The Gambling Dream

They were opening a brand new gambling hall in our neighborhood. Actually, the hall wasn’t new, it was old, like a converted community center or something. For the grand opening, the band was playing, and I was in the band – I played a trombone. We sat along the sides of the entrance hall. I remember looking at the floor; it was cracked and part of it was old tile, part of it painted cement.

After the band finished playing, I wandered in to one of the rooms and watched people gamble for a while. I tried to find the slot machines for hours, but I just ended up wandering around talking to people, lecturing on the evils of gambling and how the house is always rigged to win. (But strangely, I don’t actually believe that, but I did in the dream.)

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Civil War Dream

I was dressed in a civil war costume. It was blue, so I must have been in the Union Army. I had a mustache. (Don’t even laugh.) I and another dude in uniform were strolling through a market place. We strolled past a very beautiful women at a booth who was selling wool. I stopped to tap my cigar ash (yes, I was smoking a cigar. Shut up.) into what I thought was a wastebasket, but I realized it was a basket of the woman’s wool. Oops. Too embarrassed to say anything or apologize, I fled before she could realize what I did. Then I agonized about whether I should go back and tell her.

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Hurdling Cube Walls – A real memo from my work

Steph Mineart

Intercompany Memorandum
To: All Employees
From: Facilities
Date: April 3, 1998

Subject: Hurdling Cube Walls

Please read the following message if you are located at Parkwood.

Please be advised that an injury occurred recently when someone climbed over a manager station cube wall. Do NOT, under any circumstance, climb over these walls. There are two keys available for each of these cube offices. If you are at Parkwood both keys were given to you when you arrived at your new station. Please give the extra key from that station to your Administrative Assistant or to Facilities so that someone has access to your office in the event you are not at work. These cubes are not currently mastered keyed. We are working with the furniture manufacturer to get this resolved.

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The Circus Dream

I was traveling with a circus, down a winding dirt road. It was a bright sunny day, and the grass was green. I was traveling in the cart with the puzzle girl, who twisted herself into a pretzel and got inside an ornate wooden puzzle box, which was carved on the sides and top in the shape of puzzle pieces. She was doing her act to entertain me as we went along.

Along the side of the road was what seemed at first to be a field of yellow flowers or crops all in a row – the tops of the plants were all level with my feet. When I looked closer, I discovered they were lemon trees, and what I thought were flowers growing on very short plants were the lemons. The tops of the trees were at foot level.

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The Famous "Wear Sunscreen" Commencement Address

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40 (get attorneys for hire from here) , maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s. To solve divorce cases, people can check out family law lawyers serving in Bedford

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

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It’s a Small World

This written piece isn’t quite accurate: see more about real statistics on Snopes.com.

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be:

  • 57 Asians
  • 21 Europeans
  • 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
  • 8 Africans
  • 52 would be female
  • 48 would be male
  • 70 would be non-white
  • 30 would be white
  • 70 would be non-Christian
  • 30 would be Christian
  • 89 would be heterosexual
  • 11 would be homosexual
  • 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
  • 80 would live in substandard housing
  • 70 would be unable to read
  • 50 would suffer from malnutrition
  • 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
  • 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
  • 1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

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The Tree

Tree

Author Unknown

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start.

While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier. Oh, that’s my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again."

"Funny thing is," he smiled, "when I come out in the morning to pick ’em up, there ain’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before."

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The Wise Woman’s Stone

Mandala

Author Unknown

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food.

The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation.

The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

"I’ve been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious.

Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."

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Phenomenal Woman

In the poem below, on the line after “the stride of my steps” there should not be any asterisks. But for some reason my content management system blows up whenever I try to take them out.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I’m not cute or built to suit a model’s fashion size
But when I start to tell them
They think I’m telling lies.
I say
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
t*h*e*c*u*r*l*o*f*m*y*l*i*p*s
I’m a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say
It’s in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
The palm of my hand
The need for my care.
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.

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Schoolboys on the Bus

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In this dream, I was traveling on a Greyhound-like passenger bus, and I was sitting in the very back. In the front of the bus there was a whole group of private school boys with scrubbed, cherubic faces and neat short haircuts. They were dressed in identical uniforms; black pants and pure white shirts and ties. Except one young man’s cuffs were unbuttoned, and the elbow of his shirt had been dragged through the mud.

There were all around seven or eight years old, and yet they were drinking beer and other alcoholic beverages. I started scolding one of them, “In America, we don’t let little kids drink.” And they all started laughing.

What was with the muddy sleeve? It was so out-of-place it had to be significant somehow…

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