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Dream Journal

Grams Remarriage, Galactic Spinner Game

Grams plays drums on stage during play-reenactment of her wedding, Pa is there. student reps passing close between chair rows.


Patrick’s bedroom is my old bedroom, the one by the cactus garden. One side opens into a kitchen. He plays video games sitting on his bed with a friend. The bed is positioned where our old bunk beds were when we first moved into the Cat City house.

In the game you control the directional thrust of a spaceship spinning at great speed around the center of the galaxy, with the goal of covering as much space as possible. Patrick seems pretty skilled at this and the level ends with him skidding out into intergalactic space.

Dad operates an orange juice machine and tells me mom is still alive… or is alive again? Hm.

Categories
Dream Journal

Disneyland, Silo Fairy, Cannibal Kinslayers, Patrick at Christmas

There’s a beautifully decorated lizard enclosure at Disneyland, bedecked with bromeliads and trickling waterfalls, and I’m climbing up the back grating of it. I fall backwards from the more-than-vertical surface into the limpid pool below, and crawl out across a blended-in rock bridge that serves as drainage.


Bouncing across some rolling plains below a college-evoking Monterey, stumbling across a metal silo powered by a curious trapped fairy spirit in the point of the cone. Fire play ensues, a rakish young innocent grin, and the fairy (a male one) breaks free, speaking with a rough and somehow primitive German accent.


Cannibal warriors (orcs?) walking up a line of soldiers back to front, hunting down kin. There’s an ill-fated Julius Caesar-type at head of the line, resigned, resolute, doomed.


The family is sitting in our old Kemper court house around Christmastime, selecting a movie with a clunky Windows-style file hierarchy. Patrick is looking very intently, thinking what I’m not sure.

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Dream Journal

Conversation with my Brother

Walking around with Patrick, passed the doorway of what could have been my old Chicken John hostel stomping grounds. Talked about how he plans to go to China by Christmas. Talked about the Malaysian yuan. Felt that I could have done more to encourage him.

Categories
Dream Journal

Logic of Video Game Apprenticing

I missed the tree outside therapy. I had a vivid sequence of logic working where I imagined I was trying to teach my apprentices something that I’d already learned. Something simple like how to work at McDonald’s (even though I’ve never done that). But I was trying to logic through it.

We were trying to figure out how a video game is designed and how it can be designed better. A lane-changing game where we were also trying to determine a real-time estimate for the car to arrive at the goal destination. There were several variables, including speed and even atmospheric clarity.

My brother Patrick may have been there. I’m not sure if it was a dream or just intense problem-solving.

Categories
Glot

Patronizing Fraternalizing

Hohn Hohn Hohn (by Orin Optiglot)

I’m so proud of the little guy. My brother Patrick, you see, has set out from the nest and (always one to imitate me) has traveled overseas. He set out for Ireland yesterday, hoping to find a job when he gets there… just fly over, then wing it. If that happens to sound familiar to any of you, than yes, it’s because I did something much like that in February 2006 with the continent of Australia.

He’s got his own blog now to provide convenient updates to those of us who chose to remain in the homeland (what’s that? Why yes, matter of fact *I* had one of those too). He also has a Twitter account for brief updates. Of course, I couldn’t have had one of those in 2006. But now, present day, who else keeps one? Oh, little ol’ me, is all.

He planned this pretty darn well, you know. Saved up money working as a chef and going to college for free. Has the chef skills, which are actually in-demand and employable, as opposed to… my exploration skills. He’s even managed to go to Europe twice already—without me that is—once, before I even had a passport. So I give him a lot of credit for figuring it all out.

Here’s to figuring out how to book a plane ticket, oh brother of mine!