I've got dreams to remember...

I've got dreams to remember... I've got dreams to remember...

02/24/07 Sat night
I decided to hike cross-country. {IRL, Eric is doing the same.} I figured I could do it this summer. It was a sudden decision; I hadn't put much thought or planning into it, which was actually part of the appeal. Mariana followed along behind me in the Jeep, keeping me company. I asked somebody where I was and was told a particular city in Oklahoma. I didn't quite get the name, so I asked whoever it was to repeat the name. They spelt the city out, and repeated that it was in Oklahoma. I knew I was facing east, and that I would have to climb an adjacent hill to begin my hike. I shrugged and said, well, okay, I guess I'll just hike east until I get wet in the Atlantic. I kept hiking, making decent progress, despite the occasional hardship or difficulty. At one point I dead-ended in a fenced-in property. The owner wasn't upset that I was almost intruding on his property, but he didn't seem particularly eager for me to cross through it. He indicated where his property line was, and told me to follow the fence and I would be able to go around his property. He graciously allowed me to back up into his driveway to make a three-point turn. Later I went down a slight hill in a hard rain. I knew Mariana was still following behind me. The hill ended in an unpassable bog, so I knew I had to turn around. When I did so, however, I realized that the hill was steeper than it had seemed, and that going up the hill in the rain would be much more difficult and even dangerous than going down had been. It was even more so, because the ground was covered slippery green algae. I drove slowly through axel-deep water, hoping to get to Mariana in time to keep her from coming down the hill into the same mess that I was currently in. Still later, Mariana and I stayed with a houseful of a half-dozen or so college students, who were renting the house. They seemed pleasant enough, and put us up for the night and provided some food and beds and showers. I was grateful, and said so, but I was aware that in most other circumstances, they didn't seem like the sort of people I would likely spend much time around. They were typical nightclub hounds, partiers, and I sensed we didn't have much in common. One of them began a tentative flirtation with Mariana, but I didn't feel very threatened and I knew the situation wouldn't progress. The next day we said our thank-yous and were on our way.

07/02/07 Sun night
Don, Ed, and somebody else picked me up in a Hummer, and we went somewhere.

Other recent dreams:

A Jason dream.
I was at home and I knew that Jason would be outside the house that night, hunting me. I was preparing to hunker down to try to survive the night; somehow I knew that if I just survived the night, I would be OK, because Jason would leave during the daytime. Ed was home with me. At one point during the late afternoon, though, two big guys who I vaguely knew (from school, or something like that) stopped by unexpectedly, looking for something. I figured that the more people inside the house with me, the better, especially large guys like these, so naturally, I didn’t want them to leave. I didn’t know whether to try to concoct some strange story to convince them to stay, or to tell them the truth. So I told the two guys and Ed that I had something I needed to talk to them about. I asked them if they remembered “the Jason murders” from a few years ago. They had. So I told them that Jason, the person who had committed the murders, was in fact outside at that moment, trying to get inside. I told them it might be best if they stayed, and when they at first appeared a little hesitant, I abandoned all pretense and asked them directly if they could stay; I told them they could sleep on couches or whatever they needed. To my surprise, they agreed almost immediately, and they also invited a couple of their friends. The night progressed, and there were occasional sightings of Jason outside the house. Later, the two guys’ friends went outside to do something, and didn’t come inside for a few minutes. The two guys asked me where their friends were, and when I found out they had gone outside, I knew immediately that they were dead and that Jason had gotten them. I said so as gently as I could, but also as firmly as I could, to try to get the guys to realize that it was certainly true. The guys didn’t believe me, so I took them over to the garage door and pointed out the window. Their friends were on the ground; it was obvious that they were dead and that Jason had indeed killed them. Later, Jason made a real effort to get inside the house. I noticed that as the events unfolded, and as I made more and more sightings of Jason, he was becoming more and more “human,” and less decayed , less grotesque. As he got further inside the house, and began killing and tossing people around, he seemed like only a large human. When he had me almost cornered, he picked up a chair as though to throw it at me. I took the opportunity to run the opposite direction, out of the house and across the street (which seemed very much like SR545 near Siplin Road). I didn’t look back to see if Jason was chasing me, but somehow I knew, perhaps only by sound, that I had quite a large headstart on him and that he might not even know where I had gone. I ran inside a house directly across the street, and get running through the house. It was a fairly decent, middle-class house, but as I ran deeper and deeper inside the house towards the far side of it, the rooms became progressively poorer and shabby. By the time I reached the far end of the house, the last room with a door emerging into the back yard was little more than a shack, with a dilapidated wooden floor. I threw the door open and jumped out into the back yard. The room I had just jumped out of had a crawlspace under it, with bare sand underneath. It appeared that it was used mostly as a dog-house, and had a piece of plywood propped up against it as a sort of ramshackle door. I knew I was running out of time, and that Jason was not far behind me. I decided to duck into the crawlspace, basically resigning myself to that being my final hiding place. I decided that if Jason was to find me there, I would be trapped, and I would essentially give up and let him take me. I saw Jason just a few feet away from me, but he did not catch me in the crawlspace.

Joel called me and said he wanted to take me to meet this girl he had been dating. Apparently she worked at what would best be described as a head shop. He picked me up and we drove there; the shop was in a small shopping center with vines and plants. We walked in and immediately, the girl recognized Joel and greeted him. She pulled out a pair of handcuffs (or a whip, or something like that) and said, smiling and flirtatious, “So, you’re back for another beating?” or something very suggestive like that. She was very attractive, cute in a rather goth-y, punk-rock kinda way. As soon as she said that, I laughed and said, “Joel, you’re in WAY over your head with this girl. You’re outta your league!” Not only was she incredibly aggressive, she was also young - barely 18 or so. (Somehow I knew that; either Joel had told me, or I knew the girl.) Joel and the girl continued to flirt, and I could tell that Joel actually did like the girl. I discretely sidled away and nosed through the doodads and trinkets for sale in the shop while they flirted. I was working for the English Department again. I don’t think I was teaching; I think I was working in some auxiliary role, perhaps with other instructors or as a student-teacher liaison of some sort. At one point I had to use a restroom quite badly. There seems to have been a unisex restroom. When I went in, there was only one urinal available. Martha was sitting on a toilet immediately to the left of that urinal, and there was not even a wall between the two. I went to the urinal, reluctantly, and I and Martha began chatting casually about department business. I decided if she wasn’t bothered by the setup, I shouldn’t be either.

07/14/07 Fri night
A Jason dream.

07/02/07 Sun night
Mariana asked me to donate some DNA for some reason. I shrugged and said sure. As I was donating, though, I began to think about the potential ramifications and got concerned. I didn't know where my DNA was going, or what it was going to be used for, so I asked Mariana for more details. She had begun some project, she said, and wsa starting to do this more and more. I was stunned; she hadn't mentioned anything like this previously. Then she said that she had gotten some DNA from Eric Clapton the last time he had been through Orlando. Then she added that she had gotten some from Alice Cooper, too, and at this point, it was clear that she was naming names from a much longer list. I was still stunned and a bit sickened by the news, and by the thought that she obviously had some secret life that she had been keeping from me. While all of this was happening, she asked me to replace some ornamental herbs in a little display case near some cash register somewhere; everything had been bought out of the display case and the herbs had disappeared. She pointed towards some dried, bagged herbs and told me there was some rosemary in there and a few others, and to make sure that each cubbyhole in the display case had a different herb. I began working on it, but obviously, I was more concerned with what she had just told me. I was looking for a way to bring the matter up again. Finally, after some veiled references that didn't seem to go anywhere, I asked her, in what I hoped was an appropriately sarcastic tone of voice, who her favorite celebrity donor had been. I don't remember her response, but she did appear uncomfortable with the question. She and I had to walk somewhere, though, so we began walking as I thought about all of this. There were plenty of other people walking for the same reason, right in front of my house, but I don't remember where or why. She said something about her not being able to do something or other. I seized that opportunity and said yeah, I know what you mean, I'm not able to be with somebody who has this secret DNA-harvesting hobby, either. I wasn't specifically trying to break up with her; rather, I think I was posing some sort of ultimatum. She got the point, though, and turned around and either headed back where we had come from, or ran ahead to keep going where we were headed but apart from me. Either way, she began walking with another guy who I knew to be romantically interested in her. I wasn't clear about what had just happened, whether we were just fighting or in fact had broken up, or what might happen if I went to her house, so I tried to catch up and ask her, but I don't know if I ever did.

There was a retail store, rather like Hot Topic, that specialized in what it regarded as punk-rock goods. I was intrigued, but also a bit amused at the Hot Topic-style commercialization of punk rock, so I finally went to the store (which seems to have been in a rather remote, non-commercial area). {IRL yesterday I read a newspaper article about concerts by tribute bands, and the article sarcastically noted that many of the fans at these concerts had probably bought their T-shirts at Hot Topic.} I browsed the aisles, seeing exactly what I expected to see. Earlier, elsewhere, I had seen a great deal of 'Buffy' and 'Angel' goods for sale but hadn't bought any. Then, at this place, I saw more, at prices just slightly more favorable than the other place. I decided to purchase a few items (there were autographed items there as well) {Note: IRL, Mariana and I got Martin Yan's autograph the day before.} The clerk saw me browsing and said something about it; I nodded and said that I just had to have my 'Buffy'. It occurred to me that I was also buying 'Angel' merchandise, and if the clerk mentioned that to me, I would just tell him that to me, 'Buffy' and 'Angel' were essentially the same.

07/01/07 Sat night
An alligator dream.
I was in my back yard, trying to get into the house. As I walked through the grass (which apparently had become swamp-like), I saw a medium-sized alligator near my path. I was able to sidestep it fairly easily, but as I did so, I noticed more and more alligators - over a dozen, finally. Some of them started making their way over to the Mitchell's back yard, and for some reason, that was where I was headed as well. In particular, a massive, multi-colored alligator that was easly 12 feet long was clambering over the fence into the Mitchell's back yard. I was stunned at the size of it. There was more to this dream, but I don't remember.

Mariana and I went to this restaurant and were hoping for a quiet, intimate table. The dining room was large and round, and overlooked some large body of water that may have been Lake Apopka. I remarked about the lovely colours in the sky that evening, and Mariana and I finally found a table that was fairly remote from other guests and began talking and flirting. Just then another couple or two entered the restaurant and took a table right next to ours, ruining our privacy. There was more to this dream, but I don't remember.

06/30/07 Fri night
I was at work somewhere with Mariana. There was a pizza-style hotrack nearby. Another female employee walked by and casually said hey Rob, Desiree said you and she got together last night. She didn't say it in a hostile, accusing fashion, but just as harmless gossip. I had no idea who Desiree was, or why she would say that. So I reacted predictably and said who the hell is Desiree? The other girl just repeated what she'd said, that Desiree said we'd gotten together. I was more amused than irritated, and relieved that Mariana obviously didn't believe it.

06/09/07 Fri night
I knew that the PM garde manger class at OCA was doing a grand buffet. Mariana, Kyle and I were out and about doing something, so we decided to go that night. The PM students wouldn't know me, of course, but the faculty would, and for some reason I was concerned about showing up for a free meal and taking advantage of the grand buffet. {IRL, obviously, this is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged. In the dream, though, I was worried.} I asked Mariana if she would ask Kyle to say, if anybody asked him who he was, that he was a friend of a PM student. So we browsed through the buffet, and I explained to them what some of the various dishes were. Chef George was there, and he and I exchanged the usual jokes and one-liners.
There was more to this dream.

Joel called me and told me that the night's poker game would be held somewhere in Altamonte, either at some location across the street from some particular restaurant, or at some restaurant across the streat from some location. I thought, why the hell are they playing all the way in Altamonte?!

04/23/07 Sun night
I was near Starke Lake in Ocoee. A friend of my grandmother told us that she had recently bought a boat, a small johnboat, and that we could use it whenever we wanted. I decided to go fishing. The boat was out on the water, though, and I knew I'd have to swim out to it. I did, and dragged it back to shore, but unfortunately there was no motor on it. I swam up the boat ramp, and tried to climb out, but the ramp was slimy and covered with weeds, so I couldn't get a good grip. Instead I waded over the the dock and climbed out. As I did so I saw that I was covered in tiny pink shrimp, maybe an inch long. I brushed them off into the water. I noticed that there were two large mosquitoes or insects wrestling or otherwise fastened to each other. I knew that one of them would be good bait for fishing, so I waited for them to disengage so I could use it. Then I remembered that I needed a motor for the johnboat. I knew the woman lived in a trailer not far from the lake, so I walked through the trailer park to her trailer. I knew there were people I knew in other trailers, and that they would see me creeping around between trailers. Then I remembered that I might have a suitable motor in my toolbox. It was small, about the size of a grill lighter. But I knew it would work.

04/21/07 Fri night
There was a terrible thunderstorm in my neighborhood. Ed was documenting and narrating it with a headset-based camera. I was somehow in contact with Alton Brown, who was very interested in the weather we were having. I asked Ed for the headset and put it on so I could narrate it for Alton Brown. I stood in my front yard, looking east. I told Alton Brown (via the headset microphone) that in that direction you could tell that there were virtually no clouds in the sky, but even while I was saying it, I realized that in fact there were lines of dark, scary clouds rolling in. I quickly recovered and described them for him. Then I turned around and looked west, and saw similar clouds, and described them as well.

01/02/07 Mon night
Mariana's parents were visiting us in Orlando. Near the end of their stay, they decided to spend the night in Orlando before driving back home. They asked us which hotel they should stay at, but as Orlando residents, we didn't stay in hotels very often, so we didn't know. There was one hotel in Ocoee that we had stayed in {not IRL}, so Mariana recommended that one. But we were at the time in the tourist side of Orlando, surrounded by hotels, so it didn't make sense to me that they should drive all the way back to Ocoee for a hotel. The only difference, I said, was that the Ocoee hotel might be a little cheaper because of its location. Mariana agreed and said that the Ocoee hotel was nice, but again, not really any nicer than any of the ones around us. I said that I would just pick a recognizable name-brand hotel and I was sure they'd be happy.

01/01/07 Sun night
I was working for some school newspaper, either in high school or in college. I was assigned to write up the school's baseball game. I went to the game with no real enthusiasm. The game seemed like it was being played in a very broken down field that looked utterly abandoned and falling apart. There was rubble everywhere, exposed concrete pipes, boulders, ditches, everywhere signs of destruction. I didn't particularly want to pay admission to watch a baseball game that I wasn't even excited about watching, so I wondered how effectively I could write the article without actually attending the game in the stadium. I thought perhaps I could just wander around outside, watch the game whenever I could through the fence, and gather enough information that way. I noticed at one point there were some kids sneaking into the game through what appeared to be a broken down section of fence. I was pretty sure I didn't want to take any chances of getting caught sneaking into the game that way, but I was at least curious about it. From where I stood, though, in order to get where the kids were sneaking in, I would have to jump about 10 feet down into a culvert, then climb out of it on the other side. That prospect didn't excite me, either. But again, I at least wanted to see, so I climbed over the edge of the culvert and prepared to drop down. There were some kids lying on the ground immediately beneath me, and when they saw that I meant to jump down, they started screaming. I didn't know if they were screaming because they thought I was going to jump on them, or if they were being sarcastic about something, or what. But they eventually moved and I dropped down to the ground. At one point, though, I was sitting outside the stadium with Mike Maroth, former UCF and now MLB pitcher. {IRL, I've never met him.} Apparently he and I worked together on the newspaper, and I suggested to him that we co-write the article together. I was being a bit sly; I truly had no interest in the article itself, and figured it would be easier with a co-writer. At another point it seemed like the very rules of baseball had changed. I saw that the pitcher was not on the field itself in the normal sense, but was instead in a narrow hallway, almost like a bullpen. Yet I knew he was still the pitcher of record and was throwing in the actual game. I wondered how the game had changed to allow for this. Then a batter stepped into that bullpen to hit against the pitcher. From where I stood I could see that there was no catcher, and apparently all pitches were going to go all the way back to the end of the little bullpen. The pitcher pitched, and the batter swung the bat. He missed, but the ball seemed to just drop dead at his feet and roll around near the plate. I didn't know how that happened, but I thought that was a much more efficient system than letting the ball go all the way back to the back of the bullpen on each pitch.

Mariana and I were at UCF. Apparently there was a building, or at least a large room in a building that may have been the current MAP building, that was dedicated to Islamic prayers. As we wandered around, we assumed that prayers were about to start, since there were many Muslims milling about as well. I thought that I should participate, so I looked for a washroom. There was more to this dream, but I don't remember.

12/30/06 Fri night
I was taking two college classes. One was taught by Robin Williams. On the first day of the semester, he distributed the syllabus, which was printed on what appeared to be gold foil. He was pretty straightforward in his presentation. At one point, though, the real-life facilities person at OCA (who was also a student in the class) raised his hand and said that he would have to leave about halfway through that night's class; I had trouble hearing him, but he seemed to be saying that he had left some plants growing that needed to be watered. His explanation seemed logical, but flimsy. Robin Williams was visibly upset, though, and told him that he needed to be in class 100% of the time. Williams and the student began arguing about it, with the student insisting he had to leave and Williams insisting that he not. Williams even said that students could not pass the class if they weren't there every minute. The confrontation ended with the student storming out. Apparently the student who left sought out an administrator, who came to the room. I recognized him as an administrator at OCA. {IRL, he does not exist, at least not as an administrator at OCA.} The administrator was furious with Robin Williams, and began lecturing him about appropriate policies. Williams was by this point sitting in a desk among the students as the administrator paced around in the front of the class. I was glad that the administrator was siding with the student(s) against the unrealistic policies. Williams protested at one point, and the administrator walked down the aisle and got into Williams's face in a very confrontational manner, mocking him and his policy, saying something like 'Yes, and you're punishing students for missing one minute of class, so I suggest you reconsider.' There was some element of threat in the way he said it, and Williams backed down. After the administrator left, several of the students began grumbling about the student, wondering why he would have started some chore if he knew it would interfere with his class. I was furious at their hypocrisy, so I stood up and said that I didn't want to hear any students protesting unless they had never called in sick to work, had never missed a day of school, had never left work early, had never left school early. Otherwise, I told them, they were being very hypocritical in criticizing the student for having some other responsibility. Simultaneous to all of this, I was taking a class which did not overlap Robin Williams's class, but was either immediately before it or immediately after it. This class, too, had a somewhat restrictive policy of some sort. I was concerned that I would not be able to maintain both classes, if even one minute of one class might make the difference between passing and failing one class or the other. I had homework for one class, and I realized I wasn't accustomed to having homework every day. It wasn't an extensive assignment, but I knew I had to do it, so I did it before class the next day. I wondered how I might speak to one teacher after class if doing so might make me late to the other class.

12/29/06 Thurs night
Ed gave Beavis and Maddux to the neighbors at the intersection of North Woodland and Verna Street for reasons I didn't know or understand. For some reason, though, I didn't protest or disagree; it somehow made a little bit of sense. We then got a new dog, a gorgeous husky who was completely pleasant and good-natured. Finally, though, I decided to go get my dogs back from the neighbor. I couldn't think of any reason to have given them away, so I couldn't think of any reason to not go get them. I told Ed I was going to get my dogs, and he called out that I might get them, but the neighbors would give me their puppy, too. I walked over to their house, but they weren't at home. Somehow I knew how to get inside their house, though; I think I either found their key or knew where it was hidden. I couldn't find the dogs, but I knew they were there. I left the house, and then noticed that the dogs were in the neighbor's basement, and there was a small window at ground level. In the window I saw Beavis and Maddux, and the neighbor's dog. I reached in and greeted my dogs, telling them that I would be back for them later. I walked home, and as I walked I started calculating how much ransom I would be willing to pay for the dogs. I crossed the grass lawn and stepped over what appeared to be a pile of chicken salad spilled in the grass.

12/10/06 Sat night
Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean dictator, was making a sort of good-will trip across the United States, with the declared purpose of meeting average American citizens, representing his nation, explaining his policies, etc. Mariana and I stood in line for several hours to meet him in a large gymnasium somewhere. He was alone in the center of the gym, with only simple ropes separating him from the crowds. We shuffled our way up to him, shook his hand, etc. As we walked away, though, Mariana stopped as though upset at something. She turned around, walked back up to him, and started screaming at him. She was yelling at him about some North Korean (or possibly Vietnamese) actions from many years ago that had somehow hurt or damaged her family. She was finally giving vent to something that apparently been building up in her family for years. As she screamed at him, Kim Jong-Il started to cry. Finally, having said enough, Mariana turned around and walked off again, and I followed. As we walked, I turned around, looked at him and thought, Did Mariana really just make the Dear Leader cry??

12/8/06 Thurs night
I was walking around Plant Street in downtown Winter Garden. I might have been accompanied by a tourist, or a new resident, who was telling me about the history of Winter Garden. As a lifelong resident, though, I was a little indignant that this outsider was presuming to tell me some frankly obvious tidbits of local history that I certainly already knew. He told me about a local temple or religious site with a large silver dome where particular rituals were held. I said 'yeah, that's the First Baptist Church, right over there.' He seemed a little surprised that I knew the place, and I patronizingly told him that everybody in Winter Garden knew the place he was talking about. We continued walking and were by this time right in front of the Baptist Church. He pointed to the structure of the place and pointed out how, from the right vantage point, the church appeared to have either been designed to be similar to, or had been physically built atop, a Mayan step pyramid. I didn't say much, because I was a little annoyed that this outsider had actually managed to point out something that I hadn't really anticipated or known about. We walked around another side of the building, and indeed, it appeared that there was some sort of important activity going on. We entered the complex of buildings, and saw that the people inside appeared to be worshipping a young girl, perhaps 10 years of age or so. She was dressed in almost stereotypical clothing for such a ceremony - loose, white, cottony outfit worn almost toga-style. She had dark skin and long, curly dark hair, and around her neck wore a necklace of what appeared to be rough, hand-hewn stones. She paced around at the top of a sort of interior step pyramid that was inside the overall structure, while the worshippers below lavished praise and threw flowers at her. I was amazed and somewhat disturbed at the very pagan-ness of the scene, and stunned that such ceremonies were taking place in quaint downtown Winter Garden. Someone, either the fellow I was with or a worshipper who might have accosted us, urged me to join in the worship. I didn't react too violently; although I refused, I was too stunned at the overall circumstances to really react.

12/03/06 Sat night
A possible Jason dream.
I was being chased by a maniac with a chainsaw. I think he chased me all over town before I finally got home and inside my house. I ran down the hallway, knowing he was right behind me. As I ran down the hallway, though, I realized that if I could quickly duck into a room, he might not see which room I went into, which would give me time to escape. I went into my brother's bedroom and locked the door behind me, even though I knew that even the second or so it would take me to lock the door would bring the guy that much closer. I ran into the bathroom and began taking the screen down, planning to wriggle out of the window. I took the screen down, looked up to push the glass out, and saw that either the screen was still there, or there was another screen. So I took that down and pushed the glass out, gauging whether it was big enough for me. I knew that the guy with the chainsaw was almost in the room by that point. I started squirming through, and I could tell that it was big enough, but it would be a tight squeeze and it would take me precious seconds to get all the way out. Nothing in the dream suggests that it was Jason other than the plot itself.

I was the adult survivor of some terrible childhood trauma that I had gone through with three other people. I don't recall the trauma, but it was serious enough to have been a minor media sensation at the time. I and the three other survivors were having a reunion, as adults, for the first time in many years, perhaps since the event itself, whatever it was. We met on a bright, sunny sidewalk - me, a black male, a black female, and another white male. It was an incredibly emotional reunion, full of hugs and tears, and evidently the four of us had bonded quite powerfully. After the initial hugs, we started chattering and wondering aloud where to go for lunch. The black male pointed off in the distance and told us either that he lived there, in the black section right next to the white section, or that he lived in the white section right next to the black section. Either way, it seemed very important to him that we really understand what he was telling us - either that he was not part of the privileged class, or that he was. I thought it was rather sad, almost pathetic, that the fact was so important to him that we should all know. Meanwhile, I thought it remarkable but still somewhat sad that it took a traumatic event to forge such a close bond between four people who might otherwise have never crossed paths with each other. I wondered somewhat skeptically if that bond would last the rest of our lives, or slowly dissolve as we aged.

10/16/06 Sun night
I was taking some class at OCA at night. It was a difficult class, though, and I wasn't doing very well. I also wasn't wearing any clothes. The class got up for a break, and walked over to a nearby McDonald's for dinner. As we got there, I realized again that I was naked (or wearing only my boxers). I decided to walk back to get some clothes while everybody else was eating. I couldn't decide where to go, though; I had some materials in one building, and clothes in another. At the very least I wanted to get some shorts on. I picked a building and walked through a classroom where Eric was holding class. I was as nonchalant as I could possibly be, walking in my underwear and casually picking up some clothes to wear. He had his class sitting outside, and another person (who I instinctively knew was another teacher) was sitting in a chair as though a student. As I continued walking, I realized I was in the Lake Buena Vista area, and I saw a restaurant called Chef Georgi's. I knew it was Chef George's restaurant, and I wondered if he had left OCA for good. It seemed to be fairly busy, and I wanted to try it. I momentarily considered asking the hostess for a menu (or to speak with Chef George himself), but then I realized that a small group of women in front of me were looking at a menu. I scanned it briefly for a moment, then saw Chef George walking around behind me. I leaned over the railing and jokingly asked, So, is the food here any good? He laughed and reached out to shake my hand, saying no, it's great. We shook hands and as we did, he slipped something into my hand. It felt like a small plastic packet, but I didn't immediately look at it; I didn't want other customers to think he had comped me a free meal. He told me to try the "Cheese Parm" or something like that, and a couple of other items from the menu. So I did. It turned out to be an appetizer-sized portion of various sausages and cheeses. As I ate, I made eye contact with Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who I had apparently met some time earlier somewhere. She recognized me and made her way over to my table to sit with me. Before she arrived, another group of people crowded around my table. I instinctively moved my food away from them to give them more room, then realized that by doing so, I was making more room for them and less room for Dr. Laura when she got over there. So I then moved my food even further away from me, to make it obvious that somebody else would be joining me. When she finally arrived, I offered my plate of cheese and sausage, and she politely selected a couple of items for it, agreeing with me about how good it was. Chef George walked by again, and I told him that I would try to come by that night with Mariana for dinner. I then suddenly realized that I was completely blowing off the class I was supposed to be in. (It was by now daytime and no longer at night.) I rationalized that it would be okay, though, since I knew that in the second part of the class, the part I was by now missing, they were just watching the movie Mostly Martha, and I knew the teacher knew I had seen the movie many times. Then it was night again, and Mariana and I arrived for dinner. We saw several people we knew, including somebody from Domino's who might have been Ty. It was a good atmosphere, convivial and energetic. Ty pointed to somebody and asked if it was Brittni. I looked and saw that it was her, wearing some sort of sleeveless green thing that looked like an oversized vest. I said, you mean in the green vest thing? Ty said yeah, and I confirmed that yeah, that's Brittni. She saw us and began making her way over there.
There was more to this, many more details in particular about the evening dinner towards the end, but I don't remember.

10/15/06 Sat night
Mariana was at my house. She had an ex-boyfriend there also, who seemed to be the character Sean from Degrassi: The Next Generation. She and this Sean person seemed to have the same Emma-Sean relationship from Degrassi; I knew they had dated in the past, but now they were just friends. Still, though, I was feeling slightly jealous and possessive. Mariana was back in my bedroom getting dressed for work. She called me back there to tell me she was ready and to ask how she looked. When I opened the door, I saw that she was wearing a completely see-through dress that appeared to be made out of green gauze. I could see her bra and undies, which were darker green. It wasn't the sort of material that would be see-through only in certain light or from certain angles; it was just see-through. I pointed it out to her, and she was surprised at how see-through it really was. She shrugged and said okay, I'll change real quick. I closed the door and went back out while she changed. After a few minutes I went back to see if she was ready yet. When I opened the door, though, I saw her this time in only bra and undies; she had taken the see-through dress off, and that was about it. But this Sean character was there, also. I was furious and hurt, and made some sort of punned comment like, well, Mariana's not ready to go (to work), but apparently Sean is VERY ready to go. And then I slammed the door and walked out. I knew that they weren't doing anything, and I was about 99.9995% certain that nothing was going on between them, but of course I was still angry and hurt. I grabbed my keys and ran out to my car, intending to leave the house. I was pretty sure she didn't know that I was leaving, but was also pretty sure that she'd be chasing after me, so I knew I had to get out of the house quickly. I was aware that I was probably being a little overly dramatic under the circumstances, but then, I also knew it was very wrong of her to behave like that in front of her ex-boyfriend.

10/10/06 Mon night
I was preparing to cook a huge Thanksgiving meal; it was Wednesday, the evening before the big meal. Ed, Mariana and a couple of other people were at the house, and I was plotting and planning. I went outside and happened to look up, just in time to see what appeared to be a long stream of colorful glitter and confetti in all shapes and sizes pouring out of the sky, much of landing on my house and in my yard. I gathered up some sample pieces and saw that most of it appeared to be made out of light aluminum or shiny foil, some of it over a foot wide. I took a few pieces inside to show people. Somehow it made some sort of sense that the stuff had fallen in my yard; either the local meteorologist had forecast it, or I was somehow vaguely unsurprised at it. So I decided to call whoever it was that had tipped me off - the local news weatherman, the newspaper, somebody. One piece in particular looked like a small cylinder with a design on it that at first looked vaguely like a stylized chicken. I decided to give that one to Mariana, but the more closely I looked at it, I realized it wasn't a chicken but instead a bat. The overall piece resembled a lawn device that you would wind a garden hose around for easy unreeling, so I placed it near our hose spigot as a joke. As I did so I saw that Ed had already installed a large hosereel near our spigot, and that the hose itself was wound not only around that reel but also around some hook on the side of the house, so that the hose made a long circuit around both. I wondered briefly why he hadn't used the reel by itself, since that's what it's made for. I also marvelled at how large these reels have become, almost to the point where they are fixtures. I continued around to the side of the yard, still assessing how much confetti had fallen. I saw that our neighbors on that side had at some point cut down and completely removed my fruit trees that had been on that side of the house. For some reason it had been a long time since I'd been on that side of the house; I had trouble remembering specifically what fruit trees had been over there, how long they'd been gone, how large they'd been, and even whether in fact I had removed them myself. But I was pretty sure they had still been there and that the neighbor had removed them without telling or asking me. There were some trees and shrubs there, however, and it was clear that they neighbor had planted them himself. There were also some automatic watering systems installed around each of them, with hoses and timers regulating the flow of water through all of them. Against my own housse, in fact, the neighbor had planted something that resembled corn, with an automatic watering system. Of course I was outraged at the nerve of the neighbor, that he would remove my trees, plant his own, and do both in land that was clearly on my lot and not his. Just in case I looked down the property line between ours and his, and sure enough, all of this was very definitely on my side of the propert line (as best I could estimate its actual location). I was furious, and started rehearsing what I would say to him whenever I confronted him about it. I planned to sarcastically thank him for donating the trees and automatic watering systems in my property, and yes, since it's on my property, it's all mine now. I also planned to plant more trees almost immediately, both to replace the ones he had removed, and to make a deliberate statement about whose property that area was and what it was designated for. I walked around to the front of the house again, still planning the Thanksgiving meal, when I realized that it was by now in the evening, approximately 7pm or so, and I had bought no food for the meal itself - no veggies, no bird, nothing. I panicked and realized I'd have to go fight the crowds at the grocery store and frantically buy everything I needed. Then, suddenly, I realized that it was not the night before Thanksgiving, and was instead a fairly uneventful night in October. {Thus, this dream seems to have taken place more or less in real time.} I didn't know how or why I had been thinking that it was the night before Thanksgiving, but I just shook my head, glad and relieved that I still had plenty of time to plan the meal.

I was helping out at some large event taking place at a school - perhaps OCA, perhaps West Orange, perhaps some other large facility. I was helping a television celebrity chef prepare the banquet meal - Bobby Flay, somebody like that. He asked me to shuck some raw oysters. I desperately wanted to impress the famous chef, so I immediately got about the task in as professional a manner as I could. With the first oyster (which, like all subsequent, looked much more like a clam), I used something ill-suited for the job, like a spoon or something. But the task was much easier than I anticipated, and I cut through the tough membrane, removed the oyster from the shell and plopped it out onto a plate. It was huge, perhaps five inches across, and it appeared almost flawlessly shaped on the plate. I was pleased about how well and how quickly the process went, since I wanted to impress the chef. I presented the plate to him for approval, and he was immediately very impressed, complimenting me on my skill and apparent training. He made some complimentary (but vaguely condescending, although he clearly didn't mean them to be) remarks about how my culinary education was paying off, and how once I graduated, I would be very marketable. I didn't tell him that I was not a culinary student, because I didn't want him to brush me off as irrelevant, even though I thought if I did tell him, he might be even more impressed at my skill. So then I switched to an actual oyster knife and kept shucking oysters, sliding them out onto plates. Some of them were monsters, six or more inches in diameter, while others were much smaller. All of them were shaped more like scallops out of the shell. Some of them were tougher to remove than others, and I had to almost carve them out of the shell onto the plates. I wondered worriedly if I was sacrificing too much meat, but then I noticed the chef himself draw a knife around one oyster on a plate, removing a ring of meat that I had left intact on that particular one, and I assumed that what I was doing was alright. Other culinary students wandered in and out, presumably on their own chores, and I kept shucking oysters and talking to the celebrity chef. Near the end, the chef gathered us all around a table that was covered with plated oysters and other prepared plates. He picked up one of the oysters (which, strangely, resembled a human heart). He asked the gathered students if the oyster looked at all appetizing a customer, but he asked in such a tone of voice that it was clear he didn't think it did. Some of the students caught on and murmured that no, it didn't look appetizing at all. I was a little offended, since I was the one who had shucked it. So I said that, well, with a little preparation, some sauce or side items, it would look tremendously appetizing. Then the chef nodded his approval; apparently his point was that a raw, unprepared ingredient was worthless, no matter how desirable it might seem, and that only correct preparation could make a food appetizing. I was still feeling a little defensive, though, so I added that since the oyster was huge and perfectly formed, it was still appetizing, because I knew that it wouldn't take much to make this oyster part of a very nice meal, and that anticipation alone could make it seem appetizing, even without other ingredients or preparation.

This may or may not be related to the above. I was preparing some meal at a large facility, and was dressed in a culinary-student uniform, even though I was not a culinary student. I was considered the "chef" of my station, where I was preparing my meal. It might have been a practical exam, where we were all preparing our meals as a final exam in some culinary course. I had another student working for me as my "sous chef." We were making a Thanksgiving-type meal. {This therefore might have been tied to either or both of the above dreams, although they differed so much I'm treating them as separate.} At one point I had a large hotel pan of brown turkey gravy, with parts of carrots floating in it. I tasted it and found it delicious, although I knew it needed more salt and a little thickening. I also decided to puree the carrots into the gravy for additional flavor and thickening. I told my sous that it needed seasoning. I turned around to find some salt, and when I turned back around, I saw that my sous had added an enormous quantity of salt, much more than I planned to add, a quantity piled so high that it was not all dissolving. I was immediately upset, but instantly starting running through possible solutions in my mind. Then as I walked around to another side of the hotel pan, I saw another pile of a dirty grey powder. It didn't appear to be ground pepper, so I asked my sous what it was. He said it was wasabi powder; he thought I might want to make wasabi-flavored mashed potatoes with the gravy. I was even more upset; I hadn't planned to make that, and was starting to panic now that it seemed inevitable. I didn't want to jump on my sous, though; I knew he was a student, and I wanted to be responsible. So I told him, hey, that's what we go to school for, right? To learn to get through problems like this? So I told him that we should try to think like chefs, to assess the situation, run through our options, and come up with the best way to repair the damage and come up with a workable meal. We briefly considered throwing the whole batch out and starting some new gravy, but abandoned the idea, since we didn't have enough time or product to produce enough. I stirred the salt and wasabi powder into the gravy, figuring as long as it was in there, we might as well prepare it fully so that we would knew exactly what we were up against. After I did so, I tasted it with a plastic spoon, and found that the wasabi flavor wasn't as overpowering as I anticipated. That made me feel a little more positive, although I still wasn't sure what our ultimate solution would be. I kept tasting it, using the same spoon, realizing after awhile that I wasn't using the proper two-spoon technique and was instead dipping the same spoon into it. I wondered if anybody had seen me do that, but for some reason I kept doing it anyway. I don't remember much after that. The next thing I remember seems to have been after the event, or after the practical. There weren't many people milling around, and I was mostly walking around, idly cleaning up and picking things up. There was more to this portion, but I don't remember.

