Fevered Dream

Started with our little community theater group in Dream City, I'm in the second seat of the first row. The show is going, the audience is full of former cast members and parents, and friends, and the recently homeless, watching, and singing along. It is a run through, working rehearsal, but with a few stops as possible. It is going well. familiar music for everyone.

Take the stage with your friends, the writer and director urge, looking at me for permission. Who am I to deny these people, all these talents, their fun?

There is the digging to enlarge the stage, mounds of stored flats and frames and crates,
Lead down below the hall to the back of the ruined temple on the other side of the block.
And an exterior door.
Street Level.
A short walk to verify, Ware house of house of storage for house of horrors. (See us in Octobre)

It is one of my warehouses, holding a now defunct show's sets I cannot make myself evict.
I smile.

I walk through to a street, a band was set up,
Streets blocked, then been told their promised gig could no go forward.
This City must Move
Without them.

Pack it all up.

Interrupted Nuptials, famous vocal cords grown old, but still grasping at the youth promised of wedded bliss. Fran-San Cisco will not have them.

Take the stage, both of you,
Join the show,
Take the stage with our little community of performers, we're moving the audience into the ground floor,
Opening all the crates.
Under UV lights,
The faded sets like cartoon fireworks, all horror long faded.
We perform the Entre` Act
The choreographer adjusts.
Then a Wedding
Then Act II
Dizzying effects,
Unforgettable Nuptials
A community restoration
"Hallelujah" sung by hundreds of voices.
"We can't sing that, we don't have the rights!"
"I wouldn't worry about that," the silver-haired groom, and owner of the song smiles. "It's meant to be sung. Just, like, this."
He smiles.
"We have three more nights..."
The band, smiles.
My director and choreographer smile.
The excavators smile,
The bride and groom look at one another, all honeymoon plans fled, they take the stage.
And smile.
We finish the song with the crowd.
And smile.

I awake, music still thundering in my ears.
I smile.

White House Road Trip

Had this dream several nights ago, but thought it would be appropriate for the day after the State of the Union Address.

J and I had taken a road trip across country, stopping in several places in the west and mid-west before shooting across the Mississippi and forging through to Washington D.C. Once there we got up bright and early one day for our tour of the White House. It was a lovely tour, and the antiques just fascinated J, re-igniting, I suspect, her desire to collect. At one point the President actually stopped in the hallway to say hello to us. We joked with him, and J and I managed to make him laugh. We finished our tour, and ended up the last of the crowd to go into the gift shop.

In the gift shop, J was looking at miniature versions of some of the famous antiques, and was chatting about re-furnishing her dollhouse, suggesting we make a White House replica. While she was talking the store emptied out, except for four secret service guys, and the President. The President waited on us at the checkout stand. I thought it was amusing that he needed help getting the cash drawer open.

Celebrity Time Tour, UFOs, and Random Voice

In the first dream of the evening, I was invited on a Celebrity Time Tour. Something, however, went horribly awry and we were separated from our guide. I spotted a young Mark Hamill along a boardwalk, so pointed him out to the other tourists who were starting to panic. Sadly, the younger ones of the group had no idea who that was. Sigh. I remembered that we were supposed to just hang out and watch, not interact with the future celebrities, or that could alter history. (The guide did tell us that history was pretty resilient, but we'd better behave just in case.) The trip planning had involved a lot of questions about who we might be related to, as that seemed to be the one thing that screwed up history fairly easily.

We went across the boardwalk and started discussing the wooden jacuzzi tubs that were set into the bathing pools. Some folks wondered why they'd been removed. I pointed out that even with careful cleaning, wood tubs could harbor fungus and bacteria better than other materials. I pointed out that it was still a neat style, and that we could easily replicate it with sanitary substitutes given a little investment push. As the discussion progressed, I realized that the young Mark Hamill had joined in the discussion. He seemed to think it was a pretty good idea, actually.

We tried to withdraw from the conversation gracefully, and finally the tour guide had to come up and take me away, "Grandpa, you need to get your meds now, sorry young man."

"That's okay, it was cool to meet you."

We got back to our time tour HQ without further issues, and there was Mark Hamill, "Hey, I remember you!"

"Please tell my you agreed to make a movie called 'Star Wars'?" I asked.

"Star What?" then he broke out into a huge laugh. "I did want to show you this, though."

He had an investment promo for faux-wood pool accessories. "I started this company. Sales are great. Thanks for the idea. I was trying to get a time tour to go back and find your family so I could pass some of the success along... well, we see how that turned out."

It was now my turn to laugh.

-----

In the next dream I was having trouble with my asthma and so we were packing up Little Red so I could get home and get medicated. (The car med-kit was apparently dry.) As we sat in the car a line of UFO's crossed the beach about a hundred yards off shore. I quickly got out the cell phone and started shooting HD video. My passenger complained "why do they always look like god-damned Tupperware?"

Three of the four UFO's turned edge on to the ocean and dove out of sight. The fourth one, which looked more like one of those round hot tubs, bounced down into the waves, where it was obvious that it was, in fact, one of those round vinyl covered hot tubs. There were four very frightened people in the tub. We got out of the car and raced down the beach to help pull them in to shore. I was still having trouble breathing, but didn't want to miss their story because of a little thing like that.

