Sunday night, or maybe it was Monday morning, I had another one of those exciting dreams. My nocturnal trips, while my body is sleeping, have been quite entertaining lately. Lucid at points, lots of action and adventure, and some disappointing events, too. I can write it all off to Uranus in Pisces, but then, I understand such things.
The deal with this one dream, though, I know what the plot was. I knew the main character. I watched – or participated in – the violence, mayhem and so forth, because I knew where it was all going.
See, I was dreaming about William Gibson’s Neuromancer, as in, the computer cowboy named Case.
It’s been many years since I’ve reread the novel. I do own nice first editions of most of the author’s work, but I think my [u>Neuromancer copy[/u> is an old paperback.
But I haven’t touched it in years. Why that popped up now, I don’t know.
What was I thinking?
At Five AM, Sunday morning? Couple of titles popped through my mind after we wrapped it all up, “Riding with the King,” or a musical reference, “I fought the law (and the law won)”? A little later, I kept humming another tune, while I was watching the tiny Zara Spook [helpful hint: makes great earrings, too> wiggle and walk its way back to the boat.
Set the scene, at five in the morning, the computer was telling me that the temperature was a mighty chilly 47 degrees outside. I pulled on shorts, T-shirt, Hawaiian shirt, then a heavy layer of outerwear. Buckled up an older pair Teva sandals.
I shoved everything into my copious pockets, knife, phone, camera PDA, hair tie, ChapStick, sunglasses, and rolled on out the door. I kept thinking I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t remember what.
True to form, Bubba pulled up fifteen minutes early, ready to go. Truck’s gassed, boat’s secure, life is good, we’re going fishing.
I was awake, caffeinated, and ready to fish. “Change in plans, highway’s still under construction and closed.”
No problem.
I was doing fine. I’m the lucky one. I’m the good luck on Sunday morning. I’m the luck charm in this outfit, the Fishing Guide to the Stars.
Some mornings are better off spent in bed.
It’s like flying low, going in under the clouds, excellent weather. Fogged in with morning cloud cover hugging the ground. From the boat ramp, visibility was about three feet. We just launched the boat into the cove, and fished right there. First fish of the day, within minutes.
On around the corner, still fogged in. Another fish, and another, “NO! Don’t take a picture, that’s too small of a fish!”
I was just trying to get solid evidence that I was, indeed, fishing.
On around to the dam, looking for grass and shade, the fish like to lurk in the grass and the shade. I tried to make a funny comment about people in Austin, not sure the joke went right, something about big mouth bass and hippies in Austin.
We motored on around, nosed into another cove, caught another one, up to four or five now for my buddy and exactly zero for me, and kept right on enjoying a spring day. The air was clear, the fog burned off, the light refracted off the waves in glittering starbursts, I managed to shed most of my outerwear, and I was pretty confident that I’d have a fish, sooner or later. Maybe not a big fish, maybe not a five pound bass, but you know, something decent for the photographic record.
“Hey, Kramer, you got your fishing license on you?”
“Uh, sure, it’s right, it’s right, it’s right on my desk, why?”
I had to listen to snide little comments about “In Jail, Need Bail?” All the way home.
