I dreamt that Karine and I got together! how rare... I don't remember much of it, other than it was in a dark hallway that had a rail on one side, we were both standing up and sliding around and under each others' legs, and that she started the whole thing out wearing red victoria's secret underwear.

I woke up and then fell asleep and had another dream, which I forgot entirely, other than the phrase non-moving parts got stuck in my head from it.

I was on some secret team of do-gooders not dissimilar to the X-men (in the movies, not the comic strip). I had not yet mastered whatever skill or training I was supposed to master in order to be a full-fledged member. the whole context of the situation was that we were part of some larger fight against the bad guys. I'm not quite certain who the bad guys were.

we had to go to this older theatre (theatre, with a stage, not cinema) and make sure it was clear. it was late night. I was in the round control room while two others flew a helicopter around the front, and then went in. I'm not quite sure what they did, but it was nasty.

I had to go to this hotel, and meet up with this guy for some reason. I didn't like it at all. I kept getting it wrong - forgetting something, etc. I went in the lobby and then up these stairs to a balcony and then off to the left to a dimly lit lounge. Sandy was at the table and he kept giving me you forgot this sort of help. then I'd go back, correct it, then have to come up the stairs (escalator?) again.

finally we sat down with the guy I had to meet. it didn't work out at all. the guy was an asshole. I got up and walked out, and almost walked off the balcony over the lobby, which had no railing. now I had to turn around and walk back in, and Sandy said, "elbows". this pissed me off; he meant, since I was a girl, I shouldn't carry my coat flung over my shoulder, but have it folded over my arm.

the full dream faded, but somewhere in the middle of dreaming about dealing art and swapping cars in Oxnard and a new burgundy-leather attache case I dreamed...

that there was a prestone bottle on the counter, and it had a momma rat living in it. she had just had babies, and would go in and out of the bottle through funky openings in its lid.

I was in my bed in my room as it is now. I looked behind the left side of the head of the bed. on the pillow on the floor were turds. I was half expecting rat turds but it actually looked like cat poos that were soft and wiped on the pillow. I thought, that's where that smell comes from. Alexander must be afraid to go past the dog.

I opened the drawer next to this pillow and it had grey sweat-clothes in it. on the edge of the folds was a discoloration, I realized it was rat piss. I opened the drawer above it, and found a rat nest. the place were there was piss and droppings had deteriorated the press-board bottom of the drawer which is what had leaked to the drawer below.

in the other room Karine looked at the prestone bottle. there's a rat's nest in here! she exclaimed. we looked at it again and realized that there were layers of old nests under the currently active one.

I was with Karine and Mark in some store and we had these card decks that were used to play a game that was also fortune telling. I didn't understand the game at all but it also involved wire figures that were representatives of iconic major-arcana-like figures. the difference was that the wire figures also represented people in your life.

the store was closed, it was morning, and we were using one of the high counters to play. the counters in the store were pink formica and there were these islands the height of lab tables with little central shelves.

it was my deal and I didn't know what to do. it somehow involved the wire figure for grandmother which was laying on its side. I tried to deal the cards - I think Karine said ti was 13 to each hand - there were two decks, and one was the size of playing cards, the other the standard size for tarot cards. I got them all mixed up.

an information-processing dream that I actually remember clearly.

I was working with a big group, and was the source control master for the entire company. Heidi was part of the company, and part of her responsibilities was communicating social events on the intranet.

I noticed that part of the area in source control that was ostensibly under her ownership had been neglected for weeks, and decided to talk to her about it. I jumpt into this weird instant messenger program to do so.

after entering the system, I found myself surrounded by grey ruins, that resemble the outskirts of Karuda in Shadow Skill. broken flagstones and statuary littered the place, which was bordered far off on my right with dark evergreen forest. the sky was a neutral grey, not overcast but more like that was just the way sky was represented in this reality. Heidi was off in the distance with 3 or 4 others, having a conversation, and I climbed over the rubble and hailed her.

