Dream Journal

 

A long and restful night full of many dreams! Without going into too much detail, while the specifics of plot and setting are still fresh in my mind:

dream one: it's nighttime and I'm in the passenger seat heading to the library for a book reading; in the dream, my latest novel is something about lizard knights. My brother is driving- the vehicle we're in is a giant papier-mâché head, as for a Mardi Gras celebration, of one of the characters in the book, a goofy-eyed Gila monster. The atmosphere of the dream is much the same as the one detailed November 3 of last year- the street lights, the pancake griddle in the preschool parking lot, etc., only instead of making the detour into the cat-and-mouse game in the maze of the preschool's hallways, we're interrupted from said detour by a train passing by on a train crossing, so we proceed to the library as scheduled. At the library the dream sets up to continue like the one of the guest lecture at the museum detailed March 28 of three years ago, only it ends before we can actually enter the building.

dream two: the most detailed dream of the night, occurring in two parts. It opens in a hotel like I haven't seen before, though imagine the architecture of the hotel room at Westefield Place as seen in dream of 08-07-13, but with a warmer decor, higher ceilings, and narrower walls. I'm with my mother; we've already checked in. Our room, at the end of a tall staircase, has beanbags, beds, television sets in the corner; reminiscent of DDR machine room in dream of 02-18-18, with bookshelves reminiscent of those at my cousins' house when I was in elementary school. Two narrow windows at chest height, through which you can view snow beginning to fall as the twilight comes on (it is not snowing in the remainder of my dream, and broad daylight; probably the next day?) An atmosphere of stillness. I leave my wallet on a stool by the minifridge as I head down for (what must be) a continental breakfast, (assuming it is the next morning,) but the scene quickly changes to a hospital: white walls, square architecture, a great many windows, many of them obscured by venetian blinds. Like the hospital at the capital, only sans fish tank.

At the hospital and feeling rather peckish, snacky for specifically a giant marshmallow. I see a display of what looks like fun novelty shaped marshmallows (duckies, dogs, etc) in the window of the hospital gift shop- I duck in, they turn out to be blown glass, but asking about it to the gift shop receptionist (late 50's, horn-rimmed glasses) there are indeed marshmallows available. She hands it to me across the ferns (it's a small houseplanty room, the venetian blinds casting striped shadows over the holey form of the Monstera deliciosa)-- it's a fist-sized white marshmallow with black detailing, a cartoon dog head something like Snoopy. I take a large bite out of it before asking, wait this is complementary right? The receptionist say no, it's a wedding present and only half of the gift- it comes bundled with a small ceramic sculpture which she hands over, two cartoony dogs twisting around each other romantically the alignment of their rumps suggesting the intent to engage in an, intimate encounter, the base of the sculpture reading "For the Happy Couple." It's embarrassing and I shove it away, into my pocket, acting through my teeth like I'm pleased with it though and agreeing to pay-- before remembering my wallet is back at the hotel. Fortunately I recall that apparently my mother has a line of credit at the hospital-- I try to put it on her tab, but can't recall the PIN which is apparently required. My aunt arrives and I explain that I'm trying to purchase something, speaking in as vague of terms as possible because I don't want to have to show her the embarrassingly erotic tchotchke or explain why I'd need to purchase a wedding gift in the first place. I manage to talk her into fronting me a Benjamin; end of dream.

dream three: at the den of my grandfather's house. I am home from college. There's a game on the table, a jigsaw puzzle combined with something like pick-up sticks: it's a puzzle to figure out the correct configuration of these thin porcelain snakes; to accomplish this, there's a jigsaw puzzle to complete, abstract jumbles of shapes and colors that reveals the color-coded placement of the snakes on top of them.

dream four: opens up on a college campus, something like the northwestern corner of MIT, my brother is there and he is drawing large dice on the sidewalk in impossibly vivid creamy pastels. A crowd has gathered around him to watch. There is a woman there (something about being a twin sister to another woman there?) and she recognizes me; she peels away from the crowd and we chat about life as an author (she is apparently a writer of short fiction.) 

Now in a cozy pub/retaurant, seated at a side table, continuing the conversation. She asks me where I get my ideas, and I tell her the truth, how most of my ideas I get from dreams, telling her how keeping a dream journal allows you to better retain details etc. She says she does already keep one, that she happens to have on her, and reads to me details from her own dream journal: the family with "2.5" children, two parents with three full children but the third being somehow only half in the family. Some kind of half-bastard, which as I listen I realize would be perfect for Prince ValDeacon's characterization in the Thornsword Chronicles book I'm working on: it complexifies his relationship with his father (especially regarding the idea of inheritance rights,) it adds intrigue to his proceedings in the Rosequartz Courts (as he now has a secret to keep, even- and especially!- from Malloria,) it adds drama to his decision to sire a child with Desdominia (as he himself knows how difficult the life of a bastard can be.) I feel torn as I don't want to steal from her to write my own story, and much of the rest of the dream is spent struggling with the morality of using her ideas- even though it's just the seed of the idea that comes from the woman; in the weird dream-logic, my dreamself considers it plagiarism. Of course, in real life I was the one who dreamed that she dreamed it... Now that I'm awake I feel no such guilt. 

