Posted 2 years, 2 months ago around lunchtime by oso
I’ve been having insane, intense, vivid, and long-lasting dreams every night for the past week or two. And it’s not like I’m the guy who remembers his dreams. Hardly ever. I can go months without remembering a single scene from that surreal space of sleepiness. But not this week. It’s got me all fucked up.
You know how if you go to sleep while listening to a certain album or right after reading a particular book or talking to a friend on the phone, then those things, those people, they work their way into your dreams? Well, the last thing that I do right before I go to sleep is write a newsletter summarizing all the day’s content on Global Voices. (you can subscribe to it here). That worked out just fine before I started remembering my dreams, but not anymore.
It has me realizing something: this world is no bueno. A few nights ago I was in Haifa and there were missiles raining down everywhere. Nobody wanted me to leave the house (it was more like an ugly condo) because of the missiles, but I was feeling seriously claustrophobic. I kept telling them that I needed to get out and take a walk, but they said I was an idiot for even thinking about risking my life. It was their condescending tone that really pissed me off. I don’t remember if I went out to take a walk or not though.
Before Haifa I was in Baghdad. It was my fault we were there - me and the girl I’m dating in the dream - because I said I thought it would be good for our relationship … a change of scenery. Anyway, it turns out that she’s not such a fan of Baghdad because, you know, there’s a war going on. So I tell her I’ll go down to the market, buy fresh ingredients, and cook an amazing meal. I’d even find a bottle of wine somehow. There I am in the market (which, tangentially, is identical to the markets in Cuba where you buy rice and beans with your government-issued ration card). And, once again, I’m getting seriously annoyed because nobody has the chile pepper I’m looking for and I’m sure they’re just keeping it from me because I’m white. Then a bomb goes off and everything goes up in flames and everyone everywhere is running around and I feel so bad about yelling at the lady who told me she didn’t have any chile peppers.
Last night’s dream was just as vivid even though there weren’t any missiles or bombs. Sparsh (happy birthday) and Abogado (happy birthday) and I are swimming at La Jolla Cove … the same place where in non-dream-life Sparsh and I go swimming every weekday. I don’t know who invited Abo to this dream though because he’s not such a fan of swimming. But I digress … so there we are about a mile off the coast and this big set of waves starts rocking our world. I look up and Sparsh and Abo are still swimming, about 20 feet in front of me. There’s no way I’m gonna let my frenemies win so I put my head down and start swimming as fast as I can. But then the waves get really big and slam me into a rocky reef in the middle of the ocean. I try to gain my footing, but the swell keeps knocking me over. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, but the water is dark and storm-like. Outta nowhere there’s Sparsh on my same little rocky reef and I give him a high five because we’re both still alive. (sorry Abo) The waves die down completely and we see a little fishing village on the coast that we could easily swim to. The fishing village is completely deserted except for one woman in a touristy Indonesian hotel about 500 feet up a dirt road who cooks us Nasi Goreng. It takes Sparsh and I a long time to understand what she’s telling us: a big wave came and killed everyone in the village. We don’t accept the woman’s assertion, we explain to her that we were out swimming in the ocean and that even though we lost our homie (RIP), there’s no way those waves could have possibly wiped out an entire village. No way.
Can I tell you what else has got me all fucked up? Dr. Bronners. That stuff is nuts. And speaking of nuts, did you know that genitalia is hyper-sensitive to peppermint? True story, discovered thanks to Dr. Bronners.
Here’s something from the New Yorker about an 11-year-old New Yorker:
An eleven-year-old New Yorker, a passionate supporter of Les Bleus, had been playing each of the French World Cup games over and over on his Nintendo Gamecube FIFA game and - with spooky accuracy - had been using the aggregate scores to predict the outcomes of games not yet played. But nothing in the video game could have led one pixel-constructed figure to turn around, succumb to an irrational animal urge, and bash another pixel-constructed figure in the chest. “It just never happened in the Gamecube,” he said afterward, bewildered. An inexplicable human act was the one thing you couldn’t program. That reminder may have been, in its way, the saving grace of this curious fall.
I’m seriously thinking about turning in my Progressive badge. It would be the only honorable thing to do. No, HP hasn’t influenced my political thinking … it’s this heat. You see, we (San Diego? California? The West? The US? The World?) are in the middle of an energy crisis. Presumably the problem is that it’s 150 degrees with 5000% humidity and so everyone has their A/C on.
