Dreams - 10-8-2012

I dreamed about Helen again tonight.

This time, we were in the past, a past that had never happened.

After we broke up, she threw a big "end-of-HS" grad party at her adopted parent's (?) house in Temple, TX. A big old mansion in the middle of the warehouse district. I attempted to crash her party four times, but not as if I kept showing up, it was if it was a video game level and I kept resetting the level and trying again.

Once, I walked in the front door and attempted to fake an invitation. I was grungily dressed in military surplus and she was radiant, in a white prom dress, her hair coiffured and her blue eyes cruel as she ridiculed me in front of all her guests and threw me out. I responded by drawing a revolver and shooting her in the face, then putting the burning hot barrel in my own mouth and killing myself.

Another time, I snuck in by climbing the wall and entering through a window into the master bedroom on the top floor. I heard people coming, so I hid in an attic access in the ceiling. The door was perforated, and I was able to watch, dismayed, as she lost her virginity to every guy I had ever known and been envious of in a laughing, joyous orgy. I fled then, not caring about the noise I made in my exit. Her laughter as I ran revealed that she'd known I was there all along, maybe even that I was going to crash her party, and specifically invited those people to humiliate me. After making it to the street and vomiting, I found gasoline, chain and some locks, sealed the house in to the tune of her joyful moans, then set the building on fire. Walking away all "cool guys don't look at explosions" before crossing the street, where I was suddenly hit by a dump truck.

The next attempt got weird. Instead of trying to crash the party or sneak in, I waited in the snow (?) until the party was over, then following her as she walked home (I thought she was home). I confronted her on the seawall next to the docks (?) telling her I still loved her and wanted her back. I am unable to remember the words of her response, only that they were hurt, bitter and angry. She then told me she'd been learning to fight, and if I could beat her, she'd give me another chance. I accepted, desperately. She then went on to tell me how her biological parents had left her a present before returning to their home planet (?) and that she'd been using it in her fight training. A giant robot/combat machine rose out of the water in the docks and she entered, pummeling me to death on the docks with missiles, lasers and her screaming voice, shouting how she'd loved me and I'd ruined it. And that I would never deserve to love someone, so she was really doing me a favor by killing me.

The final time, I simply ignored my objective, knowing I'd just die again. I waited for the party to end, then followed Kate Swope (? Kate doesn't/didn't know Helen ?) as she left the party, we walked for some distance, before Kate started talking to me, letting me know she knew I was there. Abandoning my failed attempt at stealth, I moved up to walk next to her, and we talked about things I cannot now recall. She promised me a non-confrontational introduction, as she was Helen's roommate (?) and so I followed her up to the loft apartment they shared. Helen was angry and spit on me and cursed me to Kate, never speaking directly to me, before Kate calmed her down, then I was allowed to sit at one of the desks, the windows in the wall overlooking the dock. Helen had changed into sweatpants and a hoodie and after Kate changed, they sat and talked about the party, Helen pointedly ignoring me. Helen then started recounting all my failures, first just retelling fights we'd had in High School, then the times later (? but this dream was set just at the end of HS ?) when we'd met and she'd privately laughed at my attempts at reconciliation. She then started talking about my failures that night, when I'd tried to bluff my way in, sneak in and then fight her robot. She didn't seem startled or dismayed that I'd killed her when my attempt didn't succeed, just laughed derisively at my failure. During her storytelling, I was shrinking further and further down into my chair, that horrible empty feeling of embarrassment and humiliation. The sensation was so intense I woke up in a cold sweat, physically nauseated, letting my heart rate drop from over 120 back to 60 before I could fall asleep again. Apparently, the conversation between Kate and Helen had continued in my absence, which Helen commented directly to me about, the first time she'd spoken directly to me in this variant of the level.

"Awww, can't sleep? Is this too upsetting for you? I'm sorry, but you're going to have to weather the storm." Her voice was actually sympathetic when speaking to me. As if my journey through anger, humiliation and powerlessness was all part of some plan, and she, Kate and all the others were specifically present to make this happen for my eventual, if painful, benefit.

