Science, Violence, Kittens

Visiting an island research station where they need a certified diver with confined spaces to inspect intake pipes. I am talking to the woman in charge on a boulder-strewn shore. The sun is setting and the stone looks black against the orange sky. Inside is a team of young men and women scientists I know. W-- is among them, or at least the dream equivalent of W--. The second floor has the center cut out to look down balcony-like to the first floor. I am hanging out of there looking across to a table where they are all seated. W-- approaches and says she misses me.

transition

I am taking on a job/mission and must go. On another vessel (which resembles an old riverboat), this one with another cast of familiar characters. The mood is like a party, like a Labor Day barbeque / cruise. Half is family and half is graduated colleagues of mine. Mr. C-- is hitting up the booze and getting himself into trouble when he takes money from a classmate, digitally via the friend's phone. Which stars off on a hide-and-seek/ chase over the boat, in the stalls (where the friend's clothing and things were & where C-- got the phone), and over the docks.

Back on the boat I meet the family daughter and bump into W-- and other women I know. They are also on a mission - but counter to my own! Some secret lab/place in the nearby wood where the boat is docked. Compelled a brunette tosses a puppy (brown dachshund) towards the canopy - which tries to get in to the lab - hidden - and with a glass elevator. I leap over the side to get the puppy. There's a ladder and I reprimand the woman (now hanging upside down from the boat railing) "What were you thinking?!" I collect the puppy and her, go inside and make an awkward farewell.

transition

Next mission in North Hill Country. I pull up in a motorcycle at a very nice white farmhouse, the kind with money. Park my motorcycle with the puppy. Inside is a red-brunette haired woman at a set, and elegant dark wood dining table sipping wine. On the table is a thin long sword.

A game of two cats begins between us. I am here to kill her. Slay may be more apropos as there is a dangerous air about her. We exchange sharp words, malevolence beneath civility. I am unarmed and so grab a goblet and break it for an object of sharp glass and turn it on her. The fight is fierce, tentative, and surprisingly brief as I slash, get the upper hand, and position, pin her and grab her hair in one hand, the sword in another. The tip is poised over her heart prepared to plunge. My heart is beating hard in my chest and throat. I start the thrust and she shrieks, NO!

There is a still moment. I hesitate. I cannot end her life. I turn away the sword, and hair already firmly in hand, I kiss her passionately. Which is surprisingly returned and just as fierce. Adrenaline rush.

I let her up and walk out - mission unaccomplished. But I do pick up a kitten, white with grey patches, and leave.

The kitten runs in another part of the farmhouse I have a weird & silly exchange of a family's baby for the kitten. I point in the window at the kitten, they come to the door with a baby in footy pajamas... I shake my head and point around the corner to the kitten scampering up their stairs.

I attempt to leave again. The rest is a silly attempt to ride a motorcycle with a puppy and kitten.

I get turned around, ask for directions from an older woman in a red pickup - one of those with the high wooden sides. I meet a black man and his family as I turn back around in his driveway. We talk motorcycles for a while and he shows me his garage - which the kitten escapes into and is frantically chasing mice, all tiny claws and teeth. She manages to catch a baby bunny - hurting but not killing it. Finally I catch the kitten and the dream ends with me settling kitten and dachshund on the bike.

Persecution, Judgment, Attack, Shame

1) Meeting with all of my professors but having nothing to show. Like a preliminary defense, but with nothing substantive to defend.

2)Argument with a man. We're in a university A big hall.Cheerlieading try-outs. Parking garage. A fight breaks out but he grabs me - literally - by the balls. I feel violated, outraged, ion pain, and helpless. I also seem to be wearing flimsy jogging shorts. I cannot shake him or fend him off. Every new attack is met with same as I try to get the upper hand.

3)I am visiting with L-- and family. Awkward family moments... they don't know that he two of us have broken up. S-- looks sad. I talk to her hoping to cheer her up; ask if she wants to go for a ride, a journey. Her response is happy and then unexpected.

We are in a living room. I'm on an air mattress - she on the couch - and she's then clinging to me, saying "you do love me" and she forces kisses on me... which is all very excitijng but I'm freaking out: 1) because we're in the living room and 2) because this would wreck both our relationships to L--. I try to get away, push her away - but she'd got her hand down my pants and L-- is right there hearing it all. We're toast. S-- is rejected and L-- is pissed.

No win.

Also of note, S-- is wearing a red ribbon. She is almost Nordic blonde and reminds me of [a friend]. The ribbon is the scarlet letter of the dream: a symbolic accusation of betrayal. S-- had the red ribbon like a sash draped over her shoulders. L-- was wearing a maroon scrunchie, which she threw at me.

