Rambling man

There's a terrific passage in Tibor Fischer's Under the Frog, where one of the characters dreams he has written an entire novel, but upon waking can only remember one phrase - “the dog is in the dog case”. This had great affect upon me as a teenager for reasons I don't properly understand, but I'd put it to the back of my mind.

Until I had a dream this morning that I'd written an amazing and wildly original joke. It was so funny that I actually woke up. And then realised that I couldn't remember it properly. Indeed, in the pallid hours before dawn that I was presented with, I felt I couldn't remember it at all. What was I to do?

I thought of shaking my girlfriend awake and seeing if she could remember, but that was a silly idea. After all, she hadn't been in the audience when I tried out the joke in my dream (I didn't even remember an audience, come to think of it). The best that she'd be able to come up with would be that she'd heard from somebody else in the dream that it had been a cracker. So I let her rest. I think the joke went something like this:

To a woman, the physical act of love isn't just about two bodies bashing together, it's something more transcendental than that, it shows a union that's not just physical but mental, emotional, nay, perhaps almost spiritual. That joining together of two people allows a deep connection between the two of them; it's really something wonderful. A man's reaction, on the other hand, is usually “that was alright... Any chance of a sandwich?”

Now, in the cold light of day, I'm not sure how funny that is. Perhaps it will produce a few funny moments if my girlfriend reads this, decides not to have her irony filter engaged, and chases me out of the apartment, wielding a knife. But that's the adventure of living in Hong Kong. You might almost say that it's the kind of thing people dream about.

Anyways, hosting tonight at the comedy club. Had a grinding day at work – suffering heavily from deja vu – I'm pretty sure I've been sat at that selfsame desk a year ago, frustrated at exactly the same person for exactly the same thing, but I'm also sure that a year ago, I felt exactly the same feeling of deja vu. It culminated in a meeting that started at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon, and ran almost an hour late – I feel sorry for the poor sods in the Korean office, who were an hour ahead of us and therefore had even more of their Friday evening demolished. But in time zones, I suppose there is a loser for every winner.

I'm not saying all Koreans are losers, mind you. A man could get in serious trouble for that.