mntmq7

-Slogan quote: "The sweetest way to eat a cranberry," Craisins package-

I had a fairly involved dream last night, of which I remember next to nothing. Let's see, I also had a dream sometime in the past week which involved a highly absorbent shower curtain, probably a symptom of fighting with a shower curtain the day before (and losing miserably).

Well, a happy belated Thanksgiving to all... yes, even those in countries that do not celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm certainly thankful to have another round of snow here, this time even deeper than before (I'm sure the natives still don't consider this a proper snowfall, but I do. Hmph), as well as some friends that made certain I wouldn't spend Thanksgiving day being my usual reclusive self.

I'm feeling like I should do another storytime, perhaps. Unfortunately, I don't think I'd consider this quite kid-friendly, so parents, continue at your discretion. Also, this happens to be another gloomy one, as you could probably guess by the title. Rest assured I don't actually have such a depressing outlook on life... it's just that gloominess is often more interesting to write.

The Queen's Lament

I never could have known I would be a queen. That is what the brave one would tell me, so that is what I will tell myself.

It's not true. I was born in the same litter as the quiet one and the brave one and the others. The males, none of them did work, ever, but the females did. My litter sisters and I could never quite keep up, so we stayed with the males.

I remember once, when I was still trying to be with the females, they were ignoring me. I finally ignored them too, until the line reached the door to the outside. Then, then! They stopped ignoring me, and indeed they picked me up and carried me home.

The brave one told me to bite them next time, and I wanted to. The brave one saw this, and he told me again. He couldn't bite them himself, for they watched him more closely than I. As if he would blow away. As if all the males could blow away. He never let his confinement turn into anger; his thoughts of violence were thoughts that pleased me, so he cultured them.

I remember then that the quiet one spoke. He spoke only one thought, and it was "Patience." He stopped at that, for he was tired. In fact, the brave one was tired too, for the males had less strength than even my litter sisters. I always thought that they didn't try hard enough, that they saw no males at work, that at least the females tried. But the next thought would be that they did look tired.

I remember next when the two found out about their lives. Perhaps they knew before, and they only hid it from me. I had been speaking with an old queen, asking about how it felt to have eggs inside. I did not know then that I was a young queen -- she did not tell me either. She did tell me that she had lived for many, many years, and all at once I wanted to be a queen. She said she had outlived all the others, and this I told to the brave one and the quiet one.

The next day, the brave one told me that he would live for a short time. I asked him how he knew, and he said there were no old males to speak to. That he had himself spoken to a queen, and the queen had told him the truth. The quiet one interrupted him then. He asked how he had made it to a queen, with so many around? When there were so many around, watching lest any fragile males leave their protection?

This tired them both, and a worker hustled me away. I asked the queens and one had an answer. A male had come, but it was the quiet one. She had told him the truth. Oh, yes, the truth. The truth that queens are the death of males. That the queens and the males dance in the sky, that the queens fly home laden with the  gift of one. That the male falls to the ground and his scent fades. The truth that in a short time, I would be a queen.

When I spoke to the litter brothers, to the quiet one and the brave, the brave one offered. He said that his life fulfillment lay with me, and then his life would end well. The quiet one said nothing, and he seemed frightened, though he must have known. They both ate well that night, and indeed I hungered too.

As our wings grew, so did our strength. I stayed from them, by both instinct and mind. By instinct, but not mind, I rose and flew, and they rose on that day and followed me. The brave one approached me first, and he pleaded with me not to let his life go to waste. He said that there were so many things that could kill him, once he returned to the nest, and that if he never finished the flight and died alive, he would die later dead, with the flight unfinished. The time of the dance had made him strong, for a short time. His dance was precise, and my instinct slavered. But my mind told me to hold. I could not be the death of him.

Then the quiet one came to my other side. He too danced a dance, and though he said nothing, I could tell his desire was greater than the brave one's, and too that he would make a fitter sacrifice, for his flight throbbed in me harder. I also knew that I could even less be the death of him, for his new boldness caught and held me like food.

So I flew on, and they flew to each side. I knew that I had to pick one, then. That I could not choose my lesser brothers, but only one of these two. The first I could not bear to kill, but to slay the second would be to tear out my senses. The first I had thought I could choose, and save the other, but to take the token of the first was repulsive to instinct when one worthier than he flew beside me.

At last I accepted an offer. The male I turned to billowed in victory; I assume that the other flew off silently, for my instinct narrowed onto the one. Our flights merged and fell into intricacies that drained the energy with which he had filled his stomach. His wings twitched as he left, as he left and fell. He fell dead, but I flew with fullness. I returned to the nest and to the comfort of the birthing den. I looked for my other brother, the one I refused, but his coming spun later and later.

I waited, oh, I waited. In time there came a file of workers with the field of empty males. I saw many on the backs of the workers, but living males I did not see. A gap came in the line, time passed. Then the workers came burdened again, not all at once. And I saw that the old queen had not told me the whole truth.

Reality check. I'm sure I took some artistic license with ant biology/consciousness/social structure in that... oh well. And I should probably mention that this tale is somewhat unintentionally heavily influenced by Julie E. Czerneda's Trade Pact Universe series, as well as Frank Stockton's "The Discourager of Hesitancy".

jfmq

-Geologist quote: "The energy required to create a rampart crater at the equator is obviously much greater."-

Nothing particularly memorable on the dream front, again. I plan to get more sleep next week, however, which may help.

