Not Safe For Work

Dreamed I was going back to work at one of my old job sites. There was a big difference, however, and it involved a large number of people with an extraordinary amount of skin showing. The were engaged in very non-work like activities. It turns out I was supposed to be fixing the script, acting coach, and doubling up on lights and sound as the budget had been cut and the producer was unable to afford a full crew.

The director was an old classmate of mine who had a history of film experience, but on the other side of the camera, showing her then extraordinary skin and flexible talents. I would have to say that, in this dream, neither of us had aged well since then.

We had a very strict schedule to keep, as we only had the rooms for a few hours and had to be out and completely cleaned up before sunrise. The pressure made this all a lot less fun than the theme would otherwise indicate.

Family Time, Sexy Letter

              I dreamed that I was at my parent's house. We'd converted the dining room fan into a four seat bably merry go round, hooked up the little car seats in three of the places and E's seat in the fourth position. E's sister S was griping that she didn't get to ride.
              "You weigh more than all four of them combined, we're straining the motor as it is now." I explained.
              "I never get to go for a ride."
              "Oh, I'll send you for a ride," someone started to say. I think the speaker was one of my sister's in-laws, the comment had a sort of unattractive leering overtone.
              "You can come with us to Lego Land and ride with your uncle, L can't ride the rides and your Grandma and I won't. We have extra tickets," N offered.

              The dream then shifted to a completely different location and cast of people. A very sexy hourglass shaped petite woman with a pixie style haircut was reading from one of my dream blogs. An entry in which a elderly gentleman was sporting a rather large cartoon like erection and a short sexy hourglass woman with a bobbed hair cut offered to "take care of that for you, like this morning." While she read the entry I was able to visualize the dream exactly as I'd seen it. While the woman did look a lot like the dream woman in shape, the face and hair were not really the same. I remembered another little detail, the dream had taken place just before a dinner gathering and the old man had been led off out of site by the short-haired libido. The current woman hadn't bothered to read the whole entry either. I didn't recognize either woman, however, but decided that I'd better start describing the dream characters in a little more detail so that people wouldn't read themselves into them.
              She complained that everyone who read that was going to know it was her. She flipped what little bit of her hair was left out of her eyes and laid down on the kitchen table on her back with my book held up in front of her.
              "Would that be because you're the only hourglass shaped woman with short hair that I've ever known?" I asked, not really expecting an answer, because as far as I knew, I'd only recently met this woman.
              "Are there any more sexy dreams with me in them?" She began to flip through the pages of the book, using the motion of her arms to puff up her breasts and create a rather large amount of cleavage to look at. Especially when she arched her head back to look at me upside down.

Roberto and Juliet

              I had one of those dreams where I struggled to come up with a couple of names. Just the names, and variations of them over and over again. The first name came fairly quickly, Juliet O'Finklestein, or Julieto Finklestein. There is also the possibility that it was Juliet-o-Finklestein. Whichever, it was obvious that my Juliet (Julieto?) needed a romantic co-lead. I couldn't seem to think of a proper first name, though.
              I had a last name, Modesto. The variations game started. Mercurio Modesto, Roberto Modesto, Mercurio Roberto Modesto, Roberto Roberto Mercurio Modesto, and then finally the name that seemed to stick: Roberto Mercurio Modesto. So there I had my star-crossed lovers Roberto and Juliet.
              I repeated the names several times over and then decided these characters needed a title for their story, but I couldn't come up with one for the life of me.

AV Nerds in Trouble, Musical Bits

              SCV, his wife, mine and several friends were gathered at our house for the premiere of a television show on the SciFi channel. In truly “frustration at accomplishing the normal” dream fashion, I was unable to get the old video projector connected to the cable box so we could project this personally historic moment.
              In the context of the dream, the premiere was for the first nationwide broadcast of a show created by SCV and myself. We'd written the pilot, the show bible, and the first three episodes of what was being billed as a “dark SciFi comedy in Easy Doses.” I'm not positive but the name of the show may have been, in fact “Easy Doses.”
              There was a sort of bitter-sweet cast to the event, as neither of us had been hired to actually write on the series writing team. (About 20 weeks of work at around 3K per week.) We'd been invited to continue to submit script and story ideas, and they had indeed bought a half dozen stories; four of SCVs and two of mine. It seems my story ideas were “too expensive” to shoot, so they weren't as readily producible. I suspected that the real reason was that my stories frequently involved too much character growth, or change, for a comedy series they intended to syndicate.

              As soon as I woke up I wondered what all the drama surrounding the video hookup was, we have a RCA-video to s-video splitter and a long s-video cable in the cabinet right under the television.
              I just checked, and all the stuff to hook up the now ancient projector is right where it's always been. Part of the frustration of this type of dream I think comes from your brain actually knowing the solution but, because of the dream logic, not being able to implement it.

