Helicopters and Overalls

I was at an office with Jack Donaghy and we were supposed to go to some party. We were in an office on an upper floor of a high rise building and the exterior walls were full height glass. There was a huge balcony outside and the day was clear and blue.

A helicopter arrived about every 15 minutes and dropped a platform down on the balcony to take someone over to the party. It was a small blue circular platform that could fit only one person at a time. I don't think it had really sturdy railing around it, and I was scared someone might just fall off.

I was supposed to go to the party first, without Jack, to stake it out, and then come back, change my clothes and go back with Jack. At this time I was wearing dark blue overalls and had no shoes or socks on.

I took a different helicopter over to the party which was taking place in something like a hotel lobby. The room was large and open and decorated with modern furnishings. Large windows along the entrance let in pretty dusk light. Someone at the party told me that they were only letting people in for he next half hour or so, which I hadn't expected and didn't understand why. I didn't have time to go back and change and get Jack, and was contemplating what it would mean for me to stay at this party alone in my current outfit.

Planet Lazer Game

I arrived at Planet Lazer and had a hard time finding a parking space. Lots of people were there that I knew, hanging out outside like they always do. The lobby was basically the same; I signed up for a game while chatting with my friends. One weird dude was there and asked me who Mad Marc was, he said, "Is that Seth?". I told him that it was Mad Marc. I heard Marc talking about how his wife just went out of town so he sprinted over to Planet Lazer the moment she left. We all laughed.

We went in to play a game. The briefing room had been all changed around and so had the arena. I wondered why they did that, although it did look nicer. But the briefing area was too small, it couldn't fit more than a dozen people now.

I think we played a game, but I don't really remember. I do remember saying something beforehand in the lobby about how I always win. I'm so confident in my dreams.

Stitches

I had a small cut on my back so I went to the masseuse to get it fixed. I sat in a tent with about two dozen other people sitting in a folding chair facing the front of the tent (like we were in a cult more than a waiting room). I figured I'd have to wait forever with all these people since I didn't make an appointment.

Shortly after I got there Monica S. from Yelp came out to call me in. She looked at my cut in a doctor's room and said that I needed stitches. She sewed up the cut with about 3 stitches and I remember that I didn't feel much pain even though she didn't use anesthetic. She said I should be careful not to move my back around too much lest the stitches rip out. I pictured this in detail when she said it and it grossed me out.

Late to Pick up Colleen in SLO

I was in San Luis Obispo and was going to some sort of fair with my family. I drove a few of us there in my car and parked in a dirt lot. My family got out and walked toward the fair and whatever activities they had.

I got a call from someone who asked me to come pick them up. I remembered walking around town earlier and seeing Colleen (Jack Donaghy's mom from 30 rock) outside a store. I said hello and offered her a ride to the fair. Apparently someone was calling to remind me to pick her up.

I went and got my chair off the lawn area -- my family had put some chairs out to reserve out spots for (assumingly) some show later. My chair was a high backed wooden dining room chair and I dragged it out through the throngs of people toward my car. I then realized there was really no reason to move my chair since I was just coming right back and felt silly.

As I started toward my car a woman asked if she could have a ride to drop her cat off at home. I said sure. As she directed me to her house I realized we were going south away from town and away from Colleen. I had told whoever was with Colleen that I'd be there in 15 mins or so and now I clearly wasn't going to make that schedule. Cat lady's house was in a town called Brie (cheese on the mind, much?) which was apparently a half hour south. Now I was upset because I had thought the cat would be on the way and I was going to be very late to get Colleen.

I dropped the cat off and started back toward town.

Coco and a House in the Woods

I was at a house in the woods; I think I had just moved there. I was not happy about it. The town was nearby, but everything was very rustic and there was dark forest all around the house. One side looked out onto a meadow in a valley, sort of like Yosemite, and on another side there was a densely forested hill.

The house was sort of a log cabin-type place. There were two pools in the house right in the main living room area, one cool water, one a hot tub. And they weren't standard below-ground pools, they were more like aquariums with clear plexi-glass sides. They were both square and right next to each other each maybe five feet deep and up against one wall.

Our dog from when I was a teenager was there, Coco. She jumped in the cold pool, which is so Coco. I watched her and she sank to the bottom, seemingly sniffing around the edges of the tank though I did realize after a while that she couldn't possibly be doing that. She would push off the bottom and propel herself to the surface every few seconds to grab a breath of air.

As I watched her, I realized she wasn't able to actually get enough air; she was to the surface but couldn't hold herself there long enough to take a breath. She was drowning. I was going to have to jump in a pull her out. I pulled my pants off (but kept my undies on because I decided it was ok to just get them wet rather than be wholly indecent in the pool) and jumped in. I grabbed her around her middle and hauled her up to the surface.

I pushed her over the edge and onto the platform next to the pool where she could get back down to the floor. The problem was that she was sort of stupid and was going to keep jumping back in the pool. We needed a fence around the pool and we needed it immediately. For some reason it didn't occur to me to just lock her in another room where she couldn't get to the pool, so I was just keeping an eagle-eyed watch over her until we could get a gate installed.

As a disjointed part of this dream, I opened a door of the cabin to look out on the meadow and saw a bear charging toward me. It was white and huge and about 100 feet away. I was terrified and slammed the door. Looking through the window I saw the bear turn brown as it ran toward the house, then run by the house, get smaller, and jump onto the back of a motorcycle. It was actually a man in a bear suit just playing around. I wondered what was wrong with the people in this town.

I also noticed, much to my surprise and delight that a tram stop was right outside our house (not on the meadow or the forest side, but one of the other sides of the house). It went straight into town which was awesome. I wasn't sure why such a small mountain town had a tram running through it, but thought that I might like this place better now that it seemed a bit more modern and urban.

Cat in the Frame Store

In my first dream last night Kane and I went to this place that makes custom frames for pictures. It was a house though, instead of a store, and we went into the master bedroom for some reason. We were looking at the frames on display and I was noticing that everything was at least $300. I pointed out that these were far too expensive for us and he unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket showing the Groupon that he had for a discount on one of the frames.

We had our cat with us in this house and she was wandering around the master bedroom sniffing things. I asked the woman who owned the "store" if it was ok that we brought our cat, especially since I noticed they had a black and white short hair roaming around the place. She hesitated and didn't seem like it was ok.

Our cat then slipped under the house via a small vent hole in the floor under a table. Kane (and maybe my sister?) ran outside to look under the house for her. I went to put on my shoes but realized I had dozens of small thorns in my feet. I started picking them out before putting on my socks and noticed the store owner lady padlocking the gate to the room I was in. She wouldn't explain why she was locking me in.

I got the thorns out and put on my socks; they were completely covered in dirt. My sister held up a cat from outside and spoke to me through a window to tell me that she'd found my cat. I told her that she was holding a long-hair calico kitten and that my cat was a short-hair tabby adult. She kept looking.

I heard my cat meow from under the floorboards. I called to her to reassure her. I ran to the hole in the floor that she had gone through to see if she'd jump back into the room with me. The hole had been covered over with cookies; the store owner was clearly out to get me for some reason. I removed the cookies and called to the cat through the hole. After a minute she came through and I picked her up.

High School in Oregon

I was in Oregon with Kane, visiting his mom again. For some Lindsay Lohan-esque reason I had to go back to high school since my California diploma didn't work in Oregon for some reason. It was my first day and some girl was showing me around. She showed me to my locker which was up a ramp and near some arcade games.

