gotham_bound, posts by tag: dreams - LiveJournal

Oh man I knew I'd eventually slip up and miss a day, I honestly thought I'd have a shot of making it at least a week since I've been just about tethered to my laptop for days. But I'm not tethered to Lj and so once I got tired and headed to bed I didn't remember this personal assignment until I was driving to my theatre workshop this morning.

So this is sort of a cheat but not in that I've written already and I'm copy pasting but in that my subconscious threw it at me and I'm going on what I can remember. So 1. it's raw 2. I'm motherfucking tired and therefore 3. pressed for time in that I'm going to collapse at any moment now. Assuming I don't have the same too-tired-to-sleep that I had last night.

Last night I tried to give myself five hours of sleep. More than I've had in a while. but the brain wouldn't allow it. Then I drifted off and woke up from a dream that shook me and left me with my heart racing and a mind on overdrive, trying to tell me a story. So I maybe got two hours of sleep and I can still feel some of the remnants of that dream. HEre we go

He leaned in, sly smile on his face and a hand on my hip and I was more than a little confused and pissed off. It was the worst of little boy tricks, to use the situation around us, utter decorum while men treat women like decoration, so we would get caught between good manners and slapping the buffoon. And I kept thinking any self respecting feminist would hit him. Or yell or run. I could feel that impulse at my back, in my knees and in my fingers. But holding my feet in place and keeping my arms at my sides was the desperation to not attract any notice.

I'd been asked for my invitation and just as the memory that I didn't, strictly speaking, have one, he had put his hand on me, assuring the querent he wanted me here. I thought it a subterfuge to get me in, my boss's benefactor covering my stumble. But he didn't let go, rather he closed in. Off to the side my boss looked bored. Panic started to rise. The truth is, he could be persuasive. Charming. But this? I leaned back, hands in the way, and hissed out my question regarding what the hell the thought he was doing. He asked softly with a sneer only I would be able to hear just what good I was if I couldn't maintain character. He was closer still; I could feel his breath. I pushed away. Not out of anger, I must stress, but out of the feeling that that's what I was supposed to do. For women everywhere, etc. I really couldn't figure out what I ought to do, so I went with protocols that matter to me.

I stepped to my boss' side and straightened myself out. I knew I can still do the military's seeing-without-looking and wear a face that remains bland in the most tense situation. I did that. He remarked on his disappointment and walked away. I turned to my boss. I was a bit peeved he didn't say anything, though I knew men rarely ever did. I asked him about it, how he could let it happen, but he cut me off informing me there were proper channels I should use if that was what I wanted to do. Now that did infuriate me.

My boss had got my loyalty, though I couldn't yet say why. He was not military. He didn't understand a thing about us. In fact, I'm still not clear on why he was there and therefore why I was there. He could be elegant so he fit into the place, all wood paneling and leather furniture. If it weren't for my uniform there wouldn't be a thing about me that didn't clash with the room.

If I wasn't already torn enough about what to do it just got steadily worse. He reminded me I could still leave but my window of opportunity was swiftly closing. And he had thought, after watching me rush in, catching the sliding doors and nearly letting my hand get crushed, that I'd made up my mind to be there no matter what it took. With these quiet words I remembered the stakes. I didn't have to like the benefactor or take any of his bullshit personally, and in fact if I weren't ready to dish out some of my own bullshit to get where I needed to go I could very well live a life of dignity and respect but far away from these circumstances. No, it wasn't okay. But, adding to it rather than countering, neither were the things I was already doing.

An inner door opened and we started to herd through it. My boss leaned in to me and whispered that it may make me feel better that women had gone along with our benefactor's game more than once and it seemed that a good time was had by all. It was the same tone and framing he always took when a tough situation came up. I could go with it or not. He trusted me to decide, and to take on the consequences. But I was still a little irked. Did he know that, I asked, because he'd been close enough to the benefactor to seek such a good time? And was this invitation a sort of apology for rebuffing him? My boss stopped leaning and cleared his throat. Blood for blood. We went in the room.