I had a lot of dreams last night, at least five; in the last one I wrote quite a bit, so it's always disappointing to wake up to find all that work gone to waste. Probably nonsense writing, though that's cold comfort. An upside though! One of my dreams (the fourth I believe, though we'll get to it in due time) I cracked some crucial, juicy characterization detail for Prince ValDeacon, which still makes sense thinking about while conscious even!

first dream: we're (my brother and I) are in a giant GrooGrux King float, a lizard character from apparently my latest book, driving to a book reading/signing event at a library. It's night, it's a full moon, moody and atmospheric like that dream of the cookout in the parking lot with the maze, of [CHECK DATE]. There's a train crossing, and we wait while the train passes. Dream ends before we step through the doors of the library.

second dream: there's a first bit at a hotel (basically the hotel from the dream of [CHECK DATE], the long one with the road trip in the horse trailer?) but the only part that matters is that I leave my wallet in the hotel room as I step out the door. I then find myself in the lobby of a brightly lit hospital, white walls clean floor a great many windows, and I am famished, specifically for marshmallow or something gelatin like that. The hospital has one of those overpriced giftshops hospitals sometimes have, a moody noirish little place with a great many ferns and the blinds down but cracked. There had been what I'd thought to be marshmallows in the display, so I'd entered- it turns out they were just blobby blown glass ornaments, but the place does have marshmallows available by complete coincidence, big ones. I bite into one before I realize that it might not be free, remembering that I'd left my wallet back in the hotel room for whatever reason, and indeed it does cost money. Even more than I'd thought it would, to boot-the marshmallow comes with a statuette of two cartoon dogs making googoo eyes at each other, getting ready to do the do, twisting around each other like a dachshund version of a Giambattista sculpture. The marshmallow and the figurine are, combined, apparently some kind of novelty wedding present, "to the happy couple." It's embarrassingly erotic, and I shove the trinket deep into my jacket pocket before shoving the remainder of the marshmallow into my mouth. My mother has a tab at the giftshop here, for some reason, but her sister arrives before I need to pay that way (something about faking my identity making that difficult anyway.) Being as vague as possible, with nothing to show for it (neither tasty dog-mallow nor tacky dog-knickknack) I convince her to give me money, and all is paid.

third dream: a puzzle that's two puzzles in one: the first layer is an abstract, red-yellow-black jigsaw puzzle, the second is constructed on top of it using squiggly porcelain snakes, which twist around over and under each other. The second dream in a row about twisted porcelain animals, come to think of it. Intriguing idea for a puzzle in real life, anyway.

fourth dream: Vivid pastel chalks on the sidewalk, intense creamy color. Giant rolling dice street art. It's Leon. A crowd has gathered around him to admire the craft of the art being laid down; one woman out of it, a college student, looks up, notices me, and recognizes me. We start to chat, and now we're at a bar and grill. She asks me where I get my ideas, and when I admit to her it's mostly scrounged bits and pieces from my dreams/ dream journals, she reads to me a dream of her own, a half-bastard child to round out as the .5 the proverbial 2.5 children. The epithet of half-bastard gives me the idea for ValDeacon I mentioned above: if ValDeacon is half-illegitimate, not only is his heirship on shakier grounds, but it gives him a reason to be keeping secrets from Malloria, setting up the fight in book 3. It also explains Drakmus's relationship to the family (using the fairy magic to cover up the illegitimacy/explain how the heck something can be half-illegitimate in the first place) and adds angst to his own relationship with his bastard son! And it strains the prince's relationship with his father King Leonid... it's just perfect!

fifth dream: I wake up from the dream about the characterization realization, buzzing with excitement but making my way methodically through the details of each dream as I write in my morning dream journal. Alas, I must write it all down a second time, for real this time though; it felt so real, but the moment I finished writing the entry for the day I realized I was still dreaming...

The last few dreams of the night were of this very moment. Not this very moment, but, writing down my dreams, then realizing I was still dreaming. This happened twice. Twice. I'm a little paranoid as I write this entry, but, I'm pretty darn sure that I'm awake right now! (am I making my way backward through these today? sure let's go with it.)

The dream that had me so excited to write in my journal this morning was of a woman, a student at the college the dream was set and a writer in her own right, reading her own dream journal to me and sparking an idea for the Thornsword Chronicles that snaps a lot of character motivations in place: the possibility of being a half-bastard, especially in regards to the actions of Prince ValDeacon. If King Leonid had taken a mistress in his younger years (particularly, say, someone from the House of Myr, maybe even Venverermyr herself!) then Prince ValDeacon would've been born a bastard (half-brother to Orchiv!) and thus unable to inherit the Rosequartz Throne-- unless, there were some magicks from Drakmus FellMinister afoot, not only indebting the Archades dynasty to the Unseelie Court, but also explaining their immunity to the Farmost Brethren! ValDeacon would thus be half-illegitimate, complexifying his relationship to both his father (can he trust him, as his heir, or is the king playing him for some reason?) but also Desdominia (being half a bastard himself certainly gives him impetus toward complicated feelings re: his own lovechild)! Also, let's face it, the epithet Half-Bastard is just, really cool. Anyway. Don't have any bad feelings about this, in any way.

Dream preceding that one: okay but this is also a really neat idea? Picture pick-up snakes, as an intricate puzzle to be assembled on top of a jigsaw puzzle, with various colored spots on the jigsaw puzzle's surface telling you the bases for all these snakes. There's one layer of the puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle, but when you complete that there's still an entirely separate layer of puzzle left to construct.

the dream preceding that one: this is a little funny, a little embarrassing (horny dogs??) It's mostly at a hospital, a bright clean place with a lot of windows, large wall-sized windows on the outside letting in a lot of sunlight, but a giftshop with the venetian blinds lowered within. Intriguing noir imagery: strips of light being let in, a lot of houseplants including Monstera, so the strips of light contrasted against the big round holes in those leaves. Maybe make it smoky in there as well. I'd stepped in peckish for a marshmallowy treat (the marshmallows there perhaps homemade from the marsh-mallows there?) but took a bite before realizing the Snoopy-looking snack was anything but complimentary, thus finding myself indebted to pay for not only that but the bric-a-brac that apparently came with it: a vaguely pornographic (sheath visible, which was at least mildly surprising for such a cartoony art style) porcelain statue of two dogs getting ready to mount! (Gazing lovingly into each other's eyes, twisted with their baloonily tubular bodies around like a donut so that their hindquarters were at least vaguely appropriately- or, rather, inappropriately- aligned.) Bemused but vaguely embarrassed by this, I shove the tchotchke into my pocket (the marshmallow was bigger than the statuette was) and try to pay for the item which I don't even want (although the marshmallow hit the spot.) I'd left my wallet back in the hotel room where I'd been staying with my mother, however; luckily the hospital giftshop has some kind of debit card on file for her, and I attempt to pay with that. I can't remember the PIN for it, if I knew it in the first place (I think they think I'm somebody else, because the name on the card isn't even right; it's all very fiddly and ultimately not worth tracking the details of, especially because my aunt arrives to save the day when I can scrounge the cash I need off of her.)

