Saturday, April 26, 2003

I dreamt last night of a cult that many friends had joined. At one point, when I refused, the wife of the cult leader brandished a small paring knife, which I took out of her hands. I was relieved when the police came, but worried because I knew they had gas masks in the compound, and would be impervious to the tear gas canisters. Later, in an ironic twist to dream cinema, almost deliberately scripted so, I ended up accepting the cult, if not joining myself, still a little wary, especially when they tried to get me to adopt talking animals, like their dwarf hippopotumus. I also dreamt that I won election to the Missouri House of Representatives. And some city race. I was at the laundromat at the time. I had a conversation, a mediation between my ID and Superego today on my walk with Loki, making both realize that it wasn't a matter of either or. That the constant struggle between work and play left both factions unsatisfied. The solution is to do what both agree makes them feel good, which is to embrace productivity, knowing that play time can then be enjoyed fully, without a lingering guilt, and productivity can be enjoyed for what productivity is, without feeling that I'm working all the time. That duality is so ingrained, and so misleading. 12:11:03 PM

I had a bowl of fruit loops tonight, still wondering why in the world I bought in the first place. And then I saw the Free Pooh and Friends Mini-bobble head offer on the box, and remembered. Bought it for the prize; kept it for the cereal. I also discovered a wicked combination - nutella and Girl Scout Trefoils. Immediately after, I had an intense craving for salty, and broke out the sausage and crackers and goat cheese, saving my really, really salty derbishire or whatever crazy micro-dairy cheddar I have in the fridge for a time when I'm not so ravenously desirous of that specific flavor, so I can appreciate the nuance, relative to a baseline taste sensitivity. Part of me argued, as I put the crackers and sausage and goat cheese away, that now was the best time ever to indulge. But the other part of my brain reminded the impulsive part that it was it, and not id, so to speak, that correctly identified and acted upon that initial flavor craving and pairing in the first place. Having awakened the senses now, the idea of flavor can titillate far more than sated that desire. Well into my dreams tonight, floating in a cotton candy sky, dotted by nutella popcorn ball clouds, and salty pretzels wing their way higher. Yum. 1:45:33 AM

If I ever go crazy, I hope it's a crazy way where I just hop on some random bus one day, wallet in hand, and just disappear, leaving a trail of credit card receipts for a while, and then vanish completely. Last traced to some truck stop outside Anchorage. But with a postcard every now and again, written as if I'm simply on vacation, and nothing at all is amiss. The huge aspect of the marketplace, the area that makes fine dining food service a disjointed economy, is that partron's don't outright bid on their servers. I would imagine it would fairly easy to set up, especially over the Internet, and possibly even be viable restaurant concept. You could have a perfect system, that accomodated automically benefits of being an attractive female waitresses waiting on men, regulars knowing, rationally, how a particular server will impact their experience - and automatically weed out ineffective servers, over time - as they become unable to command any price for their tables. That would be the trick - you would have to create scarcity by limiting the number of tables, possibly incentivizing server behavior by starting with 4 table stations, unless someone is so far devalued that they couldn't possibly compete, and then eliminating a server, divvying up his or her spoils among the top waiters. Right now, the process is so random - for server and diner alike. I had a bevy of tables tonight who either didn't know how to tip or ordered as if they were at Houlihans for happy hour. If they had been bid out by other diners, they either would not have been able to get tables at all - or been put on a waiting list. Regardless, they'd have a better understanding of the economics of restaurants, and realize that if the dining experience is important to them, they need to be able to do more than just call before someone else does to get reservations. That's just voodoo economics, the way it works now. 12:59:30 AM