This morning I woke from a dream in the midst of trying to work out being in a snowed-in mountain town in Arizona where the fire station had just caught fire because of a downed electrical line, how to get my mom to a hospital because she'd been stabbed in the stomach and we had no money and there were maybe two drops of gas left in my truck.

A few days ago I was the mistress/kept woman of a powerful man, having agreed to this effective prostitution because it beat physical abuse and exploitation as a member of a certain underclass. To make matters more exciting I was approached inside of my own gilded cage to work as an insider to bring down my sugar daddy.

Last week I traced a network of human trafficking made of prepubescent boys but had to step carefully because the operators would kill their cargo if it helped them avoid trouble.


Um... whatever happened to just dreaming about being hunted and shot by the enemy? Is this what higher stakes look like?

I know stress brings on feelings of depression, blues. It doesn't matter quite what the situation is if I don't have to hold on to the hard bits, everything is fine. Or I feel like everything is fine. I've learned not to trust feeling like everything is fine because it so frequently seems to turn into missing really crucial details about stuff that is not fine.

Maybe this is the shine wearing off on my new adventures, getting through fun acting classes, filling my head with Japanese. I don't have much to distract me from the hard, unpleasant work ahead. The hard work isn't a part of the art, but it's a necessary support system. Art always has to seek patronage. Either it's straightforward in asking for donations. Or it's a little roundabout, taking commissions or - as I'm about to do - soliciting oneself for commercial work. It doesn't matter what kind of money-hunting it is, I don't like to do it. Not merely because it's gouche - in fact not really because money is some kind of dirty business. But simply because it's an effort that is of little interest to me. Yeah I like to eat and hate having bills hang over me, but working out how to turn what I do into money and actually convincing someone to give me money for it is completely to the side of actually doing what I do. It's like if you enjoy having parties at your house you eventually have to clean the toilet. The act of cleaning the toilet is nothing at all like the act of throwing a party. that's what I mean. I hate cleaning toilets.

So I guess I'm back under a little bit of stress now. It's bringing on the blues. The blues are bringing on all the delightful brain excursions that I wish to God would just go away. Or bloom into something useful. Because I'm sick of spending days curled around the laptop wondering when I'll feel like getting up and doing anything. I'm always putting off productivity till tomorrow - or till I'm against a deadline and then I don't do as good a job - and this just means I don't get done the things I need to. There are steps that have to happen to get to the ultimate goal. There are toilets to clean and there are no good days for it.

--------------

In other news, I have a voice matching assignment from my animation voice class. I have to find a recording of an actor that I match perfectly. Not just that I'm that "type" but if you closed your eyes when I speak, can you let yourself think it was that actor? I don't know where to even look. So... who do you think I sound like, or rather, alike?

I did this to myself, I know, but still. Knowing [a] sukoshi Japanese isn't even enough to get me in trouble, but it is enough to distract me when watching subtitled anime or movies. I can pick up the meaning of several words but I don't get the full sense of what is being said. And once the moment of joy that I found those words so easily is past I realize so has the translation of what was said and so I'm right back at having no idea what's going on. I'm having to go back in a lot of videos these days.

-------------------

I've always enjoyed reading DOONESBURY even back in the 80s when no one understood it. (Yeah I was a kid and it was about politics and really, if you think about it, is it that surprising?) Since 2000 I've kept up with the daily posts online. Still love the politics and Trudeau's take on the Iraq/Afghanistan wars has been bracing, unforgiving and beautiful for being really - truly - about the soldiers before anything else.

So, background now established, the Christmas strip wasn't all that unusual. Trudeau has gotten a lot of crap for it. But I agree with the sentiment, He does have it coming. God, I mean, not Trudeau. Err... ok well, maybe Trudeau also.
--------------------

Recalled a faint whisp of a dream where I declared a challenge: I would go an entire 24 hours of socializing and working with other people and keep all spirits light and joyful. The dream is so ephemeral that even these words are too much... But it's such an odd idea. It's so... not like me. It was like a game challenge but I didn't have a real opponent, I think. And it's hard to define exactly what my tasks were other than to keep from taking things seriously and try to keep others from being serious. So weird.

