Friday, December 25, 2009

In the Army Now

So yeah, I set my alarm on Christmas morning. I wanted to get a jump on the day; we're having a party here today! But it was my alarm that woke me from this elaborate dream, and which I ignored to sleep more.

I was in the Army (or some branch of the military) and it was my first day of training. We started to do typical marching drills (or at least what I would imagine is typical from the movies) and then some other drills. I hadn't realized that it was going to be hard-core exercise intensive, and I was not terribly happy to find this out.

A large group of us lined up in rows opposing another group of lined up people. We were competing with the other group. Each row had to do squats as the group counted off. One lucky person in each row had a mat put under them and they had to squat down all the way to the ground with each count and touch their knees to the floor, but still keep time with everyone else doing regular squats. That lucky person was me.

Time after time, I could not keep up with my group doing the squats. They were just going too fast and my legs couldn't move that fast. And I was pointed out to everyone by the people in charge as the loser every time. :(

Finally we stopped this drill, but not before I realized that my group had been counting too fast. They were counting faster than any other group - no wonder I couldn't keep up! I realized that I should have been leading the count since my squats were the hardest and I was mad that I didn't figure that out sooner.

Then we started some running drills (good lord, my favorite) and everyone just kept running faster and faster. Eventually we were all so spread apart that it was difficult to follow the line since the leader was weaving us through a large building complex and through all kinds of doors. I would round a corner and not know which door the person in front of me went in.

Finally, I realized that the officers were trying to trick us. They were purposefully going too fast to make us lose our way and enter dangerous rooms on accident. I have always thought that I'd be no good in the military because I refuse to do irrational things just because someone tells me to - so I just quit running and wouldn't go into any more rooms where I thought I could get hurt. It was just a drill after all.

Alarm went off sometime around now, and I didn't get to see what happened in my training program.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Spiders

I only remember one part of this dream, and it's definitely one I've had before. At least I've had very similar ones. Apparently I'm afraid of spiders because sometimes they show up as the innocuous "bad guys" in my dreams. I mean, I know I'm afraid of spiders because they creep me out in real life, but apparently it's bad enough to get into my psyche and harass me while I'm asleep on a relatively regular basis. Yuck.

This time it wasn't anything wacky; Kane and I were hanging out in my mom's downstairs living room, like we are at this very moment (and like we have been for most days of the past month). In real life, I have encountered an inordinate amount of "big" spiders (approximately the size of a quarter) down here since we've been living here. In my dream, we were hanging out when I discovered a spider on the carpet under one of the folding chairs by the wall. It was probably 3" in diameter and blackish maroon in color. It was horrifying.

Looking around I noticed two other spiders on different walls of the room, equally as large and menacing. I asked Kane to get them for me since I was scared. This is what I do in real life, I hand him a cup and ask him to take them outside. And he's pretty much the nicest person ever, so he does without complaint.

But in my dream I wasn't sure these gigantic spiders would even fit in the standard spider cup, nor did I know if they were dangerous at all (they were, after all, big enough to apply to college). But I didn't want him to just smoosh them because they were huge and would leave a big old gooey mess on the carpet/walls, and, indeed, may put up a fight. So, I wasn't sure what to do about them, but I was just about hyperventilating trying to figure it out.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

In one ear and out the...other?

This was a segment of a dream that happened just before I woke up this morning. Besides this part there was a family in a 3rd world country and their apartment was all torn up and one of the kids was mad at me for something...

But that's neither here nor there for this entry (ok, maybe it's there). In this very last part of my dream I was hanging with some friends in some room somewhere (mysterious unidentified dream location) and my nose started to bother me. I looked in a mirror on the wall and saw that in each of my nostrils I had an open orifice at the back that led to my sinuses. Like take the regular holes at the top of your nose that go to your sinuses and put them right at the bottom/back of your nose just inside your nostril where they are visible. They were small holes and looked like they should be in your mouth (made of the same skin a the back of your mouth).

So, if you think that's disgusting, when I looked in the mirror I noticed that there were 2 Excedrin pills poking out of the holes. I pulled them out and was horrified to find that the asprins I took the other day didn't go to my stomach (so that's why my headache didn't go away!) but instead had gotten lost in my sinuses and came out these holes. I looked in my nose more and other stuff just started pouring down the chute. More asprin came out, I think some other stuff that I don't remember, and then finally my collection of Metcards from Melbourne.

Metcards are like BART tickets: little credit card sized pieces of paper that you validate when you get on public transport. I had collected a whole stack of them living in Melbourne and in this dream, they were now all exiting via my nose. It was disgusting and somewhat painful in the dream (not sure how that works).

I gently pressed on the outside of my other nostril to see if there might be stuff in there too and it was tender. I figured I'd be cleaning this out all dang day, yuck!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Silverchair

I was so pumped to wake up from a "meeting the band" dream last night. I've had them before - favorite band is playing somewhere, I enjoy the show, I somehow get backstage or meetup with the band and it's totally awesome. Last night, it was one of my old-school favorites, Silverchair.

I was at some night-time event with an acquaintance (no idea who) and realized that it was getting late so I should head home. I was about to start walking up 2nd Street in Hayward, past Hayward High (no idea why I was right there) when I recognized a song being played by the band under the platform that I was on (oh yeah, there was a platform and I guess I was on it). I looked down and it was Daniel Johns at the microphone!

I said aloud (in the dream), "How did I not know that Silverchair was playing tonight?!". Whoever I was with still had to go home so I descended down the hill alone to where the concert was taking place.

Now this is a novel concept, I was alone in my dream. I am rarely alone in real life and that's why I think I'm always with at least one other person in my dreams, even if they are faceless and nameless. But tonight I was on the town alone and I acknowledged that this was unusual. And I was myself this time, not looking down on someone else or through someone else's eyes as my dreams are wont to do.

Anyway, so I get down the concert area solo but the band has already stopped playing. It's always been a dream of mine to wait for an extended period of time after a concert to see if the band ever comes out from backstage, but I've never been able to because I'm always with someone who doesn't want to stay or I have to get up early the next morning or something. But in this dream, I was just going to hang out and see if I could catch up with the band.

It wasn't long before Daniel Johns (should I call him Daniel or DJ? Maybe Danny?) came out and we were instantly hanging out and were awesome friends. Then I think he sort of morphed into someone else and the coolness faded away, but for just a minute, I was kicking it with one of my all time favorites - Danny Johns of Silverchair.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Action Film on Hemmingway Court

I often have eventful dreams, we all know this. Finding time to write down all the madness is more challenging than just being there for the dreams. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, open a Word file, jot a basic storyline down so that I don't forget and then come back later that night and finish the story.

Last week I used this tactic on two different days but neither day did I remember to come back and finish the story of the dreams. Low and behold, a week later, these stories are just as unknown to me as if a they were on a debuting House episode (not a bad idea, actually...). I thought I would try to share the madness anyway, or at least give you a very piecewise (read: half assed) glimpse into two semi-interesting dreams.

Dream #1: Stress with the Kitty

Kane and I had driven down to SLO to collect our cat from Steve, the volunteer coordinator at Woods Humane Society. We had left her with Steve when we left (in reality we left her with our friend Eric) and wanted to pick her up and drive back up to the Bay the same day. As we approached Woods, I realized that it was already 5:30pm and that the shelter closed at 6. The shelter looked nothing like it did in real life and we could not find Steve in the facility, which closely resembled the Rainforest Cafe. I was getting very stressed out since we couldn't find Steve and the place was about to close. We had wanted to drive back that night and now might have to stay the night since we couldn't find him!

Dream #2: Action Film on Hemmingway Court

I have some really basic notes from this dream and I remember almost none of it. But it was so funny for me to re-read that I thought I'd give it a shot. This dream took place at the top of Hemmingway Court (where my mom lives), as so many of my dreams do. This was another one of my "movie" style dreams and I was the main character, a man.

The "bad guys" put me in some sort of a sling and swung me around until I flew out and landed hard on the ground. I was badly injured. They were then going to shoot me at the top of the court but they kept delaying. The climactic "ending" to the movie took place in my mom's garage. Andi (an old friend from Planet Lazer days) was one of the bad guys' sidekicks and she was always walking around complaining about how a DD size bra is too small. She started making out with one of the other bad guy sidekicks and I realize she's like a double agent as she hits him and then hides him in the garage just as the main bad guy comes into the garage from the house.

I hide to the side of the garage under some white cover cloths and it's super obvious that I'm there, like how a three year old might hide. But it's my dream so it's working. Andi saunters over and starts to flirt with the main villain man and then I jump up and stab him with the giant syringe costume I'm suddenly wearing. (Wait, recap, I'm wearing a giant syringe costume and I stab a bad guy with the needle of the costume. Excellent.) Andi sees this and runs away.

I'm all happy that I've saved the day, but then I realize that I didn't free the dog that's trapped in the house (duh!). I run back inside to free the dog even though I know that the ending of the "movie" shows the dog killing me. I was about to find the dog but was awoken by a phone call.

Dream Stalkers

My friend Jon sometimes emails me with parts of his dreams that are particularly crazy or funny. Or crazy funny. Apparently I'm not the only one with ridiculous dreams. I woke up this morning to this email:

"I had a dream two nights ago that you, me and Kane were vacationing somewhere and staying in a hostel. We met a couple of girls and made plans to meet up with them the next day.

Last night, one of the girls interrupted a completely different dream because we had never called them. Good times."

