I had a very disturbing dream.

Lots of very complicated stuff happened, but shortly before I woke up, I was driving up a freeway on ramp. There was a dog in the middle of the ramp, an orange brindle pit bull. He was big and beautiful and healthy and had a collar on. He was walking on to the freeway.

I stopped my car in the middle of the onramp, in order to block traffic and prevent some kind of tragedy. The plan was to get the dog to get into the car so I could take him somewhere out of traffic.

I was trying to get out of the car, but whenever I would, it would roll backwards. I put it in park, pulled up the parking brake, nothing worked. I could hold the car from rolling back with my hand hooked under the dashboard, but I couldn’t reach the back door for the dog, and there was traffic building up behind me; I couldn’t let my car go and smash the other cars.

I called the dog, who had been walking calmly toward the freeway. “Hey, dog! Sit!” He layed down on the cement, in the middle of the road.

The cars behind me were honking their horns and yelling at me, and there was a car coming the other way down the onramp. And then there was a big delivery truck trying to back into an alleyway on the side, all blocked by me or the dog.

A guy in a yellow sports car tried to pull around me. I was worried because the dog was still there, obediently laying down. I got confused and overwhelmed and got in the car and drove to the side, trying to drive around the dog while the yellow car drove around the other side.

And then there was a crunch, the car ran over something, there was a horrible yowl, and something like a human scream. All the traffic vanished, and I was driving alone on the freeway sobbing my guts out.

And then I woke up.

Rain went away.

Opened garage, dug out lawn mower. Assembled handle. Opened gas tank. Empty, natch.

Searched for gas container. None to be found.

Headed to Fred Meyer’s (local chain of everything stores). Got potting soil, gas container, WD-40, magazine. Headed to gas station. Filled up car, container.

Got home, filled up mower tank, started mower, cut front yard. Had fond and not-so-fond memories of arguing with dad about cutting the yard. Remembered getting just enough yard-cutting money to go buy a model at the mall. Sundays were filled with dusty yard mowing and second-hand model glue inhaling.

Finished front yard, ate banana, tossed peel in compost bin. Some neighbors came and asked me if they could buy the nice park bench in my back yard. Told them I rent. Sorry.

Hoisted the mower up the two steps to the backyard patio. Pull the handle, nothing. Clankety clankety. Mower is dead. Back yard grass far from dead, growing into savannah.

Pondered taking the thing apart and fixing it, but then pondered landlord: “You broke it!” Put mower away.

Repotted the lovely little succulent that’s been struggling so hard in it’s tiny pot. It had grown up against the window, and couldn’t stand on its own. Had to put a stick in the pot to support it. It’s very happy now, even with a slightly lopsided root system.

Next on the agenda: Drive-thru picnic to some place like Matthews Beach. Ah, my lonely life.

Crap. It started raining before I got to the yard.

Someone gimme a writing assignment while I go and act like a consumer, and buy some potting soil. And price push mowers. Har.

Today: Not so blue. Cure: XTC‘s Apple Venus Volume 1.

Today is yard work day. Spring and sunshine and XTC’s tribute to the seasons rolling by. I have to cut the grass and re-pot some plants. Ah, domestic bliss. I wish my landlord had a push mower instead of the gas one that’s here. With a push mower, you just get it out of the garage and go. With a gas mower, you have to check it all over and make sure there’s gas, and if there isn’t, you have to find a container and go to the gas station, and by then you’re totally out of momentum to do this noisy wasteful task.

Maybe I’ll go buy a push mower. Har.

Because I’m blue and because Duke Ellington was a genius, the musique du jour is his Blue Ramble. Click to listen.

I’m tired tired tired tired tired.

I’m weary weary weary weary weary.

I watched the news tonight for the first time in about a week, and it was so, absolutely unremittingly draining. The constant need to keep my psychic defenses up in order to not fall into the fiction being sold to me.

It’s like the difference between a good science fiction movie and B-movie bulldada. The bulldada you can spot. The entertainment is in knowing it’s fake and stupid and just wrongheaded. The good movie, however, pulls you in and before you know it, you’re believing that people are in a space station in outer space being chased by a monster or something.

And when the ambient bulldada of the world is as high as it is right now, anything with any sincerity or offering any hope or any opening of beauty or truth fools you instantly. The threshhold is lowered because there’s so much other crap to contend with.

The evening news is all war-related stories. The local stations all go and talk to some brave person whose husband or wife or son or daughter is on the front line or piloting some plane or something. And today some soldiers in Iraq threw the first ball at a season opener in the states, live via satellite.

Can you fucking believe it? Live via satellite!

Meanwhile, congress has bravely decided to bail out the airlines with money we don’t have. Earth to government: If we can’t afford plane tickets with our own money, we can’t afford them from our taxes, which are supposed to provide for the common good, but will end up making the bottom line a little nicer for some shareholders somewhere even as the airlines file for bankruptcy anyway.

I’ve talked about this with people on usenet. They fire back that I really must hate America to say these things. Really, that’s what they say. I’m not making it up. And what I want to say is that I don’t hate America, I hate dimwitted Johnny Jingos who think they’re doing the country a favor by supporting this bullshit.

I feel powerless and alone in my sanity. Is anyone else pissed off out there?

If there’s one Noam Chomsky interview about Iraq that you work your way through with an open mind, this is it.

My dear God…

Update:

In all fairness (and, really, stretching the concept of fairness in the process), I can see how such a bauble could give some consolation to a distraught friend or family member of someone off fighting in a war. In fact, it reminds me of a Zapatista cachina doll a friend of mine has.

As a magical token, this little piece of kitsch is actually pretty potent. God’s invisible hands surround and shield the little innocent soldier; perhaps it’s a recognition of the pure soul underneat the cammo and ammo belt.

Another friend of mine believes that the Bush administration is being run by black magicians. I’m not saying I agree, but let’s explore this for a minute. If we accept the premise that the real battle and war are being fought in the spiritual realm, then what do the millions of prayers for the well-being of loved ones fighting really amount to? They amount to shielding the individual soldier, as in the little doll above, but they also amount to helping the war move forward. Any black magician in the administration would love to have that much energy at his or her disposal. And if we assume that the prayers of the nation are ammunition in this regard, then that’s exactly what that black magician has.

I’m not saying don’t pray for your loved ones. I’m saying that if we accept the idea of warfare of the spirit, then we have to be careful what we pray for.

Praying that your loved one is shielded is, in many ways, the same as praying that your loved one is more able to shoot the enemy. If you’re into that, then you know what to do. But if you’re not, then be sure and pray for something else.

Just got through watching a PBS show on Joni Mitchell.

My friend Brett gave me a Joni Mitchell CD, Turbulent Indigo, a few years back for Christmas. I liked a lot about it, but it didn’t have much staying power in my collection, because I’m not a 50-ish child of the 60s. Not that she’s stuck there, just that her subject matter didn’t seem very relevant to me at the time.

I might have given it away, but I think I’ll dig around in the boxed-up CDs and find it. It might be a little more relevant at the moment.

According to the Pakistani PakTribune newspaper, Bush, Rumsfeld, Blair and Straw have been banned from entering the Church of the Nativity, believed to be the birthplace of Christ.

I’m only sort-of a Christian, and I could go there. So neener.