still more celebrity dreams, a good weekend and a dictionary of claire
Although this dream was more in the nature of a nightmare. It was a kind of Deliverance thing (a propos of which, did you see Burt Reynolds on The Daily Show the other night, pronouncing “bugger” as “booger”? Now I understand why my mother didn’t like ten-year-old me quoting at length from “Fungus the Boogeyman”, but anyway.) I stumbled upon an isolated village, a bit like Groveland up in Yosemite, with the timber storefronts and the quaintness and so forth, and there was a mystery to be solved, and it turned out that the mayor and the chief of police were raping and murdering young women and burying them on the beach. Not a viable long-term strategy you will say, the beach burial that is, and I must concur as the sea washed the sand away and uncovered the broken bodies. By that time, though, I was confronting the culprits. The mayor, who now that I think about it looked remarkably like defrocked Sydney Anglican minister and confessed pedophile Victor Roland Cole, tried to strangle me, but I bit off part of his thumb and spat it out. I can still taste the blood.
It qualifies as a celebrity dream because Skud was having a latte and reading the New Yorker in the village’s feminist bookshop and cafe. For some reason she was dressed as Pink.
I am rereading for the nth time A Deepness In The Sky, probably my favourite SF novel of all time. I reread for comfort. My unhappiness is spreading out like the fog flowing over Twin Peaks. This morning on the 49 Van Ness I got so absorbed in Sherkaner’s trip along the spectacular coast road the spiders call Pride of Accord that I missed my stop and had to get out at the armory at 14th and Mission and walk back up to work. I haven’t had anything to eat yet this morning, which probably contributes to the fog and general malaise. It is unquestionably bagel time.
We had a good weekend in spite of the metaphysical weather. Thursday night we saw Outfoxed, which depressed me mightily, and discussed at length how to raise Claire to be a thinking and compassionate person, and not a Republican pundit. On Saturday we had lunch at the chocolate factory with Bryan, and went to visit the wildly expensive furniture at Berkeley Mills. We dropped by the Temescal Street Fair to sign up for Rough Cut Studio’s iLife Workshops, then headed back to the city for Kat’s birthday party at Stray Fish, which involved everyone but Claire getting royally drunk. On Sunday, grievously hungover, we had brunch with Peter at Foreign Cinema and went to the Campbell’s farewell picnic in Tilden. Dinner with Robert, Gayu, Kat and Ian at the wonderful Cafe Ethiopia, and I snuck next door to Borderlands to buy some soothing hard SF: the abovementioned Vinge, Iain Banks and Charlie Stross, who people are saying is the next Vinge or Banks, and by people I mean the Irish hard-SF mafia.
Finally, here is your cut-out-and-keep guide to key portions of Claire’s vocabulary:
AGUA:
I wish for some water at this time, puny human.
BA’:
It is bath time! We will get naked and splash.
BEEBEE:
I approve of our cat.
BOO’:
You will read me this book at this time, puny human.
BYE BYE:
You bore me.
CALIENTE:
Give me the hot thing that I may smear!
DADDY:
1. Daddy. 2. What is this? 3. I like this!
DIENTES:
Not “teeth”, silly white woman.
MAMA:
Here, slave!
MIAOW:
The cat speaks more sense than you do, mother.
MOO:
As does my toy cow.
NANA:
It is time for me to daub myself with crushed fruit.
NO:
You bore me so very much.
NOSE:
That thing is HILARIOUS.
OJO:
Not “eye”, silly white woman.
PATI:
Not “zapato” and not “shoe”!
POOPOO:
An appalling ordeal awaits you.
THANK YOU:
You can take it away now.
WOO’:
The dog also speaks more sense than most.
YAY:
Life is good!
YIYIYO:
Time to sing and dance!