Also recalled a dream where I solved a murder. Part of a traveling group and we were in an English seaside village that was really very lovely and quiant and well...English. And I contacted the murderer with the info and she gave me an address to meet her at and, not being a local, I was just barely working out that the address was in London's East End when she appeared with a ticket (like a parking ticket) declaring the whole situation over. the leader of my group, [insert famous detective a la Hercule Poirot or Charlie Chan (What? don't look at me like that)], had personally cornered her and got her to confess. Nothing directly stated this but I got the idea she was heading home to commit seppuku. It was indicated to me that had this not happened I would have wandered into East End and probably ended up very messily killed.

Uh yeah.

-------------------

Dad likes to forego gift giving and give us cash instead. Very nice, generous, straightforward. Makes it easy to give myself presents from small time vendors who aren't on Amazon than try to explain Etsy to my family and/or write down long URLs, etc, or hope they make it to the right one-off craft store, or detail the exact bottle of wine, all to know they'll end up picking up something like what I wanted but really nothing at all close. But these days it's just handy for paying off bills. the money is gone and bill collectors are still looming but they're not LLOOOOOOOOMING like they were a few days ago.

-------------------

If you like anime and enjoy some cyberpunk/light scifi/Shadowrun-ish stories with hefty doses of violence and betrayal, may I recommend Darker than Black. Won't set your world ablaze, probably, but it's well done.

-------------------

I finished Dorothy Day's Loaves and Fishes and still find it impossible to quote from because as soon as I find something I really like the quote becomes several paragraphs and then several pages long. It's a short book and it moves really fast. The writing style is exactly what I think of when I hear of the concept of removing every word and sentence that doesn't need to be there. It's great though, the actual work that resulted in L&F. New York City has tons of Jesuits running around trying to educate and improve minds everywhere. The CATHOLIC WORKER operated on the lay application of the Rule of St Benedict so they resonated mightily with the Benedictines who find life's meaning in labor. To any degree that you might say I was instructed by a particular order, I was taught by Franciscans who find their vocation in service. All in all, the information, the service, the work they did and the joy they took no matter what setbacks, no matter what disapproval, everything that Day and her cohort did just fills me with such hope and love it's hard to break down what I'm seeing in order to give it a proper review.

------------------

Compared to F&L and especially the previous Seven Storey Mountain, Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things could easily be a book of confections, perfect for the season of transitory treats called Southern California's winter. I only picked it up on Christmas Eve and i'm about a third of the way through. I take my time with books now, feeling no need to hurry and get to the next book and having a slew of distractions. Some 20 years ago I probably would have finished FT within a couple of days. If you don't enjoy Gaiman then you're probably better off skipping it. If you do then you're probably way ahead of me.

----------------

My mom fixed a huge thing of pozole for Christmas (why so much I have no idea). More than half of her biggest soup pot is still full and so she returns to it still to mix in other leftover bits here and there to keep the concoction lively. The pot is massive. If I wrap my arms around it my hands will not meet. It takes a long time to boil and my mom will stand over it stirring it for minutes at a time. when I go by her doing this it takes all I've got not to mutter "Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble..."

Somehow it's still too cold to fall asleep comfortably unless I turn on the heater. But warm enough that if I do when I wake up I'll be drenched in sweat. Terrific.

Also just having a bitch of time falling alseep lately. So great, on top of everything last night I went to bed very late and in a bleak mood, struggled to stop shivering and before I knew it I woke up in a cold sweat.

It's a particular cruelty of the subconcious to summon dreams featuring spiders to the arachnophobic. I was actually relieved when I saw snakes and evil cats (imagine every evil cat you've ever known - would claw or bite as soon as look at you, that's what I mean) because I just had to dodge them; they weren't inherently scary to me. I think I was stuck in some X-Men offshoot with badness and superpowers and I was clueless for how to protect myself because I wasn't sure what powerz I had and didn't want to destroy the house I was in.


