Oh what dreams may come.

It has been far too long since my last post, and it is only a matter of coincidence that I am writing now.
I am on Day three of the Master Cleanse. I am no longer hungry in a visceral, biological, survival-necessity way -- no, scratch that; that degree of hunger will come later. It is insensitive and self-indulgent of me to describe my pangs as anything close to those people actually starving. Anyway, I am past the superficial stage. I no miss food in a wistful way, as one misses a favorite luxury, a bubble bath or a fine cigar. I miss the comforting nature of food. Which, I suppose, is what sent me on this path to begin with: the need to separate food from a lazy desire to a healthy essential.
Wow, can I digress or can I digress? Before I started off on that tangent I wanted to express the reason I am now typing.
I've gone three days without food. Other than a cuppa joe I drank on my two-hour drive to see my ex in Boston [More on that later], I have had no caffeine since the first of the year.
Today, on a supremely empty stomach, I awoke feeling groggy and useless. I slumped into work, all half-lidded eyes and languorous limbs. I imbibed two strong mugs full of delicious coffee. Within moments I was buzzing about the kitchen like a hummingbird. I felt as though someone had injected rocket fuel into my veins.
So, with that sad admission, dear readers, I confess to breaking the last of my New Year's Resolutions.
[More on that later.]
Now, despite an eventful day cooking, acquiring motorcycles, running, swimming, and pumping iron, combined with a nigh non-existent caloric intake, I am still chugging along on all cylinders. My heart's thumping, my eyes're twitching, my brain's sparking.
I can curl up in bed, listlessly dry-humping the mattress only so long.
Eventually I was forced to leaped from the covers' soft embrace and power-up the laptop.
So here we are.

What to touch on first?
Well, in honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, I have a dream.
Rather, several dreams. All bat-shit loco, like most of mine, and no at all uplifting or poignant as Dr. King's was.

Three nights ago I dreamt that I was seated in a red plastic fun-yak (one of those chunky, open-hulled kayak-like craft), a hot blonde whose face I could not see positioned in my lap, as though we were spooning. The fun-yak was riding low, water sloshing over our legs. I was not really concerned with sinking, however. It was dark. I mean pitch black. No moon, no stars. The water was liquid obsidian.
I was paddling around, attempting to recover a spiral-bound notebook. The notebook floated, the pages did not get wet. It was opened to the first page, upon which was written a single word. I could not make the word out.
Every time I got within reach of the item, this burly dolphin would rush up and knock it across the water like a skimmed stone. The girl said it was her pet, and he would retrieve the notebook for us. I told her that he should just get the damn thing and quit playing mind games with me.
Weird, huh?

Okay, next up. I was tracking down these hillbillies who stole a number of items from me. Sometimes it was present day, sometimes the Old West. Along the way I'd run into people whom I'd question, sometimes harshly, even violently, regarding the whereabouts of my stolen property. Finally, late a night, in some rickety clapboard house near a low-rent diner aglow with neon, I found the thief. I cornered him and slugged him repeatedly, and he let me know that he had sold my stuff, and it was gone.

