Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

I dreamed  there was a man in my home, replacing my router (no doubt inspired by the two and a half hours I spent on the phone with AT&T yesterday after receiving an email threatening to discontinue my Affordable Connectivity Program due to non-use, which...I was literally reading that email using the service?). He was doing some really weird things, like pouring a mix of ketchup and something else on my carpet to clean it. He also got way too close and breathed on my neck. I wasn't creeped out so much as angry about how much it made me long for physical human contact in my waking life (COVID was Sir Not Appearing In This Film).

After a while I went to bed and woke to a whole bunch of voices. I got up to find an actual 90s style LAN party set up in my living room. I knew most of the people, so again not creeped out, just annoyed. I yelled Get out of my house! a couple times and eventually they cleared out.

Then the repair guy appeared again and showed me a little orange kitten that had to live in a box, alone and unattended, in order to restore my internet connection (very Omelas-esque). I wouldn't allow it, and took the kitten out while insisting there had to be a better way.

The scene shifted to my sitting in a chair in a makeup trailer for a show. Judi Dench was applying my makeup. "You're beautiful," she said. I started to tell her I thought I was beautiful without makeup, and woke up.

This was the first dream I've remembered in a while that didn't incorporate some sort of movement (elevators, trains, portals, walking, flying).

I dreamed I was in an enormous room at a museum. Instead of art on the walls, the exhibits were colorful, luxurious bedroom sets. Big beds with brilliantly colored duvets and matching rugs. Gorgeous glass lamps hanging next to to them on chains going up to a high ceiling. The white walls and floor were super clean and the floor was a little reflective. While walking through, I saw a small, skinny white cat wandering around. "Kitty!" I said, and crouched down. The cat ran over, mewing, and launched into my arms. I caught her and looked at her collar. The words were in a language I couldn't read so I asked a few people if they could. They directed me to an elevator door.

I pushed the button and when the doors slid open I walked into a big room that looked like the set of a post-apocalypse techie hideout, but cozy. Lots of overstuffed chairs with rips and mends, and a couple people seated at vintage Steelcase desks (god I fucking love those desks). I told them I was looking for the cat's owner and they told me to take a seat. One of them did something to a control panel in front of them and the room started to move. It picked up speed until it felt like we were on a roller coaster. I couldn't figure out why nothing in the room except the people seemed affected by the movement. When I looked down at the cat in my arms, she just stared up at me, purring. It felt really good to hold her but I knew I couldn't keep her.

And then I woke up.

This morning I had a dream! It's been a while since I had one that I remembered. I've always loved my dreams, even when they're weird or scary (especially when they're weird or scary, tbh). eta: This dream was not scary, or even very weird, so feel safe reading.

( Read more... )

I'm pretty used to my new glasses, now. I still have to take them off for computer use, which is annoying, but I can't find a good middle distance with them. I think maybe they don't have one? So it's a good thing that ~22" is still in focus. Next step will be trifocals I guess.

My doctor (I refer to him as Dr. Sexy because he's one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen in my life) is going to take a whole bunch of blood work next week to check me for various things.

I've been indulgent eating lately, but I've gained nearly 20 pounds since September and that seems a little excessive. He agreed that cutting carbs was a good idea what with the high cholesterol and elevated fasting blood sugar numbers. I'm not so strict as to start counting carbs (yet), but carrots are the highest carb vegetable on my menu, and I'll probably stop those when I finish the current Costco-sized bag of baby carrots. I'm allowing myself one slice of the buckwheat groat bread before bed until my current loaf runs out. Hopefully that'll keep me from low-carb sleep troubles.

Speaking of sleep, I'm having mildly stressful dreams that I don't remember when I wake up, just the leftover feeling of unease from them. This morning as I was waking I could feel the plot of the dream slipping from my conscious memory and I tried to hold onto it but no good. It was gone. Annoying.

Oh, and I'm doing ten kettlebell swings every other hour at work to get a little bit of movement in.

This morning I had a long, detailed dream about my old place at 1011 Tennessee.

Someone was remodeling it with lots of big, open spaces and a better staircase to the second floor. I was walking around it, feeling so much happiness about moving back in (my old neighbor Smirl was moving back upstairs, too). I told the guy leading me around that when he was ready to sell it, I wanted to be first to have the option to buy it. The dream went on forever, and even when I knew I should start waking up I stayed in the dream because it felt so damn good to be me in that space again.

