I can count on my fingers the number of times, in almost 29 years, that I’ve remembered a dream. This is a rare, rare thing and without fail, remembering serves a higher purpose – the dream either comes true or it teaches me something that I do not want to learn.

Given that I woke up this morning from a dream about an apocalypse, let’s hope I have something to learn.

It was a bizarre dream and made no sense whatsoever. Since the older I get, the more “woo-woo” I seem to become and I have the whole wide internet at my fingertips, I did a quick search and found myself at Dream Moods. Let me tell you, if I would have had this site ten years ago, it would have saved me years of anxiety…but that’s another story.

This morning’s dream was a cohesive scene, but I’m going to intersperse the dream narrative with the interpretation from Dream Moods’ dictionary.

………

I was at my boss’ apartment, a converted downtown storefront, and I stood facing a large window. Out of nowhere, a giant appeared, walking down the street.  I saw other people panicking, but I wanted them to give it the benefit of the doubt. Initially, the giant seemed nice – smiling and friendly – and I was excited. How cool – a giant! Then it picked up a woman, gave her a cursory look, and carelessly tossed her to the ground, killing her. Simultaneously, the weather changed and a slight wind picked up. The giant turned around with a menacing glint in his eye and said, “Keep up the wind.”

Giant – To see a giant in your dream, indicates a great struggle between you and your opponents. You are trying to overcome an overwhelming obstacle. Alternatively, a giant symbolizes an issue, a person or a feeling that is dominating you. You are having an inferiority complex.

Wind – To dream that the wind is blowing, symbolizes your life force, energy, and vigor. It reflects changes in your life. Alternatively, the dream suggests that you need to speed up toward achieving your goals or solving some lingering problem.

The giant turned and walked back in the direction he had come from, disappearing as quickly as he’d appeared. People were panicking and running in the streets. The buildings all around us were catching fire from the inside – the wiring was shorting out. Our building wasn’t on fire, but it was obviously only a matter of time. The people running out of the buildings around us were exhaling flames.

Fire – Depending on the context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolize destruction, passion, desire, illumination, transformation, enlightenment, or anger. It may suggest that something old is passing and something new is entering into your life. Your thoughts and views are changing. …the dream may be warning you of your dangerous or risky activities. You are literally “playing with fire”…To dream that a house is on fire, indicates that you need to undergo some transformation.

Taking stock of the situation, to see if we had the capacity to potentially wait things out, I opened the refrigerator. It was packed full of one of my favorite kinds of yogurt.

Yogurt – To see or eat yogurt in your dream, suggests that you need to learn to behave appropriately for the different situations and circumstances you find yourself in.

It was clear that we needed to get out. My boss had lain down on the couch in denial, drinking sweet tea, the moment the giant appeared. I took her by the hand and led us out of her apartment through the back door.

Boss – To see your boss in your dream, represents the bossy or authoritative side of your own personality. Your boss may reveal self-confidence and the assertive aspect of yourself. It is telling of your issues of control and authority.

Tea – To dream that you are making or drinking tea, represents satisfaction and contentment in your life. You are taking your time with regards to some relationship or situation.

As we left the building, headed toward the car, a panicked and disheveled woman emerged from a dark doorway and threw deflated rubber balls at us in self-defense. The streets were also covered in golf balls.

Ball – To see or play with a ball in your dream, symbolizes completeness and wholeness. It may also indicate that you need to be more in tune with the inner child within. The dream may also be a metaphor for the testicles or that “he’s got balls” to indicate guts and strength.

We were headed for my boss’ car and I would have definitely driven, since she was essentially paralyzed. I didn’t know how far we’d make it in the car before we had to walk, but my plan was to get as far as we could. I considered driving in the opposite direction that everyone else was running, since there would be fewer people there with fewer problems, but reasoned that this was probably where the giants were and it wouldn’t be safe. Knowing this, I still hadn’t decided which way to go.

I was still trying to decide if the best path was to drive straight toward where the giants must be.

I woke up before we got to the car.

Car – To dream that you are driving a car, denotes your ambition, your drive and your ability to navigate from one stage of your life to another. Consider how smooth or rough the car ride is. If you are driving the car, then you are taking an active role in the way your life is going.

………
I concede that, most of the time, we see what we want to see – we interpret what we want the answer to be.

