Asleep in Life's Waiting Room.

We were looking through web pages that offered advice on the appropriate course of action one should take should one accidentally ingest lamp oil (as you do). The results were not promising. "Woman dies after drinking lamp oil", "Lamp oil intoxication fatal", "Near fatal ingestion of household lamp oil". He told me not to look at the result because it would only make me feel more ill than I already was, which would result in an incorrect diagnosis.

I told him I didn't know what I was feeling anymore, I just felt sick. It was probably the lamp oil, because some things take longer to hit. Thing is, if you want to see foreshadowing in the narrative that is your life, then the shadows are everywhere. But still, shadows can be pretty.  

I had a friend once who told me that the worst mistake that you can make is to think you are alive, when you're really asleep in life's waiting room. 

MGM and Joris threw a party to initiate J's (and also my) return to the dream state on the Spirit Roof. It was a good party. The people that mattered arrived, mellow and chilled out, and stayed in the right frame of mind. It was calm and (for me) had a peculiar other-worldly quality to it. The Spirit Roof usually does, but this time I felt I was even more out of myself observing the whole thing. The lamp light flickered through the leaves, the shadows danced, and people sat around talking in little groups.  About life, people, gestures: in other words, the greatest story ever told.

It was a good group. Everyone was mellow and chilled, there were no overbearing individuals, people just sat around having a good time.

I wished the night could have carried on, and on, but eventually dawn broke and it was time to go back to bed in life's waiting room........

When I Say Love

When I say "love," the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person's ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I'm saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They're just symbols. They're dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It's unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we've connected, and we think that we're understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it's what we live for. Waking Life, chapter 2.