-----

As I lay in bed, trying to ignore the alarm light, I heard a voice (concerned, male, deeper than my own) say "He died this morning, shortly after two a.m." It made me sad.

Mish Mash: from the last several nights.

Mirror Doppleganger (Night Terror)I walked around the house for twenty minutes to shake this dream off, avoiding the floor to cieling mirror in the hallway by zooming past the opening.

Magnum P.I. I was him, standing on a hill overlooking the ocean.

Nudist Swimmers Attacked by Great White Shark.
Most of us made it up onto the boat.

Pirate Fairies and Mermaid

This one I barely remember now. It took place in a boat on the bottom of an aquarium, I think.

Photo Shoot: Nude Olympics, Attack on a Mountain Road

             I dreamed I was shooting athletes for a calendar project. We were in the Italian Alps, or at the base of them, rather. I was shooting some oiled up beauties on the grounds of an old vineyard. There were lots of poses on split rail fences and against old rusted equipment. At the end of the shooting day I transferred, via laptop wireless, the best of my photographs. The athletes went home, except for one one slender woman, who wanted to have racier photos for her own portfolio.
             We wanted to try something exotic by shooting with lots of dramatic side lighting, and different colors against the red rusted farm equipment and the dark night sky. It took me several minutes to set up lighting for the different locations. She went into town for dinner while I was setting lights and reflectors. She came back with a friend, a much rounder, bustier woman, who I thought would actually be a much more visually romantic subject.
             We worked for a couple of hours after dinner, and I was finally able to talk the friend into posing for some photographs. I had some soft robes and some aprons as well as a couple of floral pinafores in my trunk, some one size fits all frilly clothing. I managed to get some make-up on the friend and we were able to talk her into posing nude, as well. I could not convince them to pose nude together, but was able to get some lovely shots of them in aprons and pinafores as well as in their striped blouses and shorts.
             The women went back to town while I broke down my gear and stowed it in my rented Ram.
             The next morning I had a large number of Italian Adult film stars at the same site. They were in track and field outfits for a sort of Summer Olympics tribute that rapidly turned into a nude Olympics and then the Olympic Orgy afterwards. The producer of the work was shooting video and there was also a film photographer on the scene as well as her two assistants, who I thought were better looking than most of the adult stars. The producer saw some of my photos from the evening previous, and wanted to purchase them. He offered me a large amount of money, which I had to decline, explaining that these shots were works for hire. The other photographer and her assistants asked me to stay another night and to help them set up and shoot in the evening. The four of us went to work, and the two assistants proved to be enthusiastic and willing models. Eventually we managed to get the three women in the compositions, with me operating three cameras. We reviewed my digital images and I burned DVD copies for the three women. After we had packed everything up, the photographer invited me back to their hotel, where she and I spent the night in one bed and the assistants/models in the other. The two slender assistants were very noisy, but we weren't really sleeping that much, either.

             Later, after N went to work, I fell asleep again. This time I was walking along a cobblestone road with a cliff on one edge. The road hadn't been designed for vehicle traffic, so there were many pedestrians and a few brave cyclists. The road was flanked on the other side by stone buildings whose porches sat right on the cobblestone road. There were a couple of fruit stands, and a cart with knitted goods hanging from it. There were narrow side streets that wound their way up into the hillside along very narrow alleys faced with similar stone buildings. Given the twists and turns of the roads, I had no doubt that there were spots which hadn't seen the sun in hundreds of years. A large half-tracked vehicle lumbered by, forcing us pedestrians to press ourselves against the buildings, or in my case, to jump up on the top of the retaining wall alongside the road. The other side of the wall was forty to sixty feet high, and nearly sheer.
             As the half-track passed the last of the buildings, an old chapel next to the graveyard, which was terraced into the mountainside, a large machine gun swung out of the back and began firing at random people along the road. People shouted and headed for the alleyways where the vehicle couldn't follow. I decided it was too far to make a break for it, and ducked down below the wall. Fortunately the stones were the shallow flat type of stone, and there was no mortar, so there were plenty of hand and foot holds. I could hear the half-track shift into reverse the the machine gunner continued to fire. I saw a cyclist fall over the retaining wall a hundred yards up the hill from me. The wall was undercut there, so he had nothing to grab on to and fell into the ravine below. I started for the overhang, which turned out to be a good idea. The half-track backed further down the road, I could see the jet black machine gun swivel over the top of the waist high wall. The gunner was a black silhouette against the bright blue sky. The gun was able to be aimed back along the side of the lumbering tracked vehicle, but the curve of the road, and the under cut favored me. I was able to hang in the shadow, fist and feet jammed into crevasses to hold me up. I pulled my body up into the shadow, and hoped the sunlight on the beige stones would be too bright for the gunner to make me out.
             The gunner squeezed off a few bursts along the wall, not really aiming for anything. I was pelted with rock chips, but the bullets all were far below me. I waited for the vehicle to be gone, and then tried to climb up over the overhang. The stones of the actual railing like wall were much smaller and smoother, so I had no purchase. I am also much heavier than I used to be, and without a foothold, I didn't have enough upper body strength to pull myself over the lip of the overhang. I hung there for a bit, exhausted. I didn't know if I had enough strength to climb down and back to where I'd first gone over the wall. I started calling form help, hoping someone would have a rope or some luggage straps or something I could use to pull myself up and over the edge.