The first dream of the night was going to a book reading in a giant float head shaped like a wonky lizard (picture a parade-style thing, that kind of float; the lizard is a paladin, the star of my latest book, in the dream; the book we're heading to perform a reading/signing of.) It's late at night for some reason, large orangey moon in the sky, speckled with clouds. The same kind of night that that dream with the breakfast and the maze had. There's a train crossing in front of us, but I'm not worried we'll (my brother is driving, it's his float) be late; indeed we arrive right on time, but the dream ends before we enter the library where they're waiting for me.

I'm writing this a few hours after waking up, paranoid for reasons you'll see later; you'll forgive me if these entries don't contain their usual level of detail, as, though I've tried to retain as much detail as possible, a lot has fallen through the sieve. Many of the dreams were vivid however! So I think I've held onto a lot of them, all things considered.

Dream one: heading to a book reading in a giant lizard head-- it's a float, as for a parade; the lizard is a character in the book we're heading to the reading for.

Dream two: a hotel, a hospital, a hospital giftshop. Noiry and uncomfortably funnily animal-sexy. Like a Yonfan movie only less Chinese? But that kind of cinematography. I want a giant novelty marshmallow from the hospital giftshop but it comes paired as a wedding gift (?) with an ornament of two cartoon dogs about to conjugate (the marshmallow was also of a cartoon dog.) So not only do I have to pay for something I'm not thrilled about, I left my wallet at home. Two embarrassing things back-to-back. Further goodnews badnews, they tell me my mom has a line of credit with them, but they think I'm somebody else and I have to play along. And once more, my aunt walks in so I can get the money off of her, good news, but I can't show her the knickknack and plus I look like a moocher, bad news. What a roller coaster.

Dream three: more porcelain animals entwined around each other, this time it's not sexy. But it is a neat idea for a puzzle I think: jigsaw, meets pickup snakes.

Dream four: my brother makes sidewalk art, really vivid colors, laying down the chalk in these creamy creamy strokes. Stained-glass colors, like Sagrada, which is appropriate because the art is of dice being rolled. Maybe that's where I got that. A woman from the crowd who'd been watching him comes over to me and tells me an idea. From her own dream journal! We'd been talking about dream journals. The idea is that of half-bastarddom, which, of course, is an excellent character motivation for Prince ValDeacon in the Thornsword books! For reasons I don't need to litigate here.

Dream five: I wake up from that dream and write down all the dreams I had in the night, going into as much detail as I can.

Dream six: I wake up from that dream and write down all the dreams I had in the night, going into as much detail as I can.

Dream seven: I wake up from that dream and write down all the dreams I had in the night, but in reverse order, going into as much detail as I can.

I dreamt last night, well, most of the dreams were of me waking up and writing down in my dream journal, dream after dream, of me waking up and writing down in my dream journal. Even when I'd been awake for a few hours, it felt like, ready to write down my dreams, it kept turning out I was still asleep. Going into less and less detail each time, on each of them. Various images I can still remember from them though: snake puzzle, naughty doggy knickknack, chalk pastel dice. A Meet Dave head (two trucks having sex!) A woman tells me the character motivation that I'm missing and when I go to write it down in my dream journal I discover that I'm still asleep. Is the woman seeking revenge for stealing her idea? The thought crosses my mind, but it's a thought that only makes sense if you're still asleep. Which I guess proves I really was still dreaming. It really is a pretty good idea though, not in a it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-when-I-was-asleep sort of way. I'm, not going to write it here though. Perhaps superstitiously, but, I'm not going to write it here.

...But then I didn't and I still woke up from that. A few nights ago. Waiting to write this down, because of the nature of the dreams themselves- A few dreams, each more vivid than the last, each more real than the after a certain point, though many are fading- a chain of waking up, writing in my dream journal, and discovering I'm still asleep. At one point I figured it was the writing down of one particular idea that cursed me so, but then I didn't write it down, and I still turned out to be asleep. I'm probably asleep right now. It's probably only two in the morning. It's probably not even midnight yet. Here's the idea though, seeing as it's been, three days, and I'm pretty sure I'm awake for sure: the idea of ValDeacon, Half-Bastard, that came from one of those dreams. I've already written it into the draft, so, just for posterity: that idea was entirely from a dream of three days ago. Just, writing this down now. I haven't had a dream within that time, or anything.

Well that hardly seems fair. I had, like, half a week's worth of solid writing in, turns out I dreamed it all. Pretty funny.

So: Multiple dreams I can't seem to wake up from, at first thinking it's because I'm caught up in some curse like I'm committing an act of plagiarism by writing down a specific idea, but I wrote the idea into my draft and it was a few days and I was still asleep and as I keep waking up and writing down in my dream journal I start suspecting that it's the act of writing any entry for the night down that enforces my still being asleep, or maybe I've always been asleep and writing down in the dream journal is what makes me realize that, is obviously the logical answer, because this is reality, and I'm awake now, I'm really awake now, and I certainly won't realize I'm still asleep as soon as I finish writing this alright so alright why don't you put the pen down now there'

s nothing to be afraid of obviously hahahaha. 

I can't wake up.

I can't wake up.

I

Multiple dreams, not within each other, but each time I record in my journal that turns out to be a dream as well. I wait hours, days, years, and the time passes so realistically and the sensation feels so real and vivid, but when I remember my dreams and go to write them down, something surreal happens and it turns out that I'm still dreaming and that's when I wake up for real. 

