It’s still dark outside. I usually wait until sunrise to put out my US flag. It’s the latent boy/cub scout in me. Flag etiquette, emphasis on etiquette.
I have an eye appointment this morning so they can do preliminary measurements for my upcoming cataract surgery next month. We need to leave at 8:15 to get there 15 minutes early. Eileen has asked me to call her at 7:30 which is in a few minutes.
I thought I would try to get some blogging in before that.
There are two silly things on my mind this morning.
The first is the dream I had last night. In it, I was bumming a ride from a family. For some reason, it meant that they would have to have me at their evening meal. My house wasn’t too far away but they didn’t seem to mind so I thought it would be nice to stay for supper.
At first they didn’t mind. But soon I understood that it was okay maybe this once that I bummed a ride and would stay for supper but it wasn’t to become a habit.
Then the Dad came home. In my dream he looked like an actual person I know but wasn’t exactly that guy. He was also a bit dismayed that I had taken advantage of their good will and not only bummed a ride but also was going to stay for dinner.
The dismay of the whole group was only gradually becoming apparent to me. I decided that it would be better if I simply walked home from their house and skipped the meal. I wasn’t upset. I could see that they didn’t really want me to stay so I thought it would be more appropriate if I just walked away.
I woke up thinking about being welcome. In my dream I certainly didn’t feel welcome. But this was only distressing because of the situation I was in not as a sense of rejection. In fact, I felt very independent in the dream and not reliant at all on being accepted.
I don’t know if I’m quite conveying the whole emotional envelope of the dream but it is quite clear to me. My presence which I thought might be not only acceptable but a good thing was complicating things in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Time to get dressed and walk away.
Many of you armchair shrinks out there have already probably come to the obvious conclusion that this is related to me being in my fourth week of retirement. But funnily enough I didn’t leave my job feeling unwelcome. In fact I felt the opposite feeling of letting people down in order to take care of myself.
So I’m not sure what the dream has to teach me.
The other thing I wanted to blog about was discovering the quirks and mistakes in podcast advertising. I listen regularly to the podcast Into the Zone. Hari Kunzru is a classic outsider with a lovely little hint of his English Indian background in his speaking voice. I noticed that the State Farm spokesman in the accompanying ad had a similar accent. Later I noticed the insistent ads for African American podcasts. It feels quite intentional.
Then this morning I was laying in bed trying to get a valuable extra hour of sleep and I noticed that the ads on the old podcast I was listening to started getting garbled. One ad would begin and then before it was done another new ad started, one I hadn’t heard before and obviously came way after the podcast I was listening to. It had been inserted and began before the first ad finished. Then abruptly the old ad returned for a second and then a word from the new ad blurped. The rest of ad section of this podcast was equally convoluted. Damn. It was so funny that there was no getting back to sleep for Jupe.