NOTES 19 YEARS LATER

Page 1

The divided city: Beirut in the dream, but it stood for any hopelessly factionalized society--such as my middle school, where I was shunned hit and spat on for being a minority of one. Yes, I'm quoting Orwell.

Page 2

The stolen sun, frozen Earth, a pail of air: images from Fritz Leiber's classic SF story "A Pail of Air", which made a big impression on me as a kid.

"Now, go": the Wizard of Oz (turned suddenly sinister) to Judy Garland.

Page 3

I'm a black-maned horse: My dream-friend Silky often appears as a black mare. My equinity here hints I'm getting a Silky's-eye-view, my dreams' viewpoint.

Dig up and smelt gold with my clumsy hooves: a decade of hard dreamwork

My slave-boss eats the gold: for that decade I compulsively saved so I could quit my job and be an artist; I harshly restricted spending.

Devil mask: from the cover of C.S. Lewis's That Perilous Strength, an unpleasant book about scientists, demons, and academics (all one species, if you ask C.S.)

Page 4

Cat girl: now this is Silky! The generous-hearted side of me open to strange situations.

shying away: I often still do.

Page 5

"The Shadow is 90% pure gold": from Ann Faraday's The Dream Game, on Jung's concept of the Shadow, all we dread and deny about ourselves.

Attacks: I had recurring flulike attacks I now think were undiagnosed Lyme disease. The illness isolated me.

Page 6

Paradox of the chessboard: still mysterious. But the stress of forcing myself to be social, to try and date, when I was so ill, did trigger attacks. I got better when I indulged my solitary side.

Page 7

Gumball machine full of sea life: I just saw an episode of "Cosby" in which a shopowner falsely testified he saw Bill Cosby smash open a gumball machine.

Tidepool critters: they endure dehydration, and my life was dry indeed. No booze, sex, dancing, fun--everything made me sick.

Page 8

The bubble on the beach: I was starting to control my illness and come out of my shell, but I had narrow survival habits to unlearn.

Page 9

"Therapists may say": A dozen shrinks told me I must secretly want to be poor, single and sick. I half-believed them. This nightmare urged me to dump such beliefs--and jerks. I did. Found a 13th shrink who helped me deduce the physical cause. Now I can block the attacks with herbs & antibiotics. Psychosomatic, huh?

"Born cry work die buy buy": a hexapaul, my variant of the pentapaul (a terse verseform) quoted in Cordwainer Smith's tale Under Old Earth:

Try. Vie.
Cry. Die.
       Bye.

This comic was drawn with a mouse on an old Amiga computer with just 8 colors per page. Bronze Age digitality! As opposed to, say, watercolor.

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