Why Didn't They Steal My TV?

Ryan H. and I were walking up the wooden steps outside my condo, which was facing Girard St. He is saying how he is happy to be with "the two men who helped me through the toughest and longest periods in my life." I figure that one of them is me helping him through Zen, although I'm not sure which one. I figure the other is Kid helping him through being gay, but when he turns around and gestures to the other man (who is across the street at the bus stop) it's Wyatt Cenac from The Daily Show.

We go in the door to the building, and then take the first door on the right into my condo, which has obviously been robbed. My TV is there, but in the master bed room they've stolen my flat screen monitor and my laptop. I look to the side of the drafting table and see that my desktop is still there. Then I go down the hall to the den, where I see that the other flat screen monitor is gone too. I think I see my backup laptop in a pile of gadgets on the floor, but it just turns out to be my old cable modem. I'm worried about leaving finger prints all over the place, but it doesn't seem like a serious enough crime that the police will dust for them.

I go into the kitchen and out onto the (wooden) back porch, but I don't find anything else stolen. I come back inside and see that Kid is stripping the sheets from the futon in the den. My dog comes running down the hall to me. He's a great dane, but he looks like a wiry white guy with short dark hair and a big nose. He's scared and crying because of the break-in, and I hold him and try to comfort him. I am thinking that I should have set the genetic engineering to make him look like a dog, so that I would be comfortable with him sleeping on the bed with me. I feel bad that he is locked up in the bedroom all day, but if I let him out he'll trash the place.

Kid is staring into the bathroom and his cell phone rings. He pulls it out and it is really huge, but very sci-fi stylish. It turns out it doubles as a police scanner, and the police are almost there.

I wake up afraid that I won't be able to ID the laptop for the police because I have forgotten the names of all the files stored on it.

Connections with Reality: I have been reading a lot about the legalization of gay marriage in DC. The night before this dream I watched the movie Following, where the main character follows people around and then breaks into their houses.

Firefly, Season Two

I'm watching TV in the house on Concord Drive with a woman, but I can't really tell who the woman is. We're watching Firefly, and I realize that it's an episode I haven't seen before. I get really excited, and the woman I'm watching with confirms that they have started filming a new season. There is a small box next to the couch I'm sitting on, and it has DVDs for the first two episodes of the new season, but there isn't one for the third episode, which is the one we are watching.

It's very hard to make out what is going on in the episode. The episode is shot in high contrast, with everything turned into shades of blue. As I concentrate on it, it resolves into a more normal shot.

River Tam and my friend Bethany are walking through the Serenity, although it is much bigger than in the first season, very dark, and full of strange pipes and machines. It is much more like something out of Aliens. River and Bethany are trying to track down a ghost that has been haunting the ship. As they're walking up some steps River suddenly turns around and starts to stalk down the steps. The ghost had been right behind her, and turning on it makes it appear. It floats backwards as River stalks down the steps and across the circular platform at the bottom. It looks like some big cartoon Frankenstein monster, wearing a sweater with horizontal yellow and orange stripes.

It suddenly dodges around River and melds with a car that is on the platform. River tries reaching into the ethereal space where the car is, but she can't find the ghost to grab him. Then she tries to reach into the physical space where the car is, and in one punch smashes out all of the windows on the driver's side. She doesn't get the ghost, but where the windows were there are scraps of something like red fabric, blowing in a wind that isn't there. Then River tries to reach into the space that isn't ethereal and isn't physical. Her hand goes through the side of the car, which ripples like a Stargate effect, and she pulls out the ghost.

Now the ghost is a big red line, about seven feet long, with a loop at one end and a claw at the other. The claw is trying to grab River and Bethany, and Bethany starts screaming. River gets angry and starts smashing the arm into the car until it shatters into thousands of little pieces which disappear as soon as they hit the floor.

Connection with reality: I almost started re-watching the first season of Firefly last night, but decided to go with Star Wars instead.

Fifth Grade was Never Like This

I'm in fifth grade, sitting at a long table in front of Mrs. Chase. On my right are an ex-girlfriend and Mark H. On my left is Stephen Colbert. Mrs. Chase is showing us a graph of our predicted grades. All of the dots on the graph are the letter 'R,' and they form a pattern that looks like an owl. I'm thinking that it should be called the Owl of Doom, but before I can say anything Mrs. Chase says she was thinking of calling it the Owl of Doom, "if that's okay with Mr. Colbert." Colbert feigns humility, but eventually gives in to having the graph named the Owl of Doom in his honor.