As such, energy conservation propaganda is everywhere in the media. Yesterday I was driving down the freeway, on my way to the only place where I find comfort: submerged in the cool nectar of the ocean. And overhead, on one of those signs that usually mention this and that abducted child, it reads, “Flex your muscle, conserve energy.”
“Flex your muscle, conserve energy”? What sorta idiot thought that one up? They should hire me in the state propaganda office. I’d be better than Hitler. What about: “Sweat your ass off, lose weight, stop whining”? Anyway, point being, the air conditioning in my SUV (temporary purchase, long story) was cranked up full blast as I passed it. Did I turn it off and roll down the window and start singing Grateful Dead classics like any good liberal should? Nope, I just made sure all the vents were pointed at me (you know, conservation) and kept on listening to my NPR, glass of red wine in one hand and latte in the other.
This morning I was working at the house. Giant drops of sweat kerplunked into my cereal bowl every 15 seconds. ‘Fuck this, I’m finding some air conditioning.’ First I go to Whole Foods, but of course those communist bastards are conserving energy (even their lights are dimmed - Stalinists!). Next stop: Peet’s Coffee. Mmmm, it’ll be so deliciously cold in their that I’ll order a hot coffee and my favorite fruit and nut scone (more stories about my fruit and nuttiness at Peet’s forthcoming).
Instead, I walk in and it’s like a furnace, a fiery one (but without the annoying grandma singing background vocals). Every single customer in front of me is asking why they don’t have their A/C on. “We’re trying to conserve because of the state energy crisis,” says the manager with the cute dimples. She always has a Nalgene bottle by the cash register. I want to rip her head off. Eventually enough people complain that they turn it on and as soon as that first rush of cool comes through the vents … seriously … everyone looks like they’re climaxing at once.
Try a Mexican coke while they’re still around.
Anyone with an interest in development economics was left with a familiar sense of disappointment by last week’s Doha talks. Sure, there are some pachouli-smelling hippies still out there protesting all forms of free trade. But the rest of us have come to understand that removing tariffs and subsidies in agricultural trade is the most sure-fire way of integrating developing nations into the global economy. So it is beyond bizarre that even as rich countries, like the US, are promising to spend more money on development and aid, they refuse to axe, for example, a $25 billion welfare program for US farmers.
Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, however, there is a glimmer of hope. The hurricane destroyed thousands of acres of sugar cane fields in the South, leaving US trade negotiators more willing to accept additional imports from Mexico. And so, according to Marla Dickerson:
The U.S. and Mexico have ended a bitter dispute over sweeteners and will begin dismantling trade barriers in preparation for a complete opening of trade in sugar and corn syrup by 2008. The deal will allow the U.S. to export as much as 500,000 metric tons of high-fructose corn syrup to Mexico free of tariffs from Oct. 1, 2006, to Dec. 31, 2007. Mexican sugar growers in turn will be able to ship an identical amount of tariff-free cane sugar to the U.S. over the same time period.
Underemphasized in the article, one of the biggest obstacles had been a 20% federal tax in Mexico on all soft drinks made with corn syrup. Which is why all of the Mexican immigrants that patronize my local taco shop here in San Diego are willing to fork out $2 on a scratched bottle of imported coke instead of $1.20 on a free-refills fountain drink: because it tastes better.
For real. Try it yourself. Any Mexican specialty shop will have imported Coke - buy a bottle and compare it to its yanqui brother … sugar simply tastes better than corn syrup. But you better do it quick because the market for better (at least in soft drinks) isn’t enough to keep FEMSA from saving millions of dollars by using Kansas corn syrup instead of Vera Cruz sugar.
I find the entire thing fascinating. Behind the macro-policy trade agreement are everyday families on both sides of the border that are going to have to re-negotiate all of their contracts. How will it all level out? Will cheap labor in Vera Cruz make their sugar cane more competitively priced than that which is produced on huge, mechanized farms in the American South? Will rising gas prices act as a deterrent to Mexican food and drink companies that would otherwise have tons of corn syrup trucked down from the Midwest?
No one knows how it will pan out, but I have a hunch that the days are numbered for fans of sugar-cane coca-cola.
