Somehow, after trying to search for something online, I managed to end up on a message board for perfume (they've got a message board for everything...everything except what I wish I could find *free* message boards for...but more on that later...maybe...sorry for the early digression).

Thinking this might be fairly interesting, a discussion of making your own perfume, a discussion of what kinds of fragrance oils and ingredients to use or something more heady, I looked at one of the forums and found a topic that caught my interest. It was about having one's scent pirated. I naively thought it was about perfume designers (there's probably a term for this, but I don't know it) who have had people steal their original creation, either by someone simulating it, or by someone buying it, diluting it or selling it cheap. No, it was about *wearers* and *consumers* of perfume who seem to think an expensive yet mass-produced scent readily available for public purchase is somehow their "own signature scent." How alpha bitch! I'm sorry, but how on earth can someone claim something as "theirs" when anyone in the world willing to shell out the $$ for it can, and is entitled to, wear it. Look, I've had my original art work and web design copied and pirated, a legitimate complaint. The perfume designer who has had his/her scent copied and pirated would also have a legitimate complaint. But complaining about someone else starting to wear Opium after "you wore it first" is like me complaining that other people are purchasing Photoshop! It's just absurd.

Sorry, honey, if a scent follower (I cannot use the term "scent copier" ... copier implies copyright, and you have no dominion over a scent that you did not create) chaps your hide, you must have a really cushy life.

This is why I do not hang out with women (plural).

Speaking of scent...

A few days ago I was at the post office, and boy did it stink! I didn't know if it was the young man in front of me or the old man behind me (there's something very philosophical about that statement or image, but I don't know what it is, really). It was that horrible alchemy of really bad B.O. combined with cigarettes which creates a demonic entity all its own. Fortunately, I was freshly-scented with Cassini, one of my most favorite scents. I started sniffing my wrist, where the perfume was the most concentrated and easily accessible to my nose. I probably looked odd, standing in line, wrist stuck to my nose, but I didn't care--life's too short to breathe bad air.

And that is why I do not hang out with men (plural).

Labels: Scents, This Boring Life

I wish these dreams would stop. I had another dream where I STILL HADN'T COMPLETED MY GRADUATE DEGREE. Make it stop. I was looking at course schedules and I still had all these courses to take, courses like math and science and things that are actually more like requirements for a Baccalaureate. (Only 3 credits or one course of an "outside" credit, and 6 credits or 2 courses of Art History were required for my MFA at the UW). I was thinking that since I already had completed a good deal of studio time for many semesters in a row that is required, I could ease off and take my required courses gradually. It's odd, because Stan already has his Masters in these dreams, whereas I'm the one waiting to finish up. IRL Stan got his after I got mine (only 3 years later though) and we shared one year together (which was the best year there for both of us). Anyway, there was some announcement on the news that the campus was closed off and not allowing any people on it, but I tried to go anyway because I had to get things done. I was walking toward it, but it morphed more into CSU, and I was approaching it more from the direction as if I was still living on Peterson, trying to cross the Oval. There were barricades and couldn't get to my destination, which was somewhere around the Clark building or Student Center or beyond. I walk further south, near Pitkin (this totally is CSU and not the UW), and am able to maneuver around and head toward my destination. There is snow on the ground and it is cold (which it usually is in these dreams). I also remember being in an art studio and there is a lecherous professor there who is wearing an extremely short diaphanous skirt. He is trying to seduce a male student. The male student says he has to go, and the prof says "great, why don't we continue this discussion at your place?" He was a gross old thing, short, with a big fat body like some failed drag queen in a comedy. I also remember walking around the art building (this was clearly the 6th or 7th floor of the Inhumanities building at the UW, not the more fun CSU art building which also reappears in my dreams as well) trying to get into lockers to get my art supplies. These lockers were full-height, like lockers in Jr or Sr High School, not the stubby lockers for art supplies only that they have in college. I couldn't remember the combination. I hate it when that happens. You go through every possible locker combination you can remember and nothing works, and the only thing that will save you is waking up from the blasted dream.

Labels: Art, Dreams

Damn, this was a disturbing dream!

I was with a dream-partner...I don't know if it was Stan or a female or who (sometimes these dream-companions are very non-descript, and I naturally assume it is Stan because who else would it be, but at times they have female-like attributes as well. Maybe it's my shadow-self.). But we had killed someone, some female, no one I knew, but someone who must have pissed us off somehow. We were going to dispose of the body, and the dream-partner suggested we put the body in one of those tanker trucks that carry gasoline and deliver it to gas stations. Supposedly, in the dream, the hose that deposits the gas is wide enough for a body to slip through. So we got a tanker somehow, put the body, wrapped in plastic, inside of it, delivered it to a gas station, the body slipped through and into the underground tank. Then we left. It was like we were in Fort Collins around the cemetary, and we were heading by foot, running, down Mountain Avenue towards Shields and Beaver's Market, which is where the gas station supposedly was that we deposited the body. (IRL, there is no gas station there) People were going about their business like there was nothing wrong, but I was getting these horrible feelings of guilt, not as much for killing someone but for hiding her body, and no one will ever know what happened to her.

