Dream Log: May 1, 2000

There's No Place Like Home For the Holidays. For some reason, the fulfillment department manager from my last job is visiting up here for the Christmas holidays. I am preparing to leave the store, she collars me and wrings a long soul kiss out of me. Iw, what about my breath? Nikki is with her, and submits to a frigid "happy holidays" kiss, but there is no tongue forthcoming from her. Thank God.
I am not a crook. Either I am just out prowling, or I have a legitimate reason for breaking into the house of the Polish family up the block. Too bad I don't remember. I can't find whatever has drawn me in here, and I am trapped in the kitchen when the father rounds the corner, holding a shotgun. I reach for the sky. In what seems like an hours-long sequence, I eventually persuade him that I meant no harm, I was looking for a mis-delivered Xmas gift, a breaking-and-entering record is going to needlessly screw up my whole life... He lets me go, to philosophize with one of the neighborhood kids. My parents don't even have to know.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In a penniless back alley production of Romeo and Juliet, I fall through the roof and have to recite my part of the "Wherefore art thou, Romeo" dialogue with a mouthful of shards of very thin glass mirror. Spitting it out, careful not to cut my lips or tongue on the way out, there is one piece that doesn't fit out my mouth! How did it get in there? I start to choke (I was probably snoring), and wake. It's 2 minutes to when my alarm normally alarms.

• I remember my mother wanting to go to the store with me. I told her I had some things to do before. I took a nap. When I woke up, there were some friends at my house wanting to go as well. One of the friends there was Lindsay, the rest of the friends I do not remember. Now I wanted to go but I knew I had some problems to answer before I could go. I worked on answering the sheet of problems while my friends waited patiently. When I was done, all of my friends were there, ready to go except for Lindsay. I did not ask where she went.
• I was at some sort of a meeting, outside, in an open place. Me and some friends were there. One of the guys there asked me to help him carry some candy to the park. Then the cops came to the place and they were arresting some people. My friends and I decided it would be better if we left, because we didn't want to be arrested for what we were talking about. So, we went to Josh Campbell's house.

  There, I asked if his computer had the flight simulator contained in one of the Microsoft entertainment pack for windows. He said yes and I played a hard level. I remember beating this level at ease, at home, but I could not do it here.

• I was at a university, but the building/objects/background all looked like it was from the game Quake. Whenever I commented on it, the students told me to hush because they were trying to learn. Brandon was there too, and he noticed the Quake stuff as well.
• I was trying to launch an object into flight using some sort of a slingshot. I tried multiple times but I always failed. When I looked up, I saw a man, sleeping, in a hammock. I felt bad because I knew some of my attempts at flight hit him.

- / +

Breakfast with my family and oh it's late, where's my Latin book, where's my notebook, how am I getting to school today, no one would give me any answers and time was moving faster than it had any right to. I was terrified of being late but knew it was going to happen. Dread. After maybe an hour of struggling to find everything (trying to remember what you need in a high school day) I ran out to my mom's car where she waited sullenly. Got to school and told Mr. Coleman, "I'm late" with the same inflection as "I killed a man." He winked and said he would straighten it all out. No price to pay for me, I felt cheated.

Doug was quiet but I hadn't expected so much enthusiasm from him. He delighted easily. We walked across the parking lot on our way to the Hard Rock Cafe. The doorway was blocked by a rack of clothes and I tried to climb through it and made a fool of myself; the people inside laughed, the other people we were with laughed. Doug helped me up and we went off to the gift shop. Enormous Rugrats underwear printed with "Hi, Brother!"

Back in the parking lot (had we escaped the others or was it a different day?) I asked Doug about the credit card incident. Some hotel had been horrible to him, everyone rude beyond the bounds of his tolerance, and he broke character in a frightening way and hurled the company credit card at the mean person behind the front desk. I couldn't remember if he'd told me this story, or if it had happened in one of his books. Because his books all felt like listening to him talk. He liked that.

I was a boy coming home from war, angry that they hadn't let me go to the other planet to fight. Down the escalator to my family in the airport. She tried her best to comfort me but I was so angry. Dinner was a wonderful thing, though, fresh food, home-cooked. I focused on that and tried to ignore the people.

Yup I remembered a dream. I hardly ever do. It's the same one I had three weeks ago pretty much.

A shoe, a fish, no a shoefish. It looked just like a shoe but it was flopping around on the ground like a fish out of water. I saw this and I remember feeling sad, but I also felt like I knew what to do. I picked up the flopping shoefish and tossed it into the oven. Then I looked through the window on the oven door and saw a happy swimming shoefish.

That was weird, should I get some professional help?