              I also had a very musical night, 'The Mighty Quinn' weighed in, as well as a much mutated version of 'Plastic Jesus' and 'Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz?' or whatever the real title is. The first had been playing on the radio yesterday, the second had been badly mangled by myself to give one of my WoW characters something to /sing while killing scorpions in the starting area.
              “I don't care if it rains or thunders,
              long as I have my paste board wonders
              glued up to the chest plate of my gear.”
              The third song, I can honestly say I have no idea where that one came from. It's probably been years since I've heard that song anywhere.

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..

Neon Gods, Interlude

       I told the woman, who’d come in response to the advertisement, that she was probably heir to a pair of large business office buildings. This was not strictly true, or even remotely true. OK, at that point in the dream I had no idea why I lied to her. The buildings towered over the industrial center in town and were overlooking a lake on the edge of the industrial park. The buildings were about 23 stories tall, brown (as in milk chocolate brown) with dark grey windows. There was a ridge between each row of windows that stuck out about two feet, on the left corner of each ‘fin’ was a silver corner protector. All in all they looked like giant pinstriped heat sinks. I took the woman to a small door on the side of the building. It wasn’t even on the sidewalk; we had to cross a planter to reach the unmarked door. It was set in between a couple of the ‘fins’ and opened easily to my touch.
       I escorted the woman through a narrow corridor; she remarked that this was certainly not ADA approved. I concurred, but told her that the ladders accessed from here weren’t either. I opened up another hidden door and we were in an elevator. I pushed the button and told her to go into the conference center at the end of the walkway. I told her that was the central control of the entire building.
       That, too wasn’t strictly true. The room did have a large set of computer controls, and several large monitors that could be used to watch various selected security cameras. But it also had a 3d laser imaging stand, large enough for a person, and a sonic manipulation chamber. There was also a small chemistry lab built into the place, which I used from a similar, but real control center to walk her through the “verification” process. I checked her DNA first, just in case she really was the heir (odds were against it, but I had to check.)
       She wasn’t the heir, nor even closely related. Impersonating the computer controller of the building, I had her go through the imaging process, used the sonic scan to thoroughly pat her down, and then ran her through several physical and mental agility tests. By the end of it I had managed to find a place for her in the company, and convinced her that the tests were inconclusive, and that she would have the opportunity to prove her value to the company if she so chose. I knew that she had a record as a small time con artist, so made sure that information appeared on one of the monitors. I assured her, that despite her record, the job offer was real. She accepted without hesitation and I used the computer to guide her to one of the activity imaging rooms.
       I had chosen to base a character in one of our upcoming games on her, so had her change into an imaging suit and had her run, jog, jump and use several of the props in the imaging chamber. I then fired up the sonic imaging system to allow her to react to the presence of another actor. Hands, invisible to her, but simulated in the chamber, touched and manipulated the woman’s body. The recording became more and more intimate, but she continued to go along with it, eager to prove herself to the company, and then just eager. She finally asked if she was getting a bonus for all the groping. I assured her that she was, and that she would be very popular with the company’s customers after all of this.
       I met her after the recording session and invited her out for drinks. I explained that the company had some dormitories if she didn’t want to rent a hotel in town. We needed to make another forty or fifty hours of recordings, and then she would need to be available to clean up items. We would train her, if she wanted to stay on, as a match-move artists as well as performer. Apparently we had several who did both jobs.
       By the time we’d gotten her settled into her dorm room, not far from my suite, we’d gotten to be very cozy, and I suddenly realized that this was a natural fit for the “Neon Gods” story, giving a good conflict generating pair of characters to the story itself. That broke the dream up.

Fever Dreams

       Last night was a tossing and turning sort of night (I have some sort of bug) that had tossing and turning sorts of dreams. At least partly inspired by our newfound World Of Warcraft hobby, I found myself being wrapped up in vines and unable to escape.
       In other tossing and turning moments, I was falling off of a balcony at a hotel of some sort, trying to swim through the air on the way down to get to the pool. That really didn't work. Woke with a full body convulsion from that one, cats went flying off of the bed in every direction, there even might have been a growl and a hiss or two. (Poor babies.)
       In another dream I was reading the proof sheets for a collection of plays, some of which I had written. I really wish I could remember more of that one. I would like to know what sort of play my feverish brain thinks I have written. (Other than the three one acts.)

Science Fiction Night.

