Progress Report 3/4/08

3/4/08

New blog launched in Feb 2008:
"The Unlikely Times" - news of the improbable but true
URL: http://unlikelytimes.blogspot.com

"Remember the Ancient Mariner" (article) accepted by Illumen (Autumn 08)

"Cougar Village" (longpoem) to appear in Aoife's Kiss (Jun 08)

"fire snakes" (haiku) posted at Mindflights
http://www.mindflights.com/item.php?sub_id=3717

=====

3/1/08

My story "Lugosi Rock" was just posted at Postcards from Uranus:
http://postcardtales.blogspot.com/2008/03/lugosi-rock.html

I sold two haiku to Scifaikuest

New book cover designs for SamsDot:

- Family Tradition, by Dev Jarrett
- Jane Doe Discovered, by s.c.virtes (Art & Design)
- Tarantula Stampede, by Tom Galusha
- The Poetry Workshop & Beyond, by Terrie Relf
- Little Creatures, by Michael McCarty

Otherwise a quiet two weeks with a few rejections.

=====

2/10/08

New acceptances & publications:

"tangled up in true" (poem) accepted by Space & Time

Stories (reprints) now available on AnthologyBuilder.com:
"Bricks"
"Last of the Soft Things"
"Tuesday Came Apart"
URL: http://www.anthologybuilder.com/authordetails.php?byline=Scott%20Virtes

Poetry (reprints with art) posted on writersCafe.org:
"the shape of things to come"
"all those toys"
"in the blackout"
URL: http://www.writerscafe.org/writers/scottVee/

New book cover designs done:

- Christina's World, by Marge Simon (SamsDot)
- Tarantula Stampede (SamsDot)

New submissions sent to:
Triangulation: Taking Flight, Abyss & Apex, Star*Line (5 poems), Amaze (6 cinquains).

New rejects from:
Andromeda Spaceways (4 days), Futures/Nature (7 days)

Onwards & outwards

This blog was going in a few directions, and while I still like the title, I have spun off a few more focused projects.

One is The Unlikely Times -- "A journal of the hard-to-believe and the not quite believable."

Another is Dark Windows -- an email newsletter of dark fiction, poetry and odd clips from old factual and fictional sources. Plus some dreams, to completely muddy the line between reality and the imagination.

I'm working on another project, dealing with short clips on the history of words. But, ssh ... it's secret.

This blog, as it goes forward, will focus on unusual science news. Think of it as things that sound like sci-fi but are actually happening. It's not the future, it's the UnFuture.

Enjoy.

Progress Report, 2/3/08

I wrote about 30 new poems this week, mostly haiku and cinquains. Only about 3 of those
were obvious duds. A few longer ones were unexpected surprises.

This week's submissions (mostly short stories) went to:

Clarkesworld, Fantasy, Flash Fiction Online, Futures (Nature), Heliotrope, Odyssey,
Shroud, Weird Tales, Coyote Wild, Andromeda Spaceways, Darwin's Evolution, Dog vs Sandwich,
Sigurd Journal, Lone Star Stories, Scifikuest

Rejects from Noneuclidean Cafe, Lone Star Stories

No new acceptances this week.

Quick News Update 1/29/08

Hot off the press:

- "Old Emmett's Grave" (flash) posted at Postcards from Hell.
URL: http://postcardtales.blogspot.com/2008/01/old-emmetts-grave-pfh.html

Recent works accepted:

- a haiku accepted by Mindflights
- "Lugosi Rock" (flash) accepted by Postcards from Uranus.
- "supernobody" (poem) accepted by Not One of Us

New book cover design:

- Sounds of the Night, Feb 2008 (SamsDot)

Books & stuff:

"Blank Spaces & other dangers". Now available again! The original publisher dropped all projects, and I have posted a second edition myself over at Lulu.com. A collection of 27 of my stories - all kinds of fantastic flights and weirdness. For more info and excerpts:
http://scott.virtes.com/bk_blank.php

Also (I forgot to mention this earlier) ... I have a stack of the July/Aug 2007 Analog with my story, "Jimmy the Box", in it. If you'd like a signed copy, email me at writer.scvs.com - $8 includes postage in the USA. Thanks.

