Month: May 2008

FEY DREAMS

Odd dreams last night, involving organized gangs. The gang leader, a courteous, grey-haired gentleman, wanted me to do some work for him, but i played coy because i was already working in some unspecified but shady capacity with a competing gang. He was starting to put pressure on me, though nobody actually said “drive-by shooting” out loud….

In the dream i prided myself on my transparency — no hidden agenda. (I think that’s a good thing in real life, too.) So I did something incredibly foolish: in the gang leader’s living room, on the gang leader’s giant-screen TV, i composed an email to my own gang, hinting that we might want to see to it that the gang leader “have an accident.”

One of the GL’s henchmen — played in the dream by Dan Ackroyd — accidentally saw the email, of course, and i spent the rest of the dream (and the night) nervously concocting explanations for the GL, most along the lines of “Maybe good, maybe bad” — the Buddhist tenet of nonjudgment that says we can never really know the true consequences of our actions in this infinitely interconnected world. But i was looking over my shoulder the whole time.

Gangs? Violence? Is the zeitgeist of the city seeping into me already? Funny how a dream like that can taint the whole next day.

I note with judgmental dismay that my nagging cough is still with me. Maybe good, maybe bad.

[Postscript: Trenchant and amusing dream interpretation in comments below.]

BUMBLING

We must learn to be flexible … to perceive the ever-changing world as it is and react to it as such, even (or especially) when it does not measure up to our thoughts and plans for it. UBC was not to be today as I hooked up with old friend Erica later than planned. We had beverage at Turks, then spent about two hours on the grass in the sun in Grandview Park, catching up on nearly ten years apart. She’s one of those rare people with whom that doesn’t feel weird at all. Lotsa frank Zen/Buddhism talk — she’s a Taoist, which doesn’t mean a heck of a lot to me but apparently puts a “coming to the world” spin on basic Zen. Crap, i can’t decide what to have for lunch; how am i ever going to figure out what principles to live by?

Erica, she’s slowly coming round to making a virtue of what she calls “bumbling” — her word for trying out one thing after another, without (in the “householder” sense) sticking with any of it. (Though as she herself admits, three university degrees, plus a couple of diplomas in alternative healing techniques, kind of belie the not-sticking-with aspect.) She used to think of bumbling as kind of a soft form of failure, but now she’s looking at it more as a choice and a way of living.

Like me, Erica has accumulated little material wealth to show for her efforts. So we consoled ourselves somewhat by counting our immaterial accomplishments. I tried to take a picture but the camera battery died.

Later, in the wet dreams department:

  • I discovered a nifty “subnotebook” the size and weight of a hardcover book, for a paltry $400. I’m tempted, i must say. Computer access is highly addictive, especially once you realize that almost every cafe on the Drive has free wireless. I could spend a lot of time in cafes like that.
    .
  • I went into Bikes on the Drive and test rode this Dahon folding bike. I’ve known about them for a long time but never had the chance to try one. It rode well — a bit flexible and a bit cramped, but overall very satisfactory as basic transpo. And nicely designed, too.

Plans for tomorrow: dinner for four at a noodle joint and then the KRAZY anime exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery (it’s cheap Thursday). Rob helped install part of the exhibit, so we’ll get the (over-)guided tour.

Oh, and a rule i plan on sticking with (until i break it): Once it’s in the blog, no editing allowed. Sorry, all you perfectionists.

PORTC (Probability of Returning To Coast) factor today: LOW

SKOOL DAZE

I stopped in at Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus in passing yesterday, just to see what it felt like. The neighbourhood was appealing: cafes, people with computers, bookshops, hole-in-the-wall eateries … there was an energy and an urgency that interested me.

Inside the building itself, though, the feeling was sterile. Businesslike. Not the fecund warmth i’d be looking for in a school, the hotbed of ideas. Possibly the mountaintop campus holds that atmosphere; the downtown campus was more like a business training centre — NOT what i’m looking for. Though i did take several classes there, years ago, in the Writing & Pub program, and enjoyed them.

Tonight, over daquiris, i talked to Devon, a friend of Rob’s who’s doing a masters in architecture at Dalhousie. Did it sound appealing? Not really. What i’m seeking is a riveting subject, i suppose. But i’m also pining for the university surroundings — the ideas, the sense of nascent becoming…. But i’m also suspicious of the arrogance and false sense of entitlement a university seems to encourage. As David Orr, environmental studies professor at Oberlin College , said some years ago:

“The product of a university degree is a population trained in hypocrisy.”

Off to University of BC tomorrow — the institution that lost my faith years ago, the day it sold its student body to Coca Cola, by way of the cafeteria and vending machines.