Gotta love pretend people who stalk you from dream to dream. I certainly do.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Run from the Bees

We were at my mom's house, but my mom lived in Max's house next door instead of her real house. The floorplan was all jumbled around (not matching my mom's real house or Max's real house) but, as usual, I didn't seem to mind or notice. It was like old times when I was a kid and families were out in the court chatting, skating, biking, and playing. It was an oppressively hot and Costco-bright sunny day.

I was outside walking around in the front yard and talking to neighbors/family who were also milling around. It was a nice atmosphere. Suddenly a swarm of bees came through the court and everyone was scared. This actually happened once when I was a kid (remember, Alicia?) and we had run inside to escape the bees. They were gone after five minutes. In my dream it was, of course, not that nice (or simple).

The bees were mostly flying by up high, but many of them swooped to check us humans out. They didn't seem to be stinging but they were flying around people's heads, arms, and legs and everyone was swatting and running around. I decided to run a loop around the block so that no bees could land on me but it didn't seem to help much. I ran down the hill, gliding on one foot at a time as though I were on skates, and then back up again with bees landing on my legs and in my hair the whole way.

As I ran I was alternating brushing my hands down my legs, arms and over my head to keep them away. I finally got back up the hill and realized my tactic wasn't really working but that it was making me quite tired from all the running in the sun. I ran into our kitchen through the garage (it was the same kitchen but mirrored and re-arranged somehow) to escape the bees and it seemed to help since they hadn't gotten in the house yet.

I think it was the type of dream where I was twitching (or at least tense) like a doggie in my bed in real life.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Australia High School Reunion

So, Australia. And high school. Nope, those didn't happen together, did they. Well, they did in my dream; I was in Australia for my high school reunion.

Kane and I had traveled back to Australia for some reason but didn't know where we should go since we've pretty much seen the whole continent in our previous travels. We were sort of hovering over the whole country, like it was a map, trying to decide where we should land. The conversation went something like, "Should we go over here?", "No, we've already seen that and I don't really need to see it again". It was like landing in hot coals rather than a vacation, which is funny because in reality I'd be more than happy to explore the place more.

We decided to land in Adelaide since that was one of the cities we never visited in our time there. People say there's not much there which is why we didn't make the effort, but why not go there in dream land? We set down (sort of like flying in an airplane, sort of like Superman) in Adelaide and I proceeded to attend my high school reunion.

Why is my high school reunion in Australia? Why anything. It's my stupid dream.

The reunion was at some sort of restaurant or banquet hall that was quite nice with dark carpet, ambient lighting, tables, chairs, etc. There were people milling around and I wasn't particularly keen to talk to anyone, nor did I really recognize anyone. I was walking around looking for some of my friends when Casey Meirovitz approached me. We talked a bit and it really seemed like he was trying to hit on me, which I would have been quite happy about ten years ago, but now it just seemed sort of creepy.

I dodged away from him just in time for the party to be breaking up. The crowd dispersed quickly and I was left with one guy who I didn't know even went to my high school. He had apparently had no friends in school and didn't have many now. I chatted to him a bit and realized that he was actually quite funny and nice, but he was just such a huge nerd that no one had ever taken him seriously.

I was going to sign his yearbook (no idea why I was signing a yearbook) to say something like, "You're really cool; don't give up on the ladies yet" (encouraging, I know), and for some reason I couldn't write the last part of the sentence. Not sure if my pen ran out or what, but I was dream-stuck in a dream-weird sort of way.

After the party was over I suddenly became really stressed because I realized that I was in Adelaide and that I should be in Melbourne hanging out with our friends Marc and Alana. We only had a couple days left in Australia and now we weren't going to have much time to see them (who knows why we didn't think of this before coming to stupid Adelaide). I checked the train schedule and there were one or two trains a day leaving for Melbourne, but the trip took like 4 hours and I was quite upset by this for some reason.

I started sort of hyperventilating because of this whole thing, and I can't be sure that my breathing in real life wasn't affected. I was really, really upset that I might not get over to Melbourne in time to see Marc and Alana and go with them to some show on the weekend.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

First Day of School

I often dream about high school or college. This dream went way back to elementary school - good times. Kane and I pulled up to my elementary school - Highland - in Hayward. We were full grown adults but we were there for the first day of school anyway. We weren't pedophiles or anything, we were enrolled just like everyone else. Dreams can be good that way.

We went to the school office to find out where we needed to go for class. There was no personnel and no signs; it was unclear what we were supposed to do. Apparently California budget cuts have hit my dream world too.

I finally found a laminated paper on the unstaffed office countertop showing a plan view of the entire school with different areas highlighted with different letters of the alphabet. The "S" area was near the 4th grade classrooms in the baseball (slash soccer, slash kickball) field; that's where I was supposed to gather with all the other kids who have last names starting with "S". Kane was supposed to go to the middle of the little kids' yard along with all the other kids whose first names start with "K".

Please don't begin to point out the inconsistency with the business of the first and last names, this dream is actually quite straightforward compared to my many others.

Anyway, so I walked through the basketball courts and over to my area of the field to join the other kids with "S" last names. There was a whole group of us, grades K through...me. I don't remember there being other adults there, but I didn't feel out of place either. Interesting.

I'm not sure what we were waiting for, but Vanessa Allen was in my group. Why would she be in my group with a last name starting with "A" - I have no idea. Not to mention the fact that I have not seen her for probably 12 or more years - again, let's not go there. She did go to Highland with me (in real life), though we were never really friends.

I used to play tetherball in elementary school because 1) it was awesome, and 2) I was gigantic for my age and kicked ass at tetherball. Vanessa was not very good, as I recall, since she was very short and generally small. In the dream we agreed to play against each other and I was almost chuckling about it since it was obvious she didn't stand a chance against me. Our relative sizes were about the same as in 5th grade in my dream.

We played tetherball and she won easily. She sent the ball flying hopelessly far over my head and I could not reach it as it wrapped snuggly around the pole many feet above me. I was astounded. But, I was resigned not to be a bad loser like we all were in elementary school and I told her she played a good game and got back in line.

I continued to watch more kids play tetherball, waiting for my turn. Vanessa eventually "roped" (touching the tetherball rope is a foul and an automatic loss), not remembering that that wasn't allowed. I reminded her, trying to be kind. Then another girl stepped in the "poison" zone - an area of the circle painted on the ground where neither player may step. We told her she was out too but she wasn't a good sport about it.

Nothing really happened (not terribly unlike a real first day at school) but I did get a good refresher course on my favorite childhood sport.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Amputee

This dream has faded a bit (see comic strip on previous entry) but it was pretty serious stuff while it was happening. For starters, it took place a few years ago when I was leaving Thom Hume's office to move to Australia. In real life, I had tried to wrap up any jobs I was working on and/or pass them on to someone else, and generally clean up the office before going. In my dream, Leslie Ronsin was replacing me at work and I was introducing her to everyone and trying to get her started at the office.

I met her in the parking lot and for some reason Anthony, a previous employee at Thom's, was also there. He was also starting work there again and I wondered why. I introduced Leslie to him and it was a bit awkward. Then, I think there was some sort of explosion or something and I was thinking that this was not a good first day of work for Leslie. But then the dream flipped elsewhere.

I had seen Thom come in earlier that morning and he was actually the last one into the office, which was not normal. I noticed he was walking weird and looked very somber. After the explosion happened, everyone else left so I went down some stairs into Thom's office (though it wasn't really Thom's office from real life) and found him sitting on a twin bed looking very distraught. His left leg had been amputated from the knee down.

He had been really upset about having to have the leg removed and hadn't told anyone about it beforehand (except family or whatever). He was very depressed about it and talking about "not being able to go on", etc. I sat down with him and tried to cheer him up. I told him to think about his kids and how they need him and that seemed to help a little bit.

He walked over to the kitchenette in the next room and started fiddling around saying how useless he was now. But all the things he was demonstrating (taking dishes down from high shelves, making food, etc) were things you do with your hands, so I was wondering what the problem was. I told him he still had both hands and was perfectly useful for most things, he just couldn't run anymore. I also realized that he probably couldn't surf, but I didn't point that out (he's big on surfing).

There was no resolution to the dream but it was very realistic and (though a bit boring) very emotional. Glad Thom still has both legs in real life.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Race to the Lodge

I woke up laughing. My dry lips curled into a smile and I lay on my right side chuckling away at my dream. I woke Kane up and he asked what was so funny. I told him. He did not laugh. I don't blame him; you had to be there.

I was working at a restaurant with some friends. It was the end of the shift and we were cleaning everything up. Actually, it was a bit of an episode of Scrubs and Elliot was one of the other waitresses. A group of her customers was all mad that she had gotten their bill wrong. I tried to help by telling her and asking her to re-do the check.

At the end of our shift we were all going to like a Tony Bennett concert or something across the street. We all needed to change and there was a small wooden lodge out back where we could do that. It had wooden verandas all around it and ramps up to the glass front doors. We were all running toward the lodge to claim a good area to change.

Just then, children started pouring out of the back of the restaurant; they also were running for the lodge and needed to change. It was like a class full of 2nd graders or something, all button noses and corduroy jackets. We all freaked - we had to beat them in!

That's when I turned to see Turk stopping in-place to change. He was putting a pair of pants on over the pair he already had on. I didn't know why exactly he was doing this, but I kept running. A couple of my colleagues had fallen behind and I looked to see Trevor, Shak (our friend, Shakib, from college, not Shaq the basketball player) and a couple other boys from college sitting outside the lodge at a picnic table all eating some food and cheering us on.

