bad metaphor

Last night Elijah and I were talking about a question that has been floating around the back of my mind: what do blind people dream of? Not people who have lost their vision due to accidents or macular degeneration, but people who developed having no sense of sight whatsoever. This came up due to a recent Something Awful thread posted by a blind person, who had been asked about this very subject:

It’s a little hard to say for sure since it’s not like I’ve experienced someone else’s dreams. I don’t really see in my dreams if that’s what you’re asking, but I will have more of an awareness of what’s around me and I’ll intuitively know whatever I would ordinarily be able to sense. For example if I’m standing next to a building in a dream, I’ll know where all the entrances are, how to get to them from my location, the types of doors, if people are around them, etc. but I don’t scan the building with my eyes and pick up the information as I go.

As one who has extremely vivid dreams, the idea of dreaming without vision is absolutely fascinating to me. So I mentioned how inconceivable I find it to dream with no imagery, no visual information whatsoever, and E said, “It’s not that hard to imagine. It’s not like you actually see things when you think of them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Can you? Like, if I tell you to think of a pie, can you actually see a pie? With your eyes closed?”

“Of course I can. Wait, you mean you can’t?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I think of a pie, but I don’t really see anything.”

“No colors, nothing?

“Nope.”

This proceeded to blow my mind on multiple levels. “You don’t see anything? What’s in there then? What happens in your brain when you try to conceive of ‘pie-ness*’?”

“I don’t know. It’s just…blank.”

We then spent the next hour trying to communicate what the other ‘sees’ mentally when trying to evoke various images, images that haven’t necessarily been ‘perceived’ by the eyes but nevertheless are within the realm of the familiar. For instance, the pie I ‘saw’ is not a pie that has ever existed, at least to my knowledge, but rather a composite pie, incorporating elements of both pies I have seen and what I tend to associate with pies. The pie has a golden flaky crust, scalloped edges and is sitting on top of a blue gingham tablecloth. A cliché pie, two parts Betty Crocker and one part Country Time. It looks delicious.

Elijah can see the cliché pie, especially after I describe it, but it doesn’t appear that he does so spontaneously at the mention of a pie, nor can he ‘see’ it very clearly. “I can see what you’re saying, but from far away, like I’m looking through a blurry lens.” A blurry lens that blocks out color information.

Now, the cliché pie isn’t perfect in my mind, despite borrowing from the uber-hausfrau Betty Crocker’s aesthetic. The image changes as I cycle through my memories and concepts of ‘pie-ness’ and update the image. When I first visualized it the pie was in a blue tin, then the tin was modified to an aluminum one. But the pie still exists for me. It doesn’t for Elijah. He has to really concentrate in order to visualize that pie, and even afterwards, it sounds as though it is a much dimmer version of what I get.

Should Elijah get himself to a neurologist, stat? Am I the one who is strange? Do androids dream of electric sheep, and if so, are they black or white? I know some of you (three) who read my blog are cognitive scientists; please chime in with your ideas!

* Edited to make this look less like another word.

Yesterday I took Quark in for his annual checkup, anticipating that all he’d need are shots to make sure he doesn’t get rabies and give me some awesomely radical cat brain disease. When the vet pried him out of the confines of the loathed carrier, he took one look at him and said, “Hey, your cat needs to lose weight.”

Yes, yes, I know, I explained, but then the vet put him on the scaled and clocked him at 15.7 lbs. “Wow, that’s quite a jump up from last year.” (He was, might I add, too fat last year as well). The vet proceeded to explain that since my cat is getting up in age, he is at risk of developing diabetes. Unhappy images popped in my head of chasing my cat around the apartment with a needle full of cat insulin – at least since he’s tubby, he’s slower and easier to catch, right?

The vet then listened to his heartbeat and discovered that Quark has a (slight, low-grade) heart murmur (!). Apparently they will have to keep tabs on him and make sure it doesn’t get stronger, or more erratic, or whatever the hell heart murmurs do. It could be a congenital condition that has existed for awhile and has just now presented itself – but, I have my suspicions that it might have to do with the unhappy fact that my cat is a lard-ass. A cute, round and wonderfully affectionate lardass, but a lardass nevertheless. A dead cat is never cute.

So I am embarking on a mission to make Quark shed some kitty flub. The primary potential pitfall in this plan (pah) is that, living in what is basically a studio apartment, I have no door on my bedroom. Hence, no way to shut out a hungry headbutting cat in the middle of the night when he decides he wants food and I want sleep. Yes, the little turd knows exactly when I am at my weakest, and though he can’t quite figure out how to not get his head stuck in a doorway, has somehow managed to calculate when I am deep in the throes of a sleep cycle, and act accordingly.