Fragment: Something about the last day of school, students wandering around celebrating, papers being tossed about randomly. It possibly took place at Lakeview Junior High, in the parking lot just behind the old library. Something happened in a stairwell.

10/04/06 Wed afternoon
I was at my grandmother's house in Maryland. My brother and whoever else was in the house had gone out for the evening, leaving me at home alone. The phone rang, and it was my grandmother from Maryland. I was stunned to hear from her, and especially to hear her so coherent. She said she was coming down to Florida to visit in the next couple of days. (Even though I was in her house, I don't know where she was, and we spoke as though I was in Florida and she was in Maryland.) She was so excited that she could barely speak. As we were talking, I heard a knock at the door. Since I didn't normally live there, I had no idea who it might be, so I told my grandmother I had to put the phone down to answer the door. I peered through the window and saw an older gentleman, perhaps in his 60s. He looked harmless enough, and I figured I could hold my own if he did attack me, so I opened the door. He told me that there had been an accident on Dillard Street. He said it as though I already knew about the accident and was simply waiting for an update. So he told me that the accident involved two cars, and that I didn't know anybody involved in the accident. Apparently that's why he was there, to reassure me that I didn't know them. He then told me that if I had any questions, I could just ask him; he was a neighbor who apparently had contacts or relatives in Florida and was acting as a go-between. I closed the door and picked up the phone again. At first I thought my grandmother was gone, but then she picked up again. Just as I was picking up the phone, my uncle Jim came downstairs and asked who was on the phone. I told him it was my grandmother, and he was as surprised as I was. But because my grandmother was on the phone, I wanted to flatter her, so I said something like, hey, my grandmother takes care of us. So we continued to talk.

10/03/06 Mon night
A grandmother's house dream.
My grandmother in Maryland had some sort of large garage sale or rummage sale. She cleaned out her attic and was selling a lot of old items and mememtos from all over her house. There was also some function happening at her house unrelated to the garage sale, where she was serving snacks and drinks to guests and was using her Depression glass for serving. Since most of the guests had left, though, she was cleaning up and organizing. I noticed that as she was gathering up the Depression glass, she was systematically shattering each piece into a garbage can. I asked her why she was doing that. She said that she didn't really need it anymore, and there was no use keeping it around. I was drinking out of a glass at the time. I was horrified that she would just destroy the glass that way, but I didn't want to greedily ask for all of it. But I said something that indicated I would like to take it if she was just going to destroy it otherwise, and she said sure, she didn't mind. So I gathered the remaining pieces of glassware up as best I could. There were a few large pitchers, some stemware, small platters, etc. I was aware that very little of it would be practical for use in my home, but that wasn't really the point of it. On another table I saw that she had prepared large boxes of books to be given away or thrown away. Naturally my eyes lit up and and I walked over to examine the books. Each of the large boxes was covered with a large sheet of paper on which she had written the approximate contents of the box. As I quickly sorted through them, I saw that one box was filled mostly with editions of some large children's encyclopedic set similar to the Disney set I owned from childhood. Some of the individual volumes, in fact, were from the same set, while others were not. Something either in a note my grandmother had included in the books, or that she had said, indicated that she had planned to give them all to my aunt. I didn't necessarily mind that, as long as they somehow stayed in the family, but I definitely wanted them myself. I thought I could probably just take them either one by one or en masse without anybody really noticing or caring; somehow I got the feeling that my aunt didn't even know about them or particularly care about them. I started organizing them in order, separating them into about three distinct sets and putting the volumes in sequence within each stacked set. I was growing more and more excited, nostalgic and sentimental about the books, and I knew I had to take these books and couldn't let them get thrown away or given to somebody else. As I stacked and sorted the books a stranger approached the table (since there was still the garage sale going on) and was attracted to a board game that my grandmother had laid out for sale. It was something similar to Trivial Pursuit, with lots of smaller plastic pieces within it. Whatever the theme of the game, it used Google.com as its source of information and had the Google logo all over it; I heard the man mutter something like, "Wow, it uses Google" as he approached the game. I was somewhat surprised that my grandmother had the game, since Google is a relatively recent development and I wouldn't expect her to own a board game that capitalized on it. I had no real interest in the game itself; it was the books that I wanted. But I wanted the man to be interested in the game, so he wouldn't notice the books that were still laying out in the open as though available to be picked up by anybody. So I opened the game package and began poking through the contents, trying to make it look desirable and interesting so the guy would want it. In fact he did notice the books, and picked up one or two and flipped through them even as I was trying to make it obvious that they were mine and were no longer available for sale. As I continued to poke through the board game, still trying to keep him interested in it, I accidentally spilled a lot of the small plastic pieces out of the box all over the table. Some girl who seemed to be working there at the garage sale sighed with annoyance, and I felt bad about spilling the plastic pieces. So I quickly helped her pick them up and put them back into the game box. I picked up a stack of books and took them out to my car. Soon I was driving somewhere on Lake Underhill Drive, as though away from Mariana's house. I suddenly realized that I had forgotten most of the books and had left them behind. I quickly reversed course and went back (I was by then about 15 minutes away). By the time I got there, though, a lot of the books were gone and only one particular set remained. I didn't know if somebody else had bought them in the half-hour or so that I'd been gone, or if my grandmother had moved them or thrown them away.
There might have been more to this dream, but I don't remember.

I had a girlfriend who strangely was not Mariana, but rather some random dream-person. I was hanging out with her, Mariana, and some male friend of this girlfriend. For some reason I truly disliked this friend of hers, and I was aware that everybody else disliked him also. But he didn't know, and thought we were all just good buddies. I knew that for some reason, my girlfriend was supposed to be making him lunch or something. But I looked out of the window and saw that my girlfriend was also out mowing his lawn while he just stood there and watched. (Somehow I knew that the lawn was "his," but I don't believe we were actually at "his" house.) I was outraged that my girlfriend was doing his chores, and more outraged that he was letting her. I jumped up and went outside to stop it. She was mowing in a circle around some center area that would not be mowed - a fountain, carport, something like that. I walked up and got beside her, and her obnoxious friend was standing there grinning. Although I wanted to punch the guy for making my girlfriend do all of this, I didn't, and instead used a lot of sarcasm. I said something to the effect of, gee honey, you're doing all the work, that's not fair, you're not leaving any for him to do! It was clear what my meaning was, and I said it in a cold tone and with a broad, plastic, utterly fake grin that also clearly indicated how angry I was at the guy. She realized instantly that I was there to get her out of the situation, and it was with obvious relief that she let go of the lawnmower and walked away. I knew she was glad I had intervened, but I couldn't instantly tell if her friend knew that had been my goal all along. I didn't care, though, and I walked away to catch up with my girlfriend (whoever it was!).
We were back at my house. I think Mariana was my girlfriend again; this may or may not have been a continuation of the above. I was in the back bedroom, trying to take a nap, and I could hear Mariana and her roommates in the front of the house talking about their one obnoxious roommate (who I think was the friend of my girlfriend, above, hence my assumption that this was a continuation of the above). Apparently this guy contributed nothing to the house, and ate everybody's food without buying any or paying for bills. As I lay in bed and listened to them complain about him, I was glad in a sadistic sort of way that I wasn't the only person who disliked him. Then somehow were in the back hallway of my grandmother's house here in Florida. Mariana's obnoxious roommate was walking into the bathroom while Mariana and I did some minor household chores in the hallway and around the bathoom. She and I were mostly talking to each other, and occasionally to her roommate whenever he said anything. She and I was talking about buying tickets to some concert or something {IRL, Joel, Ed and I had talked casually about buying tickets to a Journey/Def Leppard concert, for nostalgic purposes}. Her roommate overheard us and said somehow that he'd love to go, that it sounded fun. Mariana was still annoyed by him and said something snarky about how, sure, somebody would pay for his ticket since he certainly wouldn't offer to pay for it himself. She said it loudly enough that I thought there was a strong possibility that he would have heard her. I don't know if he knew what she had actually said, or honestly didn't hear her, but he leaned out of the bathroom and asked her what she'd said. I was smiling to myself at her snarkiness, and wondered if she'd repeat it. But she didn't; instead, she just said something like, oh, I just said sure, whoever's going, I'm sure they won't mind if you go, too. I was mildly disappointed that she didn't repeat her initial comment, but I couldn't blame her for avoiding that confrontation.

09/25/06 Mon afternoon
I was teaching some class at OCA, but I didn't know exactly where the class was going to be located, since it seemed to shift locations every day. I was wandering around some place that was designed to be like a courtyard, and I knew my class was going to be held in a room just off that courtyard. I saw Chef Mattern, and he was very enthusiastic about something, very excited.
There was much more to this dream, but I don't remember.

09/23/06 Sat night
I participated in some large bonding event with the other faculty. It was a lunch, or dinner, and we were laughing, telling stories, etc. In particular, I sat with Chef Adams, Chef George and Eric. During one spell of laughter, Chef Adams's hand brushed my chest. I made some sophomoric gay joke and Chef George made another (but I don't remember the actual jokes).
There was much more to this dream.

Chef Rosado's kitchen morphed into Ty's store. We were cleaning the kitchen, in a scenario where I was just another student. Then, as the morning progressed, we became aware that we would be opening soon. That's when it became Ty's store. We were due to open at any minute, and the place was still a disaster, with the floor caked with flour, dished unwashed, etc. I started barking out orders, especially that the floor should be swept and mopped. I wondered, since now I was giving orders, if the others recognized that I had a little more experience opening that sort of store than they had. As I walked around, I started kicking the flour on the ground, and it was so thick that it came up in chunks and layers, almost like thick white rust.
There was much more to this dream.

09/10/06 Sat night
I was in the movie C.H.U.D.. It seemed to have been taking place at a large shopping mall, or a school, or some other large facility. I was a soldier-of-fortune type, a renegade commando, and I knew a great deal about the CHUD menace that I knew was about to attack the mall/school. I ran into two commandos from the military who were partners and who also knew about the CHUDs. They didn't initially believe me that I knew so much about what was going on, but I was able to prove myself to them in a minor combat situation, so they let me team up with them, figuring three would be better than two or two and one. We explored the mall/school, not knowing where the CHUDs were, but knowing they were all over the place somewhere. The other two (who still sometimes treated me like I was tagging along, since they were long-time partners) saw what appeared to be a stairwell between some wall panels, slipped through it and disappeared while I had my back turned (although I knew that's where they had gone). I tried to pull the wall panels apart so I could slip through them, but they felt motorized, like elevator doors, and it was difficult to push them open long enough for me to squeeze into the stairwell. When I finally did so, I saw that my new partners had gone ahead without me, and I wasn't armed too heavily at all the way they were. But I did find a rusted military knife, and I quickly played around with it to see if it was still functional, how it opened, how it locked, etc. It appeared to be satisfactory, or at least useful, so I kept it, wondering the best way to hold it in front of me for maximum usefulness. The staircase was made out of thin metal and was very rusty and creaky, so I was cautious as I descended. I looked down but didn't see or hear any trace of my partners or the CHUDs. At some point I was back inside the mall/school, and I saw that OCA was having a graduation ceremony inside somewhere. I recognized a lot of my students and other faculty, and I greeted as many of them as I could, to signal my partners that I had another life besides my para-military training. It was obvious that I wouldn't be attending the graduation as I normally would, so I tried to tell as many people as I could that I was still at OCA but simply had other obligations. At some point I was outside in a pasture, looking around at some dilapidated old farmhouses where I knew the CHUDs were hiding. Something in particular happened to my shoes, or my socks, or I found some shoes or socks, so I crept along the back wall of a building. Somehow I knew I would be safe there; the CHUDs were nowhere around and wouldn't be likely to look for anybody back there. Before I went back behind the building, I looked inside, and I could see several of the CHUDs inside. I was fairly surprised to see that they looked and move just like lizards, and were not quite as humanoid as I assumed. So I crept back behind the building and crouched down where the roof sloped almost to the ground, and I examined my shoes, or whatever it was that I was concerned about. Suddenly a man appeared and peeked under the little roofline that I was crouched under. He was very unkempt, as though he was homeless, and I was momentarily concerned whether he was friend or foe. That issue was never resolved, even though he crouched in the little alcove with me. At some point I was back out into the open, and a small parade of various people appeared, many of whom I recognized from UCF or other areas. Dr. Marinara was there, and we chatted briefly about various issues. She knew I was busy, though, and we didn't talk long. Near the end, I thought I heard her say that she was having a barbecue, and seemed to be inviting me. I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly, since she was some distance away by that point, so I asked her to repeat whatever she had said. She seemed to say the same thing, so I asked her who else would be there. She listed some people I knew and some I recognized. She asked if I would bring anybody, and before I could answer, she said something like, "Oh, you'll bring Mariana of course." For some reason I didn't want to appear too eager, or perhaps I knew the battle against the CHUDs would be going on for quite some time, so I was rather noncommittal about showing up, although inside I was very grateful at the invitation.
There were many more details about this dream.

09/09/06 Fri night
A semi-grandmother's house dream.
I went with Mariana and Kyle to some event they wanted to go to. I dropped them off with the plan that I would swing back by a little while later to pick them up. I don't remember what they were doing. This may have taken place at the Central Florida Fairgrounds. After I dropped them off, I drove around almost aimlessly, wondering how to kill the few hours or however long I had. I saw people lining up for what appeared to be a flea market of some kind, so I thought, sure, why not. (This part may have taken place at or around Walker Field.) The flea market wound around both sides of a long series of tables, with goods on the left and the right as you walked around the horseshoe-shaped arrangement. I decided that on my first time around I wouldn't buy anything, and if I saw something I wanted, I would circle around to get it. It was very crowded, with people bumping and shuffling along in the crowd. I saw a lot of knickknacks, tools, etc. that I might have considered, but nothing that I really wanted. It suddenly occurred to me that there might be a lot of items that had previously belonged to my grandparents in Maryland. (Somehow, at this point, it made sense.) Sure enough, I saw a lot of things I recognized, but nothing that I felt especially sentimental about enough to buy. I saw some wall decorations, a tool set, more knickknacks, even a piano (which I did consider). But I didn't buy anything. As I neared the end of the displays, I realized that I had actually walked quite a distance away from the entrance. I also saw that the rear of the displays ended in some wet, swampy grass bordered by a fence, and on the other side of the fence was the road I had parked on. Rather than walk back to the entrance and then back to my car, I decided to take the shortcut, so I slogged my way through the wet grass, through the fence, and to my car. As I drove back to pick up Mariana and Kyle, I knew that for some reason she would be angry at me for going to the flea market, and I wondered if I could hide it from her. Then I noticed that, since I was wearing shorts, my legs had wet grass and spatterings of mud from where I had walked through the grass and through the fence. I tried to smear them off so she wouldn't notice. She and Kyle were standing in the road waiting for me as I drove up, but somehow I knew they hadn't been waiting long at all. I had to do a U-turn to pick them up, and my Jeep went dangerously close to going off-road into the same swampy grass that I myself had walked through. But I didn't get stuck, and Mariana got into the car. Indeed, she knew I had been at the flea market, and indeed, she was mad at me for it. She asked me rhetorically if she should break up with me over it, and I was relieved to see that she didn't really mean it.
There were more visual details to this, but I don't remember.

09/03/06 Sat night
I was standing around with some colleagues and friends, possibly playing golf (which I've never played IRL), when I stopped to dig with my fingers into the grass. I saw a flash of something white, and continued to dig further. As I did, I saw a glimpse of what appeared to be teeth. Sure enough, a little more digging revealed it to be a skull. I pulled the skull out and showed it to my friends. I knew there was no legitimate reason for there to be a skull buried in the grass there, and that this was apparently a crime scene, so I knew I should call the police. I pulled out my cell phone and called 911. When the operator answered, I immediately blurted out that this was not a true emergency. The operator seemed a little unprofessional, but I relayed the necessary information. She asked how long the skull had been in the ground, and I told her that my best guess was a year, maybe two years, perhaps five years, but since I wasn't a trained investigator, I really didn't know. A woman in my party grabbed the skull like a football and ran off with it, apparently hoping to claim the glory of having discovered it. I chased after her, finally catching up to her. She threw the skull down and sat down hard, frustrated. I picked the skull up and walked back to where my group was still standing around. I wondered if the rest of the skeleton might still be in the ground. I dug even deeper, and the rest of the skeleton was indeed buried in the same spot, although it seemed a little fragmented. I pulled out the torso, which for some reason seemed to still have skin and musculature attached. It was almost shaped like bell, with the skin forming the surface with a hollow interior. I looked into the interior and could see how mottled and decayed the flesh was, and that there were no remaining organs.

09/01/06 Thurs night
A Jason dream.
Some neighbors down on Division Street had a neighborhood reputation for putting on some really fun haunted houses for Halloween and other events. I knew they were doing another one, so I walked down there to have some fun. As I got there and wandered around, though, I somehow realized that Jason was either already there or one his way there. I also knew that if I got off the property, I would be safe, because for some reason Jason was "assigned" to that property and wouldn't chase me away from it. As I prepared to leave, however, I heard the theme music for the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and I saw what appeared to be either Freddy or Jason materializing in the yard. (This part seems to have taken place on my own property or a yard laid out just like mine.) I knew I needed to escape quickly, so I jumped on a bicycle and pedalled as fast as I could back to my own house. I think Jason (or Freddy?) might have been chasing me, but I escaped.

08/13/06 Sat night
I moved into an old house that was either part of the family's history, or a house owned by some old family friend. Either way, it was a house I had some passing familiarity with. Various members of my family were also moving in and exploring the house. At one point I went down into the basement to explore. I remembered that the basement had been mostly unfurnished and incomplete (visible timbers, dirt floor, etc.). I think I had been assigned the basement as my own bedroom, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had almost been finished. It wasn't complete, but the walls were up and there was some furniture and other signs of civilization. As I explored further I rationalized that even if it wasn't quite elegant enough to treat as a full-time bedroom, at least I could come down and work, study, write, etc. Then, exploring further, I discovered that different rooms in the basement were jam-packed with various toys, knick-knacks, mememtos, collectibles, etc. I sarcastically noted that this was just the perfect working environment for a short-attention-span like myself; certainly, I joked, none of this cool stuff would ever distract me from my work. Throughout my time moving into the house, there were two girls there who were also moving in, but I don't know who they were. It was obvious, though, that at least one of them was trying to flirt with me, despite me trying to make it obvious that I was unavailable. As I wandered around in the basement, I made a point to mention Mariana repeatedly, to send the signal that I was unavailable. Still, though, the girl kept flirting with me, kept trying to hold my hand, etc.
There was much more to this dream, but I don't remember.

There was some large festival happening in Winter Garden, or something. I was leaving Lakeview Junior High and following some kids in a line down the sidewalk on my way home, and everybody was generally excited about whatever festival was taking place. Ed and I were driving home down Tilden Street. Ahead, in the sky, I could see a meteor shower. {IRL, there was in fact a meteor shower this evening, and I spent some time outside watching them.} On one street corner I saw a guy holding a large cardboard box that he had cut into a large megaphone. He was using it to bellow into the sky, evidently as some neo-primitive pagan ritual. Ed joked that the guy was probably calling out for respect, so as we drove by, I called out the window, "No, you're probably not getting any respect!"
There was much more to this dream, too, but I don't remember.

08/12/06 Fri night
I was at Ty's store, either being hired as a new employee after many years, or just visiting him. It was on a Friday night and the place was extremely busy as a result. Everybody was crowding around in the office of the store, and I thought to myself that everybody there probably considered me the new kid, the rookie, since they didn't know how long Ty and I had worked together already elsewhere. The office itself was incredibly tiny, with not much more room than for about two people, with everybody else cramped in the aisles and hallways outside the office. The entire store seemed almost designed like a maze, with Ty's office being in the center of it. Even the office, too, was designed in a cramped fashion; Ty had evidently cut some sheet metal and plywood and fashioned it into some crude walls to turn an already tiny office into a smaller honeycomb of cubicles. I wondered to myself what the heck Ty was thinking when he did that. The place was filthy, too; flour and cornmeal coated every visible surface, food was spilling out of plastic bags onto notebooks and desktops, chicken wings had falled onto the floor, shelves were in disarray, etc. Even the office was full of flour and cornmeal. I knew it was largely because the night had been so busy; the store had gotten dirty because of all the chaos. Suddenly an alarm or signal went off, and the entire crew left the office area to go back to work; I was left all alone in the office staring at all of this dirty workspace and random food all over the shelves and floor (almost as though the entire store was like the walk-in). I wandered around but slipped on some sauce spilled on the floor. I fell heavily despite my effort to maintain my balance. I looked down and saw that my pants legs were covered with sauce, and that no amount of scrubbing or dabbing in the sink would remove it. I was pissed.
The next thing I know, Ed and I were at Ty's house. I took my pants off in some back bedroom (because they were covered in sauce). Paris and Nikki Hilton were there, hanging out with Ed and I like some slumber party. We spent the night laughing, watching TV and movies, wandering around the house, snacking, etc. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were fairly approachable and friendly, not at all the outrageous personalities that the media portrayed them as. I was shocked to see that Nikki Hilton might have even been flirting with me personally. She seemed to be very kind, very sweet, with a good personality. Still, though, towards the end of the night I recognized that it was probably time for me to head home. I went back into the back bedroom to fetch my pants, but when I walked in, I saw that the comforter from the bed had been pulled onto the floor and that there were people underneath the comforter making out. Somehow I knew it was Paris Hilton and some guy who had apparently been in the house the entire night, and I was confused because I hadn't seen anybody else at all. I quickly scooted out of the room embarrassed, and I didn't get my pants. I told my brother that Paris was in that back bedroom having sex, and I still didn't have my pants. (At this point, the layout of the house resembled my house IRL.) I looked down the hallway and this time I saw Paris Hilton, nude and straddling the guy in a reverse-cowgirl position, quite obviously having sex. I told Ed, "Yeah, Paris Hilton is getting pounded back there." Then I realized that if I could film it, I'd be a rich man, but I didn't have a camcorder. I held my RAZRphone camera up to take a few quick pictures, but they didn't turn out too good. So I joked with my brother that if he just wanted to watch, I doubted they would notice.

OTHER RECENT DREAMS:
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was moving back into my grandmother's house after many years. I wandered around in the back yard, taking note of what trees and shrubs were already growing, what I might plant myself, and where.
There was almost certainly much more to this dream, but by now I don't remember.

08/11/06 Thurs night
A Jason dream.
I was in some sort of trailer-park where I knew Jason was lurking. At first I was Jason, and I was also watching a Friday the 13th movie. I was narrating the movie for somebody else who was there, telling him what would happen. I knew that, as Jason, I would stab somebody in the top of the head with a large, heavy knife, so I told the guy to look out for it. I also knew that whoever I stabbed would fall down the stairs and land head-first, which would drive the knife even further into his head. But as we watched the scene, it didn't show that graphic part, and instead cut immediately to the victim lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. I told the guy I was with that this must be some sort of edited-for-TV version, and that I must have seen a more graphic, director's-cut or unedited version. Then I was running from Jason, who was chasing me from trailer to trailer. In one area, two different trailers were connected, and I ran from one to the other. I saw Jason on the stairs of one trailer, so I ran into the other trailer, hoping to use that time to get even further away from him. When I saw him next, he appeared to be made out of straw, almost like a scarecrow, with bindings around the joints holding the long sections of straw together. It didn't make him appear any less threatening; indeed, the distinctly non-human appearance actually made him look even more frightening and unexplainable.

07/21/06 Fri afternoon
I was walking through a woody, suburban area that might have been near Park Avenue near the athletic complex. As I walked, I came upon a large, white, wooden house that stood on tall stilts, much taller than usual. Whimsically, I thought that if I hooked my truck up to the stilts, I could probably pull the entire structure over, much like the scene in Lethal Weapon II. Of course I didn't plan to do so. But still I lightly pushed one of the stilts as I looked upward at the house. Pushing the stilt, though, seemed almost to dislodge the structure, and it suddenly rebounded a little more upright, as though the roof had been snagged somehow in the trees surrounding it. I felt a little guilty, as though I had almost damaged the house or stressed the structural integrity.

07/21/06 Thurs night
I was delivering pizza to what seemed to be a sort of public swimming pool. As I arrived I saw my sister Tracie sitting inside with what appeared to be a few of her friends. I hadn't seen her in quite a while, so we greeted each other and spoke and joked warmly. The place then somehow morphed into the customer's house, or perhaps the customer's house was nearby. I delivered the pizza to the customer, whose house was literally fronted by the pool itself. After the transaction, the customer and I made some minor, predictable joke about how hot it was and that I should just jump into the water right then and there. So I did. It wasn't deep and I leaned back to get all of my hair wet. Then I lifted my entire legs out of the water, leaning backward, performing almost a gymnastic move to then wet my entire face. As I did so, I noticed Vossenburg swimming calm laps back and forth near me. All I saw was his bald head just over the top of the water. As he passed at one point he made a casual, friendly comment.
There was more about my sister.

07/20/06 Wed night
I was cutting a small, thin carrot in the same way that Chef Chu does to the daikon in the opening scenes of the movie Eat Drink Man Woman. I cut it into rounds and then tilted the rounds to cut them into allumettes. Although my knife skills weren't as precise, of course, and the resulting allumettes were a bit ragged, I was pleased that the technique seemed to work. I went to school the next day and told my students that I had tried the technique and that it worked fairly well.

Other recent dreams:
A Jason dream.

04/16/06 Sat night
I was nearing the end of my undergrad degree, in English. I was taking some meteorology class and had gotten quite familiar with that particular professor. I noticed at some point that I was nearing a minor in meteorology, even though it wasn't related to English and I had no real interest in it as a part of my future. I was taking the classes only to fill up my schedule each semester. Still, though, I realized I was only a class or two away from getting the sufficient credits, so I was registering for what I thought might be the last meteorology class I might need to get that minor. I was talking to the professor about it, and he seemed surprised that I was that close to the minor. I pointed out that I had had him as a professor in four or five meteorology classes already, and that's just about all I needed. (This conversation took place in the OCA cafe area.) He then asked me quite suddenly, but quite seriously, if I wanted a job teaching there at UCF, evidently teaching meteorology. Naturally the question took me quite by surprise, and I asked him if he was sure. He explained that he was basically the only meteorology professor on the faculty, and after all, that was why I'd been in so many of his classes already. That made sense, I told him. I thought about it for a few seconds, then said sure, I'd be a fool not to take a university teaching position if it was open to me. He said he would help me out through the application process, and that there was an interview session the very next day of interested candidates. That sobered me a little bit; I told him I wasn't at all prepared, and couldn't get prepared, on such short notice to advertise myself that way. He said well, we'll do our best and see what happenes. The next day at the interview session, I started to sign up for a time slot and saw that not only was that day itself too soon, but that I was scheduled to be one of the first people they talked to. I waited for the professor to walk over there so I could pull him outside for a quick cram session. When he did, he pointed at the clipboard and showed me that actually, I wasn't scheduled for another month, which would be plenty of time for me to prepare a good presentation. That made me feel a lot better about the prospects. I went home and wondered how to tell Mariana that I was apparently going to be a professor in a field I had never thought about as a career.

04/14/06 Thurs night
A grandmother's house dream.
I was taking over my grandparents' house after many years. I walked through the yard and gardens, acquainting myself with the property and seeing what was planted and what needed to be planted. It was rather ornate, with sweeping flowerbeds and lovely landscaping.
There was much more to this dream, but I don't remember.

04/06/06 Wed night
I was playing in the Main Event at the World Series of Poker (or possibly the World Poker Tour championship) with Ty. He and I sat at the same table as we waited for the tournament to begin. Before it did, though, Ty said that maybe one of us should move, so we didn't have to play against each other right away. That made sense, I said, so he got up and moved to a different table. The guy to my left then stood up and said that if I wanted to change seats with him, too, that would be fine. I was a little suspicious; I thought if he wanted me on his left, that might be good enough reason for me to keep position on him and keep him on my left. I told him no, I didn't want everybody to start switching seats, I just wanted to be a different table than my friend. He good-naturedly said oh, okay, and sat back down. I survived longer than I expected, long enough to feel rather proud of my play. At some point, though, I got up to walk around, either during a break or after I had folded a hand early. I got involved in something, a long conversation or something, away from my table. Suddenly I realized that I hadn't been playing for awhile, that play had resumed (or kept going) and I had forgotten. I quickly ran back to my table, finding to my relief that the dealer had kept me in the tourney by pushing my blinds in (and hadn't forfeited my seat due to my absence). I wondered how much I had lost in blinds while I was gone, and saw that while it was a fair amount, it hadn't crippled me. But I also knew that I had lost the opportunities to win some hands and accumulate chips. At some point I had an AJ suited spades.

Other recent dreams:
I bought a house. I was incredibly happy for myself, and very satisfied with my purchase. I either bought it from my mother, or she had operated as my sales agent. I might even have bought it sight unseen, or without having actually visited the house beforehand, because when I showed up to move in, it felt like I was there for the first time. It appeared to be the right side of a duplex, and was built in such a way that it was very deep but not very wide. As I walked around inside, I noticed to my surprise and disappointment that the house had no interior walls; it was built as one large, long room. I wondered where people would sleep, or how people would separate their own bedroom area from somebody else's. There was a housewarming party going on, and I gamely showed the place to the people who were there even though I was increasingly concerned about the house's design. I thought perhaps I could have some interior walls built in, but I wasn't sure if I had enough money left over after the purchase to do it. Not only were there no interior walls, but the floor itself was concrete and painted a very industrial grey. At some point I walked out behind the house and saw that I had a stunning view, a breathtakingly magnificant view of a valley, and I decided that the view alone would compensate somewhat for the otherwise bland design of the house as it was currently built.

I was driving down Main Street, looking for a house in particular that I was supposed to be meeting some people at. I drove by a house near where I actually live IRL. The house was shrouded in trees and looked very much like any standard Hollywood-style haunted house. I paused in front of it, knowing that it was supposed to be haunted. I kept driving and eventually found myself at the house where I knew I was supposed to be meeting people. I think I was meeting co-workers, or people with whom I was involved in some project. I met them periodically, perhaps a few times per year, and this was the first time I'd seen them in several months. I arrived at the front door and unlocked it to go in. At least one person was already there. I think my entire team consisted of two men and two women, although the seemingly obvious pairing was not a factor whatsoever. Something traumatic had happened to all of us, or to our team as a whole, in the recent past and we all aknowledged that part of why we were meeting at this time in particular was to comfort each other and commiserate. One woman hugged me when I arrived and said that we would be okay, that the coming year would be much better for us than the last year had been.

04/04/06 Mon night
I was with somebody else (don't know who) at Ty's store. I think we were both co-managers of his store. He wanted us to help him clean it up all night. When we got there, he was using a sandblaster to clean the floor, but instead of using sand, he was using flour. I laughed, and we joked that, well, since he had all that flour lying around in the store, he might as well use it rather than buying yet another product. Afterwards we went to a party at Ty's house. It seemed like his property backed up on some thick, forested woods. I went walking around behind the house, but as I did so, I heard what sounded like an animal growling. Somehow, intuitively, I knew it was a large, wild boar that was about to attack me. I ran back to the house, knowing that the boar was getting closer and closer. I made it inside and told the others what had happened. They didn't have much reaction. So I stayed near the back of the house to make sure no other animals got close. Sure enough, though, I saw a large bear trying to squirm his way through what appeared to be a large doggy-door in the wall. I tried to push him out, but his body seemed soft and pliable, almost like a large beanbag chair, and he was almost oozing inside rather than crawling inside. As I was trying to push him back out, I saw that a lion, too, was trying to get in through the door. That really panicked me. Somehow, though, I managed to get both the bear and the lion back out the door, and I managed to block it somehow to keep them from getting back in. Then we all went to a UCF football game. We walked through the parking lot, seeing how the other fans were tailgating. Ed, Tom, and Joel were already there, and I was meeting up with them. We all met at my Jeep, we got some supplies out of my crowded and cluttered hatch area, and then they told me they had a place set up a little distance away in another parking space. When we got there, though, I realized that they didn't have a car to tailgate out of, and instead were mostly just crouching down on the ground. I was disappointed, especially since everybody around us was having so much fun. I told them we should just go back to my car, since at least we could set the food and stuff inside the car instead of on the ground, even though I knew I'd have to clean the car up a little bit before we could do that. Then I was arriving at work. I curved around the building and into a parking space. When I opened the car door, I saw a couple coins on the ground, and leaned out to pick them up. As I did so, I heard what appeared to be AC-DC's "Highway to Hell" playing on a car stereo nearby. A lot of OCA students were gathered around the car listening and laughing. As I listened, though, I realized that the song was actually not "Highway to Hell," but rather, an Al Yankovic-style spoof of it with lyrics that had to do with the life of culinary students. (I don't remember any of the lyrics, but in the dream, the lyrics were completely articulate and made sense.) It was a funny song, and whoever had performed it obviously knew what they were talking about. I then saw a nickel about seven or eight feet away from me, and I realized I wouldn't be able to reach it without getting out of the car and then being visible to the students. For some reason, I didn't particularly want them to see their instructor picking up a coin from the ground, so I waited for an opportune moment when most of them appeared to be distracted.
This was a long, long dream, with more details than I've reconstructed here.

I was at work, and I knew that I was supposed to meet Joel and Ed somewhere afterwards. It was at night. I was somehow getting messages from Chef Tran, either text messages on my phone, or e-mails. He was saying something, in extremely broken English, about me having to take the Meat Fab course in order to avoid being dropped from the culinary program. In other words, I was being treated like a student, not like a faculty member. I was confused about why I had to take Meat Fab, or why the school was mistakenly treating me like a student, so I didn't respond to Chef Tran right away. I knew it would be easily resolved, but I didn't know who the admissions person was who was trying to enroll me in Meat Fab. I decided that the next time Chef Carmel talked about morale being so low sometimes, this would be a good example to give him of campus doings being somewhat disorganized, thinking that an instructor was actually a student.

I was walking around downtown Winter Garden one day. Somebody was on a scaffolding attached to a red brick building, possibly the Edgewater Hotel. Suddenly the scaffolding gave way and pitched around, with large chunks of the hotel wall collapsing onto the street below. Nobody appeared to be injured, but it was obviously a dangerous situation. Somebody was examining the brick and asking if it had something, some mechanism that would hold them together. I picked one up and saw that it had some mortar attached to it, but I didn't know what else was supposed to be there. As I walked into one building, somebody else was walking out, and apparently right under the scaffolding and collapsing wall. I shouted out a warning that he shouldn't go near there, but he continued on deliberately, and I realized that he was involved in the construction of the building and was wearing a hardhat.

