His Name was Air Ice

I was somewhere on the side of a hill in a dry desert chaparral area when I saw a large dust devil or small tornado.  I became fascinated.  Logically, I knew it was big enough to be potentially dangerous, but I approached anyway, slowly and cautiously.  As I approached, the spinning action seemed to intensify until it really did look like a small but intense tornado, maybe 3 feet across.  I felt fear but still I did not run.

After a short while of watching, the tornado straightened and stayed in one place and I continued to stare at it, fascinated, wondering which direction it would lead next.  I wanted to investigate it but not actually get run over by it.  But how to predict a tornado!

I continued to watch, and as it stayed in one place, very straight and powerful now, I had a strange and illogical feeling that it was actually watching me too!  The feeling intensified and eventually I allowed that the tornado might be sentient in some way and it seemed that it was also curious.  It had a powerful intensity of watchfulness to it.   

Then the tornado disappeared and in its place was a very handsome man.  I knew the man was another manifestation of the tornado, but still I could not help but appreciate the appearance of the man.  He was about 5'10" white, medium build, well muscled, about 23, with strange fine white medium length (for a man) hair and a relaxed confident air.  Except for his hair and extreme handsomeness, he looked very normal.  He wore jeans with a leather belt and no shirt, as he stood calmly and observed me.  I had the sudden idea that his name was "Air Ice," which seemed a very cool and profound name at the time.

He was very handsome but I knew he was also the tornado and still felt some threat from him.  On his side, I felt he wanted to convey to me that he was still a threat and would attack me.  I tried to maintain confidence and think of ways to defend myself, although I could think of nothing in particular.  Soon his attack came and it was like something was wrapping around my legs.  Planning to fight my way out, I looked down and his legs were wrapping around my legs as if they were snakes.  I planned to pull them off but Air Ice made it known that his legs were infinitely stretchy and long and could not be defeated.  I glared at him and this time I saw that while his body position was still the same, his legs were actually missing as they were instead now attacking me instead of being under him.  Only his upper body 'stood' there now looking calmly at me, apparently not need the legs for actual support, but instead just hanging there in midair.  I stopped fighting the sinuous legs knowing he spoke the truth, that they could not be fought.  For whatever reason, I believed what he said, but at the same time somehow I maintained illogical confidence that I would win anyway, even though I did not know how.  I was defiant.

Then his attack stopped, his 'legs' returned to the rest of his body, and the sense of threat from him stopped.  We talked as friendly acquaintances a little bit about a few things, but I can't remember what now.  But I do not have the feeling it was about anything super exciting.  Then he left and as he was walking away, I got the sudden feeling/insight that he was a guide.

Perhaps the main lesson here was to have confidence in your success even if you can't yet see how you will accomplish it.    

Freudian Dreams

There I was sitting on the toilet ready to let loose. Suddenly pee was squirting everywhere. I had forgotten I was a man now! I was sitting down and the pee was coming out of an unexpected place and getting all over the place. I realized I had no idea where the muscle in this body was located that would cut off the stream of pee, if there even was one. I couldn't turn off the flow, so belatedly I attempted to bend the male organ to point between my legs and into the toilet, but this too met with only partial success. By the time it was over, I had made quite a mess of things and took a while to clean up.

Then I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. My blue jeans and dark blue sweater made my thick muscular body look less threatening. My face was of middling handsomeness, reminiscent vaguely of Jay Leno with a big chin and manly features. Although I had a naturally powerful body, I was mild mannered by nature.

I found myself thinking about the male organ and how it wasn't as simple to use as I would have assumed. But of course, most men had years learning how to use it from the time of birth. I would have to be much more careful next time, but I felt eventually I would become reasonably proficient.

However the bigger problem would be my own preference for men. Although I was in a male body now, after searching my feelings, I felt no corresponding changes in my sexual preferences. I wondered if over time, this new body would influence me in new ways, but if it didn't, my life could become difficult in some aspects. I looked into this mirror, I pondered this issue, until suddenly, I woke up.

Dream Lover

Around us is a dorm like environment. We are sitting in this room chatting about this and that. Suddenly, he reaches his hand across to me and begins stroking the bare skin on my outer forearm with the backs of his knuckles. I am surprised because I had not perceived our talk as having been flirtatious. But I decide I like the feeling of his touch and so do not protest. I am in the middle of making a point when he starts and the touch makes me lose my train of thought and stumble in my words, but then I concentrate and continue talking as he continues to stroke my arm.

