Lee, Destiny, me, and someone else were going to do some sort of performance. (Lee is an old friend from high school drama and Destiny is his fiancée; both were Theatre majors at their college.) I had his sound effects tape which also produced other effects, such as heat emanating as if from a portable heater. I was cold and I wanted it to warm my room, but he needed it to practice, so I gave it to him. I think at the beginning our acts were separate. I certainly was not prepared; I needed to change but every place was cold, and I knew he needed the tape to practice so I couldn't use it to warm a room.

I found my leotard, but the tights that I had planned on using, once I turned them right-side-out, had a pattern on them. Lee was sure that we needed to wear the basic ballet pink tights, so I turned another pair around. All of the tights on my floor turned out to be patterned. Lee pointed out what a coincidence it was that two of the pairs were the exact opposite of each other: exactly the same except one was black-on-white and the other was white-on-black. I thought I was supposed to hurry. Finally I found the right tights. I realized that I was warm from all of the running around. I don't remember actually getting dressed; I just suddenly was. Then I needed shoes. I had a box with all of my old ballet shoes and I dumped them on the ground. The newest-looking ones fit. I was glad.

Suddenly I was lined up with others dressed in the basic ballet uniform of black leotards, pink tights, and pink ballet shoes. The people with me were all people I knew from drama in high school. Monica was on one side of me, and Joanna on the other. (I have never been very close to either of them, and though I recently saw Joanna at our old high school's graduation, I haven't seen Monica in a year or more.) All were girls except one, Tyron. I think he was wearing the same outfit - the female outfit. I only saw his head and shoulders; he was across the room from me.

Everyone lay down in a row, and there was so little room that we were touching. We were supposed to be sitting with our legs straight out in front of us, bending over. I could feel Monica and Joanna soft like pillows against me on either side. At this point I woke up enough to realize that I was feeling actual pillows on either side of me in my sleep. We went through the motions, and I could not see the teacher, but in my mind I knew exactly what exercises we were doing (I took six years of ballet as a child and one college class) and although I was still no more skilled than the beginners around me (I have never been good at it) I remembered what a relaxing and wonderful exercise it was and was in my element in remembering the pattern of movement.

We finished and another group came into the room. My group was crammed against the back wall, watching. These appeared to be little kids. They did a little dance together, and then one child in each pair began to lift the other, with the other standing in the hands of the first. It suddenly became apparent that one of the partners was much older than the second, although it had not been that way at first. One girl in the back giggled and hid her face in her partner's hair, too shy to be lifted up. Someone said "Lisa's sister isn't ready." or something like that. I looked closer and it was my cousin Lisa, holding one of our little second-cousins. Then I also saw Paul, her brother, holding another little second-cousin. I was upset because they were my second-cousins too, yet I had not been even invited to participate in this special presentation with them.

There were a lot of older kids crowding into the room now. Someone reported that many of the girls were asking for Tyron's phone number. I burst out laughing; such a thought was absurd - plus, I knew what he was really like. I kept laughing, and the person I was with became confused. He asked me why I would not want to give out my phone number. I could have sworn he had said people wanted Tyron's number. I didn't understand why he had changed his story.

***

Suddenly I was in another place, in a house. I was in the kitchen/living room. Lillis was cooking, Ryan was on the couch. I think I was sitting on the counter. I was mushing up some eggs for no particular reason. Literally put eggs in a bowl and mushed them with my hands, except they were more gelatinous than eggy, and the shells sort of dissolved or something. Lillis was asking Ryan what he wanted her to make for breakfast. I was jealous that I couldn't cook. I asked her if she wanted to use the eggs I had mushed up, but she said that they probably wouldn't work. I felt shot down even though I expected it. My father was there, too. Finally, he went to read or play computer games in the back room (which was the same relation to the room we were in as my father's bedroom is to our kitchen at home), and I moved to the couch with Ryan and snuggled up against him. We were glad that my father had finally left so we could hug.

Then there were more people, I think my youngest brother and some chubby girl who was Lillis' friend. We were talking, and every once in a while Ryan would go to the doorway of the back bedroom and say something to my father about how high my grades were or something else encouraging about the quality of my life.

We were talking about the aliens we had discovered, moties. I was adamant that I did not want their species named after me - "something like Motius Rebeccus" I said. We had supper, which was some aliens. I ate some, then saw one that looked like a miniature turtle (nowhere in the dream did I see aliens that actually looked like the Moties in Larry Niven and Jeffrey Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye", but they were called "Moties"). I picked all of the miniature turtles out and put them aside. Then I had the aliens called to pick them up. I was not sure whether I should be embarrassed about eating some or rejecting some.

We were all getting ready for something. Lillis and her chubby friend went into the next room, and I was going to follow them when they pointed out a strange band of cloth that had been affixed to the door. The Moties had set something up. I was too scared to go in. I went back into the other room. Most of the lights had gone out and the place was dim. I was incredibly frightened of the dimness. Ryan was already dressed; he was wearing black clothes that looked like something Luke Skywalker would have worn, with a black cape or cloak. He comforted me and said he would go with me to change, since my main fear was that no one should go into the Motie-infested room without a partner. Then I began to panic about rescuing Lillis, but she and her chubby friend showed up in the room and said that they had escaped. We went into many dressing rooms, but they were all dim with many light bulbs burned out or fading.

I continued to panic and told them that I was not only afraid of the dark, I was also afraid of the dimness. Another girl, also supposedly one of Lillis' friends but thinner than her other friend, began helping Lillis disassemble a lamp for me. I was not sure they had the best idea, but they took the lamp to the main room and reassembled it and handed me a picture of Jesus. Lillis tried to hang it on the wall, but the only thing she had to hang it on was an imperfection in the plaster, and it wouldn't stay up there, so she handed it to me. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with it. Her thinner friend sat down beside me with a mirror. I said "Thank you" because I thought it was for me, but she started using it herself. Then I realized that if I rubbed the dust off, behind the words the plaque that Lillis had given me was a mirror, too.

Then I woke up.