The Creature from the Incan Lake

       I dreamed I was at an inland resort, with a series of large pools that had been purchased by a doctor and his research corporation. I convinced them to let me stay, partly by being pleasant and asking about their work, and partly by playing on the pity factor. I'd been the only loyal customer of the resort for years now, in fact owning one of the bungalow lots on the edge of the property. I had to go through their driveway to get to my winter home, which they'd broken into and assigned to a pretty and petite wheelchair bound research assistant.
       I agreed to let her stay, as my home was the only wheelchair accessible bungalow, and they would reimburse me for undoing the changes they'd made. I stayed in the main resort for the first time ever, until the assistant revealed that she wasn't using the main rooms of my bungalow, and she insisted that she would be fine in the main house. After walking back to my home with her, I found we had a lot in common, and I asked her to stay.
       Over time we became friends. She had some sort of muscular dystrophy type condition, and I though she was a bit too much on the thin side, so I tried to feed her some good solid stick to your ribs style home cooking. Pretty soon I had a large number of the assistants coming over for lunch and dinner. They found out that I was a writer, and we had a long discussion over the differences between television and theatrical scripts. I pointed out that with the advent of computers, it was relatively easy to use .xml to mark up your script, and then convert it into any style that was appropriate with the proper style sheet. I started taking photos and the head researcher himself asked me if I could document their findings. I only found it a little bit odd that they didn't have a photographer.
       It turned out that they were working on the remains of a creature that had been hauled up from the deep bottom of a South American lake.
       “The Black Lagoon,” I joked.
       Everyone laughed but the good doctor. He named the lake, but it was unfamiliar to me.
       The creature was a large ten or so foot long cartilaginous fish wish rudimentary bony structures around the head and spine. It was pretty interesting and somewhat unsettling. The team had dissected a couple of specimens that were in poor shape. They were looking at opening up the third, which had a single large whole in its side, but seemed otherwise ready to wake up.
       “Looks ready to put back in the water and swim away from this side.” I commented.
       Everyone just looked at one another uncomfortably, except my roomie. She had an oddly expectant look on her face, completely out of sync with the rest of the researchers and assistants. I resolved to ask about that later, if I could find a polite way to work it into our conversation.
       I must have taken well over 500 shots of all three specimens that first day, labeling each with the help of a scale placed in the photo by one of the research assistants and supervised by the good doctor himself. My roomie stayed and helped with the third most complete specimen, we worked a bit slower and she treated the large fish-like thing with great respect. I realized that I was becoming quite attracted to her despite her thin limbs and awkward movements. She had a sweet face with large dark eyes and hair cut into a very short bob that was never really combed but still looked stylish. Her lips were full and she had a delightful smile when one could coax it out of her.
       I came back over the course of several days to take progress photos. Each morning I would walk along with my roomie as she wheeled to work. Once in the main house she would switch to a manual wheelchair, as it was a little bit smaller and thus easier to get around all the desks and tables.
       In transferring the photos to disks I realized that the third specimen had several organs that had grown during the time of our investigations. I asked about this and the doctor tried to play it off as a trick of the light or perspective. Only, these were all photos with a scale in them, so I doubted that explanation based on both the scale and my own experience with the camera. I began to suspect that everything wasn't on the up and up.
       I managed to convince WG to join me in town one evening as her co-workers had abandoned us to go party for the weekend, leaving her behind. In town, over a dimly lit Italian feast, WG confirmed the apparent regeneration. She admitted that was the real purpose of their research, and the sole reason she was on the team. She was studying gene therapy to encourage nerve tissue to regenerate, for not entirely impersonal reasons.
       She admitted that she had not gone with her co-workers as she didn't want to leave me alone. I told her that wasn't really a problem, I was used to it (we'd had a lot of company lately as I'd become the unofficial company cook as well as photographer.) After a couple more drinks I asked if she'd like to model for me. She volunteered much more quickly than I thought she would. She pulled a folding specimen scale out of her purse, “Can I pose with just this?”
       That caught me off guard a bit, but since I'd planned on trying to talk her into a swimming shoot anyway, I figured I would go with it.
       I wish the photo shoot had been explored in the dream, but the dream skipped right over it to me looking at her photos in an empty lab, and then where we were in the specimen room and she was posing with the large regenerating fish. I noticed that the fish had a very full face, and its eyes seemed to follow WG around the table as she posed.
       I went to the doctor, with cropped photos of the fishes face. When I reached the lab I decided not to show him the photos, as the fish's face had been stripped of its flesh, and its eyes had been removed. I could barely hold down my breakfast when I considered what that meant.
       I confronted WG about it at lunch. She came home very late that night.
       Over the next few days she became more distant, yet scattered at the same time. She was out very late every night, and told me a story about “seeing one of the other assistants,” with an expression that led me to believe that she was making that part up. I framed several of the photos I'd taken of her swimming. She had an ethereal beauty in the water, a sleek naiad with a loving expression. I realized I was quite smitten with her.
       In equal parts jealousy and concern, I made my way up to the main house one night. It was mostly dark, I could hear the assistants playing gin in their bungalows as I passed by. I didn't really count, but it seemed that they were all accounted for. I let myself into the main house and stopped in her office, it was empty. As was the doctor's office, though his light was on. Perhaps she'd been lying about seeing an assistant because she was seeing the doctor.
