I’d like to point out first of all that “olive skin” is not actually a description of race. Or even a specific color, as olives can be green, brown, or black. But it seems to be the current go-to word for white authors who want characters in their books not to be white, but are afraid to get specific about skin color or race. There was a big uproar over The Hunger Games movie, because some people felt that Katniss should be non-white, based on her description as having “olive skin.”

Myself, I’ve always understood olive to be a description for a Caucasian skin color, typical of people who live in Greece, Italy, or other Mediterranean countries, so I get pretty confused when authors try to describe their non-white characters using the term “olive skin.” At the very least, this word obviously means different things to different people.

Enter Across the Universe, by Beth Revis. I’ve just started reading this book, and I haven’t gotten far enough to talk much about the story. I have gotten far enough to encounter the olive skin fallacy, however, in a particularly odd and somewhat clueless form.

Across the Universe is about colony ship carrying a large cargo of frozen people, and a small generation crew that remains awake for the 300 year journey. Naturally, something goes wrong. So far so good.

However, the book says that the generation crew is “monoethnic” in order to minimize conflict, since ethnicity has been a major source of conflict in human history. The ethnicity?

Everyone on board has the same deep olive skin, the same dark brown hair and eyes

 

Yes, the monoethnic crew of the Godspeed are of the well-known Oliveskinnian ethnic group, a peaceful people that can be found, well, just about anywhere because WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

Olive skin is not an ethnicity. Serbian is an ethnicity. Ojibwa is an ethnicity. Zulu is an ethnicity. Olive skin, whatever that refers to, is meaningless as a description of an ethnic group. The word “monoethnic” is used over and over in the book, but Revis never tells us what ethnic group was chosen to pilot the ship to its destination for 300 years.

I was willing to let that slide, but then I got to the scene where the viewpoint crew character, Elder, is talking with an older man, and he wonders if the man might be his biological father. He was not allowed to know who his biological parents were.

Could this man be my father?

My breath catches, and I have to shake my head again before I get a grip on myself. Sure, Orion reminds me of me. But on a ship where everyone’s monoethnic, that’s not hard to do. I can as easily see myself in Eldest as I can in Orion.

 

AAAAARRRRGGH! Did he just say “We monoethnic Oliveskinnians all look alike, so there’s no way to find a resemblance between close family members?” Did he really? And how did this get past the umpteen people who must have read it and signed off on it before it was published.

It’s not like the “they all look alike” racial fallacy is obscure or uncommon. There is no corner of White Bread America where “they all look alike” isn’t recognized as a racist stereotype. So what is it doing in the non-white viewpoint character’s head? (And whatever ethnicity olive skin is supposed to refer to, we can be pretty sure it’s not pale-skinned redheads, based on his reaction to seeing Amy for the first time.)

I was inclined to give the author a bit of a pass on this, as we all have our blind spots, and her readers and editors should have helped her out with this. But you know what? It was also her job, as an author writing about characters of a minority race for the American market, to have her manuscript vetted by someone of that same race. I’m sure there are many Oliveskin-Americans that would have reviewed the manuscript for her for a reasonable consulting fee. So, no, I’m not letting her off easy.

As far as I can tell, it is otherwise a fun read, and I’m looking forward to finishing it. But that lack of sensitivity really bothered me.

I also think a lot could be improved if white authors stopped trying to show how racially aware they are by making their characters ambiguously ethnic in some sort of future or alternate world where people have no word or concept for different races, and then using the meaningless phrase “olive skinned” to describe them.

Marketing is something I struggle with as a writer. With the demands of the day job, parenting, managing the household, paying the bills, juggling personal and corporate taxes (with the associated estimated personal tax and payroll tax), not to mention the actual writing, sending my work out to editors and agents who might be interested often, ironically, takes a back seat. Although my philosophy is “never let the sun set on a rejected story,” all too often I let rejections pile up for weeks or months before I have time to study the markets and prepare a new submission package for each.

I was submitting actively between 1997 and about 2004, then took a hiatus for much of my mother’s illness. I began submitting again in 2010. I’ve noticed some big differences. Some of them are good. There are more pro markets now than ever (yay), and most of them take electronic submissions. I am now so spoiled that I experienced entitled exasperation when I realize that I must print out and mail a submission.

But some of the changes are not so good. One new thing is that most of the markets are not open all of the time. That means that I have to create a submission plan on the fly for every story at every submission opportunity. This takes a lot of time. In the old days, I would set up a market plan for each story at the beginning, and I would not have to think very hard about the next market. Now it’s a constantly shifting matrix of what is open and what is not.