I think it’s the yogurt that blew me away.

Earlier this week, I cried myself to sleep because a partner at work let me down (not my boss, but someone whose role it is to represent my interests). I should say, let me down again. Instead of representing my interests, and those of weaker partners, they’re planning to do the opposite.

This is all in relation to a situation in which I felt they knowingly used me to do their dirty work. They knew I would do it and they didn’t have the guts to do it themselves, so I waged a one-woman campaign and got the work done. Now that I’ve achieved the results – and not without personal cost – this organization is actually working to subvert those results. Worse yet, they fail to understand that this a problem. To them, everything is as it should be – except me – being a pain in the ass. Again.

Yes…giants, wind, fire, yogurt, my boss, tea, deflated rubber balls, and a car. It makes scarily perfect sense.

I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to proceed, but it does take a certain kind of fool to just drive toward the giants now, doesn’t it?

Perhaps we drive toward the giants after we’ve found other people with the courage to face them.

Hm.

My brain is melting.

This little bit of news about how

Russian media have been poking fun at the U.S. Secretary of State over a translation error on a gift she presented to her Russian counterpart.

because apparently

Hillary Clinton gave Sergei Lavrov a mock “reset” button, symbolizing U.S. hopes to mend frayed ties with Moscow.

But he said the word the Americans chose, “peregruzka,” meant “overloaded” or “overcharged,” rather than “reset.”

makes the synapses in my brain misfire.

Okay, so this time around – not a big deal. Everybody has a good laugh and goes home.

That said, if we’re mistranslating things that we’re giving to Russia, we’re fucked.

I can totally see how this happened. Someone – possibly Hillary, possibly not – came up with this cute little idea. They got all excited about it in their office and didn’t want anyone else to get credit for it (because all that matters in DC is who gets credit), so they did it themselves. They work at the State Department, you know. They know these things. It’s such a cute and charming idea and…

Get your shit together, Hillary.

Let me introduce you to your Department. It has an entire Office of Language Services dedicated to preventing these kinds of gaffes.

Did you even show it to one of the two the simultaneous English/Russian interpreters, who were with you the entire time and would have been native Russian-speakers? Did it occur to you to get their opinion about this, both linguistically and culturally? Because clearly, before you gave it to one, no other native Russian-speakers or actual Russians saw this overloaded button.

Again, I get that this is a minor issue and she’ll learn, but this is why she should be Secretary of Health and Human Services – an area that she understands and knows – not at the State Department where she’s learning on the job.

Prove me wrong, Hillary and Barack. Convince me that this was a good decision. Show me you can represent us and our interests with the cultural sensitivity and diplomatic skills required of a Secretary of State.

And always ask a native speaker about translation questions. For fuck sake.

If you’re not reading Project Rungay, I have failed. Get your ass over to Tom and Lorenzo’s little gem of a blog and laugh your snooty little tush off.

Don’t tell me you don’t watch Project Runway, so you don’t need to read it. Don’t tell me you have no interest in fashion, so you don’t need to read it. Don’t tell me that you don’t watch reality shows, so you don’t need to read it. Don’t tell me that’s just not your thing, so you don’t need to read it.

“When I think about my mom, the mennonite, or my dad, the mennonite, if they could see me naked in a box making out with a guy.”

Oh honey. Who are you trying to kid? You WANT Ma and Pa to see you making out with a guy in a box. Nothing wrong with a little teen rebellion, but let’s not pretend you’re agonizing over it.

You need to read this.

“Me and Chris working together, it makes me feel a little worried, the gay problem between me and him because I’m especially not gay, I know he is.”

What the hell does “ESPECIALLY not gay” mean?

Seriously, I’m telling you.

Lorenzo thinks he’s cute and Tom thinks Lorenzo is a perv for lusting after someone who can’t remember the first term of the Clinton administration.

What the fuck are you still doing here?

But why is Perou dressed like he’s starring in the Michael Jackson version of A Clockwork Orange?

Go snort with laughter over a post about a show you’d never watch. It’s hilarious. Don’t get pretentious about the fact that you don’t watch something when you can just point and laugh from afar.

Isn’t that far more pretentious anyway?

Lovelies, I have no aversion to melodrama.

None.

(She writes, as a paragraph unto itself.)

