Providence...POSSESSED! Part 3: Puppy Uprising

What Cheer, 31 Dreamers?  We round out our trilogy of spirited dreams from Rhode Island's "Beehive of Industry" with a final tale of possession—this time not by sorcery or soap opera stars, but by none other than a cute raggedy puppy. Hee is Gillian's dream:

I dreamt that I found this really cute raggedy puppy on my roof. I let him in and he jumped into my arms. My cat was freaked out and ran under the bed. I started walking the streets asking if he belonged to anyone, and then I realized that he had a tag with his address on it and it was very far away. I brought him to the address on his tag (drove with him on my lap, curled into a ball) and the man who answered the door said that he was not their dog, that he had never seen the dog before. I kept showing him the tag but he was dead set against taking the dog inside. I held the puppy up and said, "I guess we're stuck with each other."

What could this possibly MEAN?

Good question. Before attempting an answer, we need to make a little point about people's feelings for dogs:

During the Vietnam War the populace of the United States was divided even-Steven as to whether or not its military (i.e. teenage boys, fresh out of high school) should be in southeast Asia killing and being killed based on the ideologies that nations thrust unto their people. College campuses were hotbeds of this schism, as all students were exempt from the draft and some felt exempt from the politics behind it as well. Others felt that it was their responsibility to stop the war, no matter what. On one particular campus whose scales were tipped more toward an angle of apathy, some activists circulated a letterhead with a press release stating that they'd be holding a demonstration where they would be napalming a dog in protest of the war. People were outraged—not because thousands of human families were being burned alive by napalm that their tax dollars were paying for, but because a dog—one dog—would be so cruelly murdered in their own city. Huge crowds showed up to protest the protest. People brought their own dogs, and nine veterinary ambulances were on site to respond to any potential of an animal being hurt. No "activists" or napalm were anywhere to be seen, but a flyer, printed on the same letterhead as the earlier press release, was circulated to the crowd, congratulating everyone for making the event the largest anti-war protest the city had ever seen. "You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam."

People get so attached to dogs, don't they Gillian? Yet in your dream no one wants anything to do with the cute raggedy puppy. This puppy is an abandoned idea, rain-soaked and neglected like a stray sock on your roof. He could be an old idea, but relatively speaking an idea that has tremendous potential for growth if cared for properly. But who will care for this cute raggedy puppy of an idea? You kind of like this idea but (as your cat would explain) you can't really take it on as your own. You need to find the right place for this idea and so you take temporary responsibility. But no one else will pick up the slack, not even (especially not) the originators of this cute raggedy puppet of an idea. So you resign yourself, feeling "stuck" with the follow-through, but also seeing the beauty and vulnerability in this little inkling that could grow into something wonderful. But getting to that point will likely be a pain in the ass.

Gillian, you strike me as a person who's willing to ask for help but independent enough to take whatever comes your way and swallow it whole. Do you really want to swallow this cute raggedy puppy? If you truly must adopt him—whatever he is—you might want to look for a co-parent, a collaborator to share the duties of whatever it is you're jumping into. Remember also: the puppy has possessed you, but you also possess the puppy. You are "stuck with each other." What does it mean? You're the dreamer of the dream, so you probably know best. If you care to share it with rest of the class, drop a note in the comment box for 31 Dreamers.

––––– –– ––– –––––

Our book of the day is The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. Read this book, dear Providence. Dispossess yourselves. And get some rest.

Cute raggedy puppy photos from Sharon's Puppy Uprising website. Sharon has appeared previously on 31 Dreamers as Choco Taco: Super Hero.

When The Cat Flips The Bird

It's here, finally: a dream from "Middle America" . . . sort of. Chicago might not be the cornfield you were hoping for. But Lauri, our dreamer from the City of Big Shoulders, has sent in not one but four dreams. It's been a tough choice between surrealist banana dramas, overpriced bagel nightmares, and an all too realistic dream about coming home to find that people have broken in, helped themselves to the facilities, and are barely reprimanded when confronted by the cops. Sounds pretty much like my six-month stint in the Windy City. "My kind of town" my ass.

