Jaded...

Dreamt that I was in a room with four or five other folks. There was some kind of tablet notebook or computer device that we were trying to program to be a chess board. We were bored and waiting for our supervisor to return with a job evaluation. At one point the notebook turned into a large, folio size art book, about two inches in depth. It had stiff covers of dark cardboard, and the first few pages inside were translucent and embossed with the title, etc. It had the feel of a very expensive corporate report. The other pages were filled with glossy images of colorful nature patterns--could have been an art student's portfolio who wanted to be a graphic designer for an upper scale wallpaper design firm. Some of the images were abstract, often green and ochre in color. Others were closer to actual nature patterns--leaves, rocks, etc.

One page in particular showed a closeup of a very large leaf rendered like a jade sculpture. It was knobbly in texture, dark green with translucent yellow-green highlights where the surface was raised. There was something both attractive and repulsive about it.

One of the other people waiting with me was a woman who was very taken with the image, and when she saw it she began to rant about jade, about how it was addictive and compelling. There were scars on the side of her face. She said something like: "When something finds you, you should hold on to it." I understood her to be talking about finding some compelling obsession in life, and how important it is to embrace it.

The evaluator never returned. I woke.

Yesterday dream

Last night's dream: wandering through neighborhood of well-to-do apartments in Austin with Sandy, looking for the house of someone we know who lives there. She was a friend many years ago, and I thought about her yesterday. We find the apartment but not the person. Her son is there playing the drums in a rock band for the crowd gathered at a party. I talk to some young man with dark hair.

latest culture news

Last week saw Angels in America, The Manchurian Candidate, Clockwork Orange.
Read Johnathan Strange & Mr Norrel.
Slept too well last night to remember my dreams.

Attack of the evil twins

Middle part of a longer dream which is now back under the water. I'm in the aisle of a brightly lit grocery store. I'm with someone else unidentified, but I know he is close to me. He is lying on the floor. I don't know why. I move to lie with my head on his shoulder, a gesture of love and comfort. Then a door opens at the end of the aisle and the devil strides in--a double devil, since he is identical twins. Both are lean, dark haired, implacably menacing. They advance to where my companion and I are lying. I can't move and the devils bend over us. They are saying something but all I remember is one of them saying that his time was near, which I took to mean that he would die or become one with his twin. He didn't seem upset by the prospect. One of them commands me to look at my friend and I turn my head with difficulty to see that his head is squashed to the floor. He looks dead. Two white hard shapes ane now somehow projecting upwards from the floor and skewering us. They are irregularly shaped, something like a cactus or coral or set of antlers.

The pain from this wakes me. It is 4:00am and I turn on the light to write this report.