Click images for desktop size: "In Bones We Trust" by Unknown When I dream, or at least remember my dreams, they are always very heavily plotted stories. They're seen like movies, complete with retakes and cutaway shoots with insets and over the shoulder close-ups. Otherwise my dreams are just fleeting images, like wayward film frames.
Lately I've been dreaming about pain. I feel the pain in my dream. I wake up and sure enough I'm in pain. Prophesy fulfilled.
Since dreams are important, they tell me, I wonder what these strange overly constructed dreams of mine mean. Dreams are the way the subconscious mind helps us deal with the issues of the day, the reconstruction of events filed into memories, trauma and events forgotten. ( At least thats what they taught me in the classes I had to take to deal with victims of child abuse) My dreams often consist of shot after shot of a key being removed from a dresser. Different angles, different lighting, until I get the correct shot and the dream continues.
A lot has happened. Nothing earth shattering or even important to anyone but me.

Click images for desktop size: "Gloucester Harbor" by Edward Hopper I went to the Doctor's on Friday, the GP. He gave me some chores. On Saturday my friend and I got the prescriptions filled. We got the Blood Pressure machine and more diabetic testing strips.
My blood pressure is high. Not scary so but high. 150 over 86 one morning! I'm putting it off to the pain and the tension about even using the blood pressure machine.
I haven't been checking my blood sugars as well as I normally should. The strips cost like eighty bucks for a months supply, so I got into the habit of only checking it when I felt weird or wanted to eat something on the "unapproved" list.
There's nothing to justify this. My blood sugars have been a bit on the high side. As the diabetes at this stage could lead to blindness or to losing a limb I'll have to go back to being paranoid checking them even after I finish the doc's medical stats diary.
Diabetes is a degenerative disease. It only gets worse. Its like a car, as much as you pray a knock in the car isn't going to go away until it breaks down or you get it fixed. I'll have to keep a tighter rein on everything.
Today becomes the first day of my extended walking exercise program. Its hard to figure. I can walk 2 miles in less than a half hour by myself. When I walk the dogs the same walk takes about 90 minutes. Some of that extra time is due to weird little doggie detours and stopping to smell the lamp posts of life.
I also have to figure where we're going to walk to. My puppy and the giant dog don't like going to too many new places so I need to double our walking time while staying relatively close to their comfort zone and working my body a bit.
I think that means walking around in circles.
On Saturday we too of on a mini shopping spree. The main goal was this decent second hand book store.
We also made a run for Gluten Free Ice Cream Cones for my friend. The place where she used to go for them was closed. HAd the sign up: "Under New Ownership Opening Soon".
Every time I see that I wince. The Oriental Theater on Sunset had that sign on their marquee for 4 years until it finally reopened; not as a movie house but as "The Guitar Center".
We went to 4 other health food joints on a vain quest for the elusive ice cream cone.
My friend got three vegan cookbooks she'd been coveting. Not second hand. She's been working like
Click images for desktop size: "Favorite Poet" by Alma Tadema a lost slave for the past couple months. I was pleased she'd gotten something that mad her eyes light up.
We stopped for lunch at some sea food place. Eating out was hard on me. I could barely chew. I had a "Cajun" Poor boy sandwich that I ate with a knife and fork. I never learn to not order cajun food except in Louisiana. It was okay for all that. It felt alien to be sitting in a restaurant with just my friend. I liked it. I still have this habit of always looking around for someone I might know.
We finally got to the bookstore and they had a sale on cookbooks! 35% off. RAH! My friend got 11! I found three of my Destroyer books, all three of them ghosted by my friend Will.
We drove home. The car did fine and we felt happy.
Sunday was just a lounging around day. Need those periodically. Monday my friend took the day off. We had some light plans but it turned into another lounging around day.
I'd enjoyed "King of the Texas Rangers" so much I decided to check out some more serials. I was disappointed, not in the serials themselves but in the discs. The Columbia serials (which tend to have better actors but less excitement and poorer special effects) looked like they'd been mastered from beat to death VHS tapes. There's was tearing at the bottom and occasional rolling!
The Republic serial, "Dick Tracy" looked like it was a CAM but not recorded from a screen but from an old sheet hung in a windy barn!
"Daredevils of the Red Circle" suffered from the same flaws but was,
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Soa Lee so far, at least watchable. Its pretty cool. The heroes are circus daredevils! The youngest is an escape artist, the middle (Herman Brix) a strong man, and the eldest an Olympic High Diver and Rhodes Scholar, or something similar.
Its been decent so far but its still hard to understand how Brix can stop crooks from fleeing by lifting up the rear end of their car but is lousy in the fights!
I also watched "The Yakuza". An old movie I first became aware of when I was a kid. The whole town was talking it up. Paul Schrader had managed to get the studios into a major bidding contest. Martin Scorsese was begging to make the movie. Sadly Sidney Pollack, he of "Tootsie" fame got the deal. If you'd ask me who would be the least competent director to make a big budget yakuza flic Pollack would have been near the top of the list.
It was cool that they had the brains to get a still fit and exceptional Ken Takura to play the lead. Even cooler they got sleepy eyed Robert Mitchum to play the American in Japan.
It was interesting to see how Pollack destroyed a great story. Takura and Mitchum wiping out a yakuza gang should have been classic but it was just boring. The only other time I saw it was when it first came out. I thought it was boring then. Sad that my kid instincts were justified by the crusty old man reality of today.
I can't help but thinking about how cool it could have been.
Dog baths today. The world quakes.