Last night I had a dream that my brother and I were visiting childhood friends. These are cats we ain't seen in fifteen years. We drove to their house. It was a bright, sunny day. Their mother was out mowing the lawn.
Suddenly, we're in their basement.
(Sidenote. Years back their basement used to be partially finished. The laundry room was cinder block walls and dirt floors. I recall the ceilings being high. Since I was probably three feet tall at the time, they seemed even higher than they actually were.)
Anyway, in the dream, the whole basement is unfinished. And it is cavernous. It stretched into the horizon in every direction and the ceiling faded into blackness far, far above our heads.
The whole place was full of junk. It was like a cross between a garbage dump and the worlds most disorganized flea market. Piles of old clothes, broken furniture, birdcages, shopping carts, and old newspaper. Piles of dusty stuffed animals. Stacks of old, crumbling books. In between these heaps were narrow alleys. The whole thing was like a labyrinth of trash.
Sam and I were driving a jeep around, being pursued by bandits. We kept driving in this circle, and the fiends were right behind us. One of the marauders leaped into the back of the jeep and tried to reach in the back window to grab some valuable item we were carrying. (I still don't know what it was.) I urged Sam to turn in his seat and shoot the bandit, but Sam refused, saying the angle was all wrong. The bandit grabbed the item and hurled himself from the moving vehicle. I thought we should turn around and give chase, but then reconsidered. It was probably a bandit trap. They were no doubt waiting for us to exit out vehicle, at which point they'd descend upon us. Better write off that as a lost cause.
Later, on foot, we found our friends. They were living in the maze, training a group of fighters to repel the bandits. They were fashioning homemade crossbows out of tennis rackets. The net was held against the shoulder, like a stock, and the bolt fitted along the handle. The arrows were snow brushes for cars. They had filed down the plastic scrapers on one end into arrow points and used the bristles of the brush as the feathers of the arrow.
We walked into a group of them, all pointing cocked crossbows around wildly.
"Do not point those at or around my face," I told them, brusquely.

There ya have it.

Now, New Year's Resolutions.
I've broken all of mine. I feel the problem is that I do not set attainable goals for myself. If one resolves simply to go to the gym every day, that is all well and good, but it has not terminus. It is an open-ended ambition. There never exists the vision, however far off, of reaching the goal. There is no pay off.
Thus, I have resolved to develop new resolutions.

First: I will purchase a motorcycle.
That seems selfish, but it is something I've been wanting for a long time now and I feel it is well within my grasp.
Second: I will finally finish A Distant Mirror, by Barbara W. Tuchman. It's a thrilling chronicle of Europe in the 14th Century, but I have never made it more than halfway through its 1,000+ page bulk.
Third: I will write a damn novel.
November is traditionally Novel Writing Month, and there exists a wacky foundation that will go so far as to publish a gratis copy of anything you write for you, if you manage to finish a coherent story in those 30 days. I once dated a girl who did that very thing, thought she never let me read it . . .
Anyway, if so many nuts are out there composing novels in a month's time, than surely a year is long enough for me to spew some nonsense onto paper.
Fourth: I will get back to Massage School.
I have taken so many hiatuses from the semesters due to work that I might as well start the whole process over again. If that is the case then so be it.

That's all I got for now. More to follow, perhaps.

Friday! Last week was Friday the 13th. Unlucky for some. I certainly did not get lucky that evening. It was also my ex-girlfriend's 26th birthday party. I put a lot of effort into looking good for the event. I hit the gym, ate carefully, picked out a stylish ensemble. I did a substantial amount of man-scaping. More like man-slash-and-burning. I shaved my whole body, even buzzed my chest. (One thing the ex was always adamant about was my retaining my chest hair. When we broke up one of the first things I did was to shave my chest. I cut it down so that, on the off chance I wound up banging her that night, she'd have no choice to but experience me in all my hairless glory, so she could see what she missed all those years. I went so far as to give myself a sporty little landing strip to enhance the apparent length of my member. Hooray for optical illusions. I got my eyebrows plucked.
I showed up after a frustrating drive (is there anything worse than driving through Boston?) about two hours into the event. She had reserved the top floor of this posh hipster joint in Cambridge called The Meadhall. Private rooms, private bar, balcony overlooking the lower level. A fine establishment, no doubt, with a respectable menu and an extensive beer selection. The ex was already a little tipsy.
(I do not wish to make her seem like a lush. She left her heavy drinking days behind her with the dorm rooms and pajama afternoons of college. But it was her birthday and she's allowed to indulge, for Pete's sake.)
I made small talk with her friends, most of whom I really liked, and looked all hip and suave, drinking bourbon and adjusting my glasses. I would up chatting excessively with this jacked, balding dude who worked for Google. I was not clear at first how he new the ex; I assumed he was a friend-of-a-friend.
In between chatting with her peeps (of whom there were many), I brought her water and bar food and helped to keep her steady.
Much later it was revealed to me by one of her friends that the Google dude and my ex were semi-dating.
I was aghast. I was outraged. I'd been chatting amiably with this dork and he's been exploring my ex-gf's search engine? Not cool!
I waited until most of the revelers had left, including some unsavory-looking exes of hers who were probably hoping for the same post-break-up nasty that I was, and then drove her home.
I declined an invitation to stay.
On the drive back I got to thinking. One, I had no reason to dislike this fella, Malcolm, who was dating my ex. In fact, I rather liked him. He sang Sususudio when he got drunk. How can you find fault with a man who does that? (Unless said man is Phil Collins.) And two, it is no business of mine what my ex does or whom she sees. I forfeited that right when I ended the relationship. All I know is that it was good to see her and I hope she's happy.