We had to bring way too much stuff to school. I had a backpack, a duffel bag, my lunch and a guitar in a soft case. I couldn't carry it all very well and couldn't seem to find anything I needed when I needed it.

I went to put my stuff in my locker and realized that the arcade game near me just spit out an Australian $1 coin. Or a British pound coin, I wasn't sure which. I realized that the machine continually spit out Aussie/British money and started collecting it. I got a stack going and thought I would give it to one of my Aussie friends. Some bully boys came over and told me to give them the money. I explained that a)I had found it so it was mine, and b)it wasn't even domestic money so it would be useless to them. They said they'd change it at the bank. Stupid, smart bullies. I still told them to go away.

They did but shortly after they came back and took a big pile if the money and I didn't do anything about it.

The girl showing me around told me where my classes were and that we all eat lunch between fourth and fifth periods. I asked her incredulously if we don't get a break for lunch and she said no, we just eat between classes. I was pretty stressed about that.

The next day I didn't get a ride in time from Kane's mom and I was late. And I had forgotten my guitar also, though I wasn't sure why we were supposed to have instruments in the first place. Some mean girls tried to play a trick on me and lead me down the wrong corridor since I didn't know where I was going and I was just following them. I figured it out and went back the right way but was sad they were being mean to me for no reason.

Dreadlocks

I was getting ready for something like prom and doing my hair. I wasn't really me though because I had curly hair and I looked different. I had done my hair so that it was in loose curls and looked great, but for some reason I felt that I had to keep fussing with it to make it better.

I was in a large living room in a dress looking in a mirror. I scrunched up my curls even more so that my hair appeared to be shoulder length even though it was quite a bit longer if I straightened it out. Now it was too curly and looked a bit crazed, so I took some hairspray to it.

This weighed my hair down. Way down. It was suddenly down to my waist and sopping wet. It was clumping together and turning into dreads. I actually thought to myself in the dream, "I wish there was an undo button".

I started to brush the dreads out and decided I had to start all over and wash my hair out. I was happy that the dreads were coming out well with brushing at least.

A Horse in the Garage

No, this is not a euphemism.

It was the night that we were supposed to pick up Marc and Alana from the airport (tomorrow night). It was evening and we were getting ready to go pick them up. My mom was going to leave for a bike ride (at night, on a Sunday for some reason) and asked me to load her bike up for her.

When I went into the garage (no doubt expecting a car with a bike rack on it), there was instead a horse. It was smaller and light brown and it had a dark blue recycle bin garbage can harnessed behind it like a carriage.

My mom had a variety of bikes in the garage, one of which had black with hot-pink polka dots on all the metal parts (which was kinda awesome). It also had two front road bike wheels (the skinny tires), like those motorcycles with double front wheels. I picked up the polka dot bike and put it in the recycle bin behind the horse.

Clearly the horse did not like this. He moved and the recycle bin dangled behind him at an odd angle. Afraid the bike might fall out, I wanted to tie the bin to the horse better. I approached him and he kicked at me. I don't like horses and this is why*.

I grabbed at his reigns to bring him (face first) near to me but he walked, indignantly, into the far corner. I went for him again, but he stomped and kicked at me again. I was sort of afraid but knew I had to be tough with him.

I grabbed at his reigns again. This time he brought his head over to me and I leaned down for some reason. He opened his mouth and bit my head. Bit my head! Dang horse!

The cat jumped on me and woke me up at that point. Thank you, kitty.

*It should be noted that I like horses as a species and I'm glad they're around. I just don't like interacting with them or riding them at all.

Wedding Ring

Kane gave me this huge engagement ring in my dream. It was gold and had a giant thick band with red stripes on it and an enormous diamond in the middle. I was horrified. I've told him a hundred times that I like small rings without protruding gems. I never expected him to buy me such an important item without consulting me; it's not like him and it's not what I would want.

For some reason it wasn't like normal where I can tell Kane anything (even if I don't like his gift) and I had to pretend like I liked the ring. I was debating telling him that I wanted to go see if we could exchange it for something else, but it was totally going to offend him. I was not looking forward to having to wear this gaudy ring every day.

Adele's Baby!

This dream originally took place in Venice. I was there with my dad and some other people but it didn't look anything like Venice. It was more like Pearl Harbor and there was a ride where you would go down with a sinking ship (my dreams aren't necessarily politically correct...). We didn't ride the ride because our tour was leaving. I couldn't figure out why this place looked so different than the Venice I'd been to two other times. I also saw Tiffany and Jane walking around and was glad to see Jane enjoying a vacation in Europe.

Then the day transformed into Adele's wedding. My mom and David told me to go get a table just as the food came out and everyone lined up at the buffet. I was supposed to get a table that was secluded yet near our family. This was difficult to find. I roamed around the huge outdoor wedding space looking for the right table. There were massive groups of tables everywhere with various groups of my friends and family at them. Carissa was at one table, my aunt and Tiff at another.

I saw some tables far away and went to go investigate. I walked down an enclosed corridor and found a bathroom at the end. Inside was Adele and Monique and one other girl. Adele had just had her baby but wouldn't tell us his name yet. I thought maybe she wanted to announce it later at the wedding so she wasn't saying it yet. I never found those far away tables.

When I woke up today I checked Facebook; Adele had had her baby. And they weren't telling the name just yet because they hadn't quite decided on one. Later today, we found out his name is Becket Anthony. :)

Shotguns in the Court

Some "bad" neighbors from down the street came up to our house for some reason. An older woman came up the driveway and walked into the garage talking to me. As she came up to us, she took some of our coconuts we had laying around (yeah, coconuts) and started to crack it in half. I thought it was extremely rude to just take our coconuts and not ask, so I made a snarky comment to the lady.

She did not take kindly to my sarcasm (though it was deserved, hello!) and went back to her house. A few minutes later she came back with a shotgun.

She pointed it at me and said some dumb thing like in a movie (Pick one: "Say you're sorry", "I do what I want around here", "I don't have to take your crap", "Payback time") and started shooting at me. I new that shotguns weren't accurate from a distance (thank you Rainbow Six), so I ran down Spencer Lane trying to get as much distance between me and her as possible.

I hid behind cars; she fired multiple times seeming not to hit me. Some people were gathering, no one seemed to be calling the police. I think I may have gotten this dream confused with the last one because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to die in this one. My brain went elsewhere before it was concluded.

The Ghost of Me

Very often my dreams play out in movie-style sequences. Last night I dreamed that I was a ghost in a hotel room and then the story of how I died replayed.

I was in a large, older model Bronco with many other people. We were 4-wheeling or having some other shenanigans when something went wrong, the driver slammed on the breaks, and my leg was impaled on a plastic cup.

The cup was like one of those red ones at parties, but it was clear plastic, and it was lodged about 1/2" deep all the way around the rim into my top left thigh. Holy crap, I thought. I believe some others were injured in the crash as well so I thought I should leave the cup in to hold in any bleeding (high school first aid class coming in handy in dream world!) and tend to the other people first.

Whoever our friends were, however, were not taking us to the hospital. Was this how I became a ghost, because I didn't get medical attention in time? Just then one of the stupid kids in the front seat saw the cup in my leg and reached back to yank it out. Thanks dude.

Now I was bleeding profusely unless I held the two parallel wounds together with my hands. I could no longer tend to the other injured people. We were still not at the hospital.

Later I finally did somehow arrive at the hospital where I realized that my left tibia was also broken. My leg looked bad, the bottom half of my leg sagged and a huge bulge stuck out of my shin where the bone was broken. The gashes in my upper leg were difficult to hold together. I needed surgery quickly.