Oh, Osito, please don’t tell me that you’re that very naive. The major reason we haven’t gotten rid of the farm subsidy boils down to the same reason the American public still uses expensively useless pennies: lobbyists, aka the leading contender for the killer of modern democracy. You really think our fire-up-the-base-by-screaming-about-the-government-has-too-much-money-obsessed public officials wouldn’t gleefully boast about killing 25! billion! dollars! from those clueless bastards in Washington if there wasn’t a more powerful interest keeping them firmly in place?
Ugh..it surely is hot over here..and the 150 degrees with 5000% humidity couldn’t have been said better. I wish I could live in my aircondtioned room all day, but unfortunately I have to move around this house and sweat from simply making an effort to move. Thank God we still have winter and fall to make us feel cool..until the snow combined with the cabin fever turns us into complaining jerks wishing for the summer. AH the beauty of that cycle!
Don’t say that!! Besides the lead found on the exterior of the bottle, Mexican coke is just so much better than American coke. The taste is addicting (I wouldn’t doubt it if Mexican bottling companies still added a hint of coca).
Don’t complain about the temperature…it could be worse. At least you guys get a cool breeze of the coast. Those of us in the valley get nothing. All we get is the smell of cow fertilizer..how refreshing. Sometimes I find myself doing the same as you…driving with the AC full blast to escape the hell hole of a home that uses a swamp cooler. If only my house had dirt floors. It’s true dirt floors makes homes cooler.
Re: Dreams. Dude, get yourself into some serious psychotherapy. At least you mom wasn’t in them.
Re: Peppermint & Genitalia. Be sure you don’t give your girlfriend any Altoids before that special moment. I recommend you avoid putting any chiles down there (or touching the area after having handled chiles).
Re: Heat & Humidity. Now you know what living in the east coast is like. Living in Italy was the same yet fewer places with a/c.
Re: Conservation. You did conserve energy by keeping your SUV (???!!!!???) windows up. On the freeway, open windows create aerodynamic drag that consumes more fuel than running the a/c. But red wine and latte at the same time? Please, Oso, say it isn’t so…
Re: Sugars. HFCS is pure evil. It is a leading cause for the higher rate of obesity and the onset of type II diabetes in Mexican immigrants to the US even if their diets don’t change all that much. I guess now people in Mexico will be able to take part in the economic expansion.
And coke tastes better in a cold glass bottle - something for which I would be willing to pay extra.
And all those little typos in your text - I can forgive you for now seeing as you are being tortured by the heat and widespread energy conservation.
The Dr burns so good.
SUV? Whaa? I just saw you on your bike near Balboa Friday night! We were headed to pick up our veggies. I holla’d, but you were plugged in.
We’ve had to run the vornado all night these last few days, its been so muggy and warm at night.
Dude, I thought the exact same thing when I heard about the sugar dealio on Marketplace. It is funny, for a long time the only place to get cane sugar drinks was Latin America. Now, places like BevMo are stocking microbrew cane sugar drinks because people have been hunting them out. You would think coke & others would pull their heads out of their asses, and bring out versions with real cane sugar. People would pay a bit extra. Or better yet, bring us the small bottles, none of this can crap.
All I can say - thank god my house has central air.
Gustavo - coca? LOL yeah, right. It’s all a matter of politics, forget about economics. And I’m sure if MX Coca-Cola changes their formula there will be hell to pay. The AMLO protests will have nothing on Coke. Let’s talk about heat. It’s freakin’ 90 degrees but with the humidity it feels like 104!! It looks like their is some kind of cloud of steam over here. You know what’s sick? I love this weather!!!!
I feel you brother, I had my AC break down on my last year and thought nothing of it, I figured I’ll get it fixed eventually. BIG MISTAKE! Now, no matter who I call I am put on long waiting lists for AC installations. I’ve even tried shopping around for them portable AC units but everybody is out of them, Home Depot, Walmart, Target, todos. It sucks! I’m probably going to just order one from ebay or something.
Oh yeah, welcome to the dark side. We embrace you with open arms.
1. How can you even sleep after writing the GV newsletter? I have issues sleeping all the time and was told I needed to relax before bed and not have any emotionally taxing conversations before hand.
When something is bugging me, it does show up in my dreams. For a while I kept running in to my ex-roommate in my dreams. That was enough to leave me in a weird mood for the rest of the day. I’ve had dreams that have come true which creeps me out.
2. I don’t have a fan or air conditioning in my apartment. I’m trying to flex my power. Not really, I’m just too cheap to get a fan and too lazy to clean my room for somewhere to place the fan. I do get very annoyed when people turn on a light in a room when they could easily just open the blinds and let natural sunlight pour in. That came from my mom who was always annoyed when we left televisions or lights turned on in empty rooms.