And on that note, I will re-attempt sleep.

Nighty-night all.

The Communal Nature of Human Consciousness

So I caved on yet another New year's Resolution. I missed the gym today. By the time I got back from work, at about 12:30 -- one more late night, as you can tell -- I was too tired to do anything physical (other than the obligatory pre-bed masturbation).
I'm attending my ex's birthday bash this coming Friday and I need to look my best. So I have one week's time to get this lumpy-mashed-potato body of mine tightened up. There exists the slightest shred of possibility that she might still entertain thoughts of taking me home and boning me. On the flip-flop, I must be prepared to look damn good if she no longer has such thoughts and -- Heaven forbid -- has a new beau nipping after her loins.
Christ, I sound like a narcissistic drama queen here, don't I?

Anyway, I gots to get it together.

So I experienced a terrible little revelation recently.
I got this plan for a book, see? I shan't discuss the details at this juncture, for fear of looking like a total nerd, but, suffice to say that after much brainstorming, pondering, and re-hashing, I had the plot and characters pretty much ironed out.
Then I'm looking on iTunes for audiobooks and whammo, there's this novel out there, published early last year, that is uncannily similar to my idea. The concept, story, and characters all seem to mirror mine.
Now I had never heard of this book, nor the author -- a pasty, bald idiot with a staggeringly cheesy goatee, named Larry something-or-other. This was just some sickening coincidence. I found myself feeling outraged, as if he had stolen my idea. That is unlikely because I've never published, or, indeed even written any substantial portion of my novel and there's very little chance he knows who I am.
I still bridle with the perceived injustice, however.

A little while back a similar thing happened to my buddy Andrew -- late of my most recent fucked-up dream (see previous post). He had a charming idea for a kids' book, which he even went so far as to develop illustrations for, before finding an eerily similar book already published. Some of the characters even had the same names!
At the time I'm ashamed to admit that I was actually doubtful of his having developed the idea independently. it seemed too close to be coincidence.
Now, however, I rescind my previous perception and agree wholeheartedly with the shitty nature of the similarity.

Y'ever read the book The 21 Balloons? It was published in '47 and it's about a school teacher who crashes on the island of Krakatoa shortly before the eruption of a volcano there. It is in many aspects nearly identical to as story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in '22. The likeness was entirely accidental.

But it got me to thinkin'.

Maybe there exists some grand, unseen, protean realm that is the consciousness of the human species. In this we are all psychically linked, ideas, thoughts, beliefs, fears all drifting between us like flotsam on a dark, hidden sea.
Carl Jung had his archetypes. Anthropologists have their cultural universals. Maybe we're all thusly connected.

I know what you're thinkin' now. "Rich, this sounds like an intriguing topic. Please expound on it at length."

But nope, I'm done.
Time for bed.
Think all this over and get back to me.

Lookin' good, readers. Lookin' real good.

Eureka!

A ha!
I'm back!
I emerged from the stark wasteland of my creative drought this morning, my writer's psyche positively dashelled by inspiration. I leapt out of bed like Archimedes out of a bathtub, eyes alight, dong flapping wildly.

To begin with, let me relate my most recent whack-ass dream.

