FREAK OUT OR SING OUT

Went to Japan last night. In the dream, I was me/not me, and I had taken some students on a field trip to Tokyo/not Tokyo. First, we walked around the modern part of the city, seeing the sights, enjoying a lovely spring day. Then we turned a corner, and were in a section of the city that had been bombed in World War II and had been left in ruins as a sort of memorial. The ruins had been hit by an atomic bomb, like Hiroshima, but were stuck in the middle of this huge thriving city, like the Kaiser Wilhelm church in Berlin. We looked at the ruins, then went to this huge lunch hall. There were tons of people there, some at this huge bar, some sitting at tables. As we were eating, some nut job, who sort of looked the those protesters this week, pulled out a gun and started screaming he was going to kill someone. He grabbed the person next to him, and everybody was screaming. Several cops were already there, and pulled there guns, and it was the classic stand off. Then, one of the police somehow pulled a plumbing line out of the floor, shooting this huge spray of water up to the very tall ceiling. The water had the force of a fire hose. And somehow, the policeman used that water to send an electric shock to the gunman, who got knocked out. And I woke up, as usual, to Padfoot demanding access to the backyard.

I think we are all getting Stir Crazy. And I don't mean the classic comedy with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. We seem to be finding everyone and everything a bit maddening. You can see it in people's eyes, hear it in their voices. We are realizing that this is not some inconvenience that will pass in a week or two, or a month. It's not a long, aimless dream that feels eternal the way dreams sometimes can but will be instantly over once we awake. To use a term I can't stand, this is the new normal, and it ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

Look at those people in Michigan and elsewhere who decided the best thing to do would be to imitate
the zombies of the Walking Dead and stand outside and at windows, screaming and yelling and screaming some more. Or how desperate our Dear Leader tries, night after night, to make it sound like all is well and prosperity is just around the corner. Or the way the smallest thing whomever you are in quarantine with can set you off. It's like that family dinner, where someone is pissed and everyone knows it but nothing has been said yet, and everyone is trying to get to dessert before the big blow up that is for sure coming. Nobody says much. You hear a lot of utensils hitting scraping the plate. Someone tries to tell a joke, there's the obligatory, pathetic laughs, then back to awkward silence and chewing.

Even Padfoot is barking more. And he's a very mellow dog. Maybe we just need to vent, blow off some steam, and continue to forge ahead. And spread the love.

Here's a song. It's Cat Stevens doing If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out. Makes me want to watch Harold and Maude.