Seattle TexMex ~ 4/6/2024

I dreamed I finally found a really good Tex-Mex place in Seattle. The food was just so good. And everybody was really friendly, and recognized me from my previous visits. But on this visit, I kind of decided I wasn’t ever gonna come back, because the service was friendly, but just so bad, and the place was kind of weird.

I was back for my third time, and I parked my white rental car in one of the barns that was available for Parking. the restaurant was back behind a kind of resort area that had a bunch of gold farm houses and barnes for rooms and parking, that the restaurant was allowed to share. Everything was more crowded than it had ever been before, because a lot of people were in town for the eclipse, and a bunch of people were at the sports bar associated with the resort to watch sportsball game of some sort.

I’d been there two times already and each time, I’d been seated at the same table in the same back room. And even the same family had been seated in a table near me. So when I got into the foyer area, that family was there! And we started talking about the coincidence of us always being there at the same time, since I’ve been there for there to visits, and how we were always seated next to each other. As we were chatting, the hostess came to seat them, and I just kind of followed them back. Until I saw that “my” table was occupied. And I laughed about how I just kind of figured I’d be seated in the same place too, but I headed back to the foyer area to actually get seated.

On my way back to the foyer, the owner of the restaurant recognized me and came and led me personally to an armchair that didn’t have a table in front of it. But this was my table. And eventually the waitress came to take my drink order, and she pulled over a little folding TV tray sort of table and set it up in front of me.

I ordered a Diet Coke with no ice, and just kind of looked around me to get used to the new room that I’d been seated in. I started to realize that I think the restaurant was situated in a building that had once been a pretty large home, and then I was actually in the den area, and it kinda looked like they were just using the furniture that had been there when they acquired it.

While I was waiting, I saw them bring an order to some fellow diners at a table about 20 feet away, and this was done with much fanfare because they had brought sort of the house family style meal specialty thing. Which was bucatini pasta in marinara sauce, served with a giant bowl of grated Parmesan, foot-long slabs of soft mozzarella, and little plates of clams served in their shell, topped with whipped ricotta. Because apparently it was also an Italian restaurant, and I started to get worried about the nachos I wanted to order because I overheard the owner telling one of the weight staff that they’d prepped too much for the chicken and spinach dish, so he wanted the waiters to try to really push that.

All this time, I was still waiting for my drink, and for the waitress to come back and take my order, and an acquaintance of mine came in, and we were happy to see each other because we hadn’t met in a long time. So she pulled over a chair from somewhere and put it across from me at my TV tray, and we got to talking.

Soon after my server did come back with my drink, and it looked kind of funny. I took a zip and it was something like half orange juice, and half Diet Coke. So for the next, while, we kept trying to call her back or get her attention as she walked past, so that I could get an actually good drink. And also order. Because by now it had been something like 15 minutes since she brought the drink.

Finally, I told my friend what I wanted to order, and she agreed to get my drink fixed, and my order placed if the waitress came back while I was gone, because I needed to use the bathroom. So I got up and went through the door to the ladies room And they moved the bathrooms so this was a new ladies room that I hadn’t been in before. And it looked like it had been installed in the kitchen and living room of the original building. It was huge. And… it was multipurpose.

There were about twelve toilets, but they weren’t installs. They were sort of arranged like seats around two kitchen islands with granite countertops. And there were TVs installed sports bar, style, and some women were just kind of sitting around watching the TVs. There was also a refrigerator and a dishwasher, a stove, and a kitchen sink, which, by the way, was the only sink. And in that area a big table for 20 was set up, there was a reservation for a group, and this was the private dining room they’d be seated in. It was also the smoking area, the granite topped island where the toilets were had ashtrays on them, and one woman’s gentleman had joined her at the bathroom to smoke.

So I kind of turned around and left to go back to my table, and when I got there, my friend was done eating and they brought, and then taken away my food, and the restaurant was closing soon so it’s time to go. I realized once I was out of the restaurant, and my friend had left, that I hadn’t paid for anything. But I kind of didn’t feel too bad about that, and I sort of remembered my friend mentioning that I only been charged for the drink and she got it. It was fine. 