       I almost turned around and went back to my home. This was very much none of my business. I made my way through the main lab. The specimen, which I hadn't seen in a while, was swimming in its tank. It pushed itself up on its fins as I entered startling me. We stopped, looking at one another. I suddenly felt very sad. I took a shot, long exposure because of the low light levels. The creature stayed still for the exposure. It swam to the glass, spreading its whiskers out flat against the pane. I stepped up and put my had against the glass. I could feel the vibrations of the stiff whiskers on the glass. One tap, then two, then three, then five. Then it waited.
       I tapped the glass seven times. Then it tapped eleven times.
       I tapped thirteen.
       It tapped seventeen.
       I had a sudden very sick feeling as it backed away from the glass. I saw a slender hand reach into the tank and the fish/being swam up to it. Another slender hand reached into the tank and stroked the back of the animal then picked up a spine and plunged it into the opposite wrist. I recognized those hands, only they weren't shaking and seemed firmer than I remembered. I was glad the specimen tank spanned two rooms, and that I was in the darker of the two rooms. I took another photo and slipped away, very confused.
       I waited up for WG.
       “Look, you aren't my father, I can see someone my age, can't I?”
       I held up the photos I'd taken.
       “It's intelligent, isn't it?”
       “What were you doing, following me?”
       “I was jealous, and concerned.”
       “Jealous of a fish?”
       “Um, no, you said you were seeing someone? Jealous of that possible someone, you're a terrible liar, though, so I became concerned about what I didn't know.”
       “It's helping me, I can feel a difference, the spasms are almost gone in my arms, look.”
       I saw the marks from many punctures on her wrists, but those wrists, and the hands attached to them were much steadier than I'd ever seen them. “I'd been getting worse, now I'm not.”
       “Does the doctor know?”
       “He's been working on refining the toxin. I convinced him to stop cutting up the fish. We don't need to do that.:”
       “I think the fish is intelligent, like not dolphin scale, like human scale.”
       “No! It's just a fish.” and she spun her chair and rolled into her room, struggling to get turned around so she could slam the door.
       Later in the night I awoke to the sounds of her vomiting in the guest bathroom, then cleaning up after herself. I thought I heard her sobbing.
       “Do you need some help,” I called out.
       A few moments later her door slammed shut.
       I made us breakfast, and stopped her from going out.
       “I'm not going to stop you but long enough for breakfast, and to let you know that I am worried about you. I have become rather fond of you and don't want to see you hurt.”
       She rolled out of the house without comment.
       The dream skipped ahead to a large gathering. One of the pools had been turned over to the specimen's use after hours. I had spent some time in the evenings trying to determine just how intelligent the fish was. I realized that the doctor was still cutting bits of it off, by comparing it to the other dead specimens I'd taken photos of earlier, I could tell that there were supposed to be four tentacle like manipulators on its upper jaw. I think the Doctor knew that his captive was not a dumb animal. I was glad the Doctor didn't know that I had a pool key. I began to bring the being foods to try and it let me know which it could eat and which it couldn't. I sent WG out in the mornings with some of it's favorites.
       I brought my laptop up and tried going through aerial photos of the world to try to locate where it actually came from. (Details were murky in this part of the dream.) The doctor admitted to me that the creature was alive, finally, and I took several photos for his big press release.
       Suddenly I found myself invited to a formal announcement. James earl Jones was there for some reason. There was also a couple of MIB that showed up. I spotted WG and she had a smile for me.
       Then all hello broke loose. When the lights went up on the tank. The words “I am a prisoner, help me.” were etched in the glass of the display tank The doctor tried to play it off as a joke by his assistants, but there were symbols written underneath in another language that looked remarkably like Incan writing. I started taking photos and barely noticed that WG had taken off her lab coat to reaveal that she was in a cheerleader's outfit. (!?)
       She backed her chair into the glass wall and it cracked. The creature pushed from the other side and she and it were washed into the pool. WG's chair sank to the bottom. I could see her holding her breath and pushing the forward control to drive to the shallow end of the pool. The creature swam back to help her, but she waved it away. I raced to open the gate and the creature swam and leaped out of the pool past me and into the marshy ground at the edge of the resort. I bumped a MIB as I ran back to the pool, spoiling his aim. I heard the creature splash into the stream as I kicked off my shoes and tucked the camera under some seat cushions.
       I dove into the pool as WG was struggling to unlatch her seatbelt. The fabric had swollen in the water making it difficult for her to manage. She was beginning to release air. I tore at the belt and pulled her to the surface. I stepped out of the pool, carefully smoothing her skirt down and cradling her in my arms so we wouldn't give the world a show. She wrapped herself around my neck and started sobbing. Soon other assistants were bringing me towels, but she didn't want to let go, so we worked them around her.
       “Please take me home,” she said quietly.
       I wanted to ask about the whole cheerleader outfit thing, but decided to wait.
       A MIB made motions to stop us as we left the pool area, but James Earl Jones stepped up and said “they're with me.”
       I don't know why that worked but it did and we started down the path.
       “Where are we going?” Mr. Jones asked as we walked down the path, him still in the lead.
       “Our bungalow, it's just down the road.”
       “My wheelchair!”
       “I'll get it later when I go get my camera.”
       “This camera?” Mr. Jones held out my camera and flash rig.
       “I didn't think you would want to leave it behind.”
       “Thanks.”
       “How did you become involved in this?” I asked Mr. Jones.
       “Investor. Promises of youth, only more scientific. Still, pretty gullible, yes?”
       “No, I think we may have that,” WG pulled her face out of my beard.
       “That would be nice.” Mr. Jones looked at WG's rail thin form. “ Either it works well, or he's quite the cradle robber.”
       I started to speak “She's just a...”
       “Cradle robber.” WG quickly filled in and then giggled. I wasn't sure I like the mood swings I was seeing. Then she pulled herself up and kissed me on the cheek. “But regeneration works, too.”
       Mr Jones laughed his booming deep laugh. “Good news, then.” We walked a bit, looking back for signs that we were missed. There were none. Still quite a bit of noise and I could hear people shouting at one another.
       I marveled at how light WG was, and worried that I wasn't keeping her warm enough she was pressed so tightly around me.
       “So, what's with the outfit?” Mr Jones looked at WG, voicing my question from earlier.
       I could feel WG blushing, suddenly she seemed warm enough..

