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

Didn't think it would happen but it did, I finally reached a transcendental plane, I became (as the song says) comfortably numb.. The numb part, that would come in waves but never really stay around for too long, sort of like riding the pirate ship at your local amusement park, feeling weightless for that single instance in time, floating - not going up, not going down. But numbness as a pacifier, that takes a good chunk of time just down in it, surrounded by the soft walls of your mind where there ain't much feelin as long as you can't see out the windows. So last night when I made my final go at it I was not only not-surprised, but I was actually glad, when I found out how special she really was.

Special in a shortbus sort of way.

An 80 percenter that, for all intents and purposes, might as well have been a 20 percenter for all I cared. Sometimes even I slip up on a judgement call. Sometimes even I don't know what I'm looking at and maybe that's what the true tragedy is: seeing that muddy field across the fence for what it's not: glistening green golden grass.

So I try not to covet this grass too much, not so much cause I'm of any religious type one way or another, but because it's never really what it seems. The deeper you dig, the further you become from the real goal..

which today is numbness.

But sometimes you just can't help yourself. Sometimes you've been having dreams of that green grass so goddamn long you start seeing it with your eyes closed. Like a bad cartoon where the wolf sees the chicken walking down the road roasting on a spit, I have been known, on occasion, to see the green grass right in front of me even though I know how far.. far.. far away it is.

So last night when I sorta snapped out of it I became instantly numb. No more grass, no more want, no more feeling, just there.. smiling, drinking a beer lazily watching rugby on the plasma screen and wondering inside my head how it became so easy, just like that, in a split second.

Real Tragedies, however, are twisted stories of interwoven unfortunes so we can't imagine our hero happy for too long - even if "happy" is numb and unfeeling. Today, when I returned from class I was greeted by the *bleep* of a waiting voicemail - an Unkown - a message from far.. far.. far away. It was nice to hear and nice to be appreciated and nice to be thanked for the small gesture I worked so very hard for but in the back of my mind, way way back where the numbing cold hadn't quite reached, a thought was born, a question, a wonder,

is that grass really so green?

And like that the numbness, so warm and comfortable for almost a full 24 hours, was gone. Left me like the dew on an early morning - there one instant and gone the next, not so sure where it went or when it will be back and I had to listen, once more, to that quiet voice far off in the distance through wires and routers and off some hard drive somewhere through the airwaves and processed by a dsp and through a tiny speaker, out of my cellphone and into my ear, producing an ever so slight thump-bump, thump-bump, thump-bump. An increase in heart rate. A longing. A waste really, a waste of the highest order and here I was so luckily numb and here it was, come to crush my happy heart.

Self Reminders:

Don't bother with cheese unless you're going to really go hog wild cause you can barely taste a thin slice of cheese on a sandwich anyway.

Don't get a beer when you're not even thirsty and you don't even want a beer. This is key and must be renumerated often as it is easily forgotten yet terribly important.

Don't hate the hateful just cause it's their way of doing things. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

When in doubt, admit it (that's two-fold).

Don't forget that there is hardship and then there is hardship and don't forget that working twelve hours a day is not so much a hardship as it is a nuisance.

The first answer is not the truth and, unquestioned, will remain untrue. But even questioned, don't believe it.

Ask and ye shall receive.. something, just not necessarily what you were asking for.

Life isn't fair and measures to make it so just compound.