Hmmm, I'm thinking of illustrating my dreams and adding a somewhat sporadic Sunday update to my webcomic (depending upon time between work and the other two comics). While I prefer to do color strips, this new comic would have to be (mostly) black and white simply to ensure I have the time to do it. This is ironic since I've always dreamed in color. Oh well.

But what to call it... I considered Dreamquest of Unknown Candace, but I thought, Naaaaaaaaw, way too cheesey. heh Well, even if I am unknown.  

Anyone got any ideas? How 'bout A Cry in the Dark? Reality's Revolving Door? The Subconscious Story? Lurker on the Threshhold of Sleep?  Or not. You guys tell me if you got any good ideas.

So how many of you are dreamers? I've not met many who dream as much as I do. They say everyone dreams, but not everyone remembers. My dreaming kicked into turbo when I was about 11. I know I dreamed before that, but I don't remember any of the dreams before then. Maybe they just didn't make any sense before that. It's easier to recall a dream that has some kind of progression or follows some unifying theme.

The first dream I really remember happened after I had seen the movie Poltergeist for the first time. I didn't think it was particularly scary (aside from the carnivorous tree) and the crawling porkchop was just gross. But I had a fever that night, and then I dreamed there was a ghostly knight in the livingroom, throwing the furniture around. It threw the tv at my sister's head and killed her. After that I dreamed nothing but nightmares for several years. Most of my dreams are still technically nightmares, but since I enjoy scary movies, I guess the majority don't scare me too much. And the ones that aren't nightmares are just plain odd.

BTW, everytime I take a Lovecraftian quiz I end up being

Nyarlathotep! The 999 forms of Nyarlathotep are a point of meditation for the true initiate. It is through these manifold faces that the secrets of the universe are made known. Called "The Crawling Chaos", Nyarlathotep is the disembodied ego of Azathoth and thus the universal "I" of known reality. Some of the many documented forms are; Father of Knives, Nephren-Ka, the Black Man, the Beast of the Lashing Tongue to name a few.

What do you think it means? heh

I dreamed last night I was sucked into this medieval world where these blue to gray skinned people kept slaves of everyone else. They took me to this awful place and some dull grayish lady in drab Victorian-esque garb checked my teeth!

Then I was in a long line of slaves heading somewhere. This guy kind of adopted me and looked out for me so no one else would mess with me when we slept. He didn't take advantage, which was nice. We weren't chained or anything, but everyone stayed together, even though I'm pretty sure some of us were meant to be sacrificed and we knew it. The area was a wasteland, so I guess there was really nowhere to go anyway.

My new friend was some kind of prince/leader, and he was planning a rebellion but had been caught. So I'm pretty sure he was definitely going to be sacrificed. But he was determined to finish his plans, and he let me help though I didn't tell him I was from another world. I'm not sure how he meant to get the plans out either.

We were finishing the plans when one of the blue-skinned slavers came up behind me. I ignored him and put the plans in a manilla envelope. When he demanded that I hand the envelope over to him, I handed it to the prince instead. When the slaver reached over to take it from him, I jabbed him in the gut with my elbow and it killed him!

Everything was pandemonium then, slaves running about as if killing one of the slavers had been a catalyst for freedom. The Prince grabbed some other girl by the hand and took off (grrr, jealousy! grrrr) We all raced over a hill and came upon an ancient forest. No one was going in though because someone said the forest hated people and would kill them. I went in without hesitation because I love trees, and I didn't think the forest would hurt someone who loved it.

So quite a few people followed me in though we got separated. I put my hand on a tree and it wasn't like trees here. The trees were very angry and didn't like people at all, not like our trees which are for the most part very laid back and complacent. But I won them over and they decided not to hurt any of us and perhaps keep the slavers out too. (Apparently they could move about though I didn't see them actually do this.) Just so long as no one hurt any trees or lit any fires.

