HOH Magazine: April 2017 Issue

It's been a month, what's new? This is generally the 'know' which inquiring minds want to. But what if, even after basically 30 days of continued [thank God] living, I haven't solidly accomplished anything I wrote about wanting to accomplish last month? Well, read inside; this month's issue has a few new features, as well as a few more words going on about Reverse-Valentine's Day, even though I feel I competently covered the subject last month.

First thing's first: I have officially entered the rap game under the moniker of a semi-character I created called DJ Noun.

Second thing's second: As you can tell by the date, I sure know how to procrastinate. But don't let that discourage you: this issue is thoroughly about April affairs. But I will update you on the upcoming RV-Day video; I've written it, and it is well into production. We're almost done filming... It's giving me a glimpse into how fractured and burst-like the DatelessWonders Movie filming may be (or indeed, has been.) If this Swiss Army Man spoof can kick my ass sideways, it's a good dry run for the cleats coming at my caboose for a feature-length original work; Besides allowing me to test my new lavalier mic, I'm testing the windows of opportunity to film with a friend within mutual schedule openings. Thank goodness my work is flexible.

But that leaves me waiting. If we're filming Tuesday, I don't do shit for the project Monday evening. I wait for things, and I don't build up towards them. I try to do everything at once as they come up – I was a kid who thought newspaper comic strips were delivered on the day. Waiting is also an excuse that lets me be lazy. I let my facial hair grow out do its thang since February. For the past three (at least) weeks I haven't cut my finger nails, because I realized I got some shots of objects in my hands [while the washer/dryer are running in the background, all we can shoot are insert shots] and my nails weren't cut then, so it'd be weird if they were cut in other adjacent shots. I chose to think it'll be less weird if they're longer. This was the wrong decision, but I'm sticking to it. Nobody will die because of this bad decision. I'm far and away having a better bad decision to stick to than millionaire senators with wives who have professed love for their honkey asses. ...So I'm waiting, also, to cut my nails. At the very least they scratch an itch splendidly.

"Waiting is also an excuse that lets me be lazy."

Anyway, through my failure and self-reflection I've been hit over the head with another obvious lesson, helpfully spelled out: I really need to be proactive, I can't just be waiting for something to happen, I need to be prepared as well as constantly eking forward; I need to be working up towards it even if it's little things at a time rather than all at once. This is the lesson I've had to learn this month. I like to think I have.

Oddly enough I cannot not stop stacking video projects on my plate. I had a very quick, conversation-based video I'd like to shoot after this one, that I'm justifying as an excuse to test the lav out further. (Also there's a telescopic shot I want to try and get, after noticing you can see a nearby park from my friend's back yard.) And in-between shaving for one baby-faced shot in the RV-Day video (the final shot to shoot) I want to parade around in mustache, aviators, jacket, and badge, for a fake trailer for something my mind titled "DETECTIVE, P.I." Comma may vary. But why not indulge the opportunity? Let's get funky.

What my facial hair looks like currently

Close-up with a macro lens

An even closer close-up
...Okay, admittedly this is my chin hair, and it's from February 25th.
But it's about as close as you'll get to it.

Actually I'd have to trim my mustache for Detective P.I., because it's not up to detective-grade snuff; it's unsightly, no longer content to curl around my lip like a gentle lover, it curls under my lip, into my mouth like a ravenous lover (or up into my nostril, like a freaky lover but only on birthdays.) This frequently gets in the way when I'm brushing my teeth* [with a new toothbrush head I finally started using after spending like two or three or ??? years with the previous one...], drinking from a glass, having cereal, or eating the MacGyver, which is a roast beef/Swiss/green pepper/red onion/garlic herb cream cheese toasted bagel sandwich I had at The St. Paul Bagelry's new location in Minneapolis the other midmorning.

