Life, Death, Goofing Around, and Checking Your Head.

I've said many times that listening to terminal cancer patients give their perspective on things is one of the best parts of my current job. It's not my primary role, but I get to sneak a few listening-to-anecdotes in as long as I get my actual work completed quickly.

So, last night, I dreamed that I got to goof around and play house-rules hockey with the Beastie Boys shortly before Adam Yauch's death, and got to hear him talk informally about the whole "thoughts on life and mortality" thing.

In the dream, I was given an impression of gratitude for getting to be creative and silly with friends full-time, getting the chance to morally and philosophically grow as a person, and getting to have a family. Basically stuff that actual Adam Yauch's said in plenty of ways in real life, so it wasn't a creative stretch on my part. I was also given permission to keep my shoes on, because fuck if I can play hockey with skates on. I am clumsy.

It was a teaching dream. While what I was directly told was "these are my thoughts about my life, as I've had the chance to live it," it was still intended to be constructive sharing. I was a student, learning from how another person's lived.

Even though the dream was about the death of one of my all-time favorite punk bassists and cultural line-blurrer within hip-hop, it was a positive experience. My brain really brought out the good material on this one, when picking out what to show me while asleep, you know?

I was left with a peaceful feeling, and the impression that life will get sweeter once I construct a professional/lifestyle niche that will give me more time to be creative, and to visit and help my family. Don't waste the time that I have, and so on, et cetera, yadda-ya, yabba dabba doo.

I was also left with the sense that dude, I need to learn how to make homemade caramels, because that shit is awesome. And I should also try to find a pair of novelty sunglasses with shark fins on them. Really.

And maybe volunteer for hospice at some point, because if I really CAN stay socially pleasant for the other person during end-of-life conversations, there are probably a lot of folks who would like an ear to bend.

Did someone say "it would be nice to have some female-written gonzo?"

And then this fucker, this pig face coming out from the wallpaper is trying to stare me down, and all I can think is how much I powerfully desire the essential, basic human right to some goddamned time travel. To run back to my mother, when she was younger than I am now, and to convince her to take more acid while pregnant.

She never so much as drank coffee while I was in the womb, gave up all the keen vices of her generation--apart from Led Zeppelin, thank the fucking gods plural--and I was born with no ability to TOLERATE THESE KINDS OF SITUATIONS!!!!!!

Sure, I was raised by the generation wedged between the beat generation and the blank generation. Sure, I can respect the Dylans. I have seen answers and candles alike blowing in the wind like a fart full of confetti.

But no idealism or brilliance, no good ideas or bad ideas gone sexy could truly prepare me for the grave disappointment and terror to which I am now grievously subjected.

Paranoia? Fuck paranoia. This makes paranoia look like a candy brain tumor, easily removed and twice as cuddly. No. I fear that my amygdala is going to fucking explode, and take the rest of my brain with it, like so much wet and soupy shrapnel. That the next time I blow my nose, my childhood memories are going to fly out, gray and deprogrammed.

And I end like everything ends, like everything ends for us, with a Hollywood quote from a comforting movie: "Fuck the doomed."