the start of the dream has faded into the mist. I know part of it was going into some lobby in a hotel where Karine was going to introduce me to her cousin Eli, except nobody pronounced it "ee-lye" but more like "uh-LEE". Eli was sitting in a corner behind one of those folding partition with vaguely asian design on it. he was logged into WoW and didn't want to be disturbed.

I'm not sure how that flowed into the rest of my dream, but it did. we were at some sort of work offsite in the early afternoon. it was in a location that reminded me of where Jack lives - in the east bay, off the beaten path, on a deadend street. the place made me think of a skating rink, the landscaped areas around the parkinglot were unkept and were dry with weeds.

the place was brown. it had, inside of it, an arcade, and some sort of cheesy rollercoaster ride. it was run by some older asian fellow whose English was not so good. the group waited for the rollercoaster train to come into the station thing. the wait was on a room with a concrete floor and levelor-type windows up high that were permamently open, making the place feel not-quite-indoors like a lot of waits at amusement parks. I sat next to Clara on the bench, smoking.

as I exhaled, it suddenly occurred to me that Clara (or anybody else) probably didn't aprpeciate the smoke, which I wasn't bothering to blow away from people or whatever since I didn't really feel like it was the inside. the asian guy saw me and told me you know, I have to make you take that outside, it's the law that you can't smoke in here. I went outside although part of me felt that it didn't really count as the inside if the part where the roller coaster came in and out had no doors and the windows were always open.

I went outside and finished my smoke and came in right as the train was loading. Clara was holding back, waiting for me, and clearly prepared to be annoyed if she owuld have to miss taking the roller coaster with everyone else becuase I had gone outside to indulge in a smoke. but I made it back in time and we went up to the loading train.

the seats that were left faced backwards; the roller coaster was one of those where the cars were reversible. I guess that was supposed to make it more fun, but neither Clara nor I were into sitting backwards on an unknown roller coaster. it was at about that point that the sound in the background actually clicked in my head and I recognized it for what it was: the sound of air hocky coming from the next room over.

the rest of the dream was a jumble but it involved my trying to get my hands on quarters for the air hockey table and trying to decide if I only needed 50 or 75 cents, or an entire 5 dollars' worth of quarters. Clara couldn't believe that I was willing to spend my entire afternoon at the offiste, cigarrette hanging out of my mouth, playing air hockey against anyone willing to challenge me.