So I went to go get my car and leave. But all the Parking barns kind of looked the same, and I couldn’t remember which one I parked in. I vaguely thought that it was the one closest to the road, so I walked all the way across the entire resort and went to inspect the building closest to the road. But that turned out to be hotel rooms with no parking.

I went to look into the next building, and when I went through the door, I knew it wasn’t right because it looked like a restaurant. But I figured I’d just keep walking through the restaurant and exit the other side rather than go back out and go around the building. 

So that restaurant was sort of set up where the seating was a level down from the ground floor entry, and I was walking along a gallery above the diners. The decor was kind of distressed farmhouse, naturally, so the gallery railing had all sorts of different antique fence panels along it. They were perched on, like, a one and a half inch ledge outside of the structural railings, but it turned out they weren’t actually attached in any way to the structural railings. Someone jostled me into one of these panels as I was walking, and this iron fence panel pitched out and fell down, and as I watched in horror, it knocked baby out of their highchair and onto the floor.

I ran down the stairs and began apologizing profusely, and the baby didn’t have any wounds or bumps or anything, it seemed unconscious and so I kept asking the family what I could do and I kept trying to get the attention of the staff to call an ambulance. But no one was paying attention and the family was super nonchalant. So I figured I would at least wait until the baby regained consciousness just to make sure. I was waiting. I also picked up all of the families things that the panel had knocked over and scattered, like the toys they brought for the baby and their older son, and then a bunch of cutlery that had been in a tray nearby. Eventually, the baby woke up and seemed perfectly normal somehow so the family told me I should really leave it was all OK. So I left.

I went into the next barn, and my car wasn’t in any of the stalls I could see so I went through a door that I thought went to another parking area, but it turned out. It was somebody’s room, so I backed out without waking him up thankfully. I did find my car in the next building. And as I was getting in, I realized I was being followed by a vampire. so fast as I could, I pulled out of the barn, and was trying to drive around the winding exit drive without hitting any of the people that were milling around, but also going as fast as I could. And I kept running into dead, ends like at the swimming pool, and at a marble Roman amphitheater, and when I finally got to the road, the light was red and I needed to turn left, and then I finally got on the road, but by that time the vampire was clinging to the roof of my car, and I was frightened and scattered to remember how to get to the interstate, and then I woke up.

The Day the Music Died ~ 6/29/2023

I dreamed a fellow MOBster won a Pulitzer for his arrangement of "My Girl", and was invited to perform it at a high school band competition I was at as an alum with other trumpet players from my high school band.

And he wanted us to be part of the performance, and I would be on second trumpet. But I was looking over the score he gave us, and I couldn't for the life of me find my line or follow it across page turns. Sometimes a page wouldn’t have any trumpet lines, and then the next page would have all the trumpet parts on one staff. And I’m not great at sight reading anyhow. And I couldn’t tell if the part might not be too high for me, because I could only reliably hit C above the staff, and I thought I saw some Ds but maybe that was the 1st trumpet part?

And half the pages were cut out staves pasted on construction paper. Of various colors like magenta and black and mint green and beige…

I asked if there was sheet music by part so I could JUST look at the 2nd trumpet part. Since I’d be sight reading. And I couldn’t follow what he gave us AT ALL. No one else seemed to be having trouble, so I felt really dumb.

Then my trumpet started falling apart. The spit valve on the tuning slide fell off. Then a tiny screw that held one of the brackets to the valve casing popped out and I couldn’t find it. And then I woke up.

Horsey Halftime Show ~ 5/20/2023

TW: discussion of suicide

I dreamed the U.S. men’s soccer team was playing the Russian national men’s team at Rice Stadium. The US would be wearing bright orange and electric blue. The Russian team would be wearing the purple and green, basically the same hues of Buzz Lightyear. As a sort of “welcome to Texas” gesture, I made hundreds of egg and bacon breakfast tacos. I lightly painted the tortillas in the teams’ colors using food coloring and milk before cooking them up. 

