dream!
LADYTRAP, INC.
the flip side of reality
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RV wreck canyon
We head deeper and deeper down a canyon in a jeep with a group of people. (The canyon may also be a cave spiraling toward the center of the earth) I think Ben is there, and some others. They all get out to investigate a possible camp site, and I continue onward with the driver. She is a bit naive and her parents bought her the jeep; she has no idea how to use it. We eventually get to an area (the historic RV wreck) beyond which it would be unwise to drive. I say something to this effect and get out of the jeep but she proceeds to drive the thing down a staircase and around a corner, not realising that gravity might actually be an impassable obstacle on the way up. There will be no way to get that thing up the stairs. Irritating. If she had a winch on the jeep it might help but of course she doesn't. I walk back to chare the bad news with the others and they have discovered another predicament we are also in (can't remember what).
Now I am home on the back porch of the Conservatory. My mother will be coming to visit soon (is it Easter or some other holiday?)... she drives a truck and I can see through the house and through the mail slot in the door the front end of what looks like a big Ford but it's actually the neighbor's white Explorer. Stefan arrives to give me some martial arts-style tai chi training and we practice blocking punches on the back porch.
I'm also in a classroom, and on the board is all the information about the test number seven we have coming up, and how the TAs friend bob graded previous test number six. We get a short lecture from the IT department since the last software upgrade was inconsistent. Some people ended up with "Paintware 5 Kids!", (the proper package) and others ended up with "Paintware 5 Deluxe" (a less stable build).
AFTERNOON NAP!
Wow, I'm glad I have this parachute but I'm a bit nervous since I've never used it before. Hopefully I can figure it out before I meet the earth in a grand way...
save the rainforest
Okay, I woke up a few hours ago so this will be bits-n-pieces:
I woke up at about four in the morning, breathing fast and heart pounding, from an uncomfortable dream. I was on some sort of mission and each time I failed one of the near-impossible tasks I would get hurt or something equally unhappy. It was really just a game, and I knew I wasn't actually getting injured, but the frustration of failing and being punished for it was the true source of the bad taste of this dream. Upon awaking, in the warped place where you exist both in the reality of your dream and yet can react to the physical input from the waking life, I believed this dream had been issued to everyone that night, as if all of humanity dreamed in sync every night. (Wow, thinking about that now seems mildly prophetic if you read my first manifesto.) Erica was stirring beside me. So, assuming she was awake, I rolled over and said something to the effect of "don't you think that dream was a terrible one?" She made a few vocalisations which to the outsider would appear to be meaningless rumblings, but I took them to be total awareness and concurrence.
This morning's dream was more detailed and involved. As often occurs, I am on a road trip of sorts. I am with a group of people, perhaps the guys from my old band. We end up on a mission, and we have a series of stops to make. The list is written in pencil on green construction paper, and the more important ones are emphasized with stars. One of the less important tasks is to drive up a dirt road and park next to the radio tower on the hill. Maybe camp there, then proceed. One of the starred items identified a species of plant that is about to go extinct from deforestation in Nicaragua. We are to proceed to that location and prevent its extinction through any means necessary, be it transplantation, blocking of the bulldozers with our bodies, or skilled and subverse political manipulation.
I thikn someone may be unconscious and maybe one of our tasks is to save his life, if we get a chance.
more sex than read shadow puppet
"more sex than read shadow puppet" Written in a column on newsprint, accompanied by a low-fi photo or drawing of a man and a woman sitting at the kitchen table, maybe passing an object between the two or just reaching out to each other. A baby can be seen in the bottom of the frame and the woman's breast is exposed as if she was feeding the baby. They are in their houseclothes.
pat and julien and I are in Slovakia. We take an interesting bus out to a countryside town. People are playing crazy games in filthy clothing on this bus. When we get out to Wooddale (or whatever this town is called) Pat discovers that we have the "Cable St. Syndrome", meaning there is no more regular bus that night back into town and we must improvise.
On our way out we have to get our bags checked by the silly terrorist-avoiding bag-checking process at Cubic Defense. Despite all the pain, it's an ineffective spot-check that anyone could sneak a bomb through.
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base camp
I'm in Peru, waiting for an option with my shoes. What the heck does that mean? Oh, we are staying at Enav's house where one doesn't wear shoes.
I'm in Nepal, and I try on a shirt that looks really cool but feels terribly like wearing thick newspaper, and it's too small.