This, however, I believe takes things a bit far.

What the fuck is that man holding?

It it clearly, definitively, not a gun.

It sure as hell looks like gun.

Woe betide the trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange! Woe is he, as the Dow plummets to below 7,000! It’s the end of the world as we know it!

And honestly, I feel fine.

I’ll admit, a Dow below 7,000 sounds pretty scary. I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds bad. Based upon this picture, it’s apparently suicide-inducingly bad.

Y’know what my first thought was when I heard how low the Dow closed today? Damn, I wish I could afford to buy stocks. Buy low and sell high, right? It’s time to start buying. Sure, we’ll probably dip a bit lower before we recover, but how greedy must you be?

If you can, invest. I’m not asking you to do so for the economy. I’m not asking you to do so out of some patriotic duty. I’m asking you to do it because, damn, it’s the smart thing to do right now.

If only I could get a loan from a bank to invest…

This post (that I found via Amber), about how our society is het-biased and silences the voices and lives of people who are not heterosexual, hits, perhaps oddly, close to home for me.

While I think that my orientation is probably fairly clear based upon my writing, I would have to read back through posts to see if I’ve explicitly outed myself as gay, straight, bi, trans, or just me. I became an outspoken LGBT rights advocate in college and, as part of that, quietly adopted my own version of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

When you start paying attention, subtle questions about sexual orientation pop up in conversation all the time. My view was (and generally is) that, unless you want to get in my pants, it shouldn’t matter if I’m straight or not. Concurrently, I try to hold to the idea that if I’m not looking to wrap my legs around you, your sexuality doesn’t matter.

Admittedly, I get a little curious from time to time, but we can’t be perfect.

If you don’t give people the answer they expect, it automatically draws attention to what you’ve just said. As such, my non-specific responses in het-biased conversations tend to raise eyebrows and make people assume that I’m hiding something.

Surely, the only thing I would be hiding would be that I like girls.

At this point in my life, I’m trying to be more open, to possibilities in general and to relationships, specifically. Being coy about one’s sexuality seems like an unnecessary obstacle – particularly when I’m so good at creating them anyway.

Regardless, it’s hard for me to give up my silent protest. I’ve consciously been more forthcoming over the last year or so, but it’s frustrating for me. Whichever sex a person finds more attractive doesn’t change who they are. It doesn’t matter, unless we make it matter.

Back in the day, there was a common t-shirt on my happy-little-liberal-bubble college campus. The front read, Don’t Assume I’m Straight and the back read, Don’t Assume I’m Not.

I believe that. And it’s not okay to assume either way, but we do. Every day. In the interest of being truer to who I am, I think I need to adopt a new policy, aimed at eliminating assumptions. Instead of letting most people wonder and draw their own conclusions, I need to – diplomatically – call them on their het-bias. And then I need to just come out – as a straight girl.

It’s who I am.

I still have a mad, mad crush on Rachel Maddow though.

So there.

I’m not going to say anything about the content of this article (click through as you wish) because I’ll keep climbing higher and higher on soapboxes until I fall off in exhaustion. Instead, I just want to note that even editors at the BBC fuck up. In their defense (or defence), the time stamp is for the wee hours of the morning.

Still. Free of speech, indeed.

In other news (yes, literally), this article on etymology is interesting, particularly the bit on words that are “dying.”

For example, “dirty” is a rapidly changing word; currently there are 46 different ways of saying it in the Indo-European languages, all words that are unrelated to each other. As a result, it is likely to die out soon in English, along with “stick” and “guts.”

But how will you ask a child if they need their diaper changed? There is no better phrase than, Do you have dirty pants?

Dirty is far too good of a word to lose. Use it, people! Get dirty!

The post formerly titled “hold on (for one more day)”

Okay, honestly, it will take more than one day for me to blog with any sort of regularity or reliability again, but that’s the song that came to mind.

And really, have I ever blogged “with any sort of regularity or reliability?” Just whose blog is this?

I had to revise this post because the song from the title kept getting stuck in my head and, forgive me Wilson Phillips, but no. I refuse to sing your songs all day. Cyndi Lauper we can do. Wilson Phillips, not so much.

And now, we return to your previously-posted blogging.

Life has been super busy – good, but busy – which seems to always preclude blogging for me and, if that weren’t enough, my laptop needs attention.

