Dream from this morning: I lived with my brother on a property up a mountainside, a sprawling acreage littered with debris and machinery. Two roads passed through the place: one came through my neighbors' property and ended at mine, an easement we used to come and go. Another road came across from right to left out of the woods, passing through and continuing up the mountain. Heavy machinery used this road at all times of day for some development going on up there.
It's funny - early in the dream these properties were simply adjoining rooms with double doors closed between them. They evolved into neighboring acreages separated by a fencewall and great solid double gate.
Anyway, once a day an old maroon convertible full of town thugs drove up the easement road/driveway, turned around in my yard and drove out again. I thought nothing of it the first time, but when I realized it was a daily thing I knew they were thieves scoping the place out for antiques and machines to steal. I chased them out at one point.
Among the discarded items lying on the ground all around were file cabinets on their sides and backs, drawers open or missing, contents blowing about. Earlier I had given a heavy tall filing cabinet to a friend. Now a truck arrived to deposit one exactly like it in the weeds with the others, stout greasy delivery guys fiddling with chains and pulleys to lower it off the flatbed. I ran to stop them - I thought it was the cabinet I'd just given up - but they continued unperturbed. I realized it was a gift from someone to replace the one I'd given away. Perhaps it had more value than I'd thought.
Atop a shelf or dresser pushed against the shared wall or fence between properties (or rooms) was something like a spice shelf in which several lizards were living, including a bearded dragon (again with the dragon). They weren't very large, and a little bird had befriended them and was nesting there, too. At one point I gave the shelf and its lizards to my neighbor on the property below, opening the gate and carrying it to to his porch, trying to keep the reptiles from running off. This was a large family and several members stood about watching as I handed it over to the indifferent old patriarch. Only then did I remember the bird and its nest, and peeking in I saw it standing panicked over an egg just hatched and two tiny pink moist nestlings bobbing about beneath her. I didn't know how to take the shelf back - did I manage to carry it home with me again? I worried about whether the mother bird would keep the babies alive after having been disturbed.
11.29.2012
11.28.12 Wednesday
Day of gloom and wind - lovely day. Black clouds glower and lower, lower and lower. Wind hollers wild and fraught with extremity - respite from the nothingness and blah we have confined ourselves to. Glory! it is, a day such as this. I miss the woodstoves of yore, but the brave little propane flame does its best.
I made turkey soup yesterday from the boiled Thanksgiving carcass, most honored feast-day animal sacrifice in this mostly meatless home. It was the best soup I ever made and I ate too much, and then carob-blueberry mug cake after that, so that I awoke every hour on the hour all night for no reason at all. Flitting bits of tatterdreams escaping.
Misunderstandings and miscommunications among the LibraryFriends I'll soon be "coordinating" with have started already, and I haven't even taken up my post. The week's been rife with confusion, and today I must spend 2 to 5 p.m. in their midst struggling to keep my emotional keel even. I don't get how neurotypicals think, even the relatively higher-on-the-spectrum-than-most-NTs folks likely to be involved with such library stuff. Everyone clings to their bit of perceived power and works it to prop themselves up.
I say one thing, another is heard. I don't know how to bend myself to the sideways-speak that communicates little but makes others comfortable. And because what I do say is so precise and information-laden, it is not heard by them, and so sometimes sounds to their ears like something untrue.
So there it is. I finally understand the mechanism. I'll adapt as far as I can. I'll try to become stronger. Maybe I'll even learn to keep quiet.
***
In dreams - from the other night:
I lived at the far eastern edge of the L.A. sprawl in a small calm desert suburb. In central L.A. my mother was dying of cancer. I decided to pack up the car with my two little sons and move to be closer to my mother. By the time I got there, though, she had died. (She did die of colon cancer, 1999.) I was hunting for a place to live, looking at apartment after apartment. I made friends with a hippie couple who were homeless, also. They wore their hair in dreadlocks. The man was bearded, the woman blonde, both were mindlessly jolly and affectionate with one another. Their clothes were colorful gypsy patches and tatters. Somehow I encountered JoeW, a man who in real life had been my mother’s lover. (He was, in real life, a Harvard-educated prosperous corporate lawyer from New England aristocracy, one of several lovers my mother took from the Los Angeles law firm where she worked as paralegal - all of them married. Joe was a practicing Catholic who had not divorced his first wife, who lived in Chicago with their son. He was thin and tall- 6-foot-4 - and wore horn-rimmed glasses and nice suits. He was even-tempered, witty, and colorblind. Recently I've learned he's been placed in a Massachusetts care facility because he has Alzheimers.) Perhaps, in the dream, he'd taken care of things after my mother’s death.
