so, I woke up, and got up, and cleaned my teeth. there were gross tobacco stains along the edges of the gums on my upper incisors. I ran the sonicaire along the edges and the stains slowly scrubbed out.

I left the bathroom and talked to Karine. I told her about my dream, that it was faded and I couldn't really remember it. but if we drove along the boulevard, then maybe it would refresh my memory.

we drove to the main drag and I explained that this is how it worked, all we had to do was turn left (although it was really veering right), and we would pass the 7-11 on the right, and then the left hand side of the street would change like in my dream, or I could at least explain what was happening.

we got in the car and followed this route, and as we passed the 7-11 and the left hand side of the road - towards the ocean - started to change, I realized, I was not awake; I was dreaming.

I dreamt that the U.S. military had to switch weapons to use them much like in a computer game. in order for weapons switch to be successful though, they all had to be in synch in one big line dance (like a Sir Roger de Coverly) with however many thousands in a row getting it right. Donald Rumsfeld would call the moves and explain it all to the onlookers; however it was impossible for one's eye to take in the entire line. when everyone moved correctly, which was not judged by a human but rather was a constraint of Nature, the weapons would switch along with that little echo-y "chnnnnnngk" sound that you also hear in computer games.

I was looking on almost from the end of the line, so in my viewpoint the guys were almost in profile.

I dreamt that I had been hired back at Apple. but this was a more goth-like company than the Apple everyone is used to.

I was hired in some sort of QA capacity. I was supposed to come by and get myself set up the night before my start day. so I was there in this big white cubical building that was mostly empty. there was a cafeteria type area in the lower floor. the chairs had those flattened-elliptical curved backs and were primary colors. I'm sure in the daytime it was quite festive, but not at night, empty.

I went upstairs to where I would be working. it looked like an empty highschool room. or maybe that was another area. there was a lab area too, which amazingly enough looked like the old Apple Quicktime QA lab (which in real life I had only been to a couple times). I got the impression a lot of people had been laid off. I picked up an audio CD in the lab and looked at it. it was really 3 albums on one CD. the first two parts were some country music thing. the last one was a few songs by the Frogs. the cover and label were brown and swirly, with black cursive lettering. I was reminded (by a voice?) that this album was wildly popular, and I should make copies for my soon-to-be-coworkers. I vaguely wondered why anyone would like it.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, which broke the dream thread. but what stuck with me, was sitting in a car in a parking structure in some post-apocalyptic UCLA. I was with someone else, of vague identity. we had been contacted by these little UFOs that were sort of out of Liquid Sky and were engaged in some similar activity (hunting for some common earth substance which is rare for them).

I can't remember much other than there were two little UFOs, and they were on opposing sides of some far-off alien war. one side was the Neula-LA and one side was Neula-something-else. these corresponded in the alien culture to Los Angeles and soem other place. the "neula" was an alien term for post-apocalyptic.

I was in some town that was kind of a generic mid-sized central california town. it had a main drag and was large enough to have a bad part.

if you went up the main drag towards the highway, you eventually got the the bad part. off to the right. if you were on foot you would soon be asked to buy crack; you couldn't avoid the dealers. I was walking through there for some reason and toyed with the idea. if you were white you would get hassled.

in the middle of this area was a building with no air conditioning and some serious security. turns out this was the building where they were having the Earth First! trial for Judi Bari and Daryl Cherney. I was involved somehow but even in my dream I couldn't tell if I was working with the cops or against them. it was all confusing. I think I was part of, or working with, some coalition group of moderate officers and NOAA and I can't tell what their goals were. my friend Jenn was also working with them.

my brain played out a sequence of what would happen if I bought some crack, stuck it in my sock, tried to get into the trial past the security, and had been seen sticking something in my sock by some paranoid cop. I decided not to.

the group of white folks - security and white activist environmentalists - outside the building, really stood out in the neighbourhood they were in.

I was in the Sav-On near my mom's house. I was just sort of standing up near the cashier's, near one of the bargain aisles. they came and restocked with a boxed baking recipe that made some sort of cake-like treat normally sold as kids junk food. there was a red and yellow superhero on the cover. I looked and it was really cheap - like 3 for 3.33. I grabbed the last 3 - an employee wanted them but he let me take them because I was a customer.

