The two main sections of last night’s dream involve driving.

1.) I was driving downtown, trying to get back to the Center because I knew that I was late for summer camp. I thought that I was teaching, although later on I realized that I wouldn’t be. At one point, I had to ask Barb and Dave for directions out of downtown. When I got to the Center, I apologized to Dan and Phillip for missing the first day of class. They said it went fine, but neither one of them could remember what they did.

2.) I was driving through western Kansas and pulled off the road to take a picture of a sign that said “Francine, 8 miles.” When I did, the sign had changed into something else (I no longer remember what). I wandered off the road into a lush rain forest type setting (now there’s a jump) and ended up on a swinging bridge over a river. The next part was a very Indiana Jones moment. The wind was whipping the bridge around, as well as up and down. I was having problems walking on it, not mention staying on it. Someone was at the other end of the bridge, telling me how to survive. I ended up just sitting down, clinging to the thin metal wires, until the gusts passed.

Right now, I don’t remember much about last night’s dream. I do remember saying to someone, “You know, if I went to Smith, I’d probably be a lesbian right now.” A large part of that is probably my utter envy of how cool citizenjane is. She seems like a wonderful character out of some indie film that Jake would introduce to me with his assurance that “this is your new favorite film.”

I can only remember pointless details, if that, about the dream. I was walking somewhere. Oh, the clarity!

Instead, I think I’ll go rant someplace else and leave this relatively bitter-free. Maybe I’ll take a nap sometime.

Ooh, child, I got some SLEEP. I feel very nice today.

I did wake up around 5 (and went back to sleep), so I did the smart thing and wrote down key images. It was a very busy night.

I dreamt that my parents were gone, so I threw a party. I was in a ritzy neighborhood and most of the people who came over were African-American, although friends like Jake were there too. I smiled, thinking how upset the neighbors would be that I was inviting “ethnics” into the neighborhood.

Someone started playing “Big Poppa” by Notorious BIG. Jake turned to me and said, “I made them play it just for you.”

At the party, two girls stole Mari’s futon. I didn’t care, but I did notice. Then Mom and Dad came home. The crowd disappeared, except for the two girls dragging home the futon. They stopped at the end of the driveway, blocking any traffic with the futon. They both were crying, saying that the futon had been stained. When I asked with what, they both started crying even harder. “Meningitis,” they bawled. “It’s ruined forever.” I then asked them why they were bringing it back to me instead of the dump. They just sat in the futon and sobbed hysterically. I went back inside.

At work, David and Brian were preparing the Student-Faculty show. They had the “meningitis quilt” up on display: it was the stained cover from the futon that had been in my driveway. I told them that it was carrying a contagious disease, so they threw traps over all the other artwork. They did nothing to remove the quilt, which would have solved all the problems, and just made it much more noticeable.

I went to McDonald’s and sat in the drive-thru. All these old men were staring at me. When I glared at them, they felt triumphant because they had made eye contact. It was taking forever. When I finally got up to pay for my french fries, I paid with a one dollar bill and three quarters with Beck on them. Instead of George Washington, it was Beck in a crouched pose with upstretched arm, singing into a microphone. The color was no longer silver, but a rich pink-bronze (much like Black Hills gold). I really wanted to keep them, so I just walked off. Earlier, the girls behind me in line also walked off, whispering “I’ve never done this before.”

I remember researching Rose Kennedy’s family tree (backwards from her, not forwards).

My parents came to visit me where I was living and kept commenting that my tires were low on air. I made them point out which car was mine and they couldn’t. I told them to stop assuming the worst about me.

Well, I have some further developments on the power outage. It seems an electric cord broke and landed on a car, which caught fire, and melted the asphalt underneath it. The sirens I here were the fire truck’s wails. Mystery solved!

I’m still not very good at remembering dreams again. It takes about two weeks for me to regain the talent. I do remember bits of last night’s dream though, even though, like most dreams, it’s really “this morning’s” (But is that catchy? No.)

All I remember is our business manager looking at my check and saying “and don’t forget to count off those two hours you missed this week.” I started to argue with her — I hadn’t missed two hours — and then I woke up. When I looked at the clock, it was 8:00am, ten minutes after I usually leave for work. (Damn snooze alarm.) Since I’m never one to fuss over myself, I was out the door ten minutes later. I was only ten minutes late to work. God bless my poor habits.

I did not sleep well last night.

I didn’t even try to sleep until 2 a.m. I got sucked into playing with Acid Xpress yet again, and this time I’m bitter because it was not exporting files at a decent quality. So I finally did get to sleep around 2:30.

At 4, the electricity went off. I know this because my television snapped off. God bless television, I thought while sitting in the dark, for letting me know that I need to be careful in the morning since there would be no alarm clock. I can’t count the number of times television has saved me from being late: when I hear the Chipmunks’ theme song, it’s time to get up.

As I sat there, peeved because there was no lightning, no explanation for why the electricity should be turned off, I heard police sirens and dogs barking. This sometimes troubles me: I live in a relatively small town.

I fell asleep again while the electricity was off. My dad woke me up in the morning at 7 and I have no idea what I dreamed about. Here’s a small little dream from last week that I’ll share.

I was running through the woods with two of Matt’s dogs (Derby and Lucy). We followed the stream until we found a series of tents. I stuck my head inside and found the creators of the Blair Witch Project playing some RPG on their networked computers, sitting two feet from each other. They said something to me during their lameass LAN party, and I retorted “You’re even more pretentious in person.” Then the dogs and I left.

I think I only remember the smartass dreams. I’ll work on that for you. Just for you.

Matt and I were jogging around his neighborhood. Somehow we got separated and I ran into one of my former students, Ryan. He was a baseball player and was still wearing his uniform. He confronted me angrily (something completely out of character for him in reality) and asked me who said I was the ugliest thing on Earth. I informed him that it was he who said that (he never said anything mean to me, ever, in reality). He then started to cry, saying that he couldn’t believe he had been so cruel. I ripped the numbers of his shirt so he had no signs of being an athelete. “How does it feel now to be nothing? That’s what you did to me.” He apologized and we hugged, sobbing together at our cruelty.

Then I was in my new apartment (which I have not moved into yet). Mari, Stephanie D. and Rochelle, came over although I didn’t even tell them where I lived. Stephanie and Rochelle hopped on the futon and started to watch TV. Mari came around the corner with presents.

“I brought you some fancy underwear and some other things.” She had two metal letters, both “F,” with metal objects attached in the upper-left-hand corner. One had a baseball bat and one had a gun. At that point, my mother woke me up. My heart was racing when that happened.