I was now in the lead to the cabin, but my running skills were even worse in my dream than in real life. I was in freaking slow motion. The children started to pass me. I had to make a decision and so I reached my right arm out, bent down, and tripped the first little blond booger who made it past me. He plummeted face first into the deck; I was smiling.

That's when I started to laugh in real life. I had tripped a child so that I could beat him in a race. Trevor and my friends were laughing so hard behind me that I burst out laughing in real life. The laughter woke me up and spoiled the dream, but I was going to trip more of them, I already knew it. It was fabulous.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Digging Up the Bowling Alley

Time travel, action, adventure, nail polish – this dream has it all! Kane and I had traveled back in time about three days (lame, I know) to the beginning of an endeavor my family was taking on to find the hidden passages under Holiday Bowl.

This was some sort of treasure hunt with an unknown prize waiting for us when the right area of the intricate catacombs was found, all Indiana Jones style. And there was action too – some sort of time limit was imposed upon us, some impending doom, some threat to be neutralized with these activities. We were archaeologists digging up the tunnels of the past while being spurred on by the vague yet imminent threats of the present!

The men-folk of my family were alternately digging/exploring the passageways and discussing/planning strategies for where to dig next. The Bowling Alley was not actually the facility in Hayward that we all know and love, but rather some other building, most of which I didn't get the chance to see in the dream.

My dad and uncle Jerry were standing outside the entrance to the underground excavations; they had taken a right turn once they had breached the surface and Kane and I were frustrated because we knew that the good stuff was to the left (since we were from the not-so-distant future and all). But they had found hobos living in some of the underground tunnels and they had thought this meant they were going the right way. I love how dreams make sense.

I was doing a bit of waiting around with some of the women-folk inside the building during these extensive excavations. My mom, all of a sudden, decided to start doing my nails. I have only had my nails done twice (and it certainly wasn't by my mom), and I hated it. But she wasn't hurting me at all so I let her continue.

About halfway through the manicure, she let one of the previous secretaries from Thom Hume's office, Kellene, take over. Kellene did my nails the rest of the way putting acrylics on (though they weren't as bulky and awful as the ones I had gotten for senior prom) and painting them a tasteful clear color. She then tried to put awful sparkly jewel things on every nail (the kind you sometimes see people wear on their pinky or thumb nail, if you're keen on contemporary nail design) which I was not happy about. But she sort of whined until I let her, so I had a diamond-ish gem on my thumb, the number '7' on my first finger and a slew of sparkles on my pinkies. Way to muck it all up, Kellene.

So that was it, and despite being knowledgeable time travelers, we had an obligation to follow a sort of skewed version of the Prime Directive and couldn't help our fam find the treasure. So, treasure-less and tacky-nailed, I awoke to another day.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Hotel Vandals

We're staying in a hotel at the moment, but the hotel in my dream was slightly different. It was far nicer than the one we're actually in – dang. Kane and I had gone to some party in the hotel lobby and had returned to our room late. It was 1am and we were just turning in for bed, reading our books. That's when I heard a shuffle outside our door and someone trying to get in with a key card.

It sounded like a family, children and all. Their key cards weren't working, which I was thankful for. Kane and I glanced at each other and then I went to answer the subsequent knocking at the door. When I opened the door, a woman holding a small girl, a man, and a small boy barged in the room in a big fumble of confusion and talking. I stared, confused, at them and asked them what they were doing. They rushed into the bathroom at the back of the room, insisting this was their room. I assured them it was not, but they insisted. I didn't exactly know what do to.

I looked at Kane and he told them, no, this was not their room or else their key cards would have worked. This was room 211, perhaps they had read the numbers wrong. They were insisting still as they fumbled around our room. It was odd with the kids there because we didn't exactly want to start a confrontation with children around. I don't remember if I just waited until they left or if I ran straight to the reception desk for help, but when I arrived at reception and told the woman there what had happened, she assured me that the family were thieves.

I was shocked. She said that this happens often. They steal your valuables while you're confused as they rush in. The woman handed me something and told me that the authorities had retrieved this from what the family had taken from us: it was a light brown bar of soap shaped like a grand piano, still shrink wrapped. I was relieved that this was all they were able to acquire from our bathroom. Then she informed me that they probably also stole more stuff but they weren't able to retrieve it. I replayed their steps around our room in my head and wondered if they got my wallet or our passports.

I felt really stupid for falling for some con; I tend to be very cautious about things like that and am typically very good at reading people. It was very odd and alarming.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Thanksgiving Horrors

Thanksgiving has become a trying time for my family, I will admit. My aunt used to do all the cooking but she has recently come into bad health and is no longer able. Everyone else in the family refuses to go out to dinner for reasons that I don't understand at all. They want a home cooked meal, which I can understand, but refuse to go out on pain of not seeing each other for the holiday. It baffles me.

Anyway, so the last few Thanksgivings have been a bit of a battle: the people who want a nice dinner out just to spend time together even if it's not over a perfectly home-cooked meal, versus the people who refuse to eat anything but 6 tons of home-made turkey, potatoes, yams, etc. And apparently my anxiety about it has bled into my dreams.

In my dream from about a week ago, I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner. In real life I have never done anything of the sort and would certainly not attempt to for my highly expectant family for my first try. I don't even eat meat for goodness sake! But, despite this, I found myself slaving away in the kitchen (of my mom's house) preparing this epic meal for my family.

I was making a turkey even though I don't know how. Everyone was already there which meant that I was supposed to be further along than I was. I was sweating. I was stressed. My uncle Jeff was complaining that I didn't have enough appetizers out on the table for them to eat. Then I realized that I had forgotten to buy potatoes and yams. The irony is that I had forgotten to buy these staple foods because I had focused my energy on getting good appetizers, which apparently weren't good enough.

So I had to rush out to get potatoes and yams even though I was woefully behind schedule. No one was helping me. As I dashed out the door, my mom laughed at me telling me that she used to even do all this (correctly) and serve venison for Thanksgiving. I have no idea what she was talking about, we've never had venison.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Swim Meet

Had another high school dream last night, these happen often. I was at some sort of restaurant and it was the middle of the afternoon, between school being let out and the start of a swim meet (there usually is no time between these events, but welcome to my dream world). My friends and some of my family were at the restaurant, and there was some sort of a performance going on. I was trying to get out of there because I had to poo and because the meet was about to start. No idea why I had a dream where I had to poo, I didn't have to poo in real life or anything. Hope you're ok with me discussing poo.

I was trying to leave the restaurant but people kept talking to me and my aunt was hitting me with a pillow, which she thought was hilarious (not very characteristic of my aunt). I finally got away and rushed over to where the swim meet was and went down into the locker room to change. I was a bit irritated, as I always was, since I was in the first and last events of the meet, meaning I had to be there (and soaking wet) for the entire meet. Some other people had stayed at the restaurant since their events didn't start until halfway through the meet. Grrr!

In the locker room I found the toilets and went poo (you're so happy to hear about it), but the toilets were little glass pods where you can't stand up and you can see into adjacent pods. I was not happy about this so I left a bit early to go change.

I was swimming the medley relay, as always (the first event), and we had our old kick-ass JV team together. Kyla was doing back, I don't remember who was doing breast, a girl who I don't remember her name was doing fly, and I was bringing it in with freestyle (it was a good team, trust me). I was putting on my suit and realized that it was my 2 piece bikini that I have now, which would surely fall off as soon as I jumped in the water. In fact, our whole team was in bikinis and I was wondering what was going on.

I was searching for a more appropriate bathing suit top (like a Nike suit top) to wear over my bikini so it didn't fall off in the water, but I was having no luck. No one else seemed to be worried about this inevitabilily. Kyla was joking about how our coach should use this lineup in the meet next week against Mt. Eden High, which would be mean since their team was always horrible. Typically (in real life) our coach would give the lesser swimmers a try at meets against Mt. Eden since there was no way they could beat us, but Kyla really wanted to kick their butts hard for some reason.

We never did get in the water, my alarm woke me up!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Carissa and My Big Trip

Dreamed Night of August 1

Two dreams last night, both very vivid. The first was a Planet Lazer dream that started out with me arriving at PL from Carissa's wedding. Something had gone wrong with the food at her wedding and I hadn't gotten anything to eat. So I was going to eat something before I played some laser tag. As I sat down to eat a burger or something, Carissa and Elijah showed up. I felt instantly guilty since I was eating just after their wedding where they had supposedly fed me, but it turns out they were also hungry since they hadn't had the chance to eat either. So we sat down to some food together. Then I went to go play a game of laser tag.

Jason Green was there and said I could get into the league game that was going on. Which doesn't make any sense; you can't very well switch players in/out in a league game, but I went in to play anyway. There were about 20 people in the game and Tony was trying to explain the rules to me, since they were different for this league game than in a normal game. You had to shoot people in a certain order since each person was worth a different point value based on the card they had pulled from a deck. I was trying to understand and, thinking I knew what he was saying, summarized the rules back to him: each person is worth a value depending on how high of a card they get (ace high, twos the lowest, etc) so you want to eliminate the highest value people first. He said, no, that's not it at all. And it was too complicated for me to figure out, so they played without me. I was befuddled since I am rarely confused so easily. And I didn't get to play!

