THAT DAY

I bike to Rainbow Grocery to use a discount coupon. Go on a shopping spree. Well, I fill my bike-basket. Dinky spree.

Then my friend Mike and I tear down three dead chimneys that'd shade my new solar panels. One turns out to be live, a vent for a basement waterheater, so we just shorten it; but we demolish most of the other two. Work til sundown, but can't finish--we lack a ladder tall enough. Damn.

I watch The Colbert Report for the first time. He shows a video of the Pope with a spider on his neck. "What if he were bitten--we may get a Spiderpope! Webspinning PLUS infallibility, a one-two punch! Seeks out sin with... Popey Sense?"

Next, a documentary on showcat breeders, who say they love their cats but keep 'em in cages or locked in houses--what are they, stuffed toys?

Before bed: read Ariel Schrag's memoir Likewise, on growing up bi in Berkeley. Ariel guiltily wants both Sally (away at college) and her sister (here now). Resonated for me, since I spent last year loving both Em (east coast) and Cheryl (here).

THAT NIGHT...

Dream 1: Sky Dates my Neurotic Sister
	I love my classmate Sky, but I've gone shy ever since she told me that she's bi and has been dating my sister. Rivalry! And not a sister I have in day, not Miriel nor Althea; they're fused to Mal. Lovely, twenty-five, smart... neurotic as hell. Convinced she's trouble, in endless therapy, sure all love is doomed, Mal emails Sky howling "Oh, I'm poison!", raising hoops poor Sky jumps through. Or means to try. Sky feels down. Feels jerked around. She asks "What is this? Is Malea out to boss me or what?" Opportunity knocks! I long to diss my rival sis. But, decent, I confess: "No, Mal thinks her soul's a blasted ruin crying for a mighty restoration team. She wants to ward off weaklings. Irony! Her fuss just drives off the sane--like me, like you, those she needs." As I blurt, I know it's true. Feel so sad. But uneasy too. Am I better? Sky shows me Malea's endless crazy texts. Yow! I don't demand like this! Why can't I ask Sky out? I'm less a flake than Mal, and have lots of her attractions (minus certain breasts and crazy actions) but I never propose: "Date me--I'm sane!" Put it off again. Shout it in my brain. All my classmates leave. Sit alone and ache. Coward! Will I ever speak up? And wake.

Dream 1: Notes and Guesses

• Girl I want to date: Rainbow Market was full of women today. Flashbacks! I met my (now-ex-)girlfriend Cheryl there.
• Sky, Malea: no one I know. Sky may really have had another short name ending in a long i sound: Mai, Chai? Malea's just a blend of my sisters' names, Miriel and Althea.
• bisexual girl dates siblings: in Ariel Schrag's autobiographical Likewise, she was torn like this.
• Mal's obsessive messaging, sure she's trouble, sure relationships all fail: my ex-girlfriend Cheryl.
• I'm crazy too, but not THAT crazy: as we took down heavy, dangerous chimney-pipes thirty feet up, Mike saw me as timid and pessimistic. But maybe he's reckless! The recession's ruining him; I'm getting by.
• "Date me, I'm sane!" Remember that button/tie/T shirt phrase, "Kiss me, I'm Irish"?
• ACTION: Date. Do business. Whatever. Trust my judgment. Yeah, I'm nervous--so? I'm way more reasonable than many--I'm not a Cheryl.

Dream 2: Hide from Prester John I'm early for my next class. I have a key, slip in. Our scholarfishbowl shines emptily. Out in the cobbled yard, my classmates pool, drop by drop. No, not friends. They loom, tall men. Dark Riders, resurrected wraiths with cold voices of the lost? Not far off. Gaunt ringed Dark Age ghosts embodied, robed and crowned. A creaky pope infallibles on the back steps; or are there two? Zombie pontiff showdown, what a clash! Side alley: a Panchen Lama gossips with an incense-swingin' Coptic bishop. Whoa, there's Prester John himself! So he's no myth. But the holymen helplessly hover: no pope has a key. I slip inside a closet so they won't see. I won't let them in, won't face this material plane's religious rulers til they demonstrate brains. So far, the front steps seem free of their godly infestation. (Do I feel scorn or fear? Ah, both.) I'll seal the room and dash to open air. Lock out the theocrats, then I'll flee-- run like hell and climb a living tree. Dogma hooky, dogma hooky, sanity day for me.

Dream 2: Notes and Guesses

• Popes etc: the Colbert Report's Pope gag?
• Prester John: Medievals believed in the Kingdom of Prester John, a powerful Christian land somewhere in Central Asia that would save Western Europe from Muslim incursions and take back the Holy Land. It may have been based on a real but shortlived kingdom, or a mislocation of Ethiopian Christendom.
• Hide! Our neighbors watched us take down the chimneys. Uh-oh, do I worry what the neighbors think? Is my highest spiritual authority public opinion?
• Closet: sexual orientation isn't the only thing minorities hide! Most of the time, I hide/suppress my full intellectual, career, emotional, sexual, artistic, political, and spiritual ambitions. Ouch. As I name them all I realize that's a long list...
• Scorn organized religion: Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion. I disagree that all spiritual experience is delusional, but agree that religious dogma often is. And when forced on kids, it's abuse.
• Fear: The dream is a warning. I habitually demonize all patriarchal monotheists--that is, most of the world's people! OK, some do want to drag us back down into Dark Age theocracy--censor science, burn unbelievers. But how many, really? In my dream, I hide in the closet, lock the classroom (to keep them from controlling education?) and flee to nature... from what? From people who merely find comfort in ritual and a book of rules. They were no threat.
• ACTION: Quit demonizing. I hadn't realized how much fear rules me--makes me hide!
• This is Dreamverse #57. Both dreams were set at the same urban school (oddly, not one I know) so I put both on one page as an experiment. In contrast, I put The Dog King (#55) and Curse Her in the Oak (#56) on separate pages though I dreamed both in one night and they share themes. Maybe they should share a page too.
• The next Dreamverse gets even madder at dualistic religions: Very Funny, Mr. Mosley!

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