The nurses and doctors were incompetent. No one seemed to know what to do and one nurse was prodding at my broken bone asking it if hurt. Yes, lady, it hurts. I didn't end up seeing how I actually died, but it seemed that the surgeons or whoever didn't act quickly enough and I died at the hospital from my seemingly-non-lethal wounds.

Then I was a ghost.

My Baby

This dream started at the end of my pregnancy; I was about to have a baby. My stomach wasn't big at all and I was not prepared for this occurrence. I went through labor at the hospital and had my baby in three hours; I remembered none of it.

But I looked exactly like I do now right after having the baby. At least something went well.

I took my baby home. It had dark brown hair down to her shoulders and all her front teeth were in. She could talk in gibberish. She was, in essence, my niece. But she was mine. I wondered why she had such dark hair; Kane and I would surely have had a blond baby, right?

I didn't have a name for her. What should I name her? It was all so sudden. I like the name Taylor. Oh wait, I can't name her Taylor, that is my niece's name. I like the name Sophia. Sean's baby is named Sophia, that is so uncool to copycat. I'd have to think about it.

I got home and had nothing ready for a baby. Where was I supposed to put her when she was tired? I mounded some blankets on the floor but then thought better of it (she could just roll right off!) and held her again. What did I feed her and when? I did not seem to have any breast milk (I checked), what was going on?

Jenny had put the doors to my closet back on to replace the curtain I had because she knew that would keep the baby out of there for me. Jane had bought formula and put it in the refrigerator. Mom had replaced the giant TV stand and CRT TV with a flat screen so I'd have more room in the bedroom. Kane was around but for some reason I was the only one taking care of this baby. I didn't want a baby right now, would I have to quit my job? Could we afford all the stuff she needed? It was a terrible thing to have sprung on you.

I woke up completely drenched in sweat and sighed a HUGE sigh of relief that it wasn't true. No babies for me yet...and I'd at least like nine months to contemplate stuff when it happens, thank you very much.

Denmark

I had a dream I was in Denmark. It's funny when I have "location" dreams, especially to places I've never been in real life. For example, how did I know it was Denmark last night? I have no idea. And, if I had been paying attention to visual cues, I would have probably estimated that I was in Hawaii, the Caribbean or somewhere equally tropical. But that's not how dreams work; I was in Denmark.

I don't remember a whole lot except that it was the best place I'd ever been. The city (whichever city it was) was fun and had lots to do, there were curiously no language barriers (which plagued so many of my thoughts traveling Europe in real life), and there was a sunny, warm, and beautiful beach just a few miles outside of town.

I don't even like the beach in real life, so there's something to add to the oddity of dream world; I'm a normal person there.

I do remember many of my friends being with me (though the only person I specifically remember besides Kane was Jon) and that we took a bus from the city center to our hostel or hotel near the beach. We were all talking about how this is the best place ever and wondering why we'd ever vacationed anywhere else.

When we got to the hostel we all headed out to the ocean for a swim. Everyone else went ahead of me (while I changed, maybe?) and as I went to follow them, I remembered that I should take out my earrings because salt water tarnishes silver (actually, it doesn't; chlorinated pool water does though). I jogged back to the hostel and set my earrings and ring next to my backpack on a picnic table. I hoped no one would bother my stuff.

Fine, it wasn't an exciting dream but I remembered it and had time to write it down. So here it is. :)

Marathon on a Cuise Ship

I was in the court where my mom lives (this is where a great many of my dreams take place) about to run a 5k marathon. I was nervous about it because I'm a truly terrible runner. But, for some reason I was already registered and ready to start, so I was going to attempt it.

I began to run; there were only about 3 other people besides me running, one of whom I believe was Mel Gibson. Since we were running in the court and the court is quite small, the race consisted of 5 or so laps up the hill and back down. Running down the hill was a piece of cake and running up was harder (surprise, my dreams are sometimes realistic).

I was doing surprisingly well. I was not afflicted with my real-life running debilitation and was actually making decent time and feeling good about it. I was sweating up a storm, but the uphills were invigorating and the downhills were encouraging. I would also rest at the top of the hill each time to catch my breath before continuing on.

My family was cheering me on from the steps of my mom's house: my mom, sister, and Grandpa were definitely there, in addition to a few others. My Grandpa even got up and ran next to me for part of it to encourage me.

I couldn't believe when we only had one more lap to go; I was going to make it! I ran down the hill next to another girl who was in the marathon and about halfway down, she turned around and made an easy dash back up the hill for the finish line. She had cheated! We were supposed to go all the way down the hill to the bottom, you can't just turn around halfway. Because of that her time was under 7 minutes and she had gotten all the glory.

In spite of her I ran all the way to the bottom of the court and touched the sidewalk at the bottom before turning around to make a good time in the low 7 minutes. I was so happy!

After I finished, I turned to where my family had been sitting and there was suddenly a whole crowd of people and I was on a cruise ship. I had to go find my room so that I could shower and change for dinner. Did I bring anything nice to wear? I wasn't sure.

Everyone was wearing ball gowns and fancy dresses. I couldn't find an elevator and asked an employee how to get to the "T" deck. He had a strong accent and was hard to understand but directed me toward an elevator. I think I got off at the wrong floor but was shortly fed some strange food which I ate at a table with Commander (or Lieutenant, depending on the season) Worf.

Backstage

This dream was awesome and highly realistic. It happened in the time between getting up at 7.30am to use the bathroom and then oversleeping until 9.10am. Every time I get up late (as opposed to in the middle of the night) to use the bathroom I end up sleeping way more after I go back to sleep. Next time, I'll set an alarm.

This time, however, I had an awesome dream in the interim. I was in the audience at a play/musical with Kane, Marc and Alana. It was the kind of show where there are tables set up; we had our own table in the very back of the large, dark room. As the show started, a David Bowie-esque young man dressed in neon spandex (sort of like a Cirque du Soleil deal) walked out from the back of the room, turned to me, grabbed my hand, and started to walk me down toward the stage.

I looked back at my companions and mouthed an "oh lord" and rolled my eyes. Did I want to be the audience volunteer for this show? Not really.

The man took me backstage and proceeded to get ready for the show and walk all around the extensive greenrooms. People were talking to him and laughing and it was a really fun place. I was sticking close by him since I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Finally they put me in a costume (I don't remember what it was) and I was put on a dark area of the stage. There was someone on the other side of the stage pretending to be on the phone (it was part of the act) and suddenly the spotlight shone on me; I was the person on the other line.

Surprisingly, and unlike so many of my other dreams, I actually knew my lines. I said whatever silly thing I was supposed to say (even though I hadn't known what it was beforehand-- apparently in the dream we had practiced it at some point) and the audience laughed. The spotlight went off of me and my moment was over.

Since I wasn't being shown back to my seat, I wanted to see if I could sit somewhere near the stage to see the rest of the show. I did, after all, come to see it and now I was missing it. I sat in a little window-type opening that looked out onto the stage from behind; it was probably 200 feet behind the actual stage (the stage was immense and didn't have a wall directly behind it like a normal stage).

The crew and cast were becoming accustomed to me and some actually knew my name. Others were watching the show from this location and were surprised that I was audacious enough to have a look; they called me by name and welcomed me to watch with them.

While at this viewing area, we watched as some of the acrobats warmed up off stage. One of the trainers landed wrong doing a series of back flips and broke her leg. It was broken at the shin and was cracked straight through. She had to exit the area from the opening where we were all sitting--which included climbing through the opening and then down a 10' ladder. I was wondering why there wasn't an exit with easier access for just this type of situation.

