This Old House ~ 7/24/2014

Mom was renovating a beautiful Victorian style house up on the hill above our place in the Hill Country, and either she or my aunt were going to live there, but it seemed to be haunted. The FBI agent from Without a Trace came to investigate. He and the intern Zach from Bones were trying to think of ways someone could be faking a ghost just to scare us. He kept playing tricks on Zach, putting him into a proposed ghost rig, then pretending he couldn't see or hear him anymore. Zach kept getting freaked out.

I had all my bedroom stuff set up in a corner of our property near some train tracks. I had a huge four poster bed with a canopy hung with gold curtains, a large oval standing mirror, a few heavy dressers, and a gold brocade sofa, all in dark wood. I had everything arranged so it demarcated a little room of my own, with the sofa at the foot of my bed. People kept trying to move it, though, and I kept having to move it back and tell people why I wanted it that way.

I finally decided that the ghost in the old house would feel better if some old photos taken by my grandfather were hung up there, so I needed to travel to a big library hundreds of miles away to go get some. To raise some money for the trip, I went on Amazon, where they had some crowd sourced editing projects. You could get money for proof reading paragraphs or recipes, $1 for one, $4 for three, $10 flat plus $1 each for more than ten. I started out with a chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I felt like, to really know if it was right, I'd have to rest it out, so that took a while.

I finally started my trip to the library. I took this special taxi that moved by tunneling through the ground. I watched episodes of Bones for a while, but the guy who played Booth was the guy from Without a Trace, and Bones herself didn't show up for most of the pilot, so that was weird. Also, the first investigation was of a planet where the moons orbited so close, they left tracks in the grass. An anomaly in one of the moon paths indicated the presence of some very special purple crystal. I decided this was too weird and turned the show off.

My tunneling vehicle surfaced for a bit to let me know that we were almost there. I had to dress old timey for some reason, so I put on a cotton shift, a light wool Victorian walking dress, and a Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock style overcoat. I went into the library and located old photos by my grandfather. I selected two in sepia tones that showed gentle yet strong looking old women. They seemed right for the house. The librarian was printing them out for me when I woke up.

My Subconscious Has Decided ~ 7/23/2014

I dreamed that I was explaining to my mother why, in the upcoming elections, the only thing I'd be basing my vote on was environmental policy. I told her that, if we didn't become vastly more environmentally responsible very quickly, we might not need to worry about any other issues in thirty to fifty years.

I explained to her about they hydrates in the arctic, trapping vast amounts of methane gas as long as the oceanic temperatures were cold enough, but poised to release them as the average temperature rise neared 6°C.  That this carbon released into the atmosphere would create a positive feedback loop of warming that we wouldn't be able to stop once we started it.  That we were solidly at 3°C above historic norms now, and climbing. That a temperature trend like this hadn't been seen since just before the great Permian extinctions, also do to released methane, and that we were basically all going to die if we didn't all make a change, both at the grass-roots personal level, and at the institutional, legislative level.

This started out in my grandmother's living room, but eventually, while I was explaining, I was breaking a path through white stuff that might have been hydrate, might have been ice, or might have been styrofoam.  There was just lots of white everywhere. And somewhere in the midst of this diatribe, I woke up.

NB - I can make not claims to scientific accuracy on the part of my subconscious.  I remember watching various explanatory videos on this subject, and these numbers apparently stuck in my head, but might not be right.

Just Awful ~ 7/21/2014

I dreamed that I learned on the same day that I was pregnant by the man I last slept with, and that he was now engaged to marry someone else. I was completely blindsided, because I'm not even supposed to be able to get pregnant. I went out to a forest retreat to take some time to think and decide what to do.

The retreat center was affiliated with a very reputable women's clinic, and I went in to consult the doctor. She examined me and discussed her findings and my options and what to expect calmly and comfortingly. She told me if I thought I might want an abortion, I should make an appointment now because there was a six week waiting list.

I was just completely overwhelmed, and I made the appointment because I didn't want to end up figuring out that's what I needed to do, and have it not be an option.

I called my mom to come visit me, and she helped me realize how happy I actually was, under all of the confusion, because this pregnancy was a miracle, and would probably be my only chance to have the baby I want so much. She promised my family would help me however I needed, whatever I decided. I decided I was keeping my baby.

That evening I ran into the father. He said the relationship hadn't worked out, they'd mutually broken off the engagement, and he really wanted to give it a try between the two of us. I told him about the baby, and he was happy and excited, though we agreed to sign something for now where I did not expect support from him, and he would have no custody rights if it didn't work out.