03/04/06 Fri night
Mariana and I were about to go to bed at my house. I heard a little commotion out in the living room, and I assumed it was my brother, so I waited for any of the characteristic noises that he might make (turning on the TV, closing the refrigerator, etc.). But I didn't hear any. I walked out into the hallway, which was mostly dark. Ahead of me I could see a silhouette coming towards me. I asked who it was. I noticed that it didn't seem to be a large person, so I braced myself to throw a punch or defend myself if necessary. But then the person came into the light and I saw that it was Eden, a former student. He seemed glad to see me, and I was glad of course that it was somebody I knew, even if I was a bit baffled and upset that he had essentially burgled my house. I casually escorted him down the hallway back into the living room. He said he needed to get down to Miami as soon as possible, and wanted to know if I could give him a ride. Although I knew him, and wanted him to know that I considered him a friend, I was still a little suspicious of him being in my house and the fact that he had a couple of friends with him. There was no way I was going to drive him down to Miami on the spur of the moment in the middle of the night, of course. But I didn't want to just say no outright and risk antagonizing him in what was still a bizarre situation. I told him I was very sorry, but I couldn't drive him, but I could lend him some money if he needed to take a bus or cab or if he needed to offer gas money to somebody else. He wasn't upset that I couldn't take him, and said that sure, he'd like to borrow the money and he would of course pay me back as soon as he could. I was still slyly escorting him out of the house and went back inside to get ten bucks or so. I gave him the money and kept shaking his hand and telling him good luck on getting down to Miami. He had brought two cars for the two or three people he was with, and I was a little glad to see that his mother and/or father were with him, which gave his story a little more legitimacy. So they drove off. He had said that I could get my money back from his friend, who was not going down to Miami with him. So I got dressed, got in my car and went to that friend's house, which was somewhere in Oakland. It had been raining, so I was glad that I was in my Jeep. I went down some of the dark, unpaven roads and finally reached the guy's house. I don't know if I got the money back. But I was walking around in their front yard. They played a song on a sort of outdoor loudspeaker system, and somehow I knew that the song was intended as some sort of signal to their pets to attack. Immediately, I was surrounded by a dozen or so dogs, cats, chickens, and even a pig or two. The chickens pecked at my shins and the dogs, cats, and pigs swarmed around me, butting into me with their heads. I was never in physical harm, but I humorously thought to myself as I waded through them that if I did happen to lose my balance and fall, there were probably enough animals there to actually devour me. Somehow I knew Mariana was trying to call me; either I heard the cell phone which was still in my car, or I just intuitively knew. Either way, I didn't have my cell physically on me, and I suddenly realized I had never even told her I was leaving the house. I suddenly realized that all she knew was that I had left the bedroom in the middle of the night to confront an apparent burgler, and that I had then disappeared. She didn't know if I'd been kidnapped, was lying in a pool of blood in the living room, or what. I felt terrible and knew I had to call her as soon as possible to reassure her that I was fine.

A grandmother's-house dream.
I was living with my grandmother and my brother in her house. She told us that somebody had broken into our house and stolen all of our food, and sure enough, I saw that the kitchen door was nearly off its hinges. Whoever it was had rummaged through the freezer and refrigerator and had taken most of the food from the shelves. They even nearly emptied out containers of rice and couscous but left the containers themselves, and I told my grandmother that they had apparently just dumped the rice into whatever pillowcases or bags they were using to hold the loot.

03/03/06 Thurs night
I lived in some futuristic dystopia, perhaps the year 2040 or so. There was no vegetation anywhere except in a few museums - no lawns, no gardens, no trees, no nothing. I was one of the few old enough to remember what simple grass looked like. So on the white wall of in my little cubicle on, like, the 800th floor of the enormous, industrial city-state-building that people lived in, I painted a small, scrawling picture of grass, to serve as a rather pathetic reminder of what plants used to look like. It really was a bleak existence, a bleak world, and I awoke thankful that it was just a dream.

02/11/06 Fri night
I was watching some action flick on TV. The plot involved some standard '80s plot of American soldiers or mercenaries going down to South America to wreak havoc on terrorists or drug dealers or something. At one point one of the characters was talking on a radio or walky-talky to somebody named John Cena, a name I vaguely recognized as a professional wrestler. {IRL I told my class yesterday about Thursday night's dream, and we had a conversation about professional wrestling. I couldn't pick John Cena out of a lineup, but apparently the name crept into my subconscious somewhere.} The John Cena character in the movie was apparently the ultimate soldier, the guy the others relied on and deferred to. As I watched the movie, I started putting two and two together, and realized that his career as a professional wrestler apparently came about as a result of his success as an actor in B-level action movies. I didn't know if the character in the movie was named "John Cena" because that was the actor's real name, or if the wrestler called himself "John Cena" to capitalize on his movie character's name.

I was either in a movie similar to House of 1000 Corpses, or I was in a sequel to it, or I ran into the characters from the movie. I was circling around a dark house, at night, that was perhaps somewhere around Division Street near my house. I edged around the corner, knowing somehow that the characters were very near and were looking for me. I also either had a large, sharp hunting knife, or I knew they did. As I rounded a corner, I nearly bumped into Sid Haig's character from that awful, awful, poorly written and poorly made movie (1000 Corpses). I turned around and started running, and he and his friends starting chasing me. Finally, somewhere around Courtlea Oaks, I turned around and stood my ground. At this point I knew I had the knife, so I started holding them off with it. Somehow I knew that I would lop off the fingertip of one of the bad guys; either that was in the script that I knew we were following, or I had seen the movie and knew that that was what would happen. So I tried to make it happen, swinging the knife whenever one of them would reach for me, and aiming for their hands in particular. I kept missing, and not cutting off any fingertips. Finally, though, one guy lunged for me and sure enough, I swung the knife and one or two fingertips came clearly off. He pulled his hands back to himself. I could see where the fingertips were missing, although they weren't bleeding nearly as much as I expected and he didn't seem nearly as incapacitated as I hoped. Then I knew that these guys were absolutely insane, if they could just stand their laughing at their missing fingertips. Eventually, the bad guys chased me further up towards Tilden Street. Somehow, the scenario morphed into a combination of hockey game and roller derby, with the bad guys playing against a team of Eastern European mixed-martial arts competitors, with me just watching. The two teams had very specific strategies: as long as the bad guys could keep the action moving on their skates, they were superior and were able to beat up the Easter Europeans, but the martial-artists tried to take down the bad guys and as soon as they were able to, they quickly got the upper hand using their own specialties. At first I was rooting for the bad guys, even though they had been trying to kill me, because their was some patriotic theme being put out by the music and the setting. Soon, though, it became evident that the Easter Europeans were actually the underdog "good guys," and I started cheering for them. They would kick at the legs of the bad guys from 1000 Corpses, take them down with trips and leg sweeps, and pummel them while they were on the ground. Then the bad guys would regain their feet and run away, before being taken down again. There was no clear resolution to the match, although it was evident that over time, the Eastern Europeans were getting the advantage more and more often.
This is the best reconstruction I can come up with for some really cluttered but vivid imagery; it might mistakenly combine very different dreams. The part with the knife-fight against the 1000 Corpses guys is very clear, and the roller-derby part featuring bad guys against Easter European good guys is also very clear, but I'm not positive that the team of bad guys in the roller-derby were the same ones from the knife-fight portion.

Fragment: Something about Tom's mother, and her right leg.

02/10/06 Thurs night
I was watching some professional wrestling on TV. The gimmick was that the entire ring was slanted at perhaps a 45-degree angle or so. The wrestlers were able to use the incline to increase their momentum, which they would sometimes use for dropkicks or to roll up their opponent. Other times they would have to pursue their opponent up the incline, so fatigue and conditioning were factors as well. The match featured a fairly old-time opponent (circa 1970s, like Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, or a young Ric Flair) versus some current wrestler. It was a back-and-forth match, neither man keeping an advantage. Of course I was rooting for the older wrestler, whoever it was.

02/05/06 Sat night
I was either watching, or playing a role in, some sort of television-style drama. I was driving down James Drive and saw three or four teens come running out from between two houses. It was evident that these were the stars of this television show, and that I was either one of those characters, or they were my friends who would expect me to join in whatever they were doing. There was a large wad of money involved somehow. I divided the money up and hid it in two places. One was an old filing cabinet that one of my friends had laying out in his back yard along with some other assorted refuse. {Note: IRL, Mariana joked last night about buying her roommate a filing cabinet for his birthday.} I first looked into the filing cabinet to see if it contained anything important that I shouldn't rummage in, which would indicate that somebody else might come along and find the money. But it appeared to only contain some old, empty file folders, so I felt safe, and I stuffed the big wad of money into the back. The other part of the wad I hid elsewhere, but I don't remember where. (Perhaps somewhere in or around Dillard Elementary.) Soon the older brother of one of my friends came along, somebody that none of us particularly liked and who always liked to antagonize us. He promptly went over to the filing cabinet, as though he knew what was there, and mockingly said something like "Well, I wonder what I might find in here..." He reached in, took the money and went into the nearby garage. I was terrified that he was going to just steal it, especially since there wasn't much I could have done about it. But when I said something, he contemptuously threw the money down as if to show that if he wanted to keep it, he could have. So I grabbed the money while I could. He turned around and started doing whatever he came to do in the garage. When he turned around, I started muttering something rude to him (or at least about him), but either it didn't upset him, or he didn't hear. I think there was more to this, but I don't remember.

I was somehow a character in the television show Degrassi: The Next Generation, or at least, characters from that show were at the school where I was. I think I and a friend were sneaking onto a school campus, aware that we weren't supposed to be there. We got split up, and we saw the character "Snake," who is a teacher. It seems that we knew he would recognize us and know that we weren't supposed to be there. I tried to hide from him, to turn away from him and blend into the crowd, but he saw me and called me out. But he just started talking to me about something inconsequential, as though he didn't know I wasn't supposed to be there. There was more to this dream, too, but I don't remember.

My mother adopted some girl that we didn't know and had never met before. Her bedroom was where our front restroom is in the house.

02/03/06 Fri afternoon
I was watching some small triplanes circle a large red tower or silo while I was eating at some large, outdoor buffet or banquet. It seemed like they were attempting to land in or on the silo, which stunned me, and I didn't think it would be possible. So I kept watching. Sure enough, though, I looked away for just a second and when I turned back, one of the planes was gone, and I could only conclude that it somehow had landed inside the silo. I kept watching the other plane circle, to see how it might be done. As I watched, a large curving ramp slid out of the silo on the left side, and on the next lap, the place deftly landed on the ramp with its momentum carrying it into the silo. The ramp then slid back into the silo and I couldn't tell it had ever opened.

12/28/05 Tues night
I was on campus on a day off doing assorted work - meeting with a student perhaps, or grading papers, something that I didn't really have to do then and there but decided to anyway. I went to my little study-carrel cubicle and began shuffling through some papers. There were a few chefs and other faculty members at their desks as well. We were all in a fairly light-hearted mood, laughing and joking with each other. One of the chefs at his desk on my left swung around in his chair and showed us that he was wearing extremely short shorts, almost like swim trunks. He also revealed that he was extremely hairy, with almost no skin visible because of his body hair. People began making jokes about it, and about his short shorts, all of which he laughed at good-naturedly. Then in front of me somebody that I think was a student, who had very long, hippy-ish hair, pulled up his pants leg to show that he, too, was very hairy, but nowhere near as much as that chef. At this gratuitous display of previously hidded body parts, we all began laughing and making more jokes. I said something like, "Oh, I gotta get out of here, this is just getting gruesome," and that made a couple of people laugh out loud. Then an announcement came over the intercom from some woman (apparently either an office-manager, or one of our colleagues) tellng us that we were being way too loud and that the office area was meant for quiet work. We were all a bit irritated by that, since it was clear that we were all enjoying the good-natured joking. A couple of people muttered about how irritated they were. One woman said deliberately loudly that she thought we were all capable of deciding when we were annoyed by talking, and didn't need somebody else to decide that for us. She then sent a sheet of paper scrolling out of her desktop printer, which she yanked out and pretended to read as though it was an newsflash off of a teletype; she was facetiously pretending that her comment was a newsflash to whoever had made the intercom announcement. I stood up to walk over to the wastebasket, and as I did so, I saw one woman sitting alone in her office down the hallway. Because she was alone, and not joining in, I wondered if she was the one who had made the announcement. As I walked back to my desk, Eric showed up, wanting to get some work done as well. He had a student with him that he spoke to for a couple of minutes, and I scooted over to give them both room (there was already an extra chair angled towards his desk). Eric asked me if I had a key to the top drawer of his desk; apparently my key worked the locks of both desks. I handed him the keys, and he unlocked his desk and returned them to me. The student finally left, and Eric and I began talking about the textbook situation. He asked me what I wanted to do in preparation for it. I said that, well, we have some list of stories, so we might as well go out to UCF and see what they physically have on campus, and photocopy whatever we could and order what we had to. We both sat down and started flipping through some file folders, many of which I noticed were rather redundant. My mouth was dry, so I asked Eric if he happened to have any mints or gum or anything in his desk drawer. I opened mine and saw that I did, but then I looked closer and saw that the small round colorful things were actually fresh grapes (or, at least, grapes that had been sitting in there for awhile without decomposing). I didn't eat any. Just then Tom's mother walked up and sat down, though I didn't see Tom anywhere. I started chatting with her, since it had been so long since I'd seen her. She asked what I was doing, and I briefly explained, and started telling her about the particular story I was reading through. Something distracted us, and I didn't get to finish the story. Eric and I sorted through more file folders, debating what to read, what to discard, and what we still had to do. I found an issue of Reader's Digest, and flipped through it, assuming that I had kept it because some article was about food or something relevant. I didn't immediately see anything, so I turned to the contents on the cover and scanned the titles, hoping something would trigger. Then I happened upon an article about somebody being lost and sick in the desert, and how they ate some desert flower or something that cured their illness or infection. The article ended with some discussion of how that flower contained some pharmaceutical properties that the person had either discovered independently, or had known about. I realized that I had kept the magazine because of that article, and I tossed it into a file folder which I labelled "Food as Medicine" to use for the class. I also realized that I needed to leave as soon as possible, because I had to be at work, or to meet Mariana, or something like that. I gracefully excused myself and gathered my stuff to leave.

I was attending Jodi Thomas's wedding. Mariana was singing at the wedding, in a choir or something, so she and I arrived separately. I was early, and was sort of wandering around the church, killing time. Then I saw that Jodi was greeting and acknowledging the people who were there, so I started walking up the aisle. Jodi started throwing what I assumed to be T-shirts into the crowd, rather like cheerleaders do at football games (only without the air-powered cannons that cheerleaders sometimes use!). When Jodi saw me walking up the aisle, she made a particular effort to underhand-throw me one of the bundles. I grabbed it and sat down in a pew. I unrolled the bundle and saw that it wasn't a T-shirt; it was actually a set of three little-girl undies, all cotton and pastel with cute sayings on them (and not adult-style with lace, satin, string, etc.). I was a little baffled by the bizarre gift, and I wasn't sure what symbolic message she was trying to send to the people she was throwing them to.

12/26/05 Sun night
I was at some toystore or something. I was playing with some large toy that looked like it was made out of colorful plastic panels, something like a toy I had had in real life, that used plastic panels and rubber rivets to assemble whatever you wanted. It appeared to be a large truck, or tank, or something. There was much, much more to this, but I don't remember.

12/23/05 Thurs night
A snake dream.
I was walking (or driving) across some bridge. As I did so I looked down below me. I saw that I was about to drive (or walk) across a long brown snake. As I passed it, though, I noticed that it was much longer than I expected; it appeared that when stretched out, it might be perhaps 20 feet long. I backed up and watched as it wriggled the other way, and indeed, it was about that long. I then looked down from the bridge and saw several families huddled together as if around campfires. One family was playing with some gerbils, and I knew that the snake might attack the gerbils. So I picked up a black gerbil and tossed it somewhere else off the bridge, to get it away from the snake. I was momentarily concerned that the gerbil would get hurt in the fall, but it was okay. There was much more to this dream.

12/22/05 Wed night
I was at work when I was told that I would be undergoing a yearly performance review. I went into Chef Lodge's office for some unrelated reason and saw three or four people sitting around a table reading an essay that I recognized as one of my student's. I wasn't sure if they were evaluating the essay as a way of evaluating the student, or if they were assessing my grading standards. I didn't say anything. Somehow I wound up on a long field trip that I think was some sort of reward for various people, either those people who were being reviewed, or for those with superior reviews, something like that. We were going to watch the movie Dinner Rush, which I show in my film class. The field trip was either to UCF, or to someplace within easy walking distance of UCF, and it was also at the old athletic field of the school across the street from my house. As we all unpiled from my bus, I looked across at UCF (which was at my house) and saw Mariana walking around in my driveway; evidently her class had just ended. I tried to call her, but wasn't able to make contact with her {IRL, cell reception at my house is very spotty}. So I started typing out a text message, hoping that would go through better. I wanted to invite her to go see the movie with us. Later I had a few free minutes so I waited outside of her class and ran up to her when she emerged. For some reason I was shirtless, and she laughed with embarrassment and tried to escort me to some place with fewer people. I was momentarily irritated that she was embarrassed, then I realized that, after all, I was shirtless on a college campus so perhaps her reaction wasn't unreasonable.

12/15/05 Wed night
A semi-grandmother's house dream.
For some reason I was digging in the backyard of my grandmother's house. I'm pretty sure I had ownership or control over the house. I think I was looking for something in particular, and somebody else was there (not sure who). I saw that I was digging near where my grandfather had installed some sprinkler systems years earlier, and it occurred to me that whatever I was looking for (arrowheads, coins or other artifacts) likely wouldn't be there because he would have found them himself. So I decided to start digging away from the sprinkler piping. I dug down about two feet, and as I did so kept feeling around and peering down into the trench to see if there was anything notable. Finally I pulled out a sheet of paper which turned out to be an old school assignment from high school. I wasn't sure how it wound up buried two feet deep in my grandmother's backyward, but I kept digging. Then a foot or two down the trench I disovered an entire cache of old high school papers. I flipped through them, vaguely remembering them. One was a progress report for a French III class I was taking {IRL I never took any French in high school}. I was getting a C, and the teacher's comments explained that I seemed to lack motivation since the class didn't seem to fit into my future plans, and that it was a difficult class anyway. Also in the cache were some glossy posters for The Cure {IRL I loathed The Cure} that I gave to whoever was hanging around. I also dug out some pennies, including a 1943 penny. I tossed the pennies onto a small table in my grandmother's living room and kept digging. After I came inside, I wondered where the pennies had gone, and discovered that they had gotten mixed up with some newer pennies. I had to poke through them and eventually found the ones I had dug up.

12/14/05 Wed afternoon
A grandmother's house dream.
I was moving back into my grandmother's house after many years, by myself, I think. On the day when I was formally taking over the house, there was a young man who was either waiting to speak to my grandmother, or perhaps wanting to speak to whoever lived in the house. For some reason I was suspicious of him; he wasn't overtly threatening, but for some reason I knew he was just going to cause trouble of some sort. He was pacing around in front of the house. I started to walk into the backyard area, but then I thought that I didn't particularly want to leave him alone in front of the house, so I came back around. I saw that he had a dog in his car, which was parked around the corner. Somehow I either arranged for the car to be stolen right then and there, or I stole it myself somehow (even though I was also watching it happen). At any rate, I watched the car drive off without him. He noticed it, and I stood laughing as he frantically chased his car down the street. After he was gone I started investigating the property and went back into the back yard. I realized I was taking over a rather nice piece of property, so I danced an little impromptu jig as I walked around the corner into the backyard. I saw which trees were already planted, which veggies my grandfather already had started, and where I might start planting my own trees and vegetables. The property covered a small peninsula of land at the angle of two intersecting streets, and I walked from one side around the bend to the other side. On one side the property just dissolved into the neighbor's property, with no firm boundary between the two properties, but I was fairly certain where the line was. The other side was fronted by a street. At one corner I hopped a chain-link fence in order to see something. I knew that at that point I was technically in the neighbor's backyard and not my own. But I was wearing a dress shirt (the dark reddish shirt I wore today IRL) and that I therefore looked respectable, so I assumed the neighbor would not be unduly angry if he saw me on his property. But I was only there for a few moments and soon I clambered back over the fence into my own yard.

12/10/05 Sat afternoon
I was shopping somewhere. I went into a bookstore where I knew they sold Buffy and Angel stuff, although I didn't plan to buy much even if they had anything. They didn't seem to have anything, though, and their shelves were full of merchandise that tied in to whatever movie was brand new. That made sense. I did see one large book that was called something like "9 Years of Angel," so I grabbed it. {IRL there were only five seasons of Angel, of course, although the character was on three seasons of Buffy, too.} Then I saw the comic racks, so I started thumbing through the Angel comics. I saw some comics that I wasn't sure I had, so I pulled out the checklist from my wallet and saw that sure enough, I didn't have some of them. I saw an Angel #1 art cover, so I got that, and a couple of other items as well.

12/10/05 Fri night
A snake dream.
I had to pick up some family members at my paternal grandparents' house. My Beloved Cousins and grandparents were there, and possibly others as well. There were strangers there who knew my cousins, and I wanted to make sure they knew they were my cousins. One guy said something about my cousin Amy, and I made a point to to jokingly say something like "Hey, that's my cousin, I've loved her since she came into this world, so..." As I got nearer to my grandparents' house, I saw that there were suddenly a lot of black snakes, hundreds of them, around the perimeter of the property. So I drove my car up nearer to the house, so people inside the house could just get into my car more quickly. As I drove, though, I saw that the snakes were actually rattlesnakes. I thought that was odd, since I wasn't aware of any solid black rattlesnakes, but there was no mistaking the rattles themselves. They the snakes started attacking people. Their poison was quite powerful, too, and the victims started dying within minutes of being bitten. Then I knew I had to drive up not just closer, but right next to the front door, so they could get directly into my car from the house. At some point I was inside my grandparents' house, upstairs, but I don't remember.

11/24/05 Wed night
A snake dream...
...that I don't remember.

11/22/05 Mon night
I was grading a lot of essays in my cubicle at work. For some reason all of the essays had cash attached to them, although the cash didn't seem to be bribes or anything. It just seemed natural for there to be cash involved with the essays. Then one of the chefs called me away to ask me something, or ask me to do something. As I was walking (and perhaps driving) around, I started thinking that I had left a great deal of that cash just lying open on my desk, and I hoped it would all still be there when I returned.

11/20/05 Sat night
A long, complex, complicated dream.
I bumped into ex-girlfriend Sonali somewhere and we agreed to meet again for lunch at some indefinite time in the future. I didn't know if she was divorced, still married, separated, or what, but I did somehow know (or assume) that she had two kids. I didn't know if she knew about Mariana and I, and I didn't know if it would be presumptious of me to tell her (the risk being that she wouldn't care and would think me obnoxious for assuming she did). She asked me for a ride to work one morning, and I agreed. Then either she turned into Eric, or Eric asked me for a similar ride, because Eric arrived one morning in his car. I wondered why he was in a car if he needed a ride to work, and he clarified that no, he didn't need a ride to work, he needed a ride home from work, because he was getting his car repaired sometime that day. Simultaneously, I knew that I was supposed to be at Sonali's to pick her up around 6:30am so she could be at work, at Apopka High School, by 7:30am. I was late, though, and didn't arrive until about 6:50am, but I knew we still had time. Then at some point I was walking around some students on Lakewood Avenue in Ocoee, either looking for Sonali, or waiting for her to find me, or something like that. There were students milling all around. I was carrying something, but I don't remember what.
This was a complicated, detailed dream, but I don't recall much more.

11/12/05 Fri night
I was supposed to pick up Mariana and go to some house down on 535 (or something like that) which might have been ours. On the way I decided to pick some friend of hers who I barely knew. We got to the house and then I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to pick up Mariana. Just then she walked in and I apologized. She wasn't upset. I went out to start grilling some dinner. I wasn't sure which grill was mine, though; there were several that were identical and I finally realized that I had moved mine closer to the house just for that reason. There was some part about being in a grocery store here. There was an intersection (possibly with Tilden Road?) where we happened to see a four-year-old boy get hit by a car. While appropriate phonecalls were being made, somebody jumped into our car (or possibly we gave him a ride). He said he saw who had hit the little boy and asked me to write down the details before he forgot them. I found some random scrap of paper and started writing, as he called out descriptions and license plate numbers. There was already a lot of writing on the paper but I knew we'd be able to find the correct information when we needed to. At some point we went to the house that matched the information, intending to either interrogate or arrest the driver. Somebody else answered the door, though, so we tried to play innocent so as to not tip off or panic whoever the girl was who answered.
There was much, much more to this dream, many more details than I have here.

11/07/05 Sun night
I was performing an exorcism on a girl (or possibly five or so girls) who was possessed. There were several girls, all students, and at least one of them was possessed. Finally, I took some of them to a church where some usual services were already being performed. As I walked through the minister's offices, I slyly grabbed a plastic jar that contained several smaller vials of holy water, and shoved it into my left front pocket.
This was much longer, but this is all I remember.

11/06/05 Sat night
I was being chased by the biblical Beast (who conceivably could have been Jason). He was pursuing me all over Winter Garden; I was on fleeing him on foot. As he chased me, he would kill whoever else he came in contact with, many of whom I knew personally. At one point I was running across a tollroad, and as I crossed each lane in front of the cars paying their tolls, I glanced at the ground to see if there were any quarters lying around the tollbooths. At one point I was creeping along North Boyd Street, and knew that the Beast was somewhere around North Main, just a block over from me. I could see him, but I was fairly certain he didn't know I was a block over. I saw him driving a black Trans-Am, just like mine, chasing somebody else down North Main. He got to within a few feet of that person, then looked over between houses and saw me, and immediately swerved to go around the first person. I knew he would be headed straight for me. I debated whether to cross through houses to head over to North Lakeview, or to continue down North Boyd, or to backtrack to North Main, knowing the Beast would soon be leaving Main. Then I saw a truck headed up Boyd, and I hopped into the bed of the truck. I knew that I would be able to evade the Beast this way; I knew he wouldn't be able to see me and wouldn't suspect that I was in the truck. I silently congratulated myself for actually outsmarting the Beast.

11/05/05 Fri evening
I was working at Domino's on a very busy night. The managers had a rookie MIT doing dough; I think it was former student Nick M. I knew he had only been an MIT for a short time and that he wasn't capable of keeping up. Sure enough, he got behind rather quickly and kept calling out for help. Finally he asked me if I would help him catch up on dough. I said sure, why not, and went behind the counter telling him that if we double-teamed it for a few minutes, we'd get caught up fairly quickly. Instead he left and went to get me more dough from our walk-in, which I think was located outside the actual store. He was gone for a long time and I wondered where the hell he'd gone off to. Meanwhile I was getting behind myself because I had no dough to work with. I could see the order screen, but just barely, and I made whatever pizzas I could with the limited supply of dough that I had. I saw that some pizzas were designated 'U,' and I didn't know what that represented. Finally I realized that it stood for 'Unlimited,' a particular special we were running at the time. Then Nick returned with a lot of dough and I realized he had been making pizzas right there in the walk-in and bringing the floats to me. Unfortunately he wasn't very good on dough and he was bringing floats I didn't need, and the ones he did bring weren't made very well. I couldn't tell the difference between his larges and his extra-larges, so I kept trying to adapt them to whichever I needed. But he didn't make them very well, and they were extreme soupbowls, with ultra-thin interiors and thick, doughy crusts, and they weren't very suitable for anything. So I kept stacking up these unusuable floats with the trays of unnecessary dough, all of which kept getting me further and further behind.

There was some large festival or something going on in downtown Winter Garden. This was a long, detailed dream, but the only thing I can recover is walking by a row of six or so girls dressed up in prom- or homecoming-style dresses. The winner of some contest was wearing a gorgeous silver and blue dress, and her victory was announced right when I was walking by.

11/03/05 Wed evening
I had to go out to UCF to finally retrieve some items I had left out there in my office desk. There were DVDs, books, etc. When I arrived in the building where my office had been, I saw that the layout was different and that my desk was no longer where it had been; the desks there belonged to people I knew and were cross-stacked in an odd fashion. I saw Luke and asked him where my office was now located. He said sure, he knew where it was, it was in the third building over, very easy to find. I hesitated and he said that he would show me where it was as soon as he finished the student consultation he was in. When we went, he led me to a building close by and to my desk. I opened the drawers and started pulling out the materials. I saw books that I remembered by title and DVDs that I realized would still be useful to me, including some movies that I remembered watching as I prepared the Writing and Literature course I am teaching. One of them was a Japanese comedy, but I don't remember the title (although I clearly read the exact title in the dream). Some of the books had library markings on them, but I couldn't remember whether they were indeed library books that were still checked out to me, or perhaps books that I had bought from the library in one of the semi-annual library sales. Later I went back on my own to retrieve more of the materials. This time I decided to go straight there, and I wasn't sure I remembered where the building was, although I remembered Luke's directions about it being the third building over. As I approached it, though, the layout started looking familiar. It was a smaller building, red brick, and was attached to a much larger building like a garage attached to a house. The entire place looked abandoned, as though it hadn't been used by anybody in many year. The grass surrounding the buildings was tall and uncut, and the windows and doors had an aged, dilapidated look to them, to the extent that when I was going inside, I had a momentary concern that anybody seeing me enter might think I was actually trespassing and entering an abandoned building.

9/11/05 Sat evening
Mariana and I were driving around in my Trans-Am. There was somewhere in particular that we had to go, someplace important. I was aware that not only were a couple of tires on the Trans-Am flat and/or worn smooth, but the left rear tire had a ring of what appeared to be bolts emerging from the tread from inside the tire, making it appear studded all the way around. Also, the engine compartment was exposed somehow. So I knew I shouldn't be driving the car around in that condition, and that I needed to get it home to switch cars. For some reason I needed to drive the car up onto a very narrow block, almost a ramp, that was barely wide enough to drive. A mechanic (or something like that) told me that if I got the car up onto that ramp, I would be able to get the car home, or be able to get to wherever I was trying to go. I believe this all took place at the Tuffy/AAL Transmission shop on West Colonial Drive in Winter Garden.
Next I had to meet somebody at the 7-11 further down Colonial Drive. (I'm not sure if this was the same dream.) I gave directions to that person (who might have been Dhruva Nayee, who I went to college with) and she was supposed to follow me in her Jeep, which was identical to mine. I saw her pull out behind me, and I watched in my rearview mirror as she jockeyed for position in traffic to remain behind me. Simultaneously, though, we had also decided it would be more efficient to just take one vehicle instead of two, so we were also riding in the same Jeep - mine, I think. Then I was on Dillard Street, and I pulled into a parking lot that appeared to be a sort of depressed, inner-city apartment projects. Around the third floor up, I saw an old, battered, crudely lettered sign that said something like "Hot Chicks Here." It was obviously an amateurish advertisement for something that must have passed as a bar or nightclub in that neighborhood. In context of that poor neighborhood, I found the sign incredibly amusing, and I got out with my phone to take a picture of it. As I did so, I saw a guy sitting out on a balcony, or on the windowframe itself, and I wondered if he would be angry or offended at me taking the picture, since he would be included in the picture. As I stood there taking the picture, a man asked me where I got my car. He wasn't particularly threatening, but I wasn't sure what he meant, so I asked him to repeat it. He tapped the hood of my car and said he was looking for one just like it. Again, I wondered if there was some vague, implied threat (that he was going to steal my car), so I got back in the car. The keys weren't in the ignition, though; I remembered that they were in my left pocket, with the phone and some other items. As I finally got the car started, I told him that I got the car up at Orlando Nissan, you know, the Nissan dealership on Colonial Drive, you know, dealership row, etc. He finally understood where I meant, but by that time I was driving away.
I'm sure there was much more to this dream (or to both dreams, if they were separate), but I don't remember.

9/05/05 Mon afternoon
A grandmother's-house dream.
Mariana and I were moving back into my grandmother's house, possibly after having been away from the house for many months after living there previously. I was reacquainting myself with the house, poking into drawers and closets. I pulled a drawer out of one chest, then realized that it contained clothes belonging to Kyle. He was in the room at the time, and I started apologizing, especially since I somehow knew that the chest contained his clothes. Then I went into the walk-in closet and saw many boxes of items belonging to Mariana and I, that we had kept in storage there when we moved out. In particular I saw several boxes of magazines, with Beavis and Butthead on the cover. {IRL I had been trying to download Beavis and Butthead episodes.} I also saw some clothes that we had left there, clothes that otherwise would have been in my normal wardrobe.
There was more to this dream.

9/04/05 Sun evening
A bad dream about Mariana, but I don't remember the details.

A good dream about Mariana, where we were making many wonderful plans for the future.

Other recent dreams:

A grandmother's-house dream.
Mariana and I were moving back into my grandmother's house. As we explored, I went into the hall closet and saw many of my grandmother's old clothes, shoes, purses, etc. I idly wondered if Mariana would want any of it to sell on the vintage market. As I poked further into the closet, I found a further room {which didn't exist IRL} where there were many boxes of various items, like Christmas ornaments, etc. I chuckled and told Mariana that we wouldn't have to buy any Christmas ornaments, at least.

6/25/05 Fri night
A snake dream.
I was at some zoo or something. I was listening to some narrator or tour guide talk about the snake in a little hut in a pen, so I ducked to look inside it. Sure enough, there was what I knew was a huge snake, twenty to thirty feet long. I told somebody, or said out loud, that it had a head the size of a dinner plate. I tried to wrangle the snake out of the pen, or lure it out somehow, but was unable to. I kept wandering around the zoo, or wherever I was, and kept looking at various exhibits. At one point I found myself looking at three connected wire cages where some monkeys or rodents were being held. The animals were moving from one cage to another, and I listened as the speaker described how the animals' movement indicated something or other in particular. I was urged to try to pull one of the animals out, and after I did, I put it back into a cage and let it go. There was much more to this dream than I can recover here.

6/24/05 Thurs night
I was picking up Mariana from some place, that might have been where she had been attending a party. I knew she was in a particular building, so I waited patiently outside for her to emerge. When she did, she walked directly past me, within a foot of me, without saying a word and without even acknowledging me. She walked over to where some of her other friends were. Somehow I knew that Sean was in that building where she had been, and I knew that something had happened between them. She eventually came over to me, and from where I was sitting on the ground, I looked up at her and saw that she had been crying recently. I knew that she was leaving me. She stopped crying, though, which I interpreted as an even worse sign, so I reached up and hugged her around the waist, which made her start crying again, and I thought as long as she was crying, there was a chance she could reconsider.

6/22/05 Wed afternoon
I was teaching in a classroom with a network printer. I and my students kept trying to send documents to the printer, but none of them were coming out. Lissa came into the room to keep working on it. She said there were about a million jobs being sent to the printer, so she was systematically going back and cancelling each one of them out so that our most recent documents could be printed.

6/22/05 Tues night
JASON DREAMS.
I was being stalkd and chased by Jason again. Sometimes I was in my grandparents' home in Maryland; sometimes I was in some high school or something with multiple floors. It might even have been several dreams back to back. At one point it was a sort of competition; people knew I would be fleeing Jason and were giving me advice, telling which stairs to use and which to avoid, etc. I would time it so that I was going downstairs on one flight of stairs at the same time that Jason was going upstairs on another, or I would go around one side of the house at the same time Jason was coming around the other side. These were long dreams, and rather detailed. {Note: IRL, I watched part of Jason X in the evening before bed.}

6/11/05 Fri night
I was looking at the roster for one of the classes I was teaching. I kept looking, expecting to see my name listed, but I didn't.

