Recall in Normal entries

I went from at least a decade of not recalling dreams, not just content but whether or not I even had any, to, recently, being overcome with them. The practice of not even trying to remember things I might not have even had makes the memory fade quickly. My fitness tracker, when it’s working right, tracks four different stages of sleep. I seem to do most of my REM during the middle bits of my sleep, if you think of it as a bell curve, take dead center and shade fifteen percent to the right and fifteen to the left.

Christ that’s boring. The content of dreams are boring to almost everyone but the dreamer. The mechanics of dreaming even duller. The ones that haunt you during the day, well, they are almost predictable, working out stress or happiness or both in an abstract way without the ego actively making you the hero. I had a dream about my ex, the second, and my handyman, my mom’s handyman, who has ghosted on us. I don’t remember the content and though they are both on my shit list I spend a lot of time not thinking about either of them.

Late 1976 or early 1977, I think, I dropped out of high school and didn’t have a permanent residence again until 1979. Hmmm, not permanent, just an address. I was introduced to my first wife by a mutual friend who I’ve yet to forgive. In august of 1980 we moved to Oregon as I had accepted a scholarship from Portland State. By the time we were driving up the Highway to the Sun (Far North Montana) we could see the cloud of ash blowing east from the St. Helens eruption from May of that year.

In 1981, I joined the national guard. Wait, no, I joined in eighty, I wasn’t asked to do anything until early 81. In 1981 the first wife was diagnosed with a large ovarian tumor. Two weeks in a hospital on anti-biotic drips and such and the doctor says we weren’t likely to have children. For three months I had to re-evaluate marriage. I hadn’t even thought of children, but, facing the concept of never having them was depressing in a self-centered way. Not sad, not life changing, just … the prospect of death till you part with her alone was … I don’t know, I decided I really wanted kids. Three months later we were pregnant with my son. Two years and some change later pregnant with daughter.

I dropped out of college two months before she was born to take a job as a cook for the State of Oregon. I also took a job with a methadone clinic and a private organization that ran halfway houses and education programs. The job I wanted with the state was one of those jobs where you need experience to do it. I was creative enough with my resume that those three jobs and the support of the assistant director got me the job as group life coordinator II (a cross between a counselor and a prison guard).

In 1987 the voters of Oregon passed a bill that was presented as a property tax relief and it was if you were a corporation. Everyone else got fucked and the entire state economy had to be reworked. If an effort to keep us relevant our delinquents were transferred for a month while we went to train as sex offender counselors. Half our team was old school and didn’t believe our job had anything to do with counseling (they had a point) and that the training was pointless. Eventually it failed and we lost the place anyhow.

In 1989 the seahag graduated and our peoples came out to Oregon to witness. A month prior she told me she was a lesbian. The morning after graduation I went to LA for a week or two, came back and moved into an apartment. Funny, I don’t remember apartment searching or even anybody giving me a heads up on good locations, deals, anything. I think the apartment was a good deal, it was not a great location.

Before I had the accident that permanently fucked up my back I had a really bad back spasm. I had to scoot on my back to the phone as I couldn’t stand or roll over. I dialed upside down from the ground and dialed 733 several times getting the wrong number recorded voice. I tried doing it backwards (no, not 337) and got 911. The phone was propped on two milk cartons. I had a wok, silverware for three, a coffee maker, bed and linens, a TV (also on milk crates) a papa-san chair (one of my best second dates ever happened in that thing and a boom box (the CD’s in the milk crate under the box). My girlfriend at the time came over to help me clean and cook. Her sense of humor was wry.

The last three months of our payroll budget was difficult for the bosses to figure out. All eight of us took the state van to the big institution where we put in six hour days (two hours travel time made it an eight-hour day). The other Group life coordinators hated us. We were all in a higher paygrade and weren’t really expected to do much. I bought a house because fiscal instability gives me wood. Yes, I’ve had wood for years now.

Shit. I was going somewhere with this, I mean I’ve told versions of all this, less events more detail. So, this wasn’t about content, but, now I can’t remember what it was.