Nightmares

I suck at having nightmares.

This has been true for a while.  When I was younger I had nightmares like a normal person.  I remember being chased by monsters, waking up just as death was seemingly a given...  They mostly came while I was sick, but I had them.

Not anymore.

Sometimes I have dreams that are clearly trying to go dark.  The early feeling of vague dread gives it away.  There might be a monster, or zombies, or something else.  They still come for me.

But things are different now.  These days, when I realize that something is dream hunting me, I respond with oddly sensible choices for a dream.  They fail.  Nightmares can be persistent that way.  But now, things end differently.

Now, when the monsters get close, when the threats become real, when things have gone too far...

I kill the monsters.

This isn't a motivational speech.  That's the real plot arc I experience in my nightmares these days, when I have them at all.  It's not particularly aggressive.  When it's clear that they intend to attack me, I glare at them.  And then I force them out of existence.  Through sheer force of will.  They burn out in a flash of white.  Once I woke up just after this, only to realize that I had just sleep-ordered my bedroom "No, You. Will. NOT." 

That can be interesting.

There is one exception.  The closest thing I still have to a real nightmare does recur.  Not often, but probably at least once a year.  I remember, months later, that at the start of the term, I registered to take an introductory calculus course.  I'm still modern me, so the rationale for this is always strained.  Once, I enrolled at my old high school just because I remembered classes being so... thorough... there.  More often, I just skipped over it to do the harder classes, but had to finally go back and finish off requirements.  I'm never scared of the class.  I'm scared of having ignored that I'm enrolled in a class that I haven't even gone to for MONTHS.  Of the threat that there might just be nothing I can do about it anymore.

These dreams end on the question, which is why I find them relevant here.  It's happened just often enough that my conscious mind can quickly cut through the fog of waking now with the simple news of: "You're fine.  You've passed all classes for forever."

In other words, the closest thing I now have to nightmares is the dawning realization that I forgot to bother with something that turned out to matter more than it should.  In the high school variant, I actually remember debating if it even mattered.  If anyone would even notice.

These are my bad dreams. 

I have good ones too.

They're nice.

A Python Ate It

When I was an undergrad, I pushed the limits of the dorm pet policy by keeping a 25 gallon aquarium in my room.  Its primary occupant wasn't a fish.  I had a lobster in there.  Not just a normal lobster: I had a bright blue one.  Obviously.  (This is a true story.  Blueness in lobsters is a rare genetic quirk akin to albinism.)

If you don't already know, lobsters are primarily scavengers.  But they're more than capable of being aggressive hunters if the need arises.  If you keep a lobster in a sparklingly clean aquarium and don't feed it very often, that need arises.  This is where the fun starts!  Strictly speaking, I was not supposed to have a pet lobster in the dorms.  I could have fish.  Fish were ok.  I was also supposed to keep the aquarium size below 10 gallons.  But questions like "Are lobsters fish?" and "How big is that beautiful, well-maintained aquarium?" are rarely of strong interest to liberal-minded RA's.  Also, I intentionally kept fish in there.  So it was a fish tank.  No one looks at a fish tank and gasps, "I need to write this guy up immediately."  People also rarely search your fish tank thinking you have stuff hidden in there.

In reality, however, I had a lobster tank with some very nice fish in it.  Blue gouramis mostly.  And some black mollies.  I fed the lobster often enough, but occasionally it would get hungry anyway.  If the lobster got hungry, it would do exactly what you'd expect it to do.  It would hunt, murder, and slowly consume one of the fish.  That process was fun to watch.

This had an amusing real world side effect.  Due to lobster-related complications, the population of fish in my aquarium maintained an erratic downward slide. So from time to time, I would head down to the local pet store to buy more.  The local pet store was owned by an intimidating lesbian who was very passionate about her pets.  She had a generous replacement policy when it came to fish, because her sales tanks were very clean and her pets were all exceptionally healthy.  She would interrogate her customers about the conditions you were taking her fish home to so that they would have maximal chances of survival.  If she felt you had too many fish in your tank already, she'd decline to sell you more.  If your tank sounded dirty somehow, no fish for you.  Sick fish recently?  Sounds like you should give that situation some time before taking home more fish.

