The Good, the Bad and the Lazy

My new computer is amazing. It’s sleek and tiny and smells nice. Just kidding. I didn’t really smell it (I have a cold). But regardless, it’s one sweet computing device. The keys on the keyboard provide the perfect level of resistance underneath my fingertips and make a pleasant muted sound as I type. New Computer fills me with optimism, and I even enjoy just looking at it. It is a lovely shade of gun-metal black.

Come here, New Computer. I wanna give you a hug.

Something strange happened to me last night. I had a dream that I actually remembered. I’m one of those people that never recall dreams.

This morning, I woke up to my alarm at six and made my blurry way into the shower just like every other day. As I poured the dime-sized* dollop of shampoo into my palm, my brain suddenly cleared, and I recalled the dream I’d been having right before my alarm went off.

*As per the shampoo bottle’s directions. Two questions: 1) Does anyone actually use a ‘dime-sized’ portion of shampoo? Give me a break. I use at a minimum a blob between the size of a quarter and a Sacagawea dollar. 2) Why does shampoo have usage directions? I think most people are aware of how to wash their hair. It seems almost patronizing. Also, it irks me how often I actually turn the bottle around to scrutinize the directions while in the shower.

MY DREAM

My dream-self is looking for a new apartment and after a lengthy search finally settles on one that’s part of a big mansion. The mansion looks exactly like one of those ornately, huge houses you see along Sheridan Road in the Evanston/Winnetka/Wilmette burbs, but in my dream, this mansion is located right downtown on the lakefront. When I looked at the place, for some reason my dream-self opted only to look at the bathroom prior to signing the lease. The bathroom is in a separate building and is awesome. It’s floor to ceiling marble and there’s a huge shower, hot tub, bidet, etc. My dream-self’s favorite feature in the bathroom is the hammock located across from the enormous shower. Above the hammock there’s this sort of open skylight that looks out onto the front porch.

So anyway, the day I’m moving in, I head straight to the bathroom to lay around in the hammock instead of going to the main part of my apartment to unpack. At this point, my dream-self still hasn’t seen the main part of my apartment. Suddenly this old lady comes out onto the front deck of the house and sees me when she looks down into the open skylight.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hey,” I respond and then turn my focus to something else in order to feign busyness. My dream-self is not in the mood to chat.

The old lady starts talking incessantly. She won’t stop asking me questions and making casual conversation. My dream-self is getting more and more annoyed so I start giving her monosyllabic answers in the hopes that she’ll get the hint. After awhile, my dream-self decides to just leave the bathroom hammock because the old lady is so annoying.

After exiting the bathroom, I enter into the side door of the mansion, which I’d been told is the entrance to the main part of my apartment. When I walk in, however, it’s a basement rumpus room and there’s two pre-teen children sitting around watching TV. Right away the landlady comes down the stairs. She lives in the mansion with her husband and children and is dressed in a sparkly evening gown. Upstairs I can hear the tinkling sounds of a dinner party.

“Oh,” she says cheerfully, “your rooms are right over here.”

I follow her over to a door and she opens it so that I can look in. The room is filled with three hospital beds. It also smells stale and antiseptic like a hospital.

“Umm,” I say suddenly feeling concerned.

“Don’t worry,” my landlady says smiling in a reassuring manner, “we’re going to take the beds out."

“Where’s the kitchen?” I ask.

“Kitchen? I never said there’d be a kitchen.”

“Well … where will I keep my food?”

She seems mildly annoyed, but takes me upstairs to the mansion’s kitchen. Once there she opens the refrigerator door to display its contents.

“There isn’t any room for my food,” I say.

“You can eat some of ours. You can have the bread. The bread is yours.”

My dream-self doesn’t want the bread, but merely responds by nodding in a shocked manner.

“Also … feel free to stay out as late as you’d like, but I’d prefer that you just stay somewhere else if you’re going to be late. I’d hate for you to wake the children.”

My dream-self nods dumbly again. Afterwards, I go down to my room and call my friend Mick (he’s an attorney) in a panic.

“Um … I think I’m in trouble.”

“What’s up?” he asks.

“I need to get out of my lease. My new apartment is terrible.”

I explain the situation in detail.

“Why did you only look at the bathroom before signing the lease?” he asks in an angry tone when I'm finished.

In response, I’m all, “I don’t know. What am I going to do?”

“There’s nothing you can do. You can’t just get out of a lease. It’s a legally binding agreement,” Mick says with finality, “What sort of person only looks at a bathroom?!!”

“Ah, crap!” I wail mournfully.

Then suddenly there's the buzz-buzz-buzz of my alarm.

MY DREAM ANALYSIS

My subconscious is remarkably boring. I mean. What the hell? Can’t it come up with something better than a poorly made, legally-binding-decision themed dream? Also, my dream-self is even lazier than my awake-self. I spent half the dream laying around in a hammock! What’s with that? This is why I don’t bother remembering my dreams. In terms of sleep-entertainment, my dreams have got to be sub-par.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

-When I use the scroll button on my new mouse, it makes a sound like a pepper grinder. I can't decide whether I like it or not.

-Some guy who I don't know won't stop pacing in the area around my desk while talking on his cell phone. Sometimes when he talks he just stands still staring through me. This is really annoying. It's making me feel obligated to put on a 'performance' of looking serious and busy. Oh! Why won't he go away? This has been going on for over an hour.

-Today somebody at work put their lunch in the ice machine to keep it cold. I'm not lying. I opened the ice machine with the simple intention of getting some ice for my drink and lying there on top of the ice is a sandwhich wrapped in cellophane, a little bottle of milk and a bag full of grapes. Who does something like that? Don't people realize how unsanitary that is? So anyway, that's the end of my doings with the ice-machine. The only good part of it, was the comic relief it provided for the next half-hour when I would casually ask various co-workers to grab me some ice while they were up. The food mysteriously disappeared a little while ago.

-Jack and I broke up. It happened via a mutual fizzle, which is the best kind of break-up in my opinion. Things just weren't working. One point of contention between the two of us is he got annoyed when I didn't laugh at his jokes. Here's a sample conversation:

Jack says something bland.

"Okay," I respond.

Awkward silence.

"I was making a joke," he says.

"I know."

"Well. You didn't laugh."

"I didn't think it was that sort of joke."

"What 'sort of joke' do you think it was?"

I shrug then respond, "The kind you don't laugh at I guess."

Jack then expresses his annoyance through silence.

It probably didn't help that I laugh at pretty much everything else: commercials, things I say, things other people say, people tripping, etc. He's a nice guy and smart, but ... there just isn't enough chemistry there to enable either of us to overlook the annoying personality traits in each other.

Anywho. How 'bout them Bears!

--my lazEE subKonscious