Dreams of Marriage

I had a dream about our wedding last night. In fact, I think I had two dreams about two very different events.
In the first dream, we were setting up a basement in a church or something, filling it with supplies and, mostly, food.
There were delivery trucks outside loading in boxes and boxes of food. I fixated on the salmon: thick slabs of pink salmon overflowing out of the cardboard boxes. I kept saying to Alicia, "I hope enough people come to eat this stuff." "So what if they don't?" was her answer, repeatedly.
There were many, many people helping out and that provided me some relief. Some of them were our close friends but many of them were extras from TV shows I watch late at night. Lots of FBI agents and terrorists from '24' were decorating the hall for us.

In the second dream, we chose to have the wedding at our house. But it slowly became clear to me that we decided this simply because we couldn't wait to party and started drinking first thing in the morning. In fact, we never actually got married in this dream. Instead people began to show up at our place early in the morning (to eat the salmon, presumably) and we proceeded to get loaded before 9 a.m. By the time the night rolled around, things were pretty messy. Doors were falling off hinges, people were passed out everywhere, vomit coated most surfaces and the neighbours were complaining. In short, you could call it a hit.
But then we realised that (a) we weren't actually married yet and (b) my folks had never shown up. WTF? In our drunken haze, Alicia and I tried to pull ourselves together and I found a telephone that worked and we called Ottawa/Gatineau. Both mom and Jeff said that they were taking their time and might get here eventually. My devastation was immense and I felt like crying. Suddenly, they both walked in the door, pushed past hordes of sloppy guests and announced themselves. In fact, they had both been staying at a hotel nearby, had had all Ottawa calls redirected to their room (in order to fool me) and were just waiting for the call.
Alicia then freaked out and left for Trout Lake to get it set up. By this time it was about 7 a.m. the following morning and I felt totally wasted (I also felt this way after I woke up this morning, the dream having bled into reality). My mom and I sat down on the curb in front of the house and discussed the previous day's events. Guests slowly exited and gave me their congratulations and threw up in the bushes. Suddenly it occured to me: this is the way to do it! Have the party first and whoever is left standing after 24 hours gets to come to the ceremony.

babylon

A debate that rages in my head:

First Me: Israel, Palestine, blah blah blah.

Second Me: I know, but...

First Me: Those Israelis should get out now and give the Palestinians back their land.

Second Me: Sure, in a world where individuals matter and morals prevail. But do we live in that world? The idea that Israel is wrong and Hamas is right is based on human concepts. Are those concepts actually universal? I suspect not.

First Me: Yeah, but we are human and have to live with our own concepts. It feels impossible to divorce myself from feelings that some things are right and some are wrong. In this case, the strong overpowering the weak is by definition evil. I will always side with the underdog until such time as humanity has risen above internal conflict.

Second Me: Then we have a long way to go. Just the fact that we're debating and we're the same person leads me to believe that conflict is part of what it means to be human. In any case, who cares? Why should I even worry about humans? We are no more important than a speck of dirt. Everything is just a bunch of particles. Here today, gone the next. In 5000 years' time, this conflict will mean absolutely nothing to anybody.

First Me: so what do you advocate? Abandoning people to incessant bombings? What if your daughter was there?

Second Me: you have a point but I wish you didn't. I love her deeply but logic dictates that she shouldn't matter. Yet she does. So this is where we trip up. Maybe I have to just follow my gut and let reason remain frustrated.

First Me: so we're agreed.