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Two recent dreams

October 10, 2006

1. I’m looking in the mirror and notice that my close-cropped hair appears even shorter than usual. Actually, at the top of my forehead, it’s missing altogether. I’m going bald! I wake up relieved to find no evidence of clear-cutting in my follicular forest but still irritated at the reminder that I’m getting older. You see, I’m still sort of in denial of the whole mortality thing.

2. I’m at an unidentifiable high school in a small crowd of people gathered around Bruce Springsteen. This isn’t a concert, though; Bruce is the principal of the school. Apparently he has retired from rock stardom and now has a master’s degree in educational leadership or something, even though he’s physically indistinguishable from the youthful hunk who was dancing in the dark and working on the highway and so forth in 1984. Some of the students are here as well, and one of them starts mouthing off to Bruce, and he sends him to the principal’s office — his office. At this point, I launch into my carefully prepared question. “Boss,” I say, “your music does not generally extol the value of a formal education. In fact, you’ve penned lyrics such as, ‘Well we busted out of class / Had to get away from those fools / We learned more from a three-minute record, baby / Than we ever learned in school.’ How do you reconcile those words with your present-day work?” I wake up before he responds….

All of which leads me to the following conundrum. Why is it that, in my dreams, I’m getting older and balder, but Bruce Springsteen is not?

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