Comment, please. The distraction is welcome. The communication is welcome.
Still brutally hot here in Providence. Last night's low was 81˚F., and the temperature in the House never dropped below 84˚. Now, it's 91˚F Outside, with a 101˚F heat index, and it's 86˚F in the "cool" part of the House. Yesterday, the mercury climbed to 98˚F (!) in Providence, with a heat index of 104˚.
No storms came yesterday, but we're promised they will this evening, and that the fever will break overnight. We shall see.
The library closed early yesterday, and we could think of no other place I could go and work. So, we decided to stick it out in the House. Which was idiotic. I couldn't work. I spent most of the day lying on the floor in the middle parlour near Dr. Muñoz, drifting in and out of sleep. I was still drenched with sweat when I went to bed at 1:15 a.m. Very, very early for me.
There is a silver lining. I'm back on the clonazepam, and in just twenty-four hours I'm much, much better. I think. I always have to knock on wood. I slept deeply last night for the first time in weeks, at least 6.5 hours. And the bright dreams came back to me. The dreams that are an entire lifetime (or significant portion of one) lived out in a few waking hours or minutes. I awoke genuinely dreamsick, and I cannot recall with certainty the last time that happened. Waking in a near panic because you can't get back. Lying in bed as realities bleed together, this waking one absorbing that dreaming one until the latter is no more than a smokey wisp. The sorrow that comes from the loss of a world that was perfectly real, in which I had no knowledge I was dreaming. And yet...it was a relief.
The noise in my head has been turned down enough that I can think again. The roiling, ceaseless, irrational anger of the last few weeks has released me.
As to the dream, enough of it remains I could write paragraphs – even though I know the heart of it is gone. I was in Louisiana, which wasn't Louisiana, but was. There was a vast black lake that I admitted "is my god." There was a young woman, a plainspoken, red-headed witch whose intelligence humbled me. She had freckles. There were two enormous quarries beyond the lake, both abandoned and overgrown. All the world teetered on the brink of an apocalypse I can't remember, and this witch had taken me as her lover and was exasperated that I wouldn't accept my own magical abilities, which all arose from that awful lake. It was a wicked, wicked black magic in me. Dream worlds do not have to obey the rules of waking worlds. It was terrifying, beautiful, gruesome, awe-inspiring, sad, and joyous.
But now I'm here again. There, probably a hundred years have already passed without me.
A hundred years at least.
Today we do go to the library. I have 12 days to do a month's worth of work. And it has to be done. No extensions.
Straddling Worlds,
Aunt Beast
Still brutally hot here in Providence. Last night's low was 81˚F., and the temperature in the House never dropped below 84˚. Now, it's 91˚F Outside, with a 101˚F heat index, and it's 86˚F in the "cool" part of the House. Yesterday, the mercury climbed to 98˚F (!) in Providence, with a heat index of 104˚.
No storms came yesterday, but we're promised they will this evening, and that the fever will break overnight. We shall see.
The library closed early yesterday, and we could think of no other place I could go and work. So, we decided to stick it out in the House. Which was idiotic. I couldn't work. I spent most of the day lying on the floor in the middle parlour near Dr. Muñoz, drifting in and out of sleep. I was still drenched with sweat when I went to bed at 1:15 a.m. Very, very early for me.
There is a silver lining. I'm back on the clonazepam, and in just twenty-four hours I'm much, much better. I think. I always have to knock on wood. I slept deeply last night for the first time in weeks, at least 6.5 hours. And the bright dreams came back to me. The dreams that are an entire lifetime (or significant portion of one) lived out in a few waking hours or minutes. I awoke genuinely dreamsick, and I cannot recall with certainty the last time that happened. Waking in a near panic because you can't get back. Lying in bed as realities bleed together, this waking one absorbing that dreaming one until the latter is no more than a smokey wisp. The sorrow that comes from the loss of a world that was perfectly real, in which I had no knowledge I was dreaming. And yet...it was a relief.
The noise in my head has been turned down enough that I can think again. The roiling, ceaseless, irrational anger of the last few weeks has released me.
As to the dream, enough of it remains I could write paragraphs – even though I know the heart of it is gone. I was in Louisiana, which wasn't Louisiana, but was. There was a vast black lake that I admitted "is my god." There was a young woman, a plainspoken, red-headed witch whose intelligence humbled me. She had freckles. There were two enormous quarries beyond the lake, both abandoned and overgrown. All the world teetered on the brink of an apocalypse I can't remember, and this witch had taken me as her lover and was exasperated that I wouldn't accept my own magical abilities, which all arose from that awful lake. It was a wicked, wicked black magic in me. Dream worlds do not have to obey the rules of waking worlds. It was terrifying, beautiful, gruesome, awe-inspiring, sad, and joyous.
But now I'm here again. There, probably a hundred years have already passed without me.
A hundred years at least.
