Caitlín R. Kiernan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greygirlbeast) wrote2011-09-30 12:25 pm
greygirlbeast) wrote2011-09-30 12:25 pm
Entry tags:
"But in your dreams, whatever they be, dream a little dream of me."
It's Friday, so COMMENT, KITTENS.
Such vivid dreams this morning. They always are. Vivid, I mean. My brain does a good enough job of that on its own, but my prescribed pharmaceutical cocktail makes all the colors even brighter, the sounds even louder, the smells more intense. First, I was swimming in the sea. Spooky was near. A huge shadow passed beneath me, and I marveled at what had to be the silhouette of a whale shark. It passed, and when it breached, some distance away, I saw it had been a hammerhead. Shark enthusiasts will appreciate the meaning here.
And this other dream, nearer to waking, like something Colin Meloy and Victor Hugo thought up and then sent my way. A nation in class revolt. and I was a child (gender indeterminate and irrelevant), a ragamuffin urchin, maybe eight or nine, in a great throng of refugees/resistance fighters making their way across a blighted countryside, pocked with foxholes and strung with barbed-wire barricades. The group seemed a motley of British, French, American, and Russians, and our Jean Valjean was played by Brad Pitt. Period costumes, spanning several centuries, but none more recent than WWI. With the aid of a disgruntled manservant, we were able to break into an enormous manor house and immediately set about smashing this or that piece of furniture or crockery. But, no, no, no, the manservant, said. Haven't you noticed the terrible drought? (Apparently, we hadn't.) If you truly want to do them harm, empty the cisterns! Which we did, and strange cisterns they were. It never seemed to occur to anyone that, if there was this fabled drought, maybe we needed the water. And, at some point, I caught sight, through a collapsed wall, of an underground river flowing below the house, so I knew it was futile, anyway. I pointed the river out to no one else (it would have been bad for morale). Then we heard the sound of people returning, and we all had to flee. However, the only way out was the way we'd entered, which involved an elaborate sort of door. It had a grille of welded, rusty rebar, but also a heavy wooden shutter that could be raised and lowered. It had been necessary for the unnamed manservant to hold the shutter up while we squirmed in through the square spaces between the rebar (no, I don't know why he didn't just open the door for us; it's a dream). Everyone made it out, including the servant who'd chosen to join the revolt. But I had tarried, and there was no one to hold the wooden shutter up for me. The others cheered me on, frantic (but frantic from a safe distance). At last, I managed to fling the heavy grille up high enough that I had time to squirm out between the rusty rebar before the grille came slamming down again, almost decapitating me. I rushed into the arms of my mother, who wore a blue dress that was of an unmistakable late eighteenth-century vintage.
---
Yesterday, I wrote 1,111 (an ominous or fortuitous number, surely) words on the second piece for Sirenia Digest #70 (SUBSCIBE NOW AND RECEIVE—at no extra cost—SIRENIA DIGEST!), the one Vince will be illustrating this month. It's titled "Daughter Dear Desmodus," and involves a carnival freak show, but more I will not here say. The two-headed calf has sworn me to secrecy (there's far too much of that in my life lately).
I also answered all the email in the world. All of it. There's none left. Not even a jot.
And lest you forget, here's a reminder! Spooky's having a Premature Hallowe'en Sale (!!!) in her Etsy shop, Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries.
Last night, we played Rift (1.5, cocksuckers!), then there was some good RP in Insilico with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
readingthedark, and then we started Season Three of Mad Men, and read more of The Sundial. That's enough, right?
Okay. Time to make the doughnuts. Light bulb!
Emptying the Cisterns,
Aunt Beast
Such vivid dreams this morning. They always are. Vivid, I mean. My brain does a good enough job of that on its own, but my prescribed pharmaceutical cocktail makes all the colors even brighter, the sounds even louder, the smells more intense. First, I was swimming in the sea. Spooky was near. A huge shadow passed beneath me, and I marveled at what had to be the silhouette of a whale shark. It passed, and when it breached, some distance away, I saw it had been a hammerhead. Shark enthusiasts will appreciate the meaning here.