A bagel

Apparently City Pages ranked the local -ry's as the best place to get a bagel or whatever... So the bustling of customers was apparently a symptom of its newly-appointed popularity. But I learned that while eating: we were there because we've been going to the St. Paul-ish location for a while, since yeah, it's a good place to get bagels. Call it me fronting my hipster cred, but when hipsters say they "knew about something before it was cool" let's take a step back and sympathize: I don't think they're saying it to prove how hip they were to be hip to something before it was hip. I think it's a kind of social reflex, a defense mechanism against being perceived by others (or other hipsters?) as only being in a place/into a thing because of the popularity, which may make them appear to be bandwagoners or at worst, posers. This irks them slightly, but enough to build a case against. When I used the distinction earlier, I meant it as a clarification, so I wouldn't be grouped in with customers who had heard about it from the City Pages, i.e.: "I'm not participating in this because of its recent press, I'm participating in this because my prior affinity has brought me here." This is partly a way of laying claim to "I love you this thing for you this thing." But I'm also itching against some weird urge to have my involvement known as "I'm here and it is popular, not the other way 'round." It's dumb, as the people who'd somehow and for whatever [self-hating?] reason think less of me because of an (erroneous) assumption that I'm here 'cause it's popular are horrible mediocre people whose opinions of me I shouldn't care for at all.

Because seeing people enjoy something they got wind of from an article isn't bad!! And being roped in as one of these people by some dipstick stranger isn't bad! (I mostly brought my "hipster cred" up so I could bring this point up, anyway.) Going "Hah, look at these losers reading a recommendation in a publication and then taking the author up on said recommendation! Sheep!" is a hypothetical jerk thing to do. Fuck you, hypothetical hipster. You're the hypothetical reason I'm antsy to clear the air. I welcome my new cohort customers. Stop judging people for enjoying things, motherfucker!

They're good bagels.

Their roast beef bagel sandwich was pretty good, too. But, I probably won't have another, because, rough segue: I'm lowering my beef intake because fucking morons and nihilistic death cult nazis run the country. So I have to do my part NOW instead of "When I Can Afford To Be Totally Environmentally Responsible In My Diet, Brian." So I've had one burger every month. Culver's was responsible for like, two of them. Everyone should do this. Just cut down on beef, and you'll make an impact. Just eat less, it's so easy to do because eating beef is literally something most people go out of their way to do. And even then, there are always chicken alternatives at fast food places or whatever. I'm not trying to convince you to go fully vegetarian; I can't bring myself to, yet. If you can afford to eat something other than a burger, please do it. Like, it's so passive and lazy, unlike riding a bike or installing a solar panel. Obviously I'm conscious of things with beef in them that I'll eat more regularly, or outside of fast food. But hot dogs, pizza, and 'Korean BBQ Meatballs with Gochujang (go-choo-jang) Sauce' aside, the fact that I haven't had that many burgers this year is like a huge change from last year – when I still had any hope for humanity – for me. And that's all it takes I think...
I fuckin' hope! Anyway!...

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I'm Into This! — April 2017

The THOR: RAGNAROK Teaser Trailer

Just watch it. You'll get why. Feel free to watch it daily. Make it a ritual unto the blessings of cinema which graced us Taika Waititi making a Thor movie full of Jack Kirby brilliance. That repeating riff in The Immigrant Song is so perfect to sell this story, (not to mention the obvious lyrical relevance) and it's just welcome when it gets stuck in my head. I've been so excited for Taika Waititi directing, I keep forgetting that MARK FREAKIN' MOTHERSBAUGH is providing the score, to boot. Jeff Goldblum looks amazing, Tessa Thompson looks so awesome, and Cate Blanchett is...hot damn...damn hot. I'll confess, I'd developed a lowkey crush on Cate Blanchett a few years back. And maybe that's part of why I was floored by her deadly goth look as Hela. Incredibly capital-C Cool, catching the hammer with that devilish grin. She looks like a most badass MCU villain. Let's see if Marvel can land a hat-trick of great villains this year. And, have I mentioned Takia Waititi? One final detail, is how pleased Thor is to see his ole' buddy Hulk deep in the middle of his gladiatorial pickle. It just tickles me with glee, the situation is perfect (and the joke that follows became an instant-classic.)

Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters

On March 25th, for the first of at least two times, I saw At Home with Monsters at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. What can I say about this collection of personal artwork, collected artwork, toys, props, costumes, and lifelike figures of Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, or the characters from Bride of Frankenstein? There's so much to gush about, but the aspiring filmmaker in me was most interested in connecting with this brilliant mind from that angle: what inspires Guillermo del Toro as an artist? How does it reflect what inspires me, and how can I fill my own journals and my own house with the things that fit my aesthetic and give me a creative center? I loved seeing paintings and drawings from phenomenal artists like Moebius, Hannes Bok, and some-time Disney artists Mary Blair and Eyvind Earle. My goodness.