Writing on Anything at hand

I promised some of my postings on writing-related topics. Here's one originally posted on Lulu's "Creative Minds" forum, about whether I write everything at the computer...

#

I wrote in notebooks by hand, or at the typewriter, before there were computers. Then I wrote 90% at the computer for many years, though I always have a notebook by the bed for any middle-of-the-night flashes.

Now with eye strain driving me nuts I've been trying to diversify. I've tried using my MP3 gadget for recording, but it's a different sense entirely -- it's most effective for capturing lists of things to do (which is the WORST poetry ever). Though I can sometimes catch a good poem that way, walking around the block.

One benefit of writing in some other medium first is that when I do finally get it into Word, I find myself doing an edit as I type, so it's a step ahead, no real time lost.

I also have Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which after a few weeks does a good job of picking up the words as I speak. So it's nice to close the door, close my eyes and just talk for a while. I find that work best (for me) for articles, or posts like this one. I don't mind fixing the few errors afterwards - it's still less repetitive stress than typing every single letter.

Odd Clips from Dark Windows #10

Pulverized toads were not only employed in medicine with supposed advantage, but were also considered a slow but certain poison. Solander relates, that a Roman woman, deisrous of poisoning her husband gave him this substance; but instead of attaining her criminal desire, it cured him of a dropsy that had long perplexed him. [1]


Affection deprives death of all horrors. We shrink not from the remains of what we cherished. Despite its impiety, there was something refined in that conviction of the ancients, who imagined that in bestowing their farewell kiss they inhaled the souls of those they loved. [2]


The Romans of the regal and of the early republican periods regarded the unappeased souls of the dead as most dangerous to public and private welfare. They were capable of inflicting not only disease upon men, but blight on the crops. Hence the worship of the ancestors became one of the most important functions in the religious life of the people. The central motive in this worship was not love for the departed, but fear. [3]


1. Curiosities of Medical Experience (2nd ed.), by J. G. Millingen (Bentley, London, 1839), p.30

2. same, p.60

3. Disease-Spirits and Divine Cures Among the Greeks and Romans, by Cesidio R. Simboli (Columbia Univ., 1921), p.31

Spam proves poetry is "something"

What kind of freakishy lame world produces messages like this?

Gwynne reaccomodates petite sucker Hereford composes bright underbrush

Lewinsky topples curious periwinkle Freddi poultices faint julep

Rodina smocks obnoxious molding Gwynne books outrageous septuagenarian

Gerek organizes curious learner Hereford backlights few baconer

Gannie rubberstamps fragile nightingale Lewinsky overornaments short gauger

Damn spam. Every technology we create gets abused by criminals and losers. Strange programs trying to trick us into replying, to steal our souls. We try to build tools to get our jobs done, to make our lives better, but instead we're sitting targets, victimized, under constant attack ... in fact, I spent two hours today overhauling someone's online forum which had been maliciously hacked. What if a few years from now we have to spend 8 hours a day doing maintenance and security tasks. When would we find time to do any real work?

On the other hand, these messages (from my archives of ridiculous emails) shows how poetry is more than just a heap of words. It's easy to show what poetry isn't. Much harder to explain what it is. When I write poems, it seems to me that there is a stream of ideas in front of my eyes, almost tangible, and that my task is to pull things out of the stream, capture them, make them permanent. I don't judge the things, just record them. Luckily, all minds share a certain amount of wiring, so the efforts can be understood by some percentage of readers. Transferred. Task completed.

2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #10, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

 

Sad News & Progress Report 1/11/08

Here is my news since last entry ...

NOV:

Unfortunately, my Mom died on 11/13. A few weeks vanished in the mix.

12/1:

The new issue of Hungur magazine is out, with my cover design and my article "Unusual Vampire Lore".

I did two new book cover design projects for SamsDot Publishing, but was otherwise busy trying to stay ahead of bills. a.k.a. my stamp/eBay business. Funny how I can sell over $2000 a month in stamps but barely make scratch with anything I create myself. Or NOT so funny.