In my next dream I had just flown to Brazil to do a tour around Australia. In the dream, Australia was smooshed onto the bottom part of South America, so the tour started in Brazil and then went south into Australia. I had signed up to do this tour by myself for some reason and was nervous about doing such a big trip without anyone I knew. There were about a dozen other people on the trip and they all had proper backpacking gear like tents and lamps and rain gear which was making me even more nervous since I only had the stuff that I'm traveling with right now (no sleeping bag, a bunch of dirty clothes, no tents or gear or anything).

After a sort of orientation where the guide told us we'd be hiking all the way there, an average of 100 km per day, I was thinking of backing out of the trip. But I'd already flown to Brazil and it was only a week long tour and I was imagining how proud I would be of myself if I could do it. I was still waffling on the matter when I awoke.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Jammin'

Dreamed Wednesday Night July 15

I was walking around outside a one story house with my acoustic guitar strapped around my shoulder. I had been playing someone else's guitar but their strings were made of something strange and almost no sound would come out when they were plucked. So I switched to my own guitar even though the strings are hard to press down and hurt my fingers after a short while (true in real life).

I was just screwing around playing some chords when Patrick came out of the house and was super excited to jam. As usual, I was reluctant to "jam" since I never know what to play when we do that. My mom was there for a minute, and she made fun of me for playing my guitar so rarely. I was offended and told her something along the lines of "shut up". Not a nice dream exchange, sorry about that mom.

Instead of jamming, he played me a song he'd been working on and I think I was expected to add something to it. I have never been good at lead guitar and was trying to think of something I could add to the song. He was playing me the song from a recording that sounded completely finished so it was extra hard to try to add something. I then realized that the song resembled a song I had heard before: Wounded Bird by The Black Crowes. I told him that his song reminded me of theirs and he alarmingly asked me to find that CD and play him the song.

I flipped through Patrick's CD collection for The Black Crowes' section, which was at the back. His six or so TBC CD's were tubes of lotion. I picked the right tube and squished some of the lotion into the CD player to play him the song. I asked him why his CD's were in tubes and he said that if you ask the cook at the store, he'll sell you the CD's for 70% of the price in tube form.

I woke up with Wounded Bird stuck in my head.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Work Exercise Day

Dreamed Saturday Night July 11

Yep, I had two dreams this night. Well, probably more, but two memorable ones. I went back to sleep after Murderers, below, and had another vivid dream straight after. That's the way you do it right there.

This time I was back at work at my Australian engineering firm, BHS, and I was on site at a job with my boss, David. I don't remember it all now, but we were inspecting the concrete piers and columns at this particular site and, though I was having my classic eyelids-constantly-falling-shut affliction, I noticed a huge blunder by the builder.

To summarize using engineering jargon (sorry): the drilled piers were installed and the columns were poured but were done separately, like precast elements. The columns were supposed to sit directly above the piers with continuous vertical reinforcement, but the contractor was instead just setting the precast columns on top of the piles. Without the continuous reinforcement the columns would have no lateral capacity at all and, basically, this was a massive mistake that we needed to call attention to.

I was trying to tell my boss David about it but he was just walking away obviously trying to overlook the error (which is very unlike him, I might add). Anyway, I followed him into the building trying to talk to him about it, but it was apparently exercise day at work. A few times when we worked at BHS (in real life) we played company basketball at lunch with the six or so of us who would play. It was fun.

So we were supposed to get dressed for basketball or swimming or some sport to play together. Alicia was there and she was all nervous about playing sports with us, which I found odd since she posts to an exercise-based blog almost daily (which I read) and I would think she would love to play random team sports. Nevermind that I have no idea why she was at my engineering company in Australia. Shaun O'neil was also there to hang out and play with us. No idea why completely random people end up all smooshed together in my dreams.

Murderers

Dreamed Saturday July 11

I was with Kane but it wasn't Kane. Good start, I know. We were partners in crime, but he looked different than he does in real life. This was one of my famous (ha) long and involved dreams that was a bit like a movie. We were on the run from the cops; we were murderers. I don't know what spawned this dream as I haven't even watched any violent movies lately or played in video games. Hamlet 2 and Yes Man didn't exactly fill me with thoughts of murdering people, but that's what I got anyway.

I don't remember it all so vividly since it was a wake-up-at-6am-to-stop-the-horror type of dream, but I do remember the gist of it. We were on the run from the cops, presumably for murdering people. I have no idea why we were killing these people but it was necessary for some reason. The first "scene" was us pulling over to the side of the road and me beheading a woman in the bushes. It was graphic and, besides the screaming that I would imagine would have been present in real life, seemed relatively realistic.

I had a machete and was hacking this woman's head off. Yeah, I know, I'm disturbed. Instead of slitting her throat which would have gotten the job done a lot quicker, I had decided to start from the back of her neck. As you might imagine, a machete didn't get the job done in one or two or even three hits, so instead I was repeatedly slicing at this woman's neck from behind as she became more and more bloody and disoriented.

After the job was done, we hopped in our car and moved on to the next victim which was a man in his house. I killed him (though later he was prosecuting us and we had apparently just chopped off his thumb) and then even went downstairs to guide his daughter, with kind words, out to the pool behind his house to avoid her seeing him and calling the cops on us for a while.

We drove more and killed more and the cops got closer and closer. It was really tense and one of those dreams you're happy to wake up from. No idea what is wrong with my brain.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Showering

This was a truly irritating dream. I have ones like this sometimes that just become obsessive and ridiculous as my brain leads me all around. In this dream I was just trying to take a shower. I was camping or on vacation or something and it was time for me to tend to the good old hygiene. I started by looking for a shower in the campground I was in and, though there were about a dozen in an out building, they were all being used.

I found an empty one but there were spider webs all on the ceiling that were encroaching down into the shower space. I wasn't going to have any of that. I thought I'd wait for someone to finish but everyone was like in infinite shower mode, go figure. I found a shower that looked perfect, so I entered, undressed and started to shower. At this point I realized that it was not a personal shower but rather one used to rinse off after using the hot tub to which it was attached. The people in the hot tub were staring at me.

I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around myself and exited the shower/hot tub area getting my towel all wet and feeling ridiculous. I asked a girl who worked at the place if she knew a good place to shower. She showed me to a place she called "the tube" or "the tunnel" or something where there were some showers in an open wood building. I set up my stuff in the little area and then went away for a minute to use the toilet or something. When I came back people had set up an archery range with the target being just next to the shower heads. So groups of people were lining up with their bows and firing arrows into targets where I was hoping to shower.

I was extremely surprised at this development, but not nearly as surprised as I would have been in real life. I mean, archery? Anyway, I never got to shower in my dream and was waiting, dejectedly, for the stupid archers to finish as my mind faded elsewhere.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Q-Zar Battle

Dreamed Sunday June 28

This one was actually a Q-Zar dream. I rarely have these in lieu of Planet Lazer dreams all the time. I was working at Q-Zar Pleasanton and there were 2 birthday parties going on which meant throngs of rambunctious children filling the lobby. Our little sales desk at the front of the place was surrounded by thick plexiglass like at the bank for some reason. In retrospect, I wish we had used a barrier like this at the real Q-Zar, it would have helped block out the madness.

Somehow a child had gotten into our little desk area and I grabbed him, opened the door, and threw him out. The kids wanted to be in there for some reason, so as I opened the door I had to be careful not to let any more in. I shoved the one kid out too hard and he fell down and I felt bad.

I then went to the bathroom and as I went in the door I entered a series of cheesy painted caves, like Disneyland style, that were supposed to be our bathroom corridors. The only problem is that it was like a maze and I couldn't find the actual toilet stall. So I was wandering around the dark, low ceilinged caves searching for the path that took me to the toilets. I would have thought I would know the maze better since I worked there, but no.

I finally found the toilet (thank goodness this part was not emphasized or else I may have wet the hotel bed – embarrassing for sure) and saw that someone had a bunch of their stuff stacked up on the sink counter. There was a tiny toiletry bag and like a curling iron, and someone's tiny gray kitten. I looked around but saw no one. As I was coming out of the stall I saw a girl entering the room. I hid behind the stall door but when I peeked over to see her, she was right on the other side staring at me. I guess I had intruded on her secret area or something.

At this point I was suddenly inflicted by a case of heavy eyes. This happens a lot to me in dreams, most often when I'm trying to run from someone or something. My eyelids are droopy and I can't do anything to keep them open. I can only see about half of what's in front of me since everything keeps fading to black; it's really irritating. As this girl and I were looking at each other, I realized she actually looked like me but with a nose the size of Cyrano de Bergerac (probably about ten times bigger than my real nose). I brushed it by accident as my hand swept back over the stall door.

As I got out of the stall I realized we were going to fight. We started to brawl all down the corridors of the caves. I was trying to ambush her around each dark corner, but she knew the caves better than I did. I don't remember how this ended, but it was an evenly matched fight and neither of us were getting hurt (I watch too many movies.)

Monday, June 22, 2009

Worms

Dreamed Monday Night June 22

Ok I finally did it – I had a memorable dream on this trip with time in the morning to write it down. I have had plenty of good, strange dreams this trip – even had a good Planet Lazer one the other night – but I typically don't have the time to write it down since we're always having to go do stuff in the morning. Ah the burden of traveling, no time to update my dream blog, sigh.

So, I was kicking it outside some house in like a garden area. Janyce from Cal Poly was there and so was Kane along with some other people. We were all just hanging out and talking, climbing in a nearby tree and on the oddly shaped house. Beav showed up; someone dropped him off from a car. He had a hat on and looked like a little boy (not far from the truth, no offense Beav). I tried to tell Janyce who he was (worked with me at Thom Hume's, etc) and then he turned into a giant fish. Who apparently could breath air since he still just floated around near us.