Apparently more of this world was bleeding over to that one because a little farther into the forest there were up and down escalators and bits of a shopping mall that had materialized. So a lot of people had ridden the escalators down into the mall which had three stories and only one guy was standing at the top to tell me where everyone else had gone.

I got very upset and told him to stay out of the mall and to keep everyone else out too. I was afraid they'd just get into more trouble if they met any of my people in the mall. But apparently the mall was empty (must of bled over after hours) and I told the Prince as he came up an escalator with a group of people (and the girl, grrrr) that the woods had told me we could stay provided we didn't do any harm and I told him where I was from. It did worry me that the escalators were working though because how could they if only parts of the mall were there. Made me think maybe the problem would get worse.

***

You know, I have a marked paranoia when it comes to thoughts of humanity mixing with other beings. I don't fear for us... I fear for what we might do to them. I think despite the strides we've made in acceptance, we are still an intrinsically xenophobic people. It's always us against them. S'probably why the aliens haven't made any overt attempts at meeting us. Though what they must think of us based on the people they "abduct" I shudder to think.

Wow, I don't believe I stayed offline till nightfall. Of course, I knew I'd be on eventually. I can't go a day without reading my comics and Xanga, and you can't imagine the glut of email I would face if I didn't signon at least once.

What do I do when I have the first whole Saturday off in three months? Why catch up on sleep of course. Gah, I'm getting old. Scary. Or not. It's not like they have any Good Saturday morning cartoons any more. Gone are the days when I would even tape a couple hours to watch when I got home from work. Today's cartoons are so blatantly commercials produced in an effort to sell merchandise, it's not even funny. It's like they don't even pretend to be entertainment any more. What do you want to bet they come out with a Middle Earth themed cartoon in a year or so?

I complained about not having dreams lately and so I get three in two days. Last night I had some creature features, that's for sure.

The second involved an alien which was terrorizing a highrise. It looked like a brain in a jar with a saucer shaped body and spidery robotic limbs. It fed on the light from lightbulbs and demanded daily tribute or it would kill people. Everyone (about half dozen people I didn't know) was barracaded behind the furniture and I suggested the added protection of a sheet over the furniture. (Cause you know a furniture fort isn't complete without a blanket over top.)

The alien came for its tribute, and I poked one of those long floor lamps at it. You could see the light grow dimmer as it neared the robo-space monster. Then I got the bright idea that if I swung the lamp at the alien, I could smash the bulb before the alien could drain the electricity and electrocute it. Well, that didn't work, and the alien got pi$$ed, turning red and jittery.

Thinking fast, I picked up a cushy chair and mashed the alien in its saucer, but the damage started to undo itself and I could tell it was only a matter of time before the alien rose again. I ran over and stomped it to bits, then kicked it off the balcony.

Everyone was angry of course, cause we all knew it would be back. So we climbed from one balcony to another until we finally reached one balcony where a giant suitcase with a ragged whole in the side sat. Well, for some reason we knew this to be a superhero's escape tunnel, reasoning that superheroes are rich and can do pretty much whatever they like. We all started crawling through the hole though I had to make it just a bit bigger for some of the people.

I remembered the first dream this morning... but now I've forgotten everything but some reference to a donkey on roller skates... Maybe I'll remember it later. I'd forgotten the second till we went food shopping earlier and hairbands jogged my memory. Don't ask me how cause I have no idea. They just did.

I had an odd dream last night. Most of my dreams lately have been of the mushy sort, dim and faded like old movies with hardly any cohesion. The one last night at least had some story to it. I was trying to make a poem about Cthulu and some Old One named Barry. Heh, yeah sure, Barry the Old One, haven't you heard of him? lol My subconscious is demented.

Anyway, I was using chalk to write the poem on the tarmac of an alley. It consisted of three couplets, but darned if I remember anything but who it was about. The alley reminded me of an alley I used to shortcut through when I was nine or ten and lived in Catasauqua. Of course, in the dream I was the age I am now.