As the girl approached, she asked me to help her down the ladder. I had to hold her leg still. She was squinting with the pain but not yelling out like I would have expected. I held her leg and could feel it was broken; it was moving around with every jolt down the ladder, which must have hurt immensely.

I wasn't able to get a good grip on the break to hold it very still--stupid dream world. I held the break as best I could with one hand and pushed the bottom of her foot up to try to hold the break together with the other hand. I was shuffling the use of these hands to climb down the ladder myself and was not doing a great job holding her leg still.

Once at the bottom, she hopped away on one foot to get help; she was an acrobat after all.

When the show was over, the guy who had taken me backstage came over and we both changed back into our normal clothes. I had a sweater on over a t-shirt over another t-shirt and a tank top under that for some reason.

The guy called me over to give me some trinkets from the show. He said the show changes every week and they don't need some of the props if I wanted them as souvenirs. I said ok and put some little cardboard cutouts and some papers in my bag. I gave him a big hug and was very happy.

Superhero Socks

This dream took place outside my mom's house in the cul-de-sac where I grew up. I and a few other kids were roller blading around the bottom of the court where there were miscellaneous "bonus" items floating around about a foot off the ground like something from a video game.

There were gloves and hats and socks; each one would give you a special power if you picked it up and put it on. We were all racing around and trying to prevent each other from getting these floating items. I managed to grab a pair of knee-high, red and yellow knit socks and put them on quickly. They gave me super running speed!

I proceeded to race all around the court, running circles around my opponents. It was awesome!!

Test Time

Four dream nights in a row, weee!

This dream started out with me playing laser tag at the old Q-Zar arena (where I used to work) in Pleasanton. The arena was similar to the real one, but the rest of the building was different. The equipment we were using was Laser Quest stuff though, not Q-Zar (clearly that's important). About 3/4 through the game my laser stopped working. I tried to get help from the employee, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong; I knew I had lost my 1st place ranking because of it.

During the game, Ben F. told me that we had a test afterward. Apparently I had been away from home during the time when we were told about this test so I hadn't prepared for it at all or even known about it. It was going to be a standardized test, like the SATs except it was going to test "science" (whatever that means), and was to be held that same day.

We could bring notes to the test, so I asked Ben if I could make a copy of this pamphlet that he had with all sorts of equations on it. He said ok, so I took it to the front desk at the laser tag place but the man said their copy machine was busy copying something more important and wouldn't be done in time. Fabulous. I was hoping they would hand out an equation sheet during the test so that I would have something.

I remember standing outside a school building with some kids I knew, waiting to go in and take the test. Carissa and Jolene were there; everyone was very nervous. We got in and sat at assigned desks in a small, bright room. The desks were very close together and I was afraid the proctors would think I was cheating since I didn't prepare for the test at all.

We had about 1/2 hour before the test started, so I went to the bathroom. I went with Adele and since the girls' bathroom was only one stall, I let her go. I went into the boys bathroom instead (which I assumed would be one stall also), but it wasn't and there were other boys in there. I used the bathroom but was too embarrassed to stay and wash my hands so I went back into the girls' bathroom to wash my hands. I found there were three stalls when I went back in.

I went back into the testing room and the desks had been moved to be a bit further apart. My friend Melissa and her brother Seth were somewhere in the room too, but I couldn't see them from where I sat. I asked someone if this was the kind of test you could take again if you didn't do well, but they said no. We only had one chance. I was just hoping that I would do well since I'm good at "science" and can figure stuff out relatively well.

Overboard

It's been three nights in a row now where I've woken up in the morning in the middle of (or toward the end of) gnarly dreams. I wonder what makes a dream cycle act up?

This dream started on some sort of fishing ship; it was large and passing through a narrow canal (maybe 10x the width of the ship). There was some guy on board that insisted on hitting on me repeatedly and I was not happy to find that something had gone wrong and I needed to gear up and jump into the water with him.

I'm not sure what was wrong, it may have been something about a killer whale in the water? I don't know what we were supposed to do, but we got our wet suits on and went to the bottom deck of the ship which was right at water level and was open to the outside via a passage through the entire width of the ship. Just as we were getting ready, something happened to the ship and it jerked forward in one huge movement.

I had been putting my hair up and all my hair ties had fallen into the water along with myself and the man. We were now in the water and I was trying to find my hair ties for some reason...as though that were possible. I also realized later that my camera had fallen into the water during this accident and that my brand new camera had been lost! I was upset and intent on diving down all over the canal to find it.

After some time swimming/moving up and down the canal, I found myself with a few other people walking along a trickling, forested stream. My cousin Adele was one of the people but I'm not sure who the others were. We were searching for something but I don't remember what. We were traversing the stream over many obstacles; there were animals of all sorts disguised all along the banks and in the water that would hurt us if/when we disturbed them. There were huge eel-snakes that would whip you with their bodies, some sort of hyena that would bite you, and gigantic slug-looking things that would hurt you in some way if you stepped on them, which was almost impossible to avoid.

We had many dealings with these threats and were being continually accosted as we passed. I remember at one point someone in the party was being attacked by one animal or another and Adele was watching them a few feet away from me. As she watched, she stepped into one of those giant floor slugs and it started to freak out and flail all over the place trying to injure her. She wasn't paying attention so I called to her to move off the animal, but she didn't seem to hear me. I called her name again and again but she never heard me.

Party at Todd's

In this dream Kane and I were staying the night at Todd's house, this guy I knew from 7th and 8th grade. We had driven up from San Luis Obispo and had stayed one night and were now packing up to go home. I had packed my suitcase and folded up our tent (why? no idea) but the whole time Todd and his family were trying to convince us to stay for one more night. It was a holiday weekend and we didn't really have to be back home until tomorrow.

We had decided to leave when people started trickling into their home; it was a party! Suddenly it was actually Scott R's house (another kid from middle/high school days) and all the people were from Highland/Brett Harte/Hayward High. I actually knew quite a few people, but mostly in a "I remember them from 2nd grade" sort of way rather than actually knowing them.

Kane was playing console video games with some guy on a couch and said we could stay if I wanted to talk to some of these folks and hang out tonight. I said ok.

Alicia was there, and I was so thankful to actually know someone for real. After hanging out with Scott R for a while, I went over to talk to Alicia. She was talking to a couple other girls I didn't know and I stood with them for a minute but they were deep in conversation. I felt like a 3rd (or 4th) wheel so wandered off. I realized that even though I remembered a lot of the people, they didn't really seem to remember me or at least they weren't talking to me. It was awkward.

I noticed that people were dividing into groups in one part of the room so I went over to see what was going on. It was a scavenger hunt; I was assigned to "Group 3" immediately. I thought it would be fun but it turned out that we were looking for really stupid things and couldn't find a single one of them. The only things on the list I remember were: a girl in a swim suit, a garage full of duffel bags, and a "real" lamp.

I thought I came close to finding a "real" lamp when I stumbled upon an antique collection in one of the rooms; I was thinking we were looking for an oil lamp, though I wasn't sure. But there wasn't one, so I remained disappointed with the game.

Later we drove over to laser tag with everyone, but the facility had completely changed and was now super quiet inside. No music, no video games, and the employees briefed the players in the lobby before the game so everyone had to keep really quiet so people could hear. It was odd.

Employment

I had a dream that I had a job. How sad is that. I worked in an office and I didn't know any of the people there. It was a standard office, like you see in the movies, in a high rise building with cubicles all around the floor we occupied. I did not know what the company did, nor did I know what my job exactly was.