Today we do go to the library. I have 12 days to do a month's worth of work. And it has to be done. No extensions.
Straddling Worlds,
Aunt Beast
- Current Location:Memnonia Sulci
- Current Mood:
hot - Current Music:Keaton Henson, "Small Hands"
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Comments
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Comments
Relief is promised here. Ten degrees cooler tomorrow, they say.
And the dream sounds like a good seed. Hope it grows into something.
If the library is not open, perhaps a local bookstore or cafe? Maybe a spot in the university?
I think we were both to heat-addled yesterday to consider all our options. Fortunately, the library is open today until 5 p.m.
And the dream sounds like a good seed. Hope it grows into something.
I think I'm afraid to touch it.
Edited at 2013-07-20 04:48 pm (UTC)
Ack. I grew up in Alabama, often with no AC.
Edited at 2013-07-20 04:49 pm (UTC)
Think I'm gonna do a rain dance.
And this is beautiful. "Lying in bed as realities bleed together, this waking one absorbing that dreaming one until the latter is no more than a smokey wisp."
I'm humbled.
6.5 hrs was probably a "black lake" godsend to you.
Yes.
Weirdly, it's been only around 75 around here. I feel like I traded weather with the east coast.
Nice dream, as Radiohead would say, though I don't think it resembles that song too much. If I were to interpret, it's pretty strongly indicative of a sense of unrealised creative potential--a black lake being both, as a god, a source of power and yet being black and a lake enigmatic as to how it can be tapped into. A woman of humbling intelligence exasperated you don't automatically know how to tap into it, quarries that have clearly gone unexploited. The brink of apocalypse adding the sense of time running out and therefore pressure to the insoluble puzzle.
Weirdly, it's been only around 75 around here. I feel like I traded weather with the east coast.
We've noticed.
Nice dream, as Radiohead would say,
Well said.
If I were to interpret, it's pretty strongly indicative of a sense of unrealised creative potential--a black lake being both, as a god, a source of power and yet being black and a lake enigmatic as to how it can be tapped into. A woman of humbling intelligence exasperated you don't automatically know how to tap into it, quarries that have clearly gone unexploited. The brink of apocalypse adding the sense of time running out and therefore pressure to the insoluble puzzle.
On the one hand, a sound interpretation. But on the other, I try to avoid dream interpretation and accept them at their word. They simply seem to "real."
As the Na'vi would say, irayo.
That's some dream. Could you work it into something?
Could you work it into something?
Alas, that rarely happens.
*builds a miles-long scoop*
*lowers that scoop into the cool air over the Pacific Northwest*
*bites out a chunk of cool air*
*lifts scoop back into orbit*
*maneuvers scoop over Rhode Island*
*lowers it*
*opens it*
Huzzah! Cool air for y'all!
Course I probably just wreaked havoc on all the wind and caused cataclysmic sonic booms strong enough to cause tragic and inadvertant reenactments of Scanners, but hey! Cool air!
Any chance of even one window unit in your future to have a respite room in the house??
We have one.
I'm writing this from the Central Branch of the Hamilton (Ontario) Public Library, as the power in my building complex was knocked out be a great bloody tree, from under which the arsehole whose house abuts onto our building complex decided to remove the retaining wall to, and now his neighbour has a good liability case for his damaged property, which overshot the arsehole's house by a good margin.
Back to my apartment; I spent the evening in the company of my wife and my best friend/songwriting partner/sometime lover, drinking and playing guitars in the hallway, where the emergency lights were slowly running down, as the main power had already gone out, and the storm raged on outside. When at last he left, my wife and I went out to explore the neighbourhood and make sure our favoured neighbours were safe and sound. Two or three had also experienced blackouts, but at least two of them have power back now; they don't live in our complex, which is a separate problem.
I woke up at 3 AM and, having no power, couldn't do much more than poke at one of my manuscripts lamely for a few minutes before sitting in the dim glow of my laptop's indicator light, slowly bleeding my lame battery and threatening to shut off my last connection to the modern age. The water in the fridge was already room temperature, and though the heat had largely broken, I was hot and thirsty and slightly tired, so I drank warm water and went to bed.
Around 8 AM, my wife and I got up and got dressed to go have coffee and a muffin at Tim Horton's the most successful coffee chain north of the Canada/US border, at least in Ontario. I actually loathe their coffee, but my wife doesn't function without caffeine first thing in the morning, so I suffered through manfully, aftertaste and all.
Afterwards, we packed up our laptops and headed for the library, where I've been poking at another of my manuscripts, and discovered I lost a chapter of, which fortunately should be somewhere here on LiveJournal in my old writing library.
I hope your day goes very well, and that you get plenty of work done,and that the storm gives you a miss, or that at least it is no stronger than a good rain storm, to break the unbearable heat. Sleep well. Take care. Dream sweet dreams.
Lee.
Thank you.