A Color I Don't Know How to Describe
Dec. 5th, 2022 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraDreamed that RTT was a truculent teenager again. Which meant that we were living in Ithaca again—although it wasn’t any Ithaca that I was familiar with, being a long avenue leading down to a freeway, a lot like University Avenue in Berkeley, in fact, although it was under an elevated subway.
I picked two lilies from a traffic island in the middle of the avenue and brought them home with me.
As usual in my dreams, we were living in some kind of complicated group housing situation. Rik lived there, too, and a bunch of dogs and cats.
Two women showed up. Vaguely oriental features. One of the women began talking about how two flowers were missing from her garden—
Yes, I said. I picked them. Do you need me to make reparations? If you like, I will buy you bulbs—
Ben was there. Also Ben’s dog. The dog was one of those curly-haired dogs with hair that hung down over his eyes. Very cute but also kind of confusing because Ben is not the kind of person who acquires companion animals on his own and in real life, often disparaged my tendency to anthropomorphize animals.
Where did you get that dog? I asked.
And Ben began telling me what a cool dog it was, given to him by someone very important in tacit recognition of his (Ben’s) general amazingness.
Ben was some kind of traveling salesman in the dream.
He traveled with a huge trunk, which he opened for me—it was filled with ancient, mildewed books, like the ones that used to be in the cellar of 79 Lefforts Avenue that I read rapaciously when I was a little girl.
Where did you get this trunk? I asked suspiciously—because I recognized it: It belonged to a former therapist of mine, a guy whose user name was genial on the Well.
Ben admitted the prior ownership.
Genial had given the trunk to Ben because genial recognized how immensely cool Ben was, how good at traveling salesmanship.
A couple of Ben’s colleagues bobbed in and out of the dream, too, talking about how terrific he was at traveling salesmanship.
I lost the oriental-looking women in the flow of people and animals through the house and panicked mildly: I couldn’t remember where I’d picked the lilies from, so how was I going to deliver the bulbs I’d promised to them?
And then I woke up.
###
I got into one of those discussions one gets into with people. (Completely stupid discussions!) Which celebrity do you (or did you) look like?
Claudia Cardinale! I said.
We both have (had) that unusual combination of roundish faces yet highish cheekbones:
I’m the one on the right. It’s one of the few modeling pictures I kept: I liked the visuals of the face and what I believe was a lopsided windmill in the background. Part of a perfume campaign, I seem to recall. More high-end editorial than the stuff they usually wanted me for.
Actually, though, the celebrity I really looked like was Anna Karina as Odile in Bande à part.
But I figured Anna Karina was too obscure for the particular person I was having this completely stupid conversation with.
Odile shared my wide-apart eyes and general aesthetic of hats, black sweaters, and black tights.
Even though it was cold, I went for a long tromp.
There is a color in that sky and in that water I don’t know how to describe.
###
I am thinking now that maybe I will go to Edinboro for Xmas.
Lew texted me, asking me whether I wanted salmon or beef for Christmas dinner.
They are really determined to get me down there.
I am thinking if I go on the 24th and come back on the 26th, it shouldn’t be too bad if there’s no one to cover Sybyl’s insulin shot.
Every once in a while, she misses a shot anyway because I mistakenly inject insulin into her fur.
I’ve never observed any ill effects.
It’s a lot of driving.
But if I load up on audiobooks and podcasts, it won’t be too bad.
And, of course, they know about my snow phobia.
We are all set here with a room reservation. It can be canceled until the 23rd at 4pm, so I’m sure we will know what is happening with weather then, Lew texted.
I picked two lilies from a traffic island in the middle of the avenue and brought them home with me.
As usual in my dreams, we were living in some kind of complicated group housing situation. Rik lived there, too, and a bunch of dogs and cats.
Two women showed up. Vaguely oriental features. One of the women began talking about how two flowers were missing from her garden—
Yes, I said. I picked them. Do you need me to make reparations? If you like, I will buy you bulbs—
Ben was there. Also Ben’s dog. The dog was one of those curly-haired dogs with hair that hung down over his eyes. Very cute but also kind of confusing because Ben is not the kind of person who acquires companion animals on his own and in real life, often disparaged my tendency to anthropomorphize animals.
Where did you get that dog? I asked.
And Ben began telling me what a cool dog it was, given to him by someone very important in tacit recognition of his (Ben’s) general amazingness.
Ben was some kind of traveling salesman in the dream.
He traveled with a huge trunk, which he opened for me—it was filled with ancient, mildewed books, like the ones that used to be in the cellar of 79 Lefforts Avenue that I read rapaciously when I was a little girl.
Where did you get this trunk? I asked suspiciously—because I recognized it: It belonged to a former therapist of mine, a guy whose user name was genial on the Well.
Ben admitted the prior ownership.
Genial had given the trunk to Ben because genial recognized how immensely cool Ben was, how good at traveling salesmanship.
A couple of Ben’s colleagues bobbed in and out of the dream, too, talking about how terrific he was at traveling salesmanship.
I lost the oriental-looking women in the flow of people and animals through the house and panicked mildly: I couldn’t remember where I’d picked the lilies from, so how was I going to deliver the bulbs I’d promised to them?
And then I woke up.
###
I got into one of those discussions one gets into with people. (Completely stupid discussions!) Which celebrity do you (or did you) look like?
Claudia Cardinale! I said.
We both have (had) that unusual combination of roundish faces yet highish cheekbones:
I’m the one on the right. It’s one of the few modeling pictures I kept: I liked the visuals of the face and what I believe was a lopsided windmill in the background. Part of a perfume campaign, I seem to recall. More high-end editorial than the stuff they usually wanted me for.
Actually, though, the celebrity I really looked like was Anna Karina as Odile in Bande à part.
But I figured Anna Karina was too obscure for the particular person I was having this completely stupid conversation with.
Odile shared my wide-apart eyes and general aesthetic of hats, black sweaters, and black tights.
Even though it was cold, I went for a long tromp.
There is a color in that sky and in that water I don’t know how to describe.
###
I am thinking now that maybe I will go to Edinboro for Xmas.
Lew texted me, asking me whether I wanted salmon or beef for Christmas dinner.
They are really determined to get me down there.
I am thinking if I go on the 24th and come back on the 26th, it shouldn’t be too bad if there’s no one to cover Sybyl’s insulin shot.
Every once in a while, she misses a shot anyway because I mistakenly inject insulin into her fur.
I’ve never observed any ill effects.
It’s a lot of driving.
But if I load up on audiobooks and podcasts, it won’t be too bad.
And, of course, they know about my snow phobia.
We are all set here with a room reservation. It can be canceled until the 23rd at 4pm, so I’m sure we will know what is happening with weather then, Lew texted.
