Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in cheery_idiot's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
8:05 pm	A language post I have wanted to write this post for about two weeks now. It's about my newly-realised love for Finnish, I think. ( Language thoughts. Lengthy. ) In other news, I finished my NaNo on time. It was an interesting experience. Very energising. A worthy exercise doubtless useful to many writers. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
10:13 am	Confused dreams Last night I had a confused set of dreams, where a strange waxy shrub grew out of the backyard pond, was eradicated, and grew back again; after which my family went for a shopping trip to an industrial ghetto, where a horde of low shacks and warehouses dotted a sunny, dusty hill, and where, in one of the warehouses, a cabal of weightlifters almost crushed each other's legs in their attempt to operate weird presses and benches. Later, we were in a sunny fjord or gorge almost subtropical in terms of its vegetation, where giant lynx-like cats and monster fish creatures caused our picnic party trouble. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
2:32 pm	A dream of ruins and levitation Last night I dreamed I was spending time among ruined grey towers and apartment buildings. The lighting was vaguely greenish, and the streets were awash with rubble where there still were streets, since some of the buildings had been entirely destroyed. I was at a barbecue party held on a broad slab of concrete. Up above, in one of the towers which still had a functioning elevator, was the abode of Arto, my high school art teacher. My brother said off-hand that Arto was delving into the secrets of levitation. I realised that by studying levitation one could eventually acquire the power to fly, so I leapt up to the tower to study levitation also. Arto's apartment was missing several walls and was crammed full of old records, tapes, and books. He picked out several books and handed them to me, since they were required reading for all who wanted to learn levitation. I have dim recollections of getting marooned on a pirate island later. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 13th, 2009
10:13 am	A dream of toes and roads Last night I dreamed I was growing two extra toes under two existing ones, it was rather painful. Also, somebody had filled up one of the local lakes and put a dirt road in its place. This created an interesting new space. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
10:06 pm	A dream of knights and ladies Last night I dreamed about a big burly knight leading a company of mercenaries. The knight was blonde and wearing a big armour, and was obnoxiously boisterous and insensitive, probably had a bushy moustache too. There was a war going on in perpetual misty twilight, and the knight was selling the services of his company to both sides of the war, alternating between employers. However, he was more interested in a lady fugitive who was the viewpoint character of the dream. She had on a red dress and was riding a brown horse, and the knight met her several times and wanted to marry her, but she turned him down every time. In the end, however, the lady had little choice but to turn to the knight since she had nowhere to go and no money. The knight was by this time gathering just such fleeing noble ladies like her, and was training them into a peculiar scout unit: he had them learn close combat skills and then had them function as scouts while wearing their aristocratic garments and pretending to be nobility. After this, giant demon pigs emerged from the pink fog in the woods, charged the knight's army, and cut great swathes through it. The knight cheerfully drew his sword and started hacking away at the pigs. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
11:18 am	A dream of cowboys and lynxes Last night I dreamed that two men with no name came to an eerie frontier town lying on a plain between stormy mountains. The sky was overcast and the night was drawing close, and the men, one of whom was the archetypal no-name, the other possessing a rough sense of humour, walked around the town to look for a place to sleep. The townsfolk showed tacit reluctance and reticence toward the men, implying that it would be best if they left the town instead of staying. Characteristically indifferent, the men ignored this. They came to the town church and to their surprise noticed that the top of the belfry had gone missing. It was as if cut clean off by a supernatural force. To add to the eerie atmosphere, the cloud cover broke, letting the rusty bronze sun shine on the church. The men moved on, rummaged around in a general store, and then headed for a barn to sleep. The stoic one had to fight off two insane lynxes who harassed him on the way. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
9:12 am	A dream of escapes and winters Last night I dreamed I was escaping an underground world with a young woman and an old man, or possibly Snake Plissken's grandfather. We climbed up through a ladder-like shaft while gun-toting denizens of the underground world chased us. Despite the perilous ascent and the gunfire, we managed to break through to the surface, which was in the grips of a nuclear winter, for which we were unprepared. We scavenged some canvas and stuff nearby, and huddled in a bunch beside a metal box. The underground people would still come up for us, so we threw a water balloon and a firecracker into the shaft to deter them. Later we met a sheriff and some other surface folks, and hiked with them to a desert town, where the sheriff was in charge of regulating the traffic. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