Here's Lauri's star-studded winner of a dream:

Madonna's fluffy, "$1 million" cat was stalking me throughout a home right next to a chicken stand in western Pennsylvania. It was a chicken stand that actually existed, and there used to be a happy, smiling little chick on the sign, kind of waving his hand/wing as if to say, "Come on in and grab you some chicken." The cat was scratchy-bitey. 

There was also a reference made to Jessica Simpson's "revived career."

Lauri, this dream runs thick with some pejorative female imagery. It's nothing compared to the orgy of rampant sexism that pervades the Interweb, but it is possible that maybe—maybe—some images from the American media could have seeped into your dream here. Shocking, I know—is nothing sacred? Aren't dreams supposed to be communiqués from another realm more akin to mystique and magic than crass commercialism? Having tabloid gossip about Jessica Simpson in one's dreams is like having a neon Pepsi billboard orbiting the earth and a Nike Swoosh etched into the surface of the moon (which would be a Newport Cigarette logo for our compañeras in the Southern Hemisphere). But I digress.

The Madonnas and the Jessica Simpsons of the world serve as icons of a specific feminine ideal attainable by relatively few women. The highest standards of feminine glamor and beauty seem to be defined by the Marilyn Monroesque qualities of: 1. Blond hair, 2. Large breasts, 3. Hips to match, 4. Skimpy clothing, and 5. Accessorized facial features such as long lashes, luscious lips, and/or a distinguishing "beauty mark" that one hopes isn't cancerous. That these standards exclude the 98% of the world's women whose ancestry cannot be traced to Northern Europe is a statistic that would have made a smug Adolph Hitler say, "I told you so." That the remaining 2% of qualifying Arayan female stock must then conform to certain ranges of measurements and characteristics not within the natural register of most human bodies sets many up for feelings of inadequacy and resulting struggle. The socialization of some women into this scheme has fostered a stereotype of the competitive (or "catty") female persona and yes, she appears in this dream not as the Blonde Madonna, but as Madonna's precious cat.

That this catty cat is terroizing you Lauri, even in the supposed sanctity of one's dream-home, shows there these concepts are capable of hunting and haunting a person no matter what. And what sanctity is there with a greasy fricken chicken joint stinking up the house from next door? And the chicken—the "chick," the "bird," the flesh emblem of this meat market of femininity, cloyingly gesturing to the men in their pickup trucks: "Come-n-grab-it boys!" Finger-lickin good, right?

Maybe this stuff isn't actually an issue for you Lauri, but some inkling of it is swimming around in your brain as it is in mine (and anyone reading this via the internet, a medium that nets $3 billion a year worth of porn sales in the U.S. alone). What's to be done? I personally take cues from the first celebrity I ever had a crush on. No, it wasn't a member of The Brady Bunch, it was Laurie Anderson. She was one of the few weird music-makers to pop up on TV when I was a kid and she rocked some awesome androgyny that my budding 10-year-old brain found perplexingly cool. Years later I'd find a copy of Roselee Goldberg's massive retrospective on Anderson (for 50¢!) and when I read about her early art projects where she exhibited photos of every man who harassed her on the street I knew why I'd been drawn to this person: her dreams would somehow mix with mine and now I nudge them up against yours Lauri. 

I think you Lauri(e)s have some things to discuss. Maybe find an old record of hers (and get yourself some Yoko Ono and June Tyson while you're at it). Hopefully their tuneful tones will chase away the busty blonde denizens that lurk in the recesses of your mind. And should you make music and art and action in some badass fashion, send it along to 31 Dreamers.

Pictured on this post, top to bottom: Madonna, $1 Million Cat, Katie Price/André (a.k.a. "Jordan"), Jessica Simpson, Judy Jetson, Foghorn Leghorn, Avril Lavigne, and a video of Laurie Anderson as an antidote.