Convention, Truck Bomb

       I dreamed I was at a convention (ComicCon starts tomorrow, so no surprises there.) The convention hall was small, much like it was when we only took up a half of the civic center for the Comic Convention. Like then, I was traveling with a woman who was only interested in the movie memorabilia. While I did have some interest, it exerted a lesser pull than the games, books and comics.
       In the dream I found a dealer who had comic versions of Fudge, Call of Cthulu, and Spare Parts. He recognized my name and wanted me to stop and sign copies of the Spare Parts rules for people. I said I was happy to sit for a while, my feet were in more pain than usual, and sign copies for anyone who purchased on. Pretty soon there was a small crowd around the table, people asking about other rules supplements, and how soon they would see them.
       I didn't really have a good answer for them, as I still had to go to work every day to pay my bills, Spare Parts wasn't able to do that. They were excited when I told then that the artist and colorist were here as well, and they would be quite the catch as they didn't attend many conventions, and weren't really industry artists (as they both worked for their own commercial art companies.)
       My companion was getting bored, and a little jealous of the attention I was getting, so she slipped off to the Hollywood Book and Poster booth along the back wall. That was fine with me, I'd realized much earlier than the dream's time frame that we weren't really suited for one another.

       The dream that woke me this morning featured a couple of backwoodsy sorts picking me and Little John up in their stake bed truck. They drove me to my temporary home at a motor hotel, the parking lot of which was full of running shouting children. While I was cramped in the back of the truck, I found a copy of the Unibomber's Manifesto, and the writings of the pair who'd blown up the Federal building. I remembered smelling diesel and fertilizer when I put Little John in the cage on the back of the truck. I got very nervous. I found a remote control with a single red button on it. I quietly slipped it into one of my cargo pockets. It looked to me like the receivers and detonators were actually stored under the front seats. I toed the switches on them and they flickered to life, fortunately there was no beep or anything other than a small LED on each of the four detonators. The driver and his companion kept yakking about the horrible state of the nation, and how our colleges were all to blame. I saw an invoice in the back where a delivery was listed for our local university.
       We arrived at the hotel complex, with new dormitories, under construction along the road in front of it. We had to drive through the site, and it was a bit bumpy, worrying me that if the bomb was too unstable it could be jarred into going off. I pulled the outside of the cargo pocket well away from the button on the remote, wishing they had built in an arming switch on the remote as well as the bombs. Before I thought to turn off the receivers we'd arrived. I thanked the men, jumped out and opened up the cage to let LJ out, he ran into the hotel room when N called him, the kids in the parking lot distracted by his long fluffy tail, stopped their game and ran over to N to ask if they could see him again. She started to say "no" but I stopped her and told her to let them in and just make them be quiet, LJ would come back out to see them.
       I didn't know I was going to do it, but as soon as the truck turned to go through the empty construction site (it was Saturday or Sunday no work was going on) to get to the road, I reached into my pocket and after the truck passed the manager's office I pressed the detonator button.
       There was a rapid ripping under the front seat, four bangs almost in unison, then one large bang that knocked me to my ass.
       Unfortunately, the front seat was apparently close enough to the home-made high explosives, and they went off anyway. The whole front of the manager's office was blown out as were all of the windows in the hotel. On the good side, the children were all with us, and the manager's office was empty this time of day. Except for the possibility of the Manager being there.
       I ran over, but couldn't get in the managers office. I sprinted out to the street to help with anyone who might have been driving by when the framing members of the construction site went flying. I was bleeding and the kids were shouting, running around. N grabbed the phone and called 911.
       I'd realized, as the truck was turning to go through the construction site, that I might not be able to get to the police before they actually killed hundreds of people. I felt bad about the damage, and worse about killing the bombers (they might not have been acting alone.) But I really couldn't convince myself that there was anything else I could have done differently.
       N caught up to me.
       "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"
       I didn't deny it, nor confirm it. "They were mighty suspicious characters. I could tell they hated the University, but I didn't know this would happen."
       I did know that I would be spending a lot of time with the local police and the FBI. I hoped there was enough of the papers from the back seat of the truck to back up my story. I didn't yet know if I was going to tell them that I had the detonator.