I had been there for some time and was beginning to think it was odd that no one had trained me or assigned me any tasks. I just sort of walked around all day talking to people and being introduced to new people. I was so excited to look in my purse (I carried one like my sister's purse; a real girlie purse) and find all these pay checks. I had 3 or 4 paychecks, each for about $1700 that I had not yet cashed. I was so excited!

I didn't realize they'd been paying me all this time; I didn't even know what my job was for heaven's sake! It was awesome! I also had some other checks in there from other stuff; I was carrying around like $5000 in checks! I was so excited because I had just bought a camera lens and flash (which I did in real life) and now I had a valid reason to be spending that money...I had actually earned some!

Ok, so this is like the saddest dream ever. I dream of being productive (in a manner of speaking) and of making money. Apparently, I do need a job.

Dave's Wedding

Last night Kane and I were discussing what we were going to wear to Dave's wedding, which is at the end of this month. I have a dress that I never wear and I was thinking it might be appropriate. But I never wear dresses -- is this dress too fancy? I'm not sure. The jury is out - we'll see how it goes.

Apparently this discussion weaseled its way into my dream world; we were holding Dave's wedding here at my mom's house in my dream. The continuity of it has faded since awakening, but I do remember that we were getting ready for the event and setting everything up. People were supposed to arrive at 8pm. Dave was running all around getting things ready and I stopped him to show him that I wrapped up individual silverware settings in 49ers napkins for all the guests. I raised a confident eyebrow as I handed him a handful the place settings - I was clearly saving him lots of time and energy by having pre-wrapped all the dinnerware. I'm so helpful.

About a half hour before anyone was supposed to arrive I realized that I didn't have any Regina Spektor CDs. I have MP3 CDs (legally purchased, thank you very much) but no hard copy CDs to play on the stereo. This was not going to do; I had to run to the CD store. I got in my car and drove to San Lorenzo to make my emergency purchase at Rasputin and raced back. By the time I returned the guests had arrived and the party was in full swing.

There were round tables in a dimly lit dining area (this was clearly not my mom's house) with designated guests sitting at each table, along with lots of people mingling around the room. I saw Dave and Sarah's table and went over to ask how everything was going. Dave said everything was fine, but Sarah looked like she felt sick. She was hunched over in her seat and wasn't talking to anyone. I asked her if she felt ok and she said her stomach hurt. I thought I should get her some medicine. Her hair was curly (she had curled it for the event) and looked really nice, so I told her so. She was, curiously, not wearing a wedding dress.

I don't remember what I was wearing either, so no omen was provided into what I should wear to the actual wedding.

At some point during this dream, I adjusted my position in the bed (in real life). I moved my head on the pillow and smacked Kane's forehead with my nose. I said sorry and he rolled over mumbling "oughhhh", as though I hurt him. I proceeded to explain that it was my nose hitting his forehead and that there was no way that hurt him. His response was another "oughhh".

Shower in the Open

Ah, the classic shower out in the open dream. Refreshing. Almost as good as the toilet out in the open dream. I've had a variety of these dreams over the years. I'm not an exhibitionist - no - I'm stressed out in these dreams. Stupid shower in the open!

It's funny how sometimes you don't remember a dream when you first wake up, but sometime throughout the day or morning you see or do something that triggers a memory of a dream. Not entirely unlike that episode of Star Trek where members of the crew were being taken from the ship and didn't know it. They were reminded of their off-ship experience by random objects on the ship that evoked an odd emotion of fear, prompting them to discuss their common experiences and re-create the conditions of their experiences together on the holodeck. This blog is like my holodeck. I love Star Trek.

Anyway, what triggered my memory this morning was applying conditioner to my hair in the shower. Actually, it was squirting the conditioner into my hand. I looked at the blob of goo and thought, "why do I remember using conditioner so recently?". It was because I had used it in my dream, in an outdoor shower. Fun.

I think I was on vacation, as I often seem to be in my dreams. I don't know who I was with or where we were, but it was a big city and I think it was warm. We were with friends, possibly Marc and Alana, mimicking our Japan trip from real life, and we were at our hotel. There were two showers and one was engaged, so I used the second.

It was outdoors by a small wall. The wall was curved and only came up to about my waist. I remember showering next to the wall in plain sight of the sidewalk about 20 feet away. I hunched down so that I was at least behind the wall entirely, though people who were walking in the nearby courtyard could still see me. I was moving all around to see if there was any place I could stand where I wasn't seen by people. There did not seem to be such a place.

I gave up on this awful shower after putting conditioner in my hair. I went back inside to seek out (new life and new civilization...) the other shower and remember complaining about that outside shower to some people. Someone - a boy - was trying to tell me that the outdoor shower wasn't that bad. I got mad at him and said that's because he was a boy, he wasn't exactly getting the same reception from the public as a naked lady. It was true; every man passing by had ogled and/or called out in a rude fashion. I guess I don't really blame them - who showers outside?

Kokomo

I'm pretty sure Kane and I were on vacation in Kokomo in this dream. Where is Kokomo? I had thought it was a Carribbean island, but Google maps tells me it's a city in Indiana. Not quite as exciting.

In the dream the island was somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, like, with Tahiti and all that. Kane and I were on vacation though I'm not sure how or why (do I really need a how or why to be on vacation, though?). I remember being in a tiny hotel room with two beds. It was like a hostel where the beds were rented out not just the room. I had one bed reserved, and I thought it was for both of us, but it turned out that they were only twin beds. Kane got the other bed for one of the nights, but then had to go somewhere else for the next night and some other people filled the room. It was a bit strange.

I remember walking around outside the hotel - it was sort of a resort on the beach sort of place, warm breeze, bright sunset. I saw Kyla and her boyfriend walking by and was really surprised to see them. I went to talk to them to see if they wanted to do something but they said they were on their way back to their hotel, which was a bit outside of town. I was wondering why they stayed so far away. It looked like they were going to walk there, even though they mentioned it was over 3o miles outside of town. He gave her a piggy back ride and they seemed very happy.

Mall Breakfast

Dreamed Night of Feb 4, 2010

My mom, David, Kane, and I were in a mall and I think we were on vacation somewhere. It was morning and we were looking for breakfast. We found a few places in the mall that had breakfast-type food, but everything on the menus was either meat or deep fried, and I'm not a huge fan of either.

We walked around to different places looking for something decent, and while walking, I saw Kyla pass by laughing. She was headed into some store where I think she worked. I stopped her to ask why she was laughing, and she told me but I don't remember the reason.

We continued to look for a restaurant or store and found this perfect little cafe with a great menu. We entered and sat ourselves but there appeared to be no one else there, either customers or staff. We found a note that said they were on vacation for a week or something and that they were closed. I had no idea why the doors were still open, but we were downtrodden.

Green Boots and a Flashlight

Dreamed Night of Feb 4, 2010

My aunt Jane and I were on something like a pier on a lake next to mountainous terrain. It was similar to the coast of central California with cold air, big green evergreens, and pretty, steep hills. There was no beach; the sea just lapped on to the foot of the hills and the dirt and forest began abruptly.

I left Jane briefly and took a jet ski over to another dock on the lake; the lake was as rough as ocean. I docked and ran up some stairs on the hill to meet my Grandmam at a rustic cabin where she was apparently staying. It think she owned the place in the dream, though she owned no such place in real life. I don't remember talking with her, but I think we exchanged pleasantries and then I went back to get Jane now that I knew where we were to go.

I offered Jane the jet ski this time (it only held one person) and I hiked the dirt path that wound through the hillside forest to get back to Grandmam's house. My way would take a lot longer, but that's ok.

