Jabberwocky on TV

It was Christmas and The Jabberwocky was on TV. I had just done thirty bench-presses of eighty pounds, twenty-nine more than I at first thought possible. I was feeling pretty good.

I called towards the kitchen to Mum to tell her what was playing next. The TV messed itself, and so I had to figure out how to get it back to The Jabberwocky. Mum said it was on negative one hundred-something.

I also had to find the channel that the VCR required. A few channels worked slightly. Parts of human figures shone through the fuzz. I gave up and looked down. I found another remote. This might just work, I thought. But I dropped everything when I saw that the floor underneath the "entertainment center" was crawling.

Bugs and the cutest rodent, more like a tiny kangaroo with opal eyes the size of its feet. I went to the kitchen to tell Mum. She said there wasn't any Raid, but that I could use the imitation 409. Giddy-up.

I went to the bathroom to look at my acne. There was a lot of it. I thought maybe the yellow moisturizer was making it worse.

Naturally I found it curious.

I'm in the den of my grandparents' house in Little Rock, and there's a photo album that says "Herman: 1924..." Naturally I found it curious that someone would have compiled album of photographs of my grandfather five years before his birth. I never opened it. Naturally I found it curious.

i would have slept with him

I was at a summer camp in the hills somewhere. I wasn't sure whether I was counselor or camper, but I didn't feel confused. Everybody hiked up into the mountains to see a black, plastic corpse. It was outfitted like a samurai from what I could tell.

Later I was on the street somewhere in Chicago or someplace like that, in front of a tall building of glass and steel. It's reflection of the sun wasn't blinding, it was pleasant like a sunset. Pretty soon people started pouring out of the building, and it became clear that there was some sort of protest going on. So I started making a sign on posterboard. One read "Keep Your Hands Off My Fucked Up Healthcare!" The other was something like "I would have slept with President Obama, but his change was too big and too fast." Reed, Alex, and some other cats were having a conversation of about a more "civil" version of libertarianism. Someone mentioned Jefferson. The image came to me at least. Then I realized that I was in between two enormous cement walls that were closing in on me and one another. I reached to the top and pulled myself up with one arm. I started thinking about what my Halloween costume would be this year.

Wait. Cormac McCarthy in the historical present. Grey. Cold to stop the heart.

Cormac McCarthy was kind enough to write a story about my dream last night:

Jim from Nostuoh is here. Frazier is here. Johnny Lowebow is here. His band.

Wait.

Flickerstick is here. He watches Flickerstick. Lowebow's band. Simultaneous and on video. Competing for a songwriting competition. The trees like ancient torches. Brilliant. Barren.

Wait. Shhh - do you hear that?
What is it?
I don't know.
Okay.
Okay.

I see something said the man. Lowebow has a band. Only sings now. You're not talking to me are you?
Yes I am.
Okay.
Okay.

The man finally gets a response from The Soundpony. Gotten him a gig at a big event. Cycling competition. Something like that. He shivers and coughs and then into sleep.

italic dreams - i've forgotten my etruscan

Yani told me I should get toilet paper from Sumner because he had a whole lot of it. Andrew told me not to sing like that.

(I would start putting dreams in italics, but it seems I've forgotten my Etruscan!).

Sincerely,

MONG DYNASTY

If I had only seen this side of your face, and you were with a group of your friends...

I am in the supermarket. I don't really know what I'm doing here. I decide to check out the books, and soon I stand before the magazines, stuffing my own mouth full of toothpicks (the blood tastes like the cherry tooth-gelatin they had at the dentist's office when I was a kid). While my mouth gushes cherry, I focus on the magazines, which get only my brief attention; to my left, a lecture is going on in an infernal, terra-cotta amphitheater, in which my Spanish literature professor (a demon) discusses the ghost of José Arcadio Buendia. Like my maternal grandfather he haunts in a welcome way his family's gatherings.

I finally find what I'm looking for: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, perhaps my favorite book. Having accomplished a great deal, I walk to the pharmacy, which is also the bathrooms. As I am keeled over a tiny wastebasket full of paper cups, pulling the toothpicks out of my mouth, I realize that there are far more inserted than I remember inserting. And the cherry flavor is gone. Long gone. It is here that I realize why I am going to the pharmacy. I have diabetes. As it happens, the ominous "they" has found a link between bipolar disorder and diabetes. And I have both. I have been gone all weekend to Little Rock, remembered my bipolar drugs, forgotten my insulin syringes. I turn to my left and catch a glimpse of cousin Philip: "I hardly recognized you," I say.

"Yeah, that happens a lot," he says.

"I feel the same way," said cousin Thomas who has been standing nearby, listening in on our conversation. "I mean, we hardly see each other."

"I know," I say.

"If I had only seen this side of your face" - I take his head in my hand and cock it to demonstrate to Thomas - "and you were with a group of your friends..."

I look at them both for a moment:

"I don't think I'd recognize you at all."

I am in the supermarket. I don't really know what I'm doing here. I decide to check out the books, but soon I am next to the magazines stuffing my own mouth full of toothpicks (the blood tastes like the cherry tooth-gelatin they had at the dentist's office when I was a kid). While my mouth is gushing cherry, I focus on the magazines, which doesn't last long; to my left, a lecture is going on in an infernal, terra-cotta amphitheater. They are discussing the ghost of José Arcadio Buendia

They have to be the Swedish guys in the world!

Billy Springer's parents' house, viewed from the street at the bottom of the steps; flying through clouds; et cetera. But I remember quite well the joke I came up with:

"So I've only met two Swedish guys, but they are really sweet people."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! They have to be the Swedish guys in the world!"