What an interesting night: I had dreams galore, and they were all fun and fascinating!

 

In the first one, I was back at a sort of API (Animal Protection Instutute) place, and someone very much like Belton Mouras was the president of it, but it wasn’t strictly humane education/animal welfare oriented. It had a small enclosure next to it that housed two newly-arrived river otter pups, which I was in charge of.

 

I was writing Belton (or whoever) a note explaining the receipt of these little critters and saying that I would be raising and caring for them until they could be released, and seeing how amenable they were to human handling and that — if they were — I would be bringing them to him so he could get photos of and with them. So, in this dream, the river otters were my wards, not my employer’s.

 

The river otter pups’ chain link enclosure featured a small cement pond that was of appreciable size to allow them to climb, slide, swim and dive, but wasn’t more than about eight feet high or much larger in size than perhaps one half of a pickleball or tennis court.  I felt it was adequate as a “kiddie size” training ground for baby river otters, but nowhere near Sea World enclosure size (or even Northwest Trek enclosure size) for perpetual, life-long keeping.

 

These otter pups — Whistles and Whiskers (their names arrived with them in my dream) — were utterly adorable.  I sat in their enclosure and watched them wander around, curiosly looking into its parameters and options for fun.  I didn’t try to interact with them right away: I wanted it to be their idea. And I knew at some point they would become hungry and start wondering where their next meal was coming from.  It would be coming from me in the form of milk in baby bottles and small pieces of fish, both of which were sitting beside me where I was.

 

Not long after I arrived and sat down, they started looking for sustenance. (River otters burn calories fast and need to eat frequently.) I had been chatting with them softly as they explored, so they were curious about me already.  So, when I took the plastic lid off the “fish platter” and they smelled it, they came over pretty quickly.

 

I leaned down from where I was sitting and took a spoonful of the goop, held it out to Whistles.  He took it readily, so I grabbed another spoonful and offered it to Whiskers; she, too, ate it without hesitation.

 

I didn’t know if they still needed milk, but I offered it to them. They didn’t like the bottle idea, but they drank it from a dish that I had carried along.

 

I didn’t try to pet them, but I did hold the spoonsful of fish goop atop my lap next so they had to come onto my lap to eat the next several bites.  I wanted them to get used to my scent and to the feel of my body beneath them.

 

They weren’t nippy in the least

 

They remained calm, unafraid, and rather kitten-like. Curious, looking at me and my face as I spoke calmly and lovingly to them.

 

(All of this was very reminiscent of the time I spent with river otters at Marineland/Africa USA the time I went there to see how the animals were being treated when I was with API. I was able to hold, feed, and handle young otters during some of those precious moments. I also got to meet and pet a dolphin, which was a total thrill, although I felt sorry for her small pool and captive nature, knowing how expansive her real world in the sea would be for her.)

 

Then the dream switched

 

I was suddenly in one of my former homes taking care of what I believe (on this side of my dream) was a jaguarundi.  I was trying to get it (gender unknown) to eat a piece of salami for some reason!  It was intrigued but refusing, so I knew I had to find an unprocessed form of meat for it. I was rummaging around in the fridge trying to find it what it needed. The animal wasn’t voracious, but I knew it was hungry and I wanted to be able to give it what it needed…

 

 

Then the dream switched again

 

…and I was in a classroom-like setting standing alongside my desk — just as were all of the other students standing beside theirs — when the teacher (or trainer?) informed us all that we would be getting a raise to $16/hour, which made the other students happier’n than clams. But my reaction was, “Who can survive on $16/hour?”

 

And then I realized that, where I was (wherever that was in the world — the students in this dream were multicultural), $16/hour was close to Midas rich. And I thought back to the times when I was making $90 and $120 and $250/hour as a writer and feeling as happy as the rest of to people in this room felt right now.  And suddenly I felt happy with the $16/hour!  I knew I could make it on this as a writer in this place, with money to spare.

 

Not long after this announcement

 

… we were sitting in our seats when the teacher/trainer (who looked kinda like a sane, compassionate Kash Patel! go figure!) asked the classroom at large, “Why did you choose the career you chose?”