Joe allowed me to stay in his apartment, with my two little dream sons, while I searched for a home. Going up the steps of the spiral staircase to Joe’s apartment my sonJesse climbed and swung on the wrought-iron railing. I whispered urgent reprimand in his ear and he stopped fooling around and went to play quietly or perhaps watch TV. I found old newspapers strewn on a table. They had articles cut out of them and were riddled with rectangular gaps. The mastheads were intact; one was dated 1947 and the other 1938. I tore a page from one, and then I realized 1938 was Joe’s birth year—these papers were keepsakes—and I was embarrassed. I had to stop Jesse from wrecking them, as well. I raised my voice at him and then noticed Joe meditating in a chair just inside the doorway of his room (there seemed to be no actual doors). I felt awful about having disturbed him, but he gave no sign that it was a problem.
Out on the street the next day with the folded up classified ads. JoeW is with us (my family and the hippie couple), also looking for a new home. The three factions compete affectionately for a single vacancy in a fourplex, an upstairs apartment. Its rooms have no doors, and the bathroom is surrounded by a low wall you can look over into the home of the downstairs neighbors—specifically, an elderly gentleman with a white mustache lying in a reclining chair. I"m a little uncomfortable with this, but the place overall is very nice and we all want it. Downstairs I find that at least one of the four apartments belongs to the stout motherly landlady who keeps busy in her kitchen concocting meals for the residents, as in a sort of assisted living. At the other end of the kitchen I see people sitting at little tables as though it were a cafeteria or diner.
We all took a break from househunting and rested at a coffeehouse, like a Starbucks, located near a little recessed amphitheater surrounded by a low wall (much like the one near the creek at Chico State where I went to school in the '80s). I sat at an outdoor table with my snack but noticed JoeW sitting on the top step of the amphitheater: I could just see the top of his head on the other side of the wall. I got up and approached him, chattering happily, but when I stepped into the aisle and turned toward him I saw that he was deeply engaged in chanting namyohorengekyo with two robed Asian monks, young men with shaved heads, seated near him on lower steps. He held wooden prayer beads in his hand. Yet again I was mortified to have disturbed him. He got up then and walked with me, still even-tempered and unperturbed by my thoughtlessness, infinitely patient. I said to him, “I had no idea you were involved with Nishirin Shoshu.” We sat on a bench in the growing darkness. I straddled his lap and sat gazing into his eyes, which avoided mine all through the dream. Suddenly I realized something. “You’re grieving, aren’t you?” I said. “I’m so sorry. You’re still grieving for my mother." I said, “I have Asperger’s syndrome. We process grief quickly. Death doesn’t mean much to us.” I got up and stepped back from him respectfully. He stood and I embraced him with great love. But oddly somehow at that moment I was very small, like a child. ...
I decide then that JoeW should join us - we should move in together and share a big house somewhere. Then he would have family around him and it would be good for him, and maybe feelings would grow between us. (I thought he might feel love for me but was too shy or polite to express them.) He didn’t reject the proposal. ...
The following day, or perhaps later that same afternoon, we negotiated the downtown L.A. streets thronged with people and food carts and distractions. I was trying to keep up with the wild hippie couple and keep hold of my sons' hands, but then I lost track of Joe. I searched the crowd in panic. I spotted him standing perhaps 20 feet away watching me serenely as the crowds gradually engulfed him. I think I still could see his face when the dream ended.
Day of gloom and wind - lovely day. Black clouds glower and lower, lower and lower. Wind hollers wild and fraught with extremity - respite from the nothingness and blah we have confined ourselves to. Glory! it is, a day such as this. I miss the woodstoves of yore, but the brave little propane flame does its best.