I tucked foil-wrapped breakfast tacos into all sorts of nooks and crannies under the bleachers at the ends of each side of the field, just under and behind where the teams would be sitting, along with their staff and press and people involved with producing the game. The ones on the U.S. side disappeared quickly, and everyone enjoyed them, but the Russian team and coaches and all didn’t really know what to make of hard-scrambled eggs. Apparently eggs in Russia were always served soft and runny. They thought they tasted all right, but didn’t really know what to make of them, and it was obviously not their thing. So for the rest of the game, every time I had a minute and felt hungry, I’d hurry over to the other end of the stadium, underneath the metal bleachers, and I’d grab a taco or two.

For halftime, there was going to be a dressage show with about a dozen horses. They wanted them to be done up like My Little Ponies, with dyed mains and tails, and designs painted on their rumps. So I didn’t have a lot of time to eat tacos and watch the game, because I was in charge of coming up with the designs and painting them on each horse using nail polish, where the horses waited under the bleachers. I had to keep reminding people telling me what to paint that we had to be careful not to paint on trademarked images. One person kept wanting the apples on the rump of one mare to look like the Apple logo, and I kept refusing, saying that this was internationally televised, and we’d all get into trouble and be sued for actual money if we did that.

The U.S. had scored one goal during the first half, but twice during the second half I peered out through the bleachers to see that the U.S. goal was completely unguarded, and sure enough, the ball came flying into it before too long, so Russia won the game 2-1. When the game ended, I put on my roller skates to head back to my apartment, because my senior year was over, and I needed to pack up and move out. If all the exits had been open, I could have just coasted down the ramps and out down the street to my apartment, but because I had to stay late to help with the horses, they kept closing exits, and I had to keep stopping and going back up the ramps to find another way. This was NOT EASY in roller skates and I kept falling.

When I finally got out onto the streets, there were still a lot of people milling around. Suddenly everything got really quiet, and we could hear a deep, eerie chanting, getting nearer and nearer. Here and there in the crowd, deep voices softly joined the chant. Someone near me whispered, obviously afraid, that it was the Hare Krishna, and that they were getting out of here! Other people scattered, and soon the street was almost empty, except for those who had begun chanting along, and a few other people who seemed determined to just pretend nothing was wrong, but were obviously nervous. 

A large group of people carrying torches came across the plaza where I stood. They wore robes of black and orange and white, in rectangular, geometric designs, almost like plaid, except without the interweaving of a tartan, just stark blocks of black and burnt orange on white. They wore head wraps of the same fabric. Those on the outer edges of the group held up poles of silver-gray worn bamboo and thin lathes of old wood, all supporting a sort of light canopy of the same reeds and wood, and maybe human bone, the person next to me whispered, though I certainly didn’t see anything like that, all tied together with dried grass and pitch. The whole structure was sort of geometrically knobbly, a bunch of polyhedral shapes all glommed together, with some of the faces draped with the same orange, black, and white fabric. strings of metal beads and disks hung from corners, matching the necklaces worn by the chanters, and clinking and jingling and tinkling in time with their steps and in time with the chant. 

All they were doing was chanting and walking, so I couldn’t figure out why anyone had found them super scary. The person next to me whispered that they practiced dark magic and sacrificed babies. But honestly, the only thing that made them seem different from any other group of people wearing uniforms and carrying banners and marching, which is practically an American pastime and on display in any parade, was that all of these people, and the chanters in the crowd who joined them, were Black people. So I figured the fear and rumor was really just racially motivated. The Hare Krishna was headed down my street, so I just skated on after them and made it home just fine.

