윤

Why are you hearing it now, you ask
Maybe you’re closer to here than you imagine
Maybe you’re closer to here than you care to be

I only heard the first part recently so I thought it was a recent remix’s addition, because oh man, are those lyrics incisive compared to the rest of the song.

I haven’t been running much lately, but last night I had a dream I was on the street around the block and awkwardly encountered Steven Devadanam (pardon my spelling, it’s been a while) with his toddler child, but before I could think of an excuse not to have to catch up, a man came rushing past, a terrified look on his face. We saw no one or thing in pursuit, but Steve wasn’t taking any chances, picked up his kid and took off down an alley; I saw the wisdom in his act, but didn’t consider that my lagging behind them would endanger us all, because my legs weren’t providing the speed they used to. Do they ever in these situations?

And worse, I’ve been craving donuts, which must’ve made me dream about visiting Will at his new place of employment in a big office building, which had inside its own Japanese chain of specialty donut-hole pastries. This business catered only to companies large enough to house and sustain their branches, and struck me as a brilliant concept, until, of course, I woke up and remembered those sad little shops closed after hours in the Minneapolis sky-walk connections.

The product announced today has me tempted to capture one of my 全力坂 runs before it’s too late, even if it may already be, ironically, for my own vision.

Update: I don’t think it’s particularly creepy or Black Mirror-dystopian to record with one of these on, any more so than using a giant phone or iPad camera, but I did wake up screaming at a swarm of bugs hovering above us last night, only to realize that it just might have been the kind of nightmare AR will make possible.

Luckily the 6-year-old X is still compatible with the newer watch to track yet more information from my heartrate, whose accuracy I can really only gauge from recognition of my dreaming state immediately upon waking. Earlier this morning we were on a plane (just having completed our Spring Break trip), when I noticed, from a view up front and not through a tiny window above the wing, that it was flying far too low and would need quite the pull to avoid the oncoming buildings. Instead, however, the captain made the audacious decision to land with no nearby airport, careening first through a chain-link fence, of which I knew lesser vehicles were capable, but the brick wall that followed, that left only our cabin intact. Apparently there was a medical emergency onboard that prioritized this reckless act above the safety of all the passengers, though one Black woman with a cancer-stricken daughter didn’t think so. Don’t remember much of anything from my return to REM sleep later except that a news broadcast referenced the crash.

“Have you been in Five Guys, Callum?”
“Oh, at least.”
I suppose it is funnier that way, so I’ll give [Inside No. 9 writers Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton] a pass, as clever as their writing usually is. Plus, the use of the River Styx mythology in [latest series opener] “Merrily, Merrily” reminded me how each go on the rower could be my last. I had always imagined achieving a threshold S/M to cross over into dream-life, but maybe it’s more like the Flash outrunning the Black Racer. What happens when Charon can’t pay me? One thing’s for sure, if I can’t cough up the fare, it might very well be because Five Guys cleaned me out. Over $20 for a single burger, small fries and a drink?!

Physical infirmity nowadays punishes my every exertion, but occasionally I overcome my self-debasement in my dreams and get to be a badass. The other morning I was a leader among an army of monstrous criminals and degenerates living in a post-apocalyptic underground bunker. (Think Mad Max or 北斗の拳, though I described it upon waking as being dressed like a cowboy.) There was a slit of light on a ledge twice my height but I easily leapt onto it from the sandy floor and passed through to the bright outdoors, which I learned was on a rocky moving island. Exploring further, I encountered a settlement of young, mostly naked Asians, who took little notice of me as I swam by and saw a montage of their cultural history, including a teaching moment with Chinese characters 安娜 being placed on a 바둑 board that made me realize I belonged. When I looked back, however, I noticed that a group of my former brethren had breached their confinement, so I intercepted and easily overpowered them. My new friends confined the motley creatures to shelves and put them on trial, while I kept order by spearing anyone who got rowdy with a red ballpoint.

This familiar setting always takes me back to the titular movie, which Chris reminds me our mother actually took us to see at a theater, maybe because she was in her thirties and the target audience of Richard Harris pushing 50, but it left such an impression I’m still dreaming about being as lucky with the tawny-haired ladies as he was at the same age. In another couple of years we would’ve been truly scared shitless by these guys instead of those homeless unhoused-looking derelicts that prove their outlook on the future back then wasn’t too far off.