Baby, if one electronic thing in my life needs to be reliable, it’s you. Sweet little laptop. Mama loves you so much.

My adorable Apple genius (mmm, Mac Geek) ascertained the issue and I need to send my baby away for 5-7 days for some minor surgery. Lord, the prospect couldn’t be more wretched than if this were an actual child.

Actual children are obnoxious sometimes. My sweet little laptop does just what I ask. Every time. What’s not to love?

In the meantime, I’m having battery-charging issues, so posting shall remain light. I can, however, happily say that we’ve progressed to stage four of culture shock in Seattle, which is to say, acceptance. I’m realizing that I never made it to that stage in DC. The whole I don’t care how much work gets done, I just care who gets credit for it attitude of that city was something I never wanted to accept. And didn’t.

Seattle is good.

Life is good.

SO GOOD.

I think I’m in stage 3 of culture shock with Seattle. Last weekend hit hard with the notion that I wanna go home and it hasn’t really subsided yet.

Stage 1 – Honeymoon – That was me driving down streets and literally squeaking with joy that, I live here!

Stage 2 – Frustration – At work I’m following rules that aren’t mine that I don’t like. Worse yet, I’m having to lead and enforce said rules. I am adapting, but bleh. Also, plow your goddamn streets when it snows, Seattle.

Stage 3 – Depression – I wanna go home.

I’ve been here for two months now and I feel like this is probably pretty much on target for where I should be. At the moment, I’m accepting the fact that I wanna go home.

Perhaps I could shorten this to, I want a home. I haven’t felt like I’ve had a home to go to since I left St. Paul, two years ago. I’m thinking that I’m just going to stay where I am – it’s comfortable, a good neighborhood, I’m actually kinda-sorta-mostly okay with the thought of having a roommate, and it’s more space than I’ll get anywhere else. After four years of studios, I’m ready for space. I need to start nesting.

But, home. This is still home.

Houses on the block next to my apartment building.

Coffeeshop / bookstore / Congresswoman’s offices, two blocks from where I lived.

A random statue of Mr. Nathan I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country Hale in a park two blocks from my apartment.

My favorite little hideaway to sit (or sprawl) and read. It’s like a piece of Europe that even most St. Paulites don’t know exists.

Yes, I still think of it as “my apartment” even though I haven’t lived there in two years. I told you, I need a home.

I like Seattle. I’m glad that I’m here. But it’s not gonna feel like home yet. It can’t. St. Paul was home for nine years and…it’s a good home. There’s a reason – no, there are a lot of reasons – why Minnesotans go back.

Seattle is a very cool town and I’m excited to explore it more.

But today, I just wanna go home.

Update: Pandora tormented me with three playings of Vienna while I was working tonight. Seriously, three? Guh. If I don’t go home to St. Paul after I make my mark in Seattle, I’m going home to Vienna for a while.

I live in Seattle. I live in Seattle.

And I like it here. I really do.

Before I climb up on a long and rambling soapbox, say it with me, please: keer-guh-stan

Thanks. (And you have been warned.)

The news about the only American military base in Central Asia closing makes me think of the board game, Risk.

We just got kicked out of Asia.

Perhaps it’s worth noting that I’ve never won a game of Risk. I have, however, won its much cooler German equivalent, Settlers of Catan.  While Risk is entirely about military strategy – overpower, outlast, conquer; Settlers is about development – trade, diplomacy, coexistence. Don’t get me wrong, Settlers is not rainbows and unicorns. Just like Risk, it requires strategy and guile to win and you do, of course, play to win. Settlers is just a little more comprehensive in its scope. In addition to building an army, you also build roads, towns and cities. You harvest crops. There’s a little more to it than guns, guns and MOAR GUNZ.

The closing of the Manas Air Force Base in Kyrgyzstan has been on the table since 2006. We’ve known this was coming and failed to prevent it. The fact that we even established the base there in 2001 is kind of surprising (9/11 sympathy at work) and keeping it open would have been, one might think, a rather high priority.

Personally, the pacifist/globalist in me likes that it’s closing. I was the nine-year-old who wanted to know why we had military bases in Germany. Frankly, I’m now the almost-twenty-nine-year-old who wants to know why we have military bases in Germany.