I met up with my mom and we had just finished packing up my apartment when Robert Downey, Jr., knocked on the door. He was the producer for the horse show, and they’d all liked my designs, and thought maybe they should do something more permanent, and go on tour with the act. I agreed to go along and discuss this with the horse people. We all met up at Pepper Pots’s house for the talks. I almost left, though, because as she showed me to the dining room, Ms. Pots stopped to deal with a wasp next in the living room. The house was really well appointed, but the floors were hard-packed earth, the walls bamboo and wattle and daub and distressed planks, and the windows open to the forested surroundings. 

Pepper aimed a jet of wasp spray up at the mud-caked nests in the rafters, and down fell a giant tarantula hawk wasp, not quite dead, flopping and buzzing angrily across the earth floor before finally lying still, orange wings flat on the ground, red-black head and abdomen curled up off the ground, with just a leg twitching every so often. I managed not to scream and run, but I kept my eye on the ceilings as I entered the dining room where everyone was gathered to discuss.

I explained that nail polish was just NOT the right medium, and showed them how hard it had been to complete each design before the horse was sent out onto the field for their show. Some people though we should tattoo the marks on the horses and keep their rumps shaved. One person even suggested branding, though most thought that hair dye was the best, somewhat permanent way to go. But some people thought it was cruel and even blasphemous to do that to horses, so I suggested a sort of clear acrylic, shaped cape or covering, with a printed design. Others, including Robert Downey, Jr., thought this was the best way to go, and that there was surely a mesh or webbing that could be used, maybe the color of each horse’s coat, that would make the designs look well integrated and completely organic to the horse.

Then we had to have all over again the argument about using shapes that were too much like trademarked logos and images. And someone asked how we could possibly have an apple design that did NOT look like an existing apple design. So I explained that there were a lot of things to take into account, like the resources and likelihood of suing of the owners of the trademarked designs, as well as whether or not the owner dealt in horses, entertainment, and other related fields. I got hired to do the research, come up with design options, and present them to this panel for decision. What a huge job for someone right out of college!

I already had an office space lined up that I was leasing for freelance work now that my internship was done. I headed over there to put the horse designs on my to-do whiteboard. I wanted to consult the attorney who had the corner office, but he was headed out for the weekend. He promised we could talk in the coming week. There wasn’t room on my whiteboard for this next item, but my office mate, who was packing up, had a box of hardware fasteners of all shapes and sizes, including little round plackets with holes that could look like e’s and g’s and d’s. I asked if I could have them and he said it was one less thing for him to carry out. I lined up the little metal bits along the eraser holder at the bottom of my whiteboard, spelling out, as close as I could get, the words, “horse designs”.

As I was putting together this note to me, my former office-mate and I got into a discussion about the end of the world. We decided that there would probably be two main factions, at least in America. There would be the people saying we just all needed to keep up our hopes and keep looking for a solution, rationally speaking, and the people saying we were all going to die anyway, rationally speaking, and should commit mass suicide to avoid the long, painful lingering. I said that I figured that, we Americans being ourselves, each group would claim not only the rational, but also the moral high ground, and would think the other group were nothing but selfish, wrong-headed, evil people who deserved what they got.

Then I said, but you know, I don’t think it would be all about rationality. I think that it would also be a lot about innate physical and biological imperatives, like… the will to live. Because I thought that, from a rational standpoint, I’d probably be among the “earth is better off without humans and we’ve mucked this up too much to fix it and the fastest way to a stable and sustainable planetary ecosystem was no more humans” folks… BUT… fundamentally, at a gut level, I want to live. I enjoy living. I value breathing for no really good rational reason. So I figure yeah, both camps would feel that pull, and those who refused suicide would rationalize against it and find the others crazy and selfish for not committing to stay and fix the problem, and those who chose suicide would rationalize against their biological imperative to exist, and find the others crazy and selfish for not choosing to stop being the problem. And then we began discussing how many people would have to choose suicide for the rest to be able to fix the human problem and not make the decision and sacrifice of their fellow humans all for nothing… And that got too deep, so I decided I needed to go to the bathroom.