Bill Murray did nothing wrong but he was trapped in Groundhog Day in Groundhog Day. Not that his character was the greatest human being to ever live or anything, but, I mean, more along the lines of, Time was capricious to him. There was no time machine, no magic pool, no magic pool time machine. Just karma; he was stuck until he, wasn't. There's certainly a reality to things, to the way I interact with them; watching Groundhog Day and it's genuinely just the movie Groundhog Day, it doesn't get randomly surreal or dreamlike; I read a book and it's consistent, I look at the hands of a clock and they make sense and don't jump around when you turn the other way. Maybe this is just a timeloop, and I need to sleep with Andie MacDowell and wake up next to Andie MacDowell after a nice night full of sleep and full of dreams. 

It's the journal itself. Not even the dreams written down, right? You put down anything in here anymore and then you wake up, whoopsies your life was fake. It's not like I'm even getting through any pages in here, it's still the same page as when I started, because all that journaling gets erased because it was never real to begin with.

But maybe I can live forever like this, age and age and write down my dreams before I die and wake up young-- but what's the purpose of eternal youth if it's fake and everyone around you is fake, is that why you became a writer man, for yourself, so that you can impress yourself with the prose you pump out, or did you start writing to share those ideas with others, and do you dream for yourself? and do you dream for others? and is there another dreamer? and don't you often think about that? about how you're "the dreamer"? about how you have "the dreams"? but how "a nightmare" has you? implying that you are not the dreamer of a nightmare? but that there is another dreamer? and who is the dreamer now? now? now? do you dream for others or for yourself?

But why is that two different questions? It doesn't need to be two different questions. It isn't two different questions. Not in reality at least, where exists both others AND the self. In dreams that you can't wake up from, well... (it just occurred to me that this entry is going to be really confusing if this is reality and I'm really awake now; asking a question in answer to a question that I dreamed.) To dream for others doesn't mean to dream others' dreams for them; that would be, well, a nightmare. Which of the others (options), to dream for others (people) or to dream for yourself, would be the dream (goal (dream)), then, as opposed to the nightmare? A dream (dream) of, the dream (plan) to dream (think/dream) for others, a dream (dream) as I've been dreaming (dreaming,) is impossible (Man of La Mancha), because there are no "others" in your dreams (dreams), merely your dream (vision (conception)) of others (imago)(I want a dream lover (Bobby Darin) so I don't have to dream alone (impossible (Man of La Mancha))) but to dream for yourself is pointless because you're already dreaming (dreaming)(but dreams don't need to be pointed.) Dreams don't need to be pointed. They exist in themselves. Not even for themselves. And if I stop writing? Will I find myself waking up? And if I keep writing? Will I find myself waking up anyway? 

I kind of intended this to be real, to be waking up for real and writing in here for real and this to be the true canonical entry for real life. Because I solved the great riddle of the universe, for whom do you dream, seeing it as a trick question and thus shattering the dome and emerging into reality, but that too got away from me. Maybe there is some great riddle to be solved in here, some pun or some math problem located in the idea of a papier-mâché lizard plus two newlywed dogs plus one puzzle over one puzzle plus one half of one bastard. They keep on meaning different things but that meaning only becomes imbued upon reflection on them; order imposed upon chaos imposed upon order imposed upon chaos (logic, dreams, (the filtration of the subconscious), life.) These are real, and they really happened as dreams, but as Daphne escaped her capture by Apollo by transforming into a tree, they become rigid when I try to capture them, become not as they were, living things, and the tree takes different forms. They could take different forms forever, each time. The operation of language.

Acceptance is the final form grief takes. Maybe that's what this represents. I always thought I was a better writer unconscious than conscious anyway-- more free, more creative. Always that cusp right when I wake up that the ideas flow most naturally to me, but always that cusp right before I wake where the water is still instead of flowing and I can swim in the language and thought. So now the cruel twist at the end will turn out to be, I am awake, and thus am limited by my conscious mind. But at least can truly be with others.

It's only in waking anyway that we draw the line between consciousness and unconsciousness, that we consider we might be asleep. I'm tired. 

I'm going back to bed.

Spooky Short Story 2024

I'm super sleepy and have work in the morning but luckily last night I was too sleepy to put up the introductory blogpost to this year's spooky short story, so I'll do that today and tomorrow finish off editing the story itself and everything, get it into publishing shape (it's already basically written.) Just, push it all back a day.

It's called Dream Journal. Here's the part where I tell you what inspired it: it basically happened to me for real, except for the scary bits, which didn't happen to me; the rest of it however caused me to think "oh, you know what would be scary here?" 

The idea of a dream journal is something that I have mixed feelings about; a lot of my best ideas come straight from dreams, but as I've, just gonna fudge it and say "matured as an artist" or some b.s., matured as a thinker, I've grown less enamored of the idea that your sleep can be something productive for you. Not everything needs to be productive, and once you start viewing things under those terms there's virtually no way of going back.

Neoliberalism, the defining ideology of everyday life, is an all-encompassing machine under which absolutely everything is commodified, even art. Even, getting back to the topic of sleep and resting, taking a break from the system is a commodity: taking a break, after all, makes you a more productive worker. And getting back to dreams, not to spoil the story or anything: as an artist, your dreams can fuel your art which can fuel your "brand." It's a horrifying miserable way of looking at the world. 

Not that it's bad to dream, or be inspired, or to make art. Even compromised art is better than no art; there's no such thing as uncompromised art (but that's a separate discussion.)

That's all background radiation, though. Neoliberalism isn't the monster in Dream Journal, not really. After all, the scariest stories aren't the ones in which the protagonist is hopeless before the monster. The scariest stories are the ones in which the protagonist has agency, but it's deeply ambiguous what the best course of action is with that agency, in the face of monstrousness. 

Captain's Log...

I haven't made a blog post since before the sorta-premiere of my video project (it was not as complete as I'd've liked, but, as will be hinted at below, there are a few roadblocks in putting in the final pieces that have stalled me these last few months.) I still don't have much to say publicly, but I realized that privately I do say things, in the Google Doc I keep as a journal/diary. And I had things to say this month.

