Almost Eleven

According to my computer screen, the sky is overcast and the temperature is 70°F.  The bright blue sky beyond the sun-drenched oak trees and pine trees tells me nothing about the temperature, but argues forcefully that the sky is not the dreary shroud the online weather report claims. If I were a skeptical curmudgeon, I might use that obviously erroneous report of current sky conditions to dismiss the value of online weather information. If, on top of being a skeptical curmudgeon, I was conspiracy theorist, I might claim the authorities (whoever they are) have hatched an evil plan to use weather misinformation as a sinister tool to: a) prompt a violent rebellion against the National Weather Service; b) divert attention from the U.S. government’s plans to forcibly annex Venezuela; or c) test the degree to which the public can be manipulated into believing the color grey is actually blue. Another possibility, of course, is that I might claim weather misinformation is being used in an elaborate plot to change the name of the State of Alabama to the State of Grace. Admittedly, that elaborate plot would be a far-fetched idea; almost impossibly intricate and dazzlingly convoluted. Who knows, though, really? Conspiracy theorists are notorious for having been improperly hard-wired in the extreme. Remember Pizzagate? A pizza parlor (Comet Ping Pong pizzeria) ostensibly involved, with heavy involvement by senior Democratic Party officials, in a human trafficking and child sex ring. That idea apparently got immediate traction with conspiracy theorists. Word on the street is that the brains of many of the most fervent Pizzagate theorists inexplicably had been switched with their rectums. That explains the origin of the crude expression, “shit for brains.”

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Speaking of improper hard-wiring…I wonder how a simple glitch in a weather report generated such bizarre ideas? I cannot answer that, but I can trace a dream’s origin to a common experience, infected with underlying anxiety. For several days, I’ve been quite congested and my nasal passages have alternated between extremely dry and constantly dripping. During these past few days, the tissues I used when blowing my nose have been red with blood and phlegm (I know, it’s not pleasant morning reading). Anyway…I dreamed that my oncologist told me the nose bleeds were signs that my lung cancer had gotten much worse and that I should immediately start planning for my inevitable demise. Obviously, barely beneath my subconscious when I saw blood on the tissues, I was concerned. I worried that it wasn’t just dry, cracked nasal passages bleeding in response to blowing my nose. Hence the dream. A touch disturbing, but when conscious I can readily explain it away.

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There will come a point at which we can buy and sell Time. It will be sold in packages ranging from 30 seconds to 1 year. The effect of buying time is to extend one’s life by the amount of time purchased. Sellers’s lives decrease by the amount sold. The price per 30-second unit will be higher with each incremental increase. So, for example, if 30 seconds sells for 10¢, 60 seconds might sell for 22¢, 90 second for 36¢, and so on. Obviously, the price for a full year  would be astronomical. The buyer of a one-year extension will have to be extremely rich and quite desperate. The seller of the one-year extension will become instantly and enormously wealthy; but he could get the full value out of the sale only if he were to live at least one year after the transaction. If, on the other hand, he were to live only a week or a month afterward, he would have been robbed by time. Before we reach the point at which Time can be bought and sold, the troubling details will have to be worked out.  I would do it, but I’m just not sufficiently good with math to work it out.

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Mi novia returned from her trip last night. Even with a little less solitude than I had the last few days, the world is now a better place.

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I slept late today and I am plodding through the morning at a snail’s pace. It’s almost 11 a.m. and I still haven’t had breakfast (except for a jolt of espresso). Having heard mi novia‘s story of her grandson’s attempt to order a breakfast of enough pancakes to feed 7 (or more), I wish I had some pancakes for breakfast. But only a few.