When people talk about their dreams I sometimes stop paying attention

It’s not that I think dreams don’t deserve to be thought about

I simply don’t think that mine are worth mentioning

A lot of people read into their dreams like it’s some kind of window to their psyche

And spend a lot of time thinking about different ways to interpret the symbology

If you really need a metaphor to understand what I’m saying you might go with, “my dreams are my reality”

Like the other night guess who popped into my head but my surgeon Dr. Knee

And of course my new guitar was in my dream

And I asked the dream version of Dr. Knee if she had any collectible coins

As I had been concerned about my finances and how well my ankle would hold up in a hike in the woods

Since we had recently got dinner with Christine

And I was sipping on some ramen broth and eating soba noodles and she invited us to stay

Up in her cabin in the north bay up in Monte Rio

And we said fuck yeah Chris we’d love to join you

We talked about the value of knowing your neighbors

Christine said she's known hers for a long time

I said 99% of the time I'd rather not know any of my neighbors

I told a few stories of the strange interactions I've had in the past

We walked home after dinner and a crackhead came out of the lobby front door just as i was coming in

I saw his eyes they seemed vacant and crazy

He was holding stacked high a bunch of packages, balancing them under his chin

My neighbor was coming in right behind me holding his bag of groceries

And we looked at each other and he said, “that doesn’t look right,” and he called 911 while I hurried over and confirmed that all the packages were gone

He followed the crackhead into the Whole Foods parking lot

And a woman who was just trying to buy some ingredients for dinner tried to get someone pulling into the garage to help get the exit blocked

But the shopper was confused and didn't understand why everyone was running around waving their hands

The thief sped out of the garage in his possibly stolen sedan

Running a red light turning eastbound down 14th Street

His tired squealed and some other car honked at being cut off like, “What the fuck are you doing?”

And we stood around for a second and shrugged and I introduced myself to my neighbor and he said, "Hi, I’m Chris."

And looked at my girlfriend and was like, “that crackhead just stole my sinus rinse.”

The next morning we went up to the north bay

The sunshine was beautiful and it was a perfect day

I was wearing a funny outfit that made me look like an 8-year old

I haven’t worn shorts since I left the East Bay

And the ocean wind was a bit chilly and the breeze was nice

And we sat right on the rocks and ate lunch

And the tide came up and splashed on the rocks

We drove Shoreline Highway

On Chris’ back deck we were perching

And the bluejays were chirping

And we talked about HOA fees

And we talked about lyme disease

I ran into my barber John on my walk to the gym

He said he had a funeral and from the Philippines

A bunch of family had flown in

And he told me squats were the key

I said, “whatever you say goes, I’ve never managed a gym in LA”

I just went to a funeral myself for Angie Hathaway

In February and it still concerns me

And what do you know poor JV just broke his ankle loading his van

And I immediately I was like Dr. Knee!

Maybe there is something to all this stuff about dreams after all

And JV was like, “I love you” and I was like, "don’t worry my friend I’ve done this plenty of times

You’ll be hauling vintage plate reverbs around the city in no time

Again let me know if you need any rides."

And I remembered hobbling around on crutches

After Dr. Knee reattached a muscle in middle of my foot

The guy who operated on me in the 90s just never put it back from where he took it

He later was arrested for attacking a taxi driver in Anchorage while drunk

And I called my dad because I saw the weather was getting nice again

And we talked about guitars and he said, “Well as a matter of fact I was 'bad,'

And the delivery guy just dropped off another one of your guitars

Well, you’ll get it once I’m gone”

And we laughed and I said hey that’s too dark Dad

Tell me about your new Gibson

And he said don’t worry about me son, time is something you can’t run away from

And said he loves his guitar because it tunes itself! and it’s frickin’ awesome

And we talked about how different things are than when he was younger

And how the world is so full of wonder