The heat sucks, but I survive. I figure California is already over-populated and maybe the heat, occasional earthquakes and other things will make some people leave.
3. I’ll drink a Mexican Coke just for you while I’m Guanajuato later this week. I don’t think I’ll be able to tell the difference between that and US Coke since I rarely drink the latter.
Today is the first time in probably two weeks that my AC is turned off. ANd i don’t like it. Haha. I usually have it off if i’m not home, but when i am, full blast. I’m an energy whore, i guess? But i do have the energy saving blubs and my tv is -usually- on energy save.
Oh man. All y’all’s are big babies.
All summer long,From April till November, we here in Texas are dealin’ with borderline triple-digit temperatures and humidity you could cut with a butter knife on a cloudy day. ‘Whoanelly.Do you know how many Midwesterners are starving for sun, pale and ill -looking because they don’t get heat like this? It’s a tragedy.
You ought’s to be grateful.
Always killing me off. Bastard.
oso, you got an suv?
don’t feel bad i keep the two a/c units on at home around the clock for the cats. cause you know, they can’t take off their fur coats. that must be equivalent to running an suv. i don’t do well with heat at all. i’ve been unusually cranky as a result. also, i had a similar experience with peppermint soap a few years back–there should be a warning on them soap labels.
eerie… yesterday me & some of my sexy mexy buddies had dinner and one kept reenacting juan gabriel’s onstage fall. last night i, who NEVER dream (or at least i don’t remember them), had a very vivid dream where his juanga shenanigans resulted in a mass riot. weirdness!
Elenita,
By “bizarre” I meant stupid and hypocritical. I figured I’d try on diplomacy for a post.
Xolo,
Traveling through Oregon, all the gas station bathrooms had “love kit dispensers.” Mostly they were condoms but there was also “Men’s climax control cream” and the “oriental excitement ring” (who knew!). I can’t help but wonder if the climax control cream is really just tabasco sauce.
Dude, now I feel like everytime I drive with my windows down, it’s a quick ticket to hell.
Chris,
That’s so funny … if you woulda yelled out “coo-koooo!!” I surely would have heard you, headphones or not. Yeah, even after I bought the SUV (to be sold in a week, any buyers?), I still only cruised around on my bicycle. Cars suck.
Brenda and Irasali,
The other day I was stuck at my homie Sparsh’s house unable to sleep and with nothing to read. So I pick up his New Yorker to, you know, look at the advertisements. And there’s this Chevron ad that tells me that 50% of US energy consumption comes from heating while only about 9% comes from cooling. Ah, what relief! I never use a heater. Never ever. My karma is restored.
Maestra,
I do drugs sometimes too. We all do.
When I lived in NYC (just left to come out West a month ago, after years there) I bought an AC unit under similar conditions. One night me and my lady were lying in bed trying to sleep…it was about three a.m. and we were sweating…you know—that type of night when you get annoyed by a knee touching your thigh because it raises your temperature .03 degrees?
I spoke out of the darkness and felt the immediate acceptance in her calm silence. “Tomorrow, we’re getting an air conditioner,” I said. And then, as if it were already cooler, we fell asleep.
The next day, we went to Home Depot, picked out a tasty unit, and I stuck it in a cart, and wheeled it out to the street, kept wheeling the cart down the road and all the way to the subway, where I hefted it over my shoulder and carried up two flights of stairs, dripping sweat. Everyone on the train looked at me, some with envy. They knew we were going home to be cooooool.
It was hard. I had to carry it blocks to our little brooklyn apartment, and I had to rest once or twice. And I was covered in sweat. Finally, I got it there and installed it.
We sat around for like an hour or two just talking about how much we loved being cool. It was comical. We would just lie there, stretched out on the couch and be like “I am SO comfortable. This is SO great.”
I gotta say…I know they are evil. But nothing calms your peace of mind like lowering the temperature a few degrees. It’s like emptying your bladder when you are squirming. It amazes you how much calmer your mind gets, and the joy that settles through your frame is a primitive but undeniable one!
Life on earth has deterioratied precipitously in the last 40 years, from abortion to pornography, widespread drug use and widespread casual sex. The earth’s elders, hundreds and thousands of years old, are disgusted and don’t care, and they have become indifferent.
The gods are paving the way for the Apocolypse.