Formatting has been changed for readability, adding emphases and paragraph breakings; also, footnotes added, to explain biographical details that are lost when the entry is excised from its context.

9.22.24

I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek recently.

Might be because of the Bell Riots taking place this month.

Might be me getting into it a tad more than I usually am deliberately, to hype myself up to get the Star Trek Adventures 1e bundle on HumbleBundle (especially because I feel guilty spending money on anything except gaza funds.*)

Maybe it’s because the optimistic future grounds me and provides some perspective and sanity in the present-day political climate, all whacked-out and spooky. (The official timeline suggests the Second American Civil War happening soon, and World War III, so I try not to think about that aspect, although I have come up with a very cool concept for a Star Trek prequel show that takes place in the very very very near future (replacing my answer of what show I would produce were I greenlit for a Star Trek show of my own, over Dan Well's STAR TREK: MERIDIAN (if I were greenlit for a Star Wars movie of my own, it would be about two sisters who work at their uncle’s moisture-farm-type-place and rebuild a speeder piece-by-piece getting into the nitty-gritty of the hover-technology engineering, while gradually being radicalized into joining the rebellion/resistance.)))

It’s definitely not because Star Trek Day happens to be in September; I was well into this latest kick/fixation/hyperfixation by the time it turned out that was coming up, and even then I didn’t tune into the celebration or anything because I read on Tumblr precisely once that Paramount had issued some sort of mealy-mouthed “We Stand with Israel” message, which would only go along with Star Fleet principles because Star Fleet is hypocritical sometimes– we don’t believe what corporations say anyway, as exhibited this year rather chillingly by the backtracking on corporate Pride during Pride Month, so I’m not that uncomfortable with continuing my Paramount+ subscription– it’s more problematic that it’s a Paramount+ as-a-Prime-Video-channel subscription, when Amazon’s web service provides Cloud technology for Israeli government and military. As does Google. And I’m typing this in Docs.**

Speaking of Tumblr, I knuckled down and just (meaning merely, but yeah less than an hour ago, during the time of writing this entry) reset my password so that I can access it on desktop- now that that shakeup’s been accomplished, I can might-as-well start a second tumblr blog, for Prince Pretzels, so that I can reblog the awesome furry art that comes across my dash without it being off-brand for my writing blog. Then I can add my tumblr to the endscreen of the video, and hopefully I can start work on the video some more. —I canceled my Speechify Studio this month, a couple days before the deadline, I don’t know how I’m gonna do the bits that are better off reworded but at least I can say with my whole chest that the video was made without AI assistance of any form.†

And speaking of resetting passwords- I’m trying to log into my byui account,†† so that I have access to my transcripts, so that I can do crunchy number stuff and tell for sure that my GPA would be high enough (need a 3.0 for admission consideration, which is laughably above what my score actually be, but there’s an application appeals process to waive the requirement) without my performing so low in the actual art-class parts of my arts degree, and meanwhile also have my actual transcript so that I have it to apply in the first place– but I can’t do it, I can’t get in, I think I must have changed my password at some point after graduation for some reason?, because the password I’ve always had isn’t working (maybe it has something to do with my Adobe account, which had been linked to my school e-mail?) and going into the password reset process it’s asking me a security question I’ve got not the foggiest notion toward the answer regarding. It’s painful.

9.23 And the Irish Reunification of 2024, of course, but that could be a any-month-this-year thing. I watched that episode today and was reminded of that only coincidentally, watching the episode rather to see them talk about the dimension-shifting science of the Elway Theorem (I also watched the episode where they talk about Fermat’s Last Theorem today only coincidentally, wanting to see the episode where they talk about pre-warp 21st-century space travel, as the Charybdis factors somewhat into my idea for the show I would produce.)

Anyway– the RTF‡ people finally got back to me this morning about my prospective UTexas application, which I sent on the first of the month (the date when applications opened up)- I opened the email but clicked out of it, chickening out of what they had to say with only a great deal of bravery allowing me to click into it in the first place; checking my other email account and seeing there was a Facebook update from H Ross Workman: it was from his family, announcing his passing.‡‡ That’s what I really wanted to talk about today. And then, I figured, if I could read that, I might as well have the guts to read the email from the University academic program coordinator, and clicked back to that- it’s mostly links, at least one of which I’ve already checked out, but there is admissions process info that I have now that I didn’t have previously, so that’s good.

But President Workman. It’s not his voice, his words of counsel that I hear when I think of him; I think of Brother (Huntsman?) saying “don’t graduate,” when I came to him about the idea that I didn’t seem to be doing well in my chosen degree emphasis. Don’t Graduate. How warm yet firm and breathtakingly headslappingly obvious, coming to me then in some kind of natural association when I try to pull up memories of President Workman instead. Don’t Graduate. Though it was too late by that point to try to pull any such stunt. This was, six years ago. Ten years ago, though, the exit interview with President Workman, his counsel to me- take as much college as I can, get as high a degree as I can; it’s going to take years but those years are going to fly by. He said to get a job to put myself through college, and, well, a lot of my life right now is banking on the idea that I won’t be able to find one of those when I am at college (I couldn’t find one during my Associates or Bachelors’ degrees so I don’t trust my prospects for Master’s or Doctorate) and trying to save up while I can, though that’s not going the best either, with the, only working one day a week generally (though I did help do vet checks this morning, put in a few solid hours’ worth of work.) But let’s assume I’ll be able to do that, fine, don’t sweat it.

Ross Workman. I never really had trouble seeing him as both a great man and a human. He screwed up what city in Nevada I’m from, during the exit interview, and I didn’t bother to correct him, because (because?) it happened to be a city I was eyeballing for college; that’s a subject we can’t seem to escape when talking about him. Like Riker Data and Worf trying to exit through the revolving doors of the Royale, finding themselves dumped back where they started.