He was probably a 60 pound fish with light blue skin. He had three eyes but one was gone. We asked him if we could touch his skin since it looked so strange; he was reluctant but said yes. I compared it to an elephant even though it felt nothing like an elephant. Then I sauntered down to a little amphitheater area where a bunch of girls from my class at All Saints were hanging out. Allison S., Christina, and a bunch of other people. We all laid down on the grass to watch something in the sky, though I'm not sure what.

Then my dad called on the phone. I wandered away from the group to talk to my dad, but he wanted to chat on Skype for some reason. I told him that I wasn't near a computer at all and that we'd have to Skype later but he wasn't happy about that for some reason. We were sort of just sitting on the phone in silence when my path was interrupted by a narrow bridge. It was only about as wide as one of my feet and paved in (a single width of) brick. I don't know why I felt I had to cross this bridge, but I did. There were handrails, but the ground below was probably 200 feet away so I was still wary (I'm scared of heights).

As I crossed the bridge the path widened (and at some point I was not on the phone with Dad anymore). At the end there was the French couple who was on our tour this weekend and they were being instructed by some guy to squash the worms. Looking back on the path there were tons of worms and snails and we were supposed to squash them all. I was grossed out. The couple had been given some instrument to do the squashing, but I was just supposed to step on the worms. So we proceeded back over the bridge, me before the couple, and tried to squash the worms and snails as we went. I was totally disgusted because most of the worms were over a foot long and about an inch in diameter so you couldn't just squish them in one step, you just sort of bounced off them or squished part of them. I still kept trying but I was hoping that the couple behind me would have more luck since they had proper worm squashing instruments. Why do my dreams focus on the strangest things?

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Vacation Dreams

Dreams on vacation are strange. I've had dreams of working at both my old office in Cali and my Melbourne office (apparently I want to be back at work...). I had an excellent dream the other night where I met my cousins' kids who were toddlers (time warp to the future). In the dream I was on the phone with Monique's son Henry, but in the dream his name was Clayton. He was about four years old and I said to him, "Hi Clay..." and he said sarcastically, "Did you just call me Clay?" and I was essentially sassed by a four year old. Monique found this funny when I told her about it (in the dream).

This was taking place at some party being thrown by Olivia Rangel that had all sorts of elementary school and high school people hanging around. I met Anthony (from Cal Poly) at the party and he looked very gloomy. He had a four year old son who was also at the party who was running around and being very hyper. Apparently it had not been Anthony's intention to have this kid and he wasn't getting along with the mom (his girlfriend) very well. I gave him a big hug to comfort him.

I find that when I'm on vacation, I often wake up remembering my dreams like normal, but don't have the time to write anything down since we have things to do. So, dream blog is being neglected. Hopefully I can get a few good ones before the end of the trip!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Captives

This was actually a quite lengthy and, let's face it, relatively boring dream. At least compared to my usual madness and excitement. I was a captive at some war-related camp with a bunch of other people. We were locked into this facility that was sort of like a big warehouse. I just remember the bathroom was one giant room with like 100 toilet stalls but the dividers were way too short such that you could see over them. Isn't that just such a dream thing to happen? Why can't I have my dignity when I'm using the restroom in my dreams*?!

The only person I knew there was Nate. He had a huge bushy beard. Everyone was very dejected and depressed to be in this camp, including me. We wanted to stage a coup, but we were all to scared of being killed. I actually remember saying something like, "Gosh, I wish this were like a video game where I had more than one life" - I can't believe I'm embarrassing even in dire dream situations.

*I actually do know why the toilet stall is always too short or the toilet is in the middle of the room in my dreams - it's so that I don't make the same mistake I used to when I was a kid and think, "hmm, I guess I do have to go..." and proceed to unconsciously relieve myself in my bed. I'm glad the old brain has figured a way around this.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Changing Realities

I had a really terrifying dream last night. Unfortunately, it was the kind that doesn't sound terrifying at all, but you just have to trust me that it was very frightening and quite exhausting. For the first part, I was the main character. I had received a card, like a comic or baseball card, with some info on it. It told me to take the card to the top of a hill where there was a castle (I was on some fairy island or something). I took the card to the castle and exchanged it for another card, not really knowing what I was doing. The man who exchanged my card looked very sinister, like Jafar from Aladdin. He also cracked my camera which was the 110 film, flat rectangular one (like this) I had when I was a kid - what a jerk.

Something about the new card meant that something bad was supposed to happen to me (oooh, cryptic predictions - terrifying!). I saw people jumping off the cliffs around the castle as I descended back down the mountain, but I did not have the urge to join them, which I sensed was to Jafar's dismay. When I got to the bottom of the mountain I swam with some friends in a huge, clear, beautiful, tropical lagoon. It was like the most perfect Bahamas location ever; the water was warm and shallow and clear blue and we were having a great time. I started to take some pictures but my camera was broken.

Suddenly, a couple men attacked me from behind. The were trying to abduct me and were forcibly pushing me underwater. I don't know where my friends went (jerks everywhere in this dream). I had to get away. I swam slightly faster than they did and kept swimming and running with them on my heels the whole way.

Then the dream switched to a movie-style setting where my perspective is through the "camera" and someone else is the star. This happens to me often. The protagonist was a man of about my age. He had straight brown hair and he sort of picked up where I left off with the guys chasing me and the bad omens,etc. He was having other troubles though: his reality kept changing.

This is a constant problem in, say Star Trek TNG*, and, more recently House, and my friend was similarly afflicted. He's in the house and suddenly water starts to seep in under the door at such a rate that he may not be able to get out in time to avoid drowning. Or, not unlike Quantum Leap, one minute he's in the shower or vacuuming or having dinner and the next he's outside a car in a valet uniform with some jerk of a Beamer owner yelling at him to get it together. He can't figure out what's real and it keeps changing and most of the time the visions are of terrifying things.

He even tries to get some help and has a friend take him to some sort of seminar for crazy people. But something just warps the room and he's suddenly somewhere else. He can't tell what's going on. Eventually he just gets sick of it and, as he's backing up in the valet car, he hits the gas hard. He plummets toward the forest behind but the reality changes in time so that he's now in a parking lot headed for a pole. And then it changes again so that he's somewhere else, and keeps barely avoiding catastrophe in this manner.

The dream ended (thank goodness) as my alarm went off in the morning. It was one of those dreams where you wake up all tense and are relieved to find that it was all in your head, a fact that somehow - amazingly - had completely escaped your attention until that point. The last vision I had before waking up was a close-up of the man's face. He had crazy clown makeup on - white, red, blue - and his eyes were huge and had fake light blue contacts. He was shaking and shouting gibberish; he had gone completely crazy.

*Like the one where Worf is switching realities and first he notices the cake changed flavors, then he only got 3rd in the Batleth tournament, then Riker's captain, then he's married to Deanna! Then all the Enterprises start appearing and they (Data) calculate that in 32 hours or something the whole galazy will be completely filled with Enterprises!!!! You know you remember that episode.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Giraffe Nose

It's so hard to figure which dreams I want to blog about. I seriously have dozens every night and I typically wake up in a state of groggy confusion, trying to sort out what's happening in my real life and what was dream. It's always the boring stuff that's my real life. No giraffes here.

I typically wait until I have a particularly clear and concise dream to blog about it. It's the only way I can hope to keep anyone entertained at all, not to say that anyone reads this. In defiance of these qualifications, I wanted to mention that I had a dream the other night where I got to pet a giraffe's nose. I was in some sort of pod or roller coaster car or something which was placed at such a height that I was level with a giraffe's head.

I asked whoever the guide person was if the giraffe would bite me and I was informed that he would not. He (the giraffe) looked toward me and I pet his nose between his nostrils. It was exactly as soft and warm and squishy as a horse's nose. It was so delightful that I have remembered it for many days since. Now I want to pet a giraffe.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Volcano Vacation

Dreamed: Friday night May 8

I've been sleeping very oddly this last week - my sleep patterns seem to come in weekly batches. Sometimes I sleep like a damn rock. I plunge immediately into the depths of unconsciousness at night and am groggily wrenched from this state with the morning alarm. Other times I am more fitful and toss around semi-conscious throughout the night. Other times I awaken more readily at the alarm, approaching the behavior of a normal person. This week I slept well but woke up with a mild headache 5 minutes before my alarm each day. The reason I kept waking up just before the alarm is because my dreams kept ending, like a movie. The dreams stop and my mind is like, uh, I guess we wake up now? It's all quite odd.

I've gotten some really good ones in this week but have essentially been too lazy to document them. I know, you're heartbroken because you've been watching the blog feverishly. Oh wait, no one cares about my dreams, I forgot.

Last night I had two memorable dreams - my body awoke at 7am this morning just after the end of crazy kangaroo dream, then went back to sleep for this one. My sister had come to visit me in this dream, and we went out together to explore the city together. It wasn't exactly Melbourne, but I think it was close. We were waiting at a tram stop when the station itself started to drift carelessly down the tram tracks. It was a very tiny platform, so we just stayed on since it seemed to be heading in the direction we wanted to go.