12/15:

My poem "The art of fishing" is in Amaze, the Cinquain Journal:
http://www.amaze-cinquain.com/SUMMER-07-issue-13/virtes.html

I created two series of custom postage stamps over on Zazzle.com: one set of zoo animal photos, and a set of fractal graphics.
Link: http://www.zazzle.com/scottzazz/find/pt-172

1/1/08:

I have some new audio poems over at the Sundown Lounge:
http://www.larrywinfield.com/sundownlounge.htm
CPU (Podcast #112)
Live reading 7/1/07 (#113)
Smiling sands (#115)
The hole (#116)
Myths wearing thin (in #117)

For reference, the book covers I designed for SamsDot Publishing since September are:
Hungur 3
Sometimes While Dreaming, by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
Potter's Field 2
Pretty, by Philip S. Meckley
The Phantom World, by Gary Crawford
The Ghost People, by James Steimle
The Green Women, by Laura J. Underwood

My own chapbook ("Jane Doe Discovered") should be coming soon.

"At Ripley's" (poem) (an ode to the Ripley's Museum, of all things) is now online at Helix SF:
http://helixsf.com/poetry/Q2_virtes_atripleys.htm

"Unusual Vampire Lore" (article) now in Hungur magazine, was nominated for a James B. Baker award.

I have a haiku in the Dec 2007 issue of The Shantytown Anomaly.

Oddly, I was asked to write a 30-second Christmas skit to be filmed for a church in the Midwest; I got the thing ready & delivered, but filming was cancelled due to a major ice storm and power outage. Ho ho ho, huh.

=====

These updates are from my new newsletter called "Dark Windows" - biweekly, giving away about 2,000 words of poetry, writing & odd clips per issue. About to post issue #10 this weekend. More info here ...
http://archives.zinester.com/38141 (2024: the site is long gone)

Stay tuned for a change of direction for this blog...

Major life news & moving ahead

For anyone who is keeping score, or focused on (nonexistent) schedules, you may have noticed that there was no Nov 15 issue. We were just getting over the fires -- making up for lost hours and depression -- when my Mom died on Nov. 13.

I'm not going to focus on that here. I had many days (like Thanksgiving) when I didn't feel like doing anything, and wondered about the wisdom of compiling dark/horror works at a time like this, but I don't the kind of horror where people die, or come up with cool new ways to kill people. I deal with the "supernatural horror" as defined by H.P.Lovecraft, where non-human forces make us ponder our very reason for being. Real world sadness, or the passing of a single life, does not change this.

Regardless of how we paint the world, or how we let the world be painted for us, we know on some level that we're walking a fine line between what is right and wrong, between creating wonders and facing our own oblivion. What is real beneath all the artificial layers of society? Things are always stirring, just out of reach. Frankly, we could all be wiped out and the outer darkness would not change -- it's just that nobody would be here to appreciate it.

The other fine line that interests me is trying to entertain, help people escape their day-to-day reality, without pushing too far with lectures or too heavy with the darkness. I don't want to dwell on "bad things." It's all just a walk in the woods. We must explore. And exploring must always teach us things, even if they are never spoken aloud.

2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #7, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

 

decoding Cinnamon the Cat

A recent article on ScienceNow says that the cat genome has been about 80% deciphered. Interesting result: cats are more closely related to humans than any of our other common pets are (dogs, hamsters, etc).

Of course, "cat people" would not be surprised by this. Cats are like weird little children, with or without a genetic reason. Of course, I have one looking over my shoulder (sleeping on the chair behind me with one eye open) and one ready to claw my leg (wants to walk back & forth in front of my face as I try to type), so I have to say nice things about them, or else.

Funny how we think we domesticated all our pets and livestock, when they more likely domesticated themselves around us. We act like we're in control -- we train them and give the orders, right? In fact, they quietly train us to put up with their quirks and schedules and needs along the way. And this is never more obvious than with cats.