I was kind of supposed to be watching this boy, but I was too preoccupied with my rhyming to bother. He disappeared shortly before my mother and brother came down the alley looking for him. Even though the fences were high around people's yards (taller than me at 5'8"), my brother started walking down the alley, looking over the tops. (My brother is only about 5'3".)

I got the impression as he looked into each yard that he would soon find the boy's body and that it would be all mangled like groundchuck with bones sticking out (not that I was responsible for killing the kid... maybe it was Barry). But my brother passed the first then the second yard without finding anything, even though I was sure he would each time. I woke up as he looked over the top of the third.

*

In other news, I am 97.95% pure. I'm not surprised. Good thing I'm allergic to cats, or someone might be calling me the old spinster cat-lady somewhere down the road. If this had been an evil test, obviously the results might have been somewhat different. Hmmmm, I wonder... would that make me pure evil? lol

You are 97.95% pure
Average Score: 72.6%

Your Ultimate Purity Score Is...
Category	Your Score	Average
Self-Lovin'	90% Never taken out of the packaging	65%
Shamelessness	100%	79.4%
Sex Drive	100%	77.7%
Straightness	100%	44.9%
Gayness	100%	83.5%
Fucking Sick	100%	89.9%
Take The Ultimate Purity Test and see how you match up!

Ack, what a crappy New Year...

I renewed my car registration, got the envelope some time in December, and thought, oh well, I'll put it on when I clean up from all this holiday crap. I'm such a procrastinator -like aduh, I couldn't have put the sticker on the plate any number of the times I drove the car in December?

Guess what, I cleaned, and no envelope. Darned if I know what I did with the thing. So until I get to a notary and get them to send me another, the sticker on my plate will say 12-03 and so will my registration. Now I'm going to be paranoid of parking anywhere for fear I'll get a ticket when I come back to my car. Like I'm not just generally paranoid to begin with! You know what they say, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean no one's watching you! If I get a ticket, I'm going to sic Cthulu on their unsympathetic butts.  (gosh I love my Cthulu smilies, just makes me feel so much better, wish I could take him to work with me and stick him on things as easily as I stick him here.)

**

Thursday's Free Range Poetry poem was written by Michael McClintock who lives and writes in Los Angeles and South Pasadena, California. I have to say, it turned out very well. Of course, having such a lovely poem to work with makes illustrating so much easier. Michael's current book, just released, is The Tanka Anthology, edited by Michael McClintock, Pamela Miller Ness, and Jim Kacian, (Red Moon Press P.O. Box 2461, Winchester VA, 22604-1551), 2003. Hardback, $25.

***

I read an email someone sent to one of my favorite comics and was completely POed. OK, so the comic is not PC and is often crass, but you know, I've always been of the opinion that this is a free country and if someone is practicing the freedom of speech, I have the freedom to listen (or read) or not. If the criticism had even been constructive, I wouldn't have been upset. If it had been warranted, I certainly wouldn't have been upset. But the fact that the perpetrator of the heinous act of unsupportable whining was a Pagan made me completely disgusted (being a Pagan myself after all).

I wish Randy had left the email up on his site a bit longer so you could all see the stupidity of the dumba$$ who complained that he was bashing Wiccas with his comic. I hope he forwarded the consolatory email I sent him to the moron Pagan-pretender just so they know how completely stupid they are.

OK, I've been reading Something Positive for quite some time and I have never seen anything remotely like the emailer mentioned. Reminds me of the last time some moron emailed Randy because he used Cthulu in one of his strips. Gah, I thought it was completely on target for Cthulu's character. Like the Big Guy would care one wit about a furry argument. heh Man, that comic still gives me chuckles.

Anyway... I'm tired... poop. Lots of stuff to do tomorrow before work, including finding a notary to do something about my registration and sticker.  Why does everything have to be so complicated? If my car is registered once, why can't it stay registered until I sell it or junk it? Darn greedy DMV.