In the introductory video filmed in Bleak House, del Toro expresses the importance of curiosity. The contents of Bleak House intend to provoke the imagination, and he says that when we lose curiosity is when we start to become old. They say the best artists are children at heart (or at least, I say,) and that quality is definitely present in Guillermo del Toro.

Guillermo del Toro and his sister, Susan, 1973

I'm sure I'll put all my photos from the exhibition on Flickr, at which time I'll update this sentence with a proper link. But here's a small taste of my experience:

Destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet, 1804 by Benjamin West, American, 1738-1820
(The Williams Hood Dunwoody Fund 15.22)

Bottom Left: Chopin v. 2.0, 2009 by Brian Poor (American, born 1967)
Top Middle: Panels for From Hell, 1988-96, Eddie Campbell, Australian (born Scotland), 1955; Alan Moore, British, born 1953

Bottom Right: "Gothic" Painting - Bohemia (now Czech Republic), 1879

The Rest: Journal pages of del Toro's

Close-up on background detail of The Great Ancestors, 2006 by Moebius (Jean Girauld), French, 1938-2012

Logo for Mirada production company, 2010 by James Jean, Taiwanese, born 1979

Designs for stained glass, 19th century

Left: Pretorius—My Only Weakness, 2013 by Mike Hill, British, born 1969 (who also did the Monster/Bride)

Left: Close-up of Duke Agares Seated atop a Shuffler, 1998 by Wayne Barlowe, American, born 1958

Concept art for Blade II, 2000-2 by Mike Mignola, American, born 1960

(Bottom half of) Bound by Nature, 2008 by Joel Daavid, American, born 1962

Concept art for Blade II by Wayne Barlowe

That's pretty much it. Here's some fashion:

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David's Fashion Sense: April Ba-BOW-ers

Sorry.

Avid readers have been chomping at the bit for this feature, a profiling of some of my attempted outfits, so here they are:

April Fool's Day outfit

For April 1st I decided to dress up festively because I realized I could, as I have this

HARVARD LAW

JUST KIDDING

shirt that I got at Ragstock a while back. It's one of those funny shirts that isn't trying that [or, more importantly, too] hard to be funny, it apes the style pretty well and it's comfy to boot. It fits my vibe and character well enough that I don't feel like I have to defend the purchase of a humorous tee from Ragstock. Anyway, I threw that low-key-relevant item on over a long-sleeved shirt that matched the typeface color, which one might purport to be an "unique spin" or "personal touch." It sure makes me feel creative. The pants are also comfortable, and the socks are because I am indoors, and civilized.

Fraquetball Casual outfit

So I got this graphic sweater from Threadless a couple holiday seasons ago, ostensibly entitled Ping Pong Country and designed by Budi Satria Kwan. But you and I who know Fraquetball clearly see the instruments of Fraquetball, which is this sport. And, like the tee-over-long-sleeves in the previous outfit, I'm a fan of the fun, creative feeling I get from putting a sweater over a button-down, with the collar out and the bottom peeking from below for balance, it's just neat. This is a light-pink button-down, by the way. The red pants are also something daring yet I don't need to justify because A) fuck you and B) let me try things. I wanted red pants, and I like 'em. The shoes are both blue Converse, another item that I felt like a tool while buying, but when I wear them I make them reflect me, not vice-versa. I serve no corporate overlords, so suck it long and hard.

Swiss Army Man - Hank-a-like Outfit

Because I've worn this particular ensemble more often than any other combination in the last month or so, I'm obligated to count it as a fashion statement. "Officially," as I've gone to a fancy restaurant dressed in it, because we stopped filming to go use a Groupon, and I didn't have time to go home and change. I simply buttoned the shirt fully and maybe tucked it in, but I'm not sure. Normally I only have the third and sixth buttons buttoned, as it looks approximately correct to what Paul Dano has buttoned with his shirt for some of the film.

