Three Dreams

In the first dream, I was recording an album of U2 songs. I was interviewed by reporters from music magazines about it: why did I want to do this, what was the point, etc.

In the second dream, my family owned a film studio and I had proposed an idea for a film, a comedy that takes place in 19th century England. At first everyone was enthusiastic about the idea. In fact, I was star in it with Robert Downey Jr. as my leading man. We even seemed to have some sort of relationship (what is wrong with my brain?). Then, my sister R. proposed a different idea for a movie and everyone decided that one was better. When I protested, RDJ told me that my idea was stupid anyway and grew very cold towards me. I was crushed.

In the third dream, I was in the cast of a Star Trek movie or TV series. I played some sort of alien woman from a semi-primitive culture who had a relationship with a Starfleet officer played by...Keanu Reeves (again, what is wrong with my brain?). In the storyline, there were actually two officers, perhaps from different timelines caused by time travel. One of the officers had never met me, the other was my lover(!). Part of the story involved some kind mass battle against an unknown enemy.

After the filming wrapped, my family had a party in some kind of subdivision with neat lawns and identical little houses. Most of my family had never been there, and I kept telling them to find the pink house with white awnings. I think it was supposed to be my sister C.'s house. The rooms were maze-like and I got the impression that several people besides my sister lived there; it was as if she has three or four roommates at least. I remember lots of rooms with hardwood floor and white walls, lots of sunlight streaming through windows. We were dressed-up, but the clothes seemed too formal or too old - we were wearing pale pink suits, like something you'd find on an old lady.

Dream 8

In the dream, I was on some sort of massive space ship or space station with bright white walls. I knew there was something wrong on board and so I was creating a sort of personal space ship out of space suits to escape. The suits contained some sort of rudimentary AI and I could almost communicate with them. By connecting and molding the suits together, I could create a single suit that would allow me to survive in outer space and move around. I could even fly around in the ship/station while wearing my suit and it was very light, as if filled with air. This was a pleasant experience at first, until I discovered what I was fleeing from: they were large hulking shapes, either robots or men in bulky suits like my own, except they were a dull orange metal and my suit was a soft white fabric. They chased me and at first I was able to fly away from them, but as they got closer, the suit's ability to fly got weaker. Soon I was only able to take bounding leaps, like the astronauts on the moon, while my enemies were so close they could almost touch me. I was so filled with panic that I woke myself up.

RIP - My Amazon Account

A couple of weeks ago, I started having problems accessing my Amazon account at home. I could log in, but all the account history - recommendations, previous purchases, wish lists - was empty. It was as if I had never purchased anything from them. What made this so strange was that I had no problem accessing the account history from work. I emailed them three times, but got no response.

Today I logged in at work to buy a textbook and yes, my account history is truly gone. No previous purchases, no recommendations, no wish lists, no preferences, no nothing. That might not sound like much except - I've had the account since 1998. That's ten years, which by Internet standards is positively antique. Ten years of someone's life is nothing to sneeze at anyway. I feel strangely violated.

The Great Lunch Experiment

This last weekend, I made a sad realization. I am broke.

Well, OK, I didn't just figure that out. What I did just realize is that I have to do something about that. NOW.

It's not that I'm being overwhelmed by bills. I am able to pay them on time and with a minimum of fuss. It's that the little I have left over is difficult to make stretch. I started really looking at where my money was going and I didn't like the answer.

I sat down with my friend Doc Midnite, with whom I have lunch almost every week day. We work in downtown Chicago, just a block from each other. We are surrounded by all sorts of cuisines, from the nasty fast food variety to the truly sublime. And it is killing us. Ruling out the truly horrible (McDonald's), it is very difficult to buy lunch for less than $10. Even going the fast food route, the prices are such that you are going to spend about $7. That's a minimum of $140 per month, but more likely closer to $200. That doesn't even include my Starbucks habit or food I consume at home.