Of our three cats, one stares right into my eyes when I talk to her, like she's looking for answers. Oddly, wearing sunglasses doesn't seem to bother her one bit. She still looks right into my eyes.

My favorite cat mystery is why they seem completely oblivious to reflections -- shouldn't seeing themselves in a mirror be completely bizarre? Combine this with their notorious curiosity, and I expect SOME kind of reaction. I recall that as kittens they paid were startled a bit by seeing motion in mirrors, but now they can somehow be obsessed with the slightest scrap of string and ignore their own image completely. I'm guessing that reflections have no scent component, but still ...

... random reflections on cats.

link to the article:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1031/2

jinxed the spider, try this comet instead

Well, 2 days after I said the spider was doing fine, it vanished completely. Probably starved. I sifted through the leaves beneath its lair, hoping for a closer look (I do have a cheap USB microscope), but it was gone.

On the fun side, there's a bright comet in Perseus now. About 2 weeks ago it was a faint 17th-magnitude thing, far off and easily forgotten. But then it got a million times brighter for no obvious reason, now it's easy to spot, even without binoculars. Just look for the fuzzy thing near Alpha Persei that doesn't belong there. Because it's fairly distant, it's not moving much from night to night. It's probably going to fade away soon, so check it out while you can.

Here's a finder chart & more info:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10862521.html

freaky spider for Halloween

We got smoked out by the firestorm, and evacuated for a day. But rather than focus on that, here's a bizarre naturalist note:

We have a big spider living in a classic circular web just outside my office window. It only eats bees, sometimes two a day. When it doesn't catch anything, its abdomen shrinks back down to where it looks like a huge tick. After eating a few bees, it balloons up again. Because of the smoke, the bees wouldn't come out, and the spider's web was destroyed by wind. It clung to one of our hanging baskets for a few days to weather out the storm, giving me a chance to finally get a good photo of its top side (which was previously facing the wall):



Oddly, its underside is black with yellow streaks:


After the fire, it had shrunk down to almost nothing and flapped around listlessly for a day or two, and I thought it had starved. But now it seems okay again -- the bees have come out and it caught one already.

Also strange: there were two different types of smaller spiders (both with the same weird habit of holding their legs together in pairs) which tried to mate with it about a month ago, but it hasn't had any eggs that we know of. One photo shows both intruders in the web, plus a closeup of each one. The big female let the tiny spider stay close to her for about two days (obviously a male), but the larger intruder was kept away (and a bit of a mystery).







According to a local spider collector, it's a Mexican orb weaver. Leg spread about 2 inches. Really a spectacular critter. We're glad she survived the fires. Makes me wonder about all the other creatures, great and small, that were wiped out.

Happy Halloween!

Wildfires 10/25/2007

We liked it better when Escondido was in the news for being in the title of that Eric Clapton & J.J.Cale CD a few months ago. Being a plume of smoke, staging area, CNN hot spot, and Presidential photo opp is much less fun. I kept hoping our Governator really did have giant robot friends he could call on, or that there were enough National Guard to um ... guard the nation.

But for 2 days it was essentially a hurricane that was on fire. Nobody could stand in front of the thing and slow it down, and it was too hazardous for choppers to lift off. The few water drops did nothing, since the water never reached the ground. By the time there was a break in the wind, it was 100,000 acres -- more like a few hundred spot fires than one big thing -- but still growing.

Anyway ...

We had an evacuated mom & baby stay with us on Monday, but Tuesday morning the smoke was too much, so we packed up the cats & papers & food stash and got out. By late Tuesday the wind stopped, the smoke columns stood up and we went home ... but there were still fires burning 7 to 20 miles away in every direction.

There were enough mapping tools online that I could keep an eye on the fires and winds, and get a good night's sleep. It calmed down after a few days, but you can tell that everyone around here has a story and a burden, and we try to go through a normal day even though people are conspicuously missing and we're avoiding some areas because they're supposed to be in ruin.

Right now we have a creepy red Halloween moon. I guess kids will be asking for candy in a few days. Never play trick or treat with mother nature.