I made turkey soup yesterday from the boiled Thanksgiving carcass, most honored feast-day animal sacrifice in this mostly meatless home. It was the best soup I ever made and I ate too much, and then carob-blueberry mug cake after that, so that I awoke every hour on the hour all night for no reason at all. Flitting bits of tatterdreams escaping.
Misunderstandings and miscommunications among the LibraryFriends I'll soon be "coordinating" with have started already, and I haven't even taken up my post. The week's been rife with confusion, and today I must spend 2 to 5 p.m. in their midst struggling to keep my emotional keel even. I don't get how neurotypicals think, even the relatively higher-on-the-spectrum-than-most-NTs folks likely to be involved with such library stuff. Everyone clings to their bit of perceived power and works it to prop themselves up.
I say one thing, another is heard. I don't know how to bend myself to the sideways-speak that communicates little but makes others comfortable. And because what I do say is so precise and information-laden, it is not heard by them, and so sometimes sounds to their ears like something untrue.
So there it is. I finally understand the mechanism. I'll adapt as far as I can. I'll try to become stronger. Maybe I'll even learn to keep quiet.
***
In dreams - from the other night:
I lived at the far eastern edge of the L.A. sprawl in a small calm desert suburb. In central L.A. my mother was dying of cancer. I decided to pack up the car with my two little sons and move to be closer to my mother. By the time I got there, though, she had died. (She did die of colon cancer, 1999.) I was hunting for a place to live, looking at apartment after apartment. I made friends with a hippie couple who were homeless, also. They wore their hair in dreadlocks. The man was bearded, the woman blonde, both were mindlessly jolly and affectionate with one another. Their clothes were colorful gypsy patches and tatters. Somehow I encountered JoeW, a man who in real life had been my mother’s lover. (He was, in real life, a Harvard-educated prosperous corporate lawyer from New England aristocracy, one of several lovers my mother took from the Los Angeles law firm where she worked as paralegal - all of them married. Joe was a practicing Catholic who had not divorced his first wife, who lived in Chicago with their son. He was thin and tall- 6-foot-4 - and wore horn-rimmed glasses and nice suits. He was even-tempered, witty, and colorblind. Recently I've learned he's been placed in a Massachusetts care facility because he has Alzheimers.) Perhaps, in the dream, he'd taken care of things after my mother’s death.
Joe allowed me to stay in his apartment, with my two little dream sons, while I searched for a home. Going up the steps of the spiral staircase to Joe’s apartment my sonJesse climbed and swung on the wrought-iron railing. I whispered urgent reprimand in his ear and he stopped fooling around and went to play quietly or perhaps watch TV. I found old newspapers strewn on a table. They had articles cut out of them and were riddled with rectangular gaps. The mastheads were intact; one was dated 1947 and the other 1938. I tore a page from one, and then I realized 1938 was Joe’s birth year—these papers were keepsakes—and I was embarrassed. I had to stop Jesse from wrecking them, as well. I raised my voice at him and then noticed Joe meditating in a chair just inside the doorway of his room (there seemed to be no actual doors). I felt awful about having disturbed him, but he gave no sign that it was a problem.
Out on the street the next day with the folded up classified ads. JoeW is with us (my family and the hippie couple), also looking for a new home. The three factions compete affectionately for a single vacancy in a fourplex, an upstairs apartment. Its rooms have no doors, and the bathroom is surrounded by a low wall you can look over into the home of the downstairs neighbors—specifically, an elderly gentleman with a white mustache lying in a reclining chair. I"m a little uncomfortable with this, but the place overall is very nice and we all want it. Downstairs I find that at least one of the four apartments belongs to the stout motherly landlady who keeps busy in her kitchen concocting meals for the residents, as in a sort of assisted living. At the other end of the kitchen I see people sitting at little tables as though it were a cafeteria or diner.