But I could pass that test easily.  I had a reasonably large tank with a small number of fish in it.  I had lots of live plants in there (which is great for the water).  I had both a primary and secondary filter.  I cleaned the tank at least once a month.  I was a model customer.

So it eventually aroused suspicion when I kept buying fish while claiming not to own very many.  When grilled on how I could be the owner of just four fish when she could recall me having bought more like 20, I simply explained that my lobster kept eating them.  Alarmed, she denounced the compatibility of lobsters with small freshwater fish.  I smiled calmly and highlighted that her objection was not news to me.  I reminded her that my tank was in fine shape, and stressed that I had never once returned a dead fish for a replacement.  Finally I pointed to her tank of feeder goldfish and questioned why she'd have that if she had concerns that the fish she was selling might get eaten.

She was extremely annoyed with me after that, but eventually resumed selling me any damn fish I wanted.  I was a good customer, and my tank really was extremely well maintained.

That story got me thinking recently.  I know a bunch of people who like adopting pets.  Taking foster dogs and cats is a point of pride for some.  People build communities around the idea.  Everyone agrees that there are so many shelter dogs that need adopting.

I wonder if you could just keep showing up at shelters and adopting more and more pets.  When eventually confronted with questions about the last cat or dog you adopted, simply note: "Well, yeah.  A python ate it."  Then act puzzled that the shelter people don't understand what happens when you have cats and dogs running around under your ten foot python.  Perhaps gesture at the tanks full of feeder mice and rats typically maintained for that purpose.

I bet someone has already tried this.  I'm curious how that worked out.  I bet the shelter people got mad at them too.

Sexually Harassing Lake Does Not Go Well

I am not a chatty person in the subway.  I don't like it down there.  I wear headphones at all times.  I have a mild case of bitchy resting face.  None of this makes me the life of the party underground.

But subway people are not always the best at noticing these subtle social cues.

A few days ago, I was walking along the track when a woman sitting nearby exclaimed, "Damn!  What is that?  A banana in your pocket?!"

My usual outfit is performance undergarments and loose pants.  That pairing is NOT the strategic choice for the sort of boasting she was getting at.  So I curiously peered down at my crotch to see what had gone wrong.

There was nothing unusual going on down there.  I concluded immediately that she was talking about my wallet.  I do have a large wallet.  It's a no-fold.  I have a lot of stuff in there.  But I keep it in my right pocket, which places it well away from anyplace that would invite tropical fruit comparisons.

I paused for a second.  In checking to see if I had somehow spilled out onto display, I had revealed that I could hear her just fine.  And she was basically being flirty, in a tasteless-yet-progressively-empowered woman sort of way.

So I did what any self-respecting person would do.  I grabbed my big, fat wallet through my pants with both hands.  I pointed it straight at her.  I grinned.  And I confidently declared, "Nope."

A look of absolute horror came over her, and she quickly looked away.

I don't blame her.  Playing sexual harassment chicken with me is... not for the weak of heart.  But...  What did she think was going to happen?  Did she actually think I had bananas to share?

The Riders on the Bus Go Up and Down

Story time!

Sort of.

While I am going to tell a quick story, it’s really more of a thought exercise about personal space and attractive strangers.

A few months ago, I was heading off to the airport. Getting there from my place requires riding a bus across Manhattan. I hate busses. They continue to surprise me in bad ways. This day was going to be no exception, unless you want to debate if this was really “bad.”

I got on the bus and sat down in an open seat. Two stops later, an attractive guy whose age I’ll call “Jailbait” got on and sat down on the seat right next to mine. The bus was fairly crowded, so this was nothing special. His behavior, however, was.

Moments after sitting down, his head rolled back, his body went slack, and he fell asleep. Whump. He was on my shoulder.

Ok. Interesting. My response was neutral. On the one hand, I’m not a fan of needless personal contact. On the other, I’ve been known to make larger exceptions for people less attractive than this guy.

As I was sitting there pondering my own ambivalence in the matter, his head rolled gracefully off my shoulder and landed with a soft plop in my lap.

Wait. Really?

