Fragmentariness...

I haven't posted in a long, long time....

Today is definitely a "mashup" day; I've got about 5 songs playing in my head at the same time and I can't seem to focus. I'm amazed that I recalled having a shoe dream last night at all.

But hooray that I did (recall and dream).

What I remember about the dream context was that I was on a group voyage--a tour of sorts, though I'm not sure where we were headed. One evening, our group stopped at a way-station, where we would be spending the night. We weren't being held captive, but I felt that none of us was too pleased about the way things were going. That's probably why I decided to go on the lam for a while.

Next to our hostel, across the street, was an outdoor shoe market, but it was closed, or closing soon. I stopped in--but was told I could not buy anything--and found it to be the most marvelous shoe emporium I'd ever seen. I started dashing around on its gravelly station, gathering up shoes like a child in an egg hunt. Everywhere I turned there was a better pair. I snatched as many as I could in my size and hastily jammed them beneath a cabinet where I hoped they wouldn't be found before I could return and purchase them. All the while, my chaperones were calling for me, beckoning me to our lodgings.

The idea in the dream was that I was then going to lay down to rest and dream about the shoes I had stashed.

Dreams are so incredibly fragmentary.

Forensic Investigation...

Today is a beautiful, sparkling, wintry day with clear blue skies. It's a perfect day for packing up all my things to move into my new house (which is what I'm doing). As I've been going through all my old and forgotten effects, I've been finding interesting archival material from my past. It's so easy to forget about things and experiences! This drawing--previously languishing in the bottom of a desk drawer--proves that my shoe dreaming mind was active as of January 2005. The note paper it's on is from the journals division of University of Toronto Press, where I worked as a typesetter until December of 2004. Man, was I grumpy when I was working there! This drawing reminds me of my awful pre-dawn daily commute to Downsview station. I remember wanting to write a poem (jokingly) called "Sunrise Over Downsview." Now, even if I wanted to write the poem, I couldn't. The experience of travelling the TTC with other sleepwalking Torontonians is now erased. And I am moving on, into a new environment. Thank goodness for cell regeneration, forgetting and drawings that remind of the enjoyable fragments of grumpy days.

Crustaceans...

Last night I dreamt that while I was walking through a moor, a crustacean shaped a lot like a scorpion pierced the sole of my foot. The wound was about an inch deep and the creature started burrowing and filling the hole up with sand, saltwater and air. It was very painful and I had to rip the creature out, leaving a curved beak embedded in my foot. This would not have happened had I been wearing shoes.

Newspaper Makeovers...

Dear Readers (if you exist),

Greetings during these lazy, hazy long days of summer. It has been a long time since I had a decent shoe dream. I don't know about you, but I get quite bored waiting for these to occur to me. I've been reading a lot of fashion magazines to try and prompt my imagination, but all I keep dreaming about are places in Greece, places in Spain and all the spas in Budapest. Humbug!

So I've decided to start a new, and more guaranteed regular, feature of my blog: our weekly makeover doodles on Globe and Mail columnist Warren Clements' portrait.

Every Saturday, I get together with a group of friends (also pictured; B-- missing because she is away on a bicycle in Jutland) to do the Fraser Simpson cryptic crossword in the newspaper. Before we begin, we always give neighbouring columnist Warren Clements, of word nerd fame, a new 'do.

Viz above.

The Schizophrenic Future: Excessive and Minimal

We are entering an age of purple suede; I can sense it coming. Was it the season finale of Canada's Next Top Model, with its artificial excess, that made me see these extremely high heels with their band of sparkly studs across the toe? And check out the wispy nothing of a heel I dreamt alongside it: the shoe of the future. Just a platform to raise the heel, no sole, no vamp. Sportive.

Rorschach Shoes...

Last night, an image of plain white satin shoes, with black spots of ink bleeding across the toes. It was awfully hot last night and sleeping was difficult. I was thinking of the things I should do, or wish I would do, and all the things that I am not. Suddenly these shoes appear. Their once-perfect white satin sullied by a formless smear. However I instantly like their ink decoration. I've always preferred clothes with paint smattered on them.

These shoes are everything in my mind that hasn't yet come to be. They are the recognition and acceptance of messiness--the fruition of the creative violence I sometimes feel towards the expectation of perfection.

This is what I make of these shoes. Is it too much? Who knows? But that's what you get on a hot, humid and sleepless night.

Good Things Come in Pairs...

In an earlier post I wondered "what is it about Montreal (and my shoe dreams?)". Well I can scarcely believe it, but after a long period of shoe-less dreams, I had another once my head hit the pillow IN MONTREAL this weekend. A real crop of beauties, I saw. As usual, the most beautiful pair (and as you know, beauty in a dream is conveyed not by a visual image but an all-over feeling) were the most plain, though the most fun pairs were the most pink.

The day after I dreamt of these shoes I went for brunch at Byblos, possibly my favourite restaurant, for a Persian meal. The sun was streaming through the giant open windows and I was drinking honeydew melon juice alongside my bowl of cafe au lait. I told K-- that I'd had another shoe dream, and here was the drawing to prove it. Then N--, a friend of K--'s said, "you dream shoes too!?"

I nearly dropped my spoon of cantaloupe/rose jam. It turns out that N-- not only dreams about shoes, but she draws them as well. This makes me giddy! I can't wait to see her drawings. I suppose if she's going to post here, I might as well drop the convention of the dash-dash and tell you that her name is Natalie!

We all wonder if anyone "gets" us. Recently I'd been wondering if my interests in beauty, colour, form, pattern and image were so unpopular. Sometimes it seems as though I'm alone in observing these things while my friends obssess over politics, finance, policy, science, etc. Weighty topics. I think about these things too, but...drily.

Anyway, it's exciting to think that Natalie and I might share a little flag in our individual imaginations, one that signals a vision of a world of beauty, character and free expression. Through shoes and other things.