They resumed talking to each other, and I sat, quiet, taken aback that a dream character had spoken directly to my conscious self. After a while, Kate remarked that she was quite thirsty, and since they didn't have any food, she was going to go to the store. I offered to go instead, so that she didn't have to go out into the weather. Then timidly asked Helen if she wanted to go with me. Helen considered my face for over a minute, then agreed, smiling a little at me. A voice in my head said "everything went better than expected!" and I saw an overlay on my vision of the memeface that accompanies that phrase, as if some heads-up display was registering my minimal success.

Since I was still dressed, I went outside while Helen got changed into warmer clothes, and got my car started (? I walked to the loft with Kate ?) and was letting it warm up when a tatty Jeep pulled up on the street and a close friend of mine (Preston?) opened the door and told me to get in, that it would only take a minute. I complied, and we started driving, leaving the city shortly and proceeding up a mountain pass. He told me he was saving me, and we stopped the Jeep, then I followed him up a valley between two mountains to a concrete guard station. We entered, and he began speaking in Russian to the guard captain at the station, paid him some money, and was given a green duffel, then sent to what appeared to be a bathroom. The captain then approached me, "You are going to go with him. You do not have a choice. You must leave everything you have here, and take only what we give you, including your name." I must have looked hopeful, because he said, "No, you cannot be 'Krysa' you have not earned it. You get to be 'Zanudnyy'." While those were obviously Russian words, I understood them for some reason. The first was "Rat" and the second was "Wimp".

The door to the bathroom opened, my companion was not inside. The captain handed me a similar duffel and pushed me toward the room. When the door closed behind me, there was a loud click, and a section of the floor at the back of the room dropped away, leaving a shaft down with a ladder attached to the side. I turned away and opened the duffel, reaching in to find a half bar of some coarse soap on top, then losing patience and dumping the whole thing out. It contained toiletries, a full change of clothing and a Makarov pistol with one magazine. I changed into the clothing, but the toiletries back in the bag, put the gun in my pocket and descended down the ladder, leaving my old clothes on the floor in the bathroom. The trapdoor clicked shut above me as I descended, leaving me climbing down in darkness. I awoke just after the door shut and total darkness, my heart racing again.

Anger

Why do I feel like this?

An overwhelming sense of rage and betrayal,

A tsunami of red-eyed emotion ripping forth to destroy.

Like the bitch who trained me,

The cruel blacksmith who beat me into her image,

I lash out at people who show me

The slightest sense of weakness through emotional connection.

I am cruelest to those who deserve it least and I despise every movement I make that mimics hers to the letter.

I want nothing more than to feel myself again,

Bur I look in the mirror and see only her reflection glaring back at me.

Theres nothing I have to offer.

No resource or emotional commodity that hasn't been taunted it rotten by her touch.

All I have to offer is contagion,

But somehow my goddess still smiles at me.

Her voice, her eyes, her touch like at phoenix's tears, washing away disease like it never occurred.

I just want to be lost in her...

Вспоминая красоты

O, what wondrous miracle is this?

This porcelain goddess who fills my vision,

Haunts my waking dreams and inhabits my thoughts.

The corners of her mouth quirking in a smile, at my glance,

Cherry lips opening in a silent gasp at my touch,

Cheeks reddening ever so slightly at my whispered words.

Hair falling around her face as she looks at me beneath her,

Light behind her head silhouetting her with an auburn halo,

Piercing blue eyes shining out from within.

Financial Stability

So today we went to the Mall. Where shopping led me to a surprisingly disturbing realization about myself.

No, no, let me start earlier...

In December 2006, I joined the United States Air Force. Among the items provided us over those six weeks were 4 sets of BDU uniforms, 2 pairs of Black leather boots, a 4-dimensional green duffel bag...and a pair of New Balance 498 Cross Trainers.

Not being a very active person, I never knew the importance of getting new athletic shoes periodically, so I wore my NB498s for everything even remotely athletic. Squadron PT, after-hours raquetball, mowing the lawn, I wore them all the time, each outing getting them more and more broken-in, scuffed and stained.

Simultaneously, I grew up in a fairly low-income family. Clothes, shoes and outerwear were chosen as much for their thrifty price point as their functionality, and fashion was taken into account not at all. Add in that I've always been on the bare edge of making it, financially, so I've never had spending money, really at all, and shopping is not something that crosses my mind.