I was in the strip just outside my back fence. I was trying to plant a small tree that somebody had given me. I didn't want to put it inside the fence, so I had decided to put it out in the back. I kept positioning it, trying to find the best location, the best corner, anticipating how large it might grow, where its shadows might fall, going from one end of the strip to the other. At one point Maddux was up in the house, looking out at me, wanting to come out of the house. Suddenly I looked up and saw Maddux sprinting up the alley from the lake end; he had somehow gotten out of the front of the house and come around the entire block. I was nervous at first, thinking that I might have to chase after him. But instead he obediently ran through the gate right into the back yard, where he sat looking out at me. I kept positioning the tree, finally deciding to start digging on the end near the gate. I dug into the planter and found that the tree had been planted over some garbage. I pulled out some old garden gloves and random crap. I didn't know whether to leave the material in there, or pull it out and start from scratch.

5/16/05 Sun night
I was playing poker with Tom, Ed, and Mariana's roommate Dan. Eventually I won four dollars. There was much more to this dream, including some portion about shopping in a large shopping center, but I don't remember.

Rick was laughing at my website as I walked out of the faculty office. He made some laughing comment about the way I had written up a recent dream, or the way I had described some incident (possibly my diatribe about children, see 05/09/05 entry). I was surprised that he had found the site; I had never mentioned it, and he sounded like he'd known about it for quite some time. As I headed out the door, I made some joking comment that he should wait to read something else in particular that I had recently posted, or would be posting soon.

5/13/05 Fri afternoon
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was moving back into my grandmother's house, preparing to take it over. I was wandering around the garage, for the first time in many years, poking in cabinets and drawers to see what was there. I noticed in the cabinets along the wall that my grandmother had stockpiled quite a large amount of food and various items. Some cabinets held six or seven large bags or boxes of dog food. Other cabinets held that many boxes of pasta, or large cans of vegetables, etc. In the center of the garage were some large storage cases. I started rummaging through them, and saw that they had a large number of fairly recent and current CDs, with multiple copies of most of them. As I explored, one man guided another couple through the garage, as though they were customers and he was the salesperson. The couple asked for one CD in particular, and the "salesperson" helped them look for it. I knew I had seen it just a few moments before that, so I opened a drawer, found it, and waved it around to show them that yes, that CD was here. I didn't know if they knew the house and everything in it was owned privately or that I was the one who owned it, so I didn't know if they were really expecting to be able to take the CD. I was willing to sell it, but I waited to see if they tried to just take it and leave, or offer to pay for it, or neither.

5/09/05 Sun night
A fishing dream.
I went fishing somewhere, fairly spontaneously. I managed to catch a fish or two, just big enough that I knew it could be turned into a decent meal. For some reason I felt the need to perform for somebody who was there, so I decided to clean and prepare the fish right there on the spot, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for me to do. So I cleaned it, hoping that the fillets could be made with a minimum of shredding, so as to best impress whoever it was I was trying to impress. I didn't do a bad job; I had to hack a little bit at the fish and the fillet got a bit tattered, but they were decent and I thought I looked competent as I prepared them.

I was walking to some amusement park, alone. I really wanted to play basketball for some reason at some park where I think I frequently played. I knew there would be plenty of people at the park playing, but I was hoping I could find an unoccupied court or basket so I could play by myself. There were two types of courts available at this park; there were full-size courts, and something that were called something like "small courts." I wanted a small court, which I think just meant a half-court. I walked along the chain-link fencing around the park, seeing how busy it was. At some point, though, I arrived at what appeared to be a monorail station that had several different monorails diverging from it, almost like roller-coaster rides. I got in the turnstile line for one of the rails, hoping it was the correct one that led to the "small courts." Just as it was due to leave, though, I saw that I seemed to be in the wrong line. I had just enough time and room to clamber over to the correct line, the one that would lead to the small courts. As I did so, I saw somebody I knew, some girl or classmate or something. I was vaguely relieved; I knew that if I somehow fell while climbing over to the other rail, she would be there to call for help. I plugged my ticket, or my coins or whatever, into the machine and prepared to go down, towards the courts. She asked if she could come with me, or assumed that she could, and even though I hadn't planned it, I shrugged my consent.

5/02/05 Sun night
I was speaking to some Japanese women somewhere. (By now, I have forgotten the details.) Mariana and I were shopping, and a Japanese woman gave me a small wooden figurine, humanoid, that was somehow halfway buried in something resembling a flowerpot. At roughly the same time, I saw a faded red blossom that was made of fragile parchment, or cloth, something like that. I instantly recognized it as an authentic "red blossom" or "red bloom." The Japanese woman recognized it as well. Somehow these blossoms were worn symbolically by Japanese women during World War II to indicate that they were sex slaves held in servitude by the Chinese. Over time, apparently, these red blossoms took on a cultural significance similar to the yellow star. They were also somewhat collectible, if only for historical value. Finding this red blossom at the flea market (or wherever we were) was quite a poignant moment for the Japanese woman. The wooden figurine held a similar significance, so her giving it to me was equally poignant.
This is not a sufficient recollection of this dream.

I was driving around with someone who I think was my grandfather, or perhaps an older man whom I respected greatly. We were driving through older neighborhoods that he remembered from years earlier but hadn't seen in a long time. We passed several houses that we both recognized. At one point we seemed to be driving through houses, down hallways and past staircases where people were peering down at us.

I was living alone in some large house that at first I didn't particularly like. It was a terribly rainy night, and I was expecting Mariana to come over despite the rain. I went out into a sort of covered walkway to watch out for her; I was sheltered from the rain. As I walked around waiting for her, I realized how large my house actually was, and how well designed, and I finally appreciated how fortunate I was to be living there. I was glad when Mariana finally showed up, because I wanted to give her a tour of the house and point out all of the wonderful features it had.

Other recent dreams:

A grandmother's-house dream.
My brother and I took over our grandmother's house. We were exploring the garages in the back. We noticed that the garages were full of well-stocked refridgerators and freezers; they were all completely full of various foods and frozen goods. In one freezer, I scraped away the built-up frost to reveal row after row of cartons of ice cream, several cartons of each flavor. Other freezers revealed similar amounts of food. It was apparent that our grandmother had been stockpiling food in staggering quantities, and we had had no idea. Since we were then taking possession of the property, some part of me felt relieved that we were technically taking possession of that much food as well. Elsewhere in the garage we discovered that she had been stockpiling tools and mechanical goods as well. Walls were covered three and four deep with screwdrivers of every conceivable style and size; other handtools covered other walls and shelves. She even had many different lawnmowers and tractors and other heavy equipment. I was bewildered, obviously; I had no idea she had been accumulating such tools and equipment and I had no idea why. I thought with a chuckle that with that much spare equipment, I might as well start my own landscaping business, since I was already so well supplied. After a few moments, the idea started to seem more and more feasible. I figured I could easily hire a few guys to run the business; I wouldn't have to do any labor myself and could simply pay the guys to do all the work. I shook my head to myself and continued exploring.

I was some sort of superhero. My gimmick was to use a shovel, much like the William H. Macy character in Mystery Men. Or, possibly, I was speaking to a superhero with such a gimmick. I was talking to somebody, and we agreed that my name (or his name) should be 'The Shoveler.'

4/12/05 Mon night
I was late to class one morning, and was unable to make photocopies of everything I needed for that day. I arrived in the classroom hoping to be able to direct the class in such a way that I would have time to run to make photocopies while the students were busy doing something else. As I went over to my desk to set stuff down, I saw that Chef Lucas and a couple of her students were still in the classroom; apparently she had the classroom before I did. She was sitting on the ground, her back against the wall, and apparently not leaving. I was already a bit flustered, and even more so by her presence. I got on the computer and tried to find the specific file that I wanted to print out and photocopy, but for some reason, I couldn't find the file. I was confident that it was on the computer, but I was so frazzled that I couldn't think straight enough to really focus on where to find it. I kept clicking a file folder on the computer that had a name similar to the folder I was looking for, but I was still aware that it was a different name and not the folder I wanted. I kept telling myself, no, that's not the folder, it's close, but not that one. Meanwhile I still couldn't think of the exact file folder that I did want. The class was getting increasingly impatient, and I was acutely aware of Chef Lucas sitting nearby watching me mismanage my own class. All of this combined to make me even more frantic. I knew I should get the class doing some busywork while I tried to find the file I wanted, but I couldn't think of anything for them to do. One female student half-jokingly suggested some game that I perceived to be a sort of kid's game, something kids might do at camp or something. Some of the students began playing that game. Chef Lucas quietly suggested some other sort of busywork, something mildy constructive. I asked her if she knew specifically what I should do, or something like that. She responded with mild sarcasm to say that, yes, she got something out of the "training seminars" that we instructors go to. I laughed nervously at her allusion to how wasteful the seminars can be, all the while acknowledging that she at least was prepared with something for the students to do while I was not. Meanwhile I was still clicking that same file folder, still aware that it wasn't the one I wanted. I knew I could plausibly ask Chef Lucas to watch my class while I went to photocopy whatever I needed to, but first I knew I still had to find and print whatever I wanted.

4/08/05 Thurs night
Commander Mr. Mitchell left me in charge of his house while he went on vacation or something. I noticed one night that there were huge stacks of cartons piled up outside his house; apparently, he had received a large shipment as though from a commissary delivery. I didn't know whether to move them up into his garage, but still outside the house, or move them inside the house for maximum security. Finally I decided to move them all inside.

A grandmother's-house dream.
I was living at my grandmother's house. I had some friends over when a black female mail carrier left a package in the driveway. I looked out of the window and saw her sitting in a chair, tying her shoes. When she walked back to her truck, I noticed that she had left her purse on the driveway as well. I was torn with indecision, whether to loot the purse for whatever was in it, or return it intact to the post office. I knew the right thing to do, of course. Meanwhile, I was trying to keep my friends from going outside, where I knew they would find the purse, or even from looking out the window.

4/05/05 Mon night
I was watching a giant snake movie. The snake was attacking people who I think were in my back yard. It was quite a vivid movie, and it might even have had "real" elements within the dream. Finally the snake attacked one of the stars of the movie, down by the orange tree in my back yard. I wasn't entirely surprised that the guy was being attacked; his role in the movie seemed to be the doomed nice guy. The snake wrapped itself around his lower leg and began pulling tighter and tighter as the guy held screaming to the fence. I noticed that the man's leg began taking on the exact same coloration and pattern of the snake itself; I thought it was an odd effect, but creepy nonetheless. I waited to see if the guy would be able to free himself, thinking after all that his character might also be a survivor, but as it progressed, that possibility seemed to dim. This was quite frightening and I awoke still watching the events play out.

I was at school during a driving rainstorm. Mariana was somewhere else, and we talked a couple of times by phone. At one point somebody pointed to the ceiling, which was bulging and about to collapse from the water above. I was standing directly under that part of the ceiling, and I thought, I'll be danged if this is the way I'm going to die, so I quickly dived out of the way just as the ceiling came down. Afterwards, we all milled around, not knowing what to do. Finally I decided to leave. I called Mariana and told her what had happened. I grabbed a pillow and started to run home, using the pillow as a shield over my back.
There was much more to this dream, but I don't remember.

3/31/05 Wed night
Mariana and I wanted to be alone, but couldn't find any appropriate place. I massaged her back, but the room was cluttered and I kept accidentally kicking the material under her desk. {Note: IRL, we had debated the merits of somebody pursuing degrees in massage therapy that night.} We then wound up in my front yard. I noticed that some of the weeds were quite long, and I laid down in them and found them surprisingly soft and comfortable. I couldn't find Mariana, though, and as I was looking around for her, Ed came out of the house intending to go on a bike ride. However, he saw an open filing cabinet in the garage and started pawing through it, obviously intent on throwing much of the contents away before I had the opportunity to sort through it. I kept waiting for him to go bike riding, but he kept rummaging through the filing cabinet. Then I saw Mariana in the storage room; she was rummaging through the bottom drawer of another filing cabinet. When she saw me, she stood up and laughingly said that the bottom drawer was now, officially, the Julia Stiles drawer. I asked her what she meant, and she said that she had found a lot of Julia Stiles coins and pictures, and she had gathered them all in that drawer. I looked in the drawer, and sure enough, there were dozens of actual coins, with pictures of Julia Stiles on them as though they were commemorative editions, along with various newspaper- and magazine-style photographs of her that had been clipped out. I didn't know where they had all come from. Then we were in the driveway of Mariana's house (not her real life house, though); we knew her parents had left for a few days, so we thought we'd have the house to ourselves unless any of her other relatives decided to visit. Mariana mentioned a particular uncle and aunt, and I jokingly repeated the names. Moments later, they showed up, in a large pickup truck filled with albums, books, etc. They were going to throw them all away. I idly began picking through the materials, and saw that most of them dealt with the Beatles. I was surprised that Mariana was permitting them all to be thrown away, but she said she didn't mind, even though some of it she didn't have and was mostly irreplaceable. We kept impatiently waiting for the relatives to leave.

Mariana and I were at some sort of flea market, or rummage sale. We went into one booth. Adam Busch was there, and he thought I was there with my "therapist," or something like that. He made some joking comment that a good pick-up technique was to send my therapist to talk to a girl, or having my therapist introduce me, something like that. I jokingly replied, 'Really? Gee, I might try that.' As this was happening, Mariana found a couple of baubles that she wanted, that totalled about $24. Naturally I reached for my wallet, but noticed that both Adam Busch and the salesperson did the same; all three of us produced credit cards and were attempting to buy her the items. The salesman peered at the cards themselves and told Adam Busch that since he (Busch) only made about $400 a year, he wouldn't be able to buy Mariana the items. I wondered how he could tell Busch's income simply by looking at the credit card, and somehow I concluded that it had something to do with the first four numbers of the account number - the numbers somehow indicated your income range. I was glad, but a bit indignant that anybody but me would be buying Mariana anything.

3/17/05 Wed night
I was watching TV where I saw three uniformed Dallas Cowboy football players lying together on a beach. I think it was a commercial for something. The players were talking about how bad it was to have won only one Super Bowl during their time on the Cowboys. One of the players was Jackie Smith (grr!). Somehow Lynn Swann (or some other prominent '70s Pittsburgh Steeler) entered the scene; one of the Cowboys might even have transformed into him. He began showing off his Super Bowl rings as he spoke about winning Super Bowls. Somehow I went from watching Swann speak, to being Lynn Swann and acting out what he was describing. I had the four Super Bowl rings, and I was putting them on for the first time in years. I licked my fingers to moisten them, to make it easier to slide the rings on. As I did so, though, one of the rings became lodged in my throat, and wouldn't come out, even though I was coughing and hacking. {IRL, I woke up coughing for just a moment. It woke Mariana up, but I told her that it was just a dream and that I was OK. She lightly rubbed my arm and went back to sleep.}

3/15/05 Mon night
Ed was giving me some gift for my birthday. We were scheduled to go somewhere, but he told me to wait just a bit. Then he got out of his car, picked up a shovel, then ran the shovel along the right side of the driveway to grade out all of the grass and weeds, leaving just bare soil. There was somebody helping him, but I don't know who. Then Ed went back to his car and pulled out a large flat box of various vegetable plants; he had cleared the ground so that I could plant them there next to the driveway. It was very thoughtful, and all of the plants were useful - tomatoes, peppers, perhaps some eggplant - but some of them were in very poor condition. I told him I wasn't sure that putting them next to the driveway was such a good idea, since people occasionally park just off that part of the driveway on the grass. He seemed to agree.

3/13/05 Sat night
I was enrolled in either high school or college, where there was a student election to something like a homecoming court, where there would be a few male and female representatives who would be paired up for a romantic evening. As I circulated around the campus the day of the election, I was stunned to see that I had gotten not just one but two votes. I had seen one slip of paper with my name on it get put into a collection box, plus there was a magazine rack where people could put pictures of the people they were voting for, and I had seen a picture of me on the rack. I knew somehow that mathematically, that gave me a decent shot at actually getting elected, because there weren't that many candidates or voters. Two votes, I figured, was a good chance, but three and certainly four votes almost guaranteed election. While I was flattered and a bit pleased, I was also a bit nervous; I didn't know what to do if indeed I actually won. I started wondering what girl I might be paired up with as my "date," and wondering if I should even go through with it. On the one hand I thought it would be unfaithful to Mariana to even go on a symbolic, platonic "forced" date, but on the other hand, I thought it would be unfair or even cruel to tell whoever I was paired with that I wouldn't go and that she would either not be able to go or would have to go alone. After all, it wasn't her fault. I started running through all the contingencies - what restaurants would provide the girl a nice, elegant meal and a fun time while not sending her any signals that I didn't intend, what time we should eat, etc. The most likely scenario I envisioned was eating until 8pm, going to the dance until 10:30 or 11pm, then going back to a restaurant for a dessert. I wondered whether I should include a limousine in the plans, or whether that was going to far for a date that wasn't real. As I wandered back into my next class, I saw that the instructor was discussing MLA citations for the latest assignment. The other students were a bit upset about it, and I wondered how they'd gotten so far in school without even rudimentary familiarity with MLA formatting (which they didn't seem to have). The professor handed me two plastic sheets with the typical explanations and examples on it. They were grey plastic with purple printing, heavy, glossy permanent plastic. As other people discussed MLA or the election, I noticed that the combination of the colors and the glare made it virtually impossible to read the plastic sheets - every angle that I looked at it was unreadable due to the glare.

3/11/05 Thurs night
Mariana and I were walking in downtown Winter Garden, near the old Jimmy's Thriftway location (which was in business). As we walked on Plant Street, I looked through the storefront window into Jimmy's and saw that some customers were trashing the place, evidently in protest of something that had happened. They were flipping over tables, throwing things over counters, jumping up and down, etc. I didn't know what had happened, but I knew that the situation in there was going to explode into a full-fledged riot at any moment, that would quickly spread beyond the store itself. Instantly I shoved Mariana westward down Plant Street and said RUN. She and I ran west down Plant Street, knowing that the rioters would attack us without any hesitation if they saw us after they left the store. Somehow I knew they would also be headed west down Plant Street, so I knew it was imperative we outrun them and put some distance between us and them. We continued to run but behind us I could hear the rioters, and as I looked behind myself, sure enough, the rioters were coming down Plant Street themselves. As we neared the old Cumberland Farms location, I heard a guy yelling for the police, wondering where all the police were. By now, we were not the only people fleeing from the rioters; plenty of people were spilling out of the businesses along Plant Street and running with us. When I heard the guy yelling for the police, I knew that the police were already engaged elsewhere, and wouldn't be around in sufficient quantities. I considered telling Mariana to run into the Cumberland Farms, thinking that she'd be safer in the company of others. Instead, I figured that we might be better off heading north, figuring that if the rioters continued heading west down Plant Street, we could get out of their path by heading north. As we ran, I turned Mariana north and yelled at her to keep heading in that direction, no matter what, even though at some point she might find herself plowing through private property or even in somebody's back yard. Meanwhile the rioters were still storming westward down Plant Street, growing into a mob, while the crowd of people fleeing them continued to grow as well. I considered making it to my house and getting into my car to flee, but wondered what would happen if I crossed paths with the mob - would I be able to get through or around them? Would I have to run them down? Could my Jeep actually plow through them if I chose to, or were there so many of them that just hitting them would slow me down enough for them to get inside the car? I quickly decided not to get my car and instead to keep running, figuring it would be easier for us to evade them that way. So we kept running north, eventually coming to some yards near Lake Apopka. We seemed to be in a fairly quiet area; the rioters evidently hadn't made it this far west or north and the families in the area evidently didn't know about them. Still, though, I told Mariana to keep behind me, to stay in that particular back yard while I crept up between the houses to survey the aread. As I crept up towards the front of that house, I saw that the porch was covered with people who were gathering together as a safety-in-numbers way of surviving the riots. I laughingly told Mariana that it was okay, she could come up, the people there on the porch were okay and that we'd be okay hanging out with them. So we did. At some point, though, I realized that although these people were indeed hiding from the rioters, they weren't too innocent themselves, since some of them had apparently gone looting during the chaos. So I didn't completely trust them, and I saw that they didn't particular trust us either. I saw a couple of older fellows, who looked scruffy and homeless, who seemed to be hoarding stacks of new-looking science-fiction books and cooking on a grill. Trying to be friendly, while at the same time trying to assess their friendliness, I casually asked them what they were grilling. They didn't seem to hear me, though, and instead motioned towards the science-fiction books as though I was making conversation about the books instead. I again asked what they were grilling, and again they either didn't hear me or chose not to answer. So I made what I hoped were some general, friendly comments about the books and turned away from them. At some point, though, the rioters showed up; they had either turned north the way we had, or had fanned out and reached our part of the neighborhood. It was difficult to tell who the rioters were and who the "good guys" were, except possibly by who seemed to be chasing who. (I assumed that anybody chasing anybody would be a rioter.) I managed to clothesline a couple of rioters and they chased me, and kicked or punched them long enough for me to be able to escape. I saw that the "good guy" neighbors were mostly holding their own in hand-to-hand fistfights against the rioters. Somehow, though, I found myself in a small room or house which was being terrorized by a rioter, a large, burly female. I managed to get my hands on a cleaver, though, and as the woman stalked through the dark house challenging and threatening us, I kept lashing out at her with the cleaver - not really trying to kill her, but more to just incapacitate her so that we could get away from her. I was disappointed to see that the cleaver had little effect on her; because I wasn't trying to kill her, I could do little more than make swiping slices with it, so all I could do was inflict some decent gashes on her - irritating to her, I guessed, but not yet as incapacitating as I hoped. At one point we became locked into a physical struggle, and I reached down and used the cleaver to saw through her Achilles heel (consciously thinking in my dream about the scene in Pet Sematary when little evil Gage saws through the heel of sweet old Judd). That seemed to be rather effective, but I was disappointed that she didn't immediately fall down the way Judd did in the movie. It gave me room and time enough to escape, however.
This seemed like an incredibly long, dense, detailed, and coherent dream, with many more details and scenes than I've recounted here.

3/08/05 Mon night
I was enrolled in some class that Ty Dahn was teaching. He knew that I already knew the material very well, or that I had already passed the class, or something like that, so he allowed me to go to the library to start some other chores while the rest of the class stayed in the classroom for more lecture material or assignments. The library turned into some kind of nature preserve. I explored the nature preserve for a very long time. When it came time to leave, I was driving in some small vehicle along a narrow path that overlooked some swampy ditch to the right, with no barriers between the path and the ditch. To the left of the path, ahead of me, I saw three or four bears very near the path. The vehicle ahead of me slowed down for closer looks, and even touched the bears. When I passed, though, it was raining quite hard, and getting dark, so I did not slow down at the bears. As I passed the bears I saw that some of them were polar bears, and some were grizzlies. {Note: IRL, I talked with Chef Markusson this morning about the polar bear scenes in Lost.} I didn't want to take any chances on the bears pursuing me and forcing me to divide my attention between them and the ditch to my right which was perilously close to the path. Eventually I made it back to the classoom. When I entered, the room was dark and I saw that the class was watching a movie of some kind. I clumsily walked in, trying to be discrete but bumping into desks and arms and legs as I tried to find an empty desk to sit at. I knew I was returning to the class much later than anticipated, and I felt guilty for abusing Ty's generousity in allowing me to leave the classroom in the first place. I either told him I'd fallen asleep in the library, or he asked me if I had in a tone of voice that indicated that he didn't mind. But somehow the mini-crisis of me returning late was resolved quickly and easily. This was a much denser dream and I've forgotten much of it. The parts about the nature preserve, in particular, held much more action and details than this.

I went to, I think, a dentist, for some routine work. They injected me a couple of times, which I expected. But then the dentist (or hygienist) took a knife and made some obvious cutting and slicing actions on my upper lip, quite obviously not inside my mouth. I was very numb, so I didn't feel it, but I knew she had done something I wasn't expecting. But because I was thoroughly numbed, I was unable to speak clearly to ask what was happening. I finally took the suction thing out of my mouth to ask again, and I was quite conscious to demonstrate that I wasn't frightened or in any pain. I simply asked, hoping it came across with good humor, what she had done. She said that since I was there, and numbed, they were going to remove a tiny mole from my upper lip near my nose, something that is there but that I am barely aware of. I shrugged, said sure, why not, and laid back down in the chair.

3/02/05 Tues night
I was involved in some sort of auto accident with Joel. He might have been driving my car, because my car was involved and his wasn't, and he felt apologetic. As restitution, he offered to simply swap vehicles, his for mine. After considering the idea for a moment, I shrugged and tossed my car keys onto the table to trade. I got in his car, which was now mine, and drove away. It was something like a 1990 Buick Regal, or a Pontiac Grand Prix, a two-door convertible, with a pristine interior and strong engine. It wasn't particularly my style of car, but it was in beautiful condition, and it was a convertible, and I wondered how Mariana would feel about it. I started rummaging through the glove compartment, running my hands over the switches and features, trying to get the feel of the car as quickly as I could.

Once again I was taking over my grandparents' house after having been away from it for many years. The house had previously been inhabited by friends, or by people of my acquaintance, but they had all moved out. I started wandering the grounds, considering how to lay it out, where to plant vegetables and trees, how long it might take to mow the grass, etc. I looked in the refridgerator, and saw that it was quite full, but also quite messy - full of food, bottles, etc. I started pulling out plenty of empty containers, throwing them away, and making a mental catalogue of items I needed to buy soon. There was more to this dream, and it might somehow have been connected to the prior dream about the car accident.

2/27/05 Sat night
I was at some party or gathering at my grandmother's house. I don't know the other people who were there. There was some alien, or monster, who was standing still in a corner, not moving. We were not sure if it was real, or just a statue. It was green, looked somewhat like a gargoyle, and was about 5 five tall, and it looked like it was made of clay. It was very ugly, and even though it didn't move and we didn't know if it was real, it was still very scary and creepy. Another guy went over to it and finally touched it, and as soon as he did, the thing floated slowly into the air and out of the room. Nobody knew where it had gone, so we all split up to look for it. The house was dark, and all we had was flashlights. We crept slowly from one room to the next, looking for the alien monster, and not knowing if or where we would find it, or what it would do when we did. As I crept into one room...{IRL Mariana hit something on the table next to her. The noise went into my dream and became a mysterious noise, and I wondered if the alien had made the noise, and I woke up.}

2/22/05 Mon night
I was fishing somewhere. I knew that there were a lot of large fish, and it would be fairly easy to catch them. I cast my line near where I could see some fish, but the water was clear enough for me to see that they fish weren't biting. Meanwhile, somebody else was getting plenty of bites. I wondered aloud why that person was having so much better luck than I was, and some old man replied that I wasn't using bait. I reached in and pulled out some worms, but it was essentially one long worm, many meters long, wrapped around a spool. I knew that it would be difficult to pull off a piece of worm without mangling it, and that it would then be difficult to put the piece of worm on the hook, but I tried anyway.

2/18/05 Thurs night
I went down to Venice beach one day for a one-day trip. Mariana did not go with me; she had to work, or was busy. There were details about the actual drive down to Venice that I don't remember. I got to Venice and went straight to the beach, carrying a towel around my neck and wearing red shorts and some flip-flops. It was very crowded, but I found room. There was a huge tree standing in ankle- or knee-deep surf, with a great deal of sandbar built up around it; I knew somehow that the summer storms had built up the sandbar and that the tree had not previously been there. Near the tree was a bench where a couple of people were laughing and talking. I noticed as I walked by the bench that it was covered with some huge sharks-teeth that they had apparently found, and I almost said something to them about it, but I didn't want it to appear that I was trying to flirt with them. I also saw that there were five or six large rats sitting on the bench. I thought that was odd, and when the waves came in, the rats disappeared, burrowing into the sand like crabs. I turned around and headed back up to drop off my towel and whatever else I was carrying, and I made a mental note to try to find some sharks-teeth myself. I got back down to the water and went in. It wasn't as cold as I expected it to be. As the waves receded, I saw that the beack was almost a small cliff, quite vertical in some places. Right away I saw a shark's tooth sticking out of the vertical section, so I grabbed it before the next wave came in. My shorts were new, and I wasn't even sure if I had pockets, or an interior pocket. So I fished around and finally put the tooth in a pocket, figuring it would still be fairly secure. At some point I decided to go walking up and down the beach. I found a fairly private little cove where a lot of vacationers were grilling out, enjoying the water, etc. The water here seemed to be fizzing, as though there was natural carbonation from the rocks and sand, creating a sort of natural spa. The water was much warmer there, too. As I kept walking, I thought the girls in front of me looked familiar. One of them turned around and pointed at me, saying something about my towel and laughing. I knew my towel was some promotional thing from the Super Bowl that said something like "Super Bowl Wizard," and I had a sick realization that purely by coincidence, that wording was displayed on the towel as though I was displaying it deliberately, even though I had just haphazardly hung it around my neck. The girls continued to laugh, saying things like "Oh, there's the wizard!" I recognized them, and was surprised to see that they were girls from junior high school - Julianne Morris, a few girls like that. As I got back to my original place on the beach, I saw Robert Yee and a few other folks I knew, and hung out and talked with them awhile. There were a couple of guys who were being complete asses, though. I went back in the surf for a little while, because it was getting dark and I knew I had to be leaving soon. As I packed up my stuff to leave, one of the asses made some comment about me taking a lot of pictures of Rob Yee sunbathing. I didn't know what he meant, but it was clear he was implying that I must be gay or something. I was a bit fed up with the guy by now, so I grabbed him by the shoulder and made him look as I systematically went through the pictures on my camera, showing him that none of them were Roy Yee and were the usual pics of the beach, scenery, etc. To my surprise, he was willing to see the pictures, and to my surprise, he seemed apologetic when he realized that he was wrong. Still, though, a couple of the other guys were still being asses. Ron Jeremy was there, too, and he kept making comments. I went nose to nose with him, to demonstrate that I wasn't intimidated. He tried to pinch me, and poke me with his finger, and I realized that he was trying to intimidate me. It didn't work, and I just rolled my eyes at his attempts and walked away. I had to ride back to Orlando with somebody, and whoever it was stopped by a house somewhere around James Drive to go to a church that was meeting in somebody's front yard. Everybody gathered on chairs in a sort of circle, as the apparent minister greeted everybody and began encouraging people to introduce themselves one by one. Some did, and some were too shy; one older woman turned bright red and whispered to a guy I guessed was her husband. I expected the minister to graciously skip over them, but instead he lingered and waited for her to speak. I looked forward to my opportunity to calmly say "I'm Rob, I'm Muslim, and I'm here because I'm waiting for my ride to go home." I never got the chance, though; it never got around to me.
There was actually a lot more to this dream that I still haven't reconstructed.

I was near a lake or stream that appeared mostly red under the water. As I got closer I realized that the red coloring came from salmon massing together near the shore. The water was so crowded with salmon that it was easy to just reach into the water empty-handed and grab the salmon by hand, and sometimes, the fish actually lept out of the water into my arms. I realized that I was in a bit of a hurry to go somewhere, so I called out to whoever I was with that the salmon were so easy to catch. So we all stood there for a few moments doing a literal catch-and-release, trying to get the biggest, meatiest fish to take home with us.

2/17/05 Wed night
A grandmother's-house dream.
Another dream where I moved back into my grandmother's house to take over the property. Out in the garage, I found (as usual) a lot of old family relics, heirlooms, and various bits of stuff that I remembered from way back. I also saw a cage of gerbils or hamsters that were near death from starvation, and I tossed some food into their cage to try to revive them.
There were more details, including something about an alligator, but I don't remember.

1/28/05 Thurs night
I was attending some school-related function in downtown Orlando at night. Mariana met up with me afterwards. She left early, though, to run ahead and put something in the car, or to unlock the car, something like that. After a few minutes, I began to get a bit worried that she hadn't returned, so I called her cell. The call went straight to her voicemail, apparently, but it wasn't her usual outgoing message. Instead it seemed to be something that had been recorded accidently, and I wasn't sure whose voice it was, or what the person was saying. I wondered if she had perhaps lost or dropped her phone, and the voice I was hearing was somebody who had found the phone and picked it up. {Note: yesterday at work a student found a cellphone in the parking lot and asked me what he should do with it.} I called her phone again, confused, and got the same apparent recording. This time I listened more closely. It was a male voice, and sounded vaguely familiar; I wondered if it was a former student. The voice seemed to be saying something like, '...and if you need a place to say, just call me, I got a bed, a couch, whatever you need, you can stay as long as you like...' I called again, and heard the same thing, and realized that I was somehow listening to a message that had been left for Mariana. The person seemed to know Mariana quite well, based on his tone of voice and what he seemed to be saying. I was quite upset at this point, and somehow, I realized that Mariana was cheating on me with whoever this person was whose message I was hearing. I pieced it all together; Mariana was going to leave me, and the message was one from her new guy reassuring her that everything would be okay between them. Finally my phone ring; it was Mariana. I asked her where she was, and instead of saying she was in my car, or somewhere between me and the car, she just answered "Orlando," being deliberately vague. That clinched it for me; I knew she was leaving me. I said, "I'm not going to see you again tonight, am I?" I wanted her to know that I knew she was leaving me. She knew, and she just answered with something like, "No, and I hope you understand..." I was too shocked to yell or cry or guily-trip her. I don't remember how I answered, but eventually I asked her who it was, and how long it had been going on. Then suddenly the same male voice answered, saying "Ten months," and I realized that Mariana had called me as a three-way call and I hadn't known it. I said "Ten months?? Since October??" (Apparently this took place in August.) At that point I suddenly recognized the guy's voice: it was Tom. Then Mariana quietly said, "We're getting married." I said "Well, well, my oldest friend and my girlfriend are sleeping together." I didn't know if they were, or had, but neither of them corrected me or denied it. I don't recall much other conversation; I'm not sure there was any. Finally, in reference to them getting married, I said, "Well, as Seinfeld said in that one episode, good luck with all THAT.." and ended the conversation. I didn't hang up on them, but I don't recall much else being said. Next I remember I was walking around at work, wondering how to go through daily life. I told myself that it was only a dream, that Mariana hadn't really left me, but I realized that it was all so realistic, that the walls were really that color and the carpet at work really did look like that, so no, this wasn't a dream, it really was over between us. I don't remember much else.

1/16/05 Sat night
I was at my old high school. I was enrolled as a student, but was also my current age. A fellow student had recently passed away; it turns out that he was actually the third student to pass away over a span of a couple of weeks. I was in the cafeteria, watching some other students play ping-pong, pinball machines, and other typical bar games. At an adjacent table, a former student had a large bag of peaches, and he asked me if I wanted any. I said no; they looked good, but no thanks. So I casually asked a couple of people if they wanted any peaches, and referred them to him. When I got back to my table, I discovered that I was already eating some peaches, although mine were a little smaller than his. I held up my plate of peaches to show the guy that I already had some and that was why I didn't want his. (Note: Mariana and I had some belline tea at Olive Garden last night, and found ourselves fishing sliced peaches out of the tea.) Finally I started playing some game against somebody. At one point, quite suddenly, the entire cafeteria spontaneously went absolutely silent, and that's when I saw that the TVs over the crowd had put up a little notice on the screen telling students about the most recent student death. The game I was playing broke up, of course, although my opponent indicated that he would return and that I should wait by the game. As I waited, I saw Mariana walk in, so we left. We walked over to her department on campus, where she had a meeting or something. As I waited for her meeting to end, I found myself in a little room where the school was selling, among other things, a lot of books. There was a guy there who seemed to be homeless, and we rummaged through the books. I picked out one volume that had Marjorie Kempe, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and John Dunne (and possibly others I don't remember). It appeared to be a very nice book, leather-bound with gold trim and embossing. I also found a couple of other books I was willing to buy. I looked through the window into where Mariana was having her meeting, and she waved for me to come in. I don't think I bought the books. When I went in, she leaned in close and told me to look out the window, that guy really annoyed her. I looked out, and some guy was sitting on top of a ladder practicing some musical instrument. I confirmed that this was who she meant; it was somebody I knew (from her peers) either by name, or my reputation. She said yes, that guy.
There was more, but I don't remember (yet).

