Day in the Life of an Idiot

 Interestingly I had a pandemic dream last night that my brain actively resisted.

I dreamed I was at the old Dreamhaven (one that some of you may actually remember, when they had this huge sprawling space in a basement of a building in Dinkytown,) and I was BROWSING comic books. It was a very happy dream, because in my dream I was about to drop a couple hundred dollars on comics and I knew I had the money. ​When it came time to load my prize in the car, I realized that I wasn't wearing a mask and I felt bad. But, my brain kept shifting the scene, "Oh, you're outside, it's okay!" or "Greg isn't wearing one either, maybe the pandemic is over," but I STILL INSISTED on pulling my shirt up to cover my face. I think my brain was mad at me at that point because it woke me up.

It was like, "Lyda, we are TRYING to give you a nice dream. Stop thinking about the pandemic for five minutes. Oh, you can't? FINE. WAKE UP THEN."

 I had the coolest dream last night.  Or, rather, in the way of dreams, I had the coolest snippet of a dream that I remember.  

Do you ever have dreams where you're suddenly much more agile or strong, physically, than you are in real life?  I have these occasionally, and they're always incredibly memorable.  A lot of times I'm a thief, escaping somewhere or breaking into some upper story apartment, and I have this ability to be super agile and climb ANYTHING, almost like Spider-Man.  But, every once and a while I have super-strength. I still remember one about being a vampire at a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles, for my non-American friends, a genuinely frustratingly slow place) and just tossing furniture around, because I could.  

Last night I dreamed I was an anime character (Renji Abarai) who was challenged by some other guy (Ichigo? Dream set piece villain? ??) and I was maybe drunk, but I get up and go into this stance, and punch the guy hard enough to stagger him back with my right, and then left hook him hard enough he goes THROUGH THE WALL.

It was AWESOME.

I love dreams like that. They're so empowering. And, while they're technically violent, they're usually not... angry or scary?  You know? This one very much felt like a demonstration of my abilities, rather than me responding to a threat.  One of the things good dream interpreters will ask you is: "Well, what was the main feeling of this dream?" The main feeling was: DAMN, IT IS GOOD TO BE BIG AND STRONG.

Then I woke up all small and fat and... ah well.

How about you? Any dreams like this?

I have a reoccurring nightmare. It involves getting on an elevator, often at a business, but sometimes at a high-rise dorm (which I had at my alma mater). I press the button to go to the floor I need, and suddenly the elevator goes too fast, has no walls, spins around, goes sideways, or any number of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sorts of options. It's not the kind of nightmare where I wake up screaming for my mommy in a cold sweat. It does, however always stick in my mind and disturb the calm of the day afterwards with fleeting memories of the dream sensations.

Last night, my subconscious came up with a most clever solution. When you see an elevator, don't get on!

Brilliant.

Of course, I then spent the rest of the dream trying to rescue a friend who did get on the elevator and thus had fallen into the clutches of some evil half-way house for at-risk teens. Me and the cab-driver (the character of "Sasha" from EastEnders) and I came up with all sorts of distractions in order to save this young man... which we eventually did by bringing the building super in. That's where things go weird in a very dream-like way... however, the point is, I saved the boy AND DIDN'T RIDE THE ELEVATOR. A good night.

I'm pleased to have had such a successful subconscious because last night people were wrong on the Internet again. I got into a very brief Facebook fight with a friend who had posted a link to this: Conor Lastowka's Tumblr comments, a sort of backlash to io9's decision: http://lastowka.tumblr.com/post/37204317766/fff.

There are only a couple of things I want to say. The most mature of which is, "Nyah, nyah, nyah, shut up, we won!"

The second is actually in response to something my friend said on his Facebook status. He suggested that fan fic writers were inviting criticism by posting their work in a public forum. He said that everyone takes their lumps as creative artists.

My first response was a gut-level "yeah, but we're professionals, those are the dues we can expect to pay..."

But, I was thinking about that a lot as I was falling asleep because, you know, he's right. Fic forums are public venues. However, the analogy my brain came up with was this: fan sites are as public as, say, a gay bar. The Gay 90s is a public place. Everyone is allow in, but there's an assumption that those of us who go there are entering a space just for us, where we can be surrounded by like-minded folks. It may not be officially a safe space, but there's a sort of assumed privacy. No one is expecting a straight reporter from Comedy Central to bust in and start mocking someone for wearing lame pants.

I think the analogy is especially useful because one of the things that I felt like was happening was an "oooh, look at the kinky weirdos" parade. Sherlock enema fic! Water sports Harry Potter! And, as a lesbian, I find that sort of thing particularly hurtful, because not that long ago, what I did in the privacy of my own bedroom was considered a disease.

And of course some fic writing is dreadful. Some pro writing is dreadful. 'Nuff said. Because, you know, the good guys won this one. So I'm going to let it go.

Updated to add: So my partner, who often acts as a "clipping service" sent me a link to this early review of the The Hobbit movie from the Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/hobbit-an-unexpected-journey/review/397416

I particularly resonated with this quote, "If The Hobbit had been filmed shortly after the book's publication in 1937 (it's a wonder that it wasn't), one easily could imagine a lively affair full of great character actors and cleverly goofy special effects that would have moved the story along in smart style in under two hours." Except, I'd like to see THAT movie with TODAY'S special effects.