So I found myself, along with my brother, Sam, in some unnamed Scandinavian country. Sometimes I thought it was Greenland, sometimes Iceland, sometimes Sweden. The closest I ever came to an actual title for the land, though, was "Ericson."
We're wandering around the first floor of a mall of some sort. All the people in this country speak very softly and use a lot of body contact, touching and caressing.
We make our way up to the top floor, the third floor. It's all a bank. The whole floor. Which, granted, is much smaller than the lower floors. I got the impression that the building tapered like a pyramid.
Sam repeatedly tried to take the elevator to a higher floor, despite the fact that there was none. I told him so, and eventually persuaded him that we should go and get a cup of coffee.
Just then, a man behind us whom we took to be a native approached and revealed himself to be an American. He told us where we needed to go for coffee, apparently a combination cafe and strip club. He gave us detailed directions to the establishment which rapidly devolved into detailed reminiscences of his visit there. For example:

-Take Main Street to Jerome Avenue
-Make a left
-Walk through the third door on your right
-They sat me in a chair
-The girls came out
-The lights went up
-Cue the glitter

So Sam and I decide this is definitely the place for us.
We quickly descended to the ground floor and began to make our way outside. I stopped at the bank (the same company as occupied the top floor, but a smaller branch, on the ground floor) to get some dollar bills for the ladies. Sam was off and runnin', however, despite my pleas for him to stay.
I was stuck in line behind two tremendous brunettes, who were chatting about their experience at a hair salon. The one nearest me kept leaning in and forcing my head into her lustrous locks, telling me to smell her hair.
Eventually I got the money and returned to the ground floor, which, I should say, looked like the main concourse of Grand Central Station. I stopped at a newsstand only to find my friend Andrew. He was employed teaching, but in this European country instead of Utah, as is the case in real life. He began to force upon me stacks of mail for the folks at home. I inadvertently ruined a book he was sending to a friend in the States and proceeded to ransack the mall looking for a replacement.
Sam showed up and we both wound up detained by the manager of the mall, who threatened us with charges.
We tried to blackmail her with a sex tape we somehow had.
We watched the sex tape.
She was reclining on a couch amidst a small knot of people, all of whom were masturbating around a rubbish bin. The video had the blurry, cheesy look of '80's porn. You know what I'm talking about.
The crowd moved away from the trash can and suddenly the detritus within began to shiver and shake. A baby emerged. Or, rather, a toddler. A golden-haired, cherubic boy-child. Somehow their combined ejaculates created life in the garbage.
Just then, the camera whipped around to focus on (stay with me here, it gets wiggy) Kevin Spacey in a monkey costume, perched in a tree, brandishing a staff and haranguing the naked assemblage. He said that they were misusing the gifts the gods had given them. A large black dog was nipping at him from the ground. Eventually he slipped and the dog devoured him.
Cut back to the concourse.
I lean into Sam and say, "Y'know, we might not have as solid a hand as I thought, in terms of blackmailing the mall manager. This is Europe, after all; she might be given a promotion if this gets out."

Even in my dream I can be witty

Messed up, huh?
I think the caffeine was dampening my creative subconscious. I am back now, though. I have shrugged off the yoke of my coffee dependence.

Speaking of which, the resolutions are progressing only so-so.
I think the problem with my resolutions is that they are open-ended. I did not set attainable goals for myself.
I shall rethink them.
A new resolution, for instance, is to finally finish Barbara Tuchman's entrancing work on the 14th Century in Europe, A Distant Mirror. See? I can actually finish that one.
I have kept up with the no coffee, and gym every day. And obviously the blogging. The others have proven difficult.
I shall struggle on, however. For my own betterment and for your entertainment, dear reader.

Well, I grow weary.
I kept breaking from my composing to watch Californication. Perhaps my favorite program currently on television. I highly recommend it.

So I bid you adieu for the nonce. But I'll be thinking of you, anonymous potential readership base, when I feel all hot and bothered.

Goodnight, everyone.

The Drudgery Report

So maybe this posting every day thing wasn't such a good idea . . .
I'm sleepy and have nothing to write about.