7/24/04 Fri night
I was substitute-teaching at some high school, and I rather liked the experience there. I was filling in for some fairly popular English teacher for about a week. At the end of the week, somebody, perhaps the principal, casually asked how it felt to be nearing the end of my week there. Before I could answer, I overheard some other teachers discussing the teacher I was subbing for. It seemed he had cancer, which everybody knew, but also that his cancer had returned, which nobody seems to have realized. One teacher said that he had found a bottle of tissue samples somewhere on campus, and that the bottle was labelled (apparently by the ill teacher) something like "Dead Tumor Sample, Will Get Analyzed." They also seemed to be talking about the ill teacher in the past tense, as though he had suddenly passed away. Since the principal had asked me how I felt about leaving after my week there, I started wondering if he was perhaps feeling me out about asking me to replace that teacher permanently if indeed he had passed away. As I was considering all of this, a female student from that class sat down next to me and handed me a toiletries case which I recognized as my own. I asked her where she had found it; she said in the faculty workroom or restroom or something. I was a little grateful, but also a little concerned that she had access to a faculty workroom. Then she started rummaging through the case. That bothered me a little; there was nothing overtly personal or intimate in it, but I didn't want her pawing through it. I also recognized the possible flirtatiousness of her actions, and I realized that this would not look too good if indeed the principal was considering bringing me in permanently. So I thanked her for finding the case and started putting items back into it. (Fragment here: I was tying knots in something, a handkerchief or something, as I spoke to the girl.)

7/17/04 Fri night
Mariana and I went out separately one night. She was going out with a couple of friends or something, and asked Kyle and I to go out together so that neither of us would be sitting home alone. So we did. I wound up sitting on the back of a truck with a Hispanic game, one of whom strangely might have been Mariana, who were out looking for a girl to attack. I was appalled at their plans, but felt a little like a hostage or kidnap victim, so I decided to bide my time until I could find a better opportunity to either stop them, help their intended victim, or get help. Somehow, eventually, I wound up at a nightclub where I reluctantly decided to go in. I tried one door but found it to be the exit, so I tried the other door. It was five dollars, so I tossed the bill on the counter as I walked in and didn't bother to wait to be asked if I wanted a handstamp or whatever so I could drink. Kyle and I met back up in the nightclub and awkwardly mingled and talked. Finally I told him I was leaving. He might have been talking on a cell to Mariana at the time. He asked why, and I told him that the whole thing had been Mariana's idea anyway, not his or mine. I said that I would rather be with Mariana, and he would rather be with somebody else, and we had both obeyed her and made the effort to go out and have fun, and while the night wasn't miserable, it just wasn't as much fun without her. He agreed and understood.
This was a very cluttered dream, and the above does not do justice to it at all, and is probably not even an accurate sequence or rendition. It might combine elements from different dreams.

7/04/04 Sat night
I was attending some party somewhere. I was one of the last to arrive. When I got there, somebody directed me towards the kitchen, where a Japanese girl was playing bartender. She had a row of paper cups along the table. Into each cup, she would pour some milk, lemon juice, and vodka. She handed me my drink, but obviously I couldn't drink it, so I politely waited for her to turn her back or get distracted. Finally she did, and I slyly put my drink down and made my own, with orange juice and no vodka. I started walking around to circulate, and she noticed what I had done but wasn't upset or offended. At some point I was in another room talking with some folks. The father of the house, or the dad figure, or somebody, was standing by a pile of gifts and teasing some of the kids by joking about a strange figure who would go around to parties and steal kids' gifts. While telling the story, of course, he would feign stealing the gifts while the kids screamed with laughter. This might have been a Christmas party.

A slight alligator dream.
I was on a tour or something near Lake Apopka, around the Fullers Cross Road area. Lots of people were roughly lined up along the road, and somebody was telling us about the natural habitat around the lake, how many alligators were thought to live there, etc. I asked the tourguide what was happening to the lake, or something. He angrily asked if I had ever driven around the east side of the lake (while gesturing to the west side). I said, uh, not recently. He said there was so much construction going on around the lake that the habitats were being lost. While standing there, I noticed a series of huge, blue arrows that had somehow been painted or spray-painted onto the ground, that were large enough so that it was pretty clear they were meant to be viewed from a helicopter or low-flying plane. I asked the tourguide what the arrows pointed to. He again got angry and said something like, that's where everything is happening. I'm not sure what he meant by that.

7/03/04 Fri night
I was at a hotel or something for some reason. Mariana was there. I needed to go down to my car to get something vital. When I got it, I also got a large chef's knife out of my car because I was cooking in the hotel kitchen and needed it. As I was walking through the hotel bar back up to the hotel room, some patrons in the bar asked me why I had the knife. I lied and told them I was a knife salesman. They asked to see the knife, and after examining it, offered to buy some. I didn't have any to sell them, of course, and couldn't sell my knife, so I told them that as a salesman, I refuse to sell to people on first sight, to prevent them from buying on impulse, and that I preferred to sell on a second visit so I could be assured that my customers were making rational, informed purchases. I told them I would be back the next day to make the sale if they still wished. That satisfied them. At some point I wound up on a motorcycle (and yet somehow I knew this to be the same dream). I was either Jet Li, or co-starring in a movie with Jet Li, or replaying a Jet Li role in a movie. But because I knew I hadn't previously seen the movie, I wasn't sure at any given point what I was supposed to be doing. I was flying down the highway on a motorcycle, at night, in the rain. A motorcycle ahead of me had a couple of people, both women I think, and I intuitively knew that they were the bad guys, my enemies in the movie. Because there were two of them, the one in the back was able to turn around to face me and started shooting at me. I knew I was virtually point-blank to them, just a length or two away, so I tried to drop back in traffic to get away from them. Then I realized that I was on a motorcycle and therefore wasn't a stationary object, so I slammed on the brakes and veered off the highway into a somewhat wooded area. I think this was on Clarcona-Ocoee Road on the way back from Wurst Road. I got off the motorcycle and started running. Jet Li was still with me, and I tried to tell him to run as well. The women on the other motorcycle came back (quicker than I hoped) and started stalking me. I saw that they had a machine gun and were firing it almost non-stop. I hoped vaguely that they might run out of ammunition at the rate they were firing, so I climbed a chain-link fence to get away. The fence was high, covered with barbed wire and not easily climbed, but I was desperate. The women kept firing and I kept running. I made it away and started down a slope towards some trees. There was another fence, so I clambered over that and kept running. At some point I realized that I had a machine gun as well. As I ran into the trees, I looked back and saw that it was now about a half-dozen women chasing me. They were all garishly dressed, and resembled the women in the new Stepford Wives movie. They teamed up to lift the one with the machine gun so she could see over the treeline. As they did, I saw that I had run up against a fence or wall of some kind. I tried to fire my machine gun through the wall so I could get through, but I wasn't able to break through. The women caught up with me, but something happened and they weren't able to get me, or weren't enemies anymore, or something.

3/13/04 Fri night
A tornado dream.
I was at home with several people, but I don't remember who. It was a very dark, stormy day. I opened the front door and looked up at the sky. I thought the day looked so stormy that it could produce tornadoes. I didn't see any funnel clouds, but I thought I did see some suspicious rotation and low cloud cover. I turned around to go back inside and tell the people there that we could possibly have a tornado, when there was a terrible crash of thunder and lightning. I turned around and saw that half of the huge maple tree in the front yard now lay on the ground; it had been torn off by wind or lightning. My first instinct was, oh no, it hit the cars! But I saw that it hadn't and had instead landed in the yard. We were amazed and went outside to inspect the damage and the remaining portions of the tree. It appeared that a lot of the remaining tree still had some dead portions in it, but we didn't know how extensive it was or what to do about it.

A beach dream.
I was somewhere watching a screening of 'Dude, Where's My Car' (which I've never seen in real life). It varied between watching a screening of the movie and watching a re-enactment of it, as performed either by the original stars or by some friends who really liked the movie, and who were narrating the action as we watched it. They played milk and dairy deliverymen in the movie. There were scenes of them driving their delivery van up and down the streets. They said they (or their characters) particularly disliked the camels that would follow them, looking for milk, and sure enough, as we watched, some camels came trotting up behind their van sniffing for milk. They said that whenever the camels got too close, they would throw various fruit at them. And as they told us this and as we watched it on the screen, we replayed the action by throwing fruit at each other, rather like being at a screening of 'Rocky Horror.' So we scooped up handfuls of watermelon and various fruits and started throwing it at each other, just like the characters on the screen were throwing it at camels. Then, on the screen, the delivery van moved off-screen and revealed their car, which had been parked out of sight behind the van. They were relieved, and we stopped throwing watermelon at each other. Sometime during this fruit-throwing melee, I noticed two buttons on the sidewalk which I knew belonged to me, from various shirts or trousers or something. I made a mental note to pick them up as soon as I could, or to signal Mariana to pick them up if she got the opportunity. But by the time I got the chance, I could no longer find either button. I was looking around for them when Mariana slipped something into my pocket. I didn't particularly pay attention, and as I searched, I gradually came to be walking in ankle-deep beach water, with small waves washing over my feet. Of course, I started looking for shells, and I remembered that Mariana had slipped something into my pocket, which I then instinctively realized had been a shell that she put into my pocket to dry off. She asked me for it, to see if it was dry yet, so I fished it out and handed it to her. It was nearly pristine, but as I turned to keep looking (for shells and/or my buttons) I heard her say with disappointment that it had a small fracture or flaw or something. At that moment I saw another shell, a gorgeous white one that appeared almost translucent, like frosted glass. I started rinsing the sand off of it to hand it to Mariana.

2/17/04 Mon night
A Jason dream. I was wandering around some dark streets somewhere. I knew that Jason was out there, somewhere, stalking a bunch of high school kids. I didn't feel particularly threatened, even though I knew I had no particular defense or protection from him. At one point I even passed him (or he passed me) and I knew there was a possibility that he could reach out and grab me by the neck. Again, though, I felt no real fear of this.

I was teaching a Comp class for Dr. Marinara on an interim basis. She wanted to give me the class full-time, and I wanted to accept it. Finally, she said she could give me the class for the rest of the semester.

I was driving around one night. Somehow, the brake pedal got stuck up, towards the dashboard, where my foot couldn't conveniently reach it. While I was panicking and trying to reach it or stop the car somehow, I accidentally turned the lights off. That made the situation even more critical, and I started swerving around, trying to figure out how and where to stop the car with a minimum of damage. Then I realized there was a police car behind me, pulling me over. Somehow I managed to stop the car. The police approached me and started talking to me. For some reason, though, they didn't really question me or take any information, or ask for my license. They were doing something, though, and I knew that so far, I was alright since they hadn't requested any information. I was feeling pretty confident that perhaps they realized that I really hadn't been doing anything wrong, or at least that I had a decent explanation. At some point I finally just drove away. The brake pedal was still stuck up by the dashboard.

2/13/04 Thurs night
Another alligator dream. I was at an auto mechanic's shop, or a tire shop, or something. The back of the garage area was surrounded by a small lake or moat. I knew that there was an alligator in there; either I had seen it, or had heard about it, or something. The mechanic announced for some reason that he was going to go in and retrieve the gator. I don't know if it was just going to be a stunt, or if he was just tired of having to be so careful around the water. He went in and disappeared under the water, just off the edge of the pavement behind the garage. There was a lot of commotion in the water, and a couple of times I would glimpse something large and black emerging from the splashing water. I assumed it was the alligator, but I was never sure. A couple of times I thought that either the mechanic or the gator was about to emerge, but neither did. Finally, the mechanic surfaced carrying a tire, and tossed it up onto the pavement. I knew that there must have been several tires down in the water, and wondered if perhaps that's why he went in - to retrieve the tires all at once, or to get rid of the gator so tires could be retrieved at any time. He then returned and finally brought back three or four tires of different shapes and sizes. Then he finally got the alligator. He half-tossed, half-wrestled the alligator up onto the pavement. "Wow, that's a REAL man!" I jokingly said, since I was, really, impressed by the feat. The mechanic and several assistants began wrestling the gator, trying to subdue it and tape its mouth shut. I think they finally succeeded. Just for a moment I considered going over to help, since at times it appeared that the gator was going to maim one of them on its way back to the water. But finally they got it under control.

I was going somewhere with Mariana; I'm not sure where, but I think it had something to do with school, perhaps to her old high school. We were standing around waiting for a bus to appear. I had to urinate mightily. Just when the bus appeared down the road, I realized I had no idea how long the trip was, or when the next stop would be. I told Mariana I'd better go now, before we left. She told me I didn't have time, that the bus would be stopping any second. I turned around and ran back to wherever we'd come from, knowing that if I had to, I'd go behind a tree or something. When I was done (wherever I did it), I ran after Mariana, seeing that the bus was just then arriving. She and others were walking to and into the bus. I ran full speed after them, arriving behind her just as she was entering the bus. From there we drove down dark, heavily-forested country lanes. Also on the bus were about five or six guys she'd known in high school, all of whom were apparently various special-education students. I knew that she'd ridden the bus with them back in high school, and I was concerned that they might not have treated her well back then.

I moved into a huge house with other extended family members - cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, the Torreses. It's all very unclear who the eldest, matriarchal person was - either my grandmother, or Mrs. Torres. Also unclear is why I was moving in with them, or where the house was. But there were many scenes of discovering relatives I hadn't seen in years, reunions, exploration, etc. I wasn't sure if people were going to have to share rooms, since I knew that there were many people who were going to be living there. Somebody, perhaps my Beloved Cousin Amy, offered to show me my room upstairs. I agreed and we found the room. I was impressed by its size, and it had several large windows on two walls. I asked if my brother or anybody else was going to be sharing the room with me; she said no. I was thrilled. But portions of the floor were either rotting through or had never been finished; entire portions leading in from the doorway were missing and covered over with only carpet. I could see and feel the depressions between the wooden beams in the floor. In fact, the more I looked, the more unfinished area I could see, and I wasn't sure how I could even walk on the floor on a day-to-day basis without breaking an ankle pretty soon. I made a mental note to ask Mrs. T when we might be able to finish the flooring, or at least get some panelling or plywood to lay down over the rafters temporarily. Then I realized that the question might imply that Mr. T would be the one doing much of the work, and I didn't want to make her sad, so I didn't ask. I also made a mental note to tell Mariana that she'd have to be very careful when she came up there.

I was sitting in a classroom at UCF, talking about vampires as part of some discussion in a class. The professor, who might have been Dr. Schell, said that newly-created vampires are created by being fed the blood of the vampire who'd just bitten them. I mentioned that this rule only existed in certain vampire mythologies, but not all, and he agreed and amended his lecture.

1/09/04 Thurs night
I was at a fast-food joint, McDonald's or Burger King, with Joel and Tom one morning. I think Sonali was there, and told me her husband Pete either owned or ran the restaurant, and that I should go get a free meal from him. I went to the counters to order and saw that the entire configuration was reversed from the last time I'd been in there - the registers were on the opposite side of the room, etc. I looked up at the menu board and didn't find anything particularly appealing, and I thought, man, I hardly ever eat fast-food restaurant breakfasts, I don't even know what I should order. Finally I decided to order two hash browns and an orange juice. I wondered if I would recognize Pete; I didn't, especially, but I was able to pick out the guy that I assumed was him.

12/29/03 Sun night
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was at my grandmother's house in Florida. Ed and Don and Nic were there. Somehow I knew that there was going to be some sort of disturbance in the house, a haunting or something, but I didn't know what or where. But because I knew to expect something, I had this incredible feeling of dread. At some point there was some man in the house, who was wounded around the throat area. He was dressed in late 1800s period clothing. I didn't know who he was or what happened to him, and he somehow disappeared. I was afraid of doing anything or touching anything for fear of kickstarting whatever was going to happen, whatever it was that I'd been dreading. I happened to look in a mirror in the corner of the dining room. I could see myself in the mirror, but something compelled me to keep looking. As I looked, I could see the wounded man again, materializing in the mirror image. Because I was standing with my back to the dining room wall, I knew the man wasn't physically behind me in the dining room; I knew that he was appearing only in the mirror, and that this was the horrific event I'd been expecting. I stared into the mirror, watching the image of the man haze in and out but slowly become more distinct. It appeared that there was a woman with him in the mirror, too, and that scared me even worse, because no woman had physically appeared in the house - yet - the way the injured man had earlier. Finally I managed to look away, and began trying to convince myself that it was just my imagination. I stared again into the mirror, and the man's image appeared again. This time I melted down and went into the living room, terrified. I was practically hyperventilating with fear, and I tried to communicate to Ed and Don what I had seen. I gestured toward my throat, and managed to force out some words: "That man...in the house...the guy who was here...guy who hurt himself...he's still here...he's still in the house!" Finally I collapsed. Nic had a toy plastic sword, and be bravely began swiping it around me, as if to defend me. I turned to look at the mirror one more time, and the image was still there. I awoke (in real life) grunting, breathing hard, and and completely terrified.

12/26/03 Thurs night
Mariana made three LJ entries in one day. I was surprised at her burst of verbosity.

12/19/03 Thurs night
Beavis was tied up on a chain up the alley while Ed and I did something up there. I was closer to my house, while Ed was farther up the alley. I saw a large cat climbing a neighbor's fence. It was tan to tawny brown, and I was stunned to see that judging from its size, it might be some sort of wildcat or panther. I yelled to Ed to take a look, to see if he agreed. He cautioned me to be careful, and to slowly go home so as to not get the panther's attention. I wasn't particularly concerned, but we both made our way home safely. Then I remembered that Beavis was still out in the alley, tied up. I said I had to go get him, so I started rummaging around in the storage room for some sort of weapon to use against the panther if necessary. I finally decided on a garden claw and set out to get Beavis. I decided to drive the car, to get there faster, and to get home even more safely once I got Beavis. I went around the block, but got caught up in a flood of kids getting out of school. The kids were behaving horribly - throwing rubbish and garbage cans all over the streets, lighting fires, jumping onto the hood of my car. It was a madhouse. I made my way through the crowds, knowing that time was being wasted. Somehow I got to the top of the alley, headed down to my house. It was pouring down rain. I saw one dog in a neighbor's yard, tied up, but it wasn't Beavis. In one yard, I saw a cat clawing at something through the yard, but it wasn't the panther. Finally I found Beavis and got him unhooked from the chain. I didn't see the panther again and don't know where it went.

I was meeting Mariana somewhere. But first I had to deliver something near my house. As I was doing so, Mariana called me and told me not to go back to the store where she was and where I was supposed to meet her, but to instead pick her up at a particular intersection. I asked her how she had gotten there. She hesitated and said something like, "Oh, with him, you know..." I didn't know who "him" was, so I asked. Finally she said it was somebody in particular. I told her to stay near the highway so it would be easy for me to find her, and that I would be there in a few minutes to fetch her. At that point I was with the somebody in particular somewhere. He was sitting with a bag open, from which he started pulling out various items. Some of them were tests and exams that I saw were Mariana's, and I wondered why she had taken those tests just now. Then suddenly it occurred to me that they weren't new; rather, they were old test that he'd been saving. Then he pulled out another item. I rebuked him harshly and began striking him. He was a dwarf who limped. (Note: prior to bedding, I had watched 'Bordello of Blood,' a cheesy horror flick wherein one of the minor villains was a dwarf.) I continued the abuse in various forms for quite a while inside and outside the house where we were.

Recent dreams:
I dreamt what could be an episode of 'Angel,' complete in cinematic fashion, with special affects, a commercial break, and cliffhangers. The main plot was that an evil vampire was using mystical, magical means to drain Angel's blood in order to manufacture an evil, alter-ego version of Angel. Because it was an evil vampire doing it, Angel's blood still came out of his neck, but it came out through a four-inch, purplish circle. From there the blood floated through a sort of tunnel through the air, through and into a large glass canister, where it began congealing into human form. It was rather like the scene in Hellraiser, where the bad guy is reconstituted from the blood of his girlfriend's victims. Angel and the good guys knew what was happening. I think it was Fred who was with Angel, explaining it to him, and explaining that Wesley knew how to stop it, but needed to get there first. Angel was weakened, laying limply and barely conscious on his side. His blood continued to flow out of him, and continued to congeal in the glass canister. By now it was clearly in human form, and the viewer could tell that it was becoming an anti-Angel. Fred told Angel that if his blood level dropped to 25%, he would die, and they wouldn't be able to save him. He asked where it was, and Fred told him, that it was passing under 50%. He knew his death was imminent if Wesley couldn't get there in time. He laid his head down. The closeup came up to his face, and he calmly closed his eyes and whispered, "Finally." It was clear that he was resigning himself to death, and hoping that he had made amends for everything he'd done, and he was glad that his suffering would finally end. Then the screen went to black, a commercial break, on that cliffhanger. I don't remember any commercials. When it resumed, more blood was leaving Angel and congealing. This time the blood formed a web of blood vessels in the form of a mask, which integrated into the anti-Angel's face. That seemed to be one of the last necessary steps. The evil anti-Angel raised its face, showing itself to the viewer, and showing how completely formed it had become; it was clear that the process was almost complete and that time was very nearly over for the good Angel if Wesley didn't get there soon. That was the second cliffhanger, the cruel hint of a smile on the anti-Angel's face, and it went to black again. I don't remember any more.

Mariana and I were taking a short trip somewhere. We were looking at a map, and looking at how our route would mostly follow the shore of some body of water. I think the destination was at, around, or past Lakeview Middle School. There was much more to this dream.

11/24/03 Mon night
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was living at my grandmother's house here in Florida. I don't think she was living there, though. Joel and I wanted to go out and do something, but I was already obligated to do something - work, or hang out with Ed and Ty, or something. Joel and I joked that he was better at faking being drunk, and I was better at faking being sick, so we agreed that I would pretend to be sick to get out of whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing. So I walked up to Ed and Ty and did my best 'sick voice,' all congested and sniffly. I told them I'd just be over on the couch if they needed me, and that I'd try not to gurgle too loudly. Then I realized that by pretending to be sick, I'd gotten sniffly for real, so I went back to the back bathroom to try to find some Kleenex or tissue. Couldn't find any anywhere, not under the sink, or in cabinets. I did find several pieces of what appeared to be fake animal pelts, but felt like real fur. I wasn't sure what they were for, so I used one of them to wipe my nose, and then tossed it perfectly into some location across the room where I was sure they wouldn't be thrown away accidently.

I was somewhere, and I needed to get home quickly. So I started running. Then I realized I was only wearing some boxer underwear. I was carrying two objects, some expensive electronic equipment or something, so I carried them in front of me as I ran. I passed some kids on a bike on the way home, and sped up as I ran past them.
This was a longer dream, but I don't remember.

Recent dreams:
Tom and I were in my house, and he told me I should go outside to check on something. When I did, I saw that it was raining tremendously. I saw a snake flashing through the wet grass, and I grabbed it around the neck right behind the head. It had a normal head, but its body split up into a dozen or more individual tails, rather like an octopus. It was just able to graze me with its fangs, but I could see that it was a constrictor and non-poisonous, so I was annoyed but not worried. I took it around to the gate and flung it into the back yard. It immediately crawled to the back corner and wrapped itself up around the dead mango tree; it was so long that it completely filled the tree. Then Maddux wandered into the yard. The snake crawled out of the tree and attacked Maddux, completely covering him and constricting him. I jumped into the yard and started pulling the snake off, yelling at it to let go of my dog. Finally Mad was free and just stood there barking.

Don, Tom, Ed, and I were tossing a football around in the street in front of my house. I was running barefoot on the pavement. Then we decided to play a real game, so I went up to the house to put on some shoes. As I approached the house I saw a small snake, maybe five feet long, reddish and blotchy. I wasn't sure what kind of snake it was. It attacked me, but I was able to grab it and toss it away. But it went to the Mitchells' house and somehow started clawing at their front door. I was concerned that if Mrs. Mitchell heard the noise at her door and answered it, the snake might attack her, so I started waving and yelling at the snake, distracting it away from their door.

I was driving down Colonial Drive into Lake County during a tremendous thunderstorm. There was some flooding in the streets, and I wasn't able to drive, so I pulled off the road. I could see in one of the sewers that Maddux was somehow in the sewer. I could see an alligator down there, also, and I didn't know if the gator knew Maddux was down there.
There was more to this, but I don't remember.

A Buffy dream, where I was a member of the Scooby gang.

9/10/03 Tues night
I was at a school for some reason. I had ridden a bike. There was a private residence on the school property, and I was doing something at the private residence. As I did whatever I was doing, the home-owner took my bike up to the front of the property, trying to do me a favour. Afterwards, he motioned up to where he said he had placed the bike. I said thanks and began walking. He warned me not to get too close to the neighboring property; he had done so himself one time, he said, and those neighbors weren't too friendly about it. I said okay, thanks, and kept walking. Soon I was milling about with the students on the school property, thinking to myself that I really needed to find my bike and get going back to wherever I was supposed to be. But it was a huge property and finally I realized that I had no idea where the guy had taken my bike. I contemplated going back to the house and asking him exactly where he had put it, but it was over an hour later, and I decided to give it a little more searching before showing up on his doorstep. As I walked, I passed a large room that I saw had dozens and dozens of drink vending machines of all types, in row after row. I emerged into some cafeteria or dining room, and was crossing through it when I saw Richard Cravens and Tom and a couple of other old friends (though I can't remember who else), so I stopped to chat with them. I knew I was also supposed to be meeting Mariana somewhere soon, so I knew I couldn't stay long, and halfway wished I hadn't bumped into these friends right then.
There was much, much more to this dream, and the above might even synthesize two or more separate dreams.

9/09/03 Mon night
I was getting back into my vehicle after performing some routine errand. As I fumbled with my keys, or hesitated for some reason, I looked behind me on the pavement and saw a disembodied tiger head, as though it had been removed from the tiger's body and sewn up. The tiger head was bouncing around, quivering almost aimlessly. I wasn't sure if it was tracking my movement, or following me, or even aware of my presence, so I stepped over and around and behind it, to see if it mirrored me. Sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn't, so I wasn't sure. But I didn't feel particularly threatened by it. Just then a car came screeching up beside me. The door opened up, and inside I saw several large baboon heads, that looked similarly disembodied and sewn up. A black guy jumped out of the car and gave me a threatening glare as he scooped up the tiger head and tossed it into the car with the disembodied baboon heads. Suddenly I realized that he was a poacher, or a smuggler of some sort, smuggling these animal heads somewhere. His glare warned me not to follow him or report him, so I just laughed and said, "hey man, I didn't see anything, I don't know anything." So he got back into his car - a red Volvo four-door - and I got back into mine. But as I pulled out, I did so in such a way as to see his license plate to report it to the police. It began with 'GNY,' I think, but I couldn't get the final characters. I then went to the Cumberland Farms to use the payphone to call the police. I had to wait in line behind some kids, though, as I stood impatiently and knowing the guy was getting farther and farther away. Finally I got to the phone and asked the cashier inside how to call the police. Just as he began answering, though, he followed my gaze and saw that I was staring at a red Trans-Am that had just pulled into the parking lot. I admired the car and then focused back on the cashier. "So anyway," I asked, "how do I call 'em?" (meaning the police, of course). But the cashier thought I had said "so how do I call him?" meaning the driver of the Trans-Am. He said, "Well, I thought you wanted his black Trans-Am?" I grunted in frustration and said, no, I meant the police, how do I call the police? He told me, and it had something to do with the four left-most numbers on the keypad (1, 4, and 7) but I don't remember what or how.

8/28/03 Wed night
I was exploring a house several lots up the street, which I think was the Adams's old house. We were in a car going up the alley behind the houses. The neighbor's cat had had more kittens (five or seven) in the property, and we were glad she hadn't had them on ours again. There was a moat going around the outside of the property, with some alligators swimming around in the moat. Most were small to average size, but there was absolute monster - at least 10 feet long, and as big around as a barrel, with a broad, thick body. I was so stunned at its massiveness that I got out of the car and told the guys that I wanted to take a longer look at it. There was a boxing match going on inside the moat, in the back yard of the property. One boxer got knocked down and actually fell into the moat. He knew the alligators were there, though, and scrambled out of it and up some steps back into the ring. I found the kittens, and saw that they were running around and playing in the moat (parts of which were drier and swampier than other parts). I was worried that the alligators would get them, and a little surprised that they hadn't already. I picked a couple up and tossed them up into the yard, out of the moat. I'm sure there was more to this, but I don't remember.
Ed had done some major cleaning overnight one night. I woke up one morning to discover that he had completely redone the computer room, with a brand-new desk setup that he had assembled by himself overnight. There were separate desks, one for the computer, one to work on. I was very impressed. Then I saw that he had moved some stuff into my room, a larger, queen-sized frame and mattress set, and some matching furniture, and had done the same to his room. I looked up at the ceiling at one point, and saw that the ceilings were much higher than I remembered, just soaring ceilings, that looked as though a second floor could easily have been built into the house. It was all paneled in some rich-looking wood. I thought that all of this was essentially wasted space, and I started envisioning some crazy ways to use it as extra storage, by hanging various items from the rafters and the ceiling.

Fragment: something about a grizzly bear and its long claws.
Fragment: finding a vending machine that for some reason was spewing out coins of all denominations, and scooping up the coins despite Mariana's disapproval.

8/27/03 Tues night
I was playing some combination of lawn darts and football with the Miami Dolphins in my front yard. There was one Dolphin, in full uniform, on the side of the front yard by the street, and I was on the other side of the yard, closest to the house. Whatever we were playing, had to do with me chasing a lawn dart that had been tossed and trying to catch it before it hit the ground, and then running into the endzone for a touchdown. I think I was losing, or at least, the Dolphin player had the opportunity to win the game with whatever he was doing on his side of the yard. But I managed to make a spectacular catch, reaching way out with my left hand and catching the lawn dart just inches from the ground, and ran into the endzone to either win the game, or tie it, or prevent the Dolphin from winning, something like that. It was very triumphant and I was celebrating. But because people were expecting the Dolphin to win, they were focusing on him, and hadn't seen me make my catch to win/tie/save. I told them that I had caught the lawndart and that I had won (or whatever). So we decided to watch the instant-replays, to see if I had caught mine before he caught his. It was agreed that I had caught mine, but the issue was whether I had done so before him, apparently. But we had instant-replays that showed me catching mine, and replays showing him catching his, but not a single replay that showed us both on the field at the same time. I think Ty was the referee, and I think he ruled against me.

8/26/03 Mon night
I saw Jerry Whitaker delivering pizza for either Pizza Hut or Papa John's. I hadn't seen him in many years, so I asked him about Tony Auffant and some other guys we had gone to gifted classes with in elementary school. Then Jerry and I (and others) were out in some forested area, where we were supposed to be coaching some girls high-school soccer team. I was thinking, man, I don't know anything about soccer, I don't even like soccer! We were also being held prisoner by some Crocodile Dundee-ish survivalist guy, who was shepherding us all over this wilderness. I knew that he was the bad guy, but we were also a bit dependent on him for our own safety and survival. His preferred weapon was a large bullwhip. I was standing on some rickety bridge or something, and I saw that he had left his bullwhip behind. So I used the whip to try to catch something to eat. I caught a kitten around the neck and pulled it in, but of course couldn't eat it. The Dundee guy came up with a deer or something he had managed to catch as well. There was something about coming out of the wilderness into some clearing, and the soccer team, Jerry Whitaker, and my Jeep were there. I don't know if we had been rescued or not. This was an incredibly, INCREDIBLY dense dream, and much more complex than I remember now.

8/25/03 Sun night
I was meeting Mariana on campus for lunch. We were walking along a sidewalk, about to turn a corner, when we passed right within three feet of Luke, who was sitting on a bench along the sidewalk. At that moment, Mariana just happened to be perhaps a foot or two behind me, so I knew that if Luke greeted me, I could legitimately pretend that I wasn't with Mariana and didn't know she was behind me. I immediately accelerated my walking and turned left up the sidewalk, practically sprinting, pretending like I had somewhere I desperately had to get to. I saw that Mariana hadn't followed me and hadn't said anything to me or called my name or anything, so I assumed that she too saw Luke, knew what was up, and knew what to do and what not to do. I hoped that she would just look for me wherever we were going to eat. I continued to walk at a brisk pace, but decided to duck into a small restroom building just in case, to try to blend even further into the crowd. I had a couple of small notebooks with me. After a few moments, I cautiously walked out of the restroom and looked around. I looked over to where I had seen Luke sitting. He was still there, and he saw me, and waved. He was perhaps 100 yards away. I waved back, but kept walking, thinking that I could at least claim that I didn't recognize him and had waved just out of courtesy, even though I didn't even know who I was waving at. I started sprint-walking again, and dropped the notebooks in the sand, which irritated me since I knew that if Luke had gotten up to walk towards me, I had few seconds to spare before he would get close enough to call my name, at which point I wouldn't be able to avoid him. I continued up the sidewalk, which at this point resembled the sidewalk leading into the main building at Lakeview Junior High. I wished I was wearing a watch, so that I could at least make a big production out of looking at the watch, which I thought would signal to Luke that I was late and had someplace definite that I had to get to. I went inside, still trying to blend into the crowd. There was some political aspect to this sequence; I knew that I was blending into a crowd of tie-wearing politicians, as though I was on Capitol Hill or something. Don't know where that came from. As soon as I went inside the building, I saw a doorway to the left with some stairs. I quickly went up the stairs to the second floor, still blending into the crowd and darting between them, trying to put more distance between myself and Luke, not knowing if he was even following me. Decided to walk around the second floor, to walk along a long window to see if Luke was still on the bench by the sidewalk, or if he was somewhere between the bench and the building. I didn't see him. I knew that time was passing and that if I wanted to meet up with Mariana, I should get there quickly, before she too started wondering where I was and left to find me. Although I was annoyed at the course of events, I was also a little amused by it and knew that even if I wasn't able to meet her that day, she was still on campus, and I would see her soon. Went downstairs and started to head towards wherever I was meeting Mariana. Now I was in some sort of shopping mall, with lots of stores. I went into what appeared to be a pet store, still trying to lose anybody named Luke who might be trying to follow me. One employee in the pet store was trying to convince another to do something she herself found distasteful. I think it had something to do with scraping some barnacles or small crustaceans off of some rocks in an aquarium or something; that's what the woman was doing. So I followed the woman into the next room of the pet store, which led outside into some area behind the store. As I stood there watching her scrape barnacles, Luke came up next to me. I played it off pretty well, and started talking. I was really upset that I couldn't have just a regular lunch with him; I genuinely missed him, but knew that today was just a bad day to see him. I tried to control the conversation, to prevent him from having an opportunity to ask about Mariana. So I talked about the job hunt, asked him about his job prospects, etc. A couple of times he sounded like he was trying to change the subject and ask about Mariana. At one point, just as I was running out of legitimate ways to interrupt or direct the conversation, two other girls walked up. One was Shirmila, and I vaguely recognized but didn't know the other one. I was so grateful at the interruption. I said something like, wow, this is a real reunion day! So I started talking to Shirmila, knowing that Luke was still there also and that I couldn't just ignore him. Tried to think of ways to include them all in one conversation that I could still direct away from any Mariana-related topics if necessary. I knew that Shirmila knew vaguely about Mariana, but I was pretty sure she'd never seen her. I was still concerned, though, that she would ask about her, which would make it that much harder to politely answer her without giving Luke an opportunity to ask about her also (if he was going to). I suddenly remembered where I recognized the other girl (who was Asian also) from; she had seen me and knew I was friends with Shirmila, and had greeted me for that reason earlier in the day as I was fleeing Luke. I also realized that I might be able to use that to my advantage; if Luke asked me about the Asian girl he had seen me with (meaning Mariana), I might somehow be able to convince him that he could only be referring to the Asian girl who was with Shirmila. I knew that was a long shot, but my mind was racing through the possibilities about how to talk my way of the situation with Luke if need be.

