The Way A Day Should Start

Waking up at 7:44 a.m. with the sun moving in an upward arc, I let the fog of yet another strange dream dissipate.

It had been one where a group of people had invaded my apartment; at first, resembling the various social workers who had facilitated my moving in, back in 2014 -the women in dresses and the men in button up shirts, with one of them being very tall. There was something threatening underlying there presence in my place; I was aware that they had just shown up. This seemed to evoke the sense I have, living here, that certain people can just walk right in the place, such as the pest control guy whom, his knocks on the door with the accompanying "Pest control!" announcement going unheeded, will use some sort of master key to let himself in to ostensibly spray the kitchen and bathroom areas, then leave.

It was during one visit by that worthy, an occasion when I happened to be home, and had let him in, when he had stopped to stare at a picture of Donald Trump that I had cut out of a USA Today article shortly after his election in 2016 -it was the official "presidential" photo released by his staff, I believe- and affixed to a wall with invisible tape. The spirit in which I had done this was partly based in irony and sarcasm, and I wasn't sure if the thing was going to wind up serving as a dart board, or what. But the pest control guy had paused and said "Oh, that's not good!" which he worked into our conversation as if it was a rejoinder to what I had just said.

But, it wasn't in congruity with responding to my attempt at humor, as, what I had said was: "I haven't been plagued by too many pests lately; just the 2-legged kind, carrying tanks full of pesticide..."

Through the rapport that I had developed with the guy during his previous visits, I sensed that this would have gotten a chuckle out of him, but there was no mirth in his tone, as he spoke with his eyes fixed upon the Trump photo.

The very next morning I found that my first ever threat of eviction notice had been slid under my door, stating something to the effect that, during a routine pest control visit, the pest control agent(?) had noticed certain things in violation of my lease agreement, to wit: unsanitary conditions, food left out; food and cat litter on the floor, an overflowing trash can, and something wrong with the condition of the bathroom in general. That was the first warning, and three strikes and I was out, or words to that effect, signed by the management.

There was a bit of that sentiment in the weird dream. The really tall guy most likely represented Tim, the caseworker originally assigned to me, who was a textbook "neo liberal" or whatever the term is. He even prefaced his responses to questions with the word "So" when answering any -something that I have concluded comes from the world of "academia," and which is ubiquitous on PBS broadcasts, out of the mouths of anyone being interviewed. This would typically be someone like the owner of the first all-queer staffed Italian restaurant in St. Louis, or whatever, telling his story. 

"Why did you choose to open here?"

 "So, I grew up in this neighborhood, and..." type of thing.

Tim would go out of his way to inform me that, if it wasn't for Democrats, I wouldn't have gotten my apartment. I owed my whole living arrangement to Democrats, believe him!

So, maybe it isn't a coincidence that Sacred Heart Apartments has gone into a sort of decline, with the tailspin beginning right around 2016. Caseworkers like Tim were laid off. A proposed exercise room replete with treadmills and weight lifting machines was scrapped. The promised new computers along with in-house wi-fi never materialized (and, in fact the old computers started to disappear from the lab) and a general sense of apathy began to pervade the place.

A long time ago I figured out that dreams, mine at least, take their subject matter from whatever is on the mind when when drifting off to asleep. They are usually no more deep nor significant than that.

I had fallen asleep after having watched an interview on Youtube of a guy who had worked as a content moderator (turned whistle-blower) for Facebook. One of the things he said, besides elucidating the not too shocking fact that Facebook moderators look at all messages, both public and private, was that, often in the private pages of users he would find horrendous content such as videos of animals being tortured, and in one case, two minor girls being raped in a basement in Texas and the videos of such being offered for sale; with members being able to request certain acts to be performed, for an additional charge. The guy also mentioned a video of a guy having a gun put in his mouth and the trigger pulled, but the Facebook people saying that it was unclear if what is seen hitting the wall behind his head was indeed brain matter -it could have just been bullet fragments, and thus not technically a violation of terms- the ex-moderator added sarcastically. It was a disturbing interview; especially when he talked about an iguana being tortured to death by some teen aged kids...

The moderator said that he was able to identify several content creators because they had been "stupid enough" to do things like link to their actual bank accounts to receive money; but that Facebook had been more concerned with "political stuff," and the focus was upon shadow banning people who questioned the efficacy of the vaccine, or were posting pro Trump content. The "reasoning," he said, was that activity that went on in private groups was never going to go viral; it was just closed communities of maybe 30 or 40 people raping young girls, or torturing people and animals; and those were never going to leak into the mainstream feeds (and make Facebook look bad).

A pro Trump video, on the other hand, could be shared and re-shared to the general public; and, thus, had the potential to do "real world damage" according to Zuckerberg. 

And isn't that so?

The moderator was getting paid 15 bucks an hour to skip over videos of pedophiles being stoned to death in Islamic countries, and to delete comments made by anti-vaxers and election integrity deniers.

"Do you think so, Einstein?"

And, so that was what was on my mind when I drifted off to sleep and then dreamed about my apartment being full of Democrats who had just barged in, and who could do so any time as long as they were holding a tank full of pesticides or a spare light bulb.

Maybe I should make my first novel about a guy who is stoned to death because he likes to draw the faces of little girls; try to get it to print before the actual thing happens to me, type of thing...