Later I must have fallen asleep on this small bed or couch. He has snuggled down near my knees in front of me with his back to me and I find this pleasant. Carefully, so as not to disturb him, I flick the end of my blanket so as to cover him better and then I look at his face. He has a slightly long and hooked nose and slight jutting chin with thick black hair, strong eyebrows and bright brown eyes, a European reasonably handsome look, different from my usual type but still quite acceptable. Then I go back to sleep.

I dream that two people are standing above me talking about asthma. One is male and one is female. The table I lay on is like an operating room table of sorts and they stand above me while they work. There are complex instruments set up around my body and the conversation between the two doctors has turned almost angry as they disagree on treatment theories. I remember the woman snapped at the man, "Well you can't even GET any data unless you choose a medication and administer it in the first place!" She seemed to be responding to some kind of statements on his part about the downsides of medications.

A short while later, I wake up slightly and I feel the man sleeping near me also stir from his sleep and slowly withdraw his hand from between my hands as if in an attempt not to disturb me. I had not realized I had taken his hand but now that he is pulling it out, I realize I must have. I do not move and pretend to still be asleep but in my mind I worry. Did I go too fast? Has he changed his mind? But then I tell myself my behavior was a reasonable response to his and so I can not blame myself.

He has withdrawn his hand now and I can feel a jostling as he moves on the bed. Is he trying to sneak off? I hope not and wait to see what he will do next. I hope that he is not leaving.

Then I remember I am in my room in California and the jostling stops and I realize the man must leave because he was never there in the first place. He is gone. I am alone in my bed just as I was when I went to sleep the night before. Or was it me that left him? It's hard to sort out my emotions. I miss the nameless man of the dream. Usually, I do not see faces in my dreams but even now, his face is still clear in my mind. I will have to remember this dream for the blog..

(PS, yes I do have asthma in my waking life)

The Tips are Where It's At

I was telling the man that I didn't think he should be doing this kind of job, hanging around with these kinds of people. He was a tall lanky Polish looking caucasian, with short cropped hair and a slight but perpetual forward stoop, as if it his head was too heavy for his body and was continually overbalancing him. Even now as he stood talking to me, he looked down at the pavement.

"I have to do it because tips are where it's at," he said to me. "Tips are were all the money is. Without tips there's nothing really. You got nothing. So I have to do it this way," he said with a sort of dejected defiance.

I looked around at all the widely spaced cars spread out on the pavement. Here, space was plentiful and cheap. No need to be frugal with space. In the dark night, I couldn't see much beyond the pavement platter of cars, but I had the feeling that south western style desert surrounded us with sand, cactus, and the occasional outcrop of weathered sandstone. Above me towered a covered carport type of construction, similar to those you find at gas stations. Several flood lights were strung on its edges, attracting clouds of whining insects.

A cluster of men were assembled around one of the cars. Sniggering and drinking, they lounged against the car or the carport, some of them staggering at times to keep upright. They were a surly bunch. Disagreements flared up regularly intermixed with ringing raucous laughter.

Eventually, one of the men threw a shot glass at another's feet and exploding glass shards sparkled in the reflected light. Angry and confused, the victem threw his own glass at the car. Just then, the man I had been talking with earlier stalked into the middle of the group and demanded to know what was they were doing to his car. Behind him, one of the drunk men calmly picked up a long handled axe and expertly swung it over his head and struck down with a sick thunking noise directly onto the back of the car owner's neck.

The scene changed. It was daytime now as I gazed on a small house with a peaked tar gravel roof. Near the chimney, a man cowered on this roof, attempting to hide. The cops had already seen him be he pretended not to hear their shouts to come down. Eventually, they put ladders on the side of the red wood house and reached up to the man's leg and pulled him down.

He did not resist. In fact, he relaxed. The chase was over and there was something he wanted to say. "It was Wayne SoandSo (I forget the actual last name he used)," he said without any prompting. He had wanted to say it all along but he hadn't wanted to get himself implicated. But now that he was already caught, he could finally get it off his chest with confidence. He wanted the real murderer to be known. Everyone knew Wayne anyway and nobody was surprised. He would be easy to find. The only question was, would the charges stick?

All My Children

She lays still, a tall thin figure reduced to a diminutive bump under the antique white quilt of the massive dark wood bed. She is rolled onto her side in a fetal position facing away from me towards the nearest wall, her long dark hair in disarray, the covers barely disturbed around her. The lighting is dim and the drapes are pulled tight against the domineering sunshine. The delicate peach pink color of the expensive shag carpet pervades the room, even on the several steps that lead up to the spaceous bathroom. Despite the rich surroundings, a feeling of stagnation and depression fills the air.