And this other dream, nearer to waking, like something Colin Meloy and Victor Hugo thought up and then sent my way. A nation in class revolt. and I was a child (gender indeterminate and irrelevant), a ragamuffin urchin, maybe eight or nine, in a great throng of refugees/resistance fighters making their way across a blighted countryside, pocked with foxholes and strung with barbed-wire barricades. The group seemed a motley of British, French, American, and Russians, and our Jean Valjean was played by Brad Pitt. Period costumes, spanning several centuries, but none more recent than WWI. With the aid of a disgruntled manservant, we were able to break into an enormous manor house and immediately set about smashing this or that piece of furniture or crockery. But, no, no, no, the manservant, said. Haven't you noticed the terrible drought? (Apparently, we hadn't.) If you truly want to do them harm, empty the cisterns! Which we did, and strange cisterns they were. It never seemed to occur to anyone that, if there was this fabled drought, maybe we needed the water. And, at some point, I caught sight, through a collapsed wall, of an underground river flowing below the house, so I knew it was futile, anyway. I pointed the river out to no one else (it would have been bad for morale). Then we heard the sound of people returning, and we all had to flee. However, the only way out was the way we'd entered, which involved an elaborate sort of door. It had a grille of welded, rusty rebar, but also a heavy wooden shutter that could be raised and lowered. It had been necessary for the unnamed manservant to hold the shutter up while we squirmed in through the square spaces between the rebar (no, I don't know why he didn't just open the door for us; it's a dream). Everyone made it out, including the servant who'd chosen to join the revolt. But I had tarried, and there was no one to hold the wooden shutter up for me. The others cheered me on, frantic (but frantic from a safe distance). At last, I managed to fling the heavy grille up high enough that I had time to squirm out between the rusty rebar before the grille came slamming down again, almost decapitating me. I rushed into the arms of my mother, who wore a blue dress that was of an unmistakable late eighteenth-century vintage.
---
Yesterday, I wrote 1,111 (an ominous or fortuitous number, surely) words on the second piece for Sirenia Digest #70 (SUBSCIBE NOW AND RECEIVE—at no extra cost—SIRENIA DIGEST!), the one Vince will be illustrating this month. It's titled "Daughter Dear Desmodus," and involves a carnival freak show, but more I will not here say. The two-headed calf has sworn me to secrecy (there's far too much of that in my life lately).
I also answered all the email in the world. All of it. There's none left. Not even a jot.
And lest you forget, here's a reminder! Spooky's having a Premature Hallowe'en Sale (!!!) in her Etsy shop, Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries.
Last night, we played Rift (1.5, cocksuckers!), then there was some good RP in Insilico with
readingthedark, and then we started Season Three of Mad Men, and read more of The Sundial. That's enough, right?Okay. Time to make the doughnuts. Light bulb!
Emptying the Cisterns,
Aunt Beast
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If there is one unifying thread that runs through them all it is an intensity of detail that makes even the most surreal parts seem possible and plausible.
And which spawns that conditions I have previously referred to as dreamsickness.
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Mine are always either about work, or people being shitty to me / abandoning me.
Although actually there were two in the last few years that involved me murdering someone, and that was disturbing as all fuck.
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I'm often jealous of those who have elaborate interesting dreams. I never do.
They are not necessarily the blessing you might think. Even now, they're this bright through pills I take to dull them (which sometimes interact with other pills, making them all the more vivid).
Although actually there were two in the last few years that involved me murdering someone, and that was disturbing as all fuck.
See...for me...that's not necessarily a bad thing. No, I'm not being facetious.
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*chuckle* Yeah, I hear you.
In my case, well... they weren't the "fun" "righteous" sort. More of the "OK I should see a shrink" sort.