As I started up the hill, a voice called out from entrance to the forest. I could see someone was tucked away into some of the rocks to my right, but I could not see their face because they were fully shrouded in a black cloak. Plus it was getting dark and I could not see well in the tree cover. I think the man had a dog (German Shepherd?) with him too. It was creepy but not so scary that I felt threatened or felt like I had to turn around.

This hard-to-see man told me that I will need a flashlight and that he would loan me one. I said ok, but he said it's too early and that I had to wait. I already had a flashlight, so I went ahead. I realized a few minutes into my hike that Jane will not be able to see where she's going in the dark on the water. I hoped she had a light or at least was doing ok since there wasn't much I could do now.

As I hiked, I noticed a little plastic track that was about two feet wide adjacent to the trail that the weird man used to transport flashlights to people who were already walking the trail. Not only did he give them a flashlight...he would also send a pair of green boots. I watched as a pair of green boots and matching green flashlight hovered about an inch off the track and flew down the track, assumingly to meet their new owners. It was strange.

About halfway down the trail, I found a small village that was exactly on the trail. As in, the trail led into the buildings of this village - dead ended right at a door to a house which was unlocked. Somehow I knew that I was supposed to go in the house to continue on the trail.

I went through door after door going through every house in the village; I thought it was a rather invasive way of traversing this town. The last room had a bed with people sleeping in it; that was a bit awkward.

As I continued down the trail, the batteries of my flashlight started to falter and the light became dimmer and dimmer. I was hoping that my flashlight and boots would arrive on the little track soon so that I wouldn't be left in complete darkness.

I either woke up or my brain moved on before I ever reached my destination or found out if Jane got to Grandmam's ok.

Lost in the Lava

I woke up with labored breaths. My heart was racing. I had just lost my car to a volcano.

It started out great: I had gone down to San Luis Obispo to look for a birthday present for a 3 year old girl. I don't know who the girl was, but I was invited to her party and I was going to go to the toy store to look for a cute present. I bought a cup of coffee and took off my shoes and walked all around town in the sunshine. Of course the town wasn't actually SLO, but still.

The toy store had moved and SLO had gotten an Ikea! How'd that happen!? I saw Jon along the way, he was picking out a weird spiral wicker shelving unit with some girl at a furniture store. He was very torn over whether it was the right piece of furniture for him. I moved on.

I was browsing through presents and moving from store to store when I saw my sister's friend Kevin M. He wanted to take me to the upcoming dance. I said ok, but Jenny showed up and really didn't want me to go with him; I think she liked him. I told Kevin that I'd like to go with him but if Jenny didn't want me to then it probably wouldn't work. He seemed understanding. Jenny informed me that Scott Taylor had also expressed interest in taking me to the dance. I said I'd think about it.

I started to walk back to my car through a strip mall. The sun was going down and I thought I should call it a day. The parking lot at the mall ended and a dirt lot started; my car was at the very end of the dirt lot. As I walked the dirt lot, some of the ground started turning to lava. It wasn't flowing off the hills like real lava, it was like coming up from the ground and was in spotty areas all over the parking lot. I ran for the coffee shop at the end of the lot in my bare feet and saw my car in the last spot on the way. I was safe in the coffee shop so just sat down for a breather. When I looked out at my car, it was halfway underground sunk into lava. I freaked out and ran outside but it was clearly too late.

As I got closer I saw my sister in the front seat of the car and I yelled to her to get out. She did and I asked her if anything important was still in the car that I should run for, but she said she didn't have the baby today so not to worry. I tried to think if I had anything else important in the glove compartment or anything, but it was too late and the whole car went under. My sister had lent me her black flip flops for a second, so I gave them back and we walked with my mom back to the coffee shop.

It was an odd "oh well" feeling, because there really was nothing I could do about losing my car to volcano lava. I watched as men came out and shoveled gravel onto the lava spots in the parking lot to drive their cars out; mine was the only car lost. Apparently everyone else knew what to do in case of lava. Dang.

But, it was a good thing that Shaquille O'neal told me later that the brand new Porsche that I wanted was only $34,000. Shaq's got my back.

Angel Back in Time

I had a dream that when I ate this purple squash-looking fruit, I went back in time to when I was 14. I was still my older self, but in my body from that time. I was in a parking lot in the daytime hanging out with my Planet Lazer friends Melissa and Angel. They are about four years older than I am, so they would have been about 18, though they looked younger in the dream. We were just hanging out and talking and they were saying the dumbest stuff. I was wondering if we always were this dumb when we were this age, and I figured we probably were, I just hadn't realized it at the time.

I went forward in time again to the present and told my mom about how stupid my friends and I were. Then I tried to convince a lady at the grocery shop that this particular squash really did take me back in time. I'm not sure why I wanted her to believe me, but I think she lost interest. Plus, I'm not sure what happened to my body in the present when I went back to the past after eating the fruit, so I'm not sure what I was even trying to show the lady. Ah, the paradoxes of time travel don't even escape my dreams.

Dry Swimming

Many dreams occurred last night, Japan sleep is quite restless so far. I had two memorable dreams, the first was about the swim team in high school. I hate swim team dreams, they are never good. This was no exception.

I was not in high school, but no one had shown up for a swim meet and they wanted me to compete just to get a full relay team going. And by full relay team, they apparently meant me and one other girl (Sandy) who used to be on the swim team with me. We alternated in the 200 Medley relay, which is not actually allowed with 2 people in real life: she kicked it off with back, I did breast, she did fly (though I had to remind her that was what she was supposed to do) and I finished up with my standard contribution of freestyle.

The only problem was that there was no water in the pool, and really, no pool. We just wiggled on our bellies on a flat concrete surface, not unlike the smooth surface of a garage in a house. We mimicked the motions of the strokes as best we could on our bellies and it was both difficult and embarrassing. And I noticed that the other team didn't even have anyone competing, so it was our coach just cheering Sandy and me on. So ridiculous.

The second dream involved a wedding where I forgot to invite my friends, Adam was all mad at Jane, and I wore a horribly uncomfortable and inappropriately tight and short dress under my full dress that was more like a robe. We were supposed to play laser tag at the reception, but the employees of the facility never showed up. Wah. I hate wedding dreams. :)

No Love

This was the night before our big flight to Japan, so I knew the dreamin' wouldn't be good. At least no more planes crashing though. In this dream I didn't get into UC Berkeley. It was sad.

I think I was in high school still, because one of my classes got out early and I had to stay for my final class (I guess that could have been college too then). Either way, I remember going into one of my teachers' classrooms and looking over the essay I had sent to Berkeley. It was just one essay (as opposed to the many I sent in real life), and it was like a story. It was terrible. I was thinking, "no wonder they didn't let me in, this sucks".

I also remember wondering why I didn't get help from my teacher on the essay. He was an English teacher and I think he could have helped me a lot, but I had been to stubborn to ask for help. And now my essay was crappy and UCB didn't take me. Good work, me.

Well, it was a downer for sure, but I woke up realizing that my real-life essays kick ass and if they don't let me into Berkeley it's not because my essays are crap, that's for sure. Slightly re-assured.

Another downside - I woke up with Rod Stewart's Maggie May PAINFULLY stuck in my head. I hope it goes away soon. Now, off to Japan.

Missed Flight

So maybe I am more nervous about our upcoming trip than I feel. Now I am, at least, after this dream. I had a dream that Kane and I had a trip to Europe planned before our Japan trip. Nevermind that our Japan trip is in 2 days; somehow we were squeezing a Europe trip in there.