Another change is that with the advent of electronic submissions, many markets have idiosyncratic formatting requirements. That adds another five or ten minutes to each submission, as I have to reread every publication’s guidelines to make sure that the story I am offering is formatted and submitted correctly. Do I use an online submission form? Do I send it as an email attachment? What format do I send it in?

Back in the 90′s, when everything was paper, you pretty much knew that if you had it in manuscript format, it was fine. Now, there is no single universal manuscript format.

On top of all of these hurdles, however, there is yet another layer. I don’t know if there are factories somewhere in the world where writer gnomes churn out millions of words of crappy short fiction each day, and then relentlessly market it to the short fiction zines, but editors seem to be very worried about getting too many submissions, and now we have the advent of special rules for when and how often you submit.

People, that is too much.

Back in February, I attempted to submit a story to Strange Horizons. I did it on a Saturday night, at about 10 PM. That’s because that was all the time I had after a very full week of work and life, and many weekend obligations. I was shocked when my submission was immediately bounced back, saying that SH had reached its submission cap for the day, and to try again another day.

I could have stayed up until midnight, to jump on the next day’s window, but I just don’t have the time and the energy. I need to do the job and have it stay done, not play whack-a-mole with a particular magazine’s submission system.

(I’ll note, by the way, that only with electronic submissions can you do this kind of thing. With postal submissions, there would never have been a way to limit how many people per day could submit. Something us writers never bargained for when we clamored for the convenience of electronic subs.)

So I sent the story to another magazine, and eventually found another story I could submit to SH in the meantime. That story came back last month.

This week, I had the same story in my hands, and still felt it would be a good fit for Strange Horizons. I did all of the usual stuff. Checked the guidelines again. SH even has guidelines for writing your cover letter. Submitted the story. Held my breath. Would it hit the submission cap again? And, thankfully, it went through. Phew!

Imagine my surprise, then, when I got this response this morning:

Dear Author,

Recently, in response to your last submission, we wrote:

> To help us keep response times low, please don’t submit another story until May 7 (two weeks from now).

So we’re going to delete this one unread. Please wait at least two weeks before submitting again. That is, please don’t submit again until at least May 17.

We have a daily cap on submissions, and there are a lot of authors who are trying to submit stories to us who haven’t yet had a story considered since we reopened, so we want to give everyone a chance to submit.

thanks,

–Jed

 

Yep. That’s right. Strange Horizons is keeping some kind of database of when authors submit, and checking each submission against it, and deleting stories unread if authors don’t properly keep track of the same information, AND penalizing them by two weeks for any infraction.

Somehow I have trouble understanding how this is less work than letting the story sit in their inbox for two weeks until they get through their backlog.

Over on the Strange Horizons blog, Jed Hartman explains the submissions cap. which has been in place since Jan. 2010:

We certainly don’t want to discourage any individual writer from submitting (and we hope nobody will take our discussions of high volume as a request not to submit); but we wanted a way to smooth out the high-volume periods, and to give us a chance of reading and responding to the incoming submissions in a reasonable amount of time.

 

Essentially, Strange Horizons is trying to smooth out its workflow by making mine more complicated. I frequently fail at getting all of my important tasks done in a day. I don’t need them to get done only to be re-added to my list because someone on the other side capriciously does not want to let me use 80 freaking kilobytes on their hard drive for the next two weeks. I have unpaid bills and unfolded laundry waiting for my atttention right now.

On top of that, I resent–really deeply resent–being punished with an extra two week wait because I made a mistake and submitted ten days after my last submission and not a full fourteen. What the hell? It reminds me of the humiliating hoops that poor people have to jump through in order to accomplish simple tasks. I dealt with this for my mother all the time, and if you are poor, service providers think nothing of asking you to make multiple trips or multiple phone calls to perform a simple task, and will deal out petty punishments and fines if you make a mistake, even an honest one.

I feel like Strange Horizons is treating me like a lesser class of person by imposing an extra two week wait time–like someone not fully adult and certainly not professional. It’s really offensive. Needless to say I am not exactly going to be circling the date on my calendar so I can re-send the story, and I did let them know that.

And isn’t it funny how this only happens in the penny ante world of short fiction? I’ve never seen such quibbling over petty details like file format or timing of submissions over in Nonfic Land, where pay rates are upwards of $1/word.