This is when I notice that a woman is standing in front of Colbert. She's wearing white panties and a green hoodie that she has unzipped. She is trying to gain Colbert's favor by displaying herself in front of him. My ex-girlfriend remarks that it makes her feel bad because the woman's tits are so big. I'm thinking, "They're very nice, but they're not that big." When I look back, the woman has zipped up her hoodie. It has a fascinating fractal design over her right breast.

Connections with reality: I just reconnected with my fifth grade teacher on Facebook. I've always been irritated with NASA's ISS Node 3 getting called the Stephen Colbert rather than the Serenity, and I was thinking about watching Firefly last night. A woman I know got in an argument with her boyfriend because he said that an actress on TV was really hot.

Fratricidal Pythonic Rats

I went to see Jason, who was living at the house I grew up in on Concord Drive. We were down in the basement, which had been remodeled to look like Evan's parent's basement. I brought over my rat Hermes but was having trouble keeping track of him. At one point I was holding Hermes in might right hand, and I looked to my left and found another rat and his baby desperately clinging to my right arm. I realized it was Hermes long lost brother, and was overjoyed. Then Greta sat down next to me with a large albino rat, which I realized must be the mother of the baby.

At this point Jason had to get up and deal with some other people who had come over to visit. I was trying to find a box to take the rats home in. But all the boxes were full of colored wooden blocks. When I would empty them out they would turn out not to be the right size for the rats. Meanwhile, the rats were all scurrying about, so once I figured out that a box didn't work, I would have to crawl around the room collecting more rats. In the middle of this Greta gave me a note saying that Jason wouldn't be able to get back to me.

Then after a couple more tries with boxes, the people Jason was supposed to be talking to came in. They were very well dressed Russian nobility. I looked down and Hermes' brother had become really huge in my arm, with Hermes' head sticking out of his mouth. I didn't understand what I was seeing. The Russian woman took a cigarette in a long cigarette holder out of her mouth and said something snotty to me about rats. I looked down and realized that Hermes' brother had completely swallowed Hermes. I freaked out and started smashing the brother's head against my cheap folding table from the Game Cave, but he wouldn't die, he just kept whining at me piteously.

Strangling an Island on a Train

I was on the train, and I realized that sitting in front of me was an ex-girlfriend. Since we'd known each other she had become a famous science fiction author. I debated whether or not to leave her alone for a while, but finally decided to talk to her.

I started by telling her how much I appreciated what she had done with her last novel. In the second edition second edition the last part of the novel (where the hero goes on a journey to China) was removed to form the start of her next novel.

When she replied was when I got my first good look at her. She looked like Bridget Fonda in Point of No Return. She said that the journey to China was really a "panel piece," an idea she had gotten from reading Chinese romance novels. "The heroine asks where the emperor's palace is, and her guide points and says 'Three blocks down on the right.' And eventually we get there, but it takes us nine hours." She had been really nervous about the change, afraid that she would lose readers one way or the other. "I make a lot of money worrying about losing readers," she said.

"As long as you don't make Bujold's mistake, you won't lose me," I replied.

"Well, I hope that when you read my books, you get something more out of them because of the connection we shared."

"No, your writing is so good that when I read it I get totally lost in the world you have created, and I don't realize who has written it." I realize as I say this that it hurts her. But it's the truth: I can't realize who wrote it because it would hurt me.

At this point in the conversation I'm lying across two train seats with her leaning over me. Another fan of her work comes up behind her and starts talking to her, so we both sit up. He's a very geeky kind of guy, like a small Andy Dick. He waves his arms around a lot as he talks. He's talking about how there is this empty place inside him when he reads her books. I'm trying to decided if my ex would be more disturbed by me hanging around while she is trying to talk to another fan, or if she is more disturbed by the other fan, when he says "It's like trying to strangle an island."

I wake up thinking that I should have stuck around.

Connections with reality: I've been getting Lois McMasters Bujold's books on the kindle and rereading them, although I stopped this week because I ran out of money on my book budget. I went to a mall last night that had a lot of Chinese New Year stuff set up in the central atrium.