I did the math and I realized I can no longer afford to go out to lunch. So I came up with a plan. Yesterday, I bought $113 in groceries from Peapod. If you're not familiar, Peapod is a grocery delivering service. Before anyone gets on my case about saving money, I'm a single girl without car. Not only will those groceries probably last me at least three weeks (edit: three weeks of three meals per day, mind you, not just lunch), but also, going to the grocery store is such a pain that it makes sense to use a service. I'll be more likely to stick with the plan this way. I got some fresh stuff, including deli meats and some favorite veggies, but also a ton of frozen meals. I've come to really enjoy Lean Cuisine. Before I started losing weight, I could have eaten two of these things and still have been hungry, but my appetite is now at a much more reasonable level. A little more math determined that a lunch of a turkey sandwich with tomatoes, a side of baby carrots and hummus and blueberries for dessert would cost about $5. Not only is that a better diet, I could not buy that much food around here for the same amount. If I don't feel like making all of that, I could also just bring one of the Lean Cuisine dinners, which normally cost around $2.70 to $3.50, or a can of soup, which runs about $2.50. Any way you look at it, I'm coming out ahead and all these meals have already been paid for.

OK, so what about that Starbucks addiction? Here's what I'm trying. I only buy one coffee per day in the morning anyway, so I got one of their gift cards and put $20 on it. This will last me not quite 2 weeks.

So I started this today. Because I was in a hurry, I just grabbed pop tarts for breakfast and a frozen dinner for lunch. I even went to Starbucks for my morning Americano. Pretty painless so far.

Luckily, I can still meet Doc on my lunch hour, just not at Chipotle, Au Bon Pain or any of the other hundreds of restaurants in the four block radius of work. And maybe I'll get closer to my goal weight, too.

Dream 7

In this dream, I was still living in the house I grew up in. My mother was alive and doing things around the house - maybe the laundry. I went out to get the mail and discovered something like looked like a legal notice or a ticket. It was a warning about an alarm clock that our neighbors had been complaining about for being too annoying or loud. It listed several suggestions for better alarms. I got the feeling it was my alarm clock that was causing the problems. I looked everywhere on the ticket, but didn't see a fine. Knowing my mother would get angry and yell at me, I decided to hide it in my closet. It was very dusty in there and I had crawl back behind old prom and bridesmaids dresses to find a good spot to hide it.

Dream 7

In this dream, I was still living in the house I grew up in. My mother was alive and doing things around the house - maybe the laundry. I went out to get the mail and discovered something like looked like a legal notice or a ticket. It was a warning about an alarm clock that our neighbors had been complaining about for being too annoying or loud. It listed several suggestions for better alarms. I got the feeling it was my alarm clock that was causing the problems. I looked everywhere on the ticket, but didn't see a fine. Knowing my mother would get angry and yell at me, I decided to hide it in my closet. It was very dusty in there and I had crawl back behind old prom and bridesmaids dresses to find a good spot to hide it.

Dream 6

In the dream, I was at a party in a large house. It was very "California:" white walls, high ceilings, glass walls that overlooked a large city (Los Angeles?). It was night. People were drinking or dancing or drinking and dancing. In one room, a television show was being taped. It reminded me of Wayne's World with higher production values. For some reason, there were cavemen involved. I wandered onto the set and realized one of the stars was Jason Mewes, who kept coming onto me. I was very puzzled by this, as I couldn't imagine him being interested in me, and I kept wondering if he was drunk or making fun of me.

A post that was supposed to go to 50 Book Challenge

Hmmmm...this was supposed to go to the 50 Book Challenge community, but I've just discovered it's being moderated for...people who post nothing but lists of books. The irony is that I don't usually post just lists of books, but I was feeling too tired to write proper reviews of these books. I have a feeling I'm going to be rejected, so I'm posting this here for archival purposes.

25. Incredible Hulk: Prelude to Planet Hulk by Daniel Way - 144 pages, 7 out of 10.
26. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - 607 pages, 9 out of 10.
27. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger - 368 pages, 9 out of 10.
28. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - 309 pages, 8 out of 10.
29. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling - 341 pages, 8 out of 10.
30. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling - 435 pages, 8 out of 10.
31. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling - 734 pages, 8 out of 10.
32. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling - 870 pages, 8 out of 10.
33. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling - 652 pages, 8 out of 10.
34. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - 784 pages, 8 out of 10.

I had a fit of madness just before the last Harry Potter book came out and decided to reread the first six books again before reading the last. This was a very good experience - I had forgotten a lot of the plot of the books, since I had read them so long ago and I discovered things I hadn't realized the first time around (like Sirius Black being mentioned within the first 10 pages of the first book). I also realized that I no longer had a "favorite" book; books that I didn't like the first time seemed much the better the second reading. I felt at the end like I had lived with these characters for ages.