Yes, yes, subconcious, I'm a mess. I know that already, thanks.

Early this morning I had a dream about calmly explaining the typical steps of dying and sort of imagining (within the dream) my own death. I mean the physical steps - cardiac issues, oxygen deprivation, brain death. Didn't even occur to me as anything frightening or weird, I just knew it was coming and wanted to make sure whoever I was telling about it would be ready.


Odd only because my brain isn't shy at all about just killing me in my dreams. So far, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't happened in real life.


just a wee bit stressed over here.

From much earlier today - early morning due to babysitting, but this got written a half hour before the alarm went off.

Is it over? Is reality settling back in? Jolted awake with achey arms, heart racing & no flying car. Nearly an hour ahead of my alarm I lay in the dark reviewing a dream of hiding and running and ducking. I hide (parts of) myself from my parents and the wider world that may not understand. I duck situations I don't control, when I don't quite know what I should do. I run because...I don't know, at this point I'm so good at it I get going before I even know what's happening.

I'm tired of it. It's old, stultifying. Death by routine. Self-imposed isolation that asphyxiates. Security that poisons. Like everyone else, I built my own cell and only now I'm surprised at the effectiveness of the bars.

I want to get out into the world so very much but I'm not totally convinced the world wants me. That's a pity party, true, but also an assessment of risks taken, returning a loss. World beyond, I see you and I want to take part, I can let myself out - my jailer is sleeping - please accept at least some of my venures. Please?

Squirt was visiting this morning and we did some bonding over music. She likes rock 'n roll - really, Joan Jett as well as Heart, Clash and the Ramones. Not bad for being all of seven. Wish I could take some credit but that's really all her mom. Ah well good to know Miss Thang got some things right. /snark

Things are all right right at this second. And I know there's an anvil with my name on it waiting to drop the second I put this out there. I can only hope it's gentle. MB has been here a few days so we hang out some and have dinners together. Not sure what the final verdict is for tonight but it seems like it'll end with drinks in Old Towne Orange. Maybe. Possibly. And Dad is in better shape than he has been in a long time. He can get around relatively easily, without a cane. He can even sleep in his own bed after sleeping in the recliner nearly a year because aches and pains from being flat used to give him nightmares of being crushed. He's gone out to dinner a few times and resumed attending daily mass - which he has to walk to. He had nearly taken to starving because he couldn't stand eating anything and even skipped Sunday mass because he couldn't handle it physically.

But this happiness is a hiatus. I'm still poor and unemployed. Staying close to home with family stuff means I save a lot of money. But it's been a bummer to miss fun things that are only going on this weekend. Other October/Halloween things will be coming along that cost money soon enough. And MB will return to the 'Stan in a week and I'll go back to holding my breath. And Dad... well he won't get younger. He'll have more bad days and be cranky about it all. Oh well...

The weather is pleasant today. I think I'll try to get in a walk before the USC game.
---------

Reasons someone should give me $10 million:

I have an idea for an ARG based on a fiction I'm working on intended for a multimedia platform. With a ton of money I could afford a ton of help to make it be a fantastic immersive experience. Without a ton of help I would need maybe 10 years to get the necessary tech and learn the requisite programming to do it myself. And I would need to be able to have those ten years free of having to get anything else done, like paying any bills. Hence, $10 million, please.


Also, a long while I had a conversation with adularia that (I have no idea why, but alcohol was likely involved) arrived the conclusion that would really fucking cool to create is a Science Museum 2.1 since the 1.0 and 1.1 models are for kids getting introduced to biology, chemistry, physics, etc. Was pondering it again and thing it would be damn awesome to have a Center of Science for People Think Quantum Mechanics is a Cool Thing but Don't Quite Get how their Cars Work. There would be demos for more advanced or complicated concepts than those usually found at the Kidseum. Maybe even a section for tech advances coming down the pike in the next 20 years. (The You Will commercials from AT&T come to mind.)

