and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

How is it that I complain? Every day is good things and bad, free boba with a buy 8 get one free card, denied health insurance claim, parking meter with 43 minutes already on it, bird shits on the windshield. Lose the keys, find the keys. It all evens out.

See? Kitty gets it. I get it. Do you get it?

Maybe not. Maybe you missed the bus today and your car broke down and the boss laid you off and you lost your wallet so you can't even buy lunch. Maybe your filling fell out and your crown broke and your tooth chipped and seven little dwarfs danced a jig on your tongue in their dirty boots. Maybe your dad yelled at you, your mom died, and your sister shot at you... from her trailer... because you wouldn't give her child support money.

Maybe.

See? It can always be worse. I could start complaining right now and keep on complaining through the whole day. My kneck hurts. I think I slept on it wrong last knight. It's all kinky and knotted. After fixing one muffler on the bike last week the other one has broken. My car registration was up last month and I have a krink in my kneck.

See? I told you I can complain. But what's the point? No one will listen anyway. No one cares about my questionable body effluvium. No one is worried about my bum knee. No one is looking out for my glasses that I lost three, four, five months ago. No one.

Not even me, because if you can't beat 'em join 'em, right? If no one else gives a shit about it why should I? Am I so much better that, when everyone else deems the situation un-worry-worthy, I will worry? Am I so much less for caring when caring is so out of style?

See? I can go with the flow. The sun is out. It's shining high in the sky yet is providing a very amenable level of heat, as if it listened, this morning, to my sleeping thoughts on weather and what a wonderful day it would be if the sun wasn't so hot, but just mild and soothing.

I am drinking coffee and it tastes good. Not every day does coffee just taste good, just like that. Sometimes you have to cajole it into good taste.. like a nerdy friend with bad style: "No, really, try these pants.. they'll make you look normal". Sometimes you have to add sugar and milk and cream and equal. A little cancer-causing agent never hurt no one, right? Sometimes you have to let it cool and make sure not to burn it in the first place and sometimes.. sometimes.. you gotta mix. Flavoured coffee is usually horrendous but if you mix it with a little regular than it's not so bad. Think of it in gas terms: You got your Premium (think espresso), your Mid-Grade or Supreme or whatever the hell they call it (I like how they make both choices sound good - like 50's motown bands with shiny white teeth, I bet their fillings didn't fall out) and then you have plain.. old... regular. Regular is what regular people get. Normal people. The people that give you those pants and say "try these, they'll make you look normal". And I don't mean in a conformist way. I don't mean in the way that some dude who has his own style going on gets bumraped into wearing Polo and Structure. I mean in that way where you take the strugglin dude.. the guy wearing stone washed jeans not because he likes them but because that is what was cool last time he bothered to think about fashion.. and you teach him a little something.

You introduce him to the mall and outlet stores and the beauty of mannequins. You teach him that style is fine, having one's own look and feel is fine, but not having it - making no decisions about clothing and fashion and what kind of gas he uses - that's just not acceptable. Regular gas is the kind of gas that normaly works just fine. Everything else is posing.. except that bio-diesel crap, which is anti-posing - the ultimate pose itself. Bio-diesel is like decaf. WHO the hell drinks that shit? Posing posey poser posers. That's who. Decaf is like the scourge of society. Decaf is like Tab soda - only I think Tab soda actually has some redeeming qualities. Decaf is like snorting powdered sugar up your nose just to blend in with the stock brockers. Decaf is smoking oregano and thinking it's cool. Decaf is Bud Light on a budget. Decaf is adult go-kart racing at it's finest - hay bail barriers and everything.

You see? I can complain too. I can complain and maybe you'll read it but you're not going to stop drinking decaf. You're not going to stop using premium. You're not going to step out of those stone washed jeans (no worries, they'll come back eventually). So I can talk and talk and talk at the wall because I'll get as much response out of the wall as anyone else. At least I can bounce a rubber ball off the wall. At least I can sit here and drink my good tasting coffee.

The Italians estimated as many as 4,000 elderly died this summer from the heat wave. Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, that is about 1,000 more than in the September 11th attacks on the U.S. that we are now celebrat... mourning the anniversary of today. In contrast, approximately 26,000 Americans will commit suicide this year. Over half a million will die of cancer.

And despite it all, regardless of the facts, the sun is shining and I'm drinking decent tasting coffee and all I have to complain about is a krink in my kneck. It's benign, I'm sure. A benign krink. I should go to the doctor and get it checked out. Have a sample taken and maybe some tests done.. but I'm confident that they would come back negative. The doctor would explain the disease to me:

"Malignancy rates in kneck krinks are suprisingly low and you usually don't have to worry about it unless it's a cronic situation and you often get seven dwarves dancing with dirty boots on your tongue. Although I must say seven dwarves in and of themselves are not a sign of a malignant kneck krink. If Snow White shows up, however, it is worth getting tested.. even if she may be only a pigment of your imagination."

I shouldn't complain. I really shouldn't.