Nov 1 update: More than a week later we still get a lungful of smoke or ash when we least expect it. And we're expecting another red-flag dry and windy weekend ... (11/1/07)

2024 note: this was the Intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #6, but since that site has been defunct for years, I am folding those into this blog.

 

Long, Bad Weekend in Phoenix

Journal entries about a difficult weekend.  Wacky road trip, one frustration after another.

I had to testify in court about certain family health matters in Phoenix on Monday (today), so ... 6-1/2 hour drive, and I got a ticket for not having a front license plate (which was never a problem before) just 4 miles from the state line. Got whatever sleep I could, not much. Got to the mental hospital, and while waiting to be called someone came in from outside and said, "Whoever has the blue Saturn has a flat tire." My reaction, "The way things are going, that would have to be me."

I went through some emotional hell, came out and had to put on the spare tire (while mental patients came and went). Note that my "look good in court" clothes hadn't been worn in 8 or 10 years, and really didn't fit, but I got the spare on and went back to my hotel to ask for a tire place. At the time, someone was revving their engine right outside the door and cussing and yelling, apparently because they had been told it was a non-smoking hotel and they couldn't deal with it. When the dickhead squealed the tires and drove off (thus proving his dickhead status and nothing else), the nice frazzled hotel lady told me about a Discount Tire place just up the road "in that construction area, can't miss it."

True, you couldn't miss the construction site -- it turned out to be a huge project ripping up the 4 middle lanes of Main Street (Mesa AZ) to put in a light rail system. Over a mile of arrows and warnings and sudden turns to get to businesses that would probably be ruined anyway. At first it didn't look like there was any way to get to the tire shop, then there was. I almost locked the keys in the car when I showed the guy the trick to starting the car (a silly security widget), had to slam the door on my hand at the last moment when I saw he'd left the keys in the ignition. While waiting, I walked over to Subway and bought a sandwich I couldn't eat because my stomach was upset and I had 400 miles to drive ...

Someone's floppy-eared dog squirmed out the half-opened window of their truck and ran around all excited. I got a hold of it and kept it entertained for a few minute while the owners were located. Instead of saying thanks, they just yelled at me, threw the dog in the truck and drove off.

As I told my brother when I got home: the way it was going I was sure I'd get trampled by llamas next, so I didn't make any extra stops. I changed out of my too-tight court pants at a rest area, filled up on cheap Arizona gas (it's 35 cents more in CA due to extra taxes) and somewhere along the line slammed the car door on my other hand for no reason at all. Approaching Quartzite, there was finally a break in the clouds, and huge sunbeams shone down on the town like some biblical scene, except that it was the same old place in the middle of nowhere. Of course I stopped at Chiriaco Summit, the best hangout on the emptiest stretch of the I-10, and got to tell some of the local history to some first time visitors. I snapped some photos of a litter of kittens camped out right under a sign saying "Free Kittens to a Good Home."

No matter how bad the day has been, or how dumb humans are, one can always trust animals to make it okay and simple again.

That's why this issue is a half an hour overdue. It had been sitting on my hard drive since Sep 12, just waiting for an intro, and I found myself living the perfect intro today.

(For people who hate loose ends ... back to that sandwich: by the time I got home 6 hours later it was gone and I vaguely recall finishing it somewhere around Indio during the Billy Joel part of the trip, hoping that no CHP choppers were following me with high-tech food detectors, praying all the salami-sniffing K-9 units were busy on other calls.)

2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #4, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

Now, about the license plates.  I did eventually go through the hassle and expense of getting new plates for my car.  When I went to put them on the car, and unscrewed the screws on the old back license plate frame, TWO license plates came off the back.  So, I had two licenses plate the whole time.  Argh.

Last note (still 2024): I was able to find the photo I mentioned about the kittens, and it was nothing like I thought it would be in my mind's eye.  Way more cold and industrial, but the kitties were cute.

 

finding a plane in a haystack

Here's a "real life sci-fi" story worth sharing. You might have heard on the news that Steve Fossett (aviator, adventurer) is missing. His plane went down somewhere near Powell Canyon, Nevada and hasn't be found, after over a week of searching.