I know it wasn't (necessarily) about being in the house again. It was about being back in the body that lived there and having all the options and opportunities that went along with being vibrant and healthy. I went up and down the new staircase multiple times just because I could.

As I came into regular consciousness I felt the transition from happiness and excitement shift to depression. The feeling of disappointment and sadness is so heavy in my chest right now. My throat is tight and I'm ten seconds and a hangnail away from breaking into tears.

That house/apartment never left my heart. I drive by it at least a few times a month and every time I have an emotional surge of "mine." I don't miss a lot of things about it--the lack of laundry facility, the unheated bathroom on my floor that used to be a back porch, no central A/C, the tiny kitchen. Everything else, though--the amount of space that was (mostly) all mine for so long, the location, my awesome upstairs neighbors, the person I was then--the loss of those things are a physical ache.

It's strange to have so much of my identity-memory tied to a physical location eighteen years after I moved out. I feel like I left a lot of myself there when I stupidly moved out for stupid reasons. I would like to be that person again, but there's no getting her back just like there's no getting back into that house (not the one I remember, anyway).

The passage of time and change are inevitable, but they can really suck. 

Me and three other people (two of whom I know in real life, Sarah F and Matt J, not on LJ) were part of a special forces unit that was tough but technologically-inclined. Sort of like the Expendables, but nerdy. We'd been falsely accused of something (OF COURSE) and decided to retaliate by stealing some technology that would expose the organization.



Early in the dream, we were flying a tiny airplane out of the country (Sarah and the dude I don't know in real life were piloting) and my mom kept calling me. Now, I have this thing in real life where my phone doesn't reliably stay off. I'll turn it off and then it will spontaneously power up which is a bit of a stressor on actual plane flights, let me tell you. So anyway, I could not get the fucking thing to stop vibrating (I'd at least turned off the ringer) and finally I answered with a "Mom I'm really busy this is a bad time do you have an emergency" and she was all "No I just have this funny story." I told her to please just wait and I'd call back when I could.

Scene change to the inside of a tiny, foreign airport (must have been some tropical location because there were palm trees and ferns all over, even in the building). Matt J and I were carrying this piece of technology (it fit in a backpack) through the airport, trying to avoid security. We saw two of them talking like they'd just heard information and start looking around at people. So we hurried to find a place to hide, which was on top of this 10- or 12-foot partition. Matt J climbed up (he's a good climber in real life) and I threw the backpack up, then he helped me get up. There was just enough room for us to lie lined up flat on the top of the wall, with his head near my feet, the backpack between us. And my phone started vibrating again in my back pocket.

Now, Matt J is super cool and gets happy-excited about stuff, not often visibly upset or angry, but I could feel his annoyance radiating at me and I dream-remembered his irritation sitting in the other passenger seat of the tiny plane when my phone kept buzzing. There wasn't a thing I could do because the partition we were lying on was so narrow if I moved to get at my back pocket, my arm movement would have been visible past the edge of the partition. So I just lay there, hoping the noise of the airport would drown out the buzzing as these police passed us. STOP CALLING ME, MOM. JESUS.

It sounds stressful, but I was so amused by it I woke myself up smiling.

I picked up Muse's new album that dropped yesterday. I can say after six listens that it's...not as horrible as I'd feared? I'm a big, big Muse fan, but the single I'd heard a while back bothered me. The song itself is good, but the drill sergeant screaming put me off. Heard in the context of the whole album, it's not as awful, but it still sets me on edge. Which I know is the point, but I get less pleasure from listening to it. I also feel like the message of this album is surprisingly ham-fisted at this point in their careers. Lyrically, this feels like a first or second album, not a seventh. One of the things I love about Muse (apart from the fact that I think they're amazingly talented in all sorts of ways) is that they're still an album-oriented band and I love listening to albums that are a cohesive whole, where the sum is more than the parts. I know it's a dying art/technique and I'm not gonna lie that I'm disappointed in this latest effort from them. Sound-wise, it's great--gorgeously complex and bombastic, as always. Just a little too in-your-face. When I compare it to The Second Law, it just does not hold up. Maybe I'll feel better after I've listened to it more over the course of the next couple weeks. Is anyone else a Muse fan? D'you have thoughts about Drones yet?