The office bathroom had two toilets, but no stalls. And the mother of a friend of mine was in there washing her hands, so I was chatting with her and waiting for her to leave so I could lock the door. Finally she did, but then I realized there was no toilet paper. But when I tried to open the bathroom door so I could go get some from the supply cupboard, the bathroom had been locked from the outside by the attorney, who had just left… and taken the key with him. And then I woke up.

Walk Across Texas ~ 3/30/2023

 I dreamed I was walking home to Seattle from San Antonio. I was researching popular music since American Colonial days, because I was writing a thesis that both US history and Chinese history could be divided into three eras: colonial, industrial, and modern, and that this division was reflected in the evolution of popular music forms in both places.

In San Antonio, I had visited a museum on Chinese music, and was on my way home. I was walking, of course. I wanted to avoid some hills, so I thought I'd follow the river bank I was walking along, probably the Pecos, instead of hiking up to the top of the cliff face. But the bank narrowed to nothing up ahead, past a pile of boulders and a tall, thin cedar. I turned back, past an escarpment of blood-red jasper, and hiked up to the top of the cliffs after all.

I heard a deep bellow and found myself approaching a herd of bison, mostly red and deep brown and black, but with one cream-colored bull. The bull was NOT happy that I was there. I saw a gate and let myself into a broad corral that butted up behind a large white house. But there were cows with calves in there, and they, too, were not happy to see me. So I knocked on the back door, and asked the residents if I could just pop through their house and out to the street, so I could avoid bothering the bison. They were kind enough to let me do that.

Out on the main street, I looked at Google Maps on my phone to figure out where I was, and found I was in R, Texas. Out in West Texas, there was a Q, and R, an S, a T, and a U, all clustered south and west of Birmingham, Texas. I knew that Birmingham had a whole center devoted to Victorian Texan Culture, so I went there to do some more research.

There were replicas for sale of an old-fashioned instrument called a hand calliope, which was kind of a cross between a bag pipe, a harmonica, a concertina, and a player piano? You filled it up with air, and wound it up, and a spring pump pushed the air out of a rotating, reeded contraption, so that it played a wheezy song.

I was looking up the patent for this fascinating device, and then I woke up.

Olympic Hurricane ~ 9/28/2022

 I dreamed I was watching US Olympic gymnastics team trials because my high school alma mater had sent a team, and I happened to be in the city where the trials were being held. Among the athletes, I recognized my friend Kerri, who was trying out along with them. There were fives slots being filled, and Kerri was selected to fill the fifth slot, and was set to compete in the Olympics, which were starting the next day. 

Once the trials were done, I went and found them, and congratulated Kerri. All the girls from my hometown were in awe that I was close friends with THE Kerri. We had a chance to talk for a bit, and it turned out her family hadn't been able to come support her, so she was there mostly alone. I agreed to try to make it to as many of her events as I could, to loudly cheer her on.

In addition to the usual gymnastic events, like floor, parallel bars, vault, etc., a new event had been added: water gymnastics. Basically, this was a combination of beam and diving, in that the routine was performed on a narrow ledge submerged in shin to waist deep water, and splash should be minimized. All of this took place in a wave pool. Even the spectators and judges were seated in the pool. I was glad I'd brought my swimsuit on my trip because that was one of the events I had time to watch.

I was actually in town for a conference for work, though, so I couldn't spend all my time watching Kerri compete. Still, the convention center hosting my conference was also hosting the Olympic gymnastic events, so that was convenient. Kerri and I planned to meet up one day for lunch.

When I got to the food court, all the gymnasts were heading into a conference room. Kerri saw me and said she'd be back in a moment. The food court was an open-air market sort of set up, with food counters tucked amid tall trees. Nearby they were building more indoor conference space. As I was looking around, waiting, the light dimmed. The sky filled with roiling dark clouds.

You see, we were all in Tampa, and the hurricane was coming.

There was a huge hall under construction with tall openings for floor-to-ceiling windows. As I watched, debris and dust inside the hall began swirling into a pillar, broadening up near the ceiling several stories above. A tornado was forming inside the building. I ran toward the conference room, where everyone was now coming out. It turns out they'd been meeting to plan what to do because of the storm. We all needed to get into a safe indoor spot, but obviously not even the indoors was safe, if a tornado was forming a hundred yards away inside of a structure.