Kindergarten Tree

My brother and I were walking through the area around Park and High Streets in Charlottesville, although we were in Richmond. I used a key I had so we could take a short cut through a building I used to work in. I was thanking him for giving me a ride down so that I could move to Richmond. I was telling him how it would be nice to be near all my old friends who ended up in Richmond after going to VCU.

Then we walked in to Jefferson Park and my brother was gone, and I was walking with Bill and Mark H. They said, "Let's go to kindergarten and get high." They started climbing up this huge tree. The trunk was at least 15 feet around. They were climbing with their arms and legs bent at inhuman angles, like something out of a Japanese horror film. They were climbing up by gripping the edges of the bark on the tree, which spiraled around the tree like a barber pole.

As soon as Mark and Bill headed up the tree, two random guys appeared and tried to follow them, but the random guys were unable to climb the tree. They yelled up to Bill and Mark, begging them for help, saying that they wouldn't have fun unless they helped the random guys up the tree.

Then I tried climbing up the tree. There was no bark, and I had to grip on to some sticky bumps that were protruding from the tree. At first it was hard but doable, but after about fifteen feet I just couldn't go any farther. I fell down, but landed on my feet staring up at the tree. I woke up wanting to get high.

When I first quit smoking cigarettes, I used to have lots of dreams where I would smoke in the dream. Then I would wake up feeling like shit, thinking I had smoked a cigarette the night before.

CSI: My House

I was having a party at my house. One of my coworkers went out into the back yard with some hip surfer dude. They didn't come back, and when we went outside we found her strangled to death. She'd been zipped up in a big mesh bag with a coffin sized mattress. The mattress was on a wooden bench next to a camp fire. The mattress was supposed to catch fire and burn up all of the evidence. Kirk and I walked carefully around the crime scene, crouched low with arms and legs curved out, looking for forensic evidence.

I had this dream Tuesday night, but didn't post it because it disturbed me so much. It wasn't like a nightmare. During the dream it was just like an episode of CSI (without the inevitable gross out scene). But the second I woke up I was totally freaked out by it.

Bad Drivers

It was late at night, and I was down on the old track at CHS. All of sudden these two cars drive onto the field. One is an old, rusted VW bug, and the other is a non-descript VW rabbit. They start racing around the track, but not really paying attention to the track. They're driving off the track and onto the field all over the place, and when they get to where I am (on the corner closest to the back entrance of CHS), they split around me, zooming by on either side. There are women and children running all over the place screaming.

After a few laps, the VW rabbit turns and drives up the hill, along the houses on Grove Rd. and toward the back entrance. The VW bug tries to follow, but ends up going into the creek with a tremendous crash and lots of tinkling glass. I run down to the creek to see what happened, taking out my mini-mag light and waving it around. When I get there the cops have already shown up, and one of them makes some sarcastic comment about how helpful the light was.

The VW bug crashed into a white truck, which was on a smuggling run down the path cleared for the power lines. To get it open we had to pull the front end forward and down. The first guy out of the cab has some blood spattered on him, and he's stumbling around and babbling incoherently. The Don Dennis comes out, as cheerful and dapper as ever. Then I woke up.

Bicycling Past Dancers

Note that the date is off for this one, I woke up from this dream on 1/6

I was in Charlottesville, bicycling around town and arguing with Jim. It was not clear at all what we were arguing about, but it wasn't a very heated discussion. We were going west on High St., but when we came to the light at Park St., the way was blocked by dancing women. It looked like a bunch of women had just come out of the offices nearby and started doing a Broadway dance routine in the middle of the street, although by the time we got there several of them had just wandered off. It was obviously a planned event, because the city had put up traffic cones and sawhorses to block the street off for the dancers.

We turned right on Park St., which somehow became 5th St., which we rode up to the intersection with Main and Water. That intersection had become a huge traffic circle that was jam packed with bicycle traffic. One overweight teenage boy with dark hair cut me off, but other than that we got through onto Water St. okay.

We rode down Water St. to the parking garage, but there was a bus blocking the entrance. Jim was really nervous because the bus was beeping and it's reverse lights were on, but I could see it was moving forward. But the parking garage was full of small concrete ledges like the edge of a sidewalk, but twice as high. I managed to bunny hop over them and around the bus at which point I was at the entrance to the UVa bookstore.

That's when I was woken up by my rat going nuts running around his cage and rattling the bars.