One of us will make it out of this alive. Barely.

My relationship with coffee ended with a whimper, not a bang. It used to be that I never got my fill, sipping from the black well as if it were bottomless and the flow of caffeine would never, ever end. Gradually, the mug emptied and one day I didn’t come back for a refill. “Coffee just makes me feel jittery and awful,” I observed, noting the unsteadiness of my outstretched hands. I decided it wasn’t worth being awake at such cost. Sure, I continued to appreciate the earthy aroma of the grounds, but when offered any would refuse, because of the memory of a tremble.

Thereafter followed a two year long period in which I wasn’t quite asleep, per se, but never really all that awake either. Whenever I would feel tired I’d go to my standard fallback – “Earl Gray, hot.” Delicious, no stain on breath or unsettled nerves, a gentle perfume. Every now and then I’d splurge and get an iced coffee (one of the few highlights in some areas. It would taste good, but never enough to tempt me into a daily habit*. A routine.

For whatever reason, last week I decided to revisit the old caffeinated flame. Rekindle the spark. My co-worker asked if I’d like some coffee, as she’d made extra, and my sleepy, weak-willed self said “yes.” Upon the first sip of the brackish, black liquid, my eyes fluttered open. I quickly remembered what it was like to be productive, and proceeded to race through work projects that had been languishing on a corner of my desk for days.

Oh, to be awake again! It’s as if I’d been drowned for two years and suddenly revived.

Since then I’ve been hitting the coffee shop in Wescoe every morning. At first it was a small cup, now I’ve graduated to a “Venti.” As thrilled as I am about my renewed state of coffee-consciousness, I am starting to notice, already, the signs of dependence. When the caffeine leaves my system, I am left feeling more drained than ever. The only thing that can restore me to rightness is another cup. And the shuddering is resurfacing.

Ah, beware – the wonders and dangers of the magic potion.

* I don’t count iced coffee as coffee, much like how iced tea isn’t really tea, but some sort of sugary liquid confection. Call me crazy but it doesn’t seem to affect me in the same way.

When my sister informed me that my mother had relocated to Houston, I was not terribly excited about the news. I’d never been to Texas, but I had been told nothing good by any of my friends and associates. My boss calls Houston “Hellston.” My old roommate Paul, who’d made frequent physics related trips to Dallas, complained about trying to find any semblance of vegetarian food in the city. I have heard great things about Austin, and that it is basically a much bigger (Texas-sized portion) Lawrence. But aside from Austin, I haven’t had any particular interest in visiting other locales in the Lone Star State.

Driving through a (tilty) downtown Dallas.

The road dictates life in Texas. The first thing visible is the billboards – they’re larger and taller than billboards I’ve seen in any other state, since they are designed to be seen from the road. Sure, the billboard clusters aren’t quite as dense as they are in, say, Missouri (where you can hardly throw a Roman candle without setting a billboard on fire), but they’re there, and they’re HUGE. Then came endless strip malls. And What-a-Burgers (I tried to keep a tally but the boys told me to give it up after half an hour).

What does this crazy Texan-construction-speak mean?

Endless powerlines, strip malls, and – um. A place where you can get a “Thai massage” with your coffee? How convenient!

According to the author of the Houston WikiTravel page, who seems to be similarly disenchanted with the city, unchecked sprawl has resulted in a city spread out over a disproportionately large area to its population. Also, forget about any semblance of public transit. You simply can’t go without a car in Houston. The few people I did see walking on the roadsides, out of necessity rather than choice, looked naked without any protective vehicular enclosure. Not that I felt much safer being in a car, really.

I can’t say Houston was entirely without its charms, however. For there was the presence of this:

IKEA: all the charm of Sweden, all the cheapness of China!

A Swedish wonderland, where I purchased this, the highlight of my trip:

After much hemming and hawing, I got the red one.

Report: the furbag is quite taken with the cat tent and is often spotted poking his happy little head out of it. Will post evidence once I take photos that aren’t blurry and don’t showcase the current untidiness of my apartment.

Another aspect of Houston that I appreciated was the big, no, immense population of Vietnamese immigrants who have settled in the area. Many of the Vietnamese expatriates in Southern California, weary of high living expenses, have fled to Houston, lured by the prospect of cheap housing and job opportunities. Yes, being Houston, the area is still full of strip malls, but ones that cater to Vietnamese customers:

That’s a (South) Vietnamese flag, with the yellow background and three red stripes.

Unfortunately, since this trip was rather brief and I was without a car (the boys had it most of the time to visit their buddy), I didn’t get to explore this area that much. I do have an upcoming Christmas visit to endure; I expect that I’ll get plenty of chances to eat more delicious Vietnamese food on the next trip!