It turned out, though, that this was an expected phenomenon during construction, and all of the buildings being built had special "disruptor" fans installed. These huge fans would break up the air flow patterns inside of these buildings so that they couldn't start spiraling into whirlwinds. Someone was explaining it to me and said it was similar to how bridges got designed now to prevent resonant oscillation like what had destroyed the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

All this time I was trying to hurry to somewhere, anywhere, where we'd be safe, but Kerri was limping. It turns out she had fractured her leg in an event that morning. It hadn't felt too bad earlier, but now, maybe because of the air pressure fluctuations, it was really hurting and she could no longer walk on it. She suspected she was experiencing compartment syndrome. Finally, we got into a fairly sheltered area, though it wasn't as secure as I would have liked. Kerri sat down and took a pocketknife out of her pocket and she cut open her leg to ease the pressure. 

We got her bandaged up, but she needed something to eat and drink, so I walked into a little convenience shop and got her some sort of pastries and a Coke. I shoved them at Kerri so she could start eating and drinking as I paid. I was rifling through my wallet to find the two more dollars I needed when I woke up.

Mall or Madhouse… or Both ~ 8/12/2021

I dreamed I was visiting my mom, and our littles were there. My middle niece was talking up a storm, and my nephew, who was now two, his curly gold hair had straightened and gone brunette. And he had a beard and mustache.

My oldest niece was sick, and needed more medicine, so I was going to go into town to get some. Mom kept listing other things she needed, like printer paper. I kept trying to find something to write a list on, and all I could find was a fortune cookie fortune. I took a picture of the medicine bottle with my phone, and wrote everything else really tiny.

While Mom was thinking about what else we might need, I started to worry about a sort of sore bump I had on my chest. It was visible above my neckline, and since it was kind of dark and round, I was worried that someone might think I was exposing my breast and I’d get in trouble. As I examined it, and it was hard to focus on at that distance and angle, I thought I saw something moving. I found a magnifying glass. 

I watched in horror as little white mite-looking things poked out and then ducked back in. I peered at a different angle and found it was like a tiny cave in my flesh, and a tiny, translucent white worm was half visible, curled up in the back. The inside was obviously infected, and I thought maybe if I tried to squeeze it like a pimple I could get all the bugs out, but it ran really deep in my chest and the all sort of just hunkered down. But then my mom finished her list and hurried me out, so I tugged my shirt up to hide it and got on the road.

I went to Ingram Park Mall, but it was pretty different from how I remembered it. For one thing, there was a big, painted concrete monument at the entrance. It featured the state of Texas painted like the Lone Star flag and a gray and silver armadillo. At first it read “State of Guadalupe, established 2006”, which made no sense. When I looked again, it had changed to “State of Texas” with no date, and “Guadalupe Co.” with a big arrow and a mileage indicating direction and distance to that county.

I found parking up on a tiny top floor of a parking garage. It was round, like a castle turret, very dark, with only an exit sign lamp, and it only had enough parking for five or six cars. I found out why it was empty when I went through the double glass doors beneath the exit sign and found myself in a deserted, empty anchor store. I went out into the mall corridors, and that whole wing was empty, though I could see shoppers up ahead.

On the other side of the mall was an office store, so I went there to get paper. I knew I was going to have to stop at an HEB, too, but I wanted to try to get as much as possible at the mall. I walked around the shops trying to find any of the other items. Up on the second floor, down one wing, I found a luxury perfume store that had a sign saying they also sold the medicine I needed, so I went in and got that.

After that, I saw a big shop visible through plate glass windows on all sides. It looked like I could get more of my items there, but I couldn’t find an entrance. There weren’t any escalators nearby, but there was a big blue plastic slide, three chutes side by side, straight down to the first level, so I slid on down.