We all took a break from househunting and rested at a coffeehouse, like a Starbucks, located near a little recessed amphitheater surrounded by a low wall (much like the one near the creek at Chico State where I went to school in the '80s). I sat at an outdoor table with my snack but noticed JoeW sitting on the top step of the amphitheater: I could just see the top of his head on the other side of the wall. I got up and approached him, chattering happily, but when I stepped into the aisle and turned toward him I saw that he was deeply engaged in chanting namyohorengekyo with two robed Asian monks, young men with shaved heads, seated near him on lower steps. He held wooden prayer beads in his hand. Yet again I was mortified to have disturbed him. He got up then and walked with me, still even-tempered and unperturbed by my thoughtlessness, infinitely patient. I said to him, “I had no idea you were involved with Nishirin Shoshu.” We sat on a bench in the growing darkness. I straddled his lap and sat gazing into his eyes, which avoided mine all through the dream. Suddenly I realized something. “You’re grieving, aren’t you?” I said. “I’m so sorry. You’re still grieving for my mother." I said, “I have Asperger’s syndrome. We process grief quickly. Death doesn’t mean much to us.” I got up and stepped back from him respectfully. He stood and I embraced him with great love. But oddly somehow at that moment I was very small, like a child. ...
I decide then that JoeW should join us - we should move in together and share a big house somewhere. Then he would have family around him and it would be good for him, and maybe feelings would grow between us. (I thought he might feel love for me but was too shy or polite to express them.) He didn’t reject the proposal. ...
The following day, or perhaps later that same afternoon, we negotiated the downtown L.A. streets thronged with people and food carts and distractions. I was trying to keep up with the wild hippie couple and keep hold of my sons' hands, but then I lost track of Joe. I searched the crowd in panic. I spotted him standing perhaps 20 feet away watching me serenely as the crowds gradually engulfed him. I think I still could see his face when the dream ended.
11.28.2012
Day of gloom & wind - lovely day. Clouds glower and lower, lower and lower. Wind hollers fraught with wild extremity - respite from the ongoing blah we have been confined to. Glory it is, a day such as this! I miss my woodstoves of yore, but the brave little gas flame is doing its best.
I made turkey soup yesterday from the boiled Thanksgiving carcass, most honored feast-day animal sacrifice in this mostly meatless home. It was the best soup I ever made and I ate too much of it, and then carob-blueberry mug cake after that, so that I awoke every hour on the hour half the night for no reason at all.
Flitting bits of tatterdreams escaping.
Misunderstandings and miscommunications among the LibraryFriends I'll soon be "coordinating" with have started already, and I haven't even taken up my post. The week's been rife with confusion, and today I spend 2 to 5 p.m. in their midst struggling to keep my emotional keel even. I don't get how neurotypicals think, even the relatively higher-on-the-spectrum-than-most-NTs folks more likely to be involved with library stuff. Everyone clings to their bit of perceived power and works it hard to prop themselves up.
I say one thing, another is heard. I don't know how to bend myself to their sideways-speak that communicates so little but makes them feel comfortable and safe. And because what I do say is so precise and information-laden, they can't hear it at all, and so sometimes it sounds to their ears like something untrue.
So there it is. I understand the mechanism. I'll adapt as far as I can. I'll try to become stronger. I'll learn to keep quiet.
I made turkey soup yesterday from the boiled Thanksgiving carcass, most honored feast-day animal sacrifice in this mostly meatless home. It was the best soup I ever made and I ate too much of it, and then carob-blueberry mug cake after that, so that I awoke every hour on the hour half the night for no reason at all.
Flitting bits of tatterdreams escaping.
Misunderstandings and miscommunications among the LibraryFriends I'll soon be "coordinating" with have started already, and I haven't even taken up my post. The week's been rife with confusion, and today I spend 2 to 5 p.m. in their midst struggling to keep my emotional keel even. I don't get how neurotypicals think, even the relatively higher-on-the-spectrum-than-most-NTs folks more likely to be involved with library stuff. Everyone clings to their bit of perceived power and works it hard to prop themselves up.
I say one thing, another is heard. I don't know how to bend myself to their sideways-speak that communicates so little but makes them feel comfortable and safe. And because what I do say is so precise and information-laden, they can't hear it at all, and so sometimes it sounds to their ears like something untrue.
So there it is. I understand the mechanism. I'll adapt as far as I can. I'll try to become stronger. I'll learn to keep quiet.
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