The funeral’s on Saturday, in Utah. I missed Gayle’s funeral.§

9.29 Guess I might as well give a quick rundown of the other TV I’ve been watching lately, for biographical purposes: late last month, after starting up the first of the Star Trek kick as of late, I started watching Leverage: Redemption again, making it all the way through the end of the current season. I was watching it together with Hannah and Kaellen but never got around to the end of the first season and then Hannah-and-Kaellen was no longer a thing and it felt like starting back up again and finishing watching on my own would need to be more momentous, but it didn’t of course and I guess we make momentous moments ourselves.

And I finished and so replacing it in my rotation is Elementary, which I watched on Hulu back in the day and never quite finished season 1 of, but now have, after fiddling around a bit and watching a couple episodes I’d already seen to find my place where I’d left off- the episode where Detective Bell gets shot at, I remember not making it very far after that, it struck me as kind of copagandistic how Sherlock praised the cop for making enemies but rewatching it it’s not nearly as bad as I remember. (Robert Hewitt Wolfe of DS9 doesn’t join the crew of the show till season 2 and I’d wanted to get back into Elementary anyway but I can’t say that the Star Trek connection has nothing to do with my decision to start the show back up again; I’m on a longer arc of murder-mystery kick already as it is, getting super into Columbo back in June. (Jonathan Frakes being a somewhat regular director on Leverage likewise not having much bearing on getting back into Redemption, but I can’t say it’s entirely out-of-mind.)) The first new episode for me, then, being the one where New York City is on lockdown due to the nor’easter blowing in, felt somewhat surreal to watch, on the same day that Hurricane Helene wracked the east coast, leaving entire towns basically wiped off the face of the map– with the discretionary funds I can already afford all going to other charities already, one can only hope one’s tithing is going to disaster relief instead of tax-free stocks and bonds trading.

Other shows I’m making my way through: Community (we got Peacock to watch the Olympics) and Person of Interest (I’d already watched the pilot a couple of times, once when it premiered and once a couple of years ago (January 8th 2022) when I was going through a simultaneous Brian D’Arcy James kick at the same time I was starting up watching The Player, which is a show with a vaguely similar premise that only lasted for half a season though was at least showrun by John Rogers (Leverage full circle I guess.)) This time took, and I’m three seasons in already; tomorrow I plan to watch S4E1 of both it and Community.

9.30 And maybe, as one probable reason I’m getting so heavily into Star Trek again now, it’s all the Moby Dick references in First Contact. That was my, book in the book club last month. It’s weird that I’m only getting around to mentioning it as a potential reason here at the end.

Taking a new tack at it after spending the past couple of days scrambling to record a bunch of audio

Putting the new audio into the video, and yep the audio quality is way divergent (autofill suggestion suggests "way diversityier than" for "way div;" not even a word; way divergent anyway) and super noticeable, and it would take approximately the entirety of the rest of the time I've got just to put the audios into their right places, much less put footage over them, all so that the audio quality bounces around super jankily but at least the script is something with a marginal amount more polish, and I realize-- it's unnecessary, we can use the draft we already have, it's flawed, there are some boneheadedly obvious connections there I don't make, but it's still got so much stuff in it that I'm amazingly proud of.

 I might use some of the new audio in the project, but, I'm going to be sticking largely with what I'd already had- after all it's right there in the name and everything: the Doc file I was editing and everything finishing up the script is called the January 2nd draft; most of the audio I've got was recorded from a script called the May 4th Draft. The January 2nd draft was the one that was supposed to be influenced by the notes from the At-A-Glance, and, it is, I did get those notes in there. But, I've got the 5 Year Out mark on January 2nd 2025, on the calendar I created to explain the creation process of the video... maybe I will do that director's cut thing I thought I would do, a year ago. 

For now, work on getting the finishing footage over the audio I already have. Which means tracking down a halfway old autosave from before I started restructuring everything... Ah whatever, it's not gonna take that long to put everything back the way I had it.

I talk about Robert Downey Sr's Putney Swope in the video, with the metaphor being about how tackling every angle I can, that's the compromise. It felt a little hypocritical recording new audio for that section after discovering a new connection, when that section's about how it's okay to let some connections go unconnected (Robert Downey Sr.'s POUND, which connects to animals with human faces, and also shares a name with Eliot's friend Ezra.) The connections are there, it's not like they're going anywhere.

I don't begrudge the time "wasted" on recording the new audio; there was some stuff that genuinely did need to get rerecorded, maybe. And I'm learning to be more accepting of things going to waste, because, a couple of reasons, learning to let go of the neoliberal commodification of absolutely everything, but also, seeing things in terms of affordances instead of intentions, what things can be used to do rather than what they were made to do- the author is dead, all we have is the affordances.

I'm okay now with the fact that not all the experts I've contacted for research purposes have gotten back to me, there's always the Jan 2nd Extended Edition. If any newspaper or anything had bothered to interview me about the project I would've told them it's longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but shorter than the Extended Edition- maybe with the Jan 2nd cut I can finally surpass that 12 hour 6 minute mark? Because like, I'm not sure how much longer the project was going to be with the new audios put in, but, I think it would've tipped the 9-hour-30odd-minute video into over the 10 hour mark, and like, apparently there's a hard limit to get out of there by 6:30 pm, when I do still want intermissions...

Scrambling to rerecord stuff for my video at the last second

Recording audio today! My 9-and-a-half-hour video premieres in, 4 days, and, I still have audio to record. Like, a lot of audio to record. Most of it rerecording, but some of it adding some stuff in at the last minute. It's taking even longer than I thought it would and I thought it would take long! I'm glad I failed in my goal to record audio at night! Don't have much time to type!

My 2023 At-A-Glance was missing for months, and it had a lot of great notes about which sections needed to be rerecording entirely, but it was only rediscovered a couple of weeks ago, so, like, can't actually, do the stuff that I thought would've been a good idea, although I could finally recover the notes I took on certain sections that I realized could've been restructured or signposted as being in list format (notes were taken by listening to project all the way through; the ideas come across differently when spoken vs when you can see how they're laid out typographically.)  