I dreamt that I was given a quest-like task, but it was by this surfer-guy Brad from work. I was with a couple other people and they dismissed it, becuase, well dude, it's Brad.

the next morning he came to me again, and we sat on a bus or park bench and talked. it turned out that he was an angel, and that he was there to guide me, but more importantly of all, I needed to do these things. to prove it, he had combed out his curly scruffy hair to be all neat, and was wearing one of thos cheesy white suits that would indicate angel-ness in some spelling/goldberg production.

there was much more but it faded immediately.

this morning I was having anxiety dreams. I felt like I was trying to get this important thing done, and was going through a neverending checklist. but I was in a white room with everything padded like it was a rubber room. but it was furnished an all, just white.

I can't really remember much else.

I dreamt I was about to go somewhere and I was cleaning my teeth. I had the sonicaire toothbrush in my mouth and as I looked in the mirror, my mouth was full of water. I looked closer and closer and the water in my mouth was a wide as a lake, with the waves lapping the sides. wide as the ocean.

suddenly I was cleaning my teeth one-handed. my left hand was holding me up and I was on the edge of a cliff that was made of the kind of rock along PCH near malibu. I was hanging from a projection that was out from the top lip, and there was a lot of iceplant. imagine pushing your arms up on the arms of a chair so your body is suspended in between. then only use your left arm. that was my position.

it was late morning and I was facing south. there was water on either side of me and I realized my back was to the mainland, and I was facing some sort of penninsula. about the same time I realized it would be really easy for me to overbalance and fall backwards to the ground many tens of feet below. I started to scrabble with my feet trying to get a better balance. remember this whole time I am cleaning my teeth.

I woke up very abruptly this morning which shattered most of the dream. but the parts I remember were, that there was some state of conflict going on, like the country was at war, and everyone was supposed to help. and that I was in a college dorm or co-op. I was getting a new roommate which upset me because I liked my current one. we were supposed to pull shifts as computer operators or dispatchers or something.

the new roommate had a cherubic face, except with freckles. she had dishwater blonde curly hair with a cut more appropriate to a 4th grader - really short bangs and the rest almost mullet-like. her nose was a button and she was very slightly cross-eyed. her name was Mary and she was a computer whiz. she started showing me how to stave off attacks.

there were these guys down the hall and one of them had a name like Kevin. he had smooth olive skin and was medium height. he used to go out with Karine but they broke up with much animosity quite a while ago. I went to an adjoining room while Mary was on the computer and he was sitting next to some other guy on the other side of a picnic table.

we started talking and it turns out he was waiting for Karine to come by. I guess they had decided that resistance was futile and they were going to get married even though they disliked each other and all the reasons for the breakup remained valid. I totally didn't get it.

the only other thing I remember clearly was Mary kept saying, don't you understand, to me as she explained things over and over. and here I thought initially that I had been cursed with a roommate with below-average intellect.

I slept in this morning, and dreamt that even though I was at my house in Oxnard, I still worked for the same place. it was Monday morning, and I was too tired to get up. I should call my boss... I kept thinking, I'll call in a little bit.

finally I jolted awake, and realized I totally had to call. I called and my boss was like my god, where are you, you've been gone all day. I told her, and then I got confused - all day? it's about 10:30am - and she said don't you know what time it is? and none of the clock worked, and I tried to look outside. but when I looked out one window, it looked like it was one time of day, and out another window, it was a different time of day. I was even more confused and said, well, actually I don't know what time it is, I don't have a clue. she told me people were leaving, I had missed the entire day, and they were a bit worried about not having heard from me.

the more I thought about this the more I started to panic, how could I lose a day. and how come it's different times of day out different windows? the panic got worse and worse until I woke up. at about 10:30am.

this dream faded out entirely, and only a little came back -

I had a big powerful family. the older generation was like all karine's uncles, and there was tension between them. alex baran from my work was one of my cousins. we were staying at some place that was like an ancestral home so we were unusally concentrated, so alex and I were sleeping in the same room.

alex was the keeper of the keys to this big marble building that was like the family vault, except it was a full building, not just a little room. he was charged with this task from his father. he had some duty in there every morning, so he got up before me to deal with it. half asleep, though, I noticed one of our uncles would come in and badger him with questions about it all. I also didn't agree with how he handled the keys, but kept that to myself.