So, some woman called me this morning. She wasn't looking for me. She was looking for Tony. I suppose checking the number was too much for her to do this early. It wasn't too much to do for her to wake me. Nothing (on the scale of annoyances) angers me more than having my sleep frivolously disturbed. Nothing nothing nothing. Angry angry angry. So when she asked if I was Tony I just said No and hung up. Usually I try to be helpful, asking them who they intended to call, etc. Of course, that's when people just hang up on you. You say, "I'm sorry, but you have the wrong number," and they don't even bother to thank you or apologize to you for the disturbance. They just hang up. Reminds me of the line from Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor that I just read last night. It went something like: "People use telephones because they can't stand to be near each other but can't stand to be alone."

Speaking of Chuck Palahniuk, I had a dream that he was in my apartment telling me that Fight Club (the movie) made $40 million, and had only cost $4 million. I don't know where these numbers come from; I just think it's strange that my dream was so specific. Of course, it was also very specific about the lighting in my living room. It was very accurate; dreams usually are. I was telling him that most people I knew really liked the movie, but there were some who didn't. I think (this was outside the dream) the difference was, people who think there is something significantly wrong with society today liked it. Peoeple who are relatively satisfied with the status quo or can't be bothered to think about it (effectively the same group) didn't like it. What does that say about us? I know what it says. It says we don't care about other people's problems. It says that, as long as things are good for us, we don't want them to change.

Another dream I had, though I think it was tangentially connected to the Palahniuk one, had something to do with me being a substitute justice on the Supreme Court. For some reason a justice (don't remember who; none of them were recognizable in the dream world) had recused himself (from this Gore recount case), I think to go and work on some alien archaeology (his murdered body was found in a storage room for artifacts, like these weird alien skulls). The atmosphere in the Supreme Court was very casual, very collegial. I remember thinking it was going to be weird explaining to everybody how I ended up being a justice at one of the most important cases of the century. Then at some point I was on a spaceship that we were hijacking to take us away from Earth. The impressions of this dream universe were somewhat like that of the Alien movies, but also somewhat like that series by Piers Anthony on Jupiter that I read so long ago. Somehow, though, I was there and also reading about it in a book. It also triggered thoughts about what the ideal size of human space. I was thinking 30 years of travel. Then it would keep humanity separate enough that real changes would develop rather than the mass-media monoculture towards which we are moving slowly. That sort of difficulty in seeing the human universe would (hopefully) bring back a certain sense of mystery that has been lost. We know entirely too much about the world; there isn't much adventure left.

And all of this because some annoying woman called me too early in the morning. Without her, I wouldn't have remembered any of this. So blame her; it's her fault.

¶ 20 Posted at 09.37 AM ⇒ No Comments ( deep thoughts | books )