There wasn’t an entrance on the first level either. On my way up to the third level I found the food court on a sort of mezzanine between floors two and three. Since I had missed lunch, I stopped to get some enchiladas. There were vendors all along the walkways with plates of Mexican food laid out all around. It was pretty amazing. 

After lunch, I made my way up to the third and top level, where there was, again, no entrance. Apparently the only way in was outside, and I’d have to go all the way around the mall exterior to get there. I hurried to a nearby slide to get down to the ground level. This slide was yellow and orange striped, had a tunnel cover over it, and instead of staying straight and together, the three chutes separated and looped around on their way down. 

I sat dow and started to slide, but when I reached the tunnel cover a few feet down the first drop, I didn’t fit. I had to squirm my way back up and off the slide. I decided I was just done. Since I’d come in on the third floor, I decided to just go back to my car and either drive around to the outside entrance or head to the grocery store. 

It was getting late, and the wing where I’d parked was eerie and ominous win its emptiness. When I got to my car, I found I had left my purse behind somewhere. Probably the food court. Or maybe the slide.

I went back to the food court first, and asked around, but no one had seen or turned in a purse. There were even more plates, on all the tables and all along the floor, and I had to be careful not to step in refried beans or tamales in chili con carne. As I neared the slide, there were plates of Indian food, fragrant with curry and cumin and cardamom. I had to wait in line to get to the person running the slide so I could ask about my purse. Dozens of bystanders were hanging around, and they recognized me as the woman who didn’t fit.

My purse wasn’t there either. They directed me to the lost and found. On my way there I passed a pet shop with dozens of puppies in the window, available for adoption. I stopped to eye them wistfully. A woman came out to encourage me to come get a puppy, but I had to explain that I was just visiting from Seattle. I couldn’t bring a puppy back on the plane, and my apartment didn’t allow pets anyway. She was shocked and refused to believe such a rule could exist anywhere. I took a deep breath to try to explain, and then I woke up.

Dreams of Insomnia ~ 6/1/2021

 I dreamed I was on a trip in Europe with a small group from my university band. I was having a hard time sleeping, and would spend every night awake, then get on a bus and travel all day. We were taking a break in one place, and I decided to try sleeping in a warm bubble bath. I accidentally spilled a bunch of rice in the water, but it didn't seem like a big deal.

I woke up in the middle of the night, so at least I had slept, but the water was cool, so I started to drain it, then turned the hot water on. There was something squishy in my mouth, and I figured it was some of the rice, so I just swallowed it. Then, as I felt the warmth of the hot water spreading from the faucet end, I noticed a flicker of movement in the water, just where the warm met the tepid. I couldn't see anything, really, just a sort of ripple. There was a jar by the tub, and I scooped water around the movement the next time I saw it.

I looked closely at the jar, and I saw more than a dozen little... things. They were sort of shaped like sideways droplets. They were perfectly clear, so I could only see them when they moved. But they would swim jerkily, like tadpoles, and then I'd see them, circling around in the jar. I searched the bathwater, and I decided I'd got all of them. I really hoped that wasn't what I had swallowed, and that if it was, I wasn't going to have a chest alien bursting out in twenty-four hours.

I set the jar down, and I decided they must have come from the rice, so I started scooping the grains out. I put some into the jar, and the clear things rushed up and began to climb on top of them, so I stopped putting anything in the jar, because it was still only half full, and I did NOT want them climbing out of it.

Instead I started scooping the rice grains out onto the bath mat. There, a bunch of tiny pandas, each about the size of a nickel, hurried out and began eating the grains of rice. I got most of it out, and the water was warm enough now. I set the drain and faucet to flow at about the same rate, so the water would stay warm for the rest of the night.

As I was trying to go back to sleep, I wondered if this was a very good idea, to sleep in a bathtub every night, and would I drown? I decided if I breathed in the water, I'd wake up sputtering, so it was okay. I was just getting comfortable and drifting off to sleep when the trip coordinator knocked on my door and said it was time to get up. And then I woke up.