If I can feel so guilty in a dream-state, I wonder how people who actually murder and then try to cover it up feel. I guess they don't.

Labels: Dreams

Stan and I are watching the Season 3 DVD for LOST. I figured out that Mittelos is an anagram for Lost Time!

Cool!

I'm so proud of myself...just like when I figured out that the sum of 4 8 15 16 23 42 is 108.

It's silly, but I get a rush when I figure this sort of stuff out on my own.

Labels: LOST, TV

I was in a condominium or apartment or hotel in some city that wasn't Madison. I think my parents and Stan were there. We were on a non-ground-level floor, probably around the 5th floor or so. We went outside to leave and there was a stone ledge. I saw a black Pug, I think it was Lucifer Sam, on the ledge. My parents and Stan were already outside, and I was surprised to see them let the Pug on the ledge. I went to grab him, but he jumped. I awoke with a start, my heart was pounding.

I hate dreams like that.

Labels: Animals, Dreams

What an absurd dream! Partly based in reality as Stan and I really were laying in bed (imagine...dreaming while in bed) and we both have been sick. I dreamt that Stan's mom got us a gift to use while we were sick, a weird blend of technologies. It looked like a cassette tape recorder from the '70s, but it had to have an internet connection because it connected to podcasts. It also came with some cassette tapes, but they would only work if connected to the podcast they were associated with. Wouldn't be so bad if it was an interesting podcast like "This American Life" (I never seem to be able to catch the radio broadcast) or another NPR show, but, get this, it was a tape of some lame 70s sitcom that was a spinoff of the Mary Tyler Moore show, like "Phyllis." Was that even a show? I know there was "Rhoda", but "Phyllis?" Talk about something I don't ever think about appearing out of nowhere! This cassette device also came with a set of headphones that had to be worn while listening to it. So Stan is lying in bed with headphones on, but I can't listen to it unless I plug in a different set of headphones into an adapter that allow for another connection. I do happen to find a set of headphones laying around, and lay down with him and listen to the dumb show. As it turns out, all it is is a newscast, which is much more interesting than "Phyllis". Then I realize that it's the radio on IRL.

Labels: Dreams

One of the first things we got Apollo was a kitty bed. It's like a bag with soft plush material inside, really snuggly. I don't think he liked it much at first, I think he preferred the towels we piled up on the floor for him to sleep on because he had gotten used to those. But after a while I noticed that the interior of the bed was darker, discolored. It was moist, but not malodorous. Then I had my suspicions...he was nursing it.

Natasha, our first cat, did the same thing, except she did it on ME when I was wearing black clothing. We suspected her mother was black or dark-colored. She was a black and rusty semi-long hair tortie. This kitty snuggle bed that Apollo has is cream-colored, so we suspect his mother was light-colored like him.

When he's in his nursey mode (they say it's from having been weaned too young...none of our grey-cats did/do it) he's practically hypnotized. He can snap out of it very quickly and become demonspawn from hell.

Yesterday and today Lucifer Sam stared at him when he was nursing, sort of puzzled by it. It's really the only time the Pug can get up close to him and look at him without Demonspawn attacking him. Yes, this cat attacks the dogs. I think it's playful. He wants them to play. But Lucifer Sam doesn't really understand playful kittens. We got him when the other cats, even Caligula, were really past their playful stages. Plato understands playful kittens better beacuse when he was two, we got Caligula. I am amazed at how well Plato does with this little guy--they really get along quite well.

Apollo is now integrated into the house with the rest of the animals. He sleeps with Caligula a short ways away on the futon.

I want one of those kitty bag beds for myself, except human-sized. Why don't they make them? Blankets aren't the same thing. You sit on a couch and put a blanket on you, but it's only on the top of you. Your legs dangle over the side and the underside of them get cold. Not with a superplush human-sized kitty bag bed! You crawl in it, and it's sort of like a sleeping bag, but without the uncomfortable zippers and plaid flannel lumpy interior. It conforms more to your body, it's not as stiff and bulky as a sleeping bag.

Can someone please manufacture this? I really need one for nights like these.

Sometimes I wish I sewed just so I could make my own cat toys and the superplush human-sized kitty bag bed. However I absolutely HATE sewing. I got a sewing machine to use with art once (sewing paper together) but don't use it anymore because even in the production of art I found sewing to be one of the worst activities ever.

Labels: Animals, This Boring Life