I wonder what children would be like if we didn't build unrealistic expectations into them about good deeds -- if we told them that doing the right thing would occasionally result in lack of gratitude (on the part of the person helped), loneliness, and other negative states WITHOUT some sort of compensation in the long run -- very much unlike every children's book, which will sometimes include the short term alienation, but always sneaks in some sort of reward if the kid is just patient enough.

What kind of ethos is this? Do good, because if you wait long enough, you'll get stuff? Yes, often there is a reward eventually for this sort of thing, but I don't think it's a good idea to frame this as the reason for doing the deed, which is how it generally comes across, if only in an implied fashion. Children learn quickly -- even if the main character has pure motives, all the kid notices is Aha, this is why I do good things! It's like a trade where I put something in, then get something back eventually. As soon as I help someone out, they or humanity at large owes me.

Reality check. This is also the reason I dislike the current trend of requiring students to do community service to graduate -- the motivation shifts from "I'm volunteering" to "I do this BECAUSE I'm required to."

amnnqta

-Obvious quote: "I'll just let what you're saying speak for itself."-

No dreams this week that I remember with enough detail to report. Someday, perhaps, I will get enough sleep to be able to remember dreams again -- it requires a good deal of sleep.

So, here is where the fact that I'm not in the Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM sets in. By which I mean Colorado had its first real snow of the season yesterday. I proceeded to spend the entire day detouring off the snowless pathways into the snowy grass and generally jumping around like a little child. After all, I have to make up for an entire childhood without snow.

I discovered several things about snow yesterday. One was that even though snow looks white and fluffy and soft, if you try to pick it up without gloves or mittens on, your hands get really, really cold. Also, if you do use gloves and they aren't waterproof, they instantly get soaked the moment you return to the indoors and all the caked-on snow melts.

I also now understand what people mean when they talk about different kinds of snow, and that the kind known as "powdery" doesn't stick together very well. I made the first snow angel of my life, yesterday.

Reality check. In this particular case, there is no way that dreaming about snow could come close to finally, finally experiencing it.

7 7t

-Sticker quote: "I Voted"-

I didn't have any memorable dreams this past week... or I did, but forgot them. Which I guess would make them non-memorable.

We know people have an odd herd mentality, but sometimes I don't think it fully sinks in how very strange of a herd mentality it is.

The example that struck me this past week was humans' odd tendency to be always recruiting new members for clubs or organizations. Yet, almost universally, new members would (at least temporarily) decrease the supplies available to all members as they are welcomed and graciously given loaner gear, perhaps, or at the very least some sort of newcomer's gift. Yes, perhaps the new member would bring in more dues, but would this not be outweighed by the fact that the benefits of the dues are now spread to another member?

You will probably now notice yourself saying, Why, of course a club wants new members! It... They...

Precisely what benefit does having more members provide? Camaraderie? More minds? Slightly more donations, if perhaps the club is charitably inclined? Or is it just the thrill of convincing other people to do what you do?

Reality check. This seems the appropriate place to plug SCA. You all should join!!!

nmqt

-Geologist quote: "That kills petroleum", on the flaw in using plastic instead of paper so one does not kill trees-

Again the most interesting dream I had this week was last night's. I was a sophomore in college, for some reason touring another college (which would have made no sense to junior transfer to, since it was a liberal arts school and the college I was currently at was an awesome engineering school) which coincidentally had exactly the same rooms as my "current" college had, except they were larger, laid out differently, and had different names. But trust me, these were the same rooms -- dream intuition said so.

As anticipated, the seasons here in Colorado have some characteristics absent from Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM seasons. For one, their existence.

Also snow, which so far has been rather light and none too permanent, and also -- to my untrained eyes -- almost indistinguishable from rain. Be it said that most of the snowfalls have been at night, so the lighting is poor... but even then, it's obvious I've never seen the stuff fall out of the sky before. All the times I'd seen it before, the snow was already sitting on the ground because I went somewhere with snow on it. Snow does not come to me. Except in Colorado.

Autumn leaf fall is just as spectacular as the poets say. I'm used to having maybe one tree on my street that drops leaves, and in that case they sort of turn muckish-brownish-yellow and kind of just lie on the sidewalk. Here, of course, I can actually watch leaves turn bright red and real buttery yellow, then make their little stampedes across the street when the wind flicks them around and around.

Speaking of wind... that's one thing that's surprised me. There is so little of it compared to GDDoD levels that I can actually go around in short sleeves in numerical temperatures I thought would be cripplingly cold. So far I haven't had any day that's felt colder than anything I've experienced before, which is startling. I really expected to be frozen solid by this time of the year.

On the other hand, it is only fall, although the weather appears wintery to me. Perhaps that's why I don't feel it's any colder -- I have just so fully convinced myself that it's actually winter that the temperatures are a bit more acceptable.

I hear in winter it'll start getting into single or negative digits of Farenheit as well as getting significantly windier. Windy I can understand, but my brain is incapable at this stage of comprehending single digit temperatures, let alone negative.

We'll see how I hold up then.

Reality check. And for my readers across the pond, do keep in mind that anything under 32 degrees Farenheit is negative Celsius -- I'm positive I've experienced single digit Celsius temperatures before (read: I'm not THAT much of a wimp).