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 dreamed my nose was running and running. I am not so sure what was causing it but my breathing passages were definitely inflamed. I could not blow my nose enough to clear out enough space for the air to get past into my lungs.

in dawning horror I realized that even though my lungs were clear, I was going to suffocate while still conscious, becuase there was nothing I could do, between the mucous and the inflammation, to open up my breathing passages enough to get the air I needed. I was aware enough of what was happening to realize there was some sort of terrible irony here...