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Where I first dream of Twitter

I was goofing around my grandparent's house, which wasn't actually their house but the house of the grandparents of some childhood friends from long ago. I remembered when the neighboring houses were nothing but fields that we used to play hide and seek in. Running around in the dark, until I realized that some new resident was washing dishes in the sink just a few feet away, exposed to me by a kitchen window.

I back away softly while waiting to see their face. It never happens. I turn to see the ice cream truck that's headed my way on the night street make a sharp right and drive up the stairs of a cupcake shop; the truck nimbly makes a 180 turn and drives back down as I wonder if he sells the cupcakes along with his strawberry shortcake popsicles, which I now want. I race after him, and decide to give chase as far as it takes.

At the end of the street I must open a door to continue, and there I run into my grandmother with groceries in her hands. Though I am not supposed to leave, she is not at all angry (or surprised). She feigns ignorance as she walks on to wards the house. I set off running again, though beyond this door there is freezing rain. The ground is slushy and I slide as if I am ice skating, happy to be free. I think to myself that I want to twitter, "Running t-shirted in the freezing rain. I feel like @brad." I need to revise my wording.

I jump in a skip kind of way, being careful not to slip and fall. The last time I jump too high and float in to the arms of a medium-sized tree that lines the sidewalks. Rather than alert the people who were walking in front of me, I jump again and land on the roof of the nearby building (which I think is this tire shop I really live by) on the roofs now, with no one to alarm or disturb, I run and leap and soar at full speed, recklessly. I realize I'm too high, too fast and as I touch down onto a large commercial roof I just take off sliding. I slide off the edge onto another building, and another, until I'm running out of buildings and approaching a treed neighborhood. I jump at the last building and try my best preparation to an unwanted land in suburbia.

Somehow I land on a house but inside the house; on a very high ledge where the floor is far below me and filled with stuffed animals. I contemplate which plushy item will absorb the sound and impact of my fall, but then I hear noise. Afraid that the inhabitants have already heard me land, I quickly drop down as silently as I can and dart to the back door. While opening and making my way out I realized I can't sprint nearly as long as I'd want because I just finished running and skipping there. I need to hide

[quickly bryan, it's fading]

I run two blocks not turning to look if the people I see are running after me. I hang a left and then a right at the next block. I see some others running and I don't have time to see if they're in pursuit, just working not to be seen by them. I duck up a driveway and fall back on what I think is the back of the house, squeezing myself low between two large and low items. These other guys come a'runnin', and they end up in the same place I am. Their clothes look dated, and they're whoopin' and hollerin' like they were bandits out old west. A few climb up just in front of me, and I realized I'm sitting between two tires of an 18-wheeler. They pull off and I can feel the turning wheels catching on my sleeves

[protective dreaming? I thought I was t-shirted?]

The driver was wearing a red blindfold over his eyes and was the coolest of the gang, maybe the leader. I'm looking up at him as if the truck is made of air and I'm sitting in the engine. He works to keep his blindfold from falling down, then signals for a cigarette, which he smokes casually while driving boldly (and blindly). They were singing a song that had the same spirit but sounded nothing like Bob Seger's "Ramblin Man."

I can't remember how I got free of that but again I was free and I ran to a house that was a restaurant and I sat at a table. A girl came and sat there though I knew she felt obligated to be there. I tried my best to be... to be behaved? I laid a folder on the table, a folder that was actually a folder fru designed in college that she showed me last night. The girl opened it and there was a beautifully drawn picture of her. I looked at the picture; then I looked at her. I loved her, and she knew it. And I knew that she knew this was what I was giving her. She smiled gorgeously and said, "I'm gonna go, but I want to keep this." I looked at her, and I knew she was saying "no, but I'll take what you give anyway."

I looked down at the photo and it started turning colors: the paper fading to an antiqued yellow and the ink that defined her into a beautiful dark green. I thought to myself about twittering to @brad again: "d brad now I understand you, man." Then I realized that this girl was a woman I met last night ( a client's wife). Then I realized that I wasn't in the restaurant but I was lying on a floor cushion in my living room. Then I realized I was awake. Then I realized that bandit song was still playing in my head. Then I realized I still wanted to twitter. How do you condense this to 140 characters? 


More of my dreams are scattered through this blog. 

Best Kid Scenario

I can't find an excuse to have a kid.

I like kids. I dote on them, try to be an example to them, try to inspire them and encourage and validate their inquisitive tendencies. I love to ruffle their hair in that older brother way and corral them into an affirming squeeze. I think this is one of the most important things I can do for my society. And I think they really appreciate it; I guess.

But for the most part, I pity them. Many times they are the product of a naïve wish or lack of planning. When they are realistically and properly realized, they are often meticulously bred to be the crowning achievement of their parents wishes and aspirations. I think it most selfish to have a child to create a new, improved version of you. Increasingly I think the answer is to let a child be who they can be (an intentional alternative from letting them be who they are).

Still, I have love to give. I energy and emotional support to offer in the development of life. In fact, I believe this is my most important mission as a world citizen. If this is what I'm going to do, and I intend to do it objectively, do I have to create a new life to do it? Adoption seems the most logical option.

We've talked a bit about this, and we're kinda set on it. But in our minds, the concept of having a family always invloved children, not a child. Why? Because we are both of the opinion that an only child has less incentive to embrace concepts like sharing and collaboration. Regardless of the validity of that statement, it brings out a horrible and calculating reality: Our only reason for a second child would be to improve the outlook of the first. No doubt we could love and cherish that child, but their existence is as a component, not at all independently valid. I think this is most heartless.

So now I need to learn to appreciate the single child concept, or resign myself to no children at all? I have a tendency to be excessive in contemplation, so maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe there's a better option I haven't though of?