I cancelled my appointment for the abortion with a joyful heart. That night I began to bleed. I lost the baby and he left me.

A psycho ex boyfriend showed up, and when I pushed him away, he got angry and violent. I locked him out of my room, but that trapped me inside. I found a way out and ran for help, sobbing and bleeding. I had just seen my dad, and was looking around and shouting for him, but I couldn't find him. The ex turned into a red-eyed demon. He appeared in front of me and grabbed me and I screamed once more for Daddy, and then I woke up.

TBTT#5 Test Drive ~ 3/8/2012

Last night I dreamed that I was part of a group road testing a new ambulance in the desert. It was sleek and sporty in black and reached speeds of 300 mph. We stopped for lunch at McDonalds, which had gone bankrupt and was closing worldwide the next day. Someone had a giant diamond. And I taught a cyborg the Litany Against Fear.

Best Evacuation Plan Ever ~ 7/16/2014

I dreamed a hurricane was headed towards New Orleans.  So to evacuate, we were all put on a cruise ship that would head out into the gulf. I drove to the port with a friend, who also had put a few other friends' motorcycles in his car, so I got to squeeze in with motorbikes.

We got on the boat, and I walked up and down and up and down and up and down a bunch of stairs. They didn't feed us, so we wouldn't get seasick. They were also going to give us something so we'd sleep through any rough seas. But the next thing I knew, they were feeding us and I wasn't sleepy, so I guess they decided they could sail around the storm.

At one point I found this blond dude in my stateroom, going through my jewelry box. I scolded him and chased him out, but I thought he looked kind of familiar.

After the storm, we came back to port, and everything was just fine, except I found a room in the customs area where a whole bunch of earrings had been poured into a big pile.  I was picking through them because they were shiny, when I found one that my mom had given me.  Then I had to look until I found the other. They were little flowers made out of pearl clusters.  I also saw pearls with rectangle cut garnets and some loose stones that had come out of settings.

I got through customs, having claimed those earrings, and outside was the guy who'd been in my room. It turned out he had stolen all of those earrings.  I was really angry.  Suddenly he asked didn't I recognize him, and reminded me that we had met on a dating website called rendezvous.com. I told him now I remembered, and obviously we weren't going to work out.

Then I woke up.

Need a Restaurant Idea? ~ 7/15/2014

One day I walked from the French Quarter down to Flushing, Queens, which had somehow replaced the Bywater. I wanted to eat at a cafe I'd heard of, called the Aeolian.

After a while I saw it up ahead. The building was huge, and looked like St. Basil's cathedral in Moscow, only designed by Salvadore Dali using mushrooms in shades of earthy red. The sign was in a cool font, sort of designed to look Persian.

The cafe only took up a tiny bit of the middle of the structure. I couldn't figure out what the rest was used for. As you walked in, the gourmet deli was on the right and the bakery was on the left. The deli was what you'd expect, ham, salami, turkey, roast beef, but all really good, and also prosciutto and pancetta and stuff. The bakery had all sorts of amazing things, but their specialty were these tall stuffed doughnuts that ended up looking like muffins, with the hole crammed with filling and glaze drizzled all over. They also had any sort of bread you could think of, and some you couldn't.

So I ordered a small roast beef sandwich on ciabatta, and a small turkey on pumpkin seed mint whole wheat. I also got a plain glazed vanilla tall doughnut, and one full of honey pecans, with burnt maple sugar glaze.

Then I woke up.

Vampire Island ~ 7/10/2014

I was with some friends going on a vampire tour of Eastern Europe. It was organized by my friend Jon while he was visiting his folks in Arkansas (which was, of course, the gateway to Eastern Europe). We were also sort of a diplomatic mission to recruit vampires for our military.

Jon's mother was upset the morning we arrived to pick him up, because he'd only been home a couple of days, and she was leaving on a cruise the next morning, and she had thought she'd have all of today to spend with him, but we had to leave in two hours. So they went out to breakfast while I went over some maps with the team.

When Jon got back from breakfast we set off. The first stage was over water, so we went down to our boats and sailed into a sea of darkness. We had to navigate carefully to avoid islands we could barely see until we were right up on them, even with a strong searchlight in the bow. All at once there was a flicker of white, up above us, just caught by the light. We pointed the light up into the air, and hundreds of white robed shapes were hovering in the air in a state of deep sleep. These were vampires held in suspended animation by the power of their king, until it was their turn to walk the earth for a decade or two, or until he needed an army.