I’m having nearly unprecedented difficulty disciplining myself to write one last scene for my novel and finish keying in the revisions. One scene, then typing in revisions already done by hand. That’s all. And I am fighting it like HELL. So I’m going into Bad Writer, No Biscuit mode immediately.

Step 1. Set insanely easy goal. Write three sentences.

Step 2. Impose draconian punishments for failing to achieve goal, such as no going to the bathroom or no eating until sentences are finished.

Step 3. Offer generous rewards for completion, such as watching TV and eating cookies.

Repeat until scene is written. In my experience, it generally takes no more than two No Biscuit days before I give up and just finish whatever it is I’m avoiding.

I have such epic writing avoidance skills, it’s a miracle I finish anything. (There’s probably a whole chapter in the psychoanalysis textbook just for that.) For example, I finished the first draft of my novel, and then I went through and did all of my revisions by hand, in the paper manuscript, adding handwritten pages where necessary. When I got done, I knew I needed to add two significant scenes to the book to make everything work. Only two scenes. Not too chapters.

I then decided the scenes were too hard for me to write, and avoidance ensued. A week or so later, I flogged my inner moppet and got to work. There, I realized that one of the scenes I thought was too hard to write was actually already written by hand in the extra pages, and I only needed to key it in.

That’s how bad I am. No biscuit! Witness the drama. DRAAAAAAMAAA.

For the first time this weekend, we went a science fiction convention as a family – Penguicon, in Dearborn, Michigan. As usual, I really enjoyed getting out of the four walls of my home and office and connecting with friends, especially other writers.

We brought along a friend for Glen, a boy named J—. J– has been attending conventions since infancy, and knew more people there than we did. We love him to pieces. He was very good company for all of us.

J–’s Dad loaned us a set of walkie talkies to help keep track of the kids. I must confess we had waaaayy too much fun with this. We came up with code names for everyone, and for all of the locations.

Brent and I, of course, went by our usual radio handles, by which we sometimes call each other. He was Maverick and I was Straight Razor. The boys were Arbiter and Master Chief. The hotel room was The Box, the consuite was the Kill Zone, the game room was the Extraction Point, the lobby was the LZ, the pool was the Splash Zone, and the bar was HQ. (Oh, and the bathroom was the Drop Zone.)

It was with glee that I pressed the call button and said, “Arbiter, come in, this is Straight Razor. Are you in the kill zone?”

As it turned out, Glen was on the elevator when this happened, and the radios were quite loud, so everyone heard me asking if he was in the “kill zone” and stared at him. He figured they must have been worried he was a terrorist, and we considered changing the con suite to something less scary, like “the sugar box.” However, we concluded that it being a science fiction convention, the other passengers in the elevator must have been jealous that he was playing a really cool live action role playing game, and were wondering how they, too, could enter the “kill zone,” so we stuck with the original code name.

Bringing the extra friend worked like a charm, as our otherwise lonely-only came to us just once bored and with nothing to do. I sat him down and gave him some fizzy sugar water and he was fine.

I also got to briefly kidnap a 4-month-old baby, and got my come-uppance, literally, when she up-comed all over my shirt, which I then had to change. Worth it, though! Totally worth it.

The convention felt a bit subdued to me. Maybe it’s just my mood, or the fact that only a portion of my local writer friends were present. I haven’t attended very many Penguicons, but to me this year it felt less like a Linux/Science Fiction Convention and more like a Linux/media convention with a very small and obscure literature track (the panels I attended were crammed into tiny conference rooms). I sincerely hope that Penguicon will amp up its lit track offerings in the future.

The second dress didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped. Here’s the before picture. It’s a size L Laura Ashley. I would describe it as “rather conservative.” As in, “I am Sister Mary Catherine Elizabeth and you will do all of the long division problems before you go out for recess,” conservative. This is a Laura Ashley size L brown cotton knit dress.

Inspired by a top from my closet, I decided to try a twist front design. Here is a Youtube video explaining how to make a twist front shirt out of a T-shirt.

I practiced first on an old T-shirt I’d used for painting. I only pinned it together to make sure I got the geometry right. If I stitch it together, I will have the fanciest painting shirt ever.

Here is the choppage. I cut the length off and also trimmed the sleeves to a more fashionable length.

And here it is with the twist added:

So far, so good. I stitched it up, and eagerly tried it on. I will tell you now that it was actually pretty cute on me. However, it was also about two sizes too small. The dress was already fitted. It had princess seams. And even though it is a very nice stretchy cotton fabric, adding that twist really pulled it in. It also pulled the sleeves out of alignment, so it seemed like my arms would need to stick out the front of my body to fit them right.

