I build a home and wait for someone to tear it down

[sovay]

During one of the four discrete hours I may have managed to sleep in my own apartment, I dreamed of a trio of dark-masked, clever-clawed, civet-bodied animals tumbling across the carpet of the front hall that I recognized finally as orries, which I realized I had never known were marsupials of the real world as opposed to inventions of the 1970's children's trilogy where I had encountered them in elementary school, the companion animals of the nuclear-winter breed of human traveling in secret across a post-rain-of-fire Australia, in some places reverted to a sort of colonially reconstructed medievalism, more indigenously enduring in others. I had so wanted an orrie of my own as a child reader, not least because they were a mark of the strange: bonding with one could get an adolescent suddenly exiled from their pseudo-medieval settlement, as had of course happened to one of the protagonists; they too were creatures of the fallen-out world. In this one, they were inquisitive and quick-moving, slithered themselves into the tub as eagerly as yapoks, and Hestia hissed at them. Awake, I am even sadder about their nonexistence than the more predictable fictitiousness of the books and their famous Australian children's author. I dreamed also of Stephen Colbert, I assume because I am worrying about him. It does not feel actually out of character that he had read much of the same random science fiction I had.

Comments

[selkie]

That was a wicked cool dream, dang.

[sovay]

That was a wicked cool dream, dang.

It was a surprisingly nice time! (I still think we should have orries.)

[selkie]

You and your weird pets from apocalyptic landscapes. *beams*
NICE NICE.

[gwynnega]

It seems like there could be a story or poem from that dream. I especially like that the books were Australian.

[sovay]

It seems like there could be a story or poem from that dream. I especially like that the books were Australian.

Thank you! That part is even realistic to the libraries of my childhood. I got both Ruth Park and Graeme Base from the shelves of my elementary school. (This parenthesis to acknowledge the New Zealand authors my brain unhelpfully also supplied.)

[anna_wing]

They sound like palm civets.

[sovay]

They sound like palm civets.

They looked like them! I suspect the Australian setting dictated their marsupial nature.

[pameladean]

Awwwww. Orries! I bet Hestia could get resigned to them if she could tell them what to do. Though maybe nobody could.

As for Stephen Colbert, I have always found his extreme Tolkien geekery profoundly endearing. Also, when he and John Stewart used to both do satiric news shows, he never, ever ragged on NASA, because he had better sense.

P.

[sovay]

Awwwww. Orries! I bet Hestia could get resigned to them if she could tell them what to do. Though maybe nobody could.

Well, since we can't tell Hestia what to do, it might be only fair.

(In the last week, she has developed an intense interest in climbing into our—sparsely stocked in booze terms, but still full of glassware—liquor cabinet. KITTEN NO.)

As for Stephen Colbert, I have always found his extreme Tolkien geekery profoundly endearing.

Yes! So you see it seemed totally reasonable that he should also have read a random trilogy of post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

Also, when he and John Stewart used to both do satiric news shows, he never, ever ragged on NASA, because he had better sense.

Which even puts him one up on Tom Lehrer. And admittedly from a great and crowded distance, I did once see him live.

[pameladean]

It would be fair if the cat who cannot be told what to do could not tell orries what to do; but I don't think she'd be resigned to it.

As to the glassware-filled cabinet, argh, no indeed. I wonder what she thinks is in there.

As for Stephen Colbert, you're right, I wouldn't be surprised at hearing he'd read pretty much any sf.

You saw Tom Lehrer live?!! Or Stephen Colbert? Either would be cool.

P.