Dream of Bagpipe Hookahs

The other night I had a long, involved dream.  I waited too long to try to recall it, so some of the details were lost.   There was something about programming e-mail filters... There was a thirty-something woman in a flouncy, silver mini-skirt and boots; think space-aged swimming pool majorette.  I don't recall exactly how, but she was organizing a ritual dance.

The best part of the dream was when I joined the circle dance, spinning clockwise, and I was playing a cross between a bag-pipe and a hookah.  At least, that's the best way to describe it -- it might have been an over-the-shoulder rhyton or didgery-doo that I was blowing inscence out of.  I danced in a press of others in the ring, trailing frankincense or myrrh, while a deep note resonated through my body and rippled beyond me, through the dance, and farther.  I had the strongest sensation that I was singing and playing the instrument at the same time, and that I'd hit a cosmic resonance which vibrated the entire dream.

I woke up feeling connected.  I think some of the dream may have come from eating blue cheese the evening before.

When I told Mark, he said that turning a bagpipe into a water-pipe was the best use of the instrument that he could think of.  In reply, I started to sing, "Tell a bagpipe smoking caterpillar..."

Weather Report

Yesterday we had our first post-Halloween ice storm.  Luckily, it wasn't too bad, so the trees didn't lose too many branches and the roads weren't a skating rink.  The public schools closed... I think they could have started with a two-hour delay and been fine.

The evening's funny moment was a musical one.  I put together some season music, and when Maddy Prior sang the chorus of The Boar's Head -- "caput apri defero reddens laudes domino" -- The Child heard something like: "caput apri defero schadenfreude domino."

Working Out:  Went to the gym Wednesday.  200 calories on the elliptical with a ramp setting that worked my whole leg instead of the usual glutes and quads.  I think this helped to loosen up my lower back, which has been feeling as if it were being poked by a branch for the last week.  Downstairs I did 3X13 suspended crunches and a few light triceps curls.  

Writing has slowed to almost a stop.  . . . partially because sitting is uncomfortable and partially because I've been unmotivated to write.

Advent Post

Crazy dreams lately.  I'm blaming the Tiger Balm I've been rubbing on my back.  The most amusing one involved the local bookstore diversifying into a cannabis distribution center.  

On the writing front, I jotted down some long-hand ideas for the Wordos Holiday reading coming up in about ten days.  We're all going to try to write on the same theme; in the past the themes have diversified into a swarm of ideas.  I've also made a flash submission to a market; I'm trying something different with the flash piece and I'll be interested to see how far it gets through the submission process.

Mark's away on a business trip.  I'm hoping that he gets back before the predicted Winter Storm hits so he doesn't have to travel on slippery roads surrounded by Oregonians who don't know how to drive in snow and ice.

I've been easing in to the Christmas season with a stray carol here or there.  I tend to like old-style carols with krumhorns, boy sopranos, Latin verses, finger cymbals, Maddie Prior, bag-pipes, and Annie Lennox.   This isn't Mark's favorite combination, which makes the easing into things easier.

No gym visits; I keep waiting for my sore bits to stop feeling so sore and they aren't obliging.

Friday With Tiptree

This is my, typing in the parking lot.

Friday was the Tiptree Symposium, but the organizers moved the schedule up a day, and all the interesting panels happened when I work.  Unfortunately, work is really busy at the moment, and I couldn't justify taking the day off.  It's also early-release Friday at The Child's school, which also puts a crimp in things.  

I had consigned myself to being a shrewish house-frau and re-reading old notes from previous Tiptree Symposia when I got an e-mail from JS inviting a bunch of Wordos to join him at a Tiptree reception.   So I did, and had a pleasant evening listening to other local authors talk about what they did.  Probably the most interesting stories were about running a hot-spring resort, how being naked simplified certain social interactions, and having to speak with the local sheriff with no clothing on.  

And now, onto the flash fiction I'm working on... which I should send out.

Working out:  I've pulled something, so I did not go to the gym over the weekend.  I may do an elliptical run Monday afternoon to try to loosen things up.