Well, you can actually help look for him online. A fresh satellite image of the area is available, and they set up a very easy-to-use site on Amazon where you can scan little areas of the image, looking for the plane.

Start here: http://www.stevefossett.com/

It's a fascinating demonstration of just how big the wilderness can be. Feel free to grab their Google Earth KML file of the area and zoom around. Millions of trees, thousands of ridges and hills, an endless stretch of wasteland.

And there was a weird estimate in a CNN article that there may be over 100 older crashed planes in this area, never found. So it's an area well worth exploring. We're used to being in safe homes and familiar streets -- but when a person gets lost the world is effectively infinite.

= scott

nonfic, fic and poetry in one day?

I'd have to call this a productive day ...

- I launched my dark fiction/poetry newsletter today:
http://archives.zinester.com/38141 (2024 note, the site is long gone)

- I wrote a 1,500-word article on the history and nuances of the horror genre

- proofed the galley for my tale at Swimming Kangaroo

- I wrote a 2,400-word far future insane internet fantasy (I've never seen anything else quite like it anywhere, which is either good or BAAAD)

- and with the SFPA poetry contest ending tomorrow (Over 250 poems were submitted in 45 days), that's winding down, and somehow I got a rhythm of words in my mind which led to a new poem that's a crushing and tragic conspiracy future in just a few words

plus one rejection, no big deal

making backups now...

Newsletter out, new news already

I just sent out my AuthorsDen newsletter 2 nights ago, but I already have new news.

=====> NEW SALES:

"swirling eyes" (poem) accepted at Not One of Us (Jan 08)

"what the spirits taught us" (poem) accepted at Tales of the Talisman (Jun 08)


=====> COMING SOON:

"Quake Man" (flash fiction) accepted at Swimming Kangaroo Press

"At Ripley's" (poem: ode to the Ripley's Museum) accepted for Helix #6.

"Unusual Vampire Lore" (article) accepted at Hungur.

"Blue sky tentacles" (cover art) accepted by Beyond Centauri.

Poems accepted by Expressions newsletter, Sword Review, and the Verb.

"Harrod Runs his Mouth" (flash fiction) in Burst magazine.

A gruesome illustration has been accepted for the Hungur 2 anthology.

"Jane Doe Discovered" (Poetry chapbook) coming in late 2007 from SamsDotPublishing.com

all paths diverge in the woods

If you noticed a gap in entries, it came from pondering things. One night I zoomed through and tried to update every site, and a few projects wove themselves together.

I launched an email newsletter called "Dark Windows." It is taking a book-length collection of dark poetry and stories and serializing it in 2,000-word chunks. With some extra features. You can find it here:
http://archives.zinester.com/38141

So, darker works and dreams will be moving over there. The new feature that entered the stream was a huge collection of quotes from old books, what I call "odd clips". There are so many great lines and strange moments and arguments, both silly and strange, scattered through a million volumes ... I've had fun finding them, and they add some spice and humor to these "streams of thought" of mine. Things to ponder. Fun to guess where they came from before checking the credits. Anyway, odd clips are going to start appearing, here, there and everywhere.

"Unfuture Chronicle" will continue as the venue for my sci-fi and futuristic works and ponderings.

Along the way, I have been forced to look at how the various genres interact and how I fit into them, while reading more genre history and classic works. Some fascinating stuff. My new, streamlined rationale is "order vs chaos." The darker genres are rooted in the chaos and unknowns of the world, mostly channeled from the distant past. Sci-fi and futurism are rooted in the order and knowns of the world, and look toward the future. The present day is caught in the middle, and that's why it makes no sense at all.

And now, a quick wrap up of my recent creative sales. Thanks for visiting.

=====> NEW SALES:

"swirling eyes" (poem) accepted at Not One of Us (Jan 08)

"what the spirits taught us" (poem) accepted at Tales of the Talisman (Jun 08)


=====> COMING SOON:

"Quake Man" (flash fiction) accepted at Swimming Kangaroo Press

"At Ripley's" (poem: ode to the Ripley's Museum) accepted for Helix #6.