Two posts today--I'm posting the other one separately because it's happy and I want it to stand (ar ar ar--you'll get that later) on its own.

This is the kind of sucky post, which I'll post second so it'll show up on feeds first. That's weird, isn't it?

Anyway, I had another rough night with my tum. No excruciating pain, but just residual aching and soreness. Enough to keep me from falling into deep sleep. When I did sleep, I had discomforting dreams about medical stuff. Exams, nurses who obviously knew something was wrong but wouldn't tell me anything, frustration, anxiety, lots of blood. Not scary, but stressful.

Of course I was exhausted this morning, so I called in sick to work. I put together a yoga series for stomachache/indigestion and did that before making myself a banana/greens/ginger/chia smoothie*. I'm gonna see if a liquid diet today helps things calm down in there. Smoothies for me are kind of tricky--I'm not supposed to eat many raw foods. But I think my GI tract just needs a fucking break once in a while and now is one of those times.

For lunch I'm going to try making something with cooked carrot puree and maybe sauteed pineapple?

If I'm not feeling better tomorrow, well, I see Dr. Khosh on Friday and I can talk to him about this new(ish) development then.

221B Con is a week from tomorrow and damned if I don't do everything in my power to at least be back to my version of feeling good/normal by then.


* 1/2 banana, 1 big handful of greens, 2 T soaked chia seeds, 1/2 t powdered ginger, 1/2 c almond milk, 1 raw duck egg

I didn't get to sleep until close to 11pm because I touched up my roots when I got home from work and that takes about six hours. Then I woke at 4:09am from a weird and stressful dream (see below) and couldn't fall back asleep. Decided to get up at 4:30. Got some clothes together and headed downstairs to shower. Only after my shower, and after mckitterick had relocated to my (quieter and more comfy) bedroom did I realize I'd grabbed the short leggings instead of the long ones, the tight knee-length skirt instead of the loose mid-thigh one, and (worst of all) no bra.



I'm gonna have to go upstairs soon to get at least the bra because going braless is incredibly uncomfortable for me. Ugh.

So, the dream: I was on a flight to no idea where, just it was an intercontinental flight on one of those giant planes with multiple stories. This one even had separate small rooms. Odd. Dreams, wtf. I got seated with my two companions (just dream people, nobody I know in waking life) and realized I'd left my leather jacket in the airport. I had a fit/breakdown because y'all, my leather jacket is really important to me. I bought it during my first trip to Chicago in the early 90s and of all the items of clothing in my wardrobe, it's the one that probably has the most of my character in it--not just because I've had it for so long. It's just...very me. It's a men's size small traditional biker jacket, and it's slightly too big for me, especially in the arms. I've never treated it (yet--I really need to), so the leather is worn and thin in several places. It looks tough and cozy at the same time and I just feel so good in it. It's gone to countless concerts, and has actually been on a couple (8+ hour) motorcycle trips. I can't find any pictures of me in it that show the full jacket, but here's probably my favorite picture of me while wearing it:

Look at that beautiful wear on the shoulders. All the seams are like that, and the arms and back are pretty weathered, too.

Man, I love that jacket.

So anyway, I left the jacket in the airport (along with my ticket, somehow, I have no idea, it was a dream) and I was begging the flight attendants to let me go back to get it. I was even willing to ditch the trip in order to get the jacket (and would probably do so in real life as well I am not kidding that jacket is hella important to me). I kept talking to person after person after person and I was getting so frustrated and exhausted that I decided there was no getting off this airplane or out of this dream in a satisfactory manner, so I woke myself up and then couldn't fall back asleep.



So I guess I've got a good head start on the day. I'll be at Steve's Meat Market in DeSoto to pick up the half cow right when they open at 8am. Yay.

And now I gotta go get a bra. Sorry, mckitterick

Uncertain about the efficacy/wisdom of yesterday's morning walk. I really enjoyed the walk itself, but by the time 1:00pm rolled around, I was too exhausted to go on my hourly walkabout. My legs were heavy and I needed a nap. This morning I woke at 4am from an uncomfortable dream, but managed to fall back asleep. I woke up at 5:45, which was not quite too late to go to the gym, but my body was just not having it. I barely made it out of bed in time to get ready for work, an hour later. Stupid fucking fatigue issues.

