Star Wars Strategy

Mac n Cheese, Brocco, Rolls with honey & apricot butter, a couple pieces of salt water taffy.

I go into the adjoining toystore. It's a long, narrow space that kind of curves, a counter runs the length of one side, the other is sutffed with merchandise off of pegboard hangers. The guy starts trying to sell me on some stuff, but I'm really insterested in these Star Wars models they're playing with. They come with these big pads to create an environment for the toys, which are cast and sort of fist-sized for the larger vehicles like the imperial walkers. The salesman wants to show me all about them, especially how the pads have this new technology where they lock together. The pads, which are dense foam and about an inch thick and in swirling pink, green, and white, have little tails off the sides. He's trying to just touch them together and have them lock, but I can tell that it takes but a simple twist, like a bread tie, and that's how they work. I show him. But I become aware of growing anxiety, noise. I think that the toys are analogs, controls for a very real and ongoing battle, and we are the puppet masters. This is perplexing, but I also want to do my duty, to contribute.

The Dogs of War

Antipasto salad, water, a couple of beers, later night corn flakes

This was part of a larger, perhaps somewhat epic dream.

My company of soldiers is hastily trying to organize the defense of our particular section of the wall. We know that they are coming, and we have our animals positioned. I'm not certain if I can see the attack, it seems like giant--deer sized --dogs. My view flashes between violence in the forest and tactical drawings in three dimensions. I keep seeing a diagram of a kettle-shaped human figure, with three red/energy lines from each hand, leading to our dogs, which are not represented. The fray is pitched and violent, and it comes up against the chili-red wall.

Then we are inside the compound [some references to Aunt Betty's house], after the violence. I find the sergeant washing up in a red bathroom. I have part of a harness from one of our dogs in my hand, and I hold it up stretched out, so everyone can see that in tiny rhinestones is lettered "U S AIR FORCE." This causes immediate consternation, the sergeant grabs up the harness strap and heads off to tell the commander that SHE is loose. My sense of smug satisfaction seems to suggest that I had been warning that these animals were too dangerous. I hear the sergeant shouting, and we need to act, because she [is her name Sylvia?] may circle back around and come for us.

two dreams from recently

Haven't been remembering much of dreams lately, and these two that I do remember I failed to put down here.

Several nights ago: No memory of prior foods...
Zombie attack. We're downtown, and we're trying to get from the area of the Launchpad, back east, out of downtown. A lot of people are streaming up Central Avenue, but me and some businessman realize that there's no one over on Lomas (which we can see, and to which there is a diagonal joining blvd), and we start heading that way. Fewer people, less attention, we're probably thinking. But as we head off and near Lomas, it begins to dawn on me that there might not be any people over here for a reason. Yep, here they come. (Mind you, this is all pretty academic-- I'm really not frightened by any of this.) All I've got to work with are my fists & my boots, which doesn't seem very promising, but I'm confident. Moving in our same direction is a South Asian guy in an orange plaid shirt & jeans. He don't look too good. I think he's right on the cusp of the infection taking him over, and I think he knows it. He doesn't speak, he looks at me with either resignation or the dull eyes of the reanimated. I grab for him before he can grab for me.

Last night: Frontier
Serious mish mash of images that I think are coming out of the final chapter of Shusaki Endo's The Samurai, which I finished last night.

Followed by... I'm around Nob Hill. Sadiki has given me one of his old skateboards, which he has refurbished, which includes a new coating of these weird rubberized felt scales (cf Katrina Lasko's black felt ball sculpture, I think). I'm going cruising up Central toward the center, really sailing along, even uphill. I veer off behind the center and go into the grocery. In there I think I lose a part of my board, a wheel or something, but I find it again outside. My car is there, and I'll probably drive wherever I'm going from this point. I love this skateboard, though, especially cuz Sadiki gave it to me.