       Last night was Science Fiction Night in my head. The first dream out of the chute was an exploration of a large space station. It was inhabited and the population was under some sort of crazy martial law. The laws determined who could stay in what sections of the station and who could move from section to section. I had taken one of the ships enhanced intelligence cats and wandered off to explore. Unfortunately, I had wandered out of the docking bay section into one of the restricted inhabitant sections. Plenty easy to get in to, there were no movement restrictions during the day time, but at night, that was a different story.
       I realized that I was in trouble as everyone packed up their little shops and raced to get back to their sleeping quarters. For some reason, I decided to try something that I'd had a character in one of my stories do. I found a white sheet and wound it around me like a shroud, doing the same for the ship's cat with a pillow case. I spotted an area where there were other shrouded bodies and let us in and found an empty spot on the floor.
       The inspectors opened up the room, scanned us, since neither the cat nor I had station ID, we didn't even scan. There were so many shrouded figures in the room that they didn't even bother to count to make sure the numbers matched.
       After the inspectors left the shrouds came off and everyone started chatting about Nova 11, and guessing what might be in Nova 12. I just happened to have my reader's copies of Nova 12 (two of them anyway.) It didn't take long for the people to put together that I was the creator of Stella Nova, the main character of the Nova series of books, 12 being the latest. I agreed to read from Nova 12 (Nova Surprise) for them, since they had kept me out of trouble. I pulled out the reader's copy, showed them the cover, Nova, chin length black hair with evenly spaced red and blue highlights, looked out of a porthole over the reflected explosions of a space battle, her almost anime style chocolate brown eyes reflecting a mixture of surprise and determination. On the back cover was a photo of me and the ship's cat, who, when they realized it was the same animal, was suddenly a minor celebrity. We were looking through a porthole at the reverse side of explosions (Thus setting us on the other side of the battle for anyone who was paying attention.) We also wore looks of surprise, not so much with the determination. Of course, the ship's cat almost always looked surprised, it was just the shape of his face and the size of his eyes. The cat looked remarkably like Little John.
       I began reading the book to the assembled 'fan club' signed their charter, took holo images with them and then after a couple of chapters of the adventures of Stella Nova everyone drifted off to sleep.
       In the morning the group helped smuggle us back to the docking station, leaving me copies of all of our photos and holographs. I had taken all of their names, and promised that they would appear in Nova 14 (as Nova 13 was almost ready to go to the editor.) I did get in a little trouble, but when I explained that I attended a fan club meeting, the port authority waived the fines (I did leave the other advanced readers copy with the inspector after I made sure she wouldn't consider it a bribe.)
       That night I scheduled a fan club meeting of a different sort, this time with all the proper travel permits filled out ahead of time. By the time the evening was finished I'd gotten a great deal of the plot of Nova 14 worked out, and was looking forward finishing my book tour and getting back aboard my ship and writing and drawing again. (The drawings weren't really for publication, they were a way of me keeping the stories and characters strait in my head. I may have to try that in real life.)

       Later, I was in a space fighter craft, defending a neighboring world from invaders. The fighter was like a Star Wars X-Wing, but quite a bit larger. The cockpit was filled with fluid and everything I could see was enhanced by some sort of optical or brain implants. I really wasn't flying the ship as much as directing its strategy, I simply wasn't fast enough to keep up with the actual tactics of a space battle. I did manage to break the shields of an invader's capitol ship, and stripped it of its weapons systems.
       I called for them to put themselves in a stable orbit or to withdraw. The chose to orbit, perhaps thinking that they would get reinforcements. I hit them with ion pulses until they had no working sensors or communication other than LOS lasers. I then hid in a debris field and waited for their support ships to arrive. Four repair tenders jumped in from the edges of the battle.
       When the four tenders were docked, I dove out of cover and rendered their weapons useless, and took out several of their drive units for good measure. I left two working enough to evacuate, and they did take that option. I escorted them away from the battle zone, protecting them from friendly and enemy fire both. I was hit by mines on the way back to the battle area, and had to make an emergency landing on the invader capitol ship. I radioed that I was OK and was bringing the ship in. My fighter was scrap. I watched it drift away from the hold to join the floating debris field, then set about landing the large ship. (The effects of the ion cannon being relatively easy to repair. I don't think the invaders were aware of the ion cannon technology.)
       The dream started again almost where I left off, but, having been disturbed by rampaging kittens, it didn't have the same plot any longer.
       I was still landing a giant three story tall mansion of a ship, but now it was exactly that, a sort of space-going mansion. (Inside it looked quite a bit like the bread and breakfast N and I stayed in in Hollywood.) I managed to wrestle the starhouse to the ground, finding a recently leveled lot with an open basement large enough to nestle the engines into. When I finished, it almost looked like we belonged there, except the styling was completely off from the rest of the neighborhood.
       The property owner showed up, stunned, not knowing what to make of the house that had sprung up over night on his property. I offered to pay him rent for the week or so I would need to make repairs. He accepted, since I'd somehow appeared over night, not believing that I would be leaving with the whole starhouse in just a week. I gave him a quick tour, and I could see that he was a little bit disappointed that the place looked just like a three story house on the inside. Only the book cases being glassed in and rails around all the hallways gave any indication that the place could move. The control center was situated in the bay window in the front room, and when stowed looked like a cozy window bench.
       I did show him the very science fiction looking repair tenders in the bay, and that somewhat convinced him that I was on the up and up. I gave him an audio call code in case he wanted to ask any questions. He came back to the door a few seconds later. Told me I didn't have to pay rent. He was writing the property off as a total loss and selling it anyway, he just had stopped by to make sure the basement were posted as unsafe.

