Three questions...try and find them

Were I to follow the examples set forth by Poe’s short stories and Sting’s lyrics and send out an S.O.S. in a bottle, what are the odds it would end up in the hands of an English speaker? Considering currents of two converging oceans and my nearest neighbors, where exactly would it be likely to wash ashore…or is that less likely than ending up with an English speaker? Hmmm…I need a life.

Moving on. I’ve suffered enough traumatic nightmares to look up a thing or two about the study of dreams. What I’ve found is of no use. Dreams in which the sleeper falls victim to attack, either by human or animal means, suffers the loss of control of certain aspects of his life. That is to say, when I’m dreaming that my own best friend is strangling me to death, after doping me up on coke, I’m subconsciously admitting to myself that some area of my life has been taken out of my hands and is under the control of outside forces, which potentially pose a threat, of some sort. I’m more than willing to consciously lay claim to the fact that more than half of my life is no longer under my control. Outside forces possess more authority over my past, present and future than I care to admit, but I know it’s a reality. So now that I’ve come to grips with this debilitating factor, why do the dreams continue? The most irritating bit of it all, I’d be willing to bet most people are aware of what little control they hold over their own essence, but most people, I believe, don’t suffer night after night of strangulation, stabbing, rapes, drowning at the hands of foreigners, shark attacks and alley muggings. That’s not to say I am the only one, but when I tell you I dreamt of my closest friends surreptitiously, and brutally, stabbing me, I watched the blood transcend from a trickle to a pool, I lay down and begged for death, I don’t want to hear your version of a “fucked up” dream involving your uncle’s car theft and a police chase where all the officers were replaced by monkeys wielding grapefruit, your most abhorred fruit. I fail to see a comparison. I fail to feel sympathy, or empathy, for your dreams of running through halls naked, while I dream of being stoned to death for the alleged murder of unknown children and my own dog. No…no comparison. I think I’ve, reasonably, tried every trick of the trade to halt all dreams. I’m willing to forgo dreams of Candy Land and Rivers Cuomo, my own rock super stardom and eternal sunshine, even dreams of a happy ever after, just to disengage the neurotic, psychotic, morbid visions which plague my nights. Um, so, my question is…how do I do that?

Finally. The most dreaded question my students ask, on a weekly basis, goes something like, “ You have boyfriend?” Technically, a statement and not a question, I realize. But their vocal intonation denotes a question. My response, day after day, “No.” Their follow-up, “Why?” My answer is usually somewhere along the lines of, “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m living in rural Japan, some 20,000 miles from all discernible civilization and intellectual existence, I have a snotty attitude apparently when I meet new people, I tend to only attract sexual deviants and the occasional bi-curious, married female, and, evidently, you presume I’m pregnant, which places me real high on the Japanese morality scale.” But, when translated into Engrish: “I don’t know.” I need a new answer. What’s a better response to, “Why?” (I hate that fucking question.)