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More of the "OK I should see a shrink" sort.
Got that bit covered.
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Apropos of nothing - did you know there's a new Dead Can Dance album coming out? (At least, I *think* you like them.) Out next year.
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just the aftertaste.
Very nice.
Apropos of nothing - did you know there's a new Dead Can Dance album coming out? (At least, I *think* you like them.) Out next year.
I love them. And yes, I know about the album. What's more, there will be a tour. What's more, they're playing Boston!
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And I'm missing Rift, but Real Life keeps interfering in so many ways...
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"Cistern" is one of those fun words that isn't used enough anymore.
Indeed.
And I'm missing Rift, but Real Life keeps interfering in so many ways...
The guild's been a little more active lately (not RP, just play).
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Cool! Like all games, I just need breaks now and then.
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involves a carnival freak show
Oh good! Always a topic rife with possibilities....
My dreams are almost always movement dreams - going from place to place, occasionally interacting with people at each location. The only strange aspect to them is that I cannot, once awake, verbalize the dream. I can picture the incidents, but almost always I cannot put it into words, even to myself within my head. It hovers there, off to one side of my mind, a whole thing that I can appreciate, but only as images completely disconnected from any of the mental stream-of-consciousness chatter. Very Odd.
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Oh good! Always a topic rife with possibilities....
It came out very short. Mostly because I think it wants to be a novel.
. It hovers there, off to one side of my mind, a whole thing that I can appreciate, but only as images completely disconnected from any of the mental stream-of-consciousness chatter.
Well put.
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It came out very short. Mostly because I think it wants to be a novel.
Isn't it just so cute to see the hopes and aspirations of the little ones?
But seriously, carnival settings are always intriguing - it's inherent in its very nature, being a meeting place of the normal and the odd. Reminiscent of a seashore beach in some ways, as an interface between two disparate environments and only existing as an interface. I enjoyed the April Question @ Hand because of the carnival connection, and I'd be happy to see more from you along those lines.
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Isn't it just so cute to see the hopes and aspirations of the little ones?
Actually, this time it's a little terrifying. It's like Water for Elephants on LSD.
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Perhaps a collection of "Caitlin's Book of Dreams" could be in
the future?
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Does writing them down help dispel the troubling ones?
No. Not really. If anything, it only renders them more concrete.
Perhaps a collection of "Caitlin's Book of Dreams" could be in
the future?
You do have the B is for Beginnings chapbook, yes?
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Yes, I do thanks. I've immersed myself in so many of your works, but I haven't read the chapbook yet. Time isn't on my side with keeping up with everything I'd like to read. Perhaps I'll have time enjoy it tonight, before bed.
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Well, it's very much about my dreams.
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All the past loves of my life seem to be haunting me in my nightmares this week.
Gods, I hate that shit.
I'm not at all impressed. I need a sidekick like Woody in Zombieland to kick their asses.
As do we all!
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Yeah, I get the death-by-suicide one on a regular basis.
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I was just thinking about the doughnuts recently. When I was working nights in the bakery (a most gratifying job, baking, as long as one is not running the damn bakery), we used to do the doughnuts last. Well, we'd make the dough at the same time as everything else, but we'd cook them very near the end of the shift, and then do the jam &/or cream filling very last thing for the day, before the shop opened.
That was always one of the most satisfying ways to finish a shift; eating a fresh doughnut you just made yourself. Or going to one of the cafes we supplied and getting thick-sliced raisin toast. Or whatever. Things of that ilk.
Good times. Apologies for the recent decline of coherence, I'm having problems thinking clearly. Stupid PTSD all up in my brainmeats, being all YOU DON'T NEED THESE! MOOHOOHAHAHAAA!!
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I have often wished I were a baker.
And my PTSD is now being medicated into submission.
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It's a very fulfilling job. I was a baker's assistant in my late teens. I remember it fondly, I don't think I ever had a bad night at work. It's so physical and tactile, the labour and the environment and the output, all so very very solid and real and complete. I like that. I imagine you'd understand.