Flying Car, Paranormal Investigators

       Woo Hoo! Flying car dream. I was driving, flying, with N, S and C were also with us. We stopped at a farm house and enjoyed a meal while interviewing them about their crop circles and mutant animals, which they didn't actually have any to show us. I appears that some men from the government came and took their animals away, but at least gave them enough money to buy new stock. They are waiting until next spring to see if the crop circles and mutations return. We agree to come back again, and I promise to bring them some real California oranges and lemons from the trees in our back yards.
       In the end we figured we had met some very cool people and the trip was well worth it. We got lost flying back out of the place, and I couldn't convince N to allow me to fly high in the air and just head west until we spotted a big city or road. At one point we ended up looking out across a mountain gorge, and the road had ended at an abandoned gravel pit. We decided to camp out. When N and C had fallen asleep we gently lifted off and climbed into the night sky. It only took a few minutes to see the lights of a small town and we descended to the ground outside of town and drove in to refuel. Unfortunately the station was closed, so we had to wait until morning.
       When the sun came up and the station opened we found out that we were in Wyoming, a little further North than we would have expected to be, but still, closer to home. While we were filling up and the women were getting stuff for breakfast, the garage owner started telling us about the bunch of bigfoot hunters that had just left town.
       "They left too soon, though. He was back last night, rummaging through the trash bins behind the cafe."
       "Cool. Do you think anyone would mind if we interviewed folks about it? We write for a magazine that does stories about the people who experience events like this."
       "Townsfolk are pretty protective of this bigfoot fella, so you aren't planning on shooting him, are you?"
       "Only with a camera, if we come across him. Like I said, I'm actually more interested in the people of your town, how they feel about bigfoot, what they really believe is going on, how it changes their lives, if it changes their lives."
       "That's different, most of the group that just left had tranq guns and cameras and night vision gear."
       "Probably scared your bigfoot away."
       "I think someone from the town was hiding him."
       Now, I thought that was a very interesting comment. S wanted to go home, thinking this was a big hoax, but I thought that made it all the more interesting. N and C decided they liked the town, so we decided to stay another night, even though it would mean driving in shifts to get home by the end of the week.
       By lunch time a good portion of the town had turned up to check us out. After looking at our web sight and reading some of what S and I had written (S was still writing fiction mostly, he even had a couple of fans in the crowd) the townspeople were willing to talk to us, admitting that they told some different versions of the story to 'tourists' and the more rude of the investigators. We asked them to tell us those stories as well, just so we could have them documented. I realized we would be coming back here, too, there was just so much local folklore being spontaneously generated.
       We checked the girls into a hotel room, and S and I camped out in the van, overlooking the garbage bins. Sure enough, about 11:30 a woman came out of the cafe, put a couple of pans of something down, then went in and shut everything down. A few minutes later, a hairy man, not a bigfoot, crept out of the forest edge and raided the bins and ate the contents of the pan. We got some good night vision images, but decided not to take any flash pictures.
       "That's not a big foot."
       "Never thought it was," I replied, "but this is far more intersting."
       In the morning I talked to the hotel clerk and showed her the photographs we'd taken.
       "He's not hurting anyone, and he seems to be happy."
       "We're not going to invade his privacy, and we don't want to disrupt your tourist industry. I'd like to talk to him, if possible."
       "Only, no one can talk to him, he runs from everyone. You can leave messages for him, sometimes he writes back. We leave him books from the library sometimes. He always returns them on time."
       I brought out a couple of our books, wrote a note explaining that they were gifts, from the authors, and that we'd love to tell his story, too. He could write us, or talk with us, next time we were around. (Spring break, I wrote the dates.)
       "If there is anyone he regularly corresponds with, we'd love to talk to them, perhaps they would be willing to help exchange messages."
       "I don't know if he'll go for that, he's vanished for weeks at a time if he thinks someone is stalking him."
       "We'll be out of town this morning, so no pressure. We'd just like someone to relay any messages back to us that might come along."
       "I think I can find someone to do that."
       "Thanks."
       By the time I'd finished chatting with the clerk we were loaded up and ready to go. I grabbed a little breakfast roll and some juice and we hit the road.