---

# of Books Read: 34
# Total Page Count: 14491
Average rating: 8.07
% towards total books for the year (60): 56.67%
% towards total pages (18,000): 80.5%

Dream Fragments 1

First Fragment: My sister M. was telling J. (her friend), R. (our sister) and me about a band that she discovered from our sister, D., when D. was in college. D. had seen them one night and drunkenly told M. about them. M. was skeptical, but when she heard their album, she fell in love. She played an old cassette on the stereo she had as teenager: an "all-in-one" contraption that had a turntable, cassette player, 8-track player and radio. The band sounded sort of like the Flaming Lips.

Second Fragment: I was in a romantic comedy that was about a love triangle. One of the men in the movie was Gary Numan, of all people.

Dream 5

In the dream, I was getting married. Or rather, I was preparing to get married. I had no idea who the groom was, as he was not in the dream. I was shopping for wedding clothes and instead of a traditional white dress, I picked out a pale blue satin dress with spaghetti straps. In this dream, I was thin, probably my ideal weight and I was surprised at how pretty I looked and felt. In the dream, I was shopping in an underground, almost cavernous shopping mall that was labyrinthine and filled with hundreds of shops. I visited a shop where my sister C.worked (only in the dream, not in real life) and she helped me pick out accessories, like chunky jewelry, to wear with my dress.

Dream 4

In this dream, there were hundreds of stray kittens and puppies on the sidewalk outside of a shop. All of them were very small, just old enough to be away from their mothers, and very cute. I picked up a black and white fluffy kitten, then a bulldog puppy, then another puppy of a breed I didn't recognize. But every time I tried to bring one inside the shop, my friend T. would tell me to take it back outside. He explained that no matter how cute they looked, they were diseased and full of dangerous parasites. The animals looked healthy to me, but he swore that I would get sick from them or that they would become dangerous and/or sick (rabid?). Each time I would reluctantly take the animal outside and bring in a new one, but he always said the same thing.

Dream 3

In this dream, there was some sort of huge parade. I kept getting lost in an enormous crowd. I had the sense that I was with people I knew (friends, family), but I kept losing sight of them.

In the dream I had a boyfriend, but he was no one I really knew or rather, he may have been an amalgam of bits and pieces of several different people. The parade ended at a huge mansion that I suppose was something like the Playboy Mansion. Several rooms were set up with long tables set with white table cloths and fine china, silverware. Here was a fancy dinner party, but while this was going on, there was also entertainment: several very beautiful young women either skimpily dressed or naked and dancing erotically. All of the men were transfixed, including my dream boyfriend.

I seemed to be the only "ordinary" woman around and I became very depressed. I decided I was going to kill myself. I found a bathroom and decided how I was going to do it. I decided against cutting myself and tried to figure out how many pills I would need to take in order to do it right.

(By the way, I am NOT suicidal at all in the waking world, so I found this dream extremely disturbing.)

I went up to the roof, where I encountered a blond woman, one of the "bunnies" I suppose. She seemed actually concerned about me. I think she found my boyfriend, because in the next part of the dream he was with me in a kitchen and kissing me. It felt like to me he was only doing this out of duty, not because he was actually worried about me or even in love with me.

Dream 2

The dream took place in my grade school auditorium. The seats had that musty smell I remembered from when I was a kid and the cinder block walls were painted institutional pale blue. However, in the dream, the auditorium was twice as large and also had a balcony.

I was in a musical. All of the actors were adults playing superheroes: Superman, the Hulk, Aquaman, etc. I was playing a superhero called Quasar (I am not aware of such a character) and dressed in a white and silver costume. Even though many superheroes have the ability to fly, I was the only character that did in the play. I was rigged in a harness and could fly out over the audience and even into the balcony.

Part of the musical required the superheroes to pair up into superhero teams. I ran around frantically looking for a partner, but everyone I asked had already paired up into odd pairing like the Hulk with Superman. Eventually I decided to go solo and felt a lot like the kid who gets picked last when making teams in gym class (which I was). Being able to fly around the theatre made up for that.

