Today was mostly a waste. I did not get out of my chair for much aside from a break to stretch my legs outside, to feed the cats who were prowling around their food bowl, and take a late afternoon shower. I should have done much more, but I was really tired when I woke up this morning and thought I should wait until I had more energy. Unfortunately, the energy I was waiting for didn't come until about six p.m. when it was really too late to do anything of real importance.
The dream I had during the night was the most interesting part of my day. For some reason, I was in Japan, either as a tourist, or as an English teacher. I did not have many friends there, but I did get out of the apartment a lot and walked through the city and into the city parks when I could. There was a nice modern park along the river with broad white concrete walkways and a pedestrian bridge that stretched across it. At one point in my dream, I found that if I jumped into the breeze at the right moment and threw my arms behind me, I could glide about twenty or so feet above the ground for a really long time. It wasn't flying exactly, but it wasn't merely jumping really high either.
I went to the park to practice this pseudo gliding as much as I could. It was hard to control at some points. I remember clutching and then breaking a high tree branch to both prevent my crashing into the tree or my drifting off out of control into the sky. I think I was afraid that if I got too good at this, I might not be able to get back on the ground. I jump glided above a few people's apartment courtyards and saw a kitten or two among the clotheslines and cramped sidewalks. Most of the people in the apartment block I was staying at and flying over were fellow foreigners.
Now back at the park again, I continued to jump glide. I noticed that I was wearing a weird robe like shift with African-Dashiki-like embroidery along the collar. My hair was down around my shoulders. It was about this time that I woke up.
Back in the waking world, like I said, I did not do much the entire day. I drank way too much root beer and ate a bunch of leftovers. I listened to podcasts on Itunes again as I played computer games. I thought about the friends I should be calling to see what they were up to. I also considered going out for a drive a few times, but I couldn't find a real motivating reason why I should do either. As this is a holiday weekend, the roads would be way crowded and probably not worth the hassle.
There wasn't much on television. I find that it is getting hard for me to watch television without becoming a little irritated at what superficially appears to be going on in the world. I am beginning to suspect that what is being presented on television is an increasingly distorted view of the world and its interests. Of course, I always knew that television distorted things (*I mean, as a former English Major, I could go on and on about the construction of narrative and the editorial aspects of merely choosing what to show and not to show), and yet, it seems to me the distortions of television are getting worse. When the nightly news consists primarily of stories about the misbehavior of celebrities, I get a little depressed. If the popular version of history is to be believed, there was a time when the news told people about what the editors deemed civically important to know, not necessarily what they thought would increase ratings and thereby sell commercials and increase their profits.
Tomorrow should be a little better for me. Among the many things that I would like to do eventually is take more photographs with my camera. I've not taken many pictures lately, and I want to change that. A picture in these posts would certainly break up the wall of text I've been producing lately.