"Unusual Vampire Lore" (article) accepted at Hungur.

"Blue sky tentacles" (cover art) accepted by Beyond Centauri.

Poems accepted by Expressions newsletter, Sword Review, and the Verb.

"Harrod Runs his Mouth" (flash fiction) in Burst magazine.

A gruesome illustration has been accepted for the Hungur 2 anthology.

"Jane Doe Discovered" (Poetry chapbook) coming in late 2007 from SamsDotPublishing.com

what dreams have come

Strange how dreams come and go. Maybe one night a road rally, the next Elysian Fields, a plane crash or some kind of Westworld with the bald gunslinger chasing us across a broken desert. So real at the time, sometimes TOO real (where we have to get up and walk around the house at 4 a.m. wishing the images will go away), yet at the same time they're less than vapor, gone in the flash burn of our minds before they can make a lasting impression. Sometimes fun, sometimes horrifying, never fully explained.

Yet there is a line we can't cross, where we start to believe that they have a reality of their own, that the creatures we see actually live in the cracks and shadows of our world, that all waking people are living in denial. If we follow that path, we can start to deny our real lives, give the dreams more reality, and then we are lost in the greatest cover-up in history, the non-meaning of existence itself. From that lonely hilltop, we can see whatever we wish to see, but it can never touch us, and we can never leave a mark or bring back any kind of solid road to walk upon.

On the other hand, the alternative -- a complete drab explanation of dreams -- would spoil life itself.

domeward bound

After seeing the Transformers movie just for fun, I figured I could expect some fairly odd dreams. In the movie, a teenager's car comes to life, turns into a giant robot, blah blah.

In the dream ...

My car didn't come to life, not like in the movies. Instead, the transmission got a mind of its own, kept switching gears at awkward moments, kept trying to crash me into things. It popped into low gear as I was trying to slow down at some stoplights, refused to get on the freeway entirely, and when I finally parked outside the UCSD BioDome (which was having an open house) it went into reverse, drove me up an embankment and wedged the car between two pine trees. I had to climb out the rear window.

I was deeper in the woods that I had thought, and when I came out I was somewhere on campus. I figured I should head for the top floor of the tallest building (about 15 stories up) and would be able to see the dome from there. The building was some kind of massive student lounge, or country club, judging from the lounging students and pop culture clone women walking around looking to score (with anyone but me).

The top floor was just a narrow hallway full of hair salons, with the stink of exotic creams and shampoos and burnt toenails. When I turned to get back on the elevator, it hiccuped, then there was an uninviting grinding sound. A wall section slid down over the elevator doors -- the new chunk of wall had a mock door that said "Janitor's Closet," (ha ha) and a little sign saying "STAIRS --->"

So I took the stairs. Some heavily painted clone girls were there, complaining about the exertion, how walking down stairs would make little wrinkles appear under their eyes some day. They went down only two floors, convinced that somehow the same elevator wouldn't be broken two floors down.

I jogged the rest of the way but ended up in just my underwear. When I ran through the crowded lobby, I was the entertainment of the hour, the thing everyone had to laugh at so they could puff up and feel important about themselves. I grabbed some clothes off the rack at the little Gap store in the lobby, flashed my credit card, gave Starbucks the finger, and stepped out into the fresh air (free at last!) only to run smack into Bill Clinton and some Secret Service dudes.

I was pretty frazzled by then. All I could do is scream, "What the hell are you guys looking at?"

Clinton laughed. We all laughed. It was pretty damn funny, but nobody knew why. I was thinking, "Bill Clinton visiting a tower full of clone girls." He was probably thinking, "Some nerd from the computer lab. I wonder if he can fix my toaster."

I told them to have a nice day, then ran off knowing I'd never be able to find my car.

Later on I was home, reading emails from the uncles I hadn't spoken to in 30 years, all about their families. I must have wasted an hour reading them and taking notes, updating phone numbers & contact info, only to wake up and find that the messages were not real, and the real uncles hadn't responded yet.

My car came home around 3 a.m., reeking of hydrogen & sulfur.