Shia LaBeouf played one of the other superheroes, but I'm not sure which one. I didn't recognize any of the other actors, but then again they were in make-up and masks.

Dream 1

In this dream, part of my feet fell off. Half of my right foot came clean off, while on my left it was mostly my toes. There was no blood or pain. My mother sewed my right foot back together and again, I felt no pain, but I could feel the thread pulling my skin. My father chased down the toes of my left foot, which seemed to have disintegrated into parts that looked more like plastic machine bits than flesh bone and rolled under the radiator. He put those back together. Both of them seemed very worried about my parts falling off, but I was not. I was just glad they were there to put me back together.

(FYI - my mother has been dead since 1988.)

After that I went out and walked down a busy urban street. I have no idea where I was. I encountered a group of Latinas, all of them no older than teenagers, surrounding a girl of about nine. They were explaining that she had lost two of her teeth and had to take her to the dentist. She had lost teeth before and had false ones made. The girl was very beautiful, with long wavy hair tied into a loose ponytail. I remember her clothes vividly - a white turtleneck covered with tiny red cherries and a red jacket. They sent her into a nearby restroom and I went in as well. Suddenly, one of my teeth was also loose and something crumbled out. I showed this to the girl so that she would not be afraid about her own teeth. But, suddenly my mouth was filled with more teeth bits. Were all of my teeth disintegrating? I pulled out some of the bits and saw they looked more like pink quartz. My mouth was full of them. I ran to the sink and washed out several mouthfuls of pink rocks. When I got them all out, I looked at my teeth in the mirror. They were somewhat worn, but otherwise intact.

The dream switches and I am lying on a mattress with a friend. It is not sexual; we are clothed and talking, but he is falling asleep. I show him my right foot and he is alarmed by the stitches. The foot is almost healed, though I walk with a limp. As he falls asleep, I tell him about my childhood as an ancient Roman. I tell him about about Roman life, about the streets of the city where I lived (which later became Paris), about merchants and artisans and slaves and I use Latin words to describe these things. I tell him that I have no memory of how I got here; that I remember living two thousand years ago and I remember living now, but the years in between a gray fog. What's more puzzling is that I am the same person in both lives, not a reincarnation. I feel wistful and homesick in the dream and I realize that I miss the ancient city and life.

Catastrophic Computer Failure

me: did you ever use Macs?
the little ones from way back?

DM: my wife had an LE 2

me: I used to get the little bomb message
like all the time
that's what I was thinking today
I was watching Toad
(Oracle database software)

DM: uh huh

me: after I did something I shouldn't have done
and I just saw the little bomb in my mind
that happy little error message
my computer was so messed up
I had to hard reboot
and even then and I had to practically unplug the stupid thing

DM: damn

me: you how just after you do something on your computer
I mean like 1 second after you click on something
or hit return
and you just realize
oh man
I really shouldn't have done that
I am so bad
I will have Photoshop

DM: yep\

me: Toad
Homesite

DM: happens to me every damn day

me: Firefox
and Visual Studio all running at the same time
I know I shouldn't
then I'll do the one thing that send Toad over the edge
I think my programs have personalities
Photoshop is a really demanding artist
that gets passive agressive
Toad is completely neurotic
Word is the IT guy who thinks he knows more than you
Outlook is the guy who thinks he's really organized but is really totally a mess
Excel is the guy you have explain something to three times
and he still doesn't get it
task manager is the guy you used to room with who leaves all the lights on in the house and the TV blaring in the other room

Summer Reading

I made a list of books I'd like to read this summer.

(Technically, it's not summer yet; summer still officially starts on 21 June and in Chicago, June still tends to be a cool month. On the other hand, September and October are usually still pretty warm. But, I digress.)

I'm still a part of the 50 Book Challenge group, although my goal this year is 60, so getting through all of these this summer would get me pretty close to my goal. I tend to divide things up into "train reading" and "home reading." I take the subway to work and have a commute of about 35-45 minutes one way. For me train reading is:

1. a compelling book. The type of writing doesn't matter so much as that I am completely engrossed in the book and can't wait to read it. It should be something that wakes up mu mind in the morning and relaxes me in the evening.