Yes, this is the exercise in verisimilitude that I wear in my oft discussed Swiss Army Man homage. The funny thing about aping something comes from how close you choose to adhere to the look and the rhythms of the original work. Because suddenly an outfit that they picked out and went "yeah this shirt is fine." with little thought becomes the most specific-looking shirt in the world. And my quest to find something similar becomes a wardrobic scavenger hunt. The filmmakers don't often intend for something to be considered "the iconic _____" but when I parody it, it might as well be. I bought one shirt at Goodwill that looked okay, but I then found the above shirt (the above picture is in the dressing room) at Ragstock, which fits even better. I can't get the exact style or brand, so I flex my look-alike muscles to find what fits the spirit, the gist, the J'oublie le mot.

When I parody, for example, Peanuts, and the trailers for Inside Llewyn Davis and Her**, I focus on being as accurate as I possibly can; even when, like the linked-video's scene at a wall, I get my boot full of a foot of snow. I'll hunt for specific locations, practice the cadence and movements, buy clothing, and color-correct in post, to make it look as similar to the homagee as possible. Because it makes me feel cool, because the audience hopefully appreciates how well it compares, and I guess in some sense so the different elements of my own creation that I weave into it are highlighted. And it makes me feel connected to the production of Real Moviemakers™ & Co. when I get to explore for myself the answer to the question "how did they get this shot?" Which, when it comes to simple-looking close-ups, wides, or angles, still reveals to be more complex than they appear...

And then sometimes I'll throw a detail like "having the same color hoodie" out the window, specifically for the sledding-as-jetski-scene for this project, where I donned my single warmest hoodie to withstand the many hours spent on the cold hills. Hank wears a maroon, thinner hoodie he picks up in the forest, but I went with my trusty, heavier teal. Even my video's Manny wears a winter coat because of this scene, although it matches the blue of Actual Manny's blazer. As you can tell, my facial hair is less grown in this picture on the slopes than the second picture above, because time. It's been so much time. The hoodie is too hot to wear outside now, and even though Forrest's basement isn't in direct sunlight, that puffy coat can't be too comfortable to wear constantly; I mean, I get sweaty in the flannel.

Sure, the hoodie isn't in this...promotional still? But you'll see. YOU'LL ALL SEE!

As for the pants, eh, I didn't feel the need to go buy pants that matched Hank's specifically. They're close enough. The shirt does most of the lifting; upper-body strength! The shoe-boots ("hybrids"?) are close enough in type to therefore be close enough in look. The rest is up to my performance. I've spent many takes trying to deliver lines in the same way Dano does, whether they're verbatim from the film, in the original content, or a bit of both. At least once we've shot the "-for-shot" shots, I can stop referencing the video on my phone, of me recording my TV playing the scenes I'm copying. Oy vey, here I am talking about this project again. It just consumes my life. And editing it (which I'm about to start in earnest, I swear!!) is going to be no picnic, either.

Anyway, in summary, I am a minor fashion icon.

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Straight From The Brain – A Dream on April 7

My sleep schedule update is that there's nothing new to report. It's still fucked. I sleep in a lot. And sometimes, when I have a particularly interesting dream, I may be perturbed by waking up from it that I sleep in on purpose, hoping to return to the dream, or at least to have a different one. A consolation/revenge for being so rudely awakened by waking up.

Recently, I had a dream too fascinating from a psychological standpoint too keep it contained to my dream journal (and not just because I've got an unfinished entry in there to get back to...) This magazine is a sliver of my "whole deal" of introspection and self-analysis. So I gotta tell you. And I'm putting this at the end of an already loquacious issue, basically to ward off anyone bored enough to cop out after the Guillermo del Toro bit. This is for more hardcore readers.

I don't feel the need for a disclaimer so here's a roundabout way of placing one without placing one; the disclaimer would be about how I'm describing what I remember from the dream as it happened, which is accurate since I started jotting it down immediately. And it'd cover how I'm not responsible for the non-lucid actions (which is 99% of the dream) and events set within the 'scape. You all know how the subconscious works, you read HOH Magazine, so you're intelligent. Anyway, it's not like I kill any kids with a flying steamroller made out of wood or anything***, but the fact is I'm about to describe some surreal things I had no part in inventing, no matter how strange or embarrassing, at face value. I copy/pasted my notes from that morning, and cleaned it up in editing. This is straight from the brain.

