Counterpunches — October 9, 2024 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Heart🎶
Huh?🦻
Not-Dream💭

THE DAILY UPDATE

Three Things I Am Grateful For Today:

Ginger ale and saltines.
The Washington Post.
The “unsubscribe” button.

Pursuit of Wordle Godhood: Today’s result: Five. I’ve never had a slower start. This was a cruel one.

Wordle 1,208 5/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Pursuit of Connections Godhood: Today’s result: Seven again. Chasing purples hurt.

Connections
Puzzle #486
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟦🟪
🟪🟦🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟦🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

The song in my head when I woke up today: These Dreams, by Heart

Oct. 8: Complicated, by Avril Lavigne
Oct. 7: Complicated, by Avril Lavigne
Oct. 5: Slide, by Goo Goo Dolls
Oct 4: Evil Angel, by Breaking Benjamin
Oct. 3: Right Here, by Staind
Oct. 2: So Far Away, by Staind
Oct. 1: I Will Follow You Into The Dark, by Death Cab For Cutie

Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: I want to see you clearly/Come closer than this

Tuesday Tunes: I felt like crap most of the day yesterday and listened to no music. I did listen to a bit of The Adventure Zone podcast.

Something I’m looking forward to today: Going to my first-ever Yankees playoff game. Boy The Elder and I are headed to KC!

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: A neck doctor appointment tomorrow. Hopefully we can figure out something that might help with pain relief.

Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: Seeing a player on my baseball team play in a soccer game.

What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved some journaling.

What I’ve written: Developing a Future that is Loud and Clear: Jakob Kuemmerle is applying his MLDS knowledge to a startup company, born in Northwestern’s Garage, that is hoping to change the hearing aid industry. (Sometimes, a writer falls in love with his lede: “Jakob Kuemmerle wants to cut through the noise in an industry centered on cutting through the noise.”)

We know a lot of stuff as a species. Why we dream is not one of them. Oh, there are lots of theories and ideas, ranging from the scientific to the woo-woo, but nothing concrete.

I don’t think we stop often enough to reflect upon the reality that our bodies force us to shut down on the regular and that we have this whole other life that emerges while we are recharging.

For the past two nights, I’ve had dreams I would rather not have. Since the time I was a little boy, I have had two types of dreams, which, of late, I’ve taken to delineating as “regular dreams” and “Not-Dreams.” The Not-Dreams are those that, decades later, I can remember in intricate detail, dreams that I believe are things something is trying to communicate to me, be that my own soul, the Creator or something I don’t have a name for. The past two nights have been all about the Not-Dreams, especially last night.

The thing about Not-Dreams is that they aren’t always pleasant. I once had a Not-Dream experience that many people who have had Near Death Experiences describe, a time in which they are forced to confront the impact of their lives on others. In that Not-Dream, I was confronted one by one by everyone affected by a situation that had occurred in my life, and let me tell you, it was awful. To have to stand there while my boys, my wife, the very special person in my life who I had to say goodbye to … while they all told me exactly how my actions hurt them …? Yeah. That.

Last night’s Not-Dream wasn’t pleasant, though thankfully it didn’t rise to the level of the previous paragraph. But it was of the kind that, when you wake up and the reality of it comes crashing down, hurts.

I have written of late about how I’m doing better, about how identifying the name of the monster that plagued me for so long has helped me fight it. The truth is, though, that this is a fight, and the monster punches back. Last night’s Not-Dream, full of deep emotion and sweet sensations, was an upper-cut to the balls.

Would you please help a brutha out? I’ve created a weekly eNewsletter called News-B-Nuts in which I’ll be sending out news nuggets and witty commentary to subscribers. If you can, would you support this endeavor for just $5 a month via Patreon?

Counterpunches — October 9, 2024

THE DAILY UPDATE

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