9:09 am	A whale dream Last night I dreamed I went to a school trip to a strange facility which had whales, or replicas of them, in tanks. The whales were strange, the sperm whale had a ring of thick tentacles around its mouth, and the humpback had a beard. The blue whale had broad, thick lips and was a lot smaller than a real blue whale. And it was swimming in a jungle. Later, when the rest of the class went to a pool, I went skimming. The woods around the facility were mostly pine. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
10:04 am	A Nabokov dream Last night I dreamed I was hanging out with some models in a strange seaside villa. One of them was reading a huge bricksize copy of Nabokov's Lolita. This particular edition had a 1300-hour soundtrack to go with it. It began to play when she opened the book, and I remember being impressed with the first piece, because of a peculiar repetitive obsessiveness it had. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
10:13 am	A dream of grandparents A few nights ago I dreamed that we were rescuing Elric from a prison. Later I was walking along a snowy road in the woods, and a quiet raven was following me. We came to a felling where the wind blew powdery snow over a drift, and I told her something about the hopelessness of the situation, or something. Later still we came to what used to be my grandparents' farm, and I saw my grandfather falling off a ladder propped next to a trailer. He got up and resumed what he was doing. I told the raven who he was, and we went in to see my grandmother. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
9:15 am	An alien dream Last night's dream ended on a low note: the aliens imprisoned humanity, Matrix-style, and kept them in their sinister scarlet-glowing high tech grotto, groves of babies hanging upside down from the ceiling and the walls, mewing and reaching their hands in creepy unison whenever an alien went by. Like a bunch of sea anemones... The aliens didn't keep them for energy, though, but as pets and toy things, to nurse and play with. There was an alien with a baby on its arms, the baby very happy to be fed, the alien gurgling maternally. I also spotted two fully-grown humans, abnormally tall and thin, dressed lavishly - they were continually trying to impress and attract the aliens' attention, sometimes provoking their parental instincts by extreme methods, like cutting off their own arms and such. One of the men was indeed missing an arm, and I think the other had done some severe self-harm as well. Also, the aliens were true and tired pseudoaliens: vaguely humanoid, gross brown, slimy. I suspect they had actors in them... (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
10:25 am	A dream of an opera Last night I dreamed I was watching an opera. It was being performed in a huge auditorium, with tiers of seats rising up to great heights on all sides. Instead of having a proper stage, the whole auditorium had been decked with props, whichmeant the performers were moving and singing among the audience. The sets were reminiscent of ruined classical landscapes and temples, and the lighting was lurid and dim, creating a sort of doomful, hellish atmosphere. The opera itself was about a revolution and a war, perhaps the French Revolution again. Curiously there were no recognisable individual singers, or maybe the opera had progressed so far their time had passed. There was a huge choral piece, where armies of singers marched across the sets to the sound of orchestra and cannonfire, carrying banners and flashing swords into the fire. The inexorable advance turned into a blazing pandemonium, where the music and chants were chaotic, the battle lines mixed, and devilish imagery surfaced from the chaos. My father commented that the inclusion of Santa Claus, a demonic figure with a halo of rockets affixed to his back, looming through the ranks, was a fine touch of detail. Anyway, the advance of the victorious army was representative of both the actual progression of the war and a more general course of the revolution. The final battle left in its wake calmness and a returning order, with the singers restoring their preferred infrastructure; during this epilogue of sorts, the audience slowly drifted out of the auditorium. The only one who retained her post after the war was the caretaker of the opera house - she was mistaken for a beautiful blue-eyed man by her would-be lover, as she was dressed in obfuscating garlands and a deceiving hat. The lover tried to kiss her, but then he realised she was a woman, and retreated. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
7:19 pm	A dream of annoying old men Last night I dreamed I was walking by the banks of the Aura River in Turku. This was in summer, the sun was shining and the trees had green on; I, for my part, was carrying a pillow and a blanket, and took an occasional nap by the riverbank, despite all the people wandering about. I started to feel pretty uncomfortable about this, not the sleeping part really, but carrying the blanket around. I walked away from the river and into a shady park, with trees big and leafy like they come in Seattle sometimes. I got into a junk store soon afterwards, having lost my blanket and pillow in the meantime. In the store there was an elderly man who kept puzzling over the junk. He tried some kind of a stole on, and kept asking me what an "aura" was (this in Finnish, mind you, and though the words have the same meaning when you cross to English, it also has a native meaning of "a plough"). The man seemed to imply the former meaning of the word, insisting it related to the stole he was handling. Anyway, I was annoyed at the constant pestering of the man. He followed me as I left the shop and got into a bus with me. He kept bothering me about this and that all the time. By now it was grey, cold, and wet outside, picture perfect late autumn weather. I was wearing a glove, which was my special glove, accentuated by the fact that I had only one. When my stop came, I tried to get up and leave the bus, but the man clung to me and my glove. Then the glove ripped. I got totally mad at the man. I put the worst dream magic I could imagine on him: he was suddenly alone in the bus, which was cast in eerie grey light, and outside the windows everything was ink-black. The bus was hurtling along at a terrifying speed, and screaming ghosts flew up the aisle toward the man. Then the dream ended and I woke up feeling pretty smug at having taught the man a lesson. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
