Life after Meds, Part II, Or, A Brief Tour of My Subconscious

[constance]

I've told you, right, about the fact that I never used to remember my dreams, but ever since I've stopped taking certain medications, my dreams are pretty vivid? Yeah, I have too, even if you don't remember. Anyway, I had a dream last night. It was a working dream, kind of. Instead of building financial software, though, I was building personal software, a kind of software tracking and analyzing one's interpersonal relationships.

Specifically, I was building the System Parameters Report, which looked exactly like the one in the software we produce at my office, only instead of printing out things like charts of accounts and insurance rate tables, it would print out current moods, etc.

Imagine! You'd enter information about a specific person, and their relationship to you, and particulars about personality, and then the software would somehow (haven't quite worked out the details on this part yet, BUT I WILL, I ASSURE YOU) form some kind of psychic or psychological bond that takes causal aspects of life into account and can print you out an accurate assessment of a person's state of mind at any given moment. The level of intimacy between two people will determine the parameters available for calculation; that is to say that information available to you as someone's lover is more detailed and comprehensive than the information available to you as someone's coworker. (And this is all to the good because I don't think all that many of us really want to know how our bosses' sex lives, or our parents', are going.)

Even given my own fetish for privacy, I was so taken by this idea when I woke up that I had to mock up a sample form to print this report:



Don't you wish we had one of these? I know there's a market for it, and as soon as I hammer out all the details, I will be a rich woman, even if I give you guys complimentary copies, which I totally will.



:::

Also, Thursday at lunch I found and purchased a pair of pink low-top sneakers that look like Converse but are not, thus raising the number of pairs of pink shoes under my aegis to a whopping TWO. I am wearing my new sneakers today, and if I could wear them to work tonight, I would. I did not think that it would be possible to feel glamorous while wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers. I was wrong.

In related matters, I will be applying to library school next week as part of my ongoing effort to model my life as closely as possible on that of 21stcenturysei. Watch this space for details!

Comments

[21stcenturysei.livejournal.com]

I adore the system parameters report and will be happy to invest once you have your business plan ready. Where are you thinking of going to school? (You should answer 'the DC area'.) (But if you don't, I promise I won't sit in the corner and cry.) (Much.)

[coco-palmolive.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued by this library school thing and hope you will tell me more.

But what I am really intrigued by is the FUCKING CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE headed straight for New Orleans. I was sitting in a bar last night listening to country music (yes!) and looked over at a television set, and there it was, all big and perfectly formed and beelining for New Orleans. And I felt so weirdly homesick, and sad that now my weather-watching consists mostly of waiting to see if it will go into the 40s in August when there is catastrophic weather headed at my friends and family.

Who are not evacuating, at least not the city. Which I understand the desire to be there for the storm, but remembering post-Andrew Baton Rouge and my sister without power for more than a week and the heat and the trees and the snakes, etc., I personally would evacuate. Possibly to Chicago.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear, hahaha, I am not really going to library school, at least not yet. But after the Zadie Smith novels and the pink sneakers, clearly that is the path on which I am headed.

Relatedly, though (did I just make a word up?), I may be coming up your way in October. I might beg a place to crash, depending on how my route north to West Virgina goes. Would that be okay?

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to library school, I was just making a joke because my friend T. already has a pair of pink low-tops, and I felt like a copycat buying a pair just like hers.

I kind of like my life as a computer geek, really.

:::

Yes. Well, you know hurricanes always really freak me out, so yeah, if I were still living in New Orleans, I figure I'd be on my way to visit you in UML right about now, two cats and a decrepit old dog in tow.

I keep thinking, what about J, what about D, what about S, what about my friends from work, what about all those people who were never going to move out of New Orleans? :/:/:/

(originally replied to wrong comment)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

What about your aunt? Are they okay?

Re: (originally replied to wrong comment)

[coco-palmolive.livejournal.com]

I haven't talked to them since this morning, when they were putting up their storm shutters and getting ready to leave their house. Their plan is to ride it out at the Tulane hospital where my uncle practices -- I suppose if you are going to stay in New Orleans at all, your chances are probably better there, but I really would have preferred that they leave town.

I've been thinking all day, somewhat melodramatically, that perhaps I will never see New Orleans again. Been reading all the worst case scenarios where there are coffins and corpses and big balls of fire ants and sewage and toxic run-off all without a place to drain to. Steph believes that once the storm comes in contact with the cooler waters of the Mississippi draining into the Gulf, it will veer one way or the other, as all the bigger N.O. hurricanes in recent years have done. I would like to believe this is the case, though I'd rather not send the storm to Lafayette or Lake Charles instead.

...

I am glad you are content with your job. The library school thing startled me, I must admit. Though I have been entertaining fantasies of becoming a psychologist lately -- my very first career ambition, from approximately age eight!!! Which I will not do, of course, because I honestly have no desire to go back to school, but which is pleasant to consider.

Re: (originally replied to wrong comment)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I've been doing that too, aside from worryng about my friends, thinking, OH MY GOD I MIGHT NEVER HAVE BRUNCH AT ELIZABETH'S AGAIN, and things like that.

There's not really a better place for the storm to go--can't go west to my family, can't go west to some of my friends--but I hate to think of it hitting New Orleans, which is so badly situated.

I hope your sister's right.

Re: (originally replied to wrong comment)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

east to some of my friends, I mean.

[bowdlerized.livejournal.com]

This will be the second in a series of at least four belated LJ comments that I owe you.

OMIGOD THIS IS SO FUCKING FUCKING BRILLIANT, AND EVEN MORE THAN I LOVE IT, I LOVE THAT IT CAME TO YOU IN A DREAM! <3 :D <3 :D <3 :D!!!!

[21stcenturysei.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely welcome to stay with us. This will give us an impetus to buy a mattress. (Right now we're still kicking it Trainspotting Style on the futon). Please do stay. And we can wear our pink sneakers together, tee-hee.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

<3 :D <3 :D <3 :D!

My dream world is a strange yet intriguing place. Except for the nightmares.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

We'll be twins if we wear our sneakers! No one will be able to tell us apart! It will be madness, I tell you!