This morning, I dreamed that I wandered through some semi-industrial area of Queens, seeking the auto-body shop that had kept my white Geo Storm in storage since sometime in the early '90s. When I got there, the auto-body shop had been replaced by some sort of Discovery Channel-worthy custom hot-rod shop (or nearly so--my dreamself thought some of the workmanship was a bit shoddy). I asked the bearded and beer-gutted proprietor if he remembered the white Geo Storm he had stored for me all those years ago, and there was this sort of "Whoops!" moment when he told me that they had gotten rid of it while back, seeing as how I couldn't be located and all. But, he said, they'd be willing to give me another car of equivalent value, and he was sure they could scare somthing up.
So, I spent the rest of the dream trying to establish whether a '91 Geo Storm with under 30,000 miles on it was equivalent to some whacked-out racing modified Ford Pinto with no interior upholstery, or a Monte Carlo with 200,000 miles on it, or some other "car-guy's car."
All of which is in direct contradiction with reality. I sold the Storm in 1994 to a friend of my then-girlfriend for $3000, and took the money, along with the then-girlfriend, to Mexico. The purchaser totalled the Storm shortly thereafter.
I dream--you decide.
If there's a more certain way to drive down traffic, I haven't found it. Just start keeping an online dream journal and detailing your medicated anxieties, and readers will flock from you like locusts before a sandstorm.
Speaking of which: throughout all of this, my God-sense--that peculiar numinous sensation I get on windy days and other portentous occasions--has completely fled. Ain't that a bitch?
So, in the mercilessly dramatic throes of sourceless chest-clutching anxiety (which, if you've never experienced it, is akin to being freaked out one morning for no apparent reason whatsoever while making toast, and then staying that way for the rest of the day), I am going to slip on the swell new Planet Bike Gemini bike gloves that arrived moments ago and go for a ride.
The leaves here are just on the other side of peaking, and we've discovered a nice route that takes us along the valley floor and then up near the ridge, so we can view the farm-like vistas and painterly autumn hues as we work our hearts and legs.
It's pretty much the only thing I've been able to do for about two weeks straight now, which, while good for my body, isn't exactly fully funtional behavior.
I wish I knew what to do with my suspicion that the problem here lies not with me, but with the current definition of "functional."
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ON THE OTHER HAND...
I feel perfectly functional after riding 17 miles through a fall-cloaked valley in the late afternoon sunlight, then eating a slab of fine roast beef with fresh tomato and onion wrapped in a tortilla while listening to a slew of Bach's concerti for harpsichord at high volume.
Can't beat that with an anxiolytic.