Another Houston highlight – while flipping through their buddy’s Teach for America Guide to Houston, the boys discovered that there is actually a Lord of the Rings themed restaurant. I personally have been a gigantic LOTR nerd since middle school, and was lucky to be in the company of other dorks, so of course we had to go.

Yes, that thar is a hobbit themed cafe.

The saddest part of all: our reaction was that the Hobbit Hole cafe was NOT DORKY ENOUGH. That’s right. We went in and were dismayed at finding regular food on the menu. Nary a mention of lembas, the elvish waybread. Not even a drop of damned mead to be found. I mean for chrissakes, they could have just wrapped up a luna bar in a palm leaf. Did they even have avocados in Middle Earth?

(At this point feel free to avenge my dignity and kill me.)

Finally, it seems as though Houston, of all places, has a thriving folk art community. Take this house, for instance, constructed entirely of beer cans:

Someone had to put away a LOT of crummy beers to make this thing.

The second stop on our folk art tour, what is known as the Orange Show:

In front of the Orange Show.

The Orange Show is…interesting, to say the least. It’s not quite an amusement park, though appearances would lead one to believe that it started as such. Let’s back up. The show’s creator, Jeff McKissack, was an orange enthusiast and welding hobbyist. He bought this property with the intent of opening a beauty parlor (his unsuccessful gambit to attract the ladies), but unfortunately tried to get into the beauty parlor business during the height of hippie couture, when nobody was even interested in cutting their hair, let alone brushing it. Somehow he hit upon this…alternate plan.

A sweet welcome from McKissack.

Useful orange information.

McKissack offered other, non-orange related advice as well. Of the senile rambling grandpa variety, of course.

The show was created as a platform for McKissack to spread the gospel about oranges. He set up this structure, containing his welded sculpture tributes to the orange, and included useful factoids about his beloved citrus fruit. The “show” itself was to consist of McKissack lecturing the public about oranges, with a woman in the background playing piano and a man dancing (not sure whether he was wearing an orange suit).

Stage where the lectures would take place.

Scary clowns love oranges too.

One problem with attendance might have been, I dunno, using a clown from hell as your spokesperson? For oranges?! I’m surprised there wasn’t a lingering citrus fruit phobia among kids in the area around this time.

The show was likely less stellar than its surroundings.

McKissack expected thousands of people to come to the show on the weekends. The best it ever did was opening night, when almost 200 people came to see what was up. Months later, he died of heartbreak. R.I.P. McKissack, you would have done better in Lucas, KS perhaps.

Warhead trailer next to the Orange Show.

Then, the final stop on our folk art tour was a visit to the Art Car Museum. Houston, it seems, is the Art Car Capital of the world. Makes sense when you think about it – everyone has cars, so why not the artists? Discontent with the typical Range Rovers and Hummers, the artists applied their vision to these beasts of transport:

Pimped out ride.

Houston Art Cars even have cupholders on the outside.

Inside the museum, there was an excellent collection of artists’ responses to war. Many of the pieces were targeted towards the current war in Iraq, obviously, and there were several of these that made powerful statements. The best one, which I did not photograph, was in a room of its own and consisted of several little dioramas with puppets, in poses replicating the torture photos released from Abu Ghraib. One of the more inhuman and shameful acts committed during this conflict, perpetrated by the “good guys.” It’s easy to glorify war, as long as you ignore images like these.

As American as apple pie.

Hm, that’s convenient.

Hanging outside the museum. The parking sign isn’t actually part of the piece; the museum happens to be butted right up against a gas station.

The boys got tired of art and decided to play poker on their I-pods. Against dogs.

Ultimately, while Houston might not be my favorite city – far from it, in fact – towards the end of my brief exposure to the city, I started to understand what draws people to it. In an age of highways and technology, this is the new Wild West: a place where construction is unfettered, the land of no zoning laws and freedom of movement (as long as you own a car). Immigrants are drawn to the city because anyone can make it here, whether you be an enterprising Vietnamese sandwich maker, a Swedish corporation, an immigrant from Mexico who can’t speak a lick of English, or just some crazy orange-lovin’ loon with too much beer and too much time on his hands. Busty women of all colors, shapes and sizes can find employment in one of the ubiquitous Hooters establishments – given that they have the minimum requirements, of course.

And no matter who you are or where you come from, in this state you are now a Texan. This apparently means you have free reign to idle at 65 in the left lane, ignoring the frustrated honking and irritation of those lowly peon drivers from other states who may be directly behind you. Don’t mess with Texas.