THAT MORNING

I'm at a Thelonius Monk tribute at the San Francisco Jazz Center. Three pianists including Tammy Hall take turns--eventually, comically, sharing one piano at the finale. Pretty accessible and melodious. Mostly women playing, and I think that helped--no ego-driven skronking, no sax as giant dick...

Interesting Q&A. Kids line up. A coltish brown girl in overalls asks the drummer "How much of what you do is score, how much improv?" A Renoiry blonde with bangs, in shorts, asks the pianist much the same. A feline girl (literally: cat-ears of wire & felt) in the front row studied the drummer intently but asks no questions; later, in the lobby, she dances to music only she hears.

Two groups struck me too. Two sisters near us with lovely faces... who acted bored. If they got it at all, they wouldn't be. But four teens behind the stage in a row did get it; bobbed and twirled and danced in their (spinnable) seats with the rhythms.

I liked it too. Didn't expect to--the Monk I've heard before was screechy. I really think it might be that women rein in that ego thing and keep the audience more in mind.

Scraped, painted cabachons become eyes

My friend Alder wants to show me a rock shop on Church Street. She buys a beautiful stone for a student facing an operation, strings it on a red ribbon. I'm sculpting a dream creature, and need two cabachons (oval gems) to use for eyes; I browse thousands of beads and stones, but find nothing.

THAT AFTERNOON

I bike to an art-supply shop where I have found crystals good for eyes. They're having a half-off sale--great! But the cabachons I find are all faceted; I need the smooth ones I recall. Ask the cashier; she says "they must all be gone. The owner died; we quit restocking; just selling off the dregs."

Yet I'm certain a few are here: he wouldn't toss them and they're low-turnover; so I keep looking for a lost jar or bowl. Half an hour, methodical, persistent; jars, cups. No. Then find a buried little box. Smooth cabachons, but too dark to use. On a hunch, pull the box into bright light and look closer. False bottom! It's TWO boxes, nested. In the hidden quarter-inch underspace, a few gold and turquoise cabs--ideal for me.

Buy three pair. But by asking for help, I showed the cashier how much I cared, so she claims the price is $11 for six, when the late owner charged a dollar for three! I grit my teeth, argue, but eventually pay; the only ones in town.

What did I learn? Intuition whispered "I can find them"; but I discounted that as autistic go-it-alone-ism. So I forced myself to ask--to trust the pro to do her job and know her stock. She didn't. Next intuition said she was wrong, and found them, deep-hidden. But since I'd naively revealed I cared, she knew to jack up the price.

Lesson: my autistic do-it-yourself attitude was right; neurotypicals can be lazy, ignorant, or greedy, or, as here, all at once--gouging AND a hindrance.

THAT EVENING

TV:
• The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Comedy by Tina Fey. Everyone's lonely. Even Xan the mean teen is just desperate for friends. All she has is distant narcissistic parents and snotty, flighty, irresponsible 'peers'.
• Brokenwood: New Zealand mystery show. Death by spider bite? No! Ten times the dose in a bite. Had to be injected. Murder. But why?
• Coroner, a Brit mystery. Coroner's daughter dates a haunted boy whose best friend fell off a tower. Turns out he witnessed suicide, tried to stop him, failed. Lied to girlfriend and everyone, couldn't face it. Devastates daughter when she learns he lied.
• Bit of a British movie with Benedict Cumberbatch as a writer. The PM personally asks him to spy on a friend. Creepy! I give up on it and go to bed.

THAT NIGHT...

I'm a skinny girl in my tweens or early teens, living alone in a mossy, rainy forest. I know every tree.

But no people. I'm lonely.

A storm. As it eases to a drizzle, I get a funny urge to go out. Mossy trenches and hollows are all flooded, so I go barefoot, barelegged. Cool but not cold.