2. a small book. Though I am not opposed to dragging around a large hardback from time to time, I prefer something that can easily fit in my bag. Note that doesn't mean necessarily a short book, just one with dimensions that fit.

Home reading is something a little more challenging, something I can read about a chapter per night before bed or a book just too damn big to lug around everywhere I go.

I've divided this list into three sections, fiction, non-fiction and graphic novels. Yes, this is a lot of books. No, I have no idea if I will actually get through all of these. Probably not. I'll be happy if I can get through about half. These are also in no particular order.

Fiction:
1. The American Fantasy Tradition (Various): a compendium of short fantasy stories by various authors
2. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist and Dave McKean
3. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
4. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
5. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman Haruki Murakami
6. Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami: I tend to get on "kicks" where I read everything I can get my hands on by a particular author. This year is Murakami.
7. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer: I visited his grave a few years back and promised I'd read it.
8. The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko: I can't wait to get my hands on Day Watch and Twilight watch - especially since the Day Watch movie is coming out soon
9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
10. Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco: This is one of my favorite movies ever, so I have to finally read this.
11. Snake Agent by Liz Williams: This is described as John Constantine meets Chow Yun Fat. I really can't wait to read this.
12. The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson
13. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon: It won a Pulitzer AND it's about comic books.
14. Harm's Way by Colin Greenland
15. The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny: There are 10 (!) books in this collection, so I doubt I'll get to this one. One can always try.
16. Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance: As a D&D player, I feel it is my sacred duty to get through these.
17. The Magus by John Fowles: The Collector was frightening but good, so I have to read this one.
18. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling: Well, of course! Edit: I had temporary insanity and spent two weeks rereading books 1-6 before starting Deathly Hallows.

Non-Fiction
1. Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
2. The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler
3. Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
4. The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri and Gilbert Miller

OK, let's talk about these for a minute. I am in a scriptwriting class and I am trying to get myself in the habit of creative writing or just writing period. So, I have overloaded on books about writing.

5. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin
6. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality by John Gribbin
7. Chaos by James Gleick
8. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

A little light reading...

9. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
10. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King
11. London: A Biography by Peter Ackroyd
12. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
13. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
14. True Tales and Amazing Legends of the Old West by Editors of True West magazine
15. Victoria Victorious by Jean Plaidy: Technically this is historical fiction, but I'm not going to pick nits here.

Graphic Novels
1. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley: I think this is the complete series, lovingly printed in a beautiful hardback volume complete with ribbon book marks. I never read the series before, but it was too hard to resist such a pretty book.
2-4. The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 2-4 by Eiji Ohtsuka and Housui Yamazaki: Volume 1 was just too much weird and gory fun.  Read vols 2 and 3. I don't think 4 has been released yet, but I'll reread it when it does.
5-21. Lone Wolf and Cub Vol. 1-16 by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima: these books are the epitome of train reading - dense, beautifully told and illustrated stories in a compact format.
22. Usagi Yojimbo: Grasscutter by Stan Sakai
23. Usagi Yojimbo: Seasons by Stan Sakai
24. Deathnote Vol.1 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata: These came highly recommended by my friend , Doc Midnight, so I am willing to give the first one a shot.
25. Torso by Brian Michael Bendis: A true crime/noir graphic novel  Love the black and white artwork. It really feels like a movie from the 30s, only grittier and grislier. The ending made me want to scream though.
26. Desolation Jones by Warren Ellis Read it; this was a really good TPB, but very adult and weird. It's about a former spy, Jones, being held with other former spies in LA. Jones now acts as a kind of private investigator, although his past makes him less than an ideal detective. I'm not entirely sure what sorts of experiments and surgeries were performed on Jones, but I'm pretty sure one of them was the removal of his conscience.
27. Fell by Warren Ellis: Trying to get issues of this was terrible; I'd go to a store, find like issues 4,5 and 8. I'd go to another store and find 2 and 3. There are huge gaps in the run that I'm sure I'll never fill, so I'm glad this is finally coming out in trade.   This is a great read. Great artwork, nice noir-ish crime story feel.

Update: OK, so I haven't been doing as well as I had planned. I have read 9 titles off this list, but I have also reread Harry Potter 1-6 and I am reading a book called Peace Like a River that a friend loaned to me and several other graphic novels I have not listed here. So there.