Nothing Ever Goes As Planned…

I had the strangest dream last night. My first memories from it were of me wandering the halls of this huge, otherworldly, low-income housing project looking for a patient I’d been assigned to do a “wellness” check on.

Yes, you read that right. The old “urban hermit,” whose own borderline agoraphobia practically prevents him from ever leaving his apartment, who could probably benefit from a visit or two by someone checking on his own “wellness,” was dreaming of being a volunteer who roams around checking in on the sick and housebound! Crazy, right?

Well it got even crazier! After wandering around seemingly forever, lost, and having to repeatedly explain myself to curious, if not downright confrontational, people wondering about this stranger’s intrusion into their domain, I ended up spending what seems like days caring after a man who’d gone off his meds while awaiting transport because he really needed to return to the hospital.

And then it was on to my next patient, a woman who’d had to have her entire face rebuilt following a terrible accident who’d become so used to hiding her grotesqueness from others that even now, after a successful, if not downright miraculous, surgery that had left her almost too beautiful to believe, was still was unable to bear the thought of anyone looking at her.

In an effort to make her more comfortable, if not gain her complete trust, I started to tell her a little about my own life. About how being a blonde-haired and white-looking “pretty boy” as a child, who seemed to have everything while living in nearly all-black ghetto neighborhoods, had instilled within me such a deep-seated and overwhelming aversion to attention. And how, despite all my own years of self-imposed exile, there I was, beaming my damned near toothless grin out of a face straight off the cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, attempting to cajole someone whose beauty I’d kill for into showing herself to the world.

And that’s when the sheer absurdity of the dream, along with a veritable tsunami of memories, forced me into a state of wakefulness with my mind reeling with billboard sized “WTF?!?!” questions! While the implications of the dream are fairly obvious of course, the question of “why now?” remains nonetheless.

I’m just guessing here, but the dream could well have sprouted from my falling asleep to CNN’s droning characterization of Gen. David Petraeus as “General Betray Us,” working in combination with the frustration I’ve been feeling lately due to my overly perfectionistic desire to “beautify” this blog (99% of which I’ve kept totally hidden from you)…

Hell, I think I’ll go with that… “Yea… that’s the ticket!”

And you people wonder why I spend so much time mocking myself… 😳 🙄

And now my friends, another selection from my list of favorite songs that absolutely no one has ever heard of and yet whose lyrics play through my mind on an almost daily basis…

 

What’cha going to do when the sun goes down tonight?
You’ll hit the same old clubs, rap that same old trash, that’s right
You’ve got them real silk shirts and them baggy pants
Dago shoes in the colors that match
But the girls are acting bored
And you’re feeling like you’re going to lose

You’ve got the G.Q. Blues

You get up every morning and you go to work each day
(you go to work, you go to work, you go to work)
Been doing the same damn job for ten long years this May
(you’ve got to work, you’ve got to work, you’ve got to work)
You’ve been working and saving for your Jamaican dream
Paradise is waiting across the sea
But when your plane lands, Montego turns to Monsoon

You’ve got the Island Blues

‘Cause, nothing ever goes as planned
It’s a hell of a notion
Even Pharaohs turn to sand
Like a drop in the ocean
You’re so together and you act so civilized
But every time that things go wrong you’re still surprised
You’ve done your duty, you’ve paid a fortune in dues

Still got those Mother Nature’s Blues

I strut around the stage like a little king tonight
They’ll scream for every word and every note, that’s right
But when the show is over and I’m all alone
Can’t reach my baby on the telephone
And everywhere I look, Mr. Loneliness is in the news

I’ve got the Big Star Blues

Boy, nothing ever goes as planned
It’s a hell of a notion
Even Pharaohs turn to sand
Like a drop in the ocean
I’m so together and I act so civilized
But every time that things go wrong
I’m still surprised
I’ve done my duty and paid a fortune in dues

Still got them Mother Nature’s Blues

I want ice water.

More from the My Life volume