I need to get off my ass about getting seen at the Mayo clinc. The idea of that is so stressful, though. My insurance does work with the clinic in general (I called to check), but I have to make sure that each physician/specialist I see there also contracts with my insurance or the local Blue Cross provider and is a PPO provider. Ugh. I shall postpone thinking about that until after Comic-Con.

Tonight I need to run a bunch of errands so I don't have to go to the south side of town this weekend. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to overschedule my last weekend before leaving for San Diego. Saturday morning I'm headed to Kansas City to see THe Latenight Callers do a brunch show at Record Bar. After that we're stopping at Costco to pick up some stuff (including new tires for one of our fleet of cars). Sunday I've got my session with Andrew and then it's henna time (which takes about six hours for me since I do that two-step process to get it black). I was supposed to do my three-week touch-up session the week I hurt my back. So I didn't do the front and top of my roots during the intervening weeks between the last full-head session and my roots are SO BAD Y'ALL. So bad. It's gonna take a lot of of henna and indigo to cover this shit. I'm mostly gray on top, now. Yeesh.

So if you wanna hear about the uncomfortable dream: The world was very Old West, with horses and hangings, etc. I was the leader of a rebel group (of course) who fought the Evil Government by saving other rebels and protesters from public execution (rather like the Merry Men saving Robin Hood from hanging). I happened on an impromptu hanging (don't you love those) of an old woman who was a librarian fighting censorship. I didn't have any backup, but I managed to save her anyway. I had to have one of the people I was traveling with hold my pet rat, though. He was A Very Good Rat and was slightly sentient and I often had to leave him alone when I went out to save people and I felt bad about that. Then the scene changed and I was in my home and found him in a drawer where he was sick and dying because I'd left him alone for too long and I felt like such a horrible person I had to wake myself up. I'm still feeling a lot of residual sadness for my dream rat. Enough that watching a video of something completely unrelated to rats or sick animals made me tear up.

And this is why I'll never have pets again.

Thank goodness I was able to fall back asleep when I returned to bed at 4:30, and slept until 8:30! I'm pretty groggy, though, and my abdomen is swollen like whoa. I really really really want to make it to the gym today, though. It opens for faculty/staff use in about an hour and then closes again at 1:00. We'll see what happens.

I had an amazing dream in my second sleep session of the night.

Surprisingly enough, I was working at a Renaissance fair (I know, right?), and there was a collection of Victorian automatons in a glass case (no idea). One of the automatons was a rather menacing looking man with a black moustache and another was a little boy who looked very unhappy and scared of black moustache man. I opened the sliding door of the case to let the boy out. He told me that he wanted to get away from black moustache man and would I help him. So I held his hand and we ran out of the museum. The little boy told me that black moustache man was programmed to hunt and look for him, so we would have a hard time getting away. We were able to hide for a little while among the other festival workers. I spent a lot of time texting a friend of mine, trying to arrange a getaway, but we couldn't hook up with each other because the messages kept failing to send.

Eventually black moustache man spotted us and we ran out to the parking lot. We got in my car (the Crossfire) and drove maybe halfway out of the parking lot when the engine started making a horrible noise. Mechanical boy and I ditched the Crossfire and got in the Saab, which inconveniently had the top down so we were quite visible. There wasn't any time to waste, though, so I started up the Saab (no idea why I had both sets of keys on me--OH DREAMS) and we drove away as quickly as possible. Which is pretty damn slow in the Saab, I gotta say. In the dream it was almost comical.

The rest of the dream was an increasingly stressful series of me and mechanical boy (who slowly morphed into a human girl) evading black moustache man who had enlisted the help of the FBI. At one point we were at a ratty, small-town, home-studio-style hair salon--the kind that have old ladies getting perms all day--having our hair dyed for disguises. Black moustache man and the FBI arrived, but we were barely able to sneak out the back door. However, our car (a Toyota Camry at this point, since I'd started stealing more common cars and then ditching them on a regular basis) was parked out front so we had to literally run.

It was at this stage that I decided I'd had enough stress from this particular dream and woke myself up.