We arrived downtown - which was a normal city with tall buildings, etc built adjacent a sweet lake or river across from beautiful mountains. The water's edge was a nice place to walk with parks and restaurants (completely fictional, of course), so we started to meander. A few minutes into our walk I looked up to see a huge silvery blob high up in the air plummeting down into the park behind us. It looked like an airborne avalanche of snow*, but for some reason I knew it was the volcano across the river erupting.

Down the esplanade I could see lava consuming the pavement and anything in its path. It was coming our way. I was completely panicked. I thought we should run but I realized that if even the river of lava so much as brushed our legs we'd be done for. It was a matter of being lucky enough not to be right where the lava was flowing.

Fortunately, this city (I think it was Hawaii actually) was used to this sort of disruption and the lava/fires were promptly tended to and business continued as usual. Apparently the volcano wasn't too serious this time and no one seemed to mind.

*It was moving in slow motion - I just saw the new Star Trek movie last night.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Haircut Nightmare

Dreamed: Friday Night April 24

I'm getting a haircut soon, in real life, so this was an obvious reflection of my feelings toward this event.

I went to get a haircut somewhere and they shaved the front half of my head and left the back long. Not like a mullet, like a freak haircut you've never seen before because it's too ugly to exist in reality. Wait a minute - god damn it - I love the internet, here is the haircut I'm talking about. But imagine it's me and the back part is my super long blond hair. I wasn't all that upset really, but I did need the rest of the hair cut because bald me is better than that, let's face it. So I'm walking around this town with whoever happened to be with me trying to find a hair cutting place that's open.

It was approaching dusk so places were all closed or closing. I found one place that was just closing and the effeminate receptionist man (I even stereotype in my dreams, imagine that) informed me that the owner/main stylist could cut my hair. I thought this would probably be expensive, but didn't ask about it. He came out of the back and started to cut without even asking me what I wanted. He was also rather flamboyant.

When he was done, I had my front hair back, somehow (Brittany Spears' stylist?) but he had given me this goofy shoulder length bob cut that made me look like a 1950's mom. I was displeased with this for some reason and left.

This was actually part of a much larger dream where I had to get to some high school dance that night but didn't have a dress to wear or (obviously) an appropriate haircut. It was a bit stressful and I ended up at some antisocial guy's house party where my dad was going on and on about how he can fit into size 30 jeans now. I watched him parade around in his tiny jeans and wondered how that was possible since I don't even think I wear that small.

Magnets on Mars

Dreamed: Thursday Night April 23

I knew the spaceman had affected me in some profound subliminal way. He was there, on the corner of Swanston and Bourke, standing on a pedestal at 9pm on a Thursday. I was fascinated by his glowing necklaces and space-noise-making instrument that must have been something like a theremin. He played away on the cold, clear night: space noises to slow, deliberate techno music. I wondered if he enjoyed his profession/hobby.

And then I find myself on Mars in my dream that night. How creative. I did, however, add a little Angie tinge to it: Alana and I were on our way home from our Mars vacation and were passing through the gift shop on the way out (yes, capitalism exists on Mars too). I remembered my robust souvenir collection on the fridge at home and decide that I must purchase a magnet as a memento of our trip. I view the magnet selection and am dismayed at the offerings. None of them even show the Mars landscape! They show stupid things that are unrelated; I can remember one with a blurry picture of a cactus on it. There aren't cacti on Mars!

So I thought, ok, let's get a different keepsake. I saw some sort of primitive playing cards in a glass case which were supposed to be some sort of artifact from early Mars history or something. I thought that sounded cool and went to ask someone to open the case. When I came back to select my card, the one I wanted was gone; someone else had purchased it. It was the only cheap one, so I was pissed (it was $37 - the others were all over $100). I'm not sure how this crisis was solved, but Alana was very patient through all this.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Axes to the Windows

Dreamed: Saturday Night April 18

This morning was one of many where I wake up rather pleasantly exhausted from a barrage of trying dreams. These dreams were the kind that fly through my brain back to back, one leading to the next often connected only by a very thin thread. The most memorable dream is as follows:

I was at my mom's house which was in the correct geographical spot, but had a different floor plan than my mom's real house. There was an expansive porch to the front of the house, about where the garage is, and the whole front of the house was glass windows. It was quite nice. Anyway, Melissa and her family lived across the street where Patrick's mom lives. Melissa's brother Seth was over and he wanted to make out with me. I said that I couldn't because I had a boyfriend and he got all mad and left.

He returned after a while with Melissa, both wielding rad battle axes (kinda like this). They were mad and I walked out onto the porch to talk to them. They were going to bash my mom's windows with their axes. I asked Melissa not to but she said something like, "I'm feeling crazy right now!". I was significantly bigger than she was in the dream, so I decided to try to take the ax from her. I grabbed and tugged, but couldn't pry it from her. So, I did what any reasonable dream person would do: I gave up and went back in the house.

They started bashing the windows. But the axes would stick in the glass like it was wood rather than just shatter the glass. They swung their axes over and over. My parents were there, and I said something like, "It's ok, they're just mad, they'll stop soon". I should have realized it was a dream when my dad accepted this as a valid answer and did not rush off to conjure a weapon. We watched them for a few minutes and I was thinking that the damages would be expensive to fix. They were not stopping and now more of their friends had arrived and there was a bit of a riot happening outside.

I decided to call the police. I called, but they were being idiots, as police typically are in my dreams. They couldn't trace the call so they couldn't find the address - even though I was offering to just tell them. They finally said someone would be on the way.

This dream then started bleeding into other strange scenarios including a dock and kittens and a puppy, and eventually a short feature film with submarine-capable, child-drowning robot heroes-turned-villains, so I will stop here. The police eventually did show up, but it was way too late and I was pissed that they didn't show up more quickly because they could have saved me a lot of repairs to the house.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Christina and Allison

Dreamed: Thursday Night April 16

This dream started out when I got "drafted" to play on the school football team. Once again, another high school-ish dream, but this one was not at my actual high school. I told them, matter of factly, that I didn't even know how to play football and that I would most certainly be a liability to their team. We were playing against another team of boys for goodness sake! I'm not terribly dainty (or graceful, let's face it), but serious football is not my cup of tea. I put on the outfit and the helmet and sat on the bench and hoped they would not call me in. They did not.

After the "game", I went to kick it at Christina Herczeg's house. This was not any house I've ever been to in real life. We were just hanging out in the way that teenagers do -- without actually doing anything in particular. Her mom was hanging around and she was a cool, hip mom (not her mom in real life - no disrespect intended). Allison Reid showed up and we all were hanging out. Allison had bangs and a really long dirty blond braid in her hair. I wore a braid in my hair today in real life in honor of this (or because I was jealous, one of the two).

Christina's mom decided to take us on a car ride somewhere with some other mom. Two moms in the front seat, we three girls in the back. It was rainy outside and as we were driving to wherever we were going, I realized that I had to be back home soon for something. I asked her to take me home but she said not yet. Stupid grown ups.

They finally dropped the three of us off in town somewhere and Allison got a smoothie at a drive through (even though we were walking - crazy!). It was still raining outside and I started to make my way home.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Crossword Puzzle Test

Dreamed: Wednesday Night April 8

I was taking a test, like in school. Oh yeah, aren't school dreams always fun? Why am I never living it up in school dreams? Like skipping class and wearing awesome clothes and hanging with all my rad friends? No, I'm always pants-less or didn't study for a test or am suddenly on stage in a play that I don't know anything about. I digress.

I was in a class taking a test. It was a one page test, front and back. Like two minutes after we receive the tests, Shaun O'neil (resident smart kid at our high school, sorry Jon) returns the test to the teacher - finished. I was thinking, ok, if Shaun did it in 2 mins, I should have no problem finishing in time. I am a freaking genius, after all, even if a 2nd class one.

I finish the test, but realize there's a crossword on the back. That's weird, but I should be able to manage. The clues are on the front while the part you fill in is on the back - already irritating. The puzzle doesn't make any sense. It does not follow regular cross word puzzle rules that people in the world are familiar with. I could not figure how Shaun would have finished so fast.

I'm getting stressed - there's no way I can finish this in time, the thing makes no sense! And then the dream got odd and I find a fish or some sort of sea creature struggling for life on a shelf in a bedroom and I decide that I should bring this creature back to class and offer it to the teacher in exchange for my botched crossword puzzle test. The creature turns out to be a mermaid. I'm not sure if the teacher counted it toward my grade or not.

Monday, April 6, 2009

General Ranting

My dreams have been insane lately. Worse than normal. Almost every night for about the past week has been an exhausting whirlwind of maniacal dreaming. My sister was eaten by a shark the size of a blue whale (don't worry she was spat back out and I rescued her from the edge of the water). I had redundant and relentless work dreams last Friday (and Friday night too - how mean!). My high school friends and I crammed into a car old school style and I protested, laughing, as we went to pick up Carissa who was going to be like the 5th person in the back seat (I'm so glad grown ups don't cram into cars like teenagers do, I'm so over being squished into economy cars with my beloved, giggly peers).

Of course, these are just a fleeting few of my dreams that shake off within minutes (though sometimes last days) after waking up. I haven't had a good fluid one to blog about recently (except maybe the shark one, but I got lazy) and so you've been sadly neglected (pretending like I have readers is fun!).

I do find it odd how my dreams seem to come in phases. This blog hasn't been around long enough (nor does anyone read it frequently enough anyway) to realize these trends, but I know it to be true. A few years ago I had dreams about the Harris' in one form or another almost every night for months. They were just there. I was at their house or one of them was walking through a field with me - whatever. They still tend to float through a dream every now and again. I've done the same thing with seemingly random people from my past, most notably Alicia, Scott Taylor, and Karen Wong (now Rangel). When I was in Europe in 2001, I had a dream with Patrick in it almost every night. Vida Soto has been a recent addition to the odd cameos. I have no idea why.

