Dangerous Elevator

I'm in New York City for my interview with the L1 society. I wake up in my hotel room only to find that I don't have my luggage, so I have nothing to wear to the interview except what I was wearing yesterday. I put on those clothes but the pants are horribly wrinkled and I can't find the shirt.

I walk out of my hotel and realize I don't know which direction the L1 society is. However, I know that the L societies are in descending order going down the street. I know that if I walk out of my door in Belmont and turn right, walking so that the street numbers decrease, I pass the L4 Society and the L3 society and so on. So I turn right and walk so the street numbers are descending.

It takes me a long time I walk through the buildings instead of on the sidewalk. But I'm not worried. I pass the L4 Society and then the L3 society, so I know I'm going in the right direction. I know that L stands for lemma, and I'm trying to guess what the different lemmas are for the different societies.

Finally I get to the Flatiron Building, which is right across the street. I'm up on the fourth floor, so I push the button for the elevator. Waiting for the elevator to get there I realize I don't even have any shoes or socks, and I haven't clipped my toe nails in ages.

The elevator comes and it's in the corner of the Flatiron building, with glass all the way around so that you can see the city around you. It starts going up instead of down, so I figure I must have gotten on the wrong elevator. As it goes up it keeps getting smaller and smaller, until I'm sitting on the floor and squeezed against the door. I'm wondering how far up it can go, because I didn't think the Flatiron building was that tall. That's when I notice the recorded voice of a tour guide, talking about how the cars on the street don't stop as they pass the building. The elevator leans forward (or is the whole building) until I am dangling over the city, scared out of my wits that I'm going to fall.

Connections with reality: I've been thinking a lot about axioms and lemmas in relation to what we can say about God if we reject the Bible. I was also thinking last night that I needed to clip my toe nails.

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.

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.

Wheelchair Protest

I ride my bicycle into DC, down into the U street area near Ben's Chili Bowl. I stop across the street from the internet cafe that I want to get lunch at. When I go to lock my bike to the street sign, I realize I left my other bike here from last time, and I need to lock that up too. There is already a third bike locked to the sign I usually use. It's secured to the sign with a bike chain (as in, the chain for the gears). I stand there for a while trying to figure out how to lock my two bikes to the third bike so that the other bike can still be unlocked and ridden away. Then a bunch of people in wheelchairs (most of them motorized) come down the street in the bicycle lane. They are all dressed up in black suits. They are protesting the way that people on wheel chairs are treated on city streets. The light turns red and they all stop, and some guy starts walking down the line haranguing them. He's asking the wheelchair people if they would behave this way if they were at home.

Time Travelling Bank Robbers

Me and the rest of the gang of bank robbers walked into a garage early one morning. It was the sort of garage that hadn't been used for a car in ages, and was instead a place to work. As we came in, one guy found a shell casing on the floor. We figured that this meant other bank robbers had used this garage before, and saw it as a good omen.

We sat down and starting working on our own bullets. We would unscrew the tops, pack them full of explosives and shrapnel, and screw the tops back on. All throughout this we kept up a lively conversation. It was a good bunch of guys, laughing and joking with each other.

Once we had our bullets ready we packed everything up and headed out to the bank. The garage was on High Street, and we walked through Jackson Park to hit the old Jefferson Savings and Loan on the downtown mall. When we got to the bank we got into a ferocious gunfight with another gang of heavily armed guys very much like us. It became pretty clear during the gun fight that we were the bad guys, and they were the good guys, even though they were another bunch of bank robbers. We decided that we didn't like being the bad guys, and somehow we got a chance to go back through time and change what we did, so that we could be the good guys.

So once again me and the rest of the gang of bank robbers walked into the garage early in the morning. But it wasn't the same gang. By going back in time to become the good guys, the first gang had left a void in the time stream. There needed to be a new gang of bad guys, and somehow I had gotten stuck with the new bad guys, instead of remaining with my old gang, who were now the good guys.

It quickly became clear that these guys were not up to muster. As before, we find a shell casing. Instead of being on the floor it is in a small chute hanging from the ceiling. The guy who finds it doesn't see it as a good omen, but starts talking about how it's evidence that the cops have been here, and the whole thing is a set up, and we're all going to die. The gang leader starts yelling at him in this shrill, piercing voice, telling him to shut up before his paranoid delusions ruin morale.

As before we start working on our bullets, but it's not as before. Instead of packing in shrapnel and explosives, we have brightly colored wooden shapes and square rods, and teeny bullets that we unscrew to pour Goldschlager into the bigger bullets, which are huge fat things half made out of glass.

And there is no friendly conversation. One guy is this introverted obsessive compulsive. He keeps organizing his bullet making materials. Whenever he does this, the gang leader yells at him with that shrill, piercing voice. The leader says that every time he's seen someone organizing their bullet making materials it has turned out bad, and someone had died. Then there's a woman who mixes her materials with the introverts, saying that they can then share. Then she takes three quarters of the materials, leaving him with not enough to make his bullets.

I sit quietly through all of this. I'm confused by this new method of making bullets, especially the bit with the Goldschlager. So I just sit and watch the other make their bullets so I can figure out how to make mine. I figure this isn't going to work out, and these guys are all going to die. But I just bide my time, waiting for the chance to slip away quietly, hopefully before the shooting starts.