Had my first dream about the oil spill. I was working with the ocean, with a classroom, and we would take these dives through the water that would take us through pitch black holes of the ocean. Everything was flooded by black water. In my commute home, I had to get my car from the garage. In my dream, a friend and I have to take an elevator down. As it descends, it’s like lowering ourselves into darkness–the ocean is light and somewhat murky at the beginning of the descent (the elevator is, of course, transparent), but suddenly we’re enveloped by a gush of dark, sticky water (it felt like we were little beads in those toys you can find at a science museum where they mix water with some sort of plasticky, colored oil). When we arrive at the bottom floor of the garage, it’s been flooded with about ten feet of water, and we have to swim through the water as the elevator doors open and surface for air (our cars are parked on the second floor–which, for no reason explained by my subconscious is free of water). Right before doing so, my companions in the elevator say with disgruntled sighs, “Oh, boy. Take your breath. Here we go again.” It was upsetting to wake up and realize that despite the bizarre physics of my dream, there are actually creatures in the ocean who are experiencing some kind of dark and oily hell.

I was feeling achy and tired today after an epic three days of cycling (plus the rain), and went to get pho on my lunch break today. I was seated at a round table alongside three other men. The man to my right politely offered to let me share his soup with him if I ordered the spring rolls. (I thought this was sorta funny. I imagine he’s used to eating with his wife. Or he watches his weight.) I politely declined, and I enjoyed my meal in peace.

At the end of lunch, the four of us all ended up talking. It was one of those conversations where everyone is very polite, and there’s no expectation that the connection will last after the meal. Well, get this. The guy next to me (who wanted me to share his soup), works for the city in what he calls putrescibles. Until today, I was unaware of this fabulous word. Putrescible. Liable to become putrid.

So what kinda job does he have? He coordinates in moving all of the trash that the city collects from its residents and selling it somewhere else. New York doesn’t let any of its trash stay around here, so they gotta ship it all out. Where does it all go? Down south. Someplace like Georgia. Little towns that don’t have anything, and–let me tell you–we pay a nice amount for that stuff. One day, we’ll start seeing New York incinerate its own garbage and turning it into energy. That’s the future, absolutely. You’ll see. He’s a logistics guy. Served in the army for almost ten years, he says, so he loves this kind of stuff. Going on thirty years. He’s at around eight on a twelve-inch ruler–he holds his arms up like so–and it’ll be a little bit more time before he can, you know, practice his golf swing on a Monday afternoon. But hey, not many places have a pension anymore. Which is why, and he’s saying this to us ’cause we’re still young, you should always save your money.

I wish it wasn’t so late, and I had remembered more of what he said. Putrescibles.

Stumbled upon this wonderful opening paragraph:

Vladimir Nabokov referred to editors as “pompous avuncular brutes.” T.S. Eliot said that many of them were just “failed writers.” And Kingsley Amis, that laureate of cantankerousness, spoke of how the worst kind

prowls through your copy like an overzealous gardener with a pruning hook, on the watch for any phrase he senses you were rather pleased with, preferably one that also clinches your argument and if possible is essential to the general drift of the surrounding passage.

(From The New York Review of Books.)