So when Jill suggested (nay, demanded) that it was time to buy new clothes, as my 1 pair of long pants (ink-stained and ragged-hemmed jeans) and my 2 pairs of shorts (one khaki and covered in spots of plastic from casting, the other olive green and mended from the multiple times Lilith has torn a hole in them) we suitable for someone who was homeless, rather than a 40+ hr/wk employee of a well-paying video game company, we went shopping.

I ended up with a new pair of jeans, and 3 pairs of shorts in varying colors, the rationale being that it was going to get hotter before it got cooler, and we could go shopping again in the fall. Throw in some new socks and boxers, and the butcher's bill was a mere $120, much less than I feared it would be. But that was all just lead-up.

Today, I was putting on my trusty NB498s, futzing around with repairing a broken lace when Jill again laid down the law.

"Those shoes are disgusting. You've had them for 5 years now baby, they're worn out and look terrible. We need to go get you new athletic shoes."

A little arguing for argument's sake, and off we go to Lakeline Mall, bent on shoe conquest and acquisition.

Journey's? Too skater-oriented. Hot Topic? Too goth. Where the hell does one go to buy athletic shoes in the mall? Oh right, The Finish Line.

The guy at TFL was a very good salesman. He listened to my tale of woe about not knowing what type of shoe I needed for my walking/running style, measured my foot, asked me to sprint the length of the store to watch my run, then pointed out over a dozen styles that would work, ranging from the Clearanced $25 rack to the $150 top-of-the-line, wisely pointing out a pair of $130 shoes that he was currently wearing as being quite comfortable.

I tried different pairs on, noting that while I wore a 10.5 in casual shoes and boots, he'd measured me at an 11. Some more talking with Jill about colors and styles and we agreed that the model the salesman had suggested were the most comfortable, and while he had a white and green pair on, the black and blue ones would fit in better with my current wardrobe choices (I don't have anything in bilious green). I balked a little at the price, but Jill didn't seem to care, something that blew my mind, as she's normally very reticent to spend money.

Then it hit me.

We have the money to spend.

Bills are paid. Savings has been increased. Nothing waiting in the wings. The extra money's just there. Spendable.

So we bought the shoes. They're quite comfortable. And I was sitting here playing some World of Tanks in my comfy new cross-trainers, then something else hit me.

These are the most expensive item of clothing I have ever purchased.

I did a quick inventory to make sure, costumes and garb are right out: Pinstriped Dress Slacks: $80, Legend of Zelda Hoodie $65, Steel-toed Work Boots $50... hmmm okay, that's not working, lets throw in garb and costumes too, but only the stuff I didn't make out of raw materials: Felt Steampunk Hat $35, Zombie Hunter ABUs $100, hell even my Ren Boots were only $125...

This really makes me nervous for some reason. Although it shouldn't.

Project: Carapace - Day 4: Settling into the swing of things

Day 4: Settling into the Swing of Things

Chainmaille progression was virtually nil today. Tweaked a few things to ensure that rings were butted tightly and that the pattern was even on the piece that I am calling "Front Yoke". I got about 55 rings into "Rear Yoke" before setting it down to work on leather. I'm finding that if I work on one thing for too long, the muscles I'm using for that particular task get extremely sore and then work over the next few days is painful.

I started punching holes in my lamellar plates in earnest today. Brent and I had already marked all the plates with the hole pattern, and I bought a 5/32" round hammer punch at Tandy to make the holes. It's a little bigger than Brent's 9/64" punch, but the visual difference should be invisible once everything is dyed and starts getting laced together.

About 20 plates in (read: 160 holes punched), I started noticing this black grit all over the table and my pieces. A little investigation revealed that it was bits of the 1-pound rubber mallet I was using in conjunction with my punch. Each strike was ripping off bits of rubber, and each hole took between 4 and 6 strikes to make, so the mallet was quickly disintegrating.

I went to Mall-Wart to pick up a polyurethane-headed mallet like Brent got from Tandy, but no such luck. All the soulless mega-mart had were more rubber mallets. On the way back home, I drove by an AutoZone and thought, "They have mallets at auto parts stores, maybe they have non-rubber ones!" And I was so right. There in the tool section was a one-piece, cast urethane dead-blow hammer, a lovely 2 pounds with steel shot in the head to add force and reduce recoil vibration. It was a little pricey at $13, but it looked like just what I needed, so I was willing to drop the dough.

