Watched Donnie Darko earlier this evening. Amazing film. I’ve been moving about in a sort-of trance, pondering the existential/temporal/purpose questions raised. Still sorting through everything. One issue with the movie is that it’s so psychologically engaging that it moves beyond the realm of mere coffee table quantum physics exercise and into more fundamental areas (kind of appropriate I used that adjective, no?).
Weird dream last night. I should have recorded it as soon as I got up (not like I had anything else to do this morning), but I just laid there. I made an effort to recall the dream in a lazy attempt to get the neurons in my head to make the appropriate connections so the memory wouldn’t be swept away but the mental to-do list that assaults my psyche after about 30 seconds. As such, I can only remember the latter part of the dream… I was walking out into a fenced-in parking lot to retrieve my car; but it wouldn’t start, so as a consolation I was offered a loaner. This turned out to be a bright white, completely smooth and badgeless Mercedes. I walked around it a few times in disbelief that it was as clean as it was, and just pondering the contours left behind by the removal of ornamentation. I got in, only to find that there wasn’t a steering wheel, but a wide dashboard that extended to my knees, full of readouts and displays, and two gearshift handles, a large truck-style one, and a small joystick-type right in front of me. I wondered how I was to drive it until I started the car and two handles rotated up and out of the dash. I gripped these, alternately pulling one toward me and pushing one away in order to turn the car. When I had to shift I simply let go of one and shifted with my free hand–the handles were interconnected so I could still steer. I pulled out of the parking lot and up onto the road, still crawling along at a walking pace. Right before the road turned into a bridge, I drove by Colleen (Park scholar I dated briefly–too briefly–freshman year) walking across the street at a leisurely pace, carrying something and wearing a short dress, as she was wont to do when I knew her. This is where it gets murky. After the bridge the car disappeared, and there was a man (it could have been me) in a giant bionic ape suit, either terrorizing people or saving them from another threat (though it couldn’t have been much of one if I don’t remember it). I just remember that after all the commotion was through the suit’s head rotated up and back to reveal the operator inside, and all the mechanism (hydraulic lines and servos and such) was visible.
I repotted Francis and Clarke today. They’re much happier.