The funny thing is, it's often the people I'm closest to who never appear in my dreams. Kane is rarely there. My mom hardly makes an appearance, though my dad does a bit more frequently. Jon is rarely amongst the posse of faceless "friends" I'm toting around. Marc and Alana, our most awesome Australia friends, who we have hung out with just about every weekend for a year have never made an appearance that I can think of. It's like my brain only has access to select yearbook pages from grades 3-12 to look at. I have no explanation.

Hopefully I can get a good one soon. I'm the only one who loves this blog, and I'm ok with that.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Tattoo Me

Dreamed: Wednesday Night March 25

I don't remember much about this dream, but I do remember that I had a handful of rad tattoos. I've always respected a well-placed and interesting tattoo*, as long as it's on someone else. I don't have anything that I'm excited about enough, nor can I envision a part of my body that will not someday be fat or wrinkly or both and where I could happily nestle a tattoo. Would I be a small tattoo person? Small, cute, hardly any harm? Or would I be all gung-ho about it: if you're going to do it, do it! I'm not really sure, maybe that's part of the reason I don't have one. I'm just not bold enough.

But back to the dream. I was staying in some house, and I'm not sure if it was a friend's house or if I was like a vagabond or what (aren't dreams great that way?) but we all got up in the morning to compare tattoos for some reason. I was the only person who showed up for this ritual, however, so I found myself in the wood-floored hallway with the house dog (small, white, long hair, perky) taking a gander at my own tattoos.

I had about six and they were somehow tastefully placed around my body such that I didn't appear as the "girl with all those tattoos". I had gotten the designs to go in pairs. The pairs of similarly themed tattoos were each done in a certain style or color such that they were related but not the same. The only one I really remember was one all across my lower back, about 4" tall and 12" wide. It was a colorful drawing of horizontal lines with dots and stuff interspersed, somewhat resembling a music staff, but in a magical dreamy sort of way that makes things cooler than they could be in real life. It sort of makes me want a tattoo.

*Note that I equally despise and mock a poorly placed or badly planned tattoo. And I have lukewarm feelings about tattoos that seem all too common (e.x. the ubiquitous "tramp stamp").

Monday, March 16, 2009

Silver Sparkly Bikini

Dreamed: Sunday Night March 15

I was at something like a high school dance. It was taking place in the restaurant of the Bowling Alley (Holiday Bowl) where the tables had been removed and dim lighting now oozed through the room. There weren't many people there but everyone was dressed fancy; I was wearing a big coat. I realized it was rather warm in the room, so went to hang up my coat on a nearby coat rack. As I did so, I looked down to find myself in a sparkly silver bikini type get-up which was apparently supposed to be some sort of contemporary fashion statement. In the real world, I am most often the most conservatively dressed person in any and all situations, so I figured to myself that no one would notice my shimmering blunder. But alas, people did.

Strangers were whistling and saying complimentary but likely derogatory things to me as I walked by. I went to hang back out at whatever DJ or food table was in the center of the room with my "friends" (though I don't remember anyone in particular, except for Shaun O'neil) and was self conscious even though, truth be told, I did look hot.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

So I Think I Can Dance

Dreamed: Wednesday Night March 11

I - yes me - was a top ten finalist on the show "So You Think You Can Dance". I know, sad. I was on stage with the rest of the finalists (none of whom I knew or recognized) as we were being announced as the top ten dancers in the competition. I suddenly realized that I was actually on the stage, not just watching from the stage, and wondered how the hell I could be rated highly in a dance competition.

We then did a rad routine with all ten of us (though it sure seemed like there were more than ten people) on stage and in costume. It was epic. And I only had to do simple dance moves like twirling around and pointy-toed low kicks. We were all singing too - it was really more like a musical. I was thinking, "This is easy!". The routine had a million props: a full, colorful set of stuff - like a play - with streamers and decorations above us. Bright lights shown on us as we danced away; I could not see or sense the audience and was not nervous at all.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Capoeira Hostages

Dreamed: Thursday Night February 26

I was at a sort of factory taking a break after work or something, hanging out with some friends at a patio adjacent the building. It was a concrete paved patio, terraced and with handrails around the paths that led to other parts of the site. We were sort of just standing around talking at dusk. I was with, at minimum, Trevor and Nate, and possibly some other guys.

Some guys came up to the patio area and started doing Capoeira. Nate and Trevor are big into capoeira, so they asked to join in. As they did, it became obvious that the other guys were not just playing around, they really wanted to hurt us. They were doing really major kicks and hits, and barely missing Trevor and Nate as they dodged.

Suddenly they kidnapped Trevor by putting him into an empty dump truck with a guy who had a stun gun. I was not really me anymore, but rather, I was the viewpoint of a camera following Trevor in the truck. From an overhead view, I watched the guy with the stun gun just stand in the truck bed with Trevor. The walls of the bed were taller than either of them and were plain yellow colored; the top was open. The "bad guys" were driving him somewhere. At one point, Trevor had escaped the bin of the truck and was hanging onto the bottom of the truck like in an action movie (the "camera" appropriately followed him for an under-truck view - very tense). I'm not sure why he didn't just jump off to escape.

The truck drove down a ramp into an underground level of a parking garage and Trevor and stun-gun guard disembarked. The head bad guy was there to meet them, and it was Marko from last season's So You Think You Can Dance - Australia (yeah, I know the people's names on that show, so sue me - I wanted Rhys to win). Marko (in my dream) was known for stun-gunning his captives to death. Just as he was approaching Trevor, Paulo came out from behind the truck. He was a bad guy but since he was also Trevor's friend, he told Marko that he'd take care of Trevor. Marko begrudgingly let Paulo lead Trevor away.

Paulo led Trevor to a little alcove in the parking garage and told him to stand in a corner and not move an inch. In the time that Trevor was standing there, he turned into a blue steel I beam with a concrete block base. A group of bow-and-arrow armed men suddenly ran toward Trevor, awaking him from his trance. They had been sent by Marko to scare him. And if an "accident" happened and Trevor was killed, Marko wouldn't have been very remorseful.

The group of archaically armed men told Trevor to stand on a concrete handrail in the middle of a nearby ramp. As he did, he and Paulo realized that they could take out all of the bow-and-arrow clad guys in one huge Matrix-like slaughter. They were about to do so when the camera panned back to me, suddenly a guest in the Harris' house across the street from my mom's place.

I was getting up from their living room and walking through the kitchen. Al Harris (the dad) was carrying in a tub (like a 2' diameter x 1' deep steel tub with handles) full of huge purple grapes. I proceeded through to the adjacent dining room to find Andrea Harris (the mom) holding Laurie as a baby. Next to Andrea was her mom (who I never met in real life) who was crushing pieces of dry rice to make a "traditional" Panamanian dish for dinner. Andrea was smiling as she held Laurie who was very cute. She was telling me what a good baby Laurie was and how much I was going to like her when she was older. I almost told her that I will like Laurie when she's older, but I didn't want to freak her out with the whole being from the future thing, because clearly I was in the past.

I woke up rather exhausted (from this and Flying with Medieval Worf, they were back to back).

Flying with Medieval Worf

Dreamed: Thursday Night February 26

I watched someone get sucked into a standing ring of fuchsia goo that was a gateway to another world. Similar to Stargate, the movie (or the tv show), or going into an instance in World of Warcraft. I decided that I should go into the ring of goo also, and was whisked away to a medieval world of stone walls and walkways. I was outside on a sunny day with my partner in crime, who turned out to be Commander Worf, in a sort of castle complex, like in the game Ico or Neverwinter Nights (apparently I play too many video games).

We were walking around looking for "bad guys" to fight. Before long we had entered a court yard where I was flying over the grassy landscape using my magic dust powder, which did in fact appear to be light blue glitter. A sorceress appeared in the courtyard as the light dimmed to sunset. She took all of our magic items and we were scared and didn't know what to do. Worf and I climbed up on a ledge that led to another level of the castle. She flew over to meet us there and we were able to bargain with her to return some of our stuff.

Worf started taking a bit more of his stuff back from the lady when she wasn't looking; he's quite daring (today is a good day to die!). Then he confused and surprised me when he took more than half of his magic powder and mixed it in a beaker with some liquid to make neon green goo. I didn't know what it was for, but I figured it had to be good for him to use up most of his magic powder.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Sabrina's Wedding

Dreamed: Saturday Night February 21

I was at an events hall for Sabrina Rangel's wedding. In reality, Sabrina and I have just become Facebook friends and she is already married. But in the dream, I was attending her wedding wearing a long silk dress and heels. I was there alone but there were tons of people I knew in attendance.

The venue was a strange banquet hall; a long hallway led to two separate banquet areas, both of which were occupied by the wedding party, though the rooms were not linked. The ceilings were low and the place was decorated like a run of the mill hotel (short, boring carpet, stark walls, bland window hangings, vaguely blue themed). The two banquet areas had rows of tables and chairs that all faced one direction, like it was a conference rather than a wedding.