8/19/03 Mon night
Joel, Tom, and I were being stalked by an enormous green snake that was several hundred feet long and which had been terrorizing the city for quite some time. Nobody knew where it would appear next, though practically everybody had seen it at some point or another, and it had claimed many, many lives. It would rear up like a cobra, taller than most buildings, and swoop down to snatch people, swallowing them whole. We were walking around the city, aware that we had seen the snake nearby. At one point, I started walking in a meadow of tall grass rather than in the street, under trees and between buildings. They asked me why I was going over into the meadow. I replied that in a clear place like that, I was more likely to be able to see the snake than if I was under trees, where the snake could be hiding and could swoop down with no warning. At another point, I suggested that the three of us link arms and walk essentially as one unit; I told them that nobody had known the snake to snatch more than one person at a time, and if we linked arms like that, the snake was less likely to snatch any one of us. I think somehow the snake ended up getting killed, but I don't know how, when, or by whom. But as we walked down Plant Street, we saw the head section and tail section of the snake as it had obviously been cut into pieces. But the pieces were far smaller than the snake had been in life. I somehow knew it was the same snake, though.

Other recent dreams:
I was with Jason as he attacked people, including attempting to attack me. Somehow I was aware that I was with Jason from older F13 movies, though, because his face and skin were far less decayed and monstrous than they were in later F13 movies. I think I was aware that this was Jason circa Friday the 13th: Part VII, even though he appeared to be almost human, with smoothish (although blackened) skin and a minimum of damage and injury. He was sitting on my bed in my bedroom. I knew that outside my room, in the hallway, the "new", more recent version of Jason was stalking about, and this new version was much more decayed looking.

I was fighting Mike Tyson. I might have been David Tua, or Chris Byrd, at this point, or I might have just been myself. But I knew that Tyson was out of shape and unmotivated for the fight. I was hitting him with left uppercuts, repeatedly, dozens of them, one after the other. But he wasn't defending himself, covering up, or fighting back, and I wasn't sure why, except that he just didn't want to fight. Then he laughed and said that I wasn't following up with the left hook the way I should. I said hey, it's okay, the judges are seeing me hit you with all these uppercuts, so even if I don't knock you out, I'm still winning the round(s) just with the uppercuts. Then he got upset and said that I wasn't fighting "correctly," since I wasn't finishing the combination with the hook the way I properly should. He began backing away, turning his back, waving his arms as though he just didn't want to be there anymore. Meanwhile, I was still following him around, throwing punches around him from behind to hit him in the jaw or face. Somehow the fight ended, and I found myself (there is a fuzzy portion here) walking with someone on S. Seminole Street, near the Walker Field athletic complex, talking with someone about the current heavyweight scene. I told this person that between Tyson, David Tua, and Chris Byrd, there were some interesting fights to be made, and that Tua versus Tyson was the fight that I was most interested in.

8/08/03 Fri night
Fragment: There was something going on in my back yard, where my brother was looking at some of the trees. As I looked at the trees, I found more and more of my laundry up in the branches, so I gathered it up as best I could, trying not to drop any of it in the dirt.

8/06/03 Wed night
I went up to where my office had been at UCF, in the department. It was late in the day, and I expected the place to be empty. There were four desks in it, as I expected, and I wasn't sure which one was supposed to have been mine if I had taught this semester. But all of the desks looked occupied, which irritated me a little bit. As I looked, I heard someone call my name. It was Janice, who was sitting in the front row, next to the witch. Janice and I began talking about what we're doing these days, and the witch raised her eyebrows in greeting. Suddenly I realized there was a class going on in the room; there were students sitting in all the rows, and a professor circulating and lecturing. I was mortified and embarrassed, and discretely moved towards the door, even as Janice and I continued talking to each other across the room. I began scrounging for a piece of paper, to write a little courteous letter of apology to leave for the professor. But all the paper I could find was tattered, or stained, or already written on, and unsuitable. As I was looking for just a single decent piece of paper, I saw that some exam was going on in the class; students were approaching the professor with papers, on which they had written some formulas or something. The professor would take their paper and apply it to a spinning lathe, which somehow tested their formulas. It seemed to be some sort of design or woodworking class. The prof was very condescending and sarcastic, continually insulting the students' efforts. Finally the class ended, and I followed the prof into the hallway and finally managed to get her attention to apologize. I told her the room had been my office previously, that I didn't realize it was now a classroom, that I was sorry I had just barged in like that, that when Janice began talking to me, it threw me off a little since people usually don't talk so freely across the room during class, etc. The prof didn't seem that upset, and I wasn't even sure she knew I had been in the classroom. But when she heard me say that the room had been my office, she did say that it was now her office, and her classroom, and please do not give anything to Janice. I understood that the was referring to the note I had been trying to write to her (the professor); she thought I was actually writing a note to Janice. Again I was mortified, and babbled that no, I wouldn't. It was strange; the prof wasn't telling me not to give anything to Janice because she thought it was an intrustion, it was more like she was being protective of Janice, as though Janice shouldn't or couldn't be trusted with such things. It was almost as though the prof was looking out for Janice in sort of authoritative, guardianship capacity, rather than enforcing some sort of classroom discipline or protocol.

Recent dreams:

I was The Slayer. I wasn't Buffy, and I'm not sure I was aware of Buffy. But Giles, Xander, and Willow were there, and I think all of them were mad at me for something. I'm sure Giles was. He was upset that I had performed some ritual without him, or had cast some spell, or something. And I in turn was mad at him for being mad at me, so I quit, and told Giles to find another Slayer (as in "Prophecy Girl"). I guess this was "Prophecy Guy."

Mariana and I were in New York, for some reason related to her school. So for long periods of time, I was mostly alone in the city, while she ran around doing whatever she was supposed to be doing. On the last day, I realized we would soon be leaving, and I hadn't been to such-and-such places, so I decided to go see them all alone. Something about an elevator there, too, and shoes.

7/08/03 Mon night
A Jason dream.
It was in a hospital or something. There were scalpels and syringes. Like the 6/30 dream, there may have been some element of Jason being not yet as horrible as he would become in later F13 movies. But I knew who he was, and what he did, and what he would become. If I remember any more details, I'll update.

7/05/03 Fri night
I was a hairstylist or something at the store. That is, I worked as normal at the store, but I also was a hairstylist there, in the back room. I got a customer one day, a woman, who wanted something done to her hair. I looked around, confused, knowing that I was supposed to be able to do this, but I couldn't find any equipment or a chair or anything. I asked her what she wanted done. When she answered, though, she was not speaking English, and I could not understand any of it, not even through gestures. She had two female companions who started translating for her. I understood that they were her interpreters, so I went back and forth with them, finding out what she wanted. I was curious, so I tried to ask her where she was from, or what language she was speaking. The interpreters either didn't understand my question, or didn't relay it properly to her, so I looked at her and tried to make gestures indicating speech, or speaking, to try to find out what language she was speaking. When I looked back at the two interpreters, they were both solid blue - like female members of the Blue Man Group. I don't remember much beyond this, though I know there was more.

7/04/03 Thurs night
Fragment: Mariana and I in some sort of school cafeteria line. This was a very long dream, but I don't recall more.

6/30/03 Sun night
For some reason I had to look in some caskets and coffins, all of which were in those sorts of drawers on a wall that you'd see in a morgue or something. I don't know what (if anything) I was looking for, or if I was looking for somebody in particular or trying to identify a body. I wasn't too eager to begin the task. At one point, somebody opened a door on wall near the first casket-drawer I was about to pull out. They didn't seem to realize what I was about to do, so I waited politely for them to go back into their room, so they wouldn't see what I was about to do. So I started pulling the drawers out. Some of them had full caskets inside of them, which surprised me for a moment; I didn't know whether to expect the body to be directly on the slab in the drawer, or in a box, or what. So the first drawer had a full green casket. I don't think I opened it. I pulled out a couple more drawers. One was full of stuff - bags of material and belongings, which I assumed (or was told by some official who was there with me) were the deceased's personal belongings. I was told that the body had been cremated (or I assumed it, since there was no body in the drawer). I wondered if one of the bags actually had the ashes of the deceased in it. There were some cases that appeared to be DVDs, or CDs, or video-games, something like that. Whoever the official was, he was rummaging among this stuff as though he wanted me to take it, and I didn't know whether this constituted grave-robbing or not, and I really wanted no part of it.

Another Jason dream!
Jason was talking to somebody, perhaps one of his potential victims, not sure. But he seemed to be "healthier" than in the later F13th movies; his face and skin didn't look as deformed and mutated. He seemed also to NOT be a "bad guy," and in fact seemed to be counseling this victim somehow, warning him not to do something or else he (the victim) would end up like Jason did.
It's possible that this Jason dream was somehow connected to the above mausoleum dream; the Jason portion was very short, almost fragmentary.

Fragment: Ty talking about the schedule-board at work, telling me that he wanted to create a new/different one, because the existing one was getting worn out. But it wasn't, and he wasn't going to dispose of the existing one, and I wasn't sure why he was bothering to use another new board.

Fragment: I was playing basketball, and drove the ball in and was going to make a nice, simple layup. I was hoping to impress whoever was watching. I don't remember if the ball went in.

Fragment: some 'Buffy' dream involving the characters. I don't think I was a character; I think I was merely observing.

Fragment: something about the Walker Field athletic complex.

6/27/03 Thurs night
I was in Iraq, tailing along with some photographers and reporters as part of some school or civic assignment. I know I wasn't a soldier. I was huddling behind the photographers during a firefight. It suddenly occurred to me that this was real-life; I could take a bullet very suddenly. I wasn't too worried about the battle itself, though; I took it for granted that we (Americans) would win it fairly easily. It turns out, though, that this battle went poorly, and we were all taken as prisoners-of-war. It wasn't a rout, though; the Americans just made a strategic decision to surrender and withdraw. So we were all taken to an auditorium or something by the Iraqis. We weren't mistreated at all, but we also knew that as American prisoners, the Iraqis would probably think nothing of executing all of us at once or of simply executing any one of us as an example and warning to the rest of us. And we all knew that any one of us could be that unlucky victim. I think we were finally rescued. I know at one point an older, American soldier, a colonel or general or something, was walking among us apologizing and saying that he knew we were likely bitter and blaming him for our being captured. I wanted to reassure him, so I told him, no, I don't blame you, Colonel. He smiled and saluted me, and I saluted him back.

6/23/03 Sun night
I was at the McDonald's in Winter Garden. I think some school trip had ended up there; there were school buses that we were all unloading out of. There was a sign that pointed to the wooded area behind the restaurant that said "Boggy Creek." As the students were piling out of the bus, I saw one guy who had been a bit of a problematic student, but one who I thought was essentially an intelligent and interesting person. So I knocked on his window and told him that now that the semester was over, he should drop me a line or an e-mail sometime, that we'd get together for lunch or something. He said sure. As we were all standing there chatting, I pointed to the sign and said, "Boggy Creek, now THAT was a great flick, really terrifying." (Note: I was referring to the real-life 'Legend of Boggy Creek,' a documentary about some real-life Bigfoot sightings. It's really quite frightening, albeit in a cheap, '70s kind of way.) Then two or three students agreed with me, saying that yes, Boggy Creek WAS a scary movie. I was surprised that they had heard of it. The fellow that I had spoken to then said that he was going to Boggy Creek the next semester, as some part of an official school internship or something. I asked him what it was, meaning, what he would be doing. He thought I meant Boggy Creek itself, so he told me that it was a heavily wooded area where people had seen Bigfoot. I told him yeah, I know what Boggy Creek is, but, what are you actually going to be doing there? He didn't hear the question, or didn't understand it, so I gave up.
Next I was walking with Mariana up near the Wendy's on Colonial Drive. I'm not sure if this was the same dream continued, or a separate dream. We went into an expensive candy shop. I think one of her exes worked there, but I don't know if it was a real-life ex, or merely a "dream ex." Whoever it was, they seemed to be on mostly friendly terms, and the three of us stood there chatting. The guy, whoever it was, seemed to be hinting that he would be getting off work soon, and was trying to invite himself along with Mariana, or get us to invite him out with us. I wasn't too keen on that, naturally, and was hoping that Mariana would not take the hint. There was a sort of gingerbread house in the store that appeared to be made out of tiny liqueurs, in tiny bottles wrapped in colorful cellophanes. It was gorgeous. I pointed at it, nudged Mariana and told her that's what we should get, so we can go home and get drunk. She laughed and said we should get not one but two.

6/20/03 Thurs night
Ed and I were invited to some outdoor party up the street, perhaps in one of the duplexes. We walked up there, and as we were circulating about the party, I noticed some concrete alligators, realistically designed but just slightly larger than actual size, that were half-buried in the ground, to create the illusion that they were "swimming" in the ground. I was flooded with nostalgia; I remembered that as kids, whoever had lived in that particular house had had those alligators, and I was pleased to see that they were still there after so many years. (Note: while Ed and I did run all over the street as kids , and probably did know whoever lived in this real-life house, there were no such concrete alligators anywhere.) I turned around and asked Ed who had lived in the house when we were kids. He didn't hear me though, so I asked him again. We finally decided that it might have been the Sears family, but we weren't sure.
There were many more details; this was a very dense dream. But I don't remember them.

6/16/03 Sun night
I was at school with Mariana. I'm not sure which school it was, either my old high school, or the university campus. But I think I was in the ladies' restroom with Mariana. At least, we were in the same restroom, and I felt very uncomfortable. We were looking at some graffiti that had been scrawled on the mirror over the sink. It was all obviously written by girls (and therefore my assumption that it was a ladies' room). So Mariana and I were reading all of this graffiti, and we saw some that asked somebody, whoever happened to be reading it, to deliver a book of CDs to somebody at some predetermined time. And there was indeed a big notebook of CDs there, propped up against the mirror. So Mariana took the notebook and handed it to me, telling me to deliver the CDs to whoever the scrawled graffiti said to give it to. I don't remember where I was supposed to meet the girl. So I took the notebook of CDs to my next class, and out of curiousity about who I was supposed to be giving this to, I loaded one of the CDs into a computer. There were a lot of files and folders on the CD, and I kept clicking on them, hoping to find one that was a text file or something that would have the girl's name in it, to tell me who they belonged to. I noticed that there were file folders on the CD that had the name of my blog site and the name of Mariana's. I was somehow flattered that this girl who I probably didn't even know, was reading our sites. Then I saw a folder called 'Red and Black,' which (in real life) was the name of a little, cheap, alternative-type literary magazine that some Bohemian artist-type put out here in Orlando years and years ago and which I had bought a few issues of back then. I was surprised that this girl knew what Red and Black was.

6/13/03 Thurs night
I was entered into some contest in high school, a basic sprint, to see who was the fastest runner. It was very spontaneous, so I decided to join. As soon as we started, I began flying instead of running. I got higher and higher, using only my arms in a swimming fashion, and I wondered if I would go even faster or higher if I also used my legs. I was easily winning the race, far ahead of the other runners, but I started wondering if it was fair that I was flying while they were only running. Would this prove that I was indeed the fastest runner, if I was flying instead of running? Meanwhile, I kept getting higher and higher, and I realized this would also make it harder for the people on the ground to judge whether or not I was ahead of the runners. I wasn't sure how to land, or how to come down lower. I was afraid of just plummeting to the ground, so I think I started swooping and swan-diving amid the branches of some large tree, hoping to be able to grab one the branches to either slow myself, or hold onto the tree completely. I was hoping that the people on the ground would be able to estimate that I had easily won the race, even if I was flying.

6/09/03 Sun night
I was driving down to see Mariana. As I crossed a medium-sized bridge nearing her city, I looked down in the water, and saw an alligator that was basically as large as the bridge itself - several dozens of feet long, easily. Of course I was concerned, and I knew that the gator was nearly in Mariana's city. I don't remember too much coherently or in order, but I know that actually there were dozens or hundreds of alligators loose all over the city, attacking people, etc. At one point I was on a roof with some kid I didn't know, and we were helping each other climb higher so the alligators couldn't reach us. Parts of this might have taken place on campus; I seem to remember running in and out of large buildings. I knew that there was the one massive super-alligator out there somewhere, so I was less concerned about all the normal-sized gators, but I was still trying to avoid them, of course. Finally some authorities used some sort of blast that dissipated into a purple gas, to disperse the alligators. Somebody remarked that this is what the city had done "the last time this happened," and I was wondering just how often alligators attacked the city. So they set off this explosion. The gas would kill the gators, but most of them just fled. I pointed down a street and showed people how all the gators were leaving, and somebody piled up all the gators that were actually killed. It was only two or three killed, and we were joking about how much the skins and meat would be worth. I don't know what happened to the super-gator.

6/03/03 Mon night
A 'Buffy' dream.
I think it started out with me as Angel. I was walking around a school, which might have been my real-life junior-high school campus. I don't think I was a student; I think, as Angel, that I was basically a guardian, drifting around the school watching out for the kids. It was daytime, but I still was somehow able to walk around in the sunlight. I saw a group of two or three people walking near me, and somehow I sensed something about one of them, that the guy in the group was a bad guy, and not really human. I didn't know what it was about him, but I just instinctively knew that he was evil, and very powerful, and very dangerous, and that even as a powerful vampire (Angel, remember), I was vulnerable to him. I also knew that he wasn't omnipotent, though, so even though I was careful and worried about him, I knew it wasn't an end-of-the-world crisis. He looked unusual, too; apparently completely human, but with an unnatural combination of hair colour and eye colour that betrayed his actual non-humanness. So he and the two or three people he was with continued walking in my direction (but not to me in particular) as I was thinking about all of this and trying to decide what to do. When he passed, I either jumped up into a tree to avoid him, or was thrown up into the tree by a wave of power and energy emanating from him. We made some brief eye contact, enough to let each other know that we knew - I knew that he knew I was Angel the good vampire, and he knew that I knew he was an evil demon or something. So I hung there in the tree until he passed, plotting my next course of action. His little group continued walking through small crowds of people, and as he passed people, others were somehow thrown away from him by the same force or energy that might have thrown me up into the tree. I knew that something would have to be done about him.
Next I remember I was a student in high school. I'm not sure if this is somehow a continuance of the above dream, or a different dream. I think I was one of the Scoobies on 'Buffy,' close friends with Buffy, Xander, Willow, etc. I know all of the characters were in my dream, so apparently I wasn't one of the main characters, but rather, a new character who actually didn't exist on the show. Somehow I knew that there was something terrible going on in school, and that I needed to get Buffy and the gang in on it so we could stop it. So as we all piled into a class, I went around and tried to collar the various Scoobies so I could fill them in on whatever I knew so far. It had something to do with a demon or something that would increase people's aggression, or violent tendencies, so normally calm people were blowing up and getting very cruel and mean. I knew that Xander usually sat at one table with Anya and some other 'normal' people, so I went to his table to get them and pull them aside, and I knew that Willow and Tara sat at a different table, so I went to get them, as well. Willow wasn't there, though, and I was a little worried that whatever bad thing was going on, had gotten her already. The class itself seemed to dissolve into chaos, and didn't meet for anything really academic. I think whatever was going to happen, started happening. Next I remember, I was running around the school hallways trying to find Buffy and Giles, as they were the last members of the Scooby gang that I hadn't yet gathered up. I was looking for Willow, too. I was running around the hallways yelling "Rosenberg! Where's Rosenberg! Willow!!" At one point I saw a girl who resembled 'Evil Willow' from the end of Season 6, with black hair, black eyeliner, etc. But as I ran up to grab her, I saw that it wasn't Willow, but rather, a character (who might have been Sheila from Season 2) who didn't like Willow, and she sneered when I called her Willow. So when I saw it wasn't Willow, I just snorted and continued running around. I knew what Giles's room looked like, but I wasn't completely sure where it was, but finally I found it, and Giles. He said something that indicated that he knew what was going on and that he had been looking for us, too. So I continued running somewhere and wound up in a classroom, either the first one, or a different one. I think the rest of the Scoobies were in there as well. Then a guy came in and started trying to calm people down, since students were crying and screaming and panicking. He got up in front of the class and started speaking. At first he was still trying to comfort us, but suddenly it became clear that he was performing some ritual to turn into the demon that we knew was attacking the school. I saw on the floor that he had assembled some crude altar, with a stuffed animal and some tires, or had constructed some sort of totem or something as part of the ritual. I kicked the thing apart to try to stop the ritual, but I was too late. The guy dropped to the ground and in a cloud of smoke and fire, turned into the demon whose name he had been reciting. It was purple, and resembled a jellyfish or one of those sticky wall-crawly toys that you throw at a wall, with its legs or tentacles sticking out from one side instead of down towards the ground. I thought to myself that it resembled Lovecraft's own description of his "C'thulhu," and I realized that it might actually be C'thulhu. And while it started out about six feet tall, it almost immediately became smaller, about six inches tall and wide, scuttling around on the floor. I almost started laughing, and saying how cute it was, like in 'Fear Itself' from Season 4, when the 'fear demon' manifests as a tiny little thing. But I still realized that we needed to destroy it. So I kneeled up on a steel chair, and started hopping the chair around, trying to land one of the steel legs down on the demon to stab it. It worked, and it dissoved into smoke, but almost immediately resurrected itself from one of the legs, and came back, this time in a different colour. So I hopped the chair up again and came down on it again, pinning it to the ground. As I was doing this, I was yelling, "Slayer, schmayer!" to tease Buffy about how we didn't even need her to destroy this particular demon. And sure enough, this second time, stabbing the demon seemed to work, and when it dissolved, it didn't come back.
There might have been more to this dream, and if I remember it, I'll add it.

I saw in a television guide that some soap opera was doing a sweeps-week gimmick where the plot had moved to Sunnydale, from 'Buffy.' I wondered, since 'Buffy' has ended, if any of the Buffy actors would be making cameo apperances in character on this soap during the two or three days that it would be set in Sunnydale, and according to the TV guide, they were. I showed the TV schedule guide to somebody, perhaps Mariana.

4/03/03 Wed night
I was watching some sort of press conference about the Gulf War. A military guy was using a Battleship-type screen with red lights on it to illustrate troop movements or whatever. I kept wanting to ask him about 'D-3,' a point on his map. I knew that if I could poke D-3, it would create a red point of light that would help illustrate my question. I kept poking it, but nothing happened.
Fragment: something about Beavis the Indestructible WonderHound and Scruff together.
I asked Mariana about her dreams. {Note: in real life this evening, Mariana reached out in her sleep and her hand hit the table next to the bed. I don't know why.} I asked her if she remembered hitting the table. She said no. She said she had dreamed about a military press conference and that she kept wanting to press 'D-3' just like in my dream. I laughed and said, my god, we had the same dream! Then I asked if she also dreamed about Beavis. She said yes, that Beavis was with another dog. I realized that she, too, had dreamed about Beavis and Scruff. I was amazed.

4/01/03 Mon night
I was at a mosque and somebody asked me to give an older gentleman a ride home. I think I knew the guy, at least vaguely. So I absent-mindedly drove to my own house without dropping the guy off first. When we got to my house, the guy got out of the car, as if he didn't mind being so far from his own house; I think he was prepared to either walk home or walk until he found a taxi or a bus-stop. Then I realized I needed to drive him home. When we got back into my car, he showed me a pamphlet or something, inviting me to the mosque he usually goes to. I appreciated the offer, and listened patiently as he described it. Only after a few minutes did I notice at the top of the paper that it said "Shi'a" on it. I pointed it out and said, well, sorry, but I've aligned myself with Sunnis. He chuckled a little condescendingly and asked what would happen if Imam Musri (at my mosque) passed away, and said that wasn't a problem at his mosque because the line of succession is already set. I tried to brush off the question by laughing and saying, what??? Imam Musri will never die..!

3/11/03 Mon night
I was at UCF, wandering around in what seemed to be a concert hall or something. There was a large grand piano on a platform, separated by velvet ropes. I was behind the piano, where the lid was lifted, looking inside of it at the strings. Dr. Brunner was sitting with his back to me, near the piano. I reached in and did something inside the piano which set off a long stream of loud notes. I knew Brunner had to have heard me, but he didn't react. I snuck away from the piano, and went towards the exit. As I walked I overheard Dr. Brunner talking to another music/chorus professor, giving him some instructions for that day's concerts. I thought, gee, it would really embarrass Mariana if I was to get caught in here today; she's probably going to be at this concert, if not actually performing in it. So I knew I had to get out without being caught. I heard Dr. Brunner telling the other guy not to let any students near the piano before the concert, and I smiled to myself at the irony. As I got closer to the exit, I heard my dog scratching at the door. (Note: in real life, my dog was scratching at my bedroom door to go outside.) I opened the door, and my late, great dog Scruff came running in. I scooped him up, to keep him from running into the concert hall and alerting Dr. Brunner to my presence.
I took Scruff outside for a walk, holding onto his collar, walking like that. I momentarily wondered if they sold leashes in the bookstore, knowing that it would kill my back to walk around hunched over with my finger in the dog's collar. But I did anyway. So we walked around campus, quite quickly, as the dog scrambled around. At one point I let myself just fly along in the air behind the dog, with my feet actually no longer on the ground. Then Scruff jumped into a fountain or pool, and began swimming around. He got out and shook himself off, and then plunged again into another portion of the pool. He swam along underwater, and then became listless and motionless. I was concerned that he might have drowned, and didn't really know what to do. There was a class of some sort being held near the pool, and that professor came over to help. He said that perhaps the shock of the dog plunging into the cold water had been too much for it, and asked if the dog had a weak heart or was sick. I said, no, he's old but he's quite healthy. The professor repeated his theory that the shock of the cold water had been too much, and began telling me, and his class, that sometimes that happens, that animals' hearts just give out under that sort of stress. I said, no, he'll be fine, trust me, this dog is tough. The professor then asked me if the dog had an immigrant's heart, by which I understood him to mean that an immigrant dog would be more vulnerable to the shock. I said no, he's just old. We pulled Scruff out of the pool, but I saw that he had turned into a PayDay candy bar - peanuts over a bar of caramel. He was still Scruff, though. The professor was quite certain that Scruff was dead, but I knew better. See, the professor said, the caramel is quite stiff; that's because the water was so cold. That's what happened. I told him, no, we just have to warm him up, he'll be fine. So I began rubbing the PayDay/Scruff bar, warming it with my hands. And sure enough, after only a few minutes, the caramel softened, and a moment later, the candy bar began moving and squirming on its own in my hand. It became obvious that Scruff was fine, just as I predicted, and I heard a girl behind me say, oh my gosh, is he all right?? I knew that any moment, the PayDay bar would re-shape itself into Scruff, and he would be fine, and I knew I had been right all along. The professor was stunned. (Note: In real life, at this point, my dog scratched at my door again and woke me up from this dream.)

I was in some sort of bar or restaurant with Joel, Tom, and somebody who I knew to be my boss, and who resembled actor Robert Duvall - older and bald. It was a lively sort of atmosphere, lots of drinking, revelry, with the restaurant staff instigating the crowd to drink and party. Somehow, I won a date with one of the waitresses or something, or a free kiss from any of the waitresses I chose. I won it in some random drawing, or by winning some silly little bar game or something. I didn't want to participate (because of Mariana), and I wondered who I could give the "prize" to. (I was also disgusted at the idea of kissing a waitress who evidently would be doing this repeatedly, night after night, with guy after guy.) I knew Joel and Tom both also had girlfriends, so I gave it to my boss. I knew he was married, but he was the type who was always complaining about his wife and about his marriage, and figured he might enjoy it. So the restaurant staff began this big countdown to the moment when he (and others who had won similar prizes) could kiss the waitresses. As they counted, I began wondering if my boss would go through with it, and I secretly hoped he wouldn't (because he was married). Tom was also browsing through the crowd, looking for a waitress who met his specifications. I saw my boss talking to the waitress he had chosen (or that I had chosen before passing it off to him), and it was clear that he wasn't going to do it. I clapped him on the shoulder and told him, "I'm proud of you, boss, for not doing it, for not kissing that skank." When the four of us met up again at the table, he was clearly upset that I had put him in that position, that I had just assumed that he needed somebody to kiss, whereas Tom, Joel, and I hadn't. He got up and stormed off into the crowd. I knew he was right, but I also knew that I had just been testing him, testing his fidelity to his wife. I knew that was kind of inappropriate, too, but I knew he would pass the test. I got up to follow him, to apologize and tell him I knew he would pass the test. I saw him ahead of me, but because of the crowd, I couldn't catch up to him immediately. Then I looked away for just a moment, and when I looked back up, he was gone. I looked around but couldn't find him anywhere. I looked through a couple of doors near where I had last seen him, but they led into the restaurant kitchen and to the restrooms, and I didn't find him in either place. I was a little bit bewildered, and I looked back at our table, shrugging to indicate to Tom and Joel that I had lost track of my boss. I was worried that they would think that I had deliberately lost him, to avoid the humiliation of the face-to-face apology. And I was genuinely surprised that I had lost him; I couldn't imagine where he had gone in that moment when I had looked away. The restaurant staff was still hosting a lot of party games and drinking games, and the crowd was still going wild. I think I finally found him and apologized, but I'm not sure; I think I discovered that he wasn't nearly as angry as he had seemed and that it wasn't as big a deal as I had made it out to be.

3/07/03 Thurs night
I was preparing to go into some huge battle - a hand-to-hand, medieval sort of battle. Whoever was in charge was handing out some tools to us soldiers - a huge battle axe or knife or something, and a stone to sharpen it with. I used mine to sharpen my axe to a hideously effective edge. I then picked up my brother's, and began sharpening his as well. I knew that in the heat of battle, it was possible that I or my brother, or both, might lose our weapon, so if I happened to pick his up in battle, I wanted it to be sharp. But as I began sharpening his, it wasn't as easy; the blade bit into the sharpening stone, dulling the blade and hacking up the stone to the point where it couldn't be used to sharpen anymore. I kept trying, but I kept sticking the blade in the chopped-up portions of the stone. It wouldn't just slide along the blade anymore. I was concerned that the blade was becoming useless. I think I then switched to using my sharpening stone to bring the edge back to my brother's axe.

2/27/03 Wed night
A Jason dream!!
Mariana and I were parked in some large parking lot, a mall or something. It was late afternoon or early evening or so. There were a lot of college-age folks around, so it might have been a campus parking lot. We were aware that Jason was lurking around, and a lot of people were running and driving away. I got out of the Jeep and ran to the back. There were piles of clothes on the ground behind the Jeep, so I scooped them up and just tossed them inside. I knew Jason was close, but I didn't know how close or where, so I wasn't sure whether I should go back around the driver's side or the passenger's side to get back into the Jeep. But I went around the driver's side and jumped in. I knew that as long as I could get back into the Jeep, I'd be relatively safe, since even if Jason attacked me I could accelerate enough to drive away. And I did. I think Mariana was either with me in the Jeep, or had run somewhere else. At that point, though, I was just daring Jason to come after me; I knew I had plenty of room to drive and there would be no way for him to catch me. So I drove out of the parking lot and onto some expressway. I took an exit off the highway that I wouldn't normally take, thinking that Jason wouldn't think to come off this exit to look for me. Somehow the exit narrowed into the stairwell of a building or something. What would normally be tollbooths off the expressway turned into tollbooths in the stairwells, and a lot of these pathways in the stairwell turned into deadends, taped off. I kept passing tollbooths as I circled up and up the stairwell. At one tollbooth there seemed to be a guy who I knew was an employee or monitor of some kind. As I climbed the stairs, I heard him talking to another guy and girl who were there. Apparently the other guy had missed work because of sickness, and the first guy was telling him that he looked a little better than the last time he had seen him. I kept climbing, but I needed to find a restroom, quickly. Finally at one landing I did, and gratefully headed over to the urinal. (Note: in real life, I needed to use a restroom, and when I woke up from this dream, I did. In the restroom, I mean.) As I stood at the urinal, I saw that it looked out over some large lobby in the building. I wondered if the folks down below in the lobby could see me up there at the urinal, or if the angle somehow would prevent that. There was an escalator coming up below me, that apparently carried people to the floor immediately below where I was, and I was worried that the people on the escalator would be able to see me. There were three girls on the escalator, one of whom was Tammy Reeves, who is a year younger than me and lived one street over. (I hung out and played sports and stuff with her brother, Nick, who was a year older than me.) As they got nearer, I heard their conversation (which was a bit graphic). Tammy was saying that she came very well last night, and when she used the restroom she was fine, but now she wasn't fine. I was appalled at what I was hearing, and thinking back to the guy in the stairwell and how he had been sick, I began wondering if there was some infectious disease or plague going around or something. I knew Jason was still out there, still after me, and I knew I had to get moving, but I wasn't sure which direction to head from there. I think there was more, but I don't remember.

2/26/03 Tues night
Another fishing dream.
I decided to go fishing on a spur-of-the-moment basis in a local lake (which may have been on or near Flewelling Avenue in Ocoee). I saw some boats trolling around the lake, and it appealed to me, so I decided to join them. This is all a bit fragmentary. I think I was thinking about getting my tackle box, and thinking about whether or not I had seen boat rentals at the lake or whether I should just fish from the shore. I cast my line and almost immediately got a bite. I wasn't positive at first, because I was surprised at how quickly it happened, but it was clear that I had something. So I reeled it in, very quickly, and saw that it was a large fish, maybe three feet long. I got it out of the water and saw that actually, I had snagged it, and my hook was actually through the fish's head, entering under the jaw and exiting the top of the head. (I don't know how long the hook was!) It was an unusually-shaped fish, with a rounded head, almost like a miniature sperm whale or something. Then somehow the fish turned into a small cat.(Note: last night I knelt down to pet a cat while working and while I was talking on the phone to Mariana.) I saw that the cat had been injured by my hook, and I felt terrible, and I was praying that the cat would be alright. He walked around and stumbled a bit, and I wasn't sure what would happen to him. I think I was explaining the fishing to Joel and explaining how I had hooked the big fish. (Joel was in this dream throughout, but I don't recall how.)

2/19/03 Tues night
I was meeting Joel over at his apartment at Lake Olympic. As I approached the door, I saw a lot of snakes all over the place. I was watching my steps, tip-toeing between them to avoid getting bitten. I grabbed one snake right behind the head as I got to the door. He was still married to Holly, and she opened the door shirtless. I quickly averted my eyes, surprised, and waited for her to get a shirt or something. Joel came to the door, and I threw the snake inside, saying sarcastically, gee, you invite me over so I can get bitten by a snake?? I knew I had to finish my Comp II Core II, so I asked if I could use his computer to print it out or something. He said sure, and motioned me to the back, which happened to be the sewing room at my grandmother's house in Florida. I sat down at his desk and started working. I looked for some clean printer paper to use, but could find only some wrinkled, soiled paper. Then I started rummaging through drawers looking for something or other. All of the drawers seemed to be full of a ridiculous amount of office supplies - entire cartons of staples and paper clips, dozens and dozens of highlighters in only two or three colours, etc. I was amused and mystified by how many of everything Joel had.

2/17/03 Sun night
A grandmother's-house dream.
Mariana and I were living at my grandmother's house in Florida. At some point I think she decided to sleep outside, or at least on the porch, to enjoy the fresh air. I said okay, well, my room is inside, you know, if you want to find me (said as a strong hint).