Also, because the fit was snug, the bunched part in the middle stuck out, making it look like I had an overgrown spleen or something.

I opted to photograph it on the hanger. I am losing some weight, so I think I might be able to try it again next summer, when I might actually be two sizes smaller. At that point, I’ll know better whether something needs to be done about the sleeves, or if they’ll lay down once the dress has some ease in it.

Next time:

• No princess seams
• Start with a much larger dress
• Possibly use some stretchy thread for the seam across the bustline

It all began with me having some time on my hands. A dangerous thing, apparently.

While my husband and son were away on a school trip, one of the things I did was shop at my neighborhood thrift store. I was pretty excited to find not one, but three dresses that I liked and would fit me. Great haul!

However, when I got home and tried on the dresses, I was disappointed. They didn’t look nearly as good on me as they did on the hanger. I was despondent over having wasted the $20. But then I remembered that some whacky crafty types out there cut up thrifted clothing and make new stuff out of it. Ding ding ding! An idea had germinated.

I’ve been sewing since I was five years old, and have made countless garments from scratch, including my own wedding dress. However, refashioning old clothes was a “do not compute” for me until that moment. I started web surfing and found a whole culture of thrifty refashioners out there, including the Refashionista.

The Refashionista even blogged a new outfit every day for a whole year. Sure, some of them were kind of lame, like the day she tied a sweatshirt around her waist and called it a skirt, but it showed how easy it can be.

Now, unlike the Refashionista, I am not a size 2. If I tie a sweatshirt around my waist, I look like a Manatee having a really bad period. I can’t buy a mumu, take it in on the sides, tie a belt around it, and look fabulous.

My refashioning challenges include trying to make off-the-rack clothes flattering to my undertall, size 12 figure.

Now, taking the before pictures of myself was the occasion of a monumental body image self loathing battle that is best not described in detail.

Now, having deleted a long, detailed description of that battle, I present to you the “before” picture of dress #1. (With apologies for the bad cell phone self-photography.)

This is a size M Old Navy stretchy polyester/lycra-ish summer dress. I am, of course wearing it over my favorite gray yoga pants. It’s actually not bad, but I wasn’t crazy about how clingy it was. Even if I had the perfect figure for it, I’m not really the type to wear a bodacious, skin tight stretchy dress.

After some thought, I decided to cut the skirt off and make a top out of it.

This was an easy refashion. I didn’t even haul out my sewing machine. I cut it somewhat long, because I find that longer tops are more flattering to my short torso, and because I like the security of knowing that it’s not going to ride up and expose my tummy.

I hemmed the bottom, then added some subtle gathers on the side. This is an effect I like quite a lot, but rarely find in retail stores. The gathers provide yet more cover and camouflage for the tum tum.

Voila!

Still with the gray yoga pants. (But a different pair! I have them for every day of the week.) Also, because the Refashionista often models her clothes at bars, art shows, concerts, and other social gatherings, I gave myself an elegant updo, as if I were headed out for a night on the town. How do you like it? (I do that a lot. Like all the time. Really. Art shows. Concerts. Karaoke. Yep.)

If you’re coming to Penguicon, you’ll probably see me in this tomorrow night. I’m quite taken with it.

Stay tuned for Dress #2. I have it all cut up and may finish it tonight. If I’m lucky.

I’m pleased as punch that Lois Tilton gave Locus’s coveted* “recommended” tag to her review of my story, “Titanium Soul,” in the June issue of Analog. Go check it out.

I remember when I was first publishing in Analog back in 2003-2005, and for some reason Locus wasn’t reviewing every issue of Analog. It’s pretty fuzzy, now, but I think none of my stories got reviewed there, so I’m grateful to Lois Tilton for staying on top of the avalanche of short fiction and keeping the reviews coming, even the ones that aren’t so glowy. No review is ten times worse than a bad review.

I’m also enjoying the positive comments I’ve been getting directly, and discovering via ego surfing on twitter, etc. It’s an amazing feeling when people connect with something I’ve written.

Because of that, I picked up some extra author copies of that issue, and will be taking them with me to Penguicon (where I am not on the program, but will be there in author stealth mode). If you want one, find me and ask for it. It would also be cool if you could use a secret password, like “coldy moldy bananas eggplant,” but it’s optional.