Where to begin? Aside from parking Forrest's small, not-un-DeLorean-like car in his back yard between the tree and the swing set/play structure, which isn't there anymore IRL, I don't have much recollection of the dream or dreams I had before the big one. But the others do feel like they precede it… (Oh, one was that dream where those dudes the night before [before parking Forrest's car, not from the IRL night before] tried to rob my parked car of my possessions and drive away in it because I forgot to lock it, who I had to beat up in the parking lot.)

So, the main dream:

I'm at the Mall of America in the evening, darkening though still on the early side, with Alex, who I realize after consecutive dream cameos must be the avatar for "stock best friend character." I also haven't seen him in a while. Anyway, 

We're walking through the theme park, née Camp Snoopy, and come across a rather large, but certainly fence-separated section encompassingly entitled, "[name] Strategy Course" or "Obstacle Course" or "I don't recall but it came across in two words." In either case, this is how we/I learn the owner and operator, or at least overseer, of this area of the park (which consists of Ninja-Warrior-style obstacles, designed for kids) is The Girl I Like. The "Her," you know the one. You might have your own, I dunno. The crush that cannot be crushed. That's what this dream is about. You up to speed? Okay,

We enter, not through a gate, but over a teal-colored ladder with a plastic, Fisher~Price-facsimile sea foam colored stand at the top, which arcs over the slightly-darker teal fence. Of course I skip a few steps up on the ladder to hop over the fence in two bounds. I see children strapped into a car on a track, shaped like some fat animal, which is a ride portion of the course, or at least a ride portion of the area. Upon seeing the kids in their child-sized seats, and the skinny operating attendant dude as I land sort-of-on-my-ass after the fence hop, with Alex struggling his way over in tow, I gather that we are far too big and tall to actually participate. So what am I doing here.

We get around this awkward entrance and first impression by saying that we're just lookin' around; a line I repeat to the other two vertical red-and-white striped shirt, visor-clad employees, an older guy and possibly Alison Brie? with the added information that I knew who runs things, the free admission I needed for Alex and I to go further into the area without being bothered. What are we there for? To see the place, or to try and see her? And if so, why? Even I'm not sure, even if I understand my motivations…

Well into the enclosed area, which almost feels like a mini park-within-the-park, there are more people. I see that there are more than rides here. There's a restaurant of sorts, a Johnny Rockets-meets-deli with, possibly ice cream. I know I was looking through the glass display at some food options, and it may have been ice cream, but my interest in whatever it contained was entirely feigned, the glass hid my face while I looked up & through, at the faces of the counterbound employees, dressed in black chef-shirt/apron-y attire and black restaurant-y caps. But that's getting slightly ahead. Although, timeline-wise this part is a bit of a blur, yet somehow sets up one small callback a little later, even though it's in the same location. [I think] I can explain.

So the restaurant portion of the area is built into the facade of a circle-shaped, just-under-one-story building, which contains the kitchen for food preparation and dish washing and food storage. The building is roughly 43 feet in diameter. (I know this because I measured my house for comparison, and this building was a little wider.) There is food courty seating a few feet away from the counter.

I'm looking through the glass refrigerated case - for ice cream, or salad, or sandwich ingredients, it's not important - getting a good look at the bustling handful of employees moving past each other behind the counter, half hiding my face, occasionally turning back to say nothing of particular conversation to Alex, an attempt to look nonchalant and pleasantly aloof, like I'm not checking every working character because I have sneaking suspicions that She is here among them. I can rule out the men, and the one woman I see is certainly not Her.

Doctor Strange is there! He looks more "store brand" than "starring Benedict Cumberbatch" but I recognize him all the same. He is seated at a counter stool next to some regular people, directly to the left of the glass case, between it and the register on the left end of the counter, where the counter ends, making space in front of the swinging doors of the kitchen. On the wall there, (okay maybe this isn't a perfectly circular building and this corner here is like a slice of pizza removed from the circular building, which may or may not be stylistically intentional in its design) there is a shelf, one of many along the non-food-service-counter section of wall, nice thin, black, wooden IKEA-looking shelves that contain fun tchotchkes like retro-90's toys: action figures, happy meal toys, those robots that wind up and shoot sparks, Funko Pop! figures, a collected combination of modern nerd paraphernalia and vintage or vintage-style toys you might find at Patina. But there are also displays for miniature town/country scenes.

