Saturday, December 18, 2021

Profligation

Dreams.  What could they mean?  Merely products of an overactive mind?  Or do they provide a glimpse into an uncertain future?  It's difficult to say for sure, but for decades, there has loads of science investigating the unconscious state of dreaming.  The causes, the need and/or the necessity of dreaming.  That's not what this is about.

My dreams tend to air on the side of strange.  I know this much about my unconscious state.  My dreams tend to be something as stupid as white water rafting with the likes of WWE superstars, The Undertaker,  Hunter Hearst Helmsley (Triple H) and Stephanie McMahon or I've dreamt murder/mystery stories that could be blockbuster films if ever realized on the silver screen.  Most of the really good stuff, quickly disappears once I awaken and I can't remember the finite details.  (Plus, I can barely write this blog that no one reads, let alone pen the next Hollywood hit.)

This morning, I awoke about a half dozen times, from the time of 5am all the way up to the present (8:30am).  Normally when I wake up this often, my head is plagued with a number of images and stories, but not on this day.  I woke up every time, wondering..;  Is trounce a multiple of bounce?

Now before the one reader who mistakenly wandered onto this site and decided "What the hell?" and read it anyway, saw this statement and has declared me a f**king moron, keep in mind, I've already Googled the meaning of both and know that bounce doesn't restrict an item to hitting the ground twice and trounce doesn't refer to three rebounds or more.  If I continued down the path of trying to declare this to be the case would be shear idiocy. This is simply an example of how my brain works.
       

In the back of my mind, I knew there was a difference.  That the explanation wasn't as simple as bi meaning two and tri meaning three.  The English language can be a little f**ked up, but it makes more sense than this.  Again, my brain works differently than other people's.  Always has, even before I had my accident.

I had a dream once, where I was at a Agriculture show with two people of whom I was familiar with (in the dream, but in real life, I hadn't met them yet).  The reason this dream was so memorable was the three of us were speaking to a farmer about emu's.  Up to this point, I had never heard of an Emu, and when I awoke, I had to investigate whether or not this was a real thing.  It is.  Many months later, I was attending a class at SIAST and our class was sent to the local Agribition, where I hung out with classmates, Christine and Derek.  Two people who I hadn't known when I had the initial dream, but whom I was familiar with that day and... Yes!  We stopped and spoke with a farmer who raised... [dramatic pause] ... Emus.  F**king weird, right?

I could fill volumes about the strange dreams I've had and have been able to remember.  Who the hell knows about all the shit I've forgotten?  I'm willing to bet that I probably did have a few million dollar ideas in the mix.  However, I believe this blog has strayed far enough off the initial subject that I had hoped to address in this blog, this morning.  I'm like Hulk Hogan, by which I mean, I can't seem to stay on one subject and am distracted by all the shiny shit that accompanies said subject.  (If you're one of the sorry souls who read Hulk Hogan's book from way back, you'll understand that reference.  It was a painful read, to say the least.)

Bounce: (verb) (of an object, especially a ball) Move quickly up, back, or away from a surface after hitting it; rebound (once or repeatedly).
(noun) Rebound of a ball or other object.

Trounce: (verb) To defeat heavily in a contest; To rebuke or punish severely.

EmuThe emu is the second-largest living bird by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius.

Profligaterecklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources. (Or this edition of Brain Matter.)

I don't really have an out for this blog, so I will leave you with this.  If you've made it this far into this blog and liked it?  You're my audience and you may enjoy previous entries.  They're not all golden, but some of them are pretty good.  If you begrudgingly made it this far and haven't liked a single word, except maybe Emu (because it is a fun word to say), you have my apologies.  However, you may want to check out past entries.  They're not all golden, but some of them actually are pretty good.

In closing, everyone have a Merry Christmas! 🎅

Monday, December 13, 2021

Fat Lip

 
I'm not a fan of winter and never have been really.  Some folks look forward to the fall season, followed by winter.  My nephews, especially, as the ice skates come out and they play hockey in the back yard.  They play hockey all year 'round, but building happy memories of skating in small circles and putting that puck in the net, that is just so much more appealing.  I guess if I had something special like that to look forward to, my feelings about winter would be different.

My reason for disliking winter go way beyond my playing hockey outside.  In fact, I've never laced up a pair of skates solely for the purpose of playing any kind of winter sport, let alone hockey in my own backyard.

One of the many attributes that winter provides, besides locking up all my joints, is my lips.  My bottom lip, usually, although the top has been known to act up.  I rarely go outside, anymore, for reasons besides necessity.  For instance, you'll probably not find me standing at rink side, in my sister's backyard, cheering on my nephews.  I just don't like being outside in the cold.  However, when I do venture out into the subzero climate, my lips chap up.  I try to keep my face and mouth covered, but somehow my mouth chaps up.  When they do that, they crack.  Then, for some reason, because I can't leave well enough alone, my tongue gets in there and starts rubbing the hell out of the opened spot.  I guess Dr. Tongue feels it knows more than my brain.  Now the spot is irritated even more.

Meanwhile, my brain and the rest of my body, tongue and lip in tow, venture through my house, seeking out that single tube of cherry lip balm that I remember using either... Was it last year or the year before?

By some stroke of luck, I manage to locate the item, pop the cap and am surprised that it's still good and place it, immediately, upon thine own self.  The coolness of the medicated stick immediately brings some relief to the sore area.

The days that follow, remain up in the air.  Either the swelling will go down and I can carry on with life as I know it or the spot is going to be continually irritated by my stubborn tongue.  It's really a crapshoot after that.

Even now, my bottom lip split about a week ago.  I managed to control the irritation with chap stick, but I don't always remember to take it with me when I venture away from my house.  It's an ongoing fight.