Also, I have another story in the very next issue of Analog, the July/August double issue, which should be coming out in a few weeks. I’ve already received my contributor’s copies. The story is called. “The North Revena Ladies Literary Society.” It’s about a women’s book club, spies, secret agents, books, terrorists, and more.

I can’t believe it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve posted here. I’m trying to think what I’ve been up to, and I’m coming up blank. I think I’ve just been kind of stressed out, but I’ve got about five telepathic blog posts written that you can check out on the telepathic internet at www.insidecatherinesbrain.com. Enjoy!

* Well, coveted by me. External evaluations bring out my inner Hermione Granger

After my 1.5-year journey of not being on a diet, I felt ready to try doing some calorie-cutting again. I decided to go slowly and carefully, using my trusty Android phone to count calories. (I’ve surveyed the field of diets extensively and this is what I feel will work best for me right now.) I’ve been doing it for about a month and a half, now, and it’s working well enough. I’m dropping weight gradually, hopefully not losing any muscle, and it’s pretty painless. Yay!

But something interesting that has come out of counting calories every day is noticing patterns. For example, the daily calorie count varies quite a lot. My goal is about 1650 calories each day. Some days, obviously, I consume significantly more than that. It’s pretty easy to do in our world. Also, I have a rule that if I’m really starved at the end of the day, and I’ve already had my 1650, I go ahead and have a snack, anyway. That helps a lot with sticking with it over the long term, as it doesn’t take very many days going to bed hungry before the old willpower begins to run out.

What’s more surprising, though, is that every once in a while, for no apparent reason, I consume far less than my goal calories, in the area of 1000 to 1100 calories. This always surprises me, because invariably on those days, I am not hungry after racking up so few calories.

At first, I was like, hey, free calorie deficit! I’ll take it. But after the first couple of times, I noticed something weird. I was dead the next day. It’s really dramatic. I wake up with  no energy, feeling mentally dull. If I go to yoga, I have a terrible class, and am barely able to survive it. Even if I eat a lot on that second day, I don’t feel better until I go to bed and wake up on the third day.

Peoples! It’s as if food is energy or something. Totally wild!

So yesterday, when I finished the day at just under 1000 calories, I knew I needed to eat more or I would be tired the next day. I did, but unfortunately only made it to 1078 calories.

The result? Yeah, tired today. Rough yoga class.

So, I thought it was a fascinating observation. Also, if I hadn’t been counting the calories, I would never have known I ate so little. I would have assumed it was a normal day of calories. It’s also possible that the low appetite is a precursor to the low energy day. Perhaps my body is battling a virus or something, and lack of appetite is a symptom. In the future, I will make a better effort than 1078 calories to see if I can prevent the exhaustion from happening.

So for those of you that have intermittent exhaustion, you might want to start counting your calories and make sure you’re getting enough. Let me know if you learn anything interesting.

I’ve gotten behind on documenting the rolfing. Sessions 4-7  address the core of the body. In session 5, she worked on my abdomen quite a bit, separating the “six pack” muscles and loosening up the front of the hips, etc. I didn’t notice any big, dramatic changes from that session. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember it that well.

Session six is done lying on the belly. I’m a stomach sleeper, so that was pretty comfortable for me. Lots of work on the back, the butt, the upper hips. I had a knotted muscle in my upper back that day, and she loosened it up for me by putting her elbow into it and leaning until I was begging for mercy. Again, there was not much dramatic change, although I did feel like things were looser and more flexible. I was hoping to get some dramatic improvement in my hamstring flexibility. As in, finally being able to straighten my legs in some of those toe-grabbing poses in yoga. No luck, although I can feel a difference.

Session 7 is head and neck. I will forever think of it as the “professional nose picking” session. She spent the 90 minutes mostly working on the jaw and muscles of the face. This started with some manipulation of the shoulders and neck. Then she put on gloves and worked her way through the mouth, releasing tight muscles along the upper jaw, palate, and hinge area in back.

Always before, she would say things like, “That was a big release, did you feel that?” and I would sort of nod vaguely, because I could kind of sort of tell what she was talking about, but not really. With the heightened awareness that comes with anything near your face, however, I could feel exactly what was going on. It wasn’t the most painful thing she’d done to me, but it was kind of uncomfortable. But, weirdly, I could feel the clenched muscles just…opening up.

When she finished the left half of my face, it felt like the right side was all bunched up. Very strange. Then there was the nose! Again wearning gloves, she inserted a lubricated pinkie finger into my left nostril. I had to open my mouth to breathe while she did that, because I didn’t have enough air flow through the right nostril. She put it in as far as it would go and then waited. After 20 seconds or so, I could distinctly feel my nostril opening up, and her finger slid even deeper. She waited again, and there was another opening.

