Bored To Tears

[So I had a dream a couple of nights ago...haven't had time to write about it because it's Christmas, er, Holiday Party week here at work.]

[The beginning is a little foggy, but two hippie kids who remind of a lot of my friend Deanna's co-worker JJ's clique were somehow transported back to 1978 San Francisco, and somehow John, Leah and I were sent back in time as well, I think to find them and bring them back. It sounds a bit like one of those time-travel episodes of "Star Trek," in which there's grave danger of messing with the space-time continuum and changing history. There was a flavor of that to the dream, but once the three of us got back to '78, we were having too much fun seeing what was different and the same, that we sort of forgot about our "mission."]

[We strolled around, riding the old Muni streetcars (which have been pressed into service as the historic F Line) and trying to figure out how to survive in the short term with our "new" money. We ran into the hippie couple in a divey Italian joint in North Beach (back when North Beach had divey Italian joints), and it became clear that none of us knew how to get back to the year 2000. We all started thinking of ways to exploit our historical knowledge for personal gain (so much for not screwing with the space-time continuum), and suddenly, Leah was 1983-era Madonna, black mesh, plastic bracelets, crosses and all. We all commented how funny it was that she was wearing the outfit that she'd make famous in five years' time, and then I woke up.]

[It was one of those dreams that happens just before your alarm is gonna go off, so I sat and mulled it over. "Gee, what would I do if I could go back then with the knowledge I have now?" Would I warn the government of Bhopal, Chernobyl, the Challenger? Would I "write" "Like A Virgin," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," or "The Rockafeller Skank," before the fact? Would I just make a few well-placed bets on certain sporting events, or invest in a few key stocks? Would I write a letter to Gov. Bill Clinton, begging him to avoid a certain intern like a plague?]

[It took me quite a while to start to analyze why I was having the damned dream in the first place. John and I are going thru a peculiar time with our friends, both of us weighing our priorities and the people into whom we're putting a lot of our time and energy. I think I was creating an "adventure" for us, something to give some meaningful excitement to lives which don't have a whole lot of that right now. We live in one of the most exciting cities in the world, and we're...I hate even to put it down...bored to tears.]

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