i need to clear my mind

There's a new moon today. About five minutes ago, actually. The new moon is a time for sowing new intentions. So tell me, world, what are your intentions for this moon cycle? My intent is to continue trying to focus on myself and my writing. Sometimes that necessitates taking a detour into a lot of freelance work (we all need money to take care of ourselves!), which is a bummer, but so be it. So this moon cycle is about focus and about looking forward, for me.
I dreamed last night that a very dear friend of mine had cancer, and that my parents and I were his primary caretakers as he moved toward the end of his illness. It was heartbreaking, but it was also amazing to spend such raw, honest time with him.
Several strange dreams recently: The previous night I was running a secret gambling hall set above a bar. Invite only, you had to be told where it was, etc. I lived in the space, so did a family of cats, and most of the people who came for the gambling were pool friends in real life. Another night I dreamed about the two children I used to take care of, but in my dream they were teens and living in a house in a smaller town residential neighborhood instead of an apartment in New York. Another night I dreamed about two tribes of post-apocalyptic survivors. Mine was a group of traders, salvagers, who lived in a rubble-filled city and kept giant ledgers of trading records. Nearby in the wilderness was a much more savage tribe that used sex and slavery as power tools. One of my tribesmen defected to (or was stolen by) the other tribe, so I went looking for him. Uncomfortable. And in another dream, the devil himself was leading me and a friend through an ever-shifting series of landscapes until we arrived at his home, which was a fancy, beautiful old mansion (think 1900s New York mansions on Fifth Avenue, not big sprawling English estate mansions). We were there so he could keep us safe, but then there was a big party and this other demon showed up on a rooftop terrace with my brother in tow, and I wanted to rescue him.
See? Strange.
Two books: 7) Copperhead by Tina Connolly. This is the sequel to Ironskin, which I quite enjoyed. I had a harder time getting into this one. The switch in main character had something to do with it, and I felt like this one was really slow in getting to the interesting parts. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it's a keeper for me.
8) Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr. I've read most of the books Melissa Marr has out there, an generally, I really enjoy her work. (Especially Graveminder. That's one of the best fantasy books I've read in the last several years!) So I was excited to dive into this one. But it left me feeling very conflicted. Of the two main characters, I only liked one, which means I really struggled with getting through parts of this book. Aya really caught my attention. She's smart, and desperate, and willing to do what it takes to make her world better. Mallory, on the other hand . . . She's been kept in the dark about who she is for her whole life, and has a lot of prejudices that her father taught her. I struggled with her because she's weak, and (especially early on) whiny about her life. If there's a sequel, I'll probably read it; I do want to see where the story goes. But this one is not a keeper for me.
And now, I need to get back to my kimchi (I should really do a homesteading post soon about what I've been up to in the kitchen lately) and then do a couple hours of freelancing before I go to pool this afternoon.
Happy Sunday, lovelies!

nothing is taking me down

Almost two weeks ago, I woke up sick in the early hours of Monday morning. Aching body, tired mind, warm throat that felt swollen on the inside . . . Fun. As a result I didn't do much that day (well, I didn't do much for me), and as a result of that, I didn't sleep well. But when I did finally get some sleep, I had horrible dreams. The first one I have only a very vague recollection of, but it was about hanging out with a friend who was near to death from cancer. In the second one, the earlier parts are flashes of scenes. Walking around downtown in a town that looked like Eugene, sort of. Running up a muddy hillside in bare feet, with a dog at my side. I was wearing a dress. And then I was in a big homeless shelter that was built in the forest outside of town, it was a sprawling place of tubes and tunnels and stations within it for food and sleep and hanging out with people. I was walking around it with someone else, maybe I was doing an orientation with them? Or giving them a tour? Regardless of the specifics, a homeless man with a gun (a rifle or a shotgun or something) came in while we were there and shot a lot of people. The noise was horrifying, and there was blood everywhere, and people screaming. I saw two headless bodies on the floor. It was awful, and waking up from it was awful, too.
Well, I meant to blog that a week and a half ago, but never made it back here to finish the post. So you get a couple posts crammed into one. The sickness from the first paragraph didn't last long. Thank goodness, because the last two weeks were very busy. You see, I gave notice at my job, so they were my LAST two weeks at my job. My old company has hired me back to fill a higher position than the one I left a year ago, which is really exciting! Equally exciting is that I'm taking a week off between jobs, so today is day one of my time off. I plan to do a lot of work on my novels, and do a lot of work on my apartment, and get some exercise and play my instruments every day. And read! Speaking of, here are some books for you:
4) Buffy the Vampire Slayer vol. 4. I always love reading Buffy. Enough said.
5) Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? by Max Brallier. This was a lot of fun. Max, who's an ex-coworker of mine, created a sharp, fun choose-your-own-adventure for adults full of zombie gore and good humor. I read through it a few times, making different decisions along the way, and really enjoyed it!
6) One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire. This is the fifth Toby Daye book, and as always, this series left me a little brokenhearted for Toby. Life is hard and never gets any easier for her. There are flashes of happiness and brilliance, but there are also serious consequences to her actions, and difficult decisions. I wept at the end of this book. The sixth book is out, and I have it, but I decided to give myself a break emotionally by reading something else. Don't take my words as a negative review, though. I adore this series; it's one of the best urban fantasy series I've come across in the last several years. I'll keep these books forever and reread them every so often. Love these books.
This morning I had another strange dream. It was in the early years of the twentieth century. The suffragettes were a new movement, life felt somehow innocent but somehow complicated at the same time. My family had a large estate, and we were hosting some sort of party/celebration. I was wearing a simple, flapperlike dress, wandering around our home. A man cornered me--he looked like Philip Seymour Hoffman--and asked me to do a spiritual healing on his back. He took off his shirt and stretched out facedown on a settee in the hall. He had a giant purple bulbous growth on the back of his lower skull that hung down like an eggplant, and on the left side of his torso there were strange horizontal scar lines. He said that he could feel evil spirits living in the scars and asked me to pull them out. So I did. (I think I cast the evil spirits into a nearby houseplant, for lack of anywhere better to put them.) He thanked me profusely and a little awkwardly, and lumbered away after replacing his shirt. I went to the backyard. It was nighttime, and there was a swimming pool and many people around. I remember having a conversation with a young man, though I don't recall what about. There were several conversations with my sisters (my real-life sisters) and my mother (also my real-life mother). The extended family were not my actual family. There was something about riding somewhere in a car and being uncomfortable. . . . Something about a sport of some kind. Something about wanting to travel, or being envious of someone else who had traveled. And there were whispers about the suffragette movement, and I had a flash image in my head, sort of a black-and-white news reel, of watching women in uniform getting shot and killed. One of them was related to a friend of mine, a sister or mother? I saw her fall and then I saw a picture of her tombstone overlaid on her body, but it didn't have her name on it, because being a suffragette disgraced your family. At one point someone turned on a radio so there was music wafting on the breeze. And then an older gentleman in my family began to speak very negatively about the suffragettes, and I was all riled up (I don't remember why) so I started shouting at him that women are people too and deserve equal rights and how dare he treat his female family members like subpar humans, and on and on, and he scoffed at me so I said "Fine, maybe I'll join the suffragettes!" And he got very angry with me. I wish I could recall more of the conversations. I know I was in and out of the house several times with different people. I know there were younger children about, playing in the pool and on the grass.
On that note, my partner-in-crime isn't feeling well and is therefore already asleep, and I think I may join him in that. I hope everyone has a lovely Saturday night!