That Old Narrative

I am reconsidering a narrative I once thought about writing: an otherwise completely ordinary (and generally untalented) math graduate student stumbles upon a brilliant result that he otherwise doesn't understand--he realizes it's brilliant, but doesn't know how he thought of it, and knows he will never discover anything like it again. I am considering what the fiction of the result will be, and come up with something about a statement of meaning, M, and its self-referential equivalent, M', and showing that there exists a perfect isomorphism between any space made up of M's and the space made up of its equivalent self-referential M-primes. Then I am considering if there actually might be something in that, when I dimly recall some other result that where if I have two functions that are "onto" from one space to the other and vice versa, I can construct an isomorphism. Or something like that, anyway.

"You Have To Face Your Fears"

L. and I return to the cave where we have stashed our stuff to find that two guys have taken it over. We are incredulous--how can they have encroached on our space? They are nonchalant. I am annoyed—I can tell immediately that these two are a type of guy I loathe. "You have to face your fears," says the more talkative of the two. He comes out of the cave, tosses a loop of rope over his shoulder, and starts rock-climbing up the face. I realize that we are on a ledge on a sheer cliff face--there may be other ways down, but the only way up is to climb. It's not far but it looks terrifying. But the other guy is doing it, so I suck it up and start climbing. The surface isn't rock, but thick tree bark. The climber above me is taking a slow route up, going side to side a lot, but I find a more direct route. I make one last push upwards, grab the top, and the other climber pulls me up. I turn around and the other guy has just climbed behind me. "L. will never make this climb," I think, but then there she is, also throwing a hand over the cliff edge and then being pulled up. We're in a national park, and we walk from the top of the cliff to the parking lot. Each party sort of dimly acknowledges each other as we go to our cars.

Back In The Day

In Seattle in the early 90's, the Posies are recording their major label debut as a low-fi indie record in their living room. I watch them, already knowing that in the future the label will reject it and make them spend a truckload of money recording a new one. Still I wonder where that record is now, can I find it somehow? On Broadway they and their associated scenesters have a diner--at first I don't recognize the building, but then I realize that this was nearly 20 years ago and many things in the neighborhood have changed, and that today this building is a clothing shop or a supermarket or something. Inside, M., my high-school girlfriend, waits tables. She doesn't seem to see me, or else doesn't recognize me. It's morning, I decide to use the shower, which is a totally inaccessible metal cylinder suspended off the ground--you have to stand on a table to use it.

I Live In A Very Big World

We are assembling at the elevators at work to go to some sort of social function together. I take the elevator down ahead of everyone to use the bathroom, then while waiting, wander into the next room. This turns out to be my high school gymnasium, where either the JV squad is playing, or the varsity team is playing an exhibition game. I wander accidentally onto the court, but no one notices or cares, and I quickly walk up to the stands and watch for awhile. A player runs down the court as if dribbling, but he is sorting through his mail, tossing aside junk mail here and there. It is Friday evening. I wander home. I live in on the middle floor of a three-story condo-like structure. In the fading light I drink a glass of Pinot Grigio and sit on the steps and look out the window. I have a great view of downtown Seattle and the water behind from here--how can I have never noticed this before? I walk down into my living room--in fact I have a sweeping 180-degree view of all of this. Strange, you'd think I would have noticed this. The wine I'm drinking is amazingly delicious. I remember that L. has moved from the East Side and has just taken an apartment down the hill from me. I should call her. But I don't want to just yet.

Flight

In a strange sort of junkyard, the proprietor lends me his pedal-powered single-prop plane, and I start flying around. I am flying above the city when the propeller breaks off (it is very flimsy, as it turns out) and I plunge down into a small river below. I remember that I have left everyone at the hotel, and I have to get back to them. I need to fix the plane, so I will need to get parts. I drag the wreckage to a parking lot where my truck is, but it is old and rusted and will not run. I realize it is a dream and transform the truck into a brand new pickup, one of those big American rigs the size of a giant SUV. Now I will be able to drive back to the junkyard and pick up a spare propeller.

Farewell To All That

I'm working a summer at Idyllwild. The people there are shallow and boring and I think, "I'm not coming back."

It's 8th grade, the day I've come back from my winter trip to France. I walk up to my locker, worried that I won't remember my locker combination, but it comes to me, and I successfully open it and start transferring things out of my bag. In class, the teacher remarks as to how the people at Christ's birth were Christians. I say that there were no Christians in the year 0 A.D., and everyone laughs and the teacher concedes my point--she meant they were Jews. Of course. School continues as we go on to tour around and do homestays in random places.

Fear Of Flying

I'm sitting on a plane about to take off. I decide to use the bathroom, as I see other people are doing it, and seems like I have time. I go to the one at the back of the plane, and just as I go through the door, the plane starts to taxi down the runway. I decide that the best thing to do is just sit down and wait until we're in the air. But something seems to go wrong--the plane suddenly goes into a barrel roll (which I ride out by walking up the walls, across the ceiling, and back down the other wall). An announcement is made over the plane's PA system that the plane will be making an emergency landing back on the runway.

Later, in a lawyers office, I am being debriefed about the incident. She says, "There's no way this could have happened unless someone was in the bathroom at the back of the plane at the time of takeoff." It is something about the weight of the plane being out of balance. I say to her, yes, that is exactly what happened, it was me (after all, who could blame me for that? How could I know?). She says, no, if that had happened the flight attendants would have seen the alerts go off. I insist that I was in the back of the plane when we took off. She says no, that is not what happened.

Long Narratives I Can't Remember

A large villa in Mexico with a mysterious woman whose body is entirely painted blue.

Strange Powers

L. and I are sitting on a couch watching tv when I realize I'm dreaming and start exercising my whims on things in the dream. The person on the tv starts saying what's in my head and L. turns to me and says, "Hey, that's exactly what you would have said." This suddenly strikes me as an incongruity: I'm dreaming, but L. is seeing what I'm dreaming, which can't be. We wander through a variety of settings where I try various ways of exercising my in-dream powers, and she experiences them all as if they were real. We wind up in a theater-like setting watching some sort of game show-like production. The host at some point realizes that he is merely a puppet and has no free will of his own, and collapses into existential crisis. I try to placate him by telling him that it's okay, he's just a character in my dream, but he still "exists" in some sense of the word. I realize that this is just making him more upset.

Joke Gone Awry

S. has staged an elaborate practical joke of some kind, the aim of which is to photograph me either holding a wooden stake or appearing to be staked (as if I were a vampire). In aid of this he and an accomplice lure me into some kind of academic office building, where everyone is in on the joke. They chase me around and try to capture the desired photo. When I finally realize the plot, I am indignant and hurt. Why would S. do this to me?