I went to the cashier and they rang up as 8.01 each. I objected and she fixed it. there was some fuss over method of payment but that's faded out by the time I'm typing this entry.

I left and started walking across the parking lot toward my car. as I neared it I saw it had some men surrounding it on a scaffold. one of them sort of winked and nodded his head that I should keep going, they were fixing my car. I laughed and started to walk towards home across the field. I could always get my car later. the guy who winked turned out to be Sean who used to be in Sales at Netcentives. so that's where he's gone, I thought.

I woke up abruptly this morning and most of the dream-scape shattered. but this scene has stuck with me throughout the day:

we put a little red gecko in the spider's tank to feed her. the little red gecko had a brilliant, almost computer-generated color, and some green & yellow markings behind her head on the neck. the whole creature was about mayyybe an inch long. the edges were also sharp like they had bad anti-aliasing.

the spider eats crickets. she was Not Interested in this little red gecko.

after a day something happened. the little red gecko hasn't moved but its right rear leg broke off sort of like it was really a plastic toy. it was afraid to move in the spider's tank and was beginning to dehydrate.

Karine took it out and was going to put it in the tank with Puppy, but since the size difference between them was so huge we thought Puppy would be happy to eat it. finally that's what we did. the little red gecko looked very out of place in the earth-toned sand-filed tank with the leopard gecko.

this morning I wasn't feeling good, and went back to sleep after the alarm, which of course made me late for work, but you know when you don't feel good, you no longer care about being late for work.

so I had a rare dream where everyone in it was a real people. it's been a full day, so here's what I remember -

there was some occasion going on, I think it was tied into Karine getting a new car. everyone at work wanted to see her new car, and Karine and Heather and I had just moved into our Fabulous New House, so all my co-workers came there too, because I was late they knew I would still be home and it would be O.K.

Maria, Alex, and a bunch of others piled into Karine's car, but they all came over. I thought Alex was mad at me, and it turned out he was not, so that was good. there was some vague plan that after they looked over our house and trooped back to work, I would go with them.

the dream started out with Karine and I trying to stay overnight at some house in the hills which was haunted. we were nervous about that. more to the point, though, the house was in disrepair and I fell through the deck and almost broke my leg.

I befriended some imps or other small creature, and ended up learning a little about their society. the one I befriended was a youth prominent in the clan. however it became in bad grace and was put for sale by displaying it on a table with red kanji describing it.

it got picked up by another clan, or possibly the sale was relented. there was a celebration in which we all had to dance, in sets. I didn't know what they were but then it turned out this was only a rehearsal.

everyone sat down to a big dinner afterwards. turns out one of the dinner attendees was Christopher Reeve. he had also been dancing. I thought maybe I had been out of touch and asked how this was possible. he explained that he was wearing like a wire cage, and with muscle movements in his jaw he was directing a big outside motor to move his limbs.

I dreamed that we were at my mom's house. the back yard was in need of tending. I think I was there with James and my housemates.

in some places the grass was tall, and in some places bare. I turned to everyone and said, is it time? - in reference to planting wheat or alfalfa.[1] James said no, it isn't. Karine explained, they have not yet picked a Faire site, so the stalks would get overripe and would not hold up to travel for use at the Faire once they had been harvested, and the whole point was that Sue wanted to use the wheat to give to customers.

I walked over to some tall grass and pulled up some of those hated foxtail weeds[2] - when allowed to grow full length, they look like small versions of grains. I shook them out and the seed/grain part stuck out all green and strong in all its glory. I said to them, it wouldn't have fallen apart now.

I don't remember the rest.

my brain was jumping from dream fragment to dream fragment. there was some part where a large number of people were trying to gather breakfast ingredients. except one "person" was really not human but sort of an Aliens like creature.

but the real dream had to do with evryone gathering together for some sort of convention. the details kept shifting, but everyone at the convention was camping out refugee-style in the mormon temple in salt lake city.

I dreamed that I was in some dark, urban, industrial-like "I Robot"
universe. well actually it was nothing like Asimov's book,
but this characterization reverberated in my head throughout the dream.

it's fading now...
everyone is trying to talk to me as I enter this.