My recording setup today is so much better, getting really good audio, but it's just going to have to be the noticeably better new audio right next to the old stuff. Honestly, I'm kinda attached to the old audio anyway. Hopefully I'll be able to get this done by the end of the month, spend the 1st putting the new audio in place in the project and putting footage in place, spend the 2nd finishing off the graphics and   everything, spend the 3rd putting the music in place, spend the 4th premiering it. I don't think I'm gonna succeed in even this goal, I've been recording all day and am only halfway through what needs to be done, so we might need to ship with incomplete graphics maybe?, but I'm not stressed actually. Too much has come together too conveniently for it to have been anything but Providence, and if God's got my back as I finish this stuff up, then like, cool.

List of Philosophers/Academics Mentioned in the Latest GSSB

I'm doing a blogpost a month this year and it's the end of the month and I need something to write about! Luckily GAMES STUDIES STUDY BUDDIES, one of my favorite podcasts, released a new episode today, and I listened to it while working on my project, and can write about that!

It's a podcast about making academic books on games studies accessible. I wrote down every scholar (etc) they mentioned or cited in this episode, though, (just got curious when they mentioned my boy Lévi-Strauss and decided to go back to the top and take notes this time,) and it's still... quite academic.

Jaroslav Švelch- the book they did this month is Player vs Monster, instead of his Gaming the Iron Curtain, because it's shorter and they have to read like four books a month across their various podcasts. Maybe someday.

Katherine Isbister- How Games Move Us

Kyra D. Gaunt- never mentioned by name, but the catchphrase of the podcast, "the social is predicated on its exclusions," is from the book The Games Black Girls Play, and it gets discussed several times throughout the beginning of the episode.

Torill Mortensen

Darshana Jayemanne

Sarah Stang

Julia Kristeva

Barbara Creed

Stephanie C Jennings

Gerard Jones- Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence

Noël Carroll

Michel Foucault

Immanuel Kant

Mary Douglas- Purity and Danger

Klaud Lévi-Strauss

Norbert Elias- The Civilizing Process

Graham Harman

David Wengrow

Forrest J Ackerman- Famous Monsters of Film Land

Hiroki Azuma

Patrick Crogan- Gameplay Mode:War, Simulation, and Technoculture. 

Peter Galison: The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision

Patricia MacCormack

They talk about this video near the end, which video I've referenced myself on this blog, so, Chris Franklin? Who introduced me to the Ranged Touch line of podcasts, incidentally enough.

Getting in on that Book Club Convo

For Christmas we started a family book club, and the first book up was Boundaries: When to Say Yes How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. I was at dress rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof during the discussion on it so I missed that! So I figured I should make this month's blog post about it!

December's post, "ambition, obligation, followthrough," is about how I do many a thing I do because I feel obligated to do it, which is fitting to bring up again given the subject matter of the book. The central metaphor of the blogpost is the final couple of episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Third Impact, which is funny, because Boundaries is a very Evangelion book. Christianity aside, even (all the Christian images in Eva are just because Japanese people think it's cool and exotic.) 

The Third Impact (the first impact was the creation of the moon and the second impact was the awakening of Adam) is the dissolution of human boundaries, causing all human beings' souls to essentially merge into one as we evolve into the final Angel. The Angels (an advanced alien species who are also the progenitors of humans) shield themselves with forcefields called AT Fields, which it turns out that humans also have: Absolute Terror is that which keeps us separate as beings and prevents us from intimacy. The Hedgehog's Dilemma. The evolution of our understanding of boundaries as an infant, growing up and realizing that our mother is not ourself but another, is an important philosophical theme that gets discussed in these episodes, and is talked about in Boundaries the book.

But anyway, like, I don't know what they discussed during the discussion, but I guess I should talk about my actual takeaways here though, like, what did I learn here, if I do things only because I feel obligated, how do I set boundaries for myself there? When I'm already okay saying no to doing things I don't feel obligated to do? Do I have a choice on what I feel obligated on and what I don't? I'm not sure the answer to that. Maybe it's possible to get finer toothed with it, tease out parts of tasks that I do feel obligated on and separate them from others?

I'm certain yes, but that leaves me uncertain of where to go from there: for example, I feel it would be better to write more to this post, better still to have something to say on the book, better still to have more personal takeaways, but I only feel an obligation for the first few things. There is plenty I'd love to say no to, but still feel an obligation towards, so maybe this idea of drilling down on which aspects I feel that obligation about and why can be a takeaway, even if it's not something that the book is even about.

Another thing that just sprang to mind after I hit publish on this: prioritization! Today I felt "obligated" to make a blog post, do rehearsals, get in some final updates to my monthly journal, catch some films before they leave streaming, finish up my brown-tagged graphics on my video project. Overcoming an illness, however, and sleeping fifteen hours today (and about to go to bed early right now) I prioritized doing this blogpost apparently. And rehearsals. And Duolingo; I'm out of streak freezes. As nice as it would have been to work on my video project today, getting my brown-tagging in by the end of the month (premiere date May 4 2024!) I can't feel the roof of my mouth, so, my health has always been more of a priority than working on the project, even when I'm doing serious crunching I've always gotten in at least seven hours of sleep.

Of Negative Tests and Workloads

If you read my WordPress blog you'd know that a.) I tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks ago and b.) I've been watching a lot of Lindsay Ellis videos lately, kinda. I still have all of "loose canon" to get through, those videos are relatively short but there's a lot of 'em, and AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER IT'S REALLY BOTHERING ME HOW THE SINGLE AND DOUBLE QUOTES ARE ACTUALLY JUST FOOT AND INCH MARKS you don't see these kind of shenanigans on WordPress, I grew complacent or something.

‘“”’ see isn’t that refreshing. I mean it’s not "incorrect" to use "straight marks" necessarily, or even at all, they’re just forms of quotation marks, it’s not like programs that convert ASCII-style marks like that to their curly brethren are 100% accurate in their automatic doing so, but (is that why it)’s bothering me so much because the " marks look like a positive COVID result

So I figured I’d get a post in today, while it’s still the day that I’ve tested negative (for the first time in my life actually, I think. I hadn’t actually taken a COVID test (I don’t think) until that first one on Jan 1, which read | |, which = +.) Here’s the thing- I was kind of getting used to having COVID. I was getting used to never leaving the house and barely even leaving my room. I was especially getting used to not having to go to work.

