Monday Reruns: In Your Dreams!

(original post date: March 30, 2011)

I have a friend who is rather tenured in the realm of senior citizenry.

She’s also doing quite well.

Her mind is sharp as a tack (and much sharper than mine, most of the time). Her body? Not so much.

Among other things, she suffers from arthritis in her right arm, and because she is right-handed, the pain is more than inconvenient.

It also sometimes keeps her up at night.

So, a few weeks ago, she consulted her doctor. And in response to her complaint, he suggested she “up” the dosage on the pain-killer he had prescribed a few weeks earlier.

You should know that my friend is not a fan of pharmaceuticals, and so her doctor’s suggestion that she essentially triple the dosage of a pain-killer didn’t settle well with her. But he assured her that it was still a very small amount of the drug, and so, she agreed to the plan.

… I phoned her the next day to see how she was feeling.

“I slept well,” she reported, not sounding particularly relieved, “but in my dreams, I was punching everything in sight, and when I wasn’t punching, I was lifting. And when I wasn’t lifting, I was furiously writing. When I got out of bed this morning, my arm muscles were so sore from all the activity that I could barely lift my first cup of coffee.”

When I laughed, my friend scolded me.

“It’s not funny!” she said. “You have no idea how sore I was!”

“I’m sorry,” I replied, smiling over the phone. “I really am. But it’s just so ironic. You take a drug to make the arm pain go away, and your arms are so not in pain while you’re sleeping that they’re just busy all night.”

My friend accepted my apology, and – beyond that – she appreciated my observation.

… And I’ve been thinking about it ever since: pharmaceutical side effects that are dream-centric.

Imagine the possibilities:

I go to the doctor.

“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time thinking about how this country’s stupid political parties are wasting their time with ridiculous, counter-productive in-fighting.”

“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”

That night, I dream that I meet Sarah Palin, and we hit if off like nobody’s business. We go off into the wild and shoot a bunch of wolves. We laugh because we have no need for the wolves. We pledge to be BFFs forever (disregarding the redundancy therein) and from that point forward, we text each other every day.

… I go to the doctor.

“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time worrying about how I am going to pay all my bills.”

“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”

That night, I dream that I get a letter in the mail. It’s a pen pal request from a man in prison. Bernie Madoff has learned of my schemes, and I am his new hero. I smile devilishly and pass the letter along to one of my staff members – a man dressed in a scaled costume and looking a lot like Dick Cheney. Then, I head for the hot tub, where I bathe with rich white men, all in handcuffs and fully dressed.

… I go to the doctor.

“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time worrying about the situation in the Middle East and North Africa.”

“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”

That night, I dream of sitting at a grand table with the leaders of the “free” world. There’s a hosted oil bar, and it is free-flowing. We’re all drunk. As the waiters and busboys saunter by our regally upholstered chairs, we slip them million-dollar bills. Then we refill our glasses from the oil trough and laugh some more. Political power is such a gas!

… I go to the doctor.

“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about what happened in Japan. I feel so bad for the people there.”

“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”

That night, I dream I am at an amusement park, where I strap myself into a shiny round seat. The first part of the ride entails a tremendous amount of random shaking. Thereafter, it morphs into a log-flume. I am doused with water. Lots and lots of water. I emerge wobbly and laughing – shook and wet, but okay.

But I’m not okay. There’s a glow emanating from me. And it’s not a good glow. My system’s been compromised by something unnatural.

… I go to the doctor.

“Nothing’s working,” I say. “These prescriptions are all wrong.”

He shrugs.

I walk outside the clinic, and because this is California, I notice a little shop.

Medical marijuana, with promises of no more bad dreams.

… Rich white men did not invent marijuana. Few of them therefore will ever embrace its values.

Besides, it’s a plant that they don’t need to manipulate in their labs.

From a profiteering perspective, they have no use for it. And so they certainly are not going to explore its capacity to heal.

Instead, they’ll just keep inventing drugs that give people messed-up dreams and a boat-load of side effects.

And they’ll make money from it.

…Need an aspirin?

I’ve Reached My Limit with the Debt Limit Talks

I know they’ve been going on for a while.

I know, because, two weeks ago, when I left my dentist’s office, my first thought was this: I guess I’ll just have to raise my debt limit.

My dentist, you see, had indicated that I need a bit of work done. Which means, my upcoming dental expenses will exceed the usual annual figure that reflects general preventative care. Oh well. You do what you gotta do. And sometimes, what you gotta do is raise your debt limit.

The folks inside the Beltway know this, but apparently, they’re having more fun playing games right now than they would be having substantive, sane discussions.

What a mess.

Although I’ve listened to a great deal of NPR commentary, I can’t claim to know the bottom line on this situation. In fact, from all the NPR commentary I’ve listened to for the past three or so years, I’d say that what I do know is this: no one knows for sure. Economists make recommendations based on theories, and the fact that there is more than one economic theory illustrates the degree of crap-shooting involved.

There’s also the general crookedness of the world. The banks are in bed with the people we’ve sent to Washington. No matter what decision is made, a handful of people are going to benefit way beyond their worthiness. That’s just the way it is, and that’s the way it always will be.

But, no matter how the sides of the debate arrive at some sort of compromise (if that is, in fact, possible), it seems to me – from what I’ve heard – that the debt limit must be raised.

I’ve also learned that this issue has become an issue because of all the new members of Congress – those guys and gals who were sworn in last January, after the Tea Party had its gatherings at the polls the previous November. And what I also have gleaned is that a lot of those guys and gals are absolute idiots.

There. I’ve said it.

And you know what? I’m not taking it back!

...Idiots empower idiots who elect idiots, and the chain reaction that led to this most recent phase of pitiable governance began with Sarah Palin. Just three years ago, she popped onto the scene in her gosh-oh-golly LensCrafters, and – thanks to that unfounded confidence she sports with rifle-wielding finesse – she made idiots feel good about themselves. “She’s just like me,” her fans would say. And that, apparently, was one of the reasons she received such a groundswell of support.

The idiot fans then realized there was a place for their kind in politics, and the Tea Party uprisings began. They organized; they identified leaders; and they voted those leaders into Congress last November.

So, while we do not currently have a vice president named Sarah Palin, we have dozens of Sarah Palin hybrids inside the Beltway. And they are making a royal mess of what was already a sufficient mess.

If they gave one minute’s thought to what could really happen if the country failed on its debt obligations come August 2nd, they might realize that it could hurt them, too. But they can’t realize that. They’re idiots.

Many of them also are racists, I suspect, and as such, their agenda is clear: do whatever is possible to destroy the legacy of our country’s first black president.

I’m not saying that Obama is doing right all the time.

I’m not sure anyone could at this point.

Not inside that toxic Beltway.

But I do know this: Obama is not an idiot!

God bless him for putting up with this shit.