Awake

Woke at 5:15 from a strange dream, waiting now for hot chocolate to cook. I left my working glasses in the office last night, so forgive the typoes.

I was in SL, talking about unhappiness with Beta (from the wedding party). I decided to visit them at their RL home, which was not suburban Milwaukee but a cottage rear the river Thames in the village where AH lived. Beta was in the garden, sitting under trees at the end of an ancient, crumbling red-brick wall (not sure where Noctis was in the logic of the dream). We talked for a while there, then the scene changed and we were walking down curving streets of north London, near Highgate Cemetery, talking about a book that zie had written; then we were back indoors and zie showed me hir latest rejection letter: a YouTube-type video by e-mail from a school principal. I replied that it was wonderful that zie had written a book at all, and not to be worried about rejections. I told Beta about my father and the realities of the publishing business, and somehow the dream changed to farming! I was a self-aware cow, walking around a farm talking to other animals and looking at the new barn being built to replace one that had blown down in a storm. The place where it had stood was occupied by the house my favourite cousin grew up in, which was now painted yellow and in use as a Portuguese restaurant (yes, in the midst of the farm); by this point I was in my human body again. The owner was possibly a disguised AH since there was a dog that held my hand tightly and pulled on it to get me to play, and the other people (guests?) reminded me of his friends after Pat died.

Speaking of books, I am 200 pages into my second reading of Infinite Jest, and am both appalled and amused to realize how much I missed the first time. IJ really does need to be read twice, at least, to understand it. The thing is full of clues and hints about what is going on, but these can only be recognized as such by someone who already knows the story. Fascinating. I'm enjoying it even more this time around. Highly recommended to patient readers with a lot of time on their hands.