I keep saying how we haven't prepared much for Japan, but in the dream we hadn't prepared at all for Europe. I'm not even sure we packed. We just arrived at the airport and were going. I was looking at our itinerary and we were flying direct to Stockholm. Our hotel bookings, however, had us booked somewhere else the first night (Scotland?) which was not within a reasonable distance of our arrival destination. I saw that we had all of our hotels booked, but that they weren't going to work because we couldn't get to the first one on time, so they'd all be messed up. I was wondering if I should call them all or if we should try to catch another flight once we got to Stockholm to try to salvage the reservations.

We boarded the plane and it started to take off. We took a sharp turn and I could see the ground out of my window. I hate when they do that. Then I saw something fall off the plane down to the ground. Apparently the captain had meant to drop whatever it was, but we were still on our way down fast after losing it. We crashed with nothing more than a thud, which surprised me. We weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

They de-boarded us and showed us to a temporary camp area with little cabins. I'm not sure why I couldn't just go home or stay in a hotel, but we were in the cabins. All I wanted to do was call Alana to tell her that our plans were going to be all messed up now (mixing the fake Europe trip with the real Japan trip now) and figure out how we were going to meet. There was no internet and I didn't have her phone number.

I walked around our little encampment area at dusk and had a look at all the food stalls they had. It was sort of like a tiny county fair with all the hot dog stands and people selling jewelry and stuff. It was very informal, but I guess some of the stuff was free for us since we were still waiting for another flight. I asked for an orange juice and the man handed me a sangria. So much for service. I drank it anyway.

I wanted to ask how long it would be until we could go, but I didn't want to bother the staff since I'm sure everyone else had already asked. I needed a bathroom and followed a sign to one under a nearby overpass. It was dark and the toilets were hollowed out chairs in rows up on pedestals. Some were kitchen chairs, some recliners, etc. No doors. I had to pee badly though, so I went anyway (but didn't go in real life, thank goodness). The roll of toilet paper was a roll of tape; I had to ask someone to grab me some real toilet paper from another chair.

Then my grandpa came up and yelled at me for wandering off alone. It was night time and I had gone to the overpass bathroom alone, and that wasn't safe. I said sorry and let him take me back to the camp.

Stupid Stretchy Packets

Last night I couldn't fall asleep right away, which does not happen very often. Kane was sawing logs next to me while I tossed and turned. As I contemplated the merits of salamanders versus lizards, Kane suddenly started chuckling. He laughed and started to roll over toward me. I asked him what he was laughing about, knowing he was asleep. His response, between light laughter, was "Stupid, stretchy packets".

If I needed confirmation that he was asleep, that was it. Oh yes, the packets. And their stupid stretchiness. Clearly unconscious. I asked him, "What about them?" and he mumbled something about an item in his video game, then laughed some more. His laughing made me laugh. Then he apparently woke up more because he told me to shut up and stop making fun of him. Indeed.

The effort I had to expend to remember the phrase "stupid stretchy packets" in the morning was tremendous. Word associations, visual images, and just plain repeating the words over and over and over. But it worked and it lived in my brain to be blogged about in the morning. I know you're thankful.

Waitress

I often wake up with songs stuck in my head. They weren't in my dream, and I find that I have not necessarily heard them recently. This morning's tune? "What's Love Got to do with It?" by Tina Turner.

In my dream last night I was a waitress. I was being trained by another server, but they gave me a table to wait before even having shown me around the kitchen. I took the table's order (three people) and delivered them their pasta or whatever they ordered. I gave them their complementary bread and they asked for margarine.

The kitchen was a separate facility behind the restaurant. It was actually more like a huge concrete warehouse with an immense amount of stuff that appeared to have nothing to do with the restaurant. There were many staff in this area and one of them told me that this building experiences a great many earthquakes per day. I looked up to see if there was tons of cracking in the concrete (indicating that it's been fatiguing due to the quakes), but there were none so I felt ok in the building.

I asked one woman if she knew where the margarine was. She said she did, but then didn't. I asked another couple people and they didn't know. Then someone saw a huge spider hanging from the high ceiling and one woman freaked out. There was a sack of babies hanging under the spider, it was gross but it was like 15 feet over our heads so there was no immediate danger. My friend Damian had bought a new lens for his fancy camera and proceeded to start to photograph the spider. The lens was about 6" in diameter.

I finally decided that I needed to go tell my customers that I am new and cannot find their margarine. As I approached their table they were just finishing up eating and I felt really bad. I told them that this was my first day and that no one would tell me where the margarine was, and that I was sorry. I offered them something else instead - a drink or dessert - as an apology, but they said it was ok and handed me a big bag.

Inside the bag were their left overs; I didn't understand why they weren't taking them home. There was a whole chicken that was half eaten. Attached to the side of the bag was the bill that they had paid. They used a credit card and the receipts were there. There was a bunch of other paperwork with the receipts and one of the items was a survey. I could not read it. I wanted to because I'm sure they gave me a bad review, but couldn't. Another waiter came up to me and sort of scoffed at the review. I still wasn't sure what it said, and think that I figured out that they didn't tip me.

Escaping the Zombies

Maybe I talk about zombies too much. Maybe I think about them too much too. And maybe I did see a commercial yesterday for yet another zombie movie. Regardless, they're in my head, apparently.

There was a longer sequence of this dream, but my memory of it starts in a room of a house were I have never been before. Another girl and I locked ourselves in there to escape the zombies chasing us. Just before we were attacked by more zombies, Dr. Cuddy from House rushed in, gave us each a shot in the tricep of our arm, and ran out. This shot was a cure for zombie-ism. Not sure why she gave it to us; maybe they were just being careful, or maybe it was an actual vaccine, I'm not sure.

The zombies in this dream weren't the slow, thoughtless, funny kind from Shaun of the Dead. Thankfully they weren't the super human ones from 28 Days Later either; but they were more like the ones from the book version of I Am Legend. They still had working brains, and they could move like normal people.

Dr. Elliot Reid, from Scrubs, was the first to attack via the room's front door. She was pounding on it and shouting verbal abuse at us. I picked up a small, silver revolver in each hand and I'm not sure what weapon the other girl had, but she had something.

I was standing toward the back of the room on top of a floor heating grate. I started to hear noises beneath the grate, and realized that another zombie was somehow trying to get in from the ducting under the house. Smart buggers.

As she emerged from the duct, I cocked one of my guns and had a really hard time pointing it at her and firing, the trigger was very hard to pull. I hit her, but I had to shoot her a couple more times ("...removing the head, or destroying the brains...", Shaun of the Dead, anyone?) before she backed off. Then I moved to the next floor heating grate (why there was more than one grate, I'm not really sure) that I thought one might pop through.

Another girl did, and I unloaded on her too until she backed away. These zombies had the ability to regenerate, but if they got hurt too badly they would just die, so they'd leave to go regen before I killed them entirely. This was when Dr. Reid apparently got through the door and the other human woman started fighting her.

Then a 3rd zombie started poking up through the same grate, and I realized it was Kane. I could not shoot Kane, even if he were a zombie. Especially since there was a cure now and we just needed to hold out until everyone got it. So I yelled to the other girl to run.

She was confused, but there was no time to argue, so we kicked out one of windows (it was the shuttered kind like they have in Hawaii) and started to run. My companion was suddenly a man instead of a woman, and we were running wildly down a dirt hill.

The man I was running with started sliding on his butt down the hill instead of just running; it was faster and we needed to hide somewhere before the zombies could see where we went. I slid behind him and we headed for a nearby house to run behind it. In real life, my breathing started to speed up. I heard my faster breaths and I thought it was because I was huffing and puffing running away so fast, but it was probably because I was very tense. Either that or I was humoring my dream.

