This isn’t actually a dream I had, but a dream in which I appeared. My new friend Anneke had a dream in which I had been commissioned to design dreamworlds. I would appear in the dreamworld as different objects that had my head (Cheshire cat style) and dispense clues.

One of the worlds was a field of rolling hills through which completely unnecessary channels had been dug. I had built bridges over the channels. I appeared to her as a bridge, explaining that the company intended to eventually charge pedestrians to cross the bridges. She realized that I had made the channels narrow enough that you could jump over them without paying the toll. I explained, in waking life, that this is exactly the sort of passive-aggressive thing I would do to subvert plans I found foolish yet I am for whatever reason obligated to follow.

The reoccurring hotel dream had a new twist last night. I was moving between one hotel and another. The new hotel had cascading fountains that were also steps outside the the perimeter. I walked along the wet edges, my suitcase splashing behind me. Once inside the lobby, I of course realized that I didn’t know what room I was supposed to stay in. More than that, I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel I was supposed to go to, so I wasn’t even sure if I was in the correct one. So I called my mom to find out the name of the hotel.

That’s all I remember about that dream before it turned into a dream about me and a group of resistance fighters in battle with a paramilitary group.

The interesting other side of the bed dreams continue. Seems to be a lot more celebrity guest stars over there. In this one, Dave and I were hanging out with Stephen King. We were discussing a short story he wrote long ago. I couldn’t remember the name of it and neither could Stephen King because he had written so many of them. Then he had to go, but he let Dave and I peruse his computer game and board game collection, which was enviable.

I’ve been sleeping on the other side of the bed lately and it has yielded some interesting dreams. This is one of them.

It was set in some desert town in New Mexico or Arizona. Somewhere that easily serves as the backdrop for post-apocalyptic films. I was hanging out with a bunch of hooligans, people I didn’t know in waking life. One of these friends persuaded me to drive a truck in the big monster truck rally the next day. I agreed. The rallies in this part of the world happened in football-size arenas and were gladiatorial duels which tested man and machine.
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I remember walking through a hilly area near a creek, like someplace back in the Midwest. I was talking to Megan Fox, but she was someone else. That is, whoever does casting for my dreams selected Megan Fox to play this character. We were just getting to know each other and there was vague romantic interest. She mentioned that she had a contagious illness and soon she wouldn’t be able to kiss anyone. I asked if I could be added to the list of potential kissers.

We walked to an old farmhouse, looking for my friend Jake. We found only traces of him like his baseball cap wedged inside a door handle. A group of serious-looking college frat boys sat around the table in one room, staring at me. Somehow I realized that they weren’t really human and they had killed Jake.

I went into the kitchen to discover than the Megan Fox girl had been replaced by Jake’s wife, Jenny. She was sitting in a rocking chair, knitting, while a tea kettle started to boil. I urgently explained that we needed to leave the house as it was the home of vampires or demons or whatever the frat boys actually were. They had killed Jake. She already knew about this and calmly explained that we needed to stay because Jake’s ghost now haunted the place. We needed to help him seek vengeance.

Suddenly my old-fashioned cell phone started vibrating in my breast pocket. Then it started to burn. This was Jake warning us to run for our lives.

I woke up.

Recently I was forwarded this video about the exponential growth of information technology.  One of the facts presented in the video is that “It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4.0×10^19) of unique information will be generated this year. That is more than the previous 5,000 years.” My first reaction was, “Wow, that is a lot of data.” Today I thought, “What does that even mean?” What qualifies as “unique information”? A blog post? A novel? Who is quantifying it? And how? Do they mean more than the previous 5000 years combined? Or more information per year on average? Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t had any nightmares that I remembered for quite some time. In last night’s dream, my ex-wife had decided to return and move in with me. It was nice to see her, but I had moved on in my life and I was trying to think of a way to break the news to her that I didn’t want to be with her. I discussed this with my friends who were saddened by my decision, but also understanding.

I went to the bathroom to take a shower. While looking at myself in the mirror, I noticed that my skin was extremely dry. Marbled veins of dryness covered my body liked cracked earth during a drought. I frantically slathered moisturizing lotion all over me, spreading it on so thick it looked like I had crawled out from a vat of pancake batter. The pressure of this rubbing caused my skin to burst in places, sending heavy streams of blood down my face.

This was too much to handle so I called for my mother, who happened to be at my house at the time. She came into the bathroom and promptly slipped on the floor, falling, hitting her head on the edge of toilet. I carefully turned her around and propped her up. Her eyes were milky and opaque. She was blind.

Then I had some other dream, but this one stuck with me.

A dream from the other night has stayed with me and I occasionally examine its portents through the day like a new desktop toy.

Most of my dreams take place indoors. When they do occur outside, it is always dark, even during the middle of the day. In this dream, I was flying above the entire Earth. The Earth was sheathed in a thick blanket of clouds, so I did not know what country I flew over or my altitude. Around me was only cold and dark, perhaps of night, perhaps of space.

I descended into the cloud bank, feeling the clamminess of the air passing by. I could see lights below, a city. I worried that my poor understanding of geography had brought me over the Far East, where English was not spoken. I flew closer and alighted on a high balcony on one of the skyscrapers. I was in New York City.

Before the dream ended, I remember going inside through a service entrance and finding myself in the deserted halls of an office building. I remember wanting to call someone to tell them where I was.

For the voyeuristically inclined, I present a thorough investigation of my day, in all of its tedious detail.

Sleep was punctuated by coughing fits every hour or so, as I am in the end stages of defeating a cold. I had survived all of the minibosses and was now facing off against Master Phlem. It is a protracted battle, spread across various arenas, including my sinuses. When I did manage to sleep, I had sexual mini-dreams of someone awesome. I didn’t have much time to sleep in the first place as I had gone out to see my friend’s band perform at Joker’s. She kicked much ass and sang tunes both resonant and prescient. I also witnessed much male posturing by a dude at our table. I’m above such peacockery, but it amuses me to see them dance before her. There was also this other guy that kind of made me want to be gay. Like if she had suggested a threesome, I’d have said “cool.”

So the alarm finally goes off at 6AM. I have it tuned to a radio station I hate, so I will be eager to get up and turn it off. The wacky morning DJs are actually calling a listener and getting her out of bed, which actually seems like a useful service. It reminded me of the alarm in the movie I watched last night, American Astronaut. The astronaut’s alarm blares “What did your father teach you?” over and over until the astronaut answered, “My father taught me to kill the sunflower.” The alarm would then say, “Congratulations, you are now awake.” This was very much like my interactions with Dave when we were roomates in college. He was the astronaut and I was the alarm.

I peed and coughed and herded the cats around. I wrote a provocative email. I fed the cats. Alucard is on a special diet, so I have to sequester him in the bedroom while the other cats eat normal food. He is then free to eat his special bunny and green