This was apparently about as comfortable as I would have expected, because he spent the next fifteen seconds settling in to his new position with my crotch as his pillow.

I should pause for a moment and mention that this was (probably?) not as overtly sexual as I’m making it sound. Everything I’ve said is true, but there had been zero removal of clothes, this guy was (probably?) semi-conscious, and there was still a tiny amount of space between his mouth and my penis. Probably.

Again, I found myself inexplicably neutral about the situation. Keeping me cheerful was the fact that this was really, really funny. Getting me anxious was the fact that I was nervously looking around the bus for witnesses looking concerned about Jailbait’s plight.

Native New Yorkers just took a moment to laugh to themselves. They knew perfectly well that no one on that bus was interested in the fact that Jailbait appeared to be giving me an especially lazy hummer.

I slowly began to realize that no one cared what was going on and no one was going to start caring anytime soon. I returned my attention to Jailbait, whose head was bouncing in my lap to the rhythm of the bus.

As I grew more accustomed to the situation, my mind started to wander to more practical aspects of what was happening. I was about to board a plane. How likely was I to accidentally do the same thing in a situation like this?

I concluded that the odds were not high. Jailbait was pretty clearly comfortable snuggling up to strangers in ways that I could never be. Armed with this dubious conclusion of “guilt,” I finally got around to wondering if I should be responding to the situation in some way.

Nah.

But maybe I should take some pictures!

That sounded like a great idea, until I got around to wondering if I really wanted photographic proof that I had ridden a bus with “Jailbait’s” head massaging my privates.

Twenty minutes later, he came to, rose from my penis without comment, and exited the bus.

Really?

And here I had been looking forward to the look of mixed horror and embarrassment on his face when he realized both what he had done and that I was totally cool with it.

But no. Nothing. Not even eye contact.

People are weird. This is probably why I don’t like to touch strangers.

See-Through Swimsuit

This one is just a little memory I have of life back in high school. Most people would say that I’m not exactly your typical personality. But I was a weird kid.

No doubt.

Sometimes, looking back on those days, I cringe a little, like everyone else. Other times, I will remember something, stop dead in my tracks, mentally accuse myself of making the whole thing up, and realize that it all really happened. Then I laugh. Proudly. This is one of those moments.

Growing up, we had an above-ground swimming pool in my backyard. This fact is kind of unusual for a number of reasons, but the most prominent one is that no one in my family liked swimming very much. The pool went up when I was much younger, so I might be largely to blame for it having been there. I really don’t remember. But by the time I was in high school, it was mostly uncared for and rarely used. It would make occasional, rapid swings from “pretty gross” to “sparkly clean” via a technique my dad pioneered involving dumping in backlogs of chlorine tablets all at once that should have been added gradually (over the past several weeks). This pretty much always happened immediately before those rare times when I actually went in there. Thus, I spent small chunks of my youth swimming in bleach. You’re free to interpret that part however you want.

This had a predictable effect on my swimwear. I had become the owner of a pair of bright lime green trunks when I was young enough to non-ironically think that was fine. A few years later (via gradual chemical reaction and sun exposure) I was the apathetic owner of a pair of whitish, sea foam green swimtrunks, which actually seemed pretty cool at the time. This transition took place entirely in my private backyard.

Having grown up in Illinois, high school mandated that I spend huge blocks of my time doing stupid things “for my benefit.” Sophomore year, a semester of swimming was one such requirement. This story is the only good thing that I got out of that investment. Really though, others were not so lucky. Half a year of swim class went by without me noticing anything unusual.

By the tail end of the semester, our instructor had breezed through the “rigorous” swimming curriculum without incident, and (as a thanks for us not drowning her along the way) basically cut us free to pursue our own interests. One such day, she cracked open the oddly-well-stocked supply room and provided snorkeling gear for all of us. She was going to teach us the proper way to snorkel (basically, how to dive, instead of just floating around.) That took about five minutes, and we had the rest of the hour to explore the magical depths of the pool.

I actually REALLY enjoyed this. It may sound sarcastic, but deep water, a really good pair of goggles, and I get along really well. I spent a good 15 minutes casually oscillating between the surface and the floor of the deep end, by myself. This eventually seemed slightly less cool, and I decided to use my goggles to see what everyone else was doing.

