “Whatever.  Seems to me that the drink tastes the same either way”

G: “Zacob, you don’t know, do you?” (He has a habit, over the past 5 or so years, of calling me by my first name, Bart Simpson style, when talking down to me like that.  The J ends up with a Z sound)

Me: (Noticing “Good Day Sunshine” playing) “So, can you tell me who this is?”

G: “Beatles.”

Me: “Dang son, you’re pretty good!”

G: “Zacob, I have a lot of experience with this band.”

—

Pigpen and I went to the bathroom, and when I got back the waitress was bringing his plastic cup back, and replacing it with a glass one.  I told her that she didn’t have to feel obligated to cater to a punk kid, when G was in earshot, and she smiled.

MastaG ate damn near the entire steak, but didn’t care for the shrimp, which pretty much goes with what the Vegas oddsmakers were calling.  We had a good meal.  Pigpen behaved himself, ate his chicken (off the kids menu) well, and appreciated the crayons.

MastaG, while still being a MAN, didn’t feel quite up to the manly responsibility of taking care of the check…

So, I was exhausted when I got back from picking up the kids, and just got up from a nice nap.  I had this dream:
—

We’re in the Volvo, but the interior is more modern.  I’m in the front seat with, the kids are in the back.  Its the intersection of Emory Valley Rd and Lafayette Rd, as portrayed on some kind of Road Runnery cliff.  The sun is setting in front of us (which I just realized would be the east, but lets let that ride, OK?) and I’m trying to turn left, along with a lot of traffic.

Everybody starts pulling forward, and I go with them.  One of those ‘distractions’ happens, and when I look up again my vehicle had rear ended the car in front of me, a late 50s couple, well dressed.  Because my car had violated their car, evidently the glass and metal of my car stopped being there, so I could hear the guy in front saying “Hey, get out of my car, you!”.

I backed up, and the only damage, other than some scrapes to our respective bumpers was the fact that my front wheels had popped and were slowly leaking air.  Crap, I said, and stood there watching the air for a few minutes.  The kids were still in the back, the road was now devoid of traffic except us and the car I hit.

He starts getting out, and I prepare for the post-accident finger pointing.  I go ahead and call my insurance place, which also happens to be an independent pizza shoppe (yum) and start talking biz.

At this point, apparently, my mother had shown up out of nowhere, and was talking to the woman from the other car.  Turns out, she had lost a kid on 9/11.  I debated whether to tell her about BJ.

At this point, I think, I lost the thread of any kind of coherence to the dream, or woke up, or something, because I have no more to report.  Not sure if the pizza place ever came through with a decent collision claim.

—

It occurred to me as I started writing this that I’m not sure if BJ was in the car with me.  I remember knowing in the dream that she was dead, but that fact hadn’t dominated my realization like it does in real life, making me think that her presence was there.  But not.

I never put much stock in dreams.  In fact, I very rarely have dreams that I remember.  BJ would have the strangest, most vivid dreams, tho, so I think I pulled this one out of her stack, or something.  Feel free to put on your Freud glasses and tell me what my future is if you wanna.

I think I might have pizza for supper, tho.

So, I’d love to give you folks a peek inside my head, just so I can get some second opinions about it, but its just not working that way.  Whats been happening is that I’ll get micro-streams of consciousness, quick little bursts of thought that pop up at random times and disappear before I know what they mean.

Sometimes they’re questions, like “I wonder if BJ knew at any point that she was going to die”.

Or “I wonder why I’m so sure that theres a God that has her now, when I know full well that the mind is capable of producing under stress the kinds of things I felt?”

—

Every once in a while I wonder when that grief I ordered back on November 19th will show up, in a battered cardboard box, with different country stamps all over it explaining its tardiness.

—

Higgins is the driving force behind Magnum P.I, followed closely by Tom Selleck’s mustache.

—
I’m finding myself lingering, looking at her pictures for a minute or two, smiling.  I still feel more gratitude for her life being shared with me, and relief that she’s not in pain, than I do anger, or sadness, or melancholy.

—

This is a horrible post.  I’m still gonna publish it, because my fingers are compelled to write it out.  Thats the thing with the writing, that a lot of folks don’t understand - its not really something I can shut off.  Hell, I’d kinda rather the world not know about some of the things I’ve written, but I write it… because.

Some people would say that it would be because of The Beauty, and my urge to share it, but I don’t know, because that seems really pretentious.  I’d say that maybe its God working through my fingers, but that gets into Waco territory, and besides, thats even more pretentious.  Theres nothing I hate more than people convinced that they’re doing the “Work Of God”.

So whats with it?  For some reason, I have the urge today to pin down the whole God thing.  I still find it very difficult to talk about, that atheist in my head starts bitching when the subject comes up.  No, not the atheist, maybe the nihilist… no, wait, its the existentialist.  Thats the one.  Existentialism, and more specifically, reading The Stranger in its original French in my senior year of high school (don’t be impressed, I’ve damn near completely forgotten french, tho I think maybe I’ll try to pick it back up) along with good ol’ Nietzsche, combined with my wondering why the hell God would pick one religion of good people over another led to my whole schism with religion.

So, here I am now, with some weird understanding that something I haven’t really thought about much in 10 years is helping.  I’m fully prepared to believe that BJ is dead, and that when the body dies, the mind dies also.  It’d be an ugly reality, and I’ve never really believed in the absolute death of consciousness, but I could believe it.  However, I don’t think thats right.

I guess I’m afraid that I’m just jumping on the whole God thing to avoid the thinking that BJ is irrevocably gone.

But I feel her.  So thats what makes it hard to be that existentialist.  I mean, existentialism without the existence isn’t much of a thing, is it?

—

Geez, this was a rambly post, huh?  Maybe Santa Claus can bring me some coherence for Christmas.

Quick thought, and then I have to put the groceries up…

Out of the neighbors we have on the road here, several of them, mostly parents of kids who play with G, knew about this.  The only two houses on our road that came to BJ’s funeral, or even mentioned anything about it, aren’t those parents.

One of them is a fairly new couple who moved in with their two little kids, who I sit with (and BJ would sit with) while waiting for Pigpen’s bus.

The other is the lady across the street, whom I’ve never really said more than ‘hi’ to in the 4 years we’ve lived here.  I didn’t even recognize her until the funeral was over, and then it hit me.  I’ve never seen her outside her yard.

The parents of MastaG’s friends, some have come and talked, some look the other direction when I drive by.  They have all been avoiding me, which is really kinda fine by me.

Now… I have to get the groceries.