2/04/03 Mon night
Laura Pennisi was sitting on the couch in my living room. I was aware that she was dead, but she was animated. She told me that even though she had died, some strange, freak of nature had occurred, where her body and mind remained active even though her heart had stopped and she was in every other sense dead. She was like a vampire, without the suckingness of blood. I was only the fourth person who knew, she said; everybody else in the world just assumed that she had died and been buried. (I don't know who the other three people were who knew.) She had spent the past several years since her "death" just wandering around, avoiding everybody she knew, and she was bored and lonely.

2/03/03 Sun night
I met Mariana's parents. I was visiting her in Venice, and apparently sleeping in a bed in a room, without her parents' knowledge. I don't know if it was Mariana's room, or elsewhere in house. It was around 11pm, and Mariana was with her family somewhere in the house, while I lay in that bed. Her family was LOUD; I could hear them clearly as they laughed and talked and yelled. Sabrina Karesh was there, apparently to act as some sort of buffer between me and Mariana's parents. The room was painted in an abstract pattern of differently sized, randomly overlapping squares and rectangles of different colours, mostly reds and muted browns, I think. At one point, I got up out of the bed to go examine one of the colours, which seems to shimmer and disappear and change colours from certain angles. As I did so, Mariana's mother came in. I knew there was no way to hide, or avoid the meeting. I decided to act like I was still half-asleep, and groggy. I figured that if I acted like I was just asleep, or had just woken up, I would appear less threatening than if it appeared like I was creeping around the bedroom. So I deliberately lurched over to Mariana's mother, rubbing my eyes as though I had just woken up moments earlier. I think Sabrina introduced us, and I shook her hand and called her 'ma'am.' The conversation went fairly well, and there was no awkward questioning. Then I sat back down on the edge of the bed, and as I did so, I noticed that Mariana's father was there on the other side of the bed, kneeling with his hands clasped as though in prayer. I pretended that I hadn't seen him, and kept talking to Mariana's mother. Then her father poked me in the ribs to get my attention. I turned around without rising, and from the awkward position, attempted to shake his hand. But it was very awkward, and we couldn't get coordinated: I tried to shake his left hand with my right, and vice versa, and after a few moments of fumbling we both laughed about it. Then the three of us were talking, and there were still no unpleasant moments. Then he and I were walking and talking. There was a third man there, but I don't know who it was. Her father asked me if I lived in Windermere, or did any shopping in Windermere. It was clear that he hoped the answer was yes. I said no, I don't live in Windermere. But I'm a utilitarian, I said, and when shopping, I go wherever I need to, including Windermere, sometimes. That seemed to satisfy him somewhat. Then he and I were wandering around in my house, and he seemed to be inspecting it, and therefore to be inspecting me. I was cringing, knowing my house would never pass his inspection. I was also wondering if Mariana had followed through on her joking threat to ask her dad to "fix up" my house as a bonding experience between the two of us. I was thinking, oh no, please don't make any offers to help, I'd be way too nervous to spend that much time around him...

I was talking to Stan Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy). He was dressed and made up as a sad clown, complete with makeup, wig, etc. Apparently, he chose this career after his film career with Oliver Hardy dried up. He was very unhappy about it, and complaining that this career as a clown was all he could find to support himself. And he was tired of being a clown, had grown to resent it. The facepaint was difficult to get off, he said, and many times he wasn't able to remove it completely. In fact, he said, Liza Minelli (or some other older, female celebrity) once hugged him and patted his face, and got the facepaint all over her hand. He felt bad about that, and that only made him all the more sad and resentful of his circumstances.

2/02/03 Sat night
Mariana took me to a martial-arts studio where she apparently studied. (Note: before bedding last night, I watched the end of a standard, stereotypical showdown-type martial arts flick starring minor-league action-movie star Billy Blanks and Mako.) We were talking about boxing versus various martial arts. Jokingly, we both struck opposing stances: me in a traditional professional boxing stance, her in a traditional (or stereotypical) kung fu stance. She then introduced me to one of the elder instructors at the studio, who talked and laughed with us a bit. Then there was some sort of more formal introduction to that instructor and three others, and this time, the guy was much more somber, more subdued.

1/28/03 Mon night
A dream within a dream, a dream about a dream.
Some long dream about Mariana, that I don't remember. But it was very coherent, very logical. I woke up (in the dream) and told Mariana about the dream, replaying it for her in detail.

I was at a Kinko's, doing some minor photocopying. I asked Tom (I think) if he would do me a favour, by going to see how much it would cost to have a JPEG turned into a quality, printed colour photograph with negatives. He came back and told me, "46,000." I was stunned. "$46,000???" I asked. I checked the sign that had their prices for various services and products, and sure enough, that was the price. There was much more to this dream, a lot of drama and hoo-haw.

1/10/03 Thurs night
It was a Christmas Eve or Night. The guys were over here and we were wrapping gifts, celebrating, having a good time. Joel was out in the kitchen and got extremely angry at something, I'm not sure what. But I could hear him taking it out on everything out there. He dumped the kitchen table over onto the floor. My brother went out there and started yelling at him, and punched him a couple of times before telling him to just go, and not come back. Joel asked what that smell is, and I told him from the living room that it was probably everything that had been on the table but was now messed up on the kitchen floor. I went into the kitchen and saw Joel on his hands and knees, trying to pick up bits of stuff from the floor, and yelling and cursing about it. I told him to just go home, not come back, and I went back out into the living room, fuming. He took the glass table and rammed its edge into the wall, and broke it, since it hadn't broken the first time he had dumped it over. I went over there and punched him two times in the nose, even though my brother already had. After the first punch Joel said something about me breaking his nose, and was I satisfied, or something like that. Even while I was throwing the second punch I could see that his nose was a little bit mis-shapen and greenish, but I punched him again anyway. So he left, cursing his way down the driveway. I saw that he had parked his car on the street not parallel to the curb in front of our house, but rather perpendicular, angled in, actually. He drove away.

Fragment: something about the garage area of my grandmother's house here in Florida. I went out there to look for something that was stored out there. It was stuff that belonged to me as a kid, or something, that I knew was being kept out there indefinitely. I noticed a lot more stuff this time than I remembered the last time I was there, and wondered where it came from. There was a girl there, not sure who, maybe a cousin or something. She said she knew I was wondering where all the extra stuff came from, but I don't remember her explanation.

1/09/03 Wed night
I was dropping Mariana off at school late one night. From where we parked, behind us, a door opened, and a flood of people started pouring out. Mariana said, oh, that's the Phillipines party, only Filipinos could go. I looked, and sure enough, they were all Filipino. The party had gotten busted somehow, and all of the people gathered in that one location and sat down. The authority, whoever it was who had busted the party, started walking up and down the rows, lecturing them. One guy stood up and said rather contemptuously that, yeah, they all knew why the party had been busted, they knew all the rules, they knew they had broken them, and they had done so deliberately, so please spare them the lecture of what they already knew.

1/01/03 Wed night
I was visiting Mariana down in Venice, and she had something to do for a couple of hours, so I was wandering around for a while until she was free. I still didn't know my way around of course, and whatever place she was at was about a block from 41. So I went the one block up to 41, figuring, even *I* can't get lost going just a block. So that's what I did. I turned left and drove up a ways, didn't find anything particularly interesting for a couple of hours, and then turned around and went the other direction. When I got back to around the same area I had started from, not far from wherever Mariana was, I found a BooksAMillion a few minutes away from wherever she was. I came back to wherever it was that I had left her, parked, and walked to the bookstore - that's how close it was. Spent an hour or whatever there, then met up with her again. Or, somehow, that's where she was supposed to meet me, the bookstore, or something like that. I told her I was at, or had been at, the BooksAMillion. Mariana said, what?? That's, like, 45 minutes away!! I said no, it's just right over there, real close, I literally walked to it! She was surprised; either she didn't know about that particular store, or had forgotten about it, or something.
I, Kristen, and someone else were sitting on a bench, either wtching Mariana do something, or waiting for her to finish doing something. I'm pretty sure this was part of the above dream somehow. I don't know who the third person was with me and Kristen. But this bench was located downtown here, Winter Garden, near that big Christmas tree and all the trees covered with lights. We were, of course, making fun of Mariana, playfully, laughing and joking with her about whatever she was doing. She was laughing and joking with us too, so it's not like we were just being cruel.
I came home from my visit with Mariana, and found myself walking to my house from down the back alley, away from the lake. As I walked, I saw that there was some big neighbourhood garage-sale going on, pitched tents in everybody's yards with tables set up. I was thrilled, but also knew that I didn't have much cash on me after the trip, and it was starting to get dark anyway. I wandered into one tent and saw that the people were selling a lot of Coca-Cola merchandise, kitschy little items. They also were selling a lot of tumblers and glassware. (Note: when I visited Mariana, she pointed out the store in Venice that sells nothing but tumblers.) I continued on and went inside my house. The house was dimly lit, and I could see a lot of tumblers and glassware stacked up on the kitchen table. The house wasn't this one that I actually live in, and I'm not sure what house it actually was. But almost immediately a large, tall, obese black woman came up to me, gave me a big hug, and backed me up against a wall hugging me. It was obvious that she was my wife. I don't know if I remembered that I was married to her, or was just discovering that I was married to her. But I then realized that I was obviously cheating on her, with Mariana. I think I felt bad about it, but I also remember not caring, or at least, deciding to not stop cheating on her. I think I was aware that she was basically a good woman, a good wife, I guess, I didn't hate her or anything. I just wanted Mariana instead and I was thinking about that when she hugged me - I was thinking something like, "Well, I'm sorry, but I can't give Mariana up, I know it's wrong to cheat, but...it's Mariana!" (Note: this imagery of tall, obese, blackness might have come from the Bubbles character in Lilo and Stitch, which I had watched parts of and which I had talked about with Mariana.)

I was on campus walking down the sidewalk away from Visual Arts towards Colbourn Hall. As I walked, I kept passing former students headed towards Visual Arts on the same sidewalk. Every time, they would offer me a handshake, and some of them were very elaborate, intricate handshakes that involved gestures, synchronized movements, etc., like secret-club handshakes or something. I knew that there was somebody I knew walking behind me, another student or something, and I knew they would be wondering how I knew all of these handshakes. There was also some fragmentary imagery in this dream about a girl wanting to meet with me in my office, and trying to set up an appointment, or something like that.
I noticed some workmen gathered around a small hole in the ground, perhaps three feet across, like a manhole. There was orange tape and cones around the hole, so it was clear something important was happening here. I wandered over to watch, to see what was happening. A diver surfaced in the water in the hole, which was apparently very deep. Another fellow standing around the hole was dressed in obvious workmen's clothes, and he started putting on diving gear - mask, tank, flippers, etc. Then he went into the water. Somehow I found out that a ship, or a submarine, had sunk in this tiny, well-shaped body of water, and they were searching for it and for survivors. (Either somebody told me, or I overheard conversation.) I decided to help, so I started putting on the equipment so I could join in the search. This happened near the sidewalk on the parking-garage side of Colbourn Hall, and also in the front yard here at my house, near the Mother's-Day plant. Somehow, it was happening in both locations, and I can clearly visualize both locations in the dream. It also may have somehow been a part of the above campus dream where I was exchanging handshakes.

12/26/02 Wed night
I was eating lunch at school in some cafeteria or something, alone. Mariana came in and sat down with Sean to eat at a table about 20 feet away. She made eye contact with me, but didn't say anything, and kept eating. A few minutes later she got up and went to another table, where Katie was eating, and still ignored me. Katie turned around and asked me if I've talked to Dave recently. I didn't know which Dave she was referring to, so I asked - "Your Dave, or my Dave?" She didn't hear me, so I repeated the question, a bit louder. She still didn't hear me, and Mariana didn't say anything. A girl next to me (who I may or may not have known) asked me to keep it down, or if I wanted to have a conversation with Katie, could I please go over there. I said no, it's not that important; if she wants to know about Dave, she can come over here and ask again, and if it's not important enough for her to do that, it's not important enough for me to go over there to tell her. I was mad that Mariana still wasn't sitting with me. This was a very upsetting dream, and I awoke feeling very sad.
I was teaching a single class. It was located in a portable building, somewhere near the administration building of the campus where I went to junior high school. Somebody had to tell me where the portable was; I had no clue. I showed up the first day of class and headed towards the desk that looked like the teacher's. I started shuffling my books and papers around, waiting for the class to begin, and was joking with one or two of the nearest students. I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I noticed an older fellow sitting at the desk to my right, but paid little attention to him. Then the class began, and that fellow stood up and began addressing the class. All at once I realized that I was not actually THE teacher, but rather, only an assistant who would pretty much just be lingering in the background on a day to day basis. It was a science-based class, biology or something, and I'm not even sure it was a writing or English class (LINCed with biology). I was stunned to realize I was just the assistant. The teacher asked some sort of quiz question, or trivia question, and I wasn't sure I knew the answer. I realized that on a day to day basis, I would be expected to have a good, University-level knowledge of biology (or whatever science this was), and I wasn't sure I was qualified. I also knew the teacher would expect me to give similar quizzes on days he wasn't there and that I would be teaching solo. Then this classroom started to resemble the class where I had Mr. Fenner in 9th grade. Jocelyn Watson was sitting at the table behind mine; I was sitting at a table with other students and no longer next to the teacher. I'm not sure, but I think Jocelyn was trying to get from my table to the table behind me, or was standing behind me, trying to lift herself up and over her table so she could stand behind my table. She was stuck somehow, though, and couldn't get herself over to where she was supposed to be. She was trying to be discreet so the teacher wouldn't notice her, and she was just barely starting to get on my nerves. I was already irritated at being demoted to assistant teacher. At the end of the class period, a girl who I knew had been in one of my classes in a previous semester called out my name and handed me some papers that I knew she should have handed in last semester, and not that day, the first day of the next semester. I was a bit flustered by the whole experience, so I absentmindedly took the papers, shoved them in my bag, and I guess went home. I got home and was talking to somebody about it, I'm not sure who. The person asked who the teacher was, and I couldn't remember the name. I said I had it written down, though, and started shuffling through a bookbag looking for the paper I had written it on. Finally I found it, written in pencil, and whoever I was talking to in my hallway read the name. He pronounced it differently than I had, and it was difficult to match his pronunciation with the actual spelling of the name. But he seemed to know who it was, and said something about the teacher (that he was difficult, that he was unpleasant, something like that), but I don't remember what. All of this may have been somehow connected to the Mariana-lunchroom dream, above.

12/25/02 Tues night
Mariana and I were going to school at UCF, only the buildings were all monumental, monolithic architecture, composed of huge stones, like a medieval castle or some lost Mayan city. Someone warned of us a fire drill, or an actual fire, so we left whatever room we were in and walked outside. Nobody was panicking, and people were just casually milling about, laughing and talking, so we didn't know if there was actually an emergency. We were holding hands, and I was thinking, hey, we're holding hands, and nobody is noticing! Then we saw some smoke or steam billowing out of a walkway down into earth (like to the first floor of Phillips Hall, only smaller), and that's when we realized that something, somewhere, at least, was actually on fire.
Mariana and I were walking down Verna Street towards Main Street. (This may have been a continuation of the above, perhaps after we fled campus.) As we passed the neighbor's house, I saw that my brother had discarded a card table and four folding chairs in front of Steve's house (and not in front of our own). I knew the table and chair set was still in relatively good condition, so I was a bit irritated that he would have thrown it away. As we approached my house, I started wondering if it was clean or messy inside.

12/22/02 Sat night
Fragment: Scruff on the top bunk of bunkbeds, looking very grey and very thin, with long, whispy fur. I was aware that either he was very old, or actually back from the dead.

12/21/02 Fri night
Another fishing dream.
I was out on a boat, possibly a boat I owned, with somebody else, I don't know who. We saw some weeds in clumps and decided to fish around them. I dropped a line and got nothing for the first few minutes. Then I felt some resistance on the line as I was trying to reel it in. It wasn't jerky, just consistent, so I thought I had snagged something. I gently kept reeling and pulling, because I could feel it coming along. I saw that I had somehow hooked a small, square object, about the size and shape of two floppy disks stacked together. I took it off the line and examined it, but had no idea what it was. But the hook seemed to have snagged it in some seam along the edges, so I worked that seam for a moment, and the thing snapped open. I saw that it was a moneycase of some sort, and it was filled with cash of all denominations, from ones all the way up to hundreds. I don't think I ever counted it, but from the number of hundreds and fifties I saw, it had to have been 500 or 600 dollars or so. Of course I was thrilled. Next I was walking along the parking lot of the Oak Forest Apartments. There was some sort of sale, or bazaar, or auction, going on, and that boat was up for sale, I think. I remembered that I hadn't taken the little moneycase out of the boat and thought, well, just my luck, I stumble across a big wad of cash, and I lose it. I looked in the boat, saw the moneycase, and subtly pocketed it.

I saw a small bird on the table outside on the patio. Although it wouldn't hop on my hand, I saw that it wasn't afraid of me. I continued doing whatever I was doing on the patio. Beavis the Mighty charged out, and a few moments later, I saw that he was eating the bird (which had changed into a squirrel, of course). I managed to force Beavis's jaws open and pulled the squirrel out, but it appeared dead already. I started walking down to the back fence to dispose of it in the grass on the other side, keeping my body between Beavis and the squirrel so he wouldn't see that I had it and wouldn't try to get over, under, or through the fence to get to it. I saw that somebody had cut down about 80% of the passionfruit vines that cover the back fence. I jumped to the other side of the fence and surveyed the damage, assuming that either a neighbor or the city had cut them back under the assumption that they were just growing wild and out of control. I contemplated posting a sign that said "Hey! Stop cutting my passionfruit!" Then Ed walked down and said that he had cut them for some reason. I saw that he hadn't cut them totally, that there were already fresh buds and grabbers growing out and, well, grabbing the fence, so I felt better. Then I noticed what I knew was the foundation of a larger, older family house which I suppose had once stood on this property. There was a large stone structure which I knew had been the fireplace of the older building. It had always been there, and we had always known about it; it wasn't a discovery. But for some reason, I stepped down into the fireplace area and started poking around. My brother and I sank down a bit into the dirt, and I knew that was because I was standing in years and years of dirt and ash and that there was no pavement or cement or flooring under our feet. I noticed some boxes of old family photographs and mementos, and started sorting through them. I was amazed that they were in such good condition, and hadn't gotten ruined by moisture or the elements, even though there were in a relatively protected area. I looked forward to looking at them and handed them back to Ed to take inside. Then I noticed small stacks of recent magazines that I had apparently stored in there in recent years. I was rather disappointed to find them, because I know that if I had put recent magazines in there, then I would already have sorted through these old photographs, and there would be no novelty to doing so again.

12/18/02 Tues night
I drove to my grandparents' house in Maryland on a spur-of-the-moment decision, arriving there about 3pm one day. It only took me one day instead of two. When I got there, I went to the next-door neighbour's house instead. I think the two houses were physically connected somehow, or at least, the neighbour's house had once been a part of my grandparents' property. At the very least, I knew that my family had once owned the neighbour's house. So I went up to his door, and saw him inside, and saw that he saw me. That bothered me; either I didn't expect him to be home, or I expected that nobody lived in the house, or something. Before I could sneak away, he had lumbered out of his chair and greeted me. I was extraordinarily polite, and told him that I had just driven up to see my grandparents next door. He said, oh yes, we just had them over for dinner last week. He offered to take me over there and let me inside. I already had keys, so I didn't need him to do that, but couldn't politely say no, so we both finally made it inside. I went back to the bedrooms and sewing room, and found them. They were still asleep, or still laying in bed, my grandmother in their bedroom, my grandfather lazing in a chair in the sewing room. I knew she would be thrilled at the surprise visit, but she was very tired, and didn't get out of bed. After a few minutes of minor small talk, I began wandering around the house. And after a few minutes of that, I announced that, well, it was lovely to see them again, but I supposed I should be going, to drive back home. I don't recall my grandparents' reaction, but they didn't protest nearly as much as I wanted them to or expected them to.

I was going on some large trip with other English Department people - students AND instructors. It would last several days and overlap several class meetings. It was to leave immediately after one of my classes. When the class ended, I met up with Mariana and started walking to where everybody was gathering, near all the big orange schoolbuses. I noticed, however, that a lot of my students were crowding around Dr. Marinara. I didn't know what they were saying to her, if they were complaining about me, or what. I also remembered that I wanted to ask Dr. Marinara if, since this was an official English Department-organized trip, substitute instructors had been arranged for all of the classes, or if it was still the individual instructors' responsibilities to arrange substitutes. She said she thought that substitutes had been arranged, but wasn't 100%. I was mostly satisfied with that response. (I don't know why, if my students were part of the trip, I needed substitutes. Perhaps they were NOT going.) So while I lingered to find out what the students wanted with Dr. Marinara, and ask her my own question, Mariana and I got separated. Once I was through, though, I immediately picked her out of the crowd (strangely, she was a good head taller than most people in the crowd, rather than shorter) and I hurried to catch up with her. Just as I did so, however, we arrived at the buses. We saw that, rather than just piling onto buses randomly, people were being organized onto specific buses according to last name. I realized that made sense, at least for organizational purposes. Lines were starting to form - people with names beginning with this letter over here for this bus, with that letter over there for that bus, etc. We were disappointed that we wouldn't be able to sit together on the ride to wherever we were going, and we both went to our respective lines. Oddly, while I went to the line corresponding to my last name, she went to the line corresponding to one of her e-mail addresses. After a few minutes of waiting, it became apparent that the wait would be quite awhile, as people slowly converged at the meeting place and slowly found their assigned lines. Meanwhile, Mariana came back over to talk while we waited. So we made small talk, wasting time. When it was finally time to leave, we kissed good-bye and said we'd look for each other when we got there. She was wearing a shirt with thin, vertical purple and white stripes.

Fragment: some salesman telling me that his shampoo would be better than my current brand. He convinced me to go outside and examine his new brand. It was sitting in the middle of the pavement somewhere. I picked it up and looked at it; it was a formula of 50% bleach and 50% water. I scoffed and went back inside. (Note: IRL a day or two ago, a door-to-door salesman came by to try to sell me some miracle, all-purpose cleaner, in $66 jugs. He squirted it on the driveway, and sat down and scrubbed. He was very unhappy when I refused, and finally got up and stormed away without saying a word.)

12/17/02 Mon night
There was some common problem in cars, or all vehicles, or just some, that would cause them to...implode, crush in on themselves, rather like a plastic bottle that you inhale all the air out of. It was a demon that infested cars, or a boogeyman, something like that - something inside the car under the driver's seat caused it to happen. Everybody knew it was very possible that sooner or later, your vehicle would implode, and if you were unfortunate enough to be inside it at the time, well, that would be bad. Nobody knew why it happened, or how, just that it did, and it was a sort of Russian roulette of driving. People just accepted the risk. I was standing in some parking lot somewhere talking to someone when it happened in front of me. I saw the trunk of a silver car begin crumpling inward, and a few seconds later, the car was a barely recognizable wad of twisted silver metal and shattered glass. Then I was sitting inside my truck when I sensed it starting to happen. Somehow, we all knew that the problem, whatever it was, was centered under the driver's seat, so I reached under the seat and started feeling around. Amazingly, I was able to grab whatever was under there causing the truck to begin imploding. I managed to wrestle and pull the thing out from under the seat. It was a tiny Mexican girl, perhaps 6-9 inches tall. It was human, and live, not a doll; and somehow I just knew, instinctively or intuitively, that she was Mexican. She had grotesquely large hands, too, and I knew that whatever she did to cause vehicles to implode, had to do with these huge hands (that were disproportionately large, MUCH larger than her head). So we began wrestling, I was shaking her back and forth, her huge hands flapping back and forth on her tiny arms. Finally I think I was able to fling her out the truck window, and I and the truck were safe. This sounds comical and surreal, but this was utterly terrifying.

There was something going on in the bathroom here at my home. Whatever it was, was bad; I was looking for signs to see exactly what was happening. At one point, the bathrub rose straight up into the air, about eyelevel, hanging on the drainpipe which itself managed to extend about six feet upwards into the air. At least there was no spraying of water; the tub was still attached to its drainpipe, it was just hovering there in the air. I knew this was a bad sign of whatever was happening in the bathroom. This dream was also terrifying.

I was looking out the small window in the living-room door out into the carport, and I saw someone out there. I was very tired when I did so. And when I saw someone out there, it startled me, and I called back into the house to warn my brother that something might be happening. I tentatively opened the door, and the person ran into the storage room. I saw it was a small girl (which might link it back to the "tiny Mexican girl" dream, above; perhaps this portion was a continuation of it). Since I was just dreadfully tired, however, I could barely speak, and was able only to bellow out a few unintelligible syllables. It took me a few attempts before I was able to focus and was able to say, coherently, "Get out of here!" Once I was able to speak, however, I kept yelling it more and more clearly, and managed to chase the girl out of the storage room.

Fragment: something about my truck. I was leaning against it, talking to my paternal grandfather, when I saw that wherever we were (which seemed to be behind my maternal grandparents' house), there was a lot of snow on the ground. I was excited; the snow wasn't falling, but at least it was on the ground. I made a mental note to tell Mariana; I knew she would want to see it. So I started walking to some place else, and as I did so, I reached down and scooped up a handful and starting scrunching it into a snowball. It wasn't adhering as much as I'd hoped, but I thought it was suffice. I couldn't decide where to throw it, however.
Fragment: leaning against my truck, hearing some kids talking about it. (Due to the truck element, this may somehow have been a part of the above.) The kids admired the truck, and were telling me and and each other all of its specifications, how fast it could go, etc. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was an ordinary, small pickup truck, not remarkable in any way in terms of performance. So I got in the truck, started it up, and drove away, trying to make it seem like I was deliberately not driving fast or erratically, like I could if I had wanted to, but was choosing not to.

12/16/02 Sun night
I was at UCF in some sort of large lunchroom or cafeteria. I was naked, or at least, wearing perhaps some boxers. Nobody seemed to notice or care, but of course I was mortified. I slowly edged my way down to a far corner, on the left, and slyly started pulling on some jeans and a shirt. There was a guy sitting to my right, against the wall, eating his lunch. As I was finishing, he gestured to me and said something like, "Well, I get the jeans, but what's with the shirt?!" I looked down and saw that I had put on an extra-long, pajama-style shirt, the kind you'd wear to bed with nothing else, green and blue plaid...something I'd probably never wear in real life, at least not out of the house. I saw that on the right breast, it had a logo that said "Miami, National Champions" on it. I wondered why I had the shirt and why I was wearing it, since I hate Miami. But I didn't say anything about it and wasn't sure if the guy was referring to the shirt's length, or the design, or the logo. So I just said, sarcastically, "well, the jeans are just jeans, and the shirt is so I'm not standing here butt-ass naked." Then I sat back down in a chair, in that corner, right next to a door where I knew Mariana would be coming in. I was supposed to meet her, I think. As I sat there, a little bored and restless, I noticed a sort of in-box attached to the door, with assorted envelopes, papers, etc. in it, all facing inwards so nobody could see what was written on them. I figured, well, that really doesn't help anybody, and since I was bored, I took the envelopes and stuff out and starting idly sorting through them, re-arranging them, straightening them out. I noticed that one of them seemed to be some sort of list, or an announcement, something a sorority had put together to tell others about all the things they had done or accomplished or whatever. There was a mention of "The Twelve," which I somehow knew to be the 12 instructors that they officially endorsed and liked. I was one of the 12, or was mentioned along with the 12, something like that. I was rather pleased, and kept that item out from the rest, and put it in front or something so everybody could see it. As I did so, a rather stern, authoritarian woman came and snatched the materials out of my hands and accused me of trying to steal them. I became defensive, and said no, I wasn't stealing them, and I wasn't reading anything confidential, I was just bored and rearranging them, just, you know, straightening them up. She didn't accept that, and kept yelling at me about invading people's privacy and how she was going to get me fired. The more she raved, the madder I got. Somehow, at some point, we transported to my kitchen, and she turned into a youngish guy, but was still ranting about getting me fired. There was some concoction I was making in a big bowl, pudding, or cake icing, or mashed potatoes, something like that. The guy dipped his finger into it, and sniffed it, as though to test whether or not I had poisoned it. I knew that's what he was hinting at, that not only was I stealing mail, I was now trying to poison people. That pushed me over the line. I grabbed a big handful of the stuff and shoved into the guy's mouth, smearing it into his face. I started taunting him: "There, does that taste poisoned?? Huh? Am I trying to kill you, too? What? You can't tell? Want some more??" I grabbed another handful and shoved it into his face. "There, is that better? Now can you tell? Is it poisoned??" I then grabbed a handful and shoved it into my own mouth. "There, see?? I guess it's not poisoned, huh. See? Tastes great, doesn't it? Yum!" Very violent, very mocking. The guy was spitting and cursing, but somehow I knew that I had scared him off and that we would not be trying to get me fired anymore.

Fragment: reading the newspaper comics and noticing that many, if not all, of the comics featured vampires in various capers. Then I realized that it was Friday the 13th, and that seemed to explain it.

12/13/02 Fri night
A fishing dream.
I was walking around behind some property, behind some building, possibly The Other Job. There was a small stream behind it. It was a small stream, cluttered with rocks and refuse and running with brown, ugly water. I started noticing small, silvery fish, anonymous-looking things, darting back and forth in the water as it flowed. I was surprised to see any fish in that fetid water. There was an older fellow, who was either homeless, or who possibly owned the property, who approached and started talking to me. As we spoke, I noticed larger and larger fish in the stream. I noticed, also, that they were no longer these vague, interchangeable silvery fish, but colourful, oddly-shaped fish, very distinctive. I told the man that I was surprised, these were REAL fish, catchable fish. The guy started rooting around, and I thought, wow, is he going to bring me a rod and reel? That would be very nice of him. I don't know if he did or not. Beavis the Indestructible WonderHound was there, sniffing around the water, either splashing around in it or starting to. I had to restrain him; I didn't know what was else might be in the water, and didn't particularly want him to find out.

12/12/02 Thurs night
I was walking around out in the back yard. There was a swarm of very tiny honeybees, not the big, fat honeybees or bumblebees. Just small, yellowish ones. And they were covered with honey. I was walking around in the yard through the swarm, knowing they wouldn't sting me. Since the bees were all covered with honey, as I walked through the swarm, I was also getting covered with honey as the bees slapped against me. It was a pleasant and yet bizarre feeling. I slowly managed to make my way down to the fence, where I found some lengths of metal tubing, or railing, like in a chain-link fence. I started rooting around in the dirt, and uncovered a few more. I also found some metal, dirt-caked objects, which when I cleaned up, proved to be large hooks. Eventually I made my way down to the corner under the mango and orange trees, by the neighbours' garage. Obie (the neighbour) was down there, cleaning out his boat, saying something about how his wife was cheating on him. He invited me out on his boat, to try it out, and I guess to ask for more advice about his wife. By the time I circled around and got into the boat (which was a large cabin-cruiser), I found Obie apparently floating face-down in a whirlpool/hot-tub which was built into the cabin. I was startled, but saw that he wasn't drowning, just trying to relax. So I just sat there, not sure what I was supposed to be doing, since he wasn't talking and we weren't going anywhere. Then, I guess, he started talking about how his wife was cheating with Tom. At some point, somehow, I was then talking to his wife, and she was saying how she thought Obie was cheating on her. I don't know how I reacted. Somehow I wound up driving around with Tom, who went down east Division Street where there was the shore of some lake or pond. We went to the water, or possibly even walking knee-deep in the water, and Tom said he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him...with Obie. Again, I don't remember how I reacted. (Note: Obie doesn't own a boat. And there is no lake access down that section of Division Street, and strangely, this is not the first time I've dreamed about a lake down there.)

12/11/02 Wed night
I was at The Other Job when I saw a stack of comic books on a countertop. I assumed they had been found in the office somewhere, and I started sorting through them. Some of them were Buffy and Angel comics, and I knew they were mine, as were assorted other horror and genre comics in the stack. I realized that they were purchases I had made from Planet X and forgotten to take home. So I set them aside to reclaim them. Peter was there, also looking for some of his. (Note: in real life, I'm quite certain that I set aside a small stack of comics at Planet X for the owner Scott to get me a price check, but I completely forgot about them, and I'm pretty sure I never bought them. When I remembered days or weeks later, Scott didn't remember the stack and didn't know what he might have done with them.)

Fragment: Mariana slowly shaking her head no, as she did during our good-byes.

12/10/02 Tues night
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was at my grandmother's house in Florida. I think I wanted to get inside for some reason, and knew I had the key. I went in through the porch entrance, and for some reason I have this sense that I went through three doors to get inside, one after the other, in some systematic fashion. When I made it inside, I expected to be alone, but saw my grandmother sitting in her recliner. I was caught by surprise, but tried to casually play it off my mentioning some minor chore I had to do there, or something I had to fetch. I tried to be exceedingly polite and loving, and it seems as though it was the first time I'd seen her in a long time. I knew that she was displaying some sort of senility or dementia, and either didn't recognize me, or was in a crabby mood. So I excused myself as quickly as I could, retraced my steps through the three doors (which were in an L-shaped design, and not merely doors in a single long passageway) and left.
Fragment: walking around Walker Field at night. This might have segued into the above, given the proximity of my grandmother's house to Walker Field.
Fragment: Mariana's friend and occasional suitor, Julian, looking exactly like one of the photos she has shown me. Big, girlyish, goofy. But it was a fairly serious dream, like, I was irritated at him or vice versa, I was jealous of him or vice versa, some sort of conflict.

I ran into She Who Must Be Avoided in a hallway, and, knowing I was trapped, turned around and began to try to make pleasant and conciliatory conversation. She shook her head no, and told me that she was very angry and in fact, wished to never see or speak to me again. I walked away, surprised, but not particularly upset.

12/03/02 Tues night
Don told Ed and I to be at his house at some certain time. They were living down here. Ed and I got there separately. When I got there, I was I guess a little early, so I started playing with a young'un, either Nicolas or maybe Tracie's son. Whoever it was, had some toy that strongly resembled a rather complex book about the Web, or the In-ter-net, or computers. Like, a complete PSP manual, or a programming-language handbook, something. I sat down with the kid, and asked him to show me what he had learned, what he could do with whatever this was, something. Then Don came in and asked somebody who was there - an adult somebody, not the kid - if they could please leave for 5 minutes, because he (Don) had to talk to Ed and me about something. So that person left. It was very obvious that Don was very upset about something, about whatever he had to tell us. He was struggling for words, not sure how to begin, that sort of thing. And of course, that just made me paranoid and worrying myself. I started thinking, oh no, he and Lynn are getting a divorce...no, they're both here, they don't seem divorcy...Mom..something's wrong with Mom...Mom's sick, dying. Oh no...Finally he managed to get it out. He said that Dad had passed away on that date a couple of years earlier. He said that Mom was going to be very upset that whole day because of what day it was, and we should all do...something, I don't remember. I remember feeling mildy annoyed at the way he had presented this to us, for making us worry that something was "wrong," when what was wrong was only natural and not tragic news the way he had made us think it would be.