That was an odd moment. At several points in my life, I have done things that drew attention to myself. This was not one of those moments. Despite this fact, my underwater view filled with images of more than half of my classmates hovering idly in the water a fair distance away, all staring directly at me through goggled eyes.

Had the circumstances been different, I would have waited a beat and demanded, “What?” Yet at this moment, I was three feet underwater and clenching a snorkel in my teeth. Options were limited. As I stared back, several of the girls suddenly, awkwardly looked away. Hmmm. I looked down.

Negligibly blurred, a remarkably clear vision of my penis floated idly between my legs in the still water. Hmmmmmmm. I spent a few seconds pondering the reality of my situation.

“My swimsuit is completely see-through. How long has it been like that? Oh wow. I sort of knew this. Whenever I get out of the pool, I’ve been pulling it away before it can cling. But I thought it was just the cling outline that showed off penis. Wait. No, I knew it was more than that. But I guess I sort of assumed that since tugging made the problem go away, it was only like that for a second? I know it’s not see-through when it’s dry. But look at this. Wow, that is really amazing. I’m basically naked here.”

This gradual analysis passed during several seconds of staring at my own junk underwater. I looked back up at the crowd. Very little had changed.

We now come to the moment that defines this story. I suddenly realized that the majority of my high school gym class had, in small groups, spent the past fifteen minutes watching me swim around in the buff. The reactions of some of the girls made it clear that they had been discussing the situation amongst themselves. It was pretty obvious that I was the last person to catch on. And, just like that, I realized:

“This. Is. Awesome.”

I was absolutely delighted.

I’m actually not the type of person who delights in exhibitionism. In fact, I’m oddly modest, all considered. But there was a strange truth in the situation, and that truth was simply that nearly all of the girls (and several of the boys) in my large gym class had all concluded that quietly watching me fuck around naked was way the hell more fun than a free period in the swimming pool. It occurred to me that people would assume that I had been wearing a see-through swimsuit to gym all year on purpose. No one had complained.

It also occurred to me that the fact that no one had said ANYTHING was the most interesting point of all. These were high school kids. The impulse to tease is strong. And yet, teasing would have likely made the see-through swimsuit go away. No one had said anything. Even later that day, no one said anything.

Life was GOOD.

Being a Good Audience

Working in the sciences enables one to encounter people unlike those found in any other profession. Their habits alarm many people who do not know what to expect. However, when viewed from a safe distance, these charming quirks can delight and amaze a diverse audience.

I would like to use this forum to provide that safe distance.

At the graduate level, it’s extremely common for people working in academia to attend large numbers of semi-formal, hour-long seminars on a wide range of topics. Audience participation varies from unashamed unconsciousness to lively back and forth with the presenter. Sometimes, though, it’s the props that make all the difference.

I recently had the opportunity to view one of the most creative forms of audience participation I have ever seen. I’m not sure why the person in question felt it was called for. It’s entirely possible that the person was just oblivious. But the effect was striking all the same.

To encourage you all to try this in your own lives, I will describe what happened in the form of a step-by-step guide:

1) Spend at least 10 minutes quietly staring at the presenter, as if encountering a new, alien species.
2) Ask a blunt, disdainful question. It should be vaguely on-topic, but need not have anything to do with the specifics being discussed.
3) Allow a few more minutes of presentation to pass.
4) Pick up the new, unopened package of Oreo cookies that you brought with you to the seminar.
5) Place the package of Oreos upside down on your lap, with the flat surface on your legs.
6) Open the package in the dead center of the large, flat side. (NOT at the end, like “normals” do.)
7) Upon hitting the plastic tray that the Oreos would normally be sitting in (you have the package upside down, right?), reach through the small seam you just opened in the plastic sleeve and begin trying to rip through the tray.
8) Try to avoid making it TOO obvious that you are attempting to drown out the offending presentation with the sound of shearing polyurethane. But yeah, totally try to drown out the offending presentation with the sound of shearing polyurethane.
9) When you do break through, do NOT make the tear too large. Tear it to be roughly the length of two cookie diameters.
10) Remove cookies, one at a time, through this small, shrieking, plastic hole. Stop while slowly eating each one while staring quizzically at the presenter. Then remove another.
11) Repeat until the presentation ends.