I got back to the house with the mallet and tried it out, checking after each hole for marring of the striking surface or any signs that the mallet wasn't going to last. But I shouldn't have even worried, because aside from some extremely minor indentations, the mallet still looked new after punching another 20 pieces. Now keep in mind, the rubber mallet wasn't brand new, but it was in almost-pristine condition when I started. Here's a comparison of the two mallets after they each punched 160 holes:

The angle of the photograph actually hides some of the damage, because the rubber mallet (on the left) is actually indented over an 1/8" of an inch into the surface, but the dead-blow mallet has barely any marks.

Another benefit of the new mallet is that at double the weight and with a harder striking face to transfer more force into the punch, each hole takes 1 or maybe 2 (on the thickest plates) strikes to punch the hole, cutting down my time spent on each piece. With the rubber mallet, it was taking at least 90 seconds to punch each plate, now I'm creating all 8 holes in 30 to 45 seconds, and there's less repetitive motion strain on my wrist and elbow.

So with some anime playing on TV to keep me interested, I got down to work, setting up a rhythm to keep everything flowing nicely and at about midnight-30, I had a nice block of 100 plates fully punched and ready to dye tomorrow.

The plan tomorrow is to set up an assembly line of sorts. Brent and I will finish punching the other 200 cut plates, then design, mark and cut the pair panels for the shoulder straps as well as the 6 to 8 belts for the side closure.

After those are cut and punched, we will start the dye process. In a large bowl, we'll start submerging sets of 10 or so punched plates into the dye/water solution. I want to get a mottled effect on the armor, so once each set is submerged, pieces will be individually removed and excess dye dried off before the next piece is pulled from the dye bath, so the pieces from each set which are pulled out first will be lighter than the last pieces to be removed. There will be no purposeful pattern to the assembly of the pieces based on color, once they've been dyed they'll all just be thrown in a bag and selected one at a time at random to be added to the armor. The random selection will create a nice mottled effect to the finished vest. The shoulder straps and closure belts will be more traditionally dyed, using a foam brush, as I'm not too worried about their coloration.

Once dying is complete, we will start oiling each piece with neatsfoot oil and and begin lacing them together using suede cord, likewise oiled. I think the best method will be to oil each piece as it is selected for lacing, that way there is no confusion about which have been oiled or not.

Project: Carapace - Days 2 and 3

Day 2: Chainmaille and Lamellar

I didn't manage to get much done with the mail today, working on expanding the piece I have was frustrating, as it didn't look like I was doing anything after an hour of work, but I actually ended up doubling the size of the piece.

I put the mail aside and went over to Brent's place to work on the other armor project, Leather Lamellar in a style found during archaeological excavations in Visby, Sweden.

My main holiday gift from my parents, other than the 9-button boots they bought me at TRF, was a gift card to Tandy Leather Factory, which I used to purchase a whole saddle skirting hide, which for those not super-knowledgeable about leather, is approximately 20 square feet of cow hide, at between 12 to 16 ounces thickness.

The weight of leather assumes that a square foot of 1/64" thick leather weighs 1 ounce, so the saddle skirting I purchased is between 3/16" and 1/4" thick.

In the picture above my hide has had about 1/3 of its square footage cut into the pieces for the lamellar using a strip cutter set to 1 1/4" width. After each strip is cut off the hide, it is measured into about twelve 3" pieces and cut, creating the individual plates with only about 1" of waste per strip.

Day 3: Things begin to take shape

Back to work on the chainmaille, I started to form the shoulder straps, a pair of 16 ring x 16 ring squares on either side of one of the long edges of my main rectangle.

The plan is to duplicate above piece, then attach the duplicate to the original at the 16x16s to form a neck hole, shoulders and the beginnings of the chest and back. Next the edge that is on top in the photo will be extended, then widened in a T shape. The arms of the T on the front side will be attached to the T on the back, forming armholes and creating basically a very short vest. From that point, sleeves can be created, and the "hem" of the vest can continually be extended downward until it reaches the desired length, or I run out of rings.

