"So what are you up to?"

I'm beginning to fear that question. My answers are furtive and futile attemt to justify myself. Obviously wasting something or other. People look at me funny.

Oh, no - wait - it's just me.

No-one else has any real problem with what I'm (not) doing. Heck, middle-aged people with good careers envy this drifting and eagerly listen to the options, the side-projects. I ask "what're you up to" and it's The Same Old. Then they ask me more about my plans and smile.

"...some of the most interesting forty-year-olds I know still don't."

Tell me about objects in space, and soma dreams

Q: whereareyouhowfastareyougoingwhattimeisit?
                                                                                        (Black in front, black behind.)
A: 0,0,0,0 (with a V of 0 and a side of fries)

    Well, at least I have a reference point.
Might as well set up the other axes now... hand me a marker and a T-Square, or maybe I'lll just go freehand. We'll spackle in the little dimensions later.

How fast is that object moving?
Wha...? I dunno, but it looked like a pancake.


Are you happy?
I don't understand the question. I have to do my laundry on Monday afternoon but I've got a few hours free to achieve contentment if you wanna meet for some coffee and work on that. But if I'm happy, does that mean I'm satisfied? unmotivated? driveless? Floating free and smiling and running out of oxygen? (in which case, you might as well be happy.)

Dreams of bats

Burgundy, black, mother of pearl and teak. Old wood, deep night, fancy clothes, wine and shit.
    Being Bruce Wayne returning home from abroad, there's a somber funeral for my parents: elegant evening wear and claustrophobic sentiments. I feel awkward (?) and slip out.
    A few floors up and in the back of the manor, there's a party. Large windows open onto night and contrast racuous laughter and young folk drinking. Two (or three) together: man with a partially shaved head lies draped, a woman dribbles wine or blood on him and reads his fortune in the patterns. They offer to medium for me with my parents.
(I do not recall what happens at this point)
    The fake/phony/blasphemous fortune tellers call after me as I depart to climb the stairs through the back corridors of the manor. There's a rickety staircase leading to a short landing with a door at the end. The wood's going on the floor, worse at it approaches the door. The door's a flat sheaf of dry-warped planks, barely held together by screws.
    Inside is a spiral staircase. There's something important at the top, so I climb the helix.
    I hear a chittering swoop and fall back, there's a terracotta spray-streak and bat shit splatters over my pants. Then again and again. Then it hits me on the head and I close my eyes while it works its way (behind the lab goggles that I'm apparently wearing now). Close your eyes, you don't want to get guano in them, it'll burn.
    Blind and on my back, bats still shitting on me, I reverse-crawl my way down the stairs, one hand going over and clutching under the rim so as not to fall while I kick with my legs, bumping my shoulders on each step down the spiral.
    Eventually there's a door. I go through, stand. I've wiped my face and there are two gents from the funeral standing there in evening coats or bathrobes. They have their own suite, it's furnished in rich teak and burgundy drapes and I think they're gay. They see me, jest at my situation at four in the morning, and invite me to use the shower.