Display stands with a small fishing town Main Street, or a farm with a red tractor, these tiny vignettes I love so much. I tell Alex "I love these so much!" This is true, but still largely babble to avoid looking like I'm aware of the presence of other people. Strange thing about these miniatures, though, is they seem to be made up of tiny dots, like voxels but round; teeny beads that construct each element, when observed closely. I figured they might be 3D-printed.

So Doctor Strange is there. He's become invisible and lifted a scone or some crumbled cookie out of a man's pocket and waved it around to…I guess fuck with him. There is a second woman working there, and it's Her. I can tell. I can partly tell, because I don't look at her face, and I couldn't see her face either (which is what I want: no possible eye contact.) I don't want her to recognize me, yet. Because I don't know what I'm doing.

I realize I have my two-and-a-half-month facial hair contributing to my disguise. But she's also constantly looking at the wall rather than at customers: up at pink order slips or the menu written on a whiteboard. She's also got a black cap on, and has her hair in a ponytail. Maybe she's unclipping the order slips to take into the kitchen. There's no opening in the wall that accesses the kitchen, by the way, maybe the one flaw in the architecture of this dreamstaurant.

So here's why the dream is like this: over a year ago, I went to a place at a time for an open house for an establishment. I expected to see people I knew, but I did not expect to see Her. I didn't even look directly at her face by the time I recognized her, because I knew. I've seen strangers who look like her, kinda, but I think there are two levels of recognition that the brain utilizes: the "look-alike" factor that kicks in when someone kinda looks like that guy you went to school with, and the unknown, "gut-feels-alike" which activates only when the person who kinda looks like that guy you went to school with definitely is that guy you went to school with. (Do you say hi or avoid him now?)

That parenthetical hypothetical isn't rhetorical. It sprung to mind as soon as I realized I was where she was and I had not talked to her for a long time. Where do I pick up??? "Hey do you still want to see Mad Max: Fury Road? Since you purportedly weren't free that Friday eight months ago after all?"

NO!!!

I am not prepared for this encounter. I need like a week's notice, tops. Okay, so what do I do? Well, I figure since we have not made eye-contact, I am in the clear to remain appearing ignorant. If she does not know that I know she is here, she can know I am here all she wants, and I don't have to say anything. Or more accurately, if I do not think that she knows that I know she is here, I can continue to act as if I don't know she is here, so she may not know I know she is here. You know??

BUT DAVID, you ask, WHAT IF SHE TALKS TO YOU?

Well, I knew she wouldn't. And she didn't. Awkward, unexpected situations like this go both ways sometimes. (At least I hope it's for a similar reason. I didn't want her to think I was ignoring her.)

So anyway, I'm totally ignoring her, because I'm completely uncomfortable. This is all very Seinfeld. And when we come back from commercial, it's a scene where I suddenly have to stand in front of a projector, acting now as a spotlight before everyone in a room. (Why is not important.)

This room occupies at least a baker's dozen people, and Her.

However, I keep my genre-savvy cool.

1. Stand with my head in the light: she knows I'm here now, and can see me plainly. But this is my best strategy, because it means the rest of the darkened room is unseeable. Save for people sitting upper fronter, only feet away, I can't make out faces in the dark: in law this is called reasonable doubt.

(...Unless She is reading this somehow, in which case, no doubt. Ha ha.)

2. Find places to look that aren't in her direction: Just because I "can't recognize her" from her spot in the shadows in the back of the room, doesn't mean that she might think I can if I look directly at her. So, find a different place to look, always. Stare with vested interest at the others, up with me as they talk and answer questions. When answering a question addressed to me, look mostly at who asked.

BUT DAVID, you ask, but I remind you that I know

she will not ask a question addressed to me.

(I hope it's for a similar reason.)

I spend the rest of the evening going around the edges of that room, looking at computer screens at desks on the fringes, with meditative attention to whatever they have to display. I have to be so interested in what I'm watching, yes, put their headphones on. Isolate. Hide without hiding. Become inaccessible, socially.