I was seated in the larger hall next to Jenny Hacker, who was offended when I told her that I wanted to go sit with some other friends. To make amends, I told her I'd like to sit between her and my other friends, but she didn't really buy it. There was a rack of clothes in the middle of the wide aisle, like in a department store. There were lots of wacky clothes on this rack, and Jenny started putting them on. She put on white stretchy pants, a dark blue puffy jacket and bright red lipstick; I told her she looked like a walking American flag. I took some vogue pictures of her posing in that outfit with a flag behind her.

I wandered into the other banquet room to see if I knew anyone there. I saw Jolene, Casey Meirovitz, and lots of other people that I can't remember now. Casey asked me how I'd been; we haven't seen each other since high school. He looked a bit dazed. There were lots of other people I knew that I said hi to.

Walking back to my banquet room, I saw Olivia (Sabrina's sister) whom I had been surprised not to have seen already. She was in regular clothes, jeans and a blouse, and was walking with a cane, which I thought was odd. When she said hi, I thought, "oh yeah, that's the way Olivia always says hi to me" regarding her tone of voice (even though there is no particular way she says hi to me in real life).

As I arrived back into the big banquet room, I saw that Sabrina's parents had brought her a small chocolate cake that had one pink candle and said something like "Worst Day Ever" on it. They had gotten this because a variety of things had gone wrong and the wedding had been held up for hours and she was upset about it. Her parents had gotten her the extra cake to cheer her up and she seemed entertained about it.

Instead of kicking the party out early because we were running late, the venue had decided to tell the wedding party who had booked after Sabrina that they were cancelled. Someone told me this in the hallway and I gasped in surprise.

Later on, I remember dancing a bit while still confined in our rows of seats and tables and Vida Soto gave me a butt bump (nudged me with her hip while she was dancing) that almost knocked me over as I was precarious in heels. She was wearing a sequened dress and having a great time. I thought it odd that I run into her in "real life" after she was just randomly in my dream the other night.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Parties and Olympics

Dreamed: Tuesday Night February 17

Three separate dreams:

1) We're having a patented "family party" at my mom's house in Hayward. The party is in full swing and most of my extended family is there, including my Grandmam (in real life, she passed away a few years ago). For some reason I only bought one two-liter of Mountain Dew for everyone to drink. I was just becoming aware of this as I watched my Grandmam drink a glass of Mountain Dew, which was amusing since she would usually limit herself to more dignified beverages like tonic water.

Noting the deficiency in refreshments, Tiffany and I decide to go to the weird nearby corner store/party shop for some Sprite. This place (a fictional establishment) was a one room store that sold flowers, cards, balloons, streamers, and assorted other nonsense. I thought they'd have soda for some reason, which they did, but they were fancy sodas in strange bottles. I asked the clerk if they had Sprite and she showed me to the closest thing they had: ginger ale in a fancy, three foot tall glass bottle. In reality, I'm not sure if I could have carried the thing home.

2) It was night time and I was downstairs in a dingy house where a party was going on. There were lots of people around, the lights were dim, loud music pulsing - the standard. I don't remmeber being there with anyone in particular, but I wasn't self conscious about being alone either. There was suddenly some sort of emergency that required everyone to evacuate, but it must have been a drill or something because no one was very panicked or rushed. I was one of the last to leave; I think I was helping evacuate everyone properly. I vaguely remember adorning some sort of vest for this purpose. On my way out, I passed Vida Soto and gave her a high five.

3) I was in the audience at an Olympic event. This event does not really exist; it was a ridiculous setup that was basically men's gymnastics - like the parallel bars or the rings or something - but these acts were performed about 10 stories up in the air over a really big pool. The strange thing (stranger) was that the audience couldn't really see what was going on because all the seats were under an overhang that made up the walls of the giant cyllindrical atrium where this athlete was performing. So basically, there was a large, very deep, circular pool and a tall atrium shaft directly above it. At the top of this shaft, some guy is doing gymnastics. The audience is tucked into a ring around the pool at the bottom, such that there is no direct line of sight between the audience and the gymnist.

The really tricky part about this event though, is that the gymnist has to climb the walls to get up to the top to do his tricks. And before he climbs, he stands at the edge of the pool, right in front of the audience, and a member of the audience (me, this time) hands him some hairs (like ones that I shed from my head - oh god, they're in my dreams too - they're everywhere!) which he has to use to climb up the atrium. Yes, he had to use hairs, no, I have no idea what that even means.

I remember hearing one of the other audience members saying that the hard part about this event is doing it in front of a crowd, which I thought was odd because the guy couldn't even see the crowd from the top of the atrium; it's not like it was in a normal stadium. When the gymnist finished his routine, he dropped through the air for about 100 feet and into the deep pool below. I thought it was odd even in the dream.

Monday, February 16, 2009

AK on the Airplane

Dreamed: Monday Night February 16

I'm not sure where we were flying, but we were in the plane on the runway, ready to go. The plane was a really big one and every other row of seats was turned around so you could look at the people behind you. Which was nice because I was there with a group of friends (no idea which ones) and this way we could all chat on the plane.

Cedric the Entertainer was the plane's captain, though he was seated in the middle of the plane instead of in the cockpit. He was yelling at everybody to sit down because we can't take off if everyone isn't seated. But he wasn't using the microphone, he was just yelling it out loud.

The plane started to take off, then Cedric got all in a fuss and set the plane back down on the runway. A girl had gotten up out of her seat, so he had had to land again. He yelled at her, then tried again to take off. My friends and I made snide comments about her for being so stupid. Why would you stand up when the plane was taking off? The same girl got up again, looking totally clueless. She was seated in the back row, and was a small asian girl. I couldn't figure out why she would keep getting up; she did not even appear to be heading toward the bathroom.

After Captain Cedric yells at her a second time, I watch her go into the bathroom and start to assemble an AK-47 gun. There was a little window in the bathroom door (pretty rude, remind me to complain to the airline) where I could see her assembling the gun. I almost thought it was funny because, how did this little girl smuggle in a gun the size of my leg?

We all see her doing this and get under our seats (for some reason it's possible to fit under these plane seats, and we feel this is the best defense at this point). I pull my backpack near the side of me so there is only a little bit of me exposed. I watch as the girl walks down the aisle slowly.

Cedric is trying to talk her down. I keep thinking she's just going to shoot him, but he keeps talking to her, telling her to not be stupid and step off the plane with him. She keeps walking toward Cedric, but then turns to my aisle. I believe it was a guy named Matt from my high school who she was targeting; he was sitting kitty corner to me, huddled under his chair. She pointed the gun at his back; I realized he was the one making fun of her the most audibly before.

I also then realized that she just gave him the chance to be a hero: he turned, in slow motion, and grabbed the gun from her, knocking her down in the process. He had totally saved the day from this unprepared terrorist girl.

Somehow Cedric had been injured in all this hubbub and I took it upon myself to assist him as we left the plane. The stairs we were using to disembark were not a regular set of airplane stairs on wheels, but were somehow a large set of Roman-esque stone steps. They were very nice, if I do say. I was practically carrying Cedric down the stairs, surely a comical sight.

When we got to the bottom, Cedric was magically someone else's concern and my friends and I were in a stone paved square in what seemed like a nice European town. There was a woman in the square, and she was one of the only people around. She was immense; at least 6' tall, and wearing 6"+ heels. We approached her and realized it was Nicole Kidman. She looked very odd - way too smiley to be standing there alone in short shorts, ridiculous heels, and like a bonnet or some weird hat.

Suddenly I was a "character" in my own dream again, sort of a hillbilly type, and I decided that it was "in character" for me to take a picture of Nicole. So I took some pictures, but I made sure they weren't terribly good ones (didn't zoom in or make sure I was at a good angle or anything) because my character surely would have taken only mediocre photos.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Left out of Laser Tag

Dreamed: Saturday Night February 14

To explain, I worked at a laser tag place in Hayward, CA for two years when I was a teenager. I had some of the best times of my life there with the other employees, customers, and playing laser tag. I have dreams about laser tag, whether at the place I worked or some strange similar place, and the people I knew from there probably once a week on average. It haunts my subconscious fervently.

We were having a Planet Lazer (PL) reunion at a laser tag place that I've never been to (in real life or the dream). We had rented the typical party room with neon-paint-splattered walls and blacklights mounted on the ceiling. There were a couple of long banquet tables in the room that we all gathered around in chairs. People were showing up one at a time, but I started to realize that I didn't really recognize many of the people.

There were some of the main crew, but I only really remember seeing Melissa, Rick, and Yolanda. The other people were either people who only came to PL a couple times, or were just friends of other people who I did not know. For some reason most of the people there were extremely overweight. Not just chubby regular people, but extremely obese. I was wondering why everyone's friends were all so fat.

We were chatting around the table and munching pizza when we decided to play a game of laser tag. Everyone was signing up and paying at the front counter but I was hanging back in the party room until the crowd cleared. I was also chatting with Yolanda, who I haven't seen in probably close to ten years; I don't remember what we were saying. She smiled a lot. She's always been very pretty and still was.

I got up to go sign up for the laser game, but noticed that everyone had already gone in and was playing without me! I was sort of upset since I don't really get to play too often, especially not with my old laser friends. So I went back to Yolanda and waited for everyone to come out.

When they did, my dad was one of the folks to exit. I was like, "Dad?". Not only did I not see him before, but I'm not sure why he would be playing laser tag with my friends and not me. He was my dad from when I was a kid: probably in his thirties and thinner than I can remember him ever being. He was wiping sweat off of his face with a towel since he had ran around a lot in the game. He wore a horizontal stripped collared shirt and a baseball cap that were in sort of 1980's style.