This technique can be used to express your displeasure with a wide range of situations that society forbids you from directly critiquing while in progress. Use liberally.

In Honor of the El

My recent travels have reminded me how much love I can have for the train systems serving major cities. I have an extra special love for the superb delights offered by the train system offered by my own home city. The El. I love you. Because love of this magnitude should be allowed to spill over and warm the hearts of others, I now offer this helpful guide. Following these simple instructions, any city will be able to build a train system of equal efficiency and comfort!

First, know that people ride trains because they are in a hurry. In many cases, walking is a very plausible alternative to taking city-based train systems. People ride the trains because they are much faster a majority of the time. More to the point, people who ride the trains are likely to be on a schedule. That said, late trains can make riders very angry! To keep people happy, it is important to minimize the number of trains which arrive late. The Chicago el is a modern wonder by never having ANY late trains! This is actually quite easy to achieve, using the El's brilliant technique of abolishing train schedules! When you ride the el, you can rest assured that there will never be a late train because there is no conceivable way for a train to be compared to a timetable. Use this system immediately!

Next, be aware that people have a love/hate relationship with the weather. By this I mean that people love being outdoors at all times and hate being separated from the elements! To ensure that people can maximize this primal instinct, minimize the sheltering effects of as many stations as possible. Position as many as you can directly above wide streets, especially those facing towards flat areas, such as large lakes and parking lots. In this way, each gust of wind will not only be felt, it will be amplified! This effect is truly invigorating, especially in the winter months when everyone most needs a pick me up. But of course, it takes all kinds. To this end, provide occasional tiny glass cubicles with heat lamps to isolate and contain the whiners. Size them to be able to comfortably enclose roughly half of one percent of the platform. That will be plenty.

Let’s turn our attention now to the insides of the trains themselves. First, recall that people take the train because they are in a hurry. People rushing to and fro do not want to relax and be comfortable! These are supercharged go-getters. Seating availability should be scaled to accommodate only the weak and infirm riders, or roughly 15% of the expected maximum ridership. This translates to 50%, tops, of your expected typical passenger load. The remaining space should be designed to resemble the sorts of places where people go to have fun – trendy nightclubs! Three words, engineers! Standing. Room. Only. As with nightclubs, expect that people have an inherent desire to cram themselves in to a provided location until it is literally impossible to move without impacting others. Choose train car lengths to enable people to have an excuse to do so. Since liquor is not generally consumed during the day, start people dancing with violent, lurching starts and stops. In this way, people will literally be forced to get frisky with each other! Community bonding at its finest! And remember, trendy night clubs are a physical experience. Even music, typically regarded as auditory, should be first felt, then seen, then heard in a club. Of course, we will not be playing music on the trains. What must be done instead is simply create the same net effect. The train, when running, should generate enough noise that it is nearly impossible to have a conversation inside of it! Nothing is more romantic than a significant glance, and this is the only sort of communication one should reasonably expect to accomplish while riding.

Finally, your train system should have an organic, straight-from-nature element to its overall design. Specifically, you want your train tracks to look like the sort of spider web where the spider got bored and left halfway through. See, everyone knows that downtown is the most important part of all cities. Therefore, everyone will want to go downtown at least once during each and every trip! This is especially true of those people who live far from downtown. They will crave its culture. To help them sate this need, connect all of your train tracks at only one point in the very center of the city. Do not, under any circumstances, connect lines at other places. Doing so would only allow for mixing of the wrong sorts of people. Did you know that the blue line is arguably adjacent to the yellow line more than halfway out of the system? No one living along the yellow line wants to think about that, that’s for sure!

With all of this accomplished, you can know with certainty that your train system is a delight to all those around it. Keeping that in mind, maximize the pleasure and revelry for your citizens! Hoist the train to the sky for all to see, and make sure that the tracks are in a condition to shriek songs of joy to everyone within three blocks every time a train passes by! In this way, even those who do not choose to ride the train can be frequently reminded of its wonders!