11/29/02 Fri night
I was a member of some class, or organization, involved somehow with theater. It might have been a standard university course. I don't know exactly what we were doing, but it somehow involved walking en masse (dozens if not hundreds of us) in some migratory fashion all over Winter Garden, for what seems like hours if not days at a time. There were scenes at Walker Field and at Lake Apopka. We would go to these locations, camp out, spend hours doing...something, and then start walking to the next location. At one point we were all sleeping somewhere on North Main St. My briefcase and stuff were sittng on a park-style bench near where I was sleeping, and everybody else was sleeping in piles and tents and sleeping bags around me. I realized, half-asleep, that everybody was getting up to start walking up Main Street to the next location. But I was too asleep to get up myself, and yet just barely awake enough to know that Mariana would poke me or slap my on the head enough to wake me up to go with the rest of them. And yet as I lay there, slowly waking up more and more, I realized that she had not woken me up, that the big group of people had left without me. They weren't that far away, and I knew it would be easy to catch up with them. So I lumbered to my feet. I noticed that a lot of the group weren't wearing shoes, so I didn't bother to put mine on either. As I started to leave, though, I looked back at my briefcase and saw that my wallet and camera were still in it. I briefly wondered about the wisdom of leaving my briefcase open with my wallet in plain view, but just grabbed the wallet and camera and took off to catch up with the others. I was very hurt and very annoyed that Mariana hadn't bothered to wake me up so I could go with her and the others. I finally wormed my way through the crowd and found her; she was talking with some other girl. I hovered in the background, annoyed, waiting for the chance to ask her why she hadn't woken me up and if she had even noticed that I wasn't walking with her for the first time in hours or days (however long we'd all been wandering and camping). As I waited, I heard the director/teacher explaining to the people that since the show was coming up, we would all have to be attending mandatory daily rehearsals. I wasn't too happy about that, either; I wasn't too keen on appearing in whatever show this was. It occurred to me then - 'wait, am I even in this class? I'm not an undergrad, this doesn't apply to me; am I expected to go to these rehearsals too? What would happen if I didn't? The heck with this, I'm not in this darn play, hell no.' I still wanted to talk to Mariana, but I never did get the chance.

11/25/02 Mon night
I was in the English Dept. 3rd floor, and I needed to use the restroom. I knew She Who Must Be Avoided might be lurking around the 3rd floor somewhere, so I decided to go down to the 1st floor restroom rather than navigate the 3rd floor halls and take a chance of running into her. So I went outside to the back elevator, and there was a big crowd of people outside of the elevator, and I had a hard time getting to it. It appeared to be all members of some class, or a team of something, who were all meeting right there in front of the elevator, as I was trying to squeeze through. Then when the elevator opened, everybody squeezed in, and I thought, well, what the hell, I have to go down, so I got in also. I think, then, the elevator turned into a classroom or something, and it turns out that all of these people were going to class. So I filed into the classroom with them. There was a guy standing at the door passing something out to everybody who came in, so naturally, I took one too. I went in and sat down on the floor next to the wall, which is what everybody else did, so I just wanted to blend in, waste some time, and hope nobody realized that I wasn't in that class. Some guy was staring at me, and I wondered if he knew I wasn't in the class, because he did NOT recognize me. But he didn't say anything. Then I looked at what the guy had been handing out; it was some kind of loose, floppy, tan suede/leather hat, almost looked like a shower cap. Everybody got one, and everybody put theirs on, so I did too. Then I realized - this was a theater class, or maybe, the cast of some campus play who were assembled for another rehearsal. The teacher (or director) stood up and started talking, and I thought, ok, no big deal, I can blend in here I guess. (I have no idea why I wanted to, though, or why I decided to go with them in the first place.) But then he told people to break up into their groups! That's when I realized, oh no, this is a theater class (or rehearsal), I don't know what people have been doing, I don't know what group I'm in, they're all separating into 4- and 5-people groups, I have nowhere to go, they're gonna know I'm not supposed to be in here, etc.etc. So I casually stood up and headed to the door. I scrunched up the little hat and balled it up in my hand as I walked past the teacher/director, so he wouldn't know I was stealing the hat, and so he wouldn't know that I had been "in" the class but was now leaving. Somehow I knew, intuitively, that these little hats were something they wore during every class meeting (or every rehearsal) to kinda get them into the mood, unite them, that sorta thing, almost like a uniform. They looked vaguely medieval, like something you'd see someone in a European village wearing. But it looked pretty cool, so I stole mine.

11/21/02 Thurs night
The backyard of the Mitchells' house next door was a large pond, or lake, with canals that led to other lakes and/or the ocean. There were a lot of alligators in it. We all knew about the gators; it was just part of the local scenery; this is Florida, after all. There were a lot of scenes to this, and I'm not sure what order they came in. At one point I and some friends were just casually watching the gators. We didn't see any at first, but then we saw more and more, much closer to us than we realized. But we were on land, looking down over some sort of railing or bridge at the gators, so we didn't feel in any danger. Then the gators started swimming and crawling towards us, and we realized that somehow they were able to get to us, so we backed off a little bit. There were some kids taking swimming lessons in one area of the pond, or in one smaller pond that was connected via canal, but so far there weren't any alligators in with the kids. But we ran to tell them anyway and to tell them about the canal which would give the gators access to where the kids were. As we did so, though, we could see that there were already alligators swimming around with the kids, who didn't realize it. When we told them, all the kids started getting out of the water, and I think the alligators attacked. I'm not sure, but I think somehow I got closeups of the attack underwater - ripping teeth, swirling water, screaming, etc. They might have gotten some of the kids, I'm not sure. Some guy was bravely knifing through the water, underwater, trying to rescue some of the kids who were still in the water.
Another portion of this: the waters of this pond system were right in our back yard, with no railing, no fence, nothing, the waves of the pond washed right up into our yard, which meant the alligators could get into our yard, as well. The houndz were out in the yard, and I knew I had to get them inside away from the gators. I was yelling at Ed to open the sliding glass door so I could push the houndz in, but he was taking too long and the dogs were running around barking at the gators. I finally managed to push Maddux inside, at least, and looked back to see that Beavis was very close to one alligator, barking and snapping and circling, and might even have been playing with it. I realized that Beavis probably had the reflexes and quickness to stay away from the gator, but that didn't make me feel much better, so I lured him away and inside by yelling "Treats!" which always makes him come running.
This may or may not have been part of the same dream. It seems like there was alligator chaos going on in the background, but they didn't have much to do with it. There was a police officer of some kind at the house, doing something, not sure which. He was in the carport talking to Ed while I was in front of the house, looking for something by the sidewalk. I managed to unearth a complete set of tracks for some kind of toy car raceway we played with as kids (in real life). It had long orange straps that were the track, which could be connected with small purple pieces that snapped into the orange tracks. All of these were connected to each other in their original templage. It had been buried, probably accidentally, years ago, vertically in the ground right next to the edge of the sidewalk. I was amazed that a childhood artifact like that was still there, still buried in the yard. I showed Ed, but he didn't realize what it was and didn't believe me that it was a piece of the same car raceway we had played with as kids. I pointed out all the pieces to him, and described how they fit together, but I wasn't sure if I should break them off the template to put them together or I keep them intact. Fortunately the police officer confirmed for him that they were definitely parts of a toy car racetrack, and I guess Ed finally believed me.
We were sitting home late night when I realized somebody was trying to break into the house. I put my hand on the front doorknob and could feel that somebody was trying to turn the knob from outside. I kept holding the knob, not letting it turn, but could still feel the person outside trying to open it. I called to Ed for help, but only one hand can fit on a doorknob, so there wasn't much he could do. My hand started to slip from sweat on the metal doorknob, and I knew I was losing my grip. I noticed as I stood there leaning into the door that there was some new doorbell, or burglar alarm, installed on the wall next to the door. I wasn't sure what its function was, so I reached over with one hand and pressed the button (which was about 6 inches long), and heard a bell ring inside, but not nearly as loudly as I expected. My brother said yes, he had installed a new doorbell. I didn't wonder why it was installed inside instead of outside, or if I did, I didn't dwell on it. I noticed, also, that there was a long piece about 6 feet long extending from the wall portion to the coffee table, and that it had been bolted to the coffee table. I'm not sure what this piece was or what it was supposed to do, but it was that yellowish-green color that indicated that it would glow in the dark. I asked Ed, and he said yes, he had extended it to the coffee table instead of its natural position (which I assume was up and down the wall or something) for some reason I don't remember. He said it was just a temporary arrangement, probably, but since it was about knee-level, it effectively blocked access to the couch from that side. I said no, that can't stay there, that's ridiculous, we can't have that thing sticking out there, not even temporarily. Finally I let the door open; my hand was too slippery to hold the doorknob still and keep the door from opening. There was a middle-aged black man outside, and immediately I told him, no, sorry, we don't have any money for you. We knew he was there to rob us (why else was he trying the knob late at night?) and would be using some cover story about needing money for whatever reason. When he saw that we weren't going to let him in or come outside, he became angry, and refused to leave. My brother fetched the phone, to make it clear to the guy that we were calling 911 to have him removed. I saw that he was driving a huge, 1970s-era Buick or something, green, and there appeared to be one or two other people in the car. When he saw that we were calling the police, I think he gave up, and got in his car and left. It's possible that when the police came, this segued into the above dream, but it seems like that police officer was there in daytime, whereas this dream took place late at night. Not sure.
Fragment: going on some semi-long driving trip somewhere, which may or may not have been connected to Domino's.

11/18/02 Mon night
I was teaching some specially-scheduled course, a summer course, or a Saturday evening course, something like that. I think it was a two- or three-hour class. I wasn't really enthusiastic about it, and I don't think I was the originally scheduled instructor. It was late in the day, and I knew I had some stuff to go over during the class. What I had to talk about was a direct follow-up of something I'd talked about earlier, which would make both days' material more relevant and complete. I think Lindee Owens was in the class as a student, or perhaps as an observer or something, and she began speaking and teaching during the second half of this long class. I was grateful for her input, but had my own material that I really needed to go over. But what she was talking about was useful and relevant also, so I let her continue. I just kept thinking, okay, Lindee, let's wrap this up, eh? I got some more stuff to talk about. And yet I was still feeling a little inadequate about my material; it was hard to not just let her take over completely.

Fragment: Mariana again. (Enough said.)

11/10/02 Sun night
Fragments: Drinking a bottle of Mountain Dew, and remembering halfway through that I don't drink it anymore. But I forgave myself, since it was honest, sheer force of habit.
Using a new cellphone, one of the flip-closing models with a colour screen.

11/09/02 Sat night
The English Department at UCF went through some sort of physical reorganization, or cleanup, or remodeling, and we all had to leave the premises for some length of time. While we were all shuffling in and out of the building, I was trying desperately, as usual, to avoid She Who Must Be Avoided. When it was time to repopulate the building, we all filed in through several successive rooms to get to wherever we were headed. One of the rooms was the mailroom, with the cubbyhole mailboxes. Sarah Clingman, from high school, was one of the people who walked through. I knew and remembered her name in the dream. She went to Eddie Pipkin's mailbox to retrieve whatever was there for him. I remembered that yes, she had married Eddie Pipkin, and thus it was okay for her to be retrieving his mail, although I wasn't quite sure what her title or status was in the Department. She was wearing a long dress and appeared to be perhaps three or four months pregnant.
There was much more to this dream, including parts where I and others were sitting around in large rooms doing...something. But I can remember only the above.

11/08/02 Fri night
I went with Ty, my brother, Joel, and possibly some others to the home of local radio-talk show host Jerry O'Neil to help him move some stuff. He opened the door to let us in, and I saw who I assumed to be his wife and son inside. For some reason I brought Maddux the Small Auxiliary Backup Dog not only to his house, but inside as well. I knew, somehow, that they wanted me to. While I was holding the dog, Jerry O'Neil's dogs came up to greet Maddux. I couldnt' tell whether or not they were about to fight, but it appeared so, so I bent down to listen for any growling. When I did, O'Neil's dog began licking my face, so I could tell that it didn't want to fight. Strangely, Maddux was the one shying away, and I assumed it was because he knew that he was in the other dog's territory. Then their other dog, a smaller, weenier looking dog, came up and did start to growl. Mrs. O'Neil gave me a friendly warning not to goad the dog on, and I jokingly replied that I wasn't, it was just mean.
Jerry O'Neil was disassembling the brick front of a fireplace in his house and was donating the bricks to something - that's what we were at his house to pick up. The bricks had already been separated into two- and three-brick chunks. My arms were tired from carrying the dog around, and I was hoping that I wouldn't appear to strain while carrying a few bricks. Ed stacked two three-brick chunks together to carry, so I did the same thing.
Afterwards, I carried Maddux outside to put him into our vehicle, but he escaped as I put him on the ground. I was annoyed at him and at myself, and since this was an unfamiliar neighborhood, I prayed that we wouldn't lose the dog while chasing him and that he wouldn't get hit by a car. And, of course, we did lose him. There were a lot of dogs running loose in the neighborhood and for a few moments, I couldn't tell which one was Maddux because I couldn't remember what he looked like. Finally I recaptured the hound.

This might have been the same dream in a different part, perhaps a different location of Jerry O'Neil's house. It was almost like some sort of outer-space, sci-fi spaceship situation. It was a dark, metallic place we were in, very moist and drippy, lots of clanging noises all around. Suddenly somebody shouted "Green alert!" I knew that was the signal to dive for cover, or to prepare for an impact or something, so I dived to the floor. But I didn't hide and didn't land in any particular location; I just landed in some random spot. There was another guy lying not far from where I was, also not in any apparent safety position. Somehow I knew that by just landing randomly on the floor, we were trying to mock conventional safety standards, trying to satirize what people in those situations usually do. Luke Leonard was there at this point (probably because of yesterday's close call!). He was sitting up, leaning against the wall, and he started laughing and asked me if I knew where they got the phrase "Green alert." I didn't, and he began telling me some story about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I was thinking, well, there was a football unit called Gang Green for such-and-such team, but the Bucs don't have any green in their uniforms, so..." I didn't see the connection.

Mariana told me, "It's good to be nice to people you have been mean to."
This was part of a longer dream about her, and I'm only partially reconstructing it. But that part was so loud and so vivid that when I woke up, I looked around the room and almost called her name, I figured she had to be there for that sentence to have been so loud and clear in my head.

11/06/02 Wed night
A lot of fragments, mostly coming after getting up for breakfast and in the hours afterward. Maybe I'll remember.

11/04/02 Mon night
There was some kind of competition taking place in the basement of my grandparents' house in Maryland. It was sponsored by some outside organization, and people were divided into teams of two. I don't recall who my partner was, or who any of the other participants were. But I knew that I and my partner had the advantage, since I knew the layout of the basement and house, where everything was, etc. It started in the washroom of the basement, and I was poking through cabinets and drawers looking for...something. Then we went into the workshop area, and I was surprised and saddened to see that so much of it had been stripped bare since my grandfather's passing. Shelves were bare, drawers were empty, the workbenches mostly clear. I don't recall how the competition ended.

11/03/02 Sun night
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was living at my grandmother's house, with my brother and grandmother. She was cooking a huge roast, just a round, plump thing, that barely fit into the roasting pan. I wasn't immediately sure just what it was, a turkey, or roast beef, or what. But I was impressed that she was doing it and that it was so plump and delicious-looking.

11/01/02 Fri night
Some disjointed fragments that seem to combine the houses of both sets of grandparents. I had a roommate of some sort in one, which I think was my maternal grandparents'. At one point, I brought the late, great Scruff over to that house and let him in, and I wondered how this roommate would react to Scruff being in the house. I wasn't really worried, though; it was my house, and if one or the other would be forced to leave, it would be the roommate and not Scruff.

I was cleaning out some box of assorted rubbish into a garbage can in my brother's house. I accidently scooped up some coins with the rubbish, though, and then had to pick through the garbage to retrieve the coins.

10/29/02 Mon night
A snake dream.
I saw a boa constrictor in my yard and caught it, knowing I had an aquarium in my garage to keep it in. It was about six feet long. I caught it fairly easily, and while carrying it into my garage, it bit me on the right thumb. When I put it into the aquarium, though, I noticed that not only was it now only about two feet long, I also already had a snake in the aquarium - some variety of hooded cobra, perhaps a small king cobra, also maybe two feet long. Naturally, the snakes started fighting, and I quickly saw that the cobra was winning. I wasn't sure how to reach in to separate them, and was looking around for anything useful - tongs, some heavy gloves, anything. Somehow I got them separated, and was distressed to see that I might have been too late - the cobra seemed to have bitten the constrictor, which laid limply in my hands. I decided to free the constrictor, and I saw that as I did so, it started reviving. But it also was very damaged, and slimy, now very much like an earthworm instead of a snake. I dropped it into the yard, to see if it could continue its recovery. Parts of it stayed in my hand, though, and I knew that earthworms could regenerate, but snakes can do so much less easily. It did, though, and I think either the various portions all revived and recovered, or at least the main portion did.

10/25/02 Fri night
A lot of fragments from one dream that I still need to get into a more cohesive order: walking around in some kinda flea market or bazaar, seeing some girls selling bead jewelry and thinking about how difficult it must be for archeologists to uncover bead artifacts from shipwrecks, rummaging through a big bin of tools and assorted small items, looking at some CDs and wondering the price of $1.99 each was accurate, seeing some album-cover t-shirts on the wall...

10/20/02 Sun night
It was tonight (Sunday night/Monday morning) and I was kinda disappointed in myself that I hadn't written or blogged anything all day. I sat down to blog today (Monday morning) but before doing so, started reading some other sites, either for inspiration, for general amusements, for assorted reasons. One of them was Shell's site. I don't remember if his site was 'themed' in any way, but I think he had several paragraphs that I thought were quite good. I cut/pasted them into my site (with acknowledgement) as a wry way of saying, look, I didn't write anything at all yesterday (Sunday) and this guy had all kinds of things to say. And I kept finding interesting things at these sites to read, and that just continued to bother me even more. Mariana told me that one of the sites was by a Muslim guy (I don't think this was Shell's, but I'm not positive). So I started copying/pasting that, too, except for a large Bismallah graphic that he started his entry(s) with.

I was driving down Hempel Avenue towards Gotha Road, thinking and/or talking about some science-fiction movie, or book, or something, that I liked a lot. I was telling somebody that one of the characters in this movie was the resident wacko, who had some pet theory that something, somewhere, had some sort of hidden middle that nobody knew about. (This is probably due to having watched a TV show about candy-making, part of which dealt with how the manufacturer was able to insert nuts and other objects into the middle of pieces of candy.) Nobody believed this guy that these objects (planets, stars, clouds, something) had these hidden middles, but of course he was right. Then I was actually watching the events of this movie, which started to resemble The Empire Strikes Back both in theme and in content. I watched as the heroes assembled on some sort of structure high in the sky (like Lando's cloud city). They all had to jump off the structure into a cloud. Over top of all of this I could hear a narration, either the wacko character's or my own, describing how the characters jumping off into this cloud would demonstrate to them that in fact his theory was correct, that they would jump into the cloud and discover its hidden inside. So sure enough, the characters all somehow managed to jump into what then appeared to be separate tunnels down into the inside of the cloud. I'm pretty sure this sequed directly into...
...this sequence where I was watching as the hero(s) held off the bad guys by shooting their laser-type pistols at them. This directly resembled the scene in where the good guys are having blaster fights with the bad guys in the corridors of Lando's headquarters. The main hero of the dream, a clear Princess Leia character, handed me her laser pistol and asked me to hold off the bad guys while she and some others went somewhere to do something. I gladly helped. I knew the pistol was effective, and was really looking forward to kicking some ass, but the pistol took a very long time to fire. I'd point it at the bad guys advancing to me, and squeeze the trigger, but it would take long, vital seconds before the yellow sparks would leap out of it. I don't remember what ever happened, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't captured or injured.

Fragment: something about my grandmother's house here in Florida. I'm pretty sure this was an extended sequence, and I might be able to recover more of it.
Update to this: I've recovered most of it:
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was at my grandmother's house and I knew that some city employees were coming by to check the water or sewage or something in or around the house. There were big puddles of standing water all over the yard, too much for the workmen to do whatever they were supposed to be doing. One of them left his big rubber boots standing in the grass near the curb and walked somewhere else on the property, or down the street, somewhere. I got it into my head that I just had to steal the boots. Had to have them. So I grabbed them and took them back into the garage of my grandmother's house, back into the little alcove where the deep-freeze was. I stashed the boots away, knowing that the guy would never, ever find them there, since he probably wasn't allowed to enter the actual residence anyway. But I still didn't want to get caught, so I hunched down in that little alcove while the guy (I assume) looked for his boots outside.

10/18/02 Fri night
Chad came over while I was, I think, cleaning out a car or something. He had a basketball and was shooting at the basket in our driveway while talking. He was blaming me for not keeping in touch with him the way I've kept in touch with Dave and Joel. I said, well, first of all, I haven't talked to Dave in years, I talk to you a lot more often and a lot more recently than I have ever talked to Dave anymore. (In real life, it's been much longer than it seemed like in the dream.) I told him he had people's phone numbers and that if he wanted to go out or whatever, he could call or drop by whenever he wants. He wasn't too satisfied with that response and kept trying to guilt-trip me, but I wasn't having any of it.

I was at the Other Job and Ty was telling me about some delivery Donna had taken (or was about to take, something like that). There was some aspect of Donna's personal life involved in that delivery, but I don't know how; perhaps she was delivering to somebody she had dated since divorcing Ty, or to somebody she wanted to date, or something. I was surprised that Ty was so unconcerned about it, he made some casual comment or joke about it (which I don't remember).

Fragment: something about Joel being ill.
Fragment: something about Mariana and I laughing about a PETA brochure she had picked up a few years earlier.

10/13/02 Sun night
A grandmother's-house dream.
I was standing in the kitchen/dining room doorway of my grandmother's house (in Florida). I knew that somebody was in the back of the house, and I was pretty sure I didn't know who it was. That person came up to the front where I was, and I saw that it was a vampire (or appeared to be). I was pretty sure that it was just a person pretending to be a vampire, or wearing a vampire costume, or something. He had his hands covering his face as he approached me, or was wearing a mask, or something. He might have been wearing a robe of some kind, or a shroud. Then he attacked me in the arch doorway between the dining room and the living room, and that's when I realized that it wasn't just somebody pretending to be a vampire, it was a vampire. I managed to get my hands up between our faces as he leaned into bite me. I got my hands on his face and was pushing him back, and was pleasantly surprised that I was having success at physically fending him off. I mean, usually, vampires have supernatural strength, more than mortals, right? I started pushing my thumbs into his eyes, and felt my thumbs sinking in deeper and deeper. I could feel my thumbs getting wet and sticky, so I knew again that I was doing major damage. Finally the vampire backed off and fled, and I was amazed that I had defended myself...you know, from a vampire.

10/11/02 Fri night
I was walking down South Main St. at night, and there were various other people milling around. There were a lot of strings dangling in the air, their ends six or seven feet off the ground. I couldn't see where they led to; they just vanished up into the darkened sky. I noticed other people reeling them in and saw they were helium balloons. I thought, wow, what a nice, whimsical thing for somebody to do, to leave nice helium balloons all over the city! I knew the city itself hadn't done it, and that some private citizen had done it for his/her own reasons. So I started pulling one or two in of my own and while I was doing so, something occurred to me: whoever did this must have put a lot of thought and effort into this. They had to calculate the lifting ability of the helium portion itself, and balance that precisely with the weight of the string attached to it, to make sure that every balloon hovered at just the right height off the ground. If those calculations were off even slightly, the balloon would sink to the ground (none had) or would rise indefinitely and no longer be visible (some might have, but apparently most or all hadn't). And all of these balloons were different sizes and shapes (some long, some round, some larger, some smaller), so the calculations would have to be specific for each balloon. In that light, I was even more impressed.

10/09/02 Wed night
I was walking around down near Lake Apopka, looking at (or for) a couple of the larger, more well known residences of the area. I saw two guys stopped in a field near the shoreline where I knew that there were ruins of a very well known mansion that for many years had been merely a pile of bricks in the vague outline of a house. I knew, probably by overhearing them, that they were looking for that particular house, but they didn’t quite know where it was. I asked them, are you looking for Meadow Marsh? or (the other house whose name I don’t recall)? They weren’t sure, and didn’t really know which was which. I mentioned that those two were really the two best known houses in the area. One of the men seemed more knowledgeable than the other, or at least, was trying to. I motioned to the ruins of the red brick house and told them the name of it (which I don’t recall) and told them that Meadow Marsh was over there a ways, along the shoreline some distance away.
I think this segued into the following. I somehow was then inside one house or the other, or perhaps some other large mansion in the area. There seemed to be some tourgroups going through the house; there was an older woman describing the house, its features, etc. I was truly impressed - it was a magnificent home. I began counting the number of fireplaces on the first floor - six of them. The woman pointed out a few more features and decorations, and as I wandered, I noticed that through a window there was a view of (along with the backyward spa and pool) some of the other large homes in the area, possibly including Meadow Marsh. It’s possible I was inside of Meadow Marsh looking out at another of the fabulous homes in the area, though.
All of that may have segued into the following. I was inside some large, touristy area - a mall, plaza, enclosed theme park, possibly one of the above mansions. There were waterfalls, little walkways, escalators, benches, lots of people-oriented features and structures. There was some sort of contraption that flew passengers on what appeared to be a regular route from one location to another, at one point on that route even diving into a pool of water under a bridge and emerging some distance away. There was a girl there (no real-life person, just some dream invention) who seemed to be alone and seemed to be looking for company, just someone to hang out with in this large area, whatever it was. We then found ourselves being strapped into some seating compartment, and it was only after the thing started moving that we realized we were now in the flying vehicle I had noticed earlier. I craned my neck to look out the window, just trying to get some sense of exactly what this vehicle was - a miniature airplane, a small helicopter, whatever. I never could really see. The thing took off on that regular route, and I remembered the portion that went down in the water only moments before it actually did so. I knew Ed would be waiting for me, or looking for me somewhere, and I saw him during the flight. I wondered if he’d happen to look closely at this vehicle as it swooped past him, and if he would, if he’d see that I was on it (and then if he’d be upset to see I was on it when I was supposed to be meeting him for something). I don’t recall where the vehicle emerged from the water portion of the flight, or where the overall trip ended, only that there was some tour guide (possibly the woman from the mansion dream?) helping the girl and I out of the seating arrangement. The girl seemed to be trying to get my attention, or to hold my hand or something, and I politely and delicately indicated that she was very nice, but my interests lay elsewhere. I saw Ed there and made some comic reference to the trip I had just taken. I was surprised that he was not surprised; he had known I had been on that little vehicle. I don’t recall much past that point.

I was sitting at some bar with a few people sitting all around me. I had gone to the bar with Joel, Nate, and Aaron. I knew all three of them were still at the bar, but all three had wandered off to visit at different tables with people they recognized, or had just met. I was bored, but not really perturbed at being left there alone to drink my Coke or whatever. I kept looking around periodically, just keeping mental tabs on where each of the three were. There may have been something significant about the fellow sitting to my left at the bar - some conversation, something. This may have segued into the following. I was out late at night in some swampy area with a dozen or so people I didn’t particularly know that well (and thus may have been some or all of the folks from that bar). There was one older woman who seemed somehow to be in charge of the group, or was issuing directions, something. We seemed to be taking turns doing something, but I don’t recall what. When it was my turn, I knew I had to pick up some rope, or cable, or leash, something that lay on the ground. That was part of whatever task we each were doing.

That may have segued into the following. I was walking around in my back yard fairly late at night and knew I needed to pick ub Beavis’s leash on the ground (and thus the possible connection to the prior episode). As I looked at the leash trying to find the end, I noticed that some portion of the leash (which was very long) was partially intertwined with a snake. I wasn’t particularly alarmed and tried to look closely enough to determine what kind of snake it was. I was fairly certain it was a constrictor, and therefore harmless, and not any type of rattler. So as I continued looking for the end of the leash, and eventually found it, I noticed more and more snakes of various types, some of which looked like indeed they might have been rattlers.

I was walking down 11th St. in Winter Garden. I saw the Eddie Murphy Walking Dude walking towards me pushing his cart. I tried to avoid eye contact, and he started yelling something as always. Up ahead, at the end of the street, there was a fellow fooling around with an umbrella. The Eddie Murphy guy saw the guy with his umbrella, and began pushing his cart towards him. I thought, uhoh, there's gonna be trouble. The guy aimed his umbrella towards Eddie Murphy Guy, and suddenly it appeared that both guys would be treating this like an absurd sort of joust - the guy using his umbrella as a lance, Eddie Murphy Guy with his cart as the opponent and horse. The guy was unable to unfurl his umbrella in time, though, and Eddie Murphy Guy ended up slamming his cart into him. He turned around triumphantly, and pushed his cart past me yelling and screaming. Umbrella guy came over to me and seemed to be using some small object to try to cut his left arm near the shoulder. I asked him why, and he said he needed to display some sort of injury, or else people would wonder why he had lost the jousting match. The injury would be proof that his loss was justified, in other words, that he had at least gone down because of injury. By now there a half dozen or so small children gathered around, and he indicated that it was children like them that he needed to preserve his reputation for. I tried to dissuade him, and I was very glad to see that the children were making fun of him for feeling like he needed to cut his own arm just to preserve his own reputation.

10/05/02 Sat night
The city of Winter Garden was doing some sort of community holiday festival. I'm not sure what holiday it was - Fourth of July, New Year's, something, and a lot of people all over the town were gathering to celebrate. It caught me by surprise a little, and I wasn't sure whether or not I'd be able to go to any of the celebrations. I was at a little plaza on Plant Street. I saw that the city was providing free necklaces, or leis, that were draped en masse over the railings of a fence around this plaza. People were taking one or a few for themselves and family. Even though I wasn't really sure whether or not I'd be able to attend, I still went and got a few, at least as souvenirs. I then was in some diner, or a train, something, sitting in a booth and I noticed that the necklaces were actually cheaply-made neckties (or had somehow turned into neckties). They were obviously intended to be cheap, mass-produced souvenirs; they weren't at all meant to be permanent additions to a wardrobe. They had all sorts of designs - stripes, solid colours, funky color combinations, everything. Some were skinny, some fat, some square-ended. Someone I knew (no idea who, though) suggested that I take this bunch of ties, and tie them into a knot, so as to not drop any of them without noticing. I replied that it was a good idea, but I didn't think I'd drop any. I then started naming off who I would give the ties to, so that person would not think I was just greedily hoarding a lot of free neckties.

I was at Luke Leonard's house (which, of course, I've never been to). He was doing some minor repair work to his front door or the framing around the door. I knew that (in my dream) months earlier I had in some incredibly insignificant way helped him install the door, like loaning him a paintbrush, or casually holding holding some masking tape in place while he painted, something like that. A lot of the trim was painted green, with some pale yellow trim, and some of the paint was still wet. I jokingly exaggerated my role in the process, and said something like, yeah, looks like my carpentry is holding up pretty well, Luke, anytime you need more help, just ask. Luke laughed and his wife leaned out the door to make some joke about Luke's proficiency (or lack thereof) at housework. There was more to this, but I have only fragments (something about Luke's Palm/cellphone) and I can't (yet) reconstruct them.

I delivered pizza to some house somewhere. There were a bunch of young kids in the yard who directed me up to the front door. I noticed in the yard a huge pecan tree, just covered with bunches of pecans. I quickly snagged one on the way up to the house and ate the nut, which was incredibly sweet and delicious. As I waited for the door to open, I looked down and saw that the area around the door had been deliberately covered with a mulch of shells, whole and broken pecans, pine cones, and various other natural objects. I saw a turtle rummaging through the material (probably because shortly before going to sleep, I had typed out the previous night's dream about my turtles, below). This turtle saw my feet and kept trying to bite my toes. I think I was barefoot. Finally I stepped up on and stood on some blocks, or a low stone wall, that surrounded this area, so the turtle couldn't bite me. The guy who answered the door appeared to be in his 70s, and quite ill and possibly demented or senile from first observation. His skin looked very unhealthy, blotchy and pale. He wobbled and swayed a little bit and at first didn't seem to know who I was or why I was there. But when I said I had pizza to deliver, expecting perhaps someone else in the house to come to the door and make the transaction, he instead became more lucid and stepped outside. I tried to make idle conversation, so I mentioned how jealous I was that he had such a healthy, productive pecan tree in his yard, and that I would love to have one like that but didn't have room. He seemed a little irritated about the tree (the tree itself, not the fact that I mentioned it) and motioned for me to follow him around to the back of the house. I thought I had heard him say something about cutting the money down, or something like that, but it didn't make sense, so I assumed I had misunderstood him. As we walked, he kept talking about the pecan tree, and how I really didn't want one in my yard, how you never know how big they're going to get, etc. I tried to explain that, yes, I know how big pecan trees can get, and no, I didn't really intend to get one, and no, I wasn't offering to buy his. Finally we came to another tree in his back yard and I heard him again say something about cutting down some money. I had no idea what he meant. He went to the tree and began cutting and gathering whatever was on the tree, small pods that had some sort of seed in them. It became obvious that he planned to use these as money, or perhaps in some barter system to pay for the pizzas. For a brief instant I was reminded of (and possibly this is where this portion of the dream came from) a dried, decorative plant in my grandmother's basement which she called a "penny plant." This plant had no leaves but only papery pods which could be peeled apart to reveal a flat, round seed, which vaguely resembled a tiny penny. I wondered if this tree that the guy was plucking things off of was in fact one of these penny plants, and if he actually was demented or senile to think he could use them as actual money. Everything fragmented at this point but I have just the vaguest notion that I saw an elderly woman (presumably his wife?) coming out of the house to see what we were doing.

10/04/02 Fri night
Fragment: something about my box turtles, Bob Hill and Brad Hill, being in my refridgerator. I opened the fridge and saw them in there, on the top right, above the pull-out drawer. One of them had a lot of frost on his snout but otherwise they both seemed fairly perky considering where they'd been. I thought to myself, do I always keep my turtles in here? should they be back in their pen? How long have they been in here?

10/01/02 Tues night
A fishing dream.
I went fishing with a friend on his boat - deep-sea fishing, I think, or at least on a very large and deep body of water. We both caught a couple of fish, and he cleaned his right on the dock afterwards. I took my fish whole and uncleaned and left.

I was taking some lessons that had to do with water - para-sailing, or water-skiing, jet-skiing, something, in a large indoor swimming pool. This may have segued directly out of the fishing dream. I was taking my lessons, paying the instructor for an hour of time. I was doing whatever I was doing, when up ahead of me, I saw a woman falling down in my path - she had jumped into the pool, or perhaps was doing the same sort of training I was. I veered off to avoid a collision, and while I was waiting to start over again, my trainer/instructor changed into a business suit and began talking to someone else. My hour was not yet up, so I was rather irritated that I had paid for his time but was not getting it. A friend was there, possibly the same friend I had been fishing with (and thus my suspicion that these were somehow linked) and I asked him sarcastically if I had, in fact, paid for that time, and he agreed. But I said that loudly enough so that the instructor might have overheard me, so I then asked my friend if it had been rude of me to ask the first question so loudly, and he said yes. (I didn't particularly care, though. It was MY time!)

Fragment: sleeping in a pull-out couchbed at my maternal grandmother's house, and being awakened by one of the English Dept. receptionists.

09/30/02 Sun night
Two or three guys in a class started arguing with someone else, possibly a girl, about something we were discussing as a class. It took me a few moments to realize just how heated the argument had become and by the time I hurried back into that corner of the room, the guys were already standing up, pushing desks aside, and trying to wade into a physical confrontation with the girl. I and several others had to wrestle them out of the room and rather than calm down or fume silently, they actually became even more heated and enraged and were still trying to get back into the room and get to the girl. I don't know what the discussion had been about or what they were arguing about.

A bad school dream, the details of which I'm still working out and trying to recover and piece together.

Something about finding out that two guys were brothers. This might have been a portion of the 'fight' dream, above, where two of the combatants tell me they were brothers. This is all very fragmentary but I can picture the two guys - tall, sandy blonde hair, and indeed, with a decent resemblance to each other.

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