wow. WOW.

so, i was telling someone about the dream i just told you, in the last post, and i remembered another dream i had last night.

i have a tendency to re-dream locations. like my grandma's house in wichita falls. the dream-grandma's-house bears almost no resemblence to the real one, but it's always the same every time i dream it. it's so consistent i could draw you a floorplan.

the cafe terrazzo from the preceding post's dream? i've been there before too, i dreamed i was having lunch with lucifer, and he was reading the paper, looking at movie listings, but we couldn't decide which matinee to go see. btw, in my dreams, lucifer has REALLY bad taste in films.

ANYWAY. one of the places i tend to re-dream is a city. a very cool city. within this cool city, there is a very cool neighborhood, all the architecture is french and italian influenced, with fountains and bakeries everywhere. within the very cool neighborhood is a very, very, very cool building, and in previous dreams i've had, i've passed the building, or flown over it, or visited someone across the street from it, and i've always thought to myself, i would love to live there. what a great building that must be to live in.

last night, i dreamed that the apartment on the top floor of the building was for rent. don't ask me how i know this, but that apartment is huge, and has big french doors that open onto a roof patio, and huge windows where you can see the whole city laid out before you. the top floor apartment, the best apartment in the best building in the best neighborhood of the best dream city, was for rent, and i was filling out an application.

THAT was a good dream.

last night i had a dream that i was approached by ishtar, isis, and odin. they took me out to lunch and we sat on the terrazzo. isis was smoking a cigarette wtih a long, audrey hepburn-type studded cigarette holder and odin kept slamming his fist down on the table demanding more mead. eventually they quit stalling and got around to why we were there, and told me they wanted to hire me for a contract killing.

i took a sip from my cappuccino and asked who they wanted rubbed out. as it turned out, jesus had gone completely powermad and was killing other gods and goddesses right and left. "he must be stopped," said ishtar, "and we think you're the one to do it." i gnawed on my biscotti thoughtfully. the three of them seemed really nice, and i wanted to help them out, but i really wasn't sure that i was capable of deicide, and i was about to tell them that when my alarm went off and i woke up.

anyone who's offended by that, remember, i can't help what i dream. my subconscious is completely beyond my control, and no amount of groundings or discipline has kept it from acting out.

in completely non sequitur news, here are some photos of the feline population in my household, which recently doubled in size:

once upon a time, when i was living in st louis, and i still had a car, and hated my job very much, i used to have a Contingency Dufflebag in the trunk at all times. in the duffle was a few changes of clothes, some crackers and chips, bottled water, toothbrush and toothpaste, travel thing of shampoo, and about $100 in cash. it was there for the day that i finally snapped, left the office for lunch, and just kept driving, abandoning my job, apartment, and favorite local taverns. in retrospect, $100 wouldn't get you very far, especially with gas prices these days.

i don't have the Contingency Duffle any more, but now that we're on the subject, i figured that if i ever had to use the Contingency Duffle, i'd have to change my name at some point, because when i ended up in baja california running a little cantina on the beach, the regulars would need to have a name to call me by. unfortunately, my first choice of name change was HRH Princess Awesome Q. Dangerpants, and most people would probably figure that was a pseudonym, or at least want to see some sort of documentation that i was actually royalty.

writing this now i realize that i don't currently have an escape plan. should i have an escape plan? is NOT having an escape plan a sign of maturity and stability? or is it a sign of settling and lameness? and what are you changing your name to when you finally snap and decide to disappear?

you want a preview of the comic i'm working on now? your lips say no, but your eyes say YES YES YES!

little bitsy xmas list, for any family members who might be stumped about things i could use this year:

books like this one,
books from these guys or these guys,
this pen!!!! please please please!!!
a renewed subscription to this,
a new printer,
a bike, and
a book of winsor mckay's little nemo in slumberland strips.

and if anyone has lots and lots of money that they're looking to give to a noble cause, i wouldn't mind a gocco.

that's all. :)

andrew sullivan is fast becoming my favorite political writer. which is counterintuitive, coz he's a conservative. but he's a very smart conservative, and even when i disagree with his views i can respect them. check out this column he wrote about the red state/blue state split, marriage and morality. it's intelligent, enlightened, and eye-opening.

YAY. oh what a marvellous pick-me-up on an inordinately crappy day. BEHOLD the drafting set i have just acquired. it is antique and beautiful and german for some reason:



this makes up for the general nastiness of the weather and the evilness of unnecessarily complicated projects at work. i can't wait to get home and draw something with it. :)

i know no one's prolly interested, but here are a few random things that have me utterly outraged this week:

the FBI has apparently been intimidating and compiling files on peaceful organizations, including anti war groups, animal rights groups, and wtf? THE QUAKERS??

michigan, in response to the voter referendum on gay marriage, is now RESCINDING benefits for same-sex partners of their civil servants. so, you know, not only can you not get married like everyone else, we're gonna take away all the other rights that you had before this.

this jackass in alabama has introduced a law to ban and destroy ANY BOOK that has a gay character in it. in his own words, "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them."

turns out, omg, THEY DID KNOW about abu graib months and months before the photos hit the press, and just let the abuse keep happening. CHARMING. "Herrington wrote that an officer in charge of interrogations at a high-value target detention facility in Baghdad told him that prisoners taken by TF 121 showed signs of having been beaten. Herrington asked the officer whether he had alerted his superiors to the problem, and the officer replied: "Everyone knows about it."

and then there's this little gem from the washington post. for those of you that don't want to register, here's some tasty little extracts:

Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says
By Ceci Connolly

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
...
Youngsters taking the courses frequently receive medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.

Several million children ages 9 to 18 have participated in the more than 100 federal abstinence programs since the efforts began in 1999. Waxman's staff reviewed the 13 most commonly used curricula -- those used by at least five programs apiece.

The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins.

Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:
- A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
- HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
- Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.

One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.
...
When used properly and consistently, condoms fail to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) less than 3 percent of the time, federal researchers say, and it is not known how many gay teenagers are HIV-positive. The assertion regarding gay teenagers may be a misinterpretation of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found that 59 percent of HIV-infected males ages 13 to 19 contracted the virus through homosexual relations.
...
(oh, and this is my favorite part)

Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support." One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."


i swear to god, this makes me want to drop everything and start a riot grrrl punk band. DAMMIT AMERICA, i am SO TIRED of being ANGRY all the damn time. STOP MAKING ME ANGRY. you wouldn't LIKE me when i'm angry. JAKZE SMASH! JAKZE CRUSH!