And you know what would REALLY be cool? If there was an associated institute that worked on solving issues brought about by the current tech that is just endangering/pissing people off but otherwise not encouraging any problem solving. I see more and more ways to access the Internet and communicate with other people but not many that address the issues, say, of distracted driving. I get a little annoyed that the solution to every problem with technology has to do with making something illegal. Why not make it safer? Because there's no legal incentive? Uh...what about having customers survive long enough to buy more of your products? Or hell, why do cigaretts still kill? This is really old news. Why haven't tobaccanists & chemists gotten together to make the carcinogen-free smoke?

SCIENCE, DAMMIT.


Alternative to the above is art camp for adults. Same basic idea as art camp for kids, though in an urban area, and intended for people past the age of precocious prodigy or irrepressible rock star. Basically, people who took piano lessons but stopped at puberty and kept meaning to get back to it because every so often they noodle around and someone says "you should really do something with that!" Or maybe they sang or took photos or wrote poetry... It's for people who've relegated their art to dilettantism but would like to make a serious go of improving and pushing their work to the next level. I'd rather put it in an urban area as much because a city has more opportunity for making and consuming art than a set of cabins in the woods as because more people have to put up with the noise and distraction of civilization to get anything done. The first lesson of getting past the dilettante stage is that the time "when things quiet/slow down/get easier" never shows up.

But like any good art camp, artists who've really pushed themselves will earn exposure/a place in a gallery showing/recital/publishing.

Many other thoughts here but it's starting to get a little bit castles-in-the-sky. Someone pass me $10mill and I'll pound out more specifics.

Another (late) morning where I'm happy/annoyed to wake up. Annoyed because it's so late and I hate sleep and happy because (thank God) the other reality I was living in turned out to be a dream.

People have told me that real nightmares are of crawling through long, small tunnels with spiders or rats chasing you. And given my arachnophobia I'm sure that would be terrifying. Other folks say their usual dreams are of being cut up by psychopaths or walking through scenes of unimaginable gore. They say they're just not upset by the blood and guts, particularly because the dreams are a regular occurance. I wouldn't know, I don't have dreams quite like that.

My weird dreams are action adventure-types. My *bad* dreams are realistic. There was that one time I stormed the White House and then there was that one time my mother killed my father. I'll take getting blown up in the portrait gallery over trying to decide whether or not the help my mom get to Mexico any day.

Yesterday I dreamed I had super powers. Today I dreamed my neice died. Guess which thought is making me catch my breath and tear up.

Every day, I swear, I think I'm going to get started right and make things work. And then everyday, like clockwork, I fuck it up in minutes.


BTW, perhaps unrelated, but who knows? Dreamed this morning of playing Dr Doom in a LARP in Hawaii, destroying most of the big island launching drone ships that would fly out dispersal engines for a gas that would kill people but leave the rest of the planet pristine. Got hit with the gas by a smaller personal disperal machine but out of sheer cussedness took out the leader of the Heroes (some super group played by friends). But the blasted good guys took care to make sure I was comfortable as I died anyway.

Weird. Never read any Fantistic Four. Don't tend to care for superhero comics.

I have so much flotsam floating about up in here *raps noggin* I'm going to try to dump some of it out.

I have way too many creative projects and no idea how to sort out a disciplined approach to getting any of them to be more than vague ideas and sloppy notes. Let alone how to, I dunno, makes some money.

Good God, money.

Not run out. Not yet. But some big ticket things are coming up that I'm hellbent on doing and I need to decide whether I'm going for broke here or not. (I kind of am, except I don't wanna be broke. But it's kinda like...well, that's part of the deal.)

Worried about MB. Want to hear from him. but I'll just go back to worrying again. Gah. How did my grandmother do this with five boys in the service at once?

My room is a mess.