I was expecting to be disappointed, particularly when I found out that Mr. Jackson was breaking this movie into three parts. But, it was kind of my Captain America. I was holding out hope that, despite my fears, it would turn out ridiculously awesome. Because, like Captain America, I have a lot invested in the Hobbit. Of all of JRR Tolkien's works, THE HOBBIT is my favorite. It is the first "grown up" book that I remember reading cover-to-cover and more than once. It's also Mason's favorite, and, thanks to him, I've read the entire book out loud. It's a cleverly funny book (reminiscent, in my mind, at least, of the soft, domestic humor of Beatrix Potter,) and, actually, as such things go, very fast-paced with a lot of action and a F*CKING AWESOME DRAGON.

So, I'm still hoping that the reviewer is wrong, or, conversely, that it turns out I'm one of the purists who will enjoy the crap out of the extended version. Fingers remaining firmly crossed!

This is Discovery Channel's "Shark Week," and we happen to be at a place that has cable so Mason and I tuned in a little last night and this morning (during the brief rain storm we had here in Siren.)

All, I can say is, "Thank you, Discovery Channel, for the nightmares last night."

Yes, thanks to a scene of people trapped in a shark cage while a 2,000 pound female great white shark thrashed above them (nearly drowning them, and, in point of fact, breaking the "shark proof" metal,) I dreamed last night that we had a shark in the basement. Thrashing. Actually, it was my cousin Steve's basement and I have to admit to seeing it slip out of its pool and completely bailing on my family. I was all, "Well, look at the time," in my dream. I'm a total astral coward when it comes to sharks apparently.

I am such a weirdo.

I think that pretty sums up everything you might need to know about me, but I was thinking specifically of the fact that, unlike almost every other writer I know, I ADORE the revision process. I think it's the sense of accomplishment I get while I'm going through each page. In front of me today is a big pile of paper. It's a completed (if somewhat flawed) story. I don't have to figure out how it's going to end any more. It's written. I may, in point of fact, need to utterly CHANGE the ending for the novel to actually be any good, but I have a spare, you know?

I like that feeling. A lot.

Even though I know that when I get through this round of revisions another one is on its heels (or waiting in the wings and other such metaphors) -- around and around until publication.

But, you know, I've taken my first stab at it. I hit something. Now I just have to make sure my aim is true and I hit home.

Which is kind of a disturbing image since last night I had a really awful nightmare about discovering a serial killer had been to my house while I was away. And then I became a strange sort of magical-yet-evil house spirit myself who continued the killing spree. It was particularly disturbing because it's one of the first dreams that I remember taking place in THIS house, exactly as it's laid out. Usually, I have a stock stand-in metaphor for my house. It's partly my parent's house combined with this one with bits of other houses or apartments I've lived in or known, and a hotel (or a museum). But it's always generally the same place that my subconscious has dubbed "my house" even though it looks nothing like the place in which I currently reside. So besides being creepily violent, it was also very specific.

Banish, banish, banish!

Luckily, it's incredibly beautiful outside today and I have something I'm looking forward to doing in front of me. I'm sitting on the porch with the windows cracked open. There's coffee in the pot and a cat perched on the head of my chair behind me. The thing that's going to be hard is to stay indoors, when what I really want to do is start mucking about in the garden (even though there's still patches of stubborn snow in our back yard.) We're going to expand Mason's veggie garden this year. I really want to try growing lettuce. The seed catalogues all have these cute little individual serving size minature lettuce varieties and I just adore them. I want to see them growing in neat little rows in Mason's garden.

Ah, hurry up summer!!

Wow, I had one of those weekends where I totally disappeared from the universe. Sorry, here I am. How are you?

I think I got buried in the snow. It was cool, wasn't it? After slipping and sliding our way to Mason's second to last swim class, Mason and I played snowballs. Much wet fun was had.

I've been having dreams about forgetting my flight back from Europe and driving without breaks. I think that means I need to get more writing done. Or I should check to make sure I'm not forgetting other gigs.

Okay, Mason's bored now (he has off for Thanksgiving, etc.) and we went back to out old coffee shop, and for some reason he gets bored here a LOT quicker than at the new place. Plus the prices have gone up. I won't be coming back here any time soon, alas.

...cuz I'm trying to write.

Had one of my "you forgot to go to the convention" dreams last night. I have a LOT of reoccurring dreams. My mind seems a bit lazy, honestly. I reuse set peices, houses, and other dream scenery. But I have this particular dream often, and it goes like this: I'm at a convention party late in the evening, Sunday, the last day of the con. I realize two things: 1) I never registered and 2) when I go find registration, I get the list of panels that I completely missed. Usually, there is one that is just about to end, and I spend the rest of the dream trying to figure out where in the hotel the room is that this panel is supposed to be.

This is really just a riff on my "you have one more class in high school / college to take / teach and it's a month into the semester, you can't find your locker, class list, class room, etc."

I actually took an on-line course on dreams, and I was disappointed in the information about reoccurring dreams (there was almost none). I have a zillion of them, and when I poll people I know many people have similar ones.

Anyway, back to work!