We sailed on to the biggest island, which held a vast complex that was both very expensive shopping mall and famous European football stadium, all owned by the vampires. I was engaged to the leader of the expedition, so to do some reconnaissance and make a friendly first impression, we decided the other women on the team and I would shop for clothing for the wedding.

I tried on a corset that fit, but had padding and cutouts in... unnecessary places. I tried on another, but it had a sort of flare below the waist that the sales girl and I agreed would not work with the lines of  my dress. Then there was one in brown leather I was going to try, but we were suddenly called to the king's presence. Our group was rushed from wherever we'd been into a huge room that was a simulated beach, with sand and a wave pool and fake sunlight glimmering around in the dimness like reflections from a disco ball.

And everywhere around the hall, the same vampire, copied a hundred times, was enjoying the seaside. He was surfing, swimming, walking down a boardwalk with a pretty girl, or "sunning" on the beach with several others. His vampire king powers allowed him to project corporeal but secondary instances of himself so he could be many places at once. Suddenly the vampire sitting by the pool with a cocktail stood up, and all the other copies snapped back into him, and we stood before the vampire king.

It was, of course, Lestat. But he was played by James Marsters, not Tom Cruise. He caught sight of me, still in jeans and a corset, and laughed. He assured me the brown leather one would work much better, and sent me back with the sales girl to try it on. She led me to a different changing area, which was a framework of steel bars hung with black linen curtains for privacy, and said she was going to get the corset. Through the curtains I saw the store manager, a vampire who had been our ambassador to the king, start towards thick glass doors that would close me off alone in this area with him and two other vampires I could see coming out of the dark corners.

I scrambled into my own clothes, and tried to think of how to beat them to the glass doors, when we all were startled by a strange, deafening sound. A man was attending a game at the football stadium next door with his mentally impaired teenage son.  He'd gotten separated from the boy, and texted him telling him to make his special sound, so his father could locate him. The special sound was a sort of ear-splitting "BAROOOOO" that echoed through the entire complex. When the vampires froze, I broke for the doors, and then I woke up.

The Latest in Mass Transit and Hostel Decor ~ 7/9/2014

I visited my friend Emily in Seattle, since she'd moved there from Florida and I was thinking of moving, too. There was a vacant building near her where I could live, and there was a plywood conduit walkway we could extend between our two places so we could visit each other without getting rained on.

We were walking down a street lined with tall pine trees when she pointed out overhead the city's newest form of mass transit. It was a hovering blue spaceship looking thing, shaped like a triangle with rounded corners. It's location would show up on Google Maps in real time, and you could click it and request a ride and get time estimates and everything, and it would beam you up and down. It was awesome.

Emily came back with me to New Orleans for a visit, and we stayed together in a hostel my dancer friends had told me about. It was comfortable and free and conveniently located, but it had one big problem. The owner had a weird sense of humor, and he'd commissioned several wax heads from a mold taken from my friend Robert. Then he put them in places like the women's bathroom, so you'd get out of the shower, say, and spaz out because it looked like there was this guy watching you. It was super creepy.

Emily and I joined some friends of mine to see a movie. I was surprised to see that my friend David had dyed his hair black. Em and I got separated from the others because I kept losing my shoes, and my phone wouldn't work, so I couldn't communicate with them. We finally caught up with them hours later, and I was afraid we'd missed the movie, but it turned out we had to reserve the movie for the next day. Anyhow. It would be from 1:30pm to 8pm, and I thought I might have agreed to be somewhere else in that time, but I couldn't remember. Then I woke up.

Stealth ~ 7/2/2014

I haven't been remembering anything very coherent lately. Just snippets. I also haven't been sleeping that great, so that's probably why.  But last night was pretty cool.

I dreamed I was in my office building, which was much closer to the Crescent City Connection here in downtown New Orleans. I was visiting the break room, which was in a corner office overlooking the river, when a stealth bomber flew by, doing tactical maneuvers among the buildings in the CBD. This dark bat-like shape just swooped silently around, banking 90 degree turns around One Shell Square at top speed.  Then it took off toward the bridge, and began slaloming over and under the trusses, above the highway. Finally it landed in the Mississippi, and the pilots got out for a swim.

That was exciting, but then I went home to find three young children sitting on my stoop, waiting for their mother to come pick them up from school. Since it was so hot, I let them wait inside, and they proceeded to kind of trash the place, and I had to explain that my landlady would really NOT like to be given a bouquet consisting of ALL of her pink impatiens pulled up by their roots.  Then I had to pick up a bunch of ice cubes and mop the floor, and finally their mom came.

Then I woke up.