After that embarrassing, humiliating, terrifying night, I made a promise to myself to figure out what to say to her if I ever saw her suddenly. Since ever since college, every time I've seen her has been the last, for at least a year. I can no longer assume I'll be in touch regularly. I have to assume that if I see her, I have to say what I want to prefer to say after a long reacquaintance. It's stupid but it's my life.

Anyway, back to the dream. At another point relatively around this time I'm sitting at one of the more distant tables, a square one seating four: I'm in the seat facing towards the counter. Alex sits to my left, and two other people of nondescript identities (but feminine characteristics. They may or may not be either avatars of "generic friends" but without specific forms of real people I know like Dream Alex, or randomly-generated made-up people who Dream Alex and I just met) sitting in front of and to the right of me. Although the person in front of me is sometimes on the right, next to the other person. All I know is we're with them, maybe we've ordered or maybe we're chilling, but I have a plain view of the counter. Doctor Strange is still invisible save for his head, which is resting on the stool. I guess some people think he's disembodied for real or something, so he reveals the rest of himself and stands up, and we recognize each other from across the space; we kind of sort of have an "oh yeah we met/I saw you at" moment, except the place we met was Her area of the MOA theme park. Which is here. Um...

Dreams can change locations in an instant. Apparently this recognize-moment between Strange and I retconned where we were. We were still at this restaurant, but - and not that I had to take a look around to tell - we were just at the restaurant. Inside, even. I felt we were more indoors than before, an area further in than the obstacle course for people under 4'2". So not much changed. Except, for a moment I have an odd sense, and I'm pretty sure it's that I'm Spider-Man: Tom Holland's Peter Parker, briefly and exclusively for the moment that another MCU character and I have a rapport. I'm back to being my own identity shortly.

So anyway, Alex and our new crew of +2 are back with me at the wall, looking at the miniature scenes. I get the inkling we're kind of heading out. Those three are making their ways to a door behind and to the left of me, where I haven't looked yet/the dream hadn't generated in specifics. She, meanwhile, is in the kitchen, I gather. And I spot a new employee, Andy Richter behind the counter: hair slicked down, sporting a mustache so big, he's one lederhosen away from being a German cartoon character. But he's wearing the restaurant/chef's getup.

I forget if I was awoken by a phone call from my dad at this point, or if that happened between the last dream, in Forrest's backyard, and the present dream. Evidence reveals that he phoned me at 10:19 a.m. because I asked him to, so I could get up with roughly five hours of sleep under my belt, and head off to work. I said "Mmmehmemh" and went back to sleep.

Whether that happened at this point in-dream or not, I did resurface to consciousness, and then dipped back into the dream, with a lucid desperation that fueled my pulling-trigger on my inaction: "I can't go until I talk to her."

Yes, even though it's a dream, I needed to DO SOMETHING in order to wake up not feeling disappointed. You don't need to point out how hilariously pathetic it is that even in half of my dreams about Her I am avoiding her, (particularly since the Seinfeld episode starring me,) or procrastinating to maintain or save face. I am well aware. But this dream was one where I could return with the wherewithal to tie a psycho-subconscious loose end.

Usually, when I want to finish the plot of a dream – typically when they're action-heavy or movie-worthy – I try to return to sleep and wade back in. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it doesn't, and I'm just using my conscious imagination to envision the rest of the show with my eyes closed, like a sucker. But this time I broke the barrier into the subconscious so I'm back in the dream. I walk from the wall and miniature displays to the swinging doors to the kitchen, wherefrom she returns. I grab her attention, and herself by the shoulders, to say something to the effect of "hey I need to talk to you."

It's clear she's avoiding me about as much as I was avoiding her earlier because she freezes and stares at the ground in that way that says "I can't deal with this right now." And I can't either, as I'm dream-shaking and probably dream-sweating and my dream-heart is dream-racing. My subconscious must be something of an epic poetic artist because next she pulls out a revolver and tries to shoot me. I either move barely to the side to dodge or she wasn't aiming to hit, just warn. Touché, brain.