Alternate Reality, Comic Convention

       I awoke shortly after N slipped out to work. But I didn't recognize where I awoke. The bedroom window was looking in the wrong direction, and instead of an ivy covered hillside with wisteria, grapes an a couple of scraggly fruit trees, I saw a huge white gazebo, low flowering plants and a hedge of oleander a hundred yards away across a lawn that looked as manicured as a putting green. I looked around, stunned, thinking "where's the lawn jockey," but gratefully not seeing it.
       I turned back into the room to get dressed. There were two closets, I figured that the one with the blue lizards painted on the doors was mine, because the other was four bi-folds in a peachy pink with white lace over it. I figured that had to be N's, despite the pink part (N hates pink). It sounded like there were people in N's closet, rustling and breathing, so I decided not to open it.
       I didn't recognize hardly any of the clothing in my closet. I dug around, finally coming to a box on the shelf in the back. I opened the box and found a loud Hawian print shirt and some white bib overalls. The overalls didn't fit, the shirt was a double-X L so it was actually a little loose on me. I looked around and found a couple of utilikilts rolled up in the bottom of the box as well. I shook out the best looking one and belted it on. The sounds coming from my wife's closet were beginning to unnerve me, so I found a pair of lace up sandles strapped them on and then headed out for breakfast.
       I managed to find the door to the hall, but from there was completely lost. I had no idea where anything was. I found an office, too neat to be mine, then a book room, not really a library, but a room with books just piled around its perimeter with a couple of chairs and a small table with book binding repair tools on it. There were a couple of opulent bathrooms, again, one with the blue lizard motif and the other with the lace over peach motif. I slipped into the blue lizard bathroom and checked myself in the mirror. It was me, a little whiter and my hair a little wilder and somewhat shorter than it is now. I brushed my teeth and looked in the medicine cabinet. There were dozens of bottles, almost all of them prescriptions, and almost all of them completely full, most still looked like they had the cotton in the top.
       I made my way to the front door, and stepped out onto a porch. It was white, with vining roses growing over waist high white latticework across the front. I said good morning to the caretakers who were working there. After a moment's surprise they responded to me.
       "Would you like some water, or juice, it's already getting hot out her."
       Again, they looked like they were in shock. "No thank you, sir," one said.
       "Better not let the missus catch you in that," another one piped in. His partner shushed him immediately and began to apologize.
       "No worries, I was just feeling nostalgic."
       They nodded and, upon hearing voices from the end of the driveway dove back into their work.
       I stepped down to greet my wife and her entourage. I didn't see N in the crowd, and was very confused. A woman with a nearly perfect figure strode up to me, looked me top to bottom and then did a modeling twirl in front of me.
       "Well, how do you like it?"
       The outfit she was wearing was a clingy tube dress, flattering. I opted for the non committal "You're looking lovely, as usual."
       "Thank you dearest." She pecked me on the cheek. "What are you wearing?"
       "I was feeling nostalgic." This seemed like a safe reply.
       "It is old-school, but your legs are sexy as ever, it works on you." She turned to pose with me for the photographers in the crowd.
       "Smile, you're about to start a whole new fashion trend among my male admirers."
       I smiled, "Sorry, I haven't had breakfast yet."
       "Why didn't you yell something up from the kitchen staff."
       "I didn't know I could."
       "Let's get inside, something's wrong with you."
       I couldn't have agreed more. She blew kissed to the crowd and towed me back inside.
       "What's wrong with you."
       "This is not my world."
       "We've had this discussion."
       She called for some breakfast to be brought to our patio then hurried back to our bedroom.
       "Millie, get this on the exercise floor, it still seems a bit large in places. Bring my house body."
       As we walked through the halls, a woman in a maid's outfit brought up a headless body. My wife stopped and pulled her head out of the body she was in. Her spine whipped around into the "house body" which was a slender wisp of a woman with hardly any hips or breasts. She turned to look at me. "I know that bothers you, sorry dear, but you need breakfast and I need to work a little bit off of the new body before I report for filming next week.
       "I didn't see anything wrong with it," I offered, weakly.
       "Don't even think about it, that's just a work body."
       I followed her into the bedroom and she threw open all four of her closet doors. One held clothing, and the other held about eight headless bodies, all supported just off the ground by metal plates at their neck line with feeding and waste tubes running into and out of them. They were all of various sizes, none fat, a couple almost anorexically thin, and disturbingly, tucked in the back almost out of sight, one that could easily be a child's body.
       I was ready to run out, but held on for breakfast, I really was starving. I stepped out onto our patio and a maid brought breakfast. I thanked her, again, the surprised look was the reaction.
       "You're welcome," she whispered back and then hurried of as my wife entered the patio in her third body for the morning.
       "Let me drop you off on my way to the script meetings, you can see if that kilt company would like to come out with a retro line with our endorsement."