Latest Netflix is Brokeback Mountain. Will FINALLY see the damn quote in context. Recently returned The Hours which was amazing. Extraordinary acting all friggin 'round. Gave me a jolt to see Alison Janney in the credits, even though I knew they would underuse her. She's always underutilized. So sad. She's so brilliant. But every single person in the movie was brilliantly cast, everyone brought their A-game, it was excellent. The smallest, most incidental parts were pitch perfect, the design was flawless (except, maybe claiming Hollywood, FL, which I recognized instantly, was Los Angeles). Amazing and brutal. Beautiful and extremely depressing. I watched the extras and got even more curious about Virginia Woolf. I'll try and pick up Mrs Dalloway eventually. Even watched both commentary tracks and got quite a bit out of them - usually I'm 50/50 on commentary tracks.

Dad is super cranky these days. He's poking at everyone. And poking at me means I'm going snap back sooner or later. He knows that but he does it anyway. And for the first time in ages I can't just leave. Argh.

I wonder if people think I'm a heavy drinker. They only see me when I'm out and I often drink when I'm out... I don't make a mess of myself. And well, I don't go out that often. But still.

Related, I miss hitting good wine tastings. I miss good wine. Been drinking value stuff for a while when I hang with friends. Maybe before the next thing we do I'll take a trip to BevMo.

Niece got taller when I wasn't looking. Grew a few inches in like two weeks, I swear.

I've been going to the gym. Not enough to make a difference, which is seriously frustrating. I think I'm gaining a little strength & endurance, but not reducing. Letting laziness and the lack of discipline that is killing everything, kill this too. Weight is the same and clothing are still tight. And on top of that, muscles are strained and tight. Argh. Trying to diet. Long ago cut out sodas and most sweet stuff, increased water intake and limited coffee to two cups per day (sweetened with Splenda), watch portions at meals, avoid most fatty foods... But can't cut out cheese, I have little control over dinner and my make-it-up-as-I-go daily schedule makes it nearly impossible to regiment anything else. I'm just not a disciplined person and this like anything else shows it.

[whine]I don't want to use the Anaheim library, I want to use the Fullerton one. But I can't get a library card there any more. Unless I update my driver's license to the old house. Which would be really weird.[/whine]

Last weekend went and saw Public Enemies which I thought was pretty good. Well done all over (in a tiny role Giovanni Ribisi impressed me quite a bit). Weird thing they did, though, was at a couple of really high intensity moments (a shoot out in the middle of the night out in the woods) they switched to handheld, what I guess is high def video cameras. The film looked like a movie for most of the time except these scenes where it looked much more like a re-enactment for a TV special like you'd see on the History channel. Very odd and I don't know why they did that. Hope some filmic students go see this and get back to me what they might have been going for.

I want to see Harry Potter, yes, but oddly not as bad as previous editions. Guess I just haven't been up on heading to the movies in a while so I've fallen of the "must see!!!" bandwagon. I still haven't made it to see Star Trek and I really wanted to catch it on the big screen. And I'm getting told to go see Moon from all over the damn place. Maybe I'll even get really drunk and go see G.I. Joe, though frankly I'd rather watch Warren Ellis' Resolute on the big screen.

Contemplating role playing games that, if they have a genre, it's to speculate on form. Or just to draw weird personal satisfaction at dramatically diverse sources. I wonder if anyone has run a Dark City game.

Oh God, I miss New York.

I keep dreaming about shape shifting. Sometimes a snake turns into me. Sometimes I'm playing my old werewolf, but I could do all the things she could. I think once I just prowled around an old house as a big wild cat. Odd.

Though, I don't seem to be sleeping very much. I may have trained myself to wake up often since I took to sleeping only after sunrise. Or maybe, that made it so I didn't notice how hard it is to fall asleep and stay asleep. Found that in the past couple of nights as I've tried to get 40 winks by getting flat well before dawn.

The tarot card Death shouldn't scare me, right?

ok that's mostly it. Turns out both my room and my mind are a mess.