I felt very judged, and guilty in some sense. but revealing of hidden emotion is exciting - and has consequences.

We carry our judgements into our dreams.

On Stage Again

Dream, January 2, 2012
A wonderful wooden set, circa mid to late 1970s. Performing a play about a royal family - Hamlet? But I have absolutely no knowledge of my lines or any plot and we're opening tonight, as in Now! and I'm in scene one and I don't even have my costume on.

No pleas or stalling: You're on!

Desperately pulling on my costume over my clothes and with my pants halfway up the curtains open: and I disappoint everyone.

Victorian Stage - Ideological Confrontation

Dreams 11/13

Stage theatre production in a Victorian building hosted by my friends.

Swordfight between two men in black robes and red vestments. Of eastern origin. It is an ideological confrontation, a difference in philosophy. One man is killed, my grandfather. Some significance of antlers and my disrespect: laughing at their assembly. Emergency flight tickets home for the funeral, but I miss it having read my email too late.

I must fight the last man and we brutalize each other, but do not kill. Nunchaku to bludgeon. Still, when the fight is over and the man leaves we say "Shalom" to each other and part not as enemies, still at odds.

So many dogs of all breeds and sizes running loose in the hayfields with cows. The dogs must come in, there is a rabid cow in the field. I call their names and bring all the dogs in the house. Fifteen or so. Cats come in too, as if all animals are responding to my call.

I lament missing my flight and I order a coffee at a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire (Vermont? It's always snowing or has snowed in my dreams of Vermont.) There is some trick to making this special brew of coffee and I chat with the barista and owner. She reminds me a bit of S. at the general store in N. Montpelier.

Cienz + Dezine

I'm still committed to the creative process. Presently I'm still taking lots of photos, but haven't done much sorting. I'm also ramping up my efforts on my master's thesis which looks at the dialogue between science and designers, and the tools/methodologies available for positively influencing the ecosystem of urban rivers. More to come on that I'm sure.

In other news MIDGARD is making headway! It's very exciting to sit behind the scenes in this design process and be able to contribute my two cents along the way. I only wish I wasn't in school for this, because I would be all over it otherwise. Right now I'm balancing sleep, meals, and writing. I'm proud of myself though. I'm taking little steps forward towards rekindling that creative fire.

New Post!

Okay, I've been struggling with life, depression, etc. And I really want a place to write again, and post creative stuff. I'm trying to consolidate my internet schizm'd personalities. I don't want to abandon that side of me which creates and shelve it away while I finish grad school. To that end, I am using this (I hope) as my blog space and not worrying about the rest. I can have links, and the rest can be archived for posterity. Or to check up on. I'd like to return from my internet hiatus. Too much internet soul-vacuum time.

To put it bluntly "Get up off your ass and create something." It's sound advice. I'm not at the Make Something Cool Everyday level, but it's something to work towards.

The Man Who Was Fireproof

A dream last night.

"Hawaii," 1960s or 1970s.

I was someone else. Civilian working on a military base. The only reason I can think its the late 60s or 70s is the facial hair and clothes. Big mustaches, big glasses and sunglasses.

Emergency. Volcanic eruption. I or rather this man that I was, in the midst of chaos of evacuees walks towards the heat. Fires that I touch go out, and I remember it being very peaceful. People rush past me, some covered in ashes as I move towards the nascent volcano on the coast. Burning cloth and straw thatch wink out, the fires not so much extinguished as just gone.

As I approach the cone I feel afraid. Firefighters are hosing the landward side trying to harden the 'a'a flow and direct it out towards the ocean. I walk up the side of the mounding cone. My shoes melt, and I try to keep myself from sinking in the hot, hot rock as the sun is setting. That would be the end of me. The rock cools where I stand, still hot enough to burn, hot enough to turn the rubber of my shoes to goo, but cool enough to walk on. The sun is just about gone as I reach the summit, and the stars shine overhead. My heart is shaking, but the fires cool as I stand on the mount. The firetrucks have left now.

The next day I wander back to the base. People are celebrating. The firefighters and some of the military command are getting the accolades. I'm ash covered and tired, and I see some of my friends at the base, also scientists and civilians rushing over. They are surprised to see me alive since I had disappeared yesterday. One guy has me around the shoulders and asks someone to take a picture of us, saying that this could be 30 years from now. Bewildered I ask what he's talking about and he leads me to a mirror. My hair is streaked with grey and not from the ash, it has actually turned grey in many places from its normal dark brown.

(this is also where I can see that its not me in the dream, as I don't look like this guy, nor could I sport a mustache so full.)

Last part of the dream I stalk into the mess hall and make my way to the kitchen and I brush past indignant brass that's getting all the praise for their heroism. I pour myself a stiff drink.