Journal: First Day of Autumn

It's the first full day of Autumn.  It was supposed to rain, but I don't think it has here.  The last two mornings have been grey and cool, and while the leaves are turning red and yellow, many trees are still green.

Project: OTP "Property" Challenge

Word Count:  about 500 new words and some editing in 90 minutes.  The ending really needs work.  I tried to imagine the characters speaking with each other just before I went to bed, with the hope that I might dream their situation, but I had different dreams instead.

Workout:  0 -- wasn't sure what was going on with my shoulder, so I skipped the gym.   After talking with Mark, we're pretty sure that I overdid some building in Minecraft: our desktop has terrible ergonomics and I got focused on the initial foundation of a Hanging Garden of Babylon. 

In the dream department, I had some kind of traveling dream.  It wasn't too unpleasant, as the theme wasn't being lost or missing mass transit.  At one point it was the winter holidays, and I was speaking to my Grandmother Agnes (who hasn't been alive for several years) about what flowers were blooming in the snow.   The conversation started out fine, but gradually petered out and I have a sense that either the phone connection had gone out or she had put down the phone.  

This would be the fifth Talking with an Older Lady dream I've had in a row.  I'm not sure if this one is part of the same sequence, as I was doing most of the speaking.  Maybe my earlier interpretation of what the dream meant was premature.  

Journal: Last Day of Summer

I've managed to pull my upper trapezoid (I think) muscle or a tendon in my right shoulder.  The result is that my upper neck has reduced mobility and will send little twinges of pain down my shoulder every so often.  Woke up about four times so that I could shift and just rolling in bed really hurt.  Hot water and some stretches seem to help, but I still have reduced mobility.  I'm hoping that whatever I've done will work itself out over the course of the day.

Project:  OTP "Property" Challenge.

Word Count:  about 500 words (mostly recalling the previous night's dream) in about 80 minutes.  The ending is still not working, and feels a little preachy.

I did ask The Empress and The Hermit what dreaming Old Women was about.  While no Goddess or Sybil descended to interpret my recent dreams, I'm pretty sure that it's a desire for an older woman writer I know to have some health issues resolve so that she won't feel so badly (my shoulder issue is a stubbed toe compared to what she's been going through) and so I can study writing under her.  

Dream: The Old Woman Lectures

I dreamed I was going to a convention to hear an older woman speak.  (In waking life, I think she was an amalgam of Ursula K Le Guin and Kate Wilhelm).  I had A with me, and also the family cat, who was an amalgam of Machka (I love you/I slash you) and Smokey (I love you/I wash you).

The convention took place in a Hilton or a DoubleTree or possibly the MacDonald Theatre in downtown Eugene.  I remember there were some carpeted stairs we had to climb, and some glass doors we had to go through.  There was a huge crowd of (mostly, I think) women there to hear the Older Woman speak.  She was seated on a kind of round davenport or sofa, which may or may not have been on a stage.

At one point going up the stairs and through the glass doors, A and I got separated in the crowd and I had to turn back and find him (he was upset).  Then Machka/Smokey saw a mouse in the theatre, and promptly raced off to catch it.   I had to go back to the lobby to catch the cat, who was racing around in large circles.  Eventually, by placing myself on whatever path the cat was zooming on, I was able to have the cat smash into me.

I went back into the lecture hall / theatre.  The Older Woman was with two or three other Old Women getting a back massage, and I was trying to have a conversation with her, but I didn't want to sit on the circular bed she was on, because that would have made her twist on the mattress and disturbed the massage


At some point, the dream shifted to a kind of Muppet Movie.  All I really remember about it it is that the Bad Boss was named Ludo, and that I had to revive a teen aged character (who apparently was just a floating head) by putting on white Obi-Wan Kenobi robes and saying, "I am your father; search your feelings, you know it to be true.  Dress in saggy pants.  Get a tattoo.   And date that tramp of a girlfriend."  This energized the lad enough that he levitated out of the chair he was sulking in, which enabled another character to iron his brain, which was a CD.



This is the third night in a row that I've dreamed Older Women Telling Me Something.  This is a new dream development, and I've yet to figure what this symbol is trying to tell me.  I will have to pull out The Empress or the Hermit out of my tarot deck before I got to sleep and ask it to tell me what the Older Woman wants.