THAT DAY

Finish Sun And Moon, Ice And Snow by Jessica Day George. A stubborn girl wins her polar-bear lover.

Start a much raspier book--Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez. Reminds me of the cheerfully amoral cyberpunk of Rudy Rucker. Monsters come out of the closet. But there are degrees of monstrosity. Some you can work with, some you can't...

Around sundown I bike over to the Red Victorian, a peace center in the Haight-Ashbury, where my friend Hallie leads a vocal improv group. Starts out just us, but eventually grows to five or six. Fun, though Hallie worries I push people too fast. I think she misses cues when people have had enough prep-talk and are ready to sing. But then we're both so nerdy I'd call us both borderline Asperger cases. So I'm not claiming superior people-sense--just less awful people-sense.

THAT NIGHT...

I'm at a dogshow--but as with human pageants, It ain't just looks today, or clever agents-- you better have superlative stage-presence! And dogs go on alone to shine; rejoin their pet humans only in the wings. Not only dogs. In the waiting room Wolves groom. A puma sprawls atop her tiger mate. Their auras fuse and seem a stripéd sphinx. Affection's glow. Not what my guide led me here to show! His pet theory: "Humans tame carnivores alone 'cause we're hunter-killers--Predatory Man!" Oh? We've tamed a hundred breeds: canary camel elephant, parrot seal geese, carp cow cat, mynah horse. Ooh, so fierce! But now my carnivore-agenda guide rants on the latest news: that alien who just flew in from Titan. Mammalian, otterlike, just a yard long nose to tail, with a cream pelt and polka-crescents: red green and blue, like a curbside snow where Pollock dabbled in fluorescents. The ermine's best-known quote so far: "Earthlings are so friendly!" Blind to our butchery, or does she calm and charm humanity so much that she hasn't yet seen our ferocity?

But my exobiologist guide is sure "the Titanide's anger-blind, her mind incomprehensible. Her moon drove down a weird evolution-fork in that haze. Those ethane seas are few and small; wide dry plains, no hunter-cover! The otter may be alert for other threats than a Terran hunt and pounce. Earthlings, beware! The Titanide may be a monster with alien ways to prey." I doubt his doubt. Our earth abounds in desert and savanna, open grounds where (if you keep an eye on the lions) prey has the edge, and mostly wins. How's Titan differ? Its native critters may need no hair-trigger rabbit jitters! Maybe she skunk-sprays gasoline, or shocks like an eel. Or is elephantine Back home on Kalseru River Plain. Or is lovability the best defense? Whether omni, carn, or herbivore, she speaks of us as potential friends. Besides, I find the Titanide's otter-dance delightful-- nerdy, yes, but curious and playful. In contrast, my exobiology guide marches paranoid-stiff; a guy to shun! Trust your otter. She's more fun.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Friendly wolves: 1: Rollo the wolf in Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow. 2: in Chasing the Moon, Sharon the werewolf's friendly but still makes Diana nervous
• Suspicious theorist: thanks to years of bashing in middle and high school, I still have a suspicious streak. Dangerously good at justifying its paranoia too.
• Otter-quickness, otter-play, but nerdy and trustful: giftedness? I was labeled a child prodigy... it's why they bashed me.
• Playful nerd with bright colors on a cream pelt: Today at the vocal improv group I wore splattered offwhite painter's pants. So is the otter how I seem to others?
• Elephantine on Kalseru River Plain: a big river channel in Titan's southern hemisphere, draining into the equatorial seabasins. It may currently be dry. The dreamer's hinting Titanian life runs small, so the otter's too big for most predators. Our giraffes and whales aren't too agressive; they don't need to be.
• The alien's body language: I trusted my sense of others at vocal improv more than I trusted Hallie's. I think of myself as inept with people. But there are degrees; and senses can be trained. Maybe I've progressed more than I realize.
• Otter from the outer Solar System: years ago I dreamed I was on Pluto. I met a beautiful snow-ermine person, cream streaked with fluorescent blue.
• ACTION: Trust people more. At least trust my own sense of people, and don't defer to others. Like Hallie. Or my inner misanthrope.

NEARLY A YEAR LATER (2013/2/9)

I was skimming last year's journal and came across "Otter Nerd from Titan." I wonder if the otter was really me.

THAT NIGHT: OTTERY TOO

A friend of mine here in San Francisco had some medical testing, and got a shock: he looks quite human, but he turns out to really be a gene-modified (and surgically disguised?) giant Amazonian otter! He doesn't know who did it or why, doesn't remember being an otter... yet the DNA evidence is incontrovertible. It's even possible he was female before the gengineering (and operations)? that made him, well, him.

He always seemed human to me. A bit kooky, yeah--it's why I liked him. Yet once I know his history, I see he'd make a perfectly plausible otter too. It sure proves emotions and character are readable across species as well as gender.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Meaning confirmed! The streaked Titanian is me. The real me. Oh, my inner misanthrope is me too--but me beaten outa shape!
• ACTION: put Otter Nerd in the World Dream Bank--she wants to be there. But include this follow-up too. Dreamworkers need to know you really can ask for clarification and get plain answers. Freud (and even Jung) write as if dreamwork's a jungle needing an expert--some Great White Labcoat Hunter with an intellectual elephant gun. Nah! Trust your otter. She's more fun.

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