Smoked

I dozed off and had a semi-lucid dream in which I was either having or overhearing a conversation which contained a number of words my dream-self seemed to recognize, but which I didn't. When I woke, the only one of those words I could remember was "flath." It sounded as though it ought to mean something, so I Googled it and found that it had been added to Urban Dictionary just last month. But now I'm wondering what sort of event that dream conversation was about. What is my dream self getting up to that I'm not remembering? And why is his life apparently so much more eventful than mine?

Here in the waking world, the night air is filled with the smell of wood smoke. Nights have become quite chilly, though the afternoons remain sunny and mild. I can't say I like the smell of wood smoke anymore. When I lived in L.A., the smell of woodsmoke was a rare and pleasant reminder of chilly childhood evenings when we would have a fire in our fireplace. Since moving here I've smelled woodsmoke so often that it's lost its appeal. I've even come to find it a bit annoying. I'd much rather smell the unadulterated scent of early autumn, compounded of dry leaves and grass and pine needles and a bit of early decay. Too bad I've probably got three or four months of frequent woodsmoke smell ahead.

Broken

Now being inclined to doze off frequently (perhaps this will provide me with an excuse to begin drinking coffee regularly once again), I experience the nights as a series of fragments. I think this might have a long-term influence on my perception of reality. I've been accustomed to long, slow passages of time and now must adjust to quicker chunks. I'm finding it odd so far, and haven't figured out how to put those chunks together into a coherent whole. Maybe I never will.

Confused. Here are some chunks of Internet:

Fans of lurid paperback cover art might enjoy this international collection of covers from books by David Goodis, the still fairly obscure mid-20th century writer of crime novels on whose "Down There" Truffaut based his noted movie "Shoot the Piano Player" and who wrote the novel "Dark Passage" on which the 1940's Bogart-Bacall movie was based. I've actually got a couple of these books, moldering away in a box in my garage.

From gutbloom, a compendium of information both well-known and obscure about the state of California, most of which I can affirm is mostly true.

From Pravda (so you know it must be accurate) comes an interesting article about the therapeutic value of S&M (yes, I know that isn't exactly what the article says, but that's pretty much what it implies. Expect increasing popularity for what Alan Watts once called "vestigial clerical garments" in the former Soviet Union.)

Somewhat more serious; Wal-Mart's prescription drug discounting deconstructed (with asides on why the mass media still bite.)

Enough for now. I feel another doze coming on.