We reached the house and somehow got up onto the flat part of the mansard-type roof. This area was totally visible from the ground; it wasn't a very good hiding spot. The zombies could climb to get us easily. Four zombies climbed up to get us, my sister to our right, a small woman to our left, and two guys in front of us (neither of them were Kane). I started by running at the small girl and shoving her off the roof. But I knew that pushing my sister and the two guys would be harder since they were bigger than I am.

Fortunately, my brain decided this was quite enough stress for sleeping, and woke up.

Hayward Hills Bar

Last night I had a plethora of dreams, 3 of which I remembered clearly upon waking. I checked to see if it was a full moon or something (yes, I really did check), but it wasn't. Guess I was just busy-brained.

This was the first of the dreams so I don't remember it as clearly. Miki Harris and I were at a bar that was only a couple blocks from our houses. It was down by Tribune near the pizza place, where there is currently just a field on a hill. The room was small and dark (as bars tend to be) with tables and not many people.

I remember the bartender being very friendly and giving us a couple free drinks. He wanted us to stay for a while, probably because having young women in your bar helps tremendously with business. I didn't want to stay, but was stoked at the free drinks. I decided to walk home, but I think I was on the cell phone or distracted in some other way and lost track of Miki.

I went started to walk back to look for her, but she called to say she had already made it home. She didn't seem mad about it.

Snow Games

These were no ordinary games but instead were an intense competition. There were two teams of people competing against each other in an elaborate competition, sort of like a triathlon, but all weird events instead of swimming, biking, or running (thank goodness, then I had a chance).

Each group had about 20 people, none of whom I knew. I also did not know where we were or why I was in this competition, but it did not matter. We all started out in a gym together; we had eleven days to train for the competition. I was going to start on the treadmill and then do kicking and punching drills (oh yeah, it was that kind of competition), but the trainer recommended otherwise, though I don't remember what he said.

The first event was a doubles team test where you have to steal a certain item from a house without being attacked by the dog or prompting the residents, or any nearby residents, to call the cops. My partner and I had to steal a yellow gardening glove from this woman's garage.

The only problem was the dog. It was a doberman but it was about the size of a lifeboat. It had a normal head and legs but a huuugely fat and ridiculous looking body. In reality, it would not have been able to walk. It was undecided about whether to bite us or sniff us; I as encouraging sniffing. We ended up arousing suspicion among two of the neighbors (as we ran from the dog), but they did not call the police. The woman who lived in the house was fast asleep (we could hear her loud snoring), and we won the dog over enough to escape without being detected. Challenge one: check!

The next challenge was more difficult. We (same two partners in the competition) had to chase down and tag two men in the snow. It was sort of like hide and seek except that the people we were chasing were like native snow people and could maneuver and hide in the snow like nobody's business. So they set off and a few minutes later we were allowed to go chase them.

By some fluke I found the first guy before he could hide somewhere. He was sliding down this little hill with this crazy scythe-like instrument that he used to dive into the snow. I caught him off guard and tagged him and took his little scythe to help me in the snow. Yeay!

The second guy was going to be more difficult to find because there were three guys that looked very similar and I couldn't remember which we had to find, and because we totally didn't see which way he went down the hill and there were many forks in the snowy hill road. After finding that we were after #19 (or was it #17?) I chose one way to go and ended up in some sort of facility at the bottom of the hill. There was a cafe, but behind that was some sort of manufacturing facility where people from the competition were working for some reason.

I waited in hiding while spying on the people to see if our guy was there. I saw him working, but he saw me also and hid in some locked room where no one would let me in. I waited a really long time for him and he finally came out and I ambushed him and tagged him. We had won! I'm not sure if we won the whole competition because I think other people had finished faster than we did, but we still had accomplished our tasks.

For some reason my Dad was suddenly there with me and helped lift me out of the manufacturing facility because there were no stairs and I was exhausted.

Star Trek Convention & The Wrong Shower

I was at a sleepover at John Paul's house down the street, all ready to go to the Star Trek Convention the following day. There were about half a dozen other girls at the sleepover, I have no idea where John Paul or any other of the folks who actually lived there were.

Also at the party were two kids who used to live across the street: Kevin and Chris W. In real life, they'd now be the same ages as my sister and me, but in the dream Chris was only 6. I asked Kevin how it was that I remember Chris being older than that, but he wasn't sure.

When a peppy little blond girl knocked on the door to see if we were all ready in the morning, waking most of us up, I realized we were late to the convention. I told the girl to go on without us; we'd meet her there after we all got ready.

I jumped up to take a really quick shower and ran to the master bedroom to snag one before they were all taken. For some reason I didn't want to use the main master bedroom shower and instead was happy to find another shower behind a random door in the master bedroom. The space this "extra" bathroom was in was huge, and seemed to connect to a whole other apartment.

I started up the shower and hopped in just as a man walked in: apparently it was a whole other apartment attached to the main house and I was in his shower. Awkward. I showered as fast as I could, somehow knocking the shower curtain into the tub in the process. I then jumped out (wrapping myself in my own towel, I had imposed quite enough on these strangers) and re-assembled the shower with many apologies to the tenants.

Just as I finished fixing up the shower, it turned into a bed that I was making (and I was suddenly dressed), and the man's mom came in thinking I was the maid getting the room ready for her. So I played along, starting to fake a Mexican accent, but realizing that my blond hair would probably give me away, so I switched to a sort of unidentified Nordic accent. Because apparently maids cannot be native of the country they are in (and incidentally, these people were Australian).

After that fiasco, I later found myself at the Star Trek Convention with my Dad. Who knows what happened to those other girls at the sleep over, they looked way too cool to appear at a ST Convention anyway. We walked through the area with all the booths selling goods, then found the auditoriums where the speakers are. I realized too late that we had gotten there in the middle of the day and we probably missed one of the key speakers (William Shatner and Patrick Stewart are there this year; we're going in real life at the end of the month).

My friend from Cal Poly, Andrew Z., was waiting for me outside the auditorium for some reason, so I met up with him and we tried to figure out what we had missed. Apparently Patrick Stewart was on right then, but I knew that there would be no good seats left, and we had missed William Shatner earlier in the day. Dang!

Wedding Bells

I had an interesting dream last night. It took me a while to cotton on* even in my own dream, but I was getting married. And not to Kane, really, not to anyone featured in the dream.

The dream took place on the day of the wedding but before I arrived at the actual ceremony. I don't remember it all now, but I do remember sending Jon off, who had been staying at my house and was now going back to Germany. Then I was suddenly in my whole wedding garb and scrambling to complete the finishing touches for the wedding.

I walked out into a parking lot where a white limo waited for me - I was surprised to see it since I wasn't aware that we were doing a limo. Then I went into some lodge where Tiffany escorted me around trying to get everything finished at the last minute. It was about then that I realized that it was actually my wedding day, and I started to wonder why I had no recollection of planning any of this or why it was not really how I'd like my actual wedding to be.

To start, I was in a real wedding dress and it was a bit too big for me. Which sucked. And I never really envisioned myself in a real, pearly white, strapless, puffy number, but there I was. Next, on the way back out to the limo, I realized that I didn't invite Carissa. And that Jon had left that morning. And there was someone else that I forgot to invite.

I was beginning to become upset, but I woke up. Bullet dodged there. Whew!

*Not sure if this phrase is common in the U.S. - I learned it in Australia, and I like it.