Ya’ll, I never imagined a human finger could fit that far up in a nostril!

Now, at this point, you’re probably thinking you would never ever want someone to do this to you, but when she finished, she asked how it was, and I said, “That was kind of awesome!” I felt like my nostril had been upgraded from a regular sized straw to one of those straws you get with bubble tea. Amazing.

When she did the right side, I didn’t have to open my mouth to breathe, because I had this big bubble tea straw on the left side. When she’d done both sides, it felt amazing. So much easier to breathe! I would definitely recommend the professional nose picking. Who knew that your nose muscles could be clenched up, and limiting your air flow. But they can! They are!

When she was done, my face and jaw felt extremely relaxed. I think there’s even a subtle difference in the appearance. We were expecting big problems because of my prior jaw surgery, but she said it had healed well, and she’d had clients with much tighter jaws just from “clenching.”

Even though she had barely touched me below the neck, my whole body felt relaxed. If you’ve ever had a baby, you probably had someone coaching you at one point or another to “relax your jaw.” Tightness in the face telegraphs all the way down to the pelvic floor. Well, having all of that tightness released was incredibly relaxing. I felt almost dopey. Session 7 is awesome. Even now, almost a week later, I feel like there is much more softness in my jaw. I feel like it kind of hangs from my head, rather than being snapped in like a LEGO jaw or something.

I have three more sessions to go. Sessions 8, 9, and 10 are about bringing everything together. Should be interesting.

Last night took the cake for weird, crazy dreams. At first, I was on a writer’s retreat with some friends. We were on some kind of college campus, and I didn’t have my own room. Instead, I was sharing with a friend who had reserved a room. Except she kicked me out in the middle of the night. I guess I was too excited, and kept her up too late talking, or something. It probably didn’t help that I had all of my pets, two dogs and four cats, with me for some reason.

So there I was, homeless for the night, with all my luggage and a bunch of pets. I must have slept in my car or something. The next day, I am trying to get down to writing and working, and my friend says she feels better, and I can crash in her room after all. Yay! But no sooner have I unpacked and settled in than she puts me out again. Inconceivable!

I am so angry that I vow to blog about it when I wake up, and expose the friend’s perfidy to the world. People should know. I mean, it’s one thing if you don’t want to room with someone. Sure. But inviting them in TWICE, then kicking them out. That’s just not right.

Over the course of the dream, I keep reminding myself to blog, but I slowly realize that if I am dreaming, then this individual is probably totally innocent. I have trouble accepting it, though, because I am SO angry.

I am taking my luggage to the car, and somehow go the wrong way, or the long way, to the parking lot, and get lost. There I encounter others from the retreat, as well as a group of orphaned/runaway kids who are escaping from a serial killer or something. I get mixed up in the chase, and before I know it, we are driving a humongous panel van with leather seats at 80 mpg through busy downtown streets of some unidentified city.

We’re almost clean away when we somehow end up crashing/running out of gas and ending up in a deserted industrial park. It is long abandoned, gone to decay, and full of graffiti.

I am still angry at my room mate from the retreat, still reminding myself I need to document everything when I wake up, but am starting to realize that because it’s a dream, none of it is real.

So here I am with the group of ragamuffins, trying to find myself out of the warehouse district. I am in an abandoned building when a child appears out of nowhere. He or she is brown-skinned, naked, quite tall, crying and has obvious signs of torture. In fact, it looks like some kind of mad scientist has sewn an extra leg on him or her somehow.

I realize I am supposed to help this person, but at that point I have just had ENOUGH of this ridiculous dream, and my response is, “Oh come ON!” I ignore the child and run away.

I end up at my in-law’s farm in Battle Creek, where there is a tornado coming. I am forever dreaming about tornadoes, so apparently when I rejected the previous dream offering, my subconscious hastily ordered up my usual nightmare. “Okay,” my brain is saying. “You could have had some sort of interesting time saving children from being experimented on by a mad scientist, but if you want a tornado AGAIN, here you go.”

So I spent the remainder of the dream taking shelter from one tornado after another. At one point, I had to descend a vertical chute into a very high tech storm shelter. The chute was just barely wide enough for me, and I got a little bit stuck in it. When the storm passed, we came out just in time for another tornado.

And that’s enough dreaming for the whole month of April, I should say.