Spending Time

I dreamed that I was spending Christmas with the family of one of my Indian coworkers. I do actually have some Indian coworkers, but this particular person was a fictional coworker conjured from the ether expressly for the dream.

The members of my coworker's family seemed to be fairly well divided with respect to what they were allowed to eat. Some had only rice and water. Others were vegetarians. Still others were eating beef. I don't remember now what I myself was eating.

I was asked to take part in some kind of family ritual. Actually, I wasn't exactly asked. The patriarch of the family, who spoke no English (in fact, I don't remember hearing him speak at all in any language), gestured to me to take part. He gave me some sort of sea horse shaped casing made from some plastic-like organic substance in which was contained some kind of shimmering silver-blue dust. I did as the others did. I used a knife to cut the end of the tail and shook out the dust into a pool of water. I don't remember whether I ever learned the significance of this act.

Later, I was speaking with an older gentleman who looked like the sort of man who might portray a Colonel or General in a movie. Maybe a little like Bob Gunton. I think he was trying to set me up with his daughter or granddaughter or niece or something. I think I was some kind of national hero, which is why he liked me.

At the end of the evening, I was speaking with my coworker, and I realized that I had started speaking with his accent. I didn't want to offend him, so I forced myself to speak like myself again.

"You know," I said, "I was thinking. If I saved up all the money I spent on soda and candy, by the end of the year I'd have a lot of money saved up."

"Or..." he said. "The vacuum will suck up your money, you'll drink a bit too much vermouth, and the Dark One will show you a good time."

~   ~   ~

I don't know who he meant by the Dark One. I suppose he might have meant himself, referring to his skin color, but I doubt it. I'm not sure what religion he practiced. I was never aware of whether Hinduism or Sikhism had any villainous entities in their theologies (I suppose now that they probably do, though I still have not checked). He might have been Muslim, but I don't think so, and for that matter, I'm not sure whether Muslims ever describe Iblis as "the Dark One." I suppose this particular Dark One may not have anything to do with any organized religions. Well, whoever he is, I don't think I want anything to do with him.

GOBLET

Ordinarily, when I come home to my little apartment on Wednesday nights, everything is quiet. The television is off, no one is using the computer, and my wife is in bed. Last night, however, I came home to the biggest party I'd ever been to.

As it happened, the biggest night in bowling was last night. The Grand Olympian Bowling League Empire Tournament (GOBLET), in which anyone who is anyone participates. It is the single most prestigious bowling event in the galaxy (it turns out that Andromeda is really the place to be for bowling, but we do our best). In any case, the afterparty was held in my apartment. Whether my wife organized it and didn't tell me or I organized it and forgot about it, I'm not really sure. Anyway, never mind about that.

Everyone participates in this tournament. I don't even know how many celebrities I ran into at this party. At one point I was talking to Shaquille O'Neal, who told me about how being as tall as he is makes him a target for projectile vomit and that it ends up drying in his hair, whereupon the smell makes him feel sick himself. I expressed surprise that this would happen often enough to warrant complaining about it, and he insisted that it happens all the time. Most people simply aren't tall enough to notice it.

This party and all the people crammed into my little apartment, including Shaq, strangely made the place look much larger. There was so much food spread out across the bar between my kitchen and living room that it seemed somewhere between two and three times longer than it really is. And you might think that it was professional caterers who worked the magic, but it turns out that according to tradition the food at these GOBLET parties are provided 100% via the old potluck approach. It just goes to show that in general celebrities are far from being the snobs that they are often purported to be. By the way, John Mayer's peanut butter bars were really good.

At one point I was walking along this magnificent spread of food, and by coincidence, Tom Cruise was doing the same just a few steps ahead of me. I think he thought I was stalking him or something, because he kept looking back at me with this anxious look on his face. I just wanted to see what kinds of cookies there were. I liked the dark chocolate ones with double size white chocolate chips.

The Tom Cruise incident kind of reminded me of the time I went to a Tony Levin Band concert at Brick by Brick in San Diego. Before the show, the members of the band were mingling at a table near my own. For some reason, I needed a pen, and so I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled one out. I guess at that moment I was looking right at Jesse Gress, and the whole band scattered and scurried off in different directions. I guess they thought I was going to demand autographs or something.

So I thought maybe I should look around to see if Tony Levin and company were at the party so that I could apologize for that incident. I understand that he probably wouldn't even remember it, but somewhere deep down I secretly assume that celebrities keep a book of mug shots of people that only want autographs and are therefore to be avoided at all costs.

I just want Tony to take me out of that book. Is that too much to ask?

At any rate, I suppose it really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the team who actually won this year's GOBLET Goblet didn't have any celebrities as members. Well, at least not any celebrities who weren't famous for their bowling abilities. I didn't know who any of the winners were, but then again, I can't really think of any famous professional bowlers at all. I didn't mention this to anyone at the party, of course.

That could have been really embarrassing.