       "OK" I answered looking forward to getting out of here.
       "What's wrong, you look like you don't know who or where you are."
       "I don't. I was expecting to wake up to ivy, a hot tub outside the doors where I'm now eating breakfast overlooking acres of grass, thirteen cats..."
       "Who's Ivy?"
       "Ivy, a leafy green vining plant, growing on the hill behind the house I own."
       "I thought we'd sold all your properties so we could buy this place."
       "May be so, but what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't remember any of this. The last thing I remember is sending N off to work from a half asleep state."
       "Oh. Nothing since then?"
       "No, it's like I've slipped into an alternate reality. I don't even know your name."
       "Oh dear. I knew this could happen. We can fix this. I'll get you an appointment right after my script meetings and take you there myself."
       "Thanks. I've got to change for the meetings."
       There was a jump in time and I found myself in downtown San Diego, I did pop in to the Utilikilt shop and they put me in contact with their marketing people. They liked the idea of a retro release, particularly if I and my wife would appear in the commercials. Since I got the impression that was what she wanted I agreed to the concept and asked them to contact my wife's agency to work out the details.
       I checked my phone and discovered that the Comic Convention was in session. I rooted around and discovered that I had a membership waiting for me, so went to pick it up. The volunteers escorted me right out of the pickup line over to the pro tables. I tried to show them that I had tickets waiting for me, but they insisted that I should not have to wait in line for them. They sent a runner for them. They asked if my wife would be joining me.
       "Her schedule is pretty busy, new scripts."
       "New body, saw it on the view this morning. You're a lucky guy."
       "I think so." I said, grinning. Really, I had no idea if I was lucky or not.
       Runners brought my badge, I talked them out of letting me go without the pro folder, as I explained that I really wasn't a comics pro.
       "But your movies, we're even running a couple of them this con."
       "Thank you, but I guess I still think of this as primarily comics, even after all these years."
       I made my way into the hall, grabbing a list of the seminars. As I walked around I bumped into a gal I know who is a teacher at the school district where I work, or worked. I asked her what was going on. She looked almost like she did in her twenties, but we were in our mid 40's the last time I talked to her.
       "What do you mean?"
       "Last time I saw you was in your classroom at RHES, I only remember about 6 months after that."
       "Serous brain fade, have you seen someone yet?"
       "Not yet."
       She took my hand and pulled me into one of the emptier side corridors of the convention center. Before she could tell me anything there was a reporter and a photographer there. "Who is she?"
       "This is RG, one of my old high school friends, and one of the prettiest women I've ever known. Don't you agree?"
       "Will she be in your next film?"
       RG blushed at that. Making me think that my films might not be the sort of thing she would agree to appear in.
       "I don't know, she's never really expressed and interest." Again, I decided to go with a safe non-committal reply.
       "Are you lovers?"
       I didn't know entertainment reporters could be so brazen.
       "I was never that lucky when I was young.If I had been, I don't imagine my life would be what it is today."
       "So you are attracted to her?"
       "And you, and your camera operator there and about two thirds of the attendees of the convention. I'm a man, how could I not be attracted?"
       During the interview I was walking RG to the pro-lounge, and saying I would be happy to talk to them later. We ducked into the lounge and our reporters wandered off to make other people miserable.
       "Sorry about that, I suppose the real me would have known that could happen."
       A security person arrived, "Do you want me to escort them out of the convention center? They know they aren't supposed to interrupt without asking."
       No, it's OK, they just got a little bit excited, no harm done.
       "I'll be right outside when you're ready to leave."
       "I don't..."
       "Thank you," RG interrupted. Then when he'd stepped away, "You want him to be with you, we had a murder of a guest here a few years ago, you're famous enough and married to someone with a rather, um, rabid, fan base."
       "Am I famous because of her or me."
       "Actually, both, but it's hard to separate the two these days. She wouldn't be anything without you."
       "Do you think you could have been her?"
       I could tell the question shocked her, and was something she hadn't actually thought about.
       "No, there's some real talent there that I don't have."
       "Not sure that's true. You're one of the most intelligent and talented women I know."
       "Compared to third graders."
       "Do you think I miss the schools, in this life I seem to have now?"
       "I can't answer that for you, do you miss us?"
       "In my head I've only been on summer break two weeks, so no, but that's because I think I'm going back to work next week. I'm not, am I."
       "No, I can't imagine you are, though if you wanted to fund and teach ROP production classes or something, I bet they'd fall all over themselves to let you."
       "I'm getting the impression that might be a bit controversial."
       "Yeah, for our district, may be."
       "This is an odd question, but, do you know what happened to N?"
       I never got an answer to that question.