The woman thinks to herself, "I am depressed because of All My Children."

At the time, I think she is referring to the soap opera of the same name, but after I wake up, I wonder if she meant something else.

Waitress

I frantically scribble down food orders on a blue sheet of advertising paper. I can barely read my own writing on that dark paper. The regular ticket book for taking orders was not in my pocket when I reached for it, so now I will have to track it down and rewrite all these orders before I can give them to the kitchen staff. I am getting nervous. People are pouring into the dining room, expecting to be waited on immediately. Everyone is coming in at the same time and the area I'm responsible for looks huge. I have taken only 4 orders so far, but already the orders are becoming confused in my mind. I decide I must get these off to the kitchen so that at least some of my orders will be in at the front of the slam.

I deliver the 4 orders and then literally run back to the dining room, my long legs moving smoothly over the carpet and my blond pony tail bobbing behind me. The booths are almost full of customers now and almost all of them look fidgety. I will start to get complaints soon and my mind races to choose my strategy. I go to the back where the customers look most anxious and whip out my ticket pad, but before I can even say hello, a medium built mousy woman coming from the bathroom area demands my attention.

Her long straight hair is pulled back into a loose pony tail. She is slight of build, atheletic looking, and angry. She directs my attention to where the carpet of the dining room transitions to the tile in the hall to the bathrooms. The carpet there is worn and threadbare and several pieces of silver duct tape have been applied to one edge. The woman tells me that several days ago, one of her daughters tripped on that area of carpet. She starts telling me exactly what happened and her story drags on because she insists on adding every little irrelevant detail, but it's clear that if I don't attend to her concerns diligently, she will go ballistic. She is in a rightous ferver. As she blathers, I am looking at the carpet and trying to figure out how anyone could trip over a few patches of worn carpet the size of silver dollars. I do notice the floor is slightly uneven there, causing a subtle rise in the height of the carpet in one area.

I imagine her two little girls are playing there, teasing each other and not paying attention. They are giggling and one of them is twirling around on one toe and doesn't raise her other foot quite high enough, instead dragging it on part of the carpet. Since she is already off balance, it doesn't take much to cause her to fall down. She flops painfully on her hip and the sudden motion finally catches the inattentive eye of her Mother. The girl cries for a few minutes until the pain subsides.

As the Mother fusses over the sniveling child, deep inside, she feels guilty for not paying attention to her children and allowing them to run wild while she prattled on with her friends. But it's easier on her self esteem to blame it on the carpet and the restaurant. Her guilt is converted outward to an anger that protects her from self examination. In her mind, the carpet has become an imminent danger to children everywhere and a grievous oversight on the part of the restaurant, a problme that in her mind must take precedence over all other activities.

The woman finally pauses in her tirade long enough for me to ask if she wants to speak to the manager. She looks happy at my statement, probably assuming I share her concerns, but really I am only looking for a way to get back to work. I start searching frantically in the big restaurant for the assistant manager who is on duty today, but as usual, he is difficult to find. Eventually, I track him down in the lower offices under the main dining hall. I give him a rough rundown of the problem as he ascends the stairs with me back to the main dining room. His dark grey hair is slicked back in a strange puffy blob away from his calm implacable face and I idly wonder how he gets his hair to stay in place while still looking natural.

Soon we are approaching the dining room and we immediately know something is horribly wrong. There is quiet, nothing but quiet. Normally we would hear the loud buzz of ceaseless chatter and clanking plates, but now there is a somber silence. I see one woman bustling out the front door and I ask her what is going on, but she doesn't want to talk to me. She just keeps trotting away without answering.

We enter the dining room and hear an angry snarling voice. It is the bartender in his little drink alcove. He is wiping out a glass with a rag while simultaneously cursing and snarling loud expletives. The depth of his anger startles me. I can't understand why he hasn't just left if he is that angry.

As I pause in my tracks, I am surprised to see the assistant manager who came in with me is moving steathily behind a wall. I realize he is not going to deal with this issue but instead has chosen to just hide and listen for now. For a moment, I entertain the thought of going up to the bartender and trying to help. We have always had a good rapport. But the intensity of his snarling hatred scares me. He is not now the man I thought I knew. I also slink behind the wall next to the assistant manager.

I feel sorry for the bartender, but my strongest emotion is of relief. Most of our customers have left and it wasn't my fault. I had nothing to do with it. And now I'll easily be able to catch up with my food orders.