My 5am math says that I've used 1492 links so far, which is scary, because that represents a little over 1/5 of my total rings, and also represents about 6.8 pounds. I can tell you that hefting it one-handed certainly doesn't feel like almost 7 pounds, so maybe I'm just exhausted and adding poorly. The real concern is that if this is 1500 rings, then the duplicate will bring it up to 3000 rings...wait a minute, I am completely wrong here. I've only used 746 rings. That means weight for this is only 3.4 pounds, which feels a lot more correct, and is only an expenditure of about 1/8 of my rings.

So, ~750 rings for the front, means ~1500 for the whole yoke, another ~1200 for the T extension, bringing the total to ~2700 for the mini-vest, a little over 1/2 of my total rings. If each sleeve is about the size of my 1/2-yoke, thats another ~1000 rings for each sleeve, bringing the total to ~4700 rings or about 93% of my rings, with a shirt that only hangs to just under my sternum.

Looks like I'm going to need to buy more rings in any case, even with my most frugal estimates of ring usage, which brings up my other concern: Ring Lord has stated that they will be discontinuing the 12ga rings when their stock is gone, which means I need to buy up their remaining 15 pounds before someone else does, but I'm not sure where the money for it is going to come from, because I certainly don't have the tools or means to coil and cut 12ga steel here at the apartment.

Back to leather this evening at Brent's, we had already cut 25 strips from the hide, creating about 300 individual plates, which were then marked with the "Visby" hole pattern, as shown below.

Of the the pieces, from left to right three different hole methods were used: Drilling with a 9/64" from the rough side (back) to the smooth side (front), drilling from front to back, and using a 9/64" hammer punch from back to front.

None of the methods produced satisfactory results, as drilling from front to back causes the ugly shredding of the leather seen in piece #2, and hammer punching from back to front causes the unfortunate puckering seen in piece #3. The old tried-and-true method of front-to-back hammer punching will produce the best results, and will not be significantly slower than drilling.

Using the test-punched pieces as templates, we marked all 300 pieces with the Visby pattern, and will begin to punch them in the next step.

That's all 300 pieces marked and ready for punching. To speed up the punching process, I will go to Tandy tomorrow and pick up my own punch set.

A quick test-threading of the pieces we punched/drilled brought up an interesting issue we hadn't considered with the rectangular pieces. Of the lamellar found in Visby, the pieces were lozenge-shaped, not pure rectangles.

When we threaded the three leather pieces together using the middle holes, the top and bottom holes of pieces 2 and 3 were obscured by the edges of pieces 1 and 2, respectively, explaining why the Visby pieces have the curved edges. While I'm not about to go back and trim 300 plates to give them rounded edges like the "Standard Piece" above, Brent commented that we could either use a hammer chisel for making belt ends to make them look like the "Centre Piece", or just punch the middle 4 holes closer to the edge of each piece than currently marked. I think I might try to do a bit of both, and look for a tool at Tandy that would do the job (a hammer chisel with a 4" gradual curve would be perfect), or borrow some fucking shears from Blue and just cut the pieces manually. *winces* Either way, it's going to be a shit job, and we're not even to the dying yet...

Project: Carapace - Day 1

I never update this as I should, but with a major project underway now, I'm making a commitment to update this every day I do any significant amount of work on it.

Day 1: Chainmaille

One of my holiday presents from my in-laws was surprisingly heavy as it was laid in my lap. I had my eyes closed as instructed, so when the 23 pounds of steel was deposited there, it was a pleasant shock.

The rings were fabricated and cut by the good folks at The Ring Lord, and are 12-gauge mild steel wire, wound to 1/2" inner diameter, for an aspect ratio of about 5, perfect for making sturdy, but not stiff, European 4-in-1 mail.

By the measurements of The Ring Lord, there are ~720 rings per square foot of finished material using the 4-in-1 pattern, but I believe that was measured with the material in it's most compact form, as I am about 300 rings in at this point, and have a piece that is 20"x3.5" when fully expanded, which is how it will be when worn, so I'm estimating more like 600 rings per square foot.

Nevertheless, some rough measurements on my own body with a tape measure says I'll need a 3'x2' panel for chest and another for back, and then a pair of 1'x2' panels for sleeves, for a total of about 16 square feet of material for the finished piece, minus the links missing for a head hole, so about 9600 rings.

My gift of 23 pounds gets me an estimated 5000 rings, so I'll probably be purchasing another 10 pounds at least, but only after I finish using these that I have and see where I am.