Zigzag down a creek--gotta hop from bank to bank. Then I spot a problem high up a writhing, forking tree with old scars--lopped-off trunks and low branches. Hiking all over has left me sure-footed--strong legs, tough soles--but my arms are weaker, so I'm not a confident tree-climber. Still, I force myself up. Don't think, just keep moving! Slowly up from fork to fork, snag to lop. I was worried the rain'd worsen my traction, but the damp bark grips better. I can do this.

Four-five yards up, I reach the problem: a heavy magenta cord round the trunk. Fabric sleeve, but a tough plastic-coated metal core. Girdles the tree tightly, digging in slowly as the tree grows. Eventually, if not removed, it'll kill the tree.

Can't cut that core, so I struggle to untie it. A simple knot but it takes minutes--the wet sheath clings. Swear a lot.

Free it at last. Toss the cable angrily to the ground. Hits hard, with a whip-crack. That metal core's heavy.

With both hands free, I slowly descend, shivering, feeling the cold. My hands are sore.

I spot another flash of magenta in the canopy. Another tree attacked like this. How many more?

Great. Looks like I have an ongoing job.

Who did this? Who's strangling my forest?

NOTES WHEN I WAKE

• Skinny tween in shorts: the questioners after the jazz concert. I felt guilty for liking them at first sight, assumed it was pedophilic perversity, but the dream suggests I felt more identification than lust.
• Lonely girl:
  1. On Coroner, a boy used girlfriend for an alibi--he's no killer, but he did lie to her, and did it knowing her last boyfriend betrayed her.
  2. On Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, her boss's daughter Xan has cold parents, mean pseudo-friends & no boyfriend at all.
  3. Me? I am feeling lonely these days. And doing very little about it.
  
• Storm, trees: British movie with Cumberbatch; his friend in the woods in a storm.
• Limbs lopped, slow death: on Brokenwood, a fisherman illegally lops off sharkfins to sell to the Chinese, and tosses the sharks back to face slow death.
• I'm a strong-legged hiker but a less confident tree-climber with weaker arms: could be literal, but I think it's symbolic:
  • Strong legs: self-reliance--I stand firmly on my own feet and progress well alone. Grounded.
  • Weaker arms: Arms are what you hold others with, or fend them off! I think my dream's saying my social skills & confidence are shakier.
• Fear I'll fall: on Coroner boy fell to death from tower; his friend, guilty about lying, nearly jumps.
• Magenta band strangling the tree: Alder bought such a string/ribbon for a donut of amethyst, a gift to a girl who faces a scary operation
• Brave, persist:
  1. At the concert I faced that even tweens, not just teens, attract me--if they're gifted and curious! Won't act on it with kids. But it clarifies what attracts me. Brains and passion.
  2. In the art supply shop I overcame that cashier's false "none", and found the eye-jewels I needed. Though, being autistic, I then naïvely trusted her to be honest; and she wasn't.
• Cords choking trees: hard not to read this as repressions or inhibitions strangling me.
• Feel responsible for all such chokers: this is basic shamanism! Assume the dream creatures you meet are real, and do the right thing.
• ACTION 1: Encourage girls to speak up. If others dismiss my support as perverse and sexually motivated... ignore them. I was silenced a lot and I identify across lines of age, race, gender. To me it's you who can't identify across race & gender lines who seem perverted.
• ACTION 2: Back Elizabeth Warren for president! She was famously silenced on the floor of the Senate. The strangling-cord (red, please note) could well be the GOP.
• ACTION 3: face the hazards of my hardwired deviance. Sexual deviance? Take care not to hurt anyone--but don't strangle yourself either! Autistic deviance? It can cripple more than social life--business too, as I learned today. Neurotypicals lie--and try to cheat us weirdos who don't. Do business online and by mail if possible.

• Deadly choking cord high in tree: predictive! In that British film starring Cumberbatch, his friend who the PM wanted silenced was finally found hanged in a tree. But I went to bed and didn't see that; my housemate Alder stayed up and saw it, but only just told me. So how'd the dream know?
• ACTION 4: Face that I'm another kind of deviant too: temporal. Disorienting! But still an uncomfortable fact.

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