I'm reading a Japanese comic done in color. It stars an Olympic runner, world-famous now, but the story's set in her teens, when she was still unknown. In high school she was already a fanatical athlete, but her parents and teachers and classmates disapproved--thought she was unbalanced, unfeminine. So she was pretty much a loner.

Sketchy, woodcut-like pictures show her running in a storm, in sneakers and a one-piece swimsuit. Lavender, turquoise and leaf-green, it blends with the rain and makes her seem like part of the downpour, nearly invisible except for her dark hair--a pastel streak lost in the pale rain.

But even then, she wasn't just pushing athletic limits, or the social limits for a Japanese girl. On each run, up in the woods, she went deep into that runner's trance, and like a shaman high on drumming, she started seeing things other people couldn't. Strange beings appeared around her, skimming and swimming through the air alongside. She talked to them, and made friends. She got no support from human beings in her school, so she started assembling her support team from the spooks she meets! The one I recall most vividly was a translucent dolphin who speaks slangy Japanese and swims in the air as easily as water...

As isolated as she is, she may not even realize most people are blind and deaf to her friends! Does she even know what they are? What she is?

I want to meet this runner! I'd like to date her. She's as weird as me. How sexy! and... a girlfriend like her might be the seed of a new circle of friends who'd support me in my weirdness, too.

So what if some of them are spirits?

NOTES NEXT MORNING

Last night I saw the first half of Carrie on TV. High-school pariah Carrie learns telekinesis, heading for apocalypse... no surprises there. But there are unexpected scenes with her classmate Chris (rivetingly sexy, AND she shares my name--I both identify with her and long to date her): Chris defies a sadistic coach, all alone--none of the other girls will back her up. Carrie's not the only excluded, abused kid! She's just the only one with suicidal firepower.

I also saw A Midsummer Night's Dream. Maybe this is Helena, running around the woods! But Helena's blind to the fairies around her, toying with her life ("what fools these mortals be!")

In contrast, the Japanese runner in my dream had seeing eyes--she made friends with the spirit world Carrie could only use as a weapon and Helena never even saw. But by befriending her spooks, Runner Girl found her porpoise in life!

ACTION #1: I just had a small shoulder operation, but my dreams want me to resume exercise SOON. Gym, running, biking--sports won't keep me from the spirit world at all. Quite the opposite! Exercise helps!
ACTION #2: Seek your life-porpoise! So what if no one else sees it? They miss everything that matters.
ACTION #3: Date cute weirdos. They're not all Carrie! Remember Chris.

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