Miserable start to this anniversary of that heinous revolt: I dreamed Six o’ One Patrick McGoohan and I were on the run and had only a small guardhouse to pass, so I let the champ sneak in and do his thing—only to find that he failed and was being held by a group of ruffians; it was Wild Wild James West who never lost a fight, after all. Their leader approached me with all the swagger his entourage afforded him and effortlessly caught my fist, mocking me. If only I could muster the strength to challenge his grip, but it would take longer than I had left, more confidence in myself to reign in my insecurities. Incompetent leadership at work got to me and my run didn’t make up for it, but by the end of the day I was chuckling at the sodium warning on Taco Bell’s new limited-time Crispy Chicken Wings (seasoned with “Mexican Queso”, for future reference).Napped during lunch and saw a passenger jet whose pilot the news said had successfully regained control of it to land intact; was more of a vertical drop out of the sky onto the runway in the near distance, but it didn’t go perfectly: as I looked closer, the plane’s body began twitching, as if it were going to explode. There were two young girls beside me and I pushed them to take cover from the blast behind a parked American sedan while the building wall kept me safe.

Not so much the fear of seeing rocks, feeling them, petting them nor even being pelted or crushed by them, but walking across them, as we saw this morning: I was part of a team that seemed to consist of co-workers from both current and previous jobs wrapping up an onsite client visit to a warehouse. The manager there offered me one of their uniforms for me to wear next time, so I waited for him to fetch it for me while my party left for the car, and surprisingly through all the commotion at the end of day (as well as typical disappointment from my dreams), he came back with a new green/navy reversible down vest. It was cold outside and I put it on over my own coat, which was probably the hooded Uniqlo one I’ve been wearing around the house this month. My wallet and phone were in my back pockets, too, also unexpected since I usually lose them. The parking lot was way off in the distance from the building exit, past a ravine-like field which had to be crossed by rock formations along the edges. People were still coming and going, and to avoid one oncoming fellow I opted for a lower path to his left that I soon realized wasn’t going to get me to the other side as all the jagged boulders ran out and sank into the dark pool below. I leaped to an abutment to the side but it wasn’t stable enough to support my weight, gave way like rock shouldn’t and I had to grab hold of one flimsy attachment after another. Onlookers gasped while I relied on my pull-up strength to stay above water, but as I inevitably felt my butt submerge—no wonder I was left with my things—the lesson of this short segment dawned upon me, always to take the high road.

After the bathroom break, I was driving the XTerra again and exited off a freeway intersection into an elongated entrance to one of our gated communities. (Last I swear I saw Sylvilagus was along this path to CPE on an early lockdown run before the Asics mask, but surely my two signature bandanas was a giveaway…?) I asked John Chen if he wanted to be picked up, but he wasn’t interested, no surprise.

Update: Rained like it does here once a year today and during whatever is the opposite of sleight of hand that happens getting into the car (namely, the transfer of the contents of my back pockets to my front rather than sit on them, hindered by anything I’m already carrying, in this case a wet umbrella mid-collapse), my wallet fell into a puddle as premonitioned earlier. I picked it up out of the water quickly enough that the last of the paper inside would be unscathed, maybe because I knew I was better off it dropping than my phone, there was no pause for misery. It was almost comical, too, the first time ever in the drought-stricken Southland when I remember driving through Texas torrents that made the windshield look like aquarium glass, like the surfeit of silly storylines on this season of Curb that required suspension of disbelief in our annual precipitation.

Damn Marxists on r/antiwork, bless their hearts, call for a boycott during McRib season? I suppose just the mention of it in this context has disqualified me from their ranks, fucking wannabe leftist that I am, knowing full well the plight of labor but availing myself of its fruits. It’s too bad, too, because I’ve recently gotten into the habit of walking or biking there with a smug sense of self-satisfaction that doing so somehow offsets their insalubrious menu; by not eating in I can do my part to stave off breakthrough infection and disparage the Lexus-driving Koreans who have moved back inside from their makeshift camps in the parking lot; and ogling the occasional black-clad employee who hands me extra BBQ sauce without the least concern for an adequate wage to be objectified by old pervs.

Surely the inspiration for my pre-AR AR-idea, though every once in a great while I’m blessed by a real-life reminder, like the other evening when after hundreds of 全力坂 runs the Universe manages a confluence of upper-echelon specimen from the local demographic and timing along that stretch of Clydepark where my last sighting of one in cut-offs and cowboy boots I’ve come to dismiss as a mirage.

This was a form of torture to which I was to be subjected—for what or by whom I don’t think was ever identified—but it caused me very little dread, even if my toes were completely removed, maybe because running is blackening each nail and flip-flops have all but ravaged the soles of my feet to where they no longer seem part of my body proper. (Speaking of which, losing those Reefs on the curb and never being able to replace them was one of my many experiences teaching me to stock backups against discontinued product. Latest example are wired headphones, but soon it might be the Lightning adapters for them.) Like the universe is taking me back starting at the borders.

Update: Legs felt heavier than ever, and made it an effort to lift each one, like my heart wasn’t getting the bonus coordinating the work anymore. There’s barely anything left to my stride. Could the safe zone be closing in on my extremities?