I'm in the corner market, talking to my grocer. He's a moustached man in a Miss America tiara. This doesn't seem odd, since I'm wearing a diadem too.

I seem to have missed the first scene of my own dream.

My grocer was saying "...sure, you used to raise them, but not since you moved to San Francisco and started playing artist, right?" What are we talking about?

"Wrong!" I say. "I've raised two in my apartment here."

He asks "Wow! Your neighbors didn't complain about them in your back yard?"

"No, no, I didn't have a yard. You can do it indoors--you just have to be careful to balance the number of people and pigs to create a closed ecosystem."

"Wow... well, I'll try it. What was your ratio?"

"One pig per diadem."

I wonder if that's always true, though. Doesn't it depend on how many ghosts are in each diadem? An older tiara with more personalities stored in it might produce more garbage... more people, more interests, more projects... more trash! No, a tiara wearer may have multiple personalities, but still only one body. And with advice from more ghosts, diadem owners might be more efficient, produce LESS trash. Who knows? One pig per diadem has worked for me.

If he wants to wear a tiara, have multiple personalities, and raise pigs, he'll find his own pig ratio.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Diadem =
  1. A pulp science fiction series by Jo Clayton. The diadems record your thoughts and feelings; the "ghosts" of former owners are stored in the diadems, and while they don't exactly possess the wearer, they'll give you odd abilities and sound advice, if you share your body.
  2. Some pun on per diem, "each day". How many pigs a day?
• Pigs = Jo Clayton's books are full of abused women fighting arrogant men...
• I raise pigs = I'm shy. Could use a little piggish push & greed. 'One pig per diadem' may mean 'One selfish act per day.'
• I wear a diadem = dreamwork, multiple personalities...
• Trash output varies = I'm a fairly hardcore recycler; biked a load of flattened milk cartons to the neighborhood yard today.
• Pig-diadem ratio = are we talking gender ratios? One Sexist Pig per Miss America (with or without tiara)...
• Or is it the ratio of computers to students at Center for Electronic Arts? I was there much of the day, and Clayton's diadems are basically computers...
• Hmm... so the pigs eat our garbage, and we eat the pigs? Yep, this dream's definitely about the web-world we digital artists are building! "Garbage in, garbage out!", right? Only here it's not GIGO, but...

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