I've had to increase my seroquel dosage again since I left the farm. I feel a bit Salad Fingers but I'm not dangerous. That's something. Though I'm slightly disturbed by how dependent on my computer I've become.
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I've had to increase my seroquel dosage again since I left the farm.
I have to be careful with Seroquel, as it can worsen other problems. Lamictal is my friend, and another drug, though they make my hands shake...and...well..side effects.
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That's always the challenge, finding the treatment that suits the patient. There's no one-pill-fits-all way to treat anything, no matter how lazy the doctor and how enthusiastic the pharma reps.
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I'm glad you're putting it in its place. It can be such an unruly beast.
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Near ruined my life.
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I hear that.
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Sure, a lungful of glue can't be too good for you.
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I likely have silicosis, from years of paleo work without proper respiratory gear. But the tests are to expensive to find out.
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Sorry, I was gushing.
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I've been thinking of maybe writing a chapbook sort of recounting my paleontological experiences since the age of four or so.
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I've flirted once or twice with the idea of trying to capture my dreams when I wake, but mostly I'm just thankful that they fade so quickly. They do leave a disturbing aftertaste sometimes, though. Maybe just an image or a snippet of conversation, not enough to bring back the memory of the whole thing but enough to bring back the feeling. More often than not I'd rather that they just went away and stayed gone. I enjoy reading yours, but appreciate that they might not be so enjoyable to live/dream through.
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I've been thinking of maybe writing a chapbook sort of recounting my paleontological experiences since the age of four or so.
That would be excellent. You could issue the chapbook with the deluxe edition of "Dinosaurs of Mars"
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That's a wonderful sentence, just so you know.
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A belated addition.
I'm usually much more likely to write down borderline nightmares, or actual nightmares, or at least the disturbingly weird. The purely fun stuff, only rarely.
Here's an excerpt from one you might appreciate:
( http://mojave-wolf.livejournal.com/124683.html )
I am standing in front of these people who are hiding behind rocks looking at something with binoculars, and the woman is suddenly there standing behind them wearing a leopard print--hopefully not leopard skin!--coat and black lace bra and panties and black boots, and everything else is in color but she's in black and white, pale skin dark hair dark eyes, wild curly mane of dark hair down to the bottom of her shoulders, and she kills one of them but the rest of them ignore her (just as they are all ignoring me) and drops him on the ground and looks at me and smiles and says in this husky, sort of angry, sort of amused voice, "I'm gone five minutes and everyone forgets all about me." And then she climbs on top of this cute short haired athletic tan blond girl who is on the ground looking through binoculars, and starts nibbling her ear, and I say "I don't think she likes girls" and the woman laughs and the blond suddenly turns around they start kissing, and then we're back at the blonde's house, and everyone is in color now and the two women are making plane reservations to go somewhere, and the blonde's husband is outside missing all his skin but still alive, impaled on a hook against the garage wall. And he keeps trying to pull away from the wall and the hook comes with him but it's still attached to the wall by way of this steel spring and every time he gets a few feet away it snaps back and pulls him with it. And meanwhile I'm hoping he can get away and get to help but I'm also hoping the two women get away before he calls the police because I sort of like them, even the homicidal woman who skinned the man and stuck him against the wall. I know she did it because, well, it's my dream and I just *know*
Or this one, that I for some reason connect in my head to "An Evil Guest", which I think you liked?:
http://mojave-wolf.livejournal.com/149444.html#cutid1
and I have been hired as copywriters by some powerful corporation to do political propaganda to get people to accept the coming reign of Cthulhu. We are taken to the white house, where GWB is still president, and giant wolf dogs and floating purple jellyfish-looking thingies wander in and out of the rooms.
Tho most of this one is actually concerned with androgynous vampires suddenly swarming into a house and me trying to get out of there without them figuring out I'm not one of them and killing me.