Who the fuck do we think we are? Would we let Germany have a military base in California? Perhaps we should give Italy an outpost in Massachusetts? Does Bahrain deserve a piece of North Carolina?

I’m with the Kyrgyzs on their right to kick us out. We’ve squandered this opportunity. Why do we deserve to stay? What have we done for Kyrgyzstan? What do we know about Kyrgyzstan? Raise your hand if you can name two countries that border Kyrgyzstan. I’ll even give you a handy-dandy visual.

Don’t cheat. Where’s Kyrgyzstan? We have two – count ‘em two – military bases in between Iraq and Korea. One is Camp Rhino, a Marine base in Afghanistan. The other is Manas AFB in Kyrgyzstan. Considering that we’ve been fighting a war in this part of the world for more than seven years now, this is pretty damn important.

Imagine you’re playing Settlers or Risk. If you had a hold here, would you consider that something worth fortifying?

First, just a hop, skip and a jump south is Afghanistan. We’re committing an additional 30,000 troops there and, wow, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a supply route? No problem, we’ll just ask one of our other reliable friends in the neighborhood. Hm. Maybe Iran?

Now, that big country just north of Kyrgyzstan, that’s Kazakhstan. What do the two have in common? Once upon a time, that giant country to their north…they were a part of it. The leaders of that giant country? They still talk about Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and most of the 14 other now-sovereign nations as if they should and will one day again be part of a Russian Empire.

And it’s not just talk. You may recall, Russia invaded one of those now-sovereign nations this past fall.  To be fair though, you may not recall that tiny incident since, at the time, our president was chillin’ at the Olympics, slapping asses and playing volleyball on the beach. It was French President Nicolas Sarkozy who took the lead, brokered a deal, and may have prevented World War Three.

Perhaps the French have good reason to be a bit more sensitive to Russian expansionist tendencies. Personally, I appreciate their sense of history.

Now, see that giant country to the east of Kyrgyzstan? That would be China. You might note that Kyrgyzstan is not far from what used to be known as Tibet…before China decided it belonged to them. Hong Kong should really be its own state…and it belongs to China. Taiwan is a sovereign state…that China claims it owns.

I’m not trying to be alarmist or inspire any kind of fear. I have no fear of Russians. I have no fear of Chinese. At the same time, I can’t shake my awareness of a shifting global balance of power. We’ve been playing Risk for too long, when we should have been playing Settlers.

USAID provided an estimated $19 million in development assistance to Kyrgyzstan last year. Yes, that’s $19 million with an “m.” That’s about what we spent per hour last year in Iraq. (You do the math, $12 billion/month = ~$17 million/hour)

Kyrgyzstan has issues with water pollution. Preventable water-borne diseases are all too common.

Kyrgyzstan has issues with prenatal care. More than 30/1,000 infants don’t survive (it’s 6/1,000 in the U.S.).

These are some of the most basic issues we can address. Give a town a water treatment plant; get a military base in return. Give a town a medical clinic; get a military base in return.

Give.

Take.

Just a little.

On Barack’s second day as president, he made an official visit to the State Department. On his third day, he went to USAID. We’ve dealt ourselves a really crappy hand but I think, at least, we’re playing the right game now.

Hope.

………

Update: Without even reading this post, my friend sent me the world’s most super-fun map game. I love this! Possibly more than I should. And shame on me for not knowing where Bahrain is. I’ve met several people from Bahrain. Bad me. (But damn, that’s one tiny place!)

Dear U.S. Department of State,

As it appears to have escaped your notice, I wish to cordially inform you that the current Chancellor of Austria is Werner Faymann, not Alfred Gusenbauer.  Given that this is a relatively recent change, with Mr. Faymann only having been sworn in as Chancellor on December 2, 2008, I am sure you will adjust the official information provided by the U.S. Government to its citizens and to the world in due time.

I assume that you have an expectation for similar timeliness and courtesy from the Austrian Government. One can only hope that they still publicly recognize George W. Bush as President of the United States and Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Clearly, that should be in effect until, at least, March 20, 2009.

Most respectfully yours,

jt

………

Three things:

1. Jesus fuck.
2. I’ve taken flak for referring my interns to the BBC Country Profiles instead of the DOS Background Notes. Can’t imagine why I’d do such a thing.
3. Jesus fuck.