Battlestar Galactica, Waking up

       I dreamed that the fifth unknown Cylon in Battlestar Galactic was...the cat.
       I woke up, petted the cats, tossed some food out on the kitchen floor for them because I couldn't find their food bowls inthe dark. I then ran out front to get the paper, while clad only in my underwear, no one was out and it was really dark and foggy anyway.
       Running out to the front of the house caused me to break out into a sweat. I really need to start exercising more.
       I decided to toss my underwear into the washer, guess I'll be doing a hot load first.
       I fired up the computer to write this morning's Drog in KWrite, and then I posted it.
       I stopped at N's bathroom to start up the hot water. (We put two shower heads in her bath so we could share, or if showering alone a person would never have a "cold" side.) Then I tiptoed out to the kitchen to get some water and a box of raisins.
       After Breakfast I took a nice hot relaxing shower, but I still couldn't stop sweating. I came back into the bedroom and laid on top of the covers. Saturday mornings are nice that way. Ginger came in and licked me on the nose to wake me up.
       When I woke up I was under the covers, for a moment I wondered how I'd gotten under the covers, then realized I was still in my night clothes and N was still sleeping.
       The whole morning had been a dream. N got up to feed the cats, so I didn't end up repeating the whole morning. She was able to find the cat bowls.

Ad astra per technica,
FF

SNL Nude on CNN, Poway's Zoological Ranch

       I dreamed the Jane Curtain era cast of Saturday Night Live was having sex live on CNN. I tuned in just as they were taking a break. Jane Curtain had slipped into a silky robe and was leaning over a chair, facing the camera, talking to a CNN correspondent while flashing her breasts as the robe flared open and closed with every breath. There were a couple still active behind her. The CNN logo and crawl blocked part of the view of the couple and Jane's breasts. The sound in the restaurant was too loud to hear what she was saying.
       "Slow news day."
       "Better than bombs and bullets any day."
       "You can't see anything, though."
       "You can always hope they come back after the break."
       I'm not sure who I was talking with in the dream. I wish all news days could be like that.

       Before that I had dreamed that I had the power to be invisible, and to then touch things and make them invisible, or to at least see through them. A group of us were at a hotel and I was idly walking by rooms and touching a fingertip to the hotel room doors as I walked by. I could see through them to the people inside. There's a lot less sex in hotels than I thought, and a lot more partial nudity.
       Later I was being chased by people on motorcycles. They had night vision or infra-red goggles and so they could see me. I jumped a wall around a corner and then pressed both hands against the graffiti painted cinderblocks. They vanished. The motorcycles came around the corner, and raced down the alley, directly into the wall. I could feel them strike the wall. I pulled my hands off and the wall filled in ripples from the edges to the spots where my hands had been. I walked out of the alley, visible, holding on to my jacket to keep it invisible, every couple of blocks I ducked into a doorway and allowed the coat to become visible. I got the idea that I could easily wear three different colored garments and switch which one was visible as a means of making a small disguise.
       Being fully invisible was difficult, people would try to walk or drive through you.

       After checking on all the sick cats I returned to bed. I dreamed of the ranch on Pomerado, long gone, that had hosted some of the hoofed stock that was bound for the Wild Animal Park. I loved to ride my bike out there and watch the buffalo and zebras. There was also ostriches and, in the dream, a half dozen lions. Now, in the history of my real life, this never happened, but during the time of the dream, and several hours afterwards, I would have sworn that the memory was the real deal.
        Even now, I want to say I used to ride down to the ranch across from the church and watch the buffalo and zebra herds. I know there weren't any zebra herds there. (The buffalo and ostriches were there, just not in that exact place, and probably not together.)

Dream Job with Leslie Neilson

       I dreamed I was the head writer on a television show, or rather, a remake of an old show. I was talking with Leslie Neilson who was starring in our show as Dr. Marcus Welby, MD. We were walking behind the set and talking about one of the scenes my writers had come up with that required on camera stunt. We were shooting some of our show in front of a live audience. I wanted to bring in a stunt person and not risk our star, or we needed to re-write the scene. Our live audience would be excited to see a little "movie magic" I felt. We read through the scene a couple of times, deciding to keep the couch stunt in. Mr Neilson also felt that having a stuntman come in was a good idea (neither of us were in favor of pushing him over the back of a couch, no matter how much padding there was.)

       We rehearsed what we wanted to say, then went hunting for the producer. Our conversation was far funnier than the script for the show, so I knew I was going to go back and punch the script up after we browbeat the producer into doing the scene "Leslie's way."

       One of the delights of this dream was how perfectly normal it all seemed. Including the frustration of being a sort of baby sitter for the other writers (having to go pull them out of places to come back to work after lunch, breaking up fights, being their cheerleader and task master.)

Wire Repair on Galactica

I dreamed I was on the Battlestar Galactica working on a network problem. We couldn't find out where the breakdown was until I started eleminating sections of the problem. The trouble was finally narrowed down to the wire on the wall. I started tracing the wires and found there was a break that had been badly spliced, multiple times. The wires that had been used to bridge the damaged areas were not the same as the wires in the original as for color or material. While I was fixing the problem I managed to get the network coordinator to come down and look at the trouble.
I laid out a suggestion that we standardize the connections and wiring, then we could use easily replaceable sections rather than re-wiring or re soldering the connections every time we removed a section. It was just a matter of putting the connector versions in place every time we found a problem like this one, or on mission critical wiring harnesses on a rotational basis. We went back and forth about the design and finally came up with a simple connector that would be the same on both ends and would be color coded so that there wouldn't be any confusion about which wire went to where.
I woke up thinking that I don't often have celebrity dreams. I had them a lot when I was younger.