Erica and I camp out near the base camp from where people head off to climb Everest. It is littered with mountain bikes and backpacks, and is a regular hostel-style hangout. I suppose summitting Everest is now on the Lonely Planet trail. The area is deserty; it looks like Zion in Utah.
an ex-professor's final hurrah
I never actually finished my engineering degree four years ago. There was a history class that I failed and never quite made repeated. Here is what had happened: For the final project our professor told us that we could either do a normal history report as per the university's standards (it was the History of the Old West) or we could do a book report on any book (fiction or non-) regarding that time period (that was his own personal addition). I opted for the latter and chose a book I had read for an English class the same quarter. Unfortunately another professor graded all those papers and when she came across mine that was not in the normal format she failed it, and thus I failed the class.
My dream opens with me going through my old papers, realizing I failed the class, and deciding to go back and rectify it by going back to the university to clear things up. (Incidentally I also find a long paper I wrote that contained a detailed list of tips and techniques for running an Apache web server. That'll come in handy!)
But when I get to the university, one of the other teachers, a middle-aged woman who reminds me of my landlady, tells me that my original professor didn't work here anymore. Sadly, he was hit by a car and suffered memory-damaging brain injuries which seriously limited his abilities as a teacher. She writes down where I can find him.
So my mom drives me down to the address she gives me and it turns out this once-animated professor is working as an auto mechanic. When I first arrive he doesn't recognize me and has me wait ten minutes while he deals with a customer who arrived just before I did. And when that customer leaves my old professor gruffly tells me to come back tomorrow because it's quitting time. I somehow convince him to stay long enough to hear me out, and eventually he recognizes me and a faint glimmer of a smile and the tiniest sparks of memory creep into his expression. He decides he WILL help me out, if it's the last thing he does, to show those bastards at the university who kicked him out that he IS worth a damn. Yes, he'll SIGN my paper and thus allow me to get my degree!
the great icelandic shovellers
I go with one guy (we'll say it's Pat) to Iceland. And in this Iceland, even though it is summertime, it is cold and very full of ice and snow. We are brought by boat to the wilderness home of some relatives of mine (we'll say they're an aunt and uncle). My Honda has been delivered already to this spot... The clearing on which the house stands is surrounded on three sides by very steep snowy hills; and the third side is the berg-filled water we came in on. The "road" leading over the hills is very steep and snowy.
We need to go into town or continue our adventure and so Pat and Aunt and Uncle and I get in the car but the Honda is unable to negotiate such a steep slippery path with four people in the car. We think that maybe we can have three people get out and help push, but we decide that it's too dangerous and we should seek an alternate means of transport out of here.
So we take the boat back into town and walk around the streets of this city, which must be Reykjavik. There is a street marker going on, and I get my first conclusive looks at the reclusive Icelanders, who all wear blue eye makeup, making their eyes look even bluer and clearer. Contrary to what I had heard, they are very warm and open, and are clearly excited to see some outsiders.
Just Pat and I return to the very remote house and are startled to see other people there. The next-door neighbors have arrive for the summer and so as not to startle them we head over to say hello. They are extremely friendly and it seems they are very happy to see other people in this isolated place. I sit and have a beer or some tea with these two grandmotherly ladies, who have pulled a TV out onto their wonderfully lush green lawn and set it on a waist-high greek-looking column, and are sitting in plush living room chairs.
Pat (I know not that it's not Pat but don't know who it really is so for the sake of the story I'll stick with him) and I then notice that the icy mountain which we were going to have to negotiate eventually is gone! Shoveled away! Just a flat dirt road now, leading through a low pass in the mountains. It turns out these very friendly ladies knew we were going to have to get the car out and took the initiative to shovel it away. I am amazed that anyone could shovel away a heap of snow and ice that high in less than a decade. I thank them (and the rest of their slowly-arriving extended family) and we gather our gear in preparation for returning to the waking universe.
Somewhere during the second visit to the icy wilderness I had a subdream... a less-tangible (or less rememberable) experience. There was some sort of mild struggle when the mountain (before it was shoveled away) ... although I think all the fighting was symbolic and friendly. An old benefactor arrived and taught me house to use a "Viking bomb", which is about the size of a hockey puck, with a brass nub in the center of one side. I think it works like a grenade, but does something specific to especially affect the enemies of a Viking. Cool. I like Vikings.
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