THAT DAY

A day full of dreamwork. Type up and edit a long wild dream, Aroo's Engineers... switch to art. Color some illustrations for the epic dream Fishergirls.

To relax, I watch two episodes of the anime series Cowboy Bebop. Weak ones. Visually inventive, but no plot and shallow characterization. Switch back to the anime series Vision of Escaflowne. I like that better--it builds...

THAT NIGHT

I'm a puma with a night job--playing the cello in the San Francisco Symphony. I can be fierce, protecting my beloved instrument from thieves and vandals, but otherwise I'm gentle and rather playful. Physically I'm rather delicate--probably not a native California cougar but at least partly that gracile, endangered subspecies, the Florida panther. Aside from my opposable thumbs, I'm far more cat than man. It suits the job; most musicians struggle to adapt to a nocturnal career, but for me night is like day.

Here--I don't have any canvas handy, but I'll paint myself on this old cutting board.

But I have a day job too: and it's very different. The day is my dreamtime, when pumas sleep--so for me this is like moonlighting, a secret life, under your exotic, mysterious sun. By day, then, I'm a member of The Architectives. Me and my sister Miriel (who's human, not puma) have banded together with the Lee sisters, Ariane, Crista, Lorca and Juana (our childhood friends, now grown up, gorgeous and wild). We go through condemned buildings and retrieve architectural treasures just before the wrecking ball. We also get hired to pry out hidden things in houses--we know all the builder's tricks.

Today we're in the Mer or Mar Building, a lovely asymmetrical futuristic tower, its interior all blond wood custom-cut in swooping shapes. Not a right angle in the place! It sings like a modern music piece. But seismically, it's hopeless, and this is San Francisco--towers here need to withstand real shocks.

So the Mer is due to be torn down later today. The building has a funny history: it was once an alien embassy. A whimsical, technically advanced species, they stripped the structure of most obvious high tech when they left so the monkeys wouldn't play with fire... but we've discovered hints they left the nerve-center hidden somewhere in the walls. Tech treasure!

I try to think how to turn this into flirtation, but I can't really. We're racing to find the Treasure before a rival group does--a group of conservative lawyers and bankers. They huddle in the lobby round the realtor who let both our groups in, grilling him for clues; but we did all our research beforehand, knowing time would be short. We suspect the Treasure is hidden in the kitchen--partly because we arrived before the bankers, and searched the bedrooms thoroughly. But it also fits the alien's style; they were gourmets and everyone cooked, it was like literacy to them. So we tear apart the kitchen shamelessly--even pry up the crescent-moon counters. A shame to ruin such a beautiful place--all spirals eggs and sweeping circles of hardwood. But it's all doomed anyway, so we pry open gleefully. A rare privilege, guilt-free destruction!

But we still can't find it. Grr!

The dream ends unresolved. Frustrating on two different levels. I was happy and fulfilled by my feline life--classical music and refinement at night, smashing rooms with sexy babes by day. Double-barreled fun... but not love. And I want to love and be loved. Though I may look handsome to the occasional fur fancier, I'm still not human; most girls don't want a hairy, solitary, sharp-clawed beast of a lover. I've always had a crush on my Architective partners, every one, even my sister (we Florida panthers can't afford an incest taboo--we're so rare it was inbreed or die). You'd want them too--they're so wild and beautiful! But they just don't think of me that way. A mere mascot--a cat.

• I'm a mere cat to them= Merle, the cat-girl in ESCAFLOWNE who Prince Van treats like a kid sister--or a pet. She's clearly in love with him, and is jealous of Hitomi, who has double advantages: she's older and human.
• Cello = a cellist wooed my old housemate Linda. Brought it over to serenade her. I felt jealous, since I had a crush on Linda. I felt I couldn't compete. Again, jealousy... [but see "Cello" note below, added five years later!]
• The name Mar or Mer = 1: Mar: In ESCAFLOWNE, two princesses who love Allen both have names like this, Marielle and Marlena I think. Much too similar, suggesting the younger one got treated like an extension of her big sister. 2: Mer = Merle, the catgirl who felt she couldn't compete in love. I truly doubt I can compete sexually--no one I want ever seems interested.
• Beautiful shapes we tear apart= the dream I'm cartooning, Thief Of Dreams... and all the Art Nouveau castles in ESCAFLOWNE.
• Bankers= in ESCAFLOWNE, a rich trader turns out to be a decent guy. So do I misjudge our banker-rivals, am I just biased?
• Hidden treasure = 1: In ESCAFLOWNE, Marielle finds her late sister Marlene's diary in a secret drawer. Discovers she had a lover and her son's probably illegitimate. 2: In ESCAFLOWNE, the whole war's about ancient, hi-tech treasure promising a huge new energy source--but it destroyed the previous civilization in a war. So maybe it's GOOD that we don't find the treasure in the Mer Building! Maybe, despite its beauty, everything in the Mer structure is unsound--and needs to go. For a house built on insecurity cannot stand.

A SECOND DREAM THAT NIGHT

That night I also dreamt my sister Miriel came over and told me a vivid dream. But... I'd just dreamt the same dream! Parallel dreams, psychic spillover! Though it wasn't clear if one of us was passively picking up the other's dream, or if we were dreaming one shared dream. But as she told me her dream (in my dream! Are we keeping our levels clear, here?)... as we talk, I feel mysteriously exhausted, and start drooping until I'm draped over a chair. I even feel a bit nauseous--rare for me! Triggered by the dream-telepathy? No. By acknowledging it. Before she told me HER dream, I didn't feel sick at all! Only when I knew she'd shared my dream did I feel faint!

And then I woke to find my sister's dream-account, the telepathy, my illness, the dream-research, all had been itself a dream.

DREAM NOTE

• ESP's a shock: In VISION OF ESCAFLOWNE, Hitomi's visions stress her terribly; she often faints. For her it wasn't the act of seeing but the frightful content; and the fact that seeing ahead gives her terrible responsibility. Yet Hitomi told Prince Chido "You do get what you wish for: just wishing it makes you focus on it, practice, work toward it. If you don't wish, you can't receive." This made me uncomfortable, since my instinct is to avoid wishing! Afraid I'll get my wish and be unable to handle it... As in the Mer Building, maybe the treasure's best left hidden. Only it wasn't really, in that dream: I learned the secret. I wanted love, not just art and playing and demolition. And that truth upset me.

FIVE YEARS LATER

• Ariane = I tend to see her only as sweet and sexy, but she also means ESP--for good reason. She was extremely psychic--outscored us all when we guessed the marks on Rhine cards as kids. I had forgotten this, though; my sister Althea reminded me of it years later, but I forgot AGAIN--until I talked with Ariane at my dad's memorial.
• Cello= At the time, I'd forgotten an equally surreal dream of playing a viola a few weeks back--where it meant persevering, learning self-care, following my desires for play, sex, rest, and music--while ignoring all critics.
• Now I think my night and day jobs were meant to contrast calm grounding with "fun" shadowed by longing--and point out that for all its action and vigor, demolition with the Architectives wasn't right for me. It might be, with love. But they were only fun-loving, and I needed just plain love. Maybe you do too.

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