One year ago, from the very beginning of April to the last week in June, I took what was initially supposed to be one month off, which spiraled into almost three-- working on my project, my 9-and-a-half-hour-long YouTube project. (urgh and it’s doing a double en dash instead of a single em dash)

Initially the plan was to work on that project last Tuesday, from even before I would turn out spending the day in quarantine: it’s a vlog of 2 January, and so last year for a chunk there the idea was that it would come out 2 January, albeit a few years on. The idea before that had been 4 May, and that’s the idea again, but the current draft is labeled the 2 January draft- so, you figure, January 2nd would be an excellent time to finish a draft labeled January 2nd. But.

all- of- my- notes

whichI’dbeengoingtocompile

in the, it’s fine it’s fine, draft,

all my notes that I’d taken over no less than three separate occasions last year watching through the entire almost-10-hour-video and taking notes, those notes are in my personal planner: which, thing number c.) because I also talked about it in my WordPress blog, it’s all in my personal planner for last year, and said planner is ???, might as well be at the bottom of the sea, lost it somewhere a few weeks ago and I’m at a total loss as to where.

So I couldn’t actually work on the draft on the day I’d been planning on it. And for an entire week, a little over, I couldn’t even put in any editing work in the places I knew were already working but could just use some footage going on in the background, because it was like, nooo, it needs to be done in the correct order. In my brain.

So last week I spent watching... (...grabbing my personal planner for this year and looking through it) westerns, and Real Steel, and the Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3 director’s commentary, and a double feature of Titanic and Birdman of all things, and rewatching Jurassic Park and Glass Onion. And a bunch of Lindsay Ellis videos. And reading a bunch too. But no working on my project! Except for to, mask up occasionally and upend a bunch of furniture in search of my dang At-A-Glance!

But halfway into this week I could finally start working on my project again, At-A-Glance or no. Did that for a full day, only pausing to film for a different project while the lighting was good, and to catch the latest Folding Ideas video which had come out within the past 24 hours. Mostly working on my project though. Editing, but also making the adjustments to the script that I remembered at least needed to be made. That was Thursday. And yesterday...

Yesterday I took a break for, not the entire day but it felt like it was going to be.

Tim Rogers’ Action Button Reviews is a YouTube series I take great inspiration from whether I want to or not, where he talks ostensibly about video games but really about everything; the shortest episode is over three hours long, and he bleeds for that time, through each and every video. He’s on season two right now, but the finale of season one is a multi-part choose-your-own-adventure playlist where he talks about Cyberpunk 2077: a game pretty good for something made entirely of problems. There are eight parts to the review: an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion; the idea is that you open, choose two of the internal six chapters to watch, before reaching the conclusion. (If you watch all eight chapters the whole thing is even longer than my own 9-hour-twentysomething-minute video, but that’s proscribed. And so instead you watch through it three times, which takes a little over four hours longer.) I’d already watched through it twice before, and so yesterday I began (and today I finished) the path where I could sweep up the final two chapters I had not yet gotten to. I’d forgotten how much Tim Rogers bleeds for that time.

I also watched a Lindsay Ellis livestream she did with a bunch of her YouTube cocreators (her cocreators! thing number d.)), on Nebula (though it is on YouTube, just unlisted (you can get to it through a playlist though.)) It’s about persona, the identity these creators, semi-public figures, craft to present themselves as on the internet. It was also pretty raw, and contextualized a lot of stuff I hadn't even realized lacked context beforehand.

So there was, time, for introspection on a lot of stuff, why exactly (for the millionth time it feels like sometimes) I feel like this video needs to exist in the world, why I need to make video at all. Last night I dreamt I was starting up a new channel, and had a good workflow and a solid first video guaranteed to be a hit and generate a lot of views (maybe even some ad revenue.) And I’d just started, but I felt like I could reliably put out one video every two weeks- and my agent (?) was thus all, great, you’re going to need to do two videos every one week. And I had my passion project video which it would take two weeks to do, but I had one day before I needed to put out a new video, and no matter what I decided to do it was a compromise, and I was waking up on a morning where I would need to do an entire video from conception to publication in one day.

But I actually did do work on the video yesterday.

Five sections, not counting interludes, each section taking place in four segments, that's twenty segments in total. Of those twenty, I have one that’s basically finished (just need to shoot a five-second bit of footage) and one that’s let’s say half-finished (there’s a text I quote extensively from and I need to make it visually interesting somehow, but the rest of the segment is 100% done.) I’ll plug in an hour’s worth of work and I’ll wind up with twenty seconds of footage in the background, of a nine-hour video: but those are some handsome twenty seconds.

All this is to say, in between the introspection and the editing and the fact that I’m used to not having to go into work, and the fact that Tim Rogers did seventeen consecutive 20-hour workdays in a row to edit the masterpiece that is his 5:56:26 Tokimeki Memorial video (bleeds)(I'm not sure of course how comparable it is putting together video game footage and putting together movie footage)* and that I want some bleedtime before the May 4th deadline, and also I’ll have Fiddler rehearsals again for the next two months... I really really want to do that again, just for this month, taking time off of work so that I can work on the video. 

But also I’m afraid it’s just going to look like I’m chickening out of working outside because of the weather.

*To compound the question of how relevant this is, but to explain the relevance at all: by the time I reached the end of June being off of work for those three months, my editing pace was sluggish. I felt uninspired, felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, and was working on the project less time per day than I worked while I was still holding down a steady job. There was no reason anymore to miss out on my job, which I genuinely love. Now, however, I’m feeling genuinely inspired to edit again. But sometimes there’s a (visual) metaphor you can achieve using video game footage that you shot, that you just can’t achieve with footage from the movie you’re talking about.