We move over to the counter end where the register is, each of us on either side as I maintain that I need to say something before she goes back for seconds on the six shooter. I kneel, partly from exhaustion and partly for cover. I move my hold of her arms down to a hold of her hand. The left, as the right is holding the gun at her side. I finally make some eye-contact. Her hair is not in a ponytail anymore. It's unusually straightened, too. She doesn't *quite* look like herself, I bet because my brain has a hard time imagining [or rendering?] her exact face. Or maybe it's that way so I can bear to look right at it. She is undoubtedly her – the gut-feeling checks out – but she's like, "store brand." All the recognizable characters here are "store brand," save for Richter who looks fantastic.

You know, I hadn't seen the linked-above GdT video with Richter until press time,
so that isn't why he's in the dream, even though he's now shown up twice in this issue.

I probably start welling up with this brief but firm eye contact, and her eyes look like they are too, but in a "I don't want to see you hurt yourself again" kind of way. (My ability to read body language is perfect in dreams, when all the bodies are in my mind, allowing me to decode all intents, motivations and subtexts.) She's been avoiding this for the same reason I have avoided her. (Because she is a reflection of me in my mind here, duh.) This is gonna be painful. But I'm lucid enough to know this is a dream, so I speak, even though my conscious mind doesn't have control over my subconscious dialogue: "I'm in love with you. I love you. I've always loved you, ever since I first laid eyes on you." Yeah yeah yeah, recall the non-disclaimer. I'm just saying what happened; I pour schmaltzy, on-the-nose drivel straight from the stupid fucking dumbass idiot heart. Rote lines cut from wholly cliched cloth. I put none of my original flavor of diction or writing ability at all into the thought... It's embarrassingly generic. But that's to my own favor, I guess? It resulted in soberingly unfiltered, subconsciously-distilled truth. Unguarded sentiment. Raw shit.

Bleh.

But I've said it. My anxiety is gone, in this dream world at least, as I've said what I've needed to say in person, to her. Because I need to say it to someone. I haven't. I said "I like you" to someone once way, way, wayyy back and it wasn't in person and I didn't mean it at all – a symptom of not having learned that finding someone attractive and "like-liking" them were two separate concepts yet. So before I'm fucking annihilated for being born at the wrong fucking time, a time of jerkoffs of the highest odor, I want to say it to the only person I've felt the closest to that feeling for. Even if it's sexist garbage and/or wrong-headed. Which would be why I haven't. Why I'm afraid to. Because I want to be friends. I am frustrated by this crush, it's so in my way. Also I don't know if the feeling is it but it feels most akin, you know? And in many, many of my dreams I am unable to simulate this goal hypothetically, leaving me disgruntled and unsatisfied. It's exactly why I went into that obstacle course ride park restaurant area. I saw I could find her there. After that Seinfeld episode, I vowed to myself to be prepared at a moments notice, wherever I was and whomever I was with, to jump out of a moving car if I had to, to tell her the next time I see her, something that is only for my own peace of mind, because I know it's not reciprocated. I need to for me. To let it out there in explicit terms so I can move past it and focus on being a friend. And it's selfish, and dumb, and reckless? But there's gotta be something good about it.

And in this dreamstaurant, I achieved one thing I want to do in life: say that and mean it. I feel the weight [simulated] off of me in that moment. And she pulls up the gun, and I think she's again going to aim it off to the side, so I guide her to my head. I tell her she can "just do it." Like Rorschach at the end of Watchmen minus the shouting, I clasp my hands on her left hand and close my eyes and tell her Nike's slogan again and agai--

And at this same moment my iPod and my iPhone go off, and I open my eyes. It's 11:14 a.m., and I've set alarms for both: one is Twinkle, one is Sencha, so the dueling tunes wake me right up. They're telling me it's time to collect my coins and Stardust in Pokémon Go, if my Ursaring is still in the local Gym. She is.

I start the day, strangely satisfied.

But not really.

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And now for the quote:

Put your mind to something, have patience, work hard towards it, and you can probably do it.

There, I saved you a dozen bucks you wouldn't need

to spend on The Secret or whatever.

Yeah, I'll write May's issue sooner.

— David "The Pants" Hoh 

*Yes, I do floss too.
**Man, I've been plugging this video a lot, huh?
***This is not from any dream of mine, I made it up with dream-sounding details.