Grr.

Power through!

Slow-ass day at work, both lunch and dinner. 'Tis the season, I guess.

All right. I'm falling asleep. I will post something with hopefully a great deal more substance tomorrow.

Flex it

Ah-ha! What's up, non-believers? Betcha thought I'd miss posting today, abandoning all my righteous aspirations at personal improvement. Well, screw all y'all.
Unfortunately, I have almost nothing to write.
My first blog was comprised of grand, epic posts, which took me weeks to complete. Such monumental endeavors drained me to such an extent that eventually the blog fizzled and failed. I will try now, therefore, for quantity over quality, and see what results that brings.
I spent the first days of the new year totally tapped of energy, suffering from caffeine-withdrawl headaches. I figured if I slept enough I'd regain some vitality, so I slept for two days straight, more or less. This strategy did nothing to improve my condition.
Today, however, I went to the gym and got in a doozy of a work-out. This, thought it left me tired and sore, cleared my head and, paradoxically, filled me with a clean, unadulterated energy.
It also gave my libido a shot in the arm.
Writing will hopefuly be like this.
Talents and abilities are much like muscles. They need to be used to avoid atrophy; they need to be strained and pushed to grow and strengthen.
So, I pray with time will my dubious and debatable "talent" for the written word slowly revitalize and become strong again. Perhaps working out my writing muscles will likewise fuel my sex drive.
I think that's all I got for tonight.
A miniscule post, true. But a post nonetheless.

Meet the New Year, Same as the Old Year

By golly, this blog thing is more taxing than I'd first imagined. I'd forgotten the hellish ordeal I'd let myself in for. Still, this post will, I trust, show my continued, if half-hearted, devotion to the cause.

So we find ourselves tipped over the precipice of a new year. Good ol' 2012. (Side note: I stolidly pronounce the year "twenty-twelve," not "two-thousand, twelve." It was, after all, "nineteen-twelve," not "one-thousand, nine-hundred, and twelve."
I spent New Year's Eve among thugs, wastrels, liars, perverts, and other assorted co-workers. A fun time was had by all. The night was as all New Year's Eves have been there: daunting, intense, but ultimately smooth and satisfying. (That kinda sounded like a cigarette ad, huh?). The bar stayed far busier than in past years, and I was actually unable to even see the ball drop, so dense was the crowd of revelers.
I imbibed only two glasses of red wine and a single flute of champagne, but my schoolgirl alcohol tolerance was overcome by those few libations and I proceeded to get a little frisky, as Wholley calls it. By the end of the evening I had pulled off my shirt and was bedecked with silver tinsel left over from a birthday party which occurred in the restaurant that evening, my lips red from wine. Melissa gave me a stinging slap across my washer board stomach, and I must admit I liked it. So, matching my red lips was a vibrant red hand print on my abs. I think Jamie liked the picture we sent her.

But, anyway, it's a new year. I have spent the first two days of it in a caffeine-deprived stupor.  I have had little to no energy and feel as though my head is being slowly crushed in a vice. It has made sticking to my resolutions nearly impossible - save, ironically for giving up caffeine, which landed me in this mess. However! I resolve now to live-up to the unreasonable standards I've set for myself for the new year. I shall list them here so that the public may know on how many aspects of self-improvement I perpetually fail over the coming three-hundred, sixty-four days.

And, without further ado, Da List:

-I resolve to go to the gym at least once every day.
-I will update my blog every day.
-I will write a letter to a friend every week.
-I will fast every Sunday.

Those are the do's. Here are the do-not's:

-No more starches, confectionery sweets, or chocolate. *Gasp, even chocolate? But, it's good for you, and you love it! you'll say. I realize this. But what good would it be for me to give up something I dislike?
-No lying. Yes, indeed. No more fibbing, no more hedging, no more stretching the truth. Absolute honesty in all things.
-No gossipping, nor talking about people behind their backs. This one will be especially difficult in the restaurant world.
-No more Facebook. Yep. I'm done.

There you have it. Game on, 2012.