 

No one volunteered to speak.  He then looked directly at me, expecting me to answer.

 

So, I said, “I chose writing because I’ve always been curious about everything.  After I learned to read, I knew I’d be coming across information and knowledge that would drive me to find out even more, and that I would never run out of stories to tell or things to write about.  And since I have wanted to be a writer since I was seven or eight, the only way to be able to keep writing — which has always been a constant passion — was to remain curious.”

 

That impressed him.

 

And that’s all I recall of that dream.

 

But then I started thinking (while still asleep, or maybe half asleep) of the number of nameable, “noteworthy” men during my life (three) who had indicated their interest in having me become their paramour or love interest, and the ways in which I had turned each of them down, because I had so little interest in inviting a man into my life in that way.

 

All who inquired along those lines were gentlemen*, so they didn’t insist after I told them I was flattered but simply not interested in that kind of relationship.

 

(*I’m not referring, above, to the ones who expressed interest in crude, off-putting ways, like the guy at the train station where I worked as a short order cook, or the guy who intended to rape me on the ranch, or the employer who tried to assign me to one of his friends who had expressed an interest in me without knowing anything about me, other than I had a nice smile and looked f—able)

 

One of the three did have his Creative Services Director try to convince me that it would be a definite plus to engage with my employer in this manner, as it might help to boost my career at the agency. He spent an inordinate amount of time while I was trapped beside him on a plane trying to get me to agree to an affair with the man, and I was acutely uncomfortable and embarrassed the entire time, because the ardent admirer/boss was sitting in the seat behind us and I knew he could hear the conversation we were having!

 

But by 1980 — when I joined that organization — I was already eight years into being a committed MS. Magazine subscriber and feminist (and I was cosplaying as a lesbian, which was as close as I could get to my true self before I learned about “transgender”) and had read about women (and some men!) “sleeping one’s way to the top” — and the very idea turned me off.  That kind of “career negotiation” just wasn’t ever going to be on my bingo card. EWWW!!!

 

(I’m not knocking anyone who took that route, mind you. It’s definitely shrewd and strategic, given the twisted, systemic patriarchy in the U.S. — and some other places around the globe! So, for  amenable women, it’s a viable option — and many men, apparently, endorse being “used” in this way, because it definitely has worked for many super attractive women! Get ’em by the small head and you can write your own ticket! In fact, for generations leading up to the feminist era in the 1970’s, I dare say most adult women were forced to play this card to get men willing to marry them and provide for them during the thousands of years that women had to rely on men for their sustenance and survival. It was pretty much the default survival strategy until the pill came along and the women’s movement emerged — more or less — victorious!)

 

I am so lucky that I came of age when females were able to work to support themselves and get by without the financial assistance of men.  I was in the first generation of women with the wherewithal to thumb my nose at the patriarchy and say, “In your dreams!” instead of, “Yeah, let’s do this: I need you to survive.”

 

How Many Men are Mad That They’re “Optional Accessories” Now???

 

I reckon today’s men are feeling and enduring what women have been feeling and enduring for eons. When the shoe is on the other foot, it can feel backwards, uncomfortable, and pinchy, you know?

 

When you aren’t “needed” as a matter of survival, you have to bring something more to the table than your money and your anatomy. You have to provide humanity, compassion, sensitivity, vulnerability and empathy, too.  Patriarchy has failed you, too.  It kicked you to the curb and said that you should be a rock, a fortress, a provider — not a true companion, not a true partner.

 

The Bottom Line: Neanderthals need not apply.

 

Do I Hate Men?

 

No. I am one!   But I hate the way most US men have been raised and indoctrinated to feel they are superior to women.

 

Mr. Rogers was a man.

 

DeForest Kelley was a man.

 

Mark Twain was a man.

 

Jesus was a man.

 

The Dalai Lama is a man.

 

Jon Graham Mitchell is a man.

 

Jose Francisco Hernandez Solano is a man.

 

Adilio Martin Montero Vargas is a man.

 

So, see, it’s not all men!

 

But far too many remain Neanderthals.  And those are the ones whom women remember from experience when they choose the bear in the woods over the man…