My Father complained that he sneezed yesterday.

I’m just praying that I didn’t give him anything.

I don’t even know if I deserve to pray anymore. If the Christian image of God is accurate, then I guess I do and always will. I feel what’s closer to the truth is that I will, and always do. Hegelian logic says that there is no difference between these two states, as God is outside of time and there is no cause and effect, thus no deserving. That feels more comfortable, at least right now.

I did have dreams last night. Once again, I thought that they were gone, but during my coffee making something clicked and I was able to pick up a loose thread and find that it unraveled reality, and that there was a separate narrative behind me in bed.

I have vignetted, I’m not sure of the order…

There had been an epic journey, I believe our travels were interrupted due to plague, drawing us together as a band of travelers when really we had been strangers. Or at least that’s what I’m assuming. I don’t know how many of us there were, we were all different kinds of people. Several kids, a few single girls about my age (although do I have an accurate self concept? Maybe they were younger) some older people, and a gay inter-generational couple that I remember. There was a plane at night, a bus that appeared to go across the country, or at least through Iowa, the kids slept in transit while the adults tried to plan. Everyone was stressed out. I remember feeling weary, but not unpleasant. I enjoy adventure.

We were all riding a cage style freight elevator… I can’t remember where this thread picked up, but I can follow it forward. It was a freight elevator, and we were rising through the ruins of a city, I don’t know where. We were looking down at what must have been 5-6 stories of large parking garage (I believe this parking garage used to be in the Boston Seaport, and I have pictures of it… let me go look later) and it was stuffed with clothes, some in bags, some the bags had burst. There was a Latina dressed as a hotel maid (omg brain, why are you an asshole) pushing a giant plastic dumpster full of bagged clothes into the pile. I don’t know where they were all coming from.

I do know that in the elevator on the way up, I saw a pair of pants I kind of wanted. They were white and blue striped denim, with the stripes running horizontally up the leg. The stripes were printed on, like cheap ass 90’s Tommy Hilfiger style, and feathered in that exact way. The waist button was red. I tried to read the tag on the way up – yes, from inside the elevator – as I highly suspected that they would fit (I can usually tell from a glance if clothes are the right size – sometimes I skew small, sometimes large, it depends on my self esteem and suddenly I don’t know if I’m accurate anymore). I was embarrassed to even think about that, and didn’t say anything to my band of travelers. I have way too many clothes, I remember thinking that the huge pile reminded me of my closet, and that there was good stuff in there, but together it was all just trash.

We got to the top floor of the apparently abandoned hotel, and went inside. We picked rooms, some were more trashed than others. I’m trying to remember the hotel, maybe it will come to me. It was that same honey colored wood vibe that white people like. OK, to be fair everyone likes Scandinavian style. It actually reminds me of several places I’ve been in midtown Manhattan, expensive boardrooms with heavy, smoke drenched wood. I kind of like it, it feels manly, in that modern power type of way that is actually anything but masculine, or at least fitting with the concept of masculinity in the masculinity/femininity paradigm. Thinking of it, it’s a beautiful perversion that I would love to write essays and probably a few porn scripts on, but not now.

We all settled into rooms, some were put together, some were trashed, and most were dusty and dark. There was electricity I think, but barely any, and fewer lamps. I got a room with a mattress in the middle of the floor, covered with a fitted sheet, a wooden chair in the corner, and a dresser on the wall next to the floor. There was a mirror on top of the dresser. I can’t remember why, but people came in and out of the room, and we had conversations, like we were settling in for the night, like the first few weeks of college where we still went to each other’s rooms to have a little goodnight chat like this was camp or something. So it was like college during that stage where all we had to compare that experience to was camp.

I believe I recognize some of the girls in my room, but I can’t quite place it and I feel like I’m almost there, but they fade. One girl looked like this Transylvanian (fuck you, I will never acknowledge it as Romania) fetish porn girl, but wasn’t… and I now realize that this girl looks like someone I had met, and that’s why I was probably drawn to her. Strong features, beautiful eyes and that intense thick honey colored hair with healthy, sand colored skin. There are a few people floating in my memory that I have no anchor for the face anymore… somewhat eerie. I just imagined a blonde girl with big cheeks, acne, and what looked like a surgically repaired hare-lip… and I have no idea where I know her from, but the image is so cemented that I know I knew her for years and I’m wondering if it was elementary school?

Anyway, I remember hearing conversations going on outside in the hall, and so we went out. I don’t know exactly who was in my room. I remember feeling a tiny beet of social-sexual tension between me and someone else (I think male?) alone in my room when 2-3 girls came in and sat on my bed with me in a fun sleepover style.

Outside, though, the gay couple was sitting in what looked like a restaurant booth with a single lamp (I believe we were on the meeting room level of the hotel, I have been here before, it was Boston Park Plaza 2nd floor before the first renovation that I remember). They were breaking up, I am not sure why. I can almost remember who they are, but the memory kind of flips back and forth between so many inter-generational gay couples that I know and I’m suddenly realizing that’s a lot.

Me and the elder gay walked down the stairs, I believe we were going to go out. He told me some things, but I remember none of it anymore. I do remember the sun coming in through the glass doors and flooding us, even though the hotel was so terribly dark.

I’m not sure if my dream truly ends here, or if my brain is just begging me to abandon it so that I can get on with my day.

I have seen people I would consider less worthy than me (being honest) pray, and I have seen people much more deserving than me have their prayers ignored. We all keep trying. The best of us, perhaps, only when there is nothing else we can do.

Man, this playlist has some real hits and egregious misses in it today. I hope I’m not hurting my Spotify by letting this shit play through.

I feel guilty about adding this paragraph during my second cup of coffee, like it’s going to ruin my perception of my mental organization when I look back and can’t remember which sip I was typing with one hand through, and when I actually paused to breath. I type like I’m talking, and yes with the same speed, but I inhale and exhale at the same time, like I’m still actually using my voice to speak. I run out of breath and break to inhale, all without ever using my mouth. I wonder what moving to mostly visual language has done to our brain architecture.

I’m suddenly motivated to move on to the rest of my day.

But I’m waiting for a call.

My Father hasn’t answered the text I sent at 3:51, and it’s now 5:29. I’m getting scared. I’m afraid he panicked and went to the hospital, where he will definitely get sick, or that he got in a car accident on the way out today and then ended up in the hospital, where he will definitely get sick. Both of which will result in possible alibis for other people to believe that it was not me who infected him, but I will know it was. I will always know it was my fault.

Why do I suck at praying.

I suck at quitting smoking.