A nightmare woke me up a few minutes before my alarm went off this morning. It was a two-parter. Earlier in the night, there was this dream about this woman in her apartment, and a tall skinny light-blonde guy in a lab coat forced his way into her apartment and beat and raped her. Then, the second part, I was talking to her in her apartment and the doorbell rang. She answered the door and before I could tell her to be careful and put on the chain or something the guy forced his way in again. He’d expected her to be alone, and when he saw me he attacked me. He was about 6’3″ and strong, though in a skinny way. We fought, except I had that dream paralysis and was moving *really slow* and he was really killing me. Until I suddenly said to myself, “fuck this shit” and transformed my arms into giant machine guns and blasted the guy with like anti-aircraft-sized bullets. He was knocked back against the wall. There was some question whether he was dead/destroyed or not, but I woke up before I could make sure. He was quite resilient in the dream.

Upon waking, still in the drowsy alpha state, I asked him/the dream what he was. And the dream said, “your hate”. I’m not good at interpreting my dreams, but sometimes if I ask in time the dream itself will tell me this sort of simple stuff.

So anyway I found it interesting that my hatred was threatening me and rendering me powerless, and have something to think about. The day started well.

Later, driving to work, stopped at a light, I saw a man waiting to cross. He looked nothing like the man in the dream, he was in his 50s and bald instead of his 30s or 40s with long white/blonde hair. But he was wearing a lab coat. I never see men on the street in lab coats (although I also saw a woman in one the day before yesterday…). He was wearing a dirty lab coat, looking for all the world like a hard-working mad scientist. And he was pushing a baby in a baby carriage. How very puzzling.

Then at the next crossing, I saw a woman who looked just like the woman in the dream, slender, in her twenties, with sort of a page-boy haircut.

So far, though, my arms still haven’t done the Transformer thing.

This page at Feral Living comes in 34th in a google search for german phrases wwii. There are some useful German expressions there, go look if you don’t believe me. In honor of today being the anniversary of the German surrender, let me add one more: Ich ergebe mich. Which means I surrender and is not to be confused with ich uebergebe mich, which means I am vomiting.

Gamma vomits daisies at Raising Hell.

While I completely agree with Francis that the problem with the world today is that not enough people are nice enough, I would replace the word nice with kind. Niceness is, I think, a mask and a shield, allowing one to close one’s heart but avoid conflict, while kindness requires you to open your heart and be genuinely involved, and for this reason does not shield you or rule out conflict. This is my take on the two words, how I have experienced them, your mileage may vary. But I think being nice results in an accumulation of frustration and anger from not living one’s authentic self and from taking shit, while kindness, although more difficult and more work, does not require one to take shit. I would rather be kind than nice, and that’s what I aspire to. Unfortunately, I’m also afraid that this whole “no more Mr. Niceguy” thing could lead a lot of people to miss that point. It’s not okay to be a jerk.

Congratulations are in order. Michele’s fine website, www.asmallvictory.net – chock-burstin’ with attitude and fine writing – is msn.com link of the day today.

And she achieved it all before turning 40!

Fuck me, but I could use a goddamn smoke about now.