8:36 pm	Vocabulary decision I use the words apparently, actually, and probably too much. This must change. I will stop using them altogether. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
8:56 am	Owl dreams ( Long. Detailed dreaming happened... ) (Comment on this)
Monday, October 12th, 2009
10:09 am	A dream of moss and horses Last night I dreamed that I went out to gather lingonberries for porridge. Then I spotted some edible moss and started scraping it off the rock face it grew on, but a fellow appeared and told me I had to gently peel the moss sheets off the rock in order to preserve all their nutrients. Later, back home, a slightly crazed French exchange student came for a visit. She wanted to go base jumping off the cliffs. I wasn't interested at first, being engrossed in peeling moss using my newly-learned skills, but eventually agreed to show her a few good spots. Only, we had to wait for the horses to arrive at first, and when they came, we got them tangled up in their reins and rope, and spent the rest of the dream trying to get them untangled... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
10:33 am	A dream of buckets and rain Last night I dreamed I was a dumb country boy roaming the far fields of a strange land settled by pioneers a few generations ago. It was raining most of the time, and the fields were wet and muddy; there were giant fireweed trees growing by the roads, I called them "horselips". I was following my grandmother and older brother around, she'd found a bucket which was somehow cursed, and needed to be buried with the proper rites. We found a suitable place on the fields, on a slope where the rain had washed the crops away, exposing the dark brownish soil. However, she dug up another cursed bucket there, so we had to take that with us and find another place. We came to a rich man's house, which was painted sky blue, and had four doors at the verandah, each painted with an unusual, bright colour. I'd never seen such a house painted in such colours, was slightly amazed. Inside there was a television, which I'd rarely seen. I tried to pretend it was nothing although I was staring at it, and the family living in the house mocked me about it. We left and wandered around the settlement where all our kinsfolk lived (the place ran the gamut from early 20th century to surprisingly modern). As the weather was bad, we spent the night at my cousin's place and picked up reinforcements for the bucket business. My grandmother said we'd best go to the marshes to find suitable spots for the cursed buckets. We prepared to go, though it was raining, and I wore a bright red scarf which made me feel silly, but I hid it under my collar and felt I was not so young, and quite manly. By this time we had two female cousins with us, and several men. At one point we came across a squirrel nest - an old tree stump crawling with tiny two-inch squirrels. They got under my clothes and squirmed against my skin uncomfortably. Later, the party split up and there was talk of the earliest times when the pioneers had first settled, that back then everybody remembered everything and respected each other, so that there was no need for laws or written documents. Our neighbour had got a cancer but instead of sailing back to the old country to be treated, he got the tumour cut out by the local doctor and survived. The operation cost him 1,50 euros. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
6:14 pm	Wacky hijinks ensue! Fifteen random characters are thrust in perilous situations with friends and complete strangers - cue canned laughter. ( The hijinks. ) ( Just who the hell is who? ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
9:48 am	Meme time! A reanimated meme courtesy of saltnester. Potential zombies involved. 1) I will make a list of 15 characters first, and keep it to myself. 2) You ask questions such as "4, 9, 2 & 3 perform Shakespeare. Which play and who plays who? If 12 had a say in sets and costumes, how would they turn out? How does the opening night go?" 3) When there are enough questions, I'll round them up and answer them using the 15 characters selected beforehand. Potential zombies ensue. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
9:00 am	Dream music I dreamed I was in catach_amadan's house, and we were playing... I think she was playing the drums, or the guitar, and eruiel might have had a flute or something, and I was singing and playing wood chips. Which are not an instrument and thus didn't make much sound. catach_amadan introduced us by our Ugandan names, giving an improvised speech in an imaginary African language. My singing was a rhythmic nonsense-chant about Shaka. Later there was a fourth fellow, a middle-aged guy who had sold his guitar sixty-four years ago (paradox, of course, but there you go, the dream) and was into horse-riding, if I'm remembering this right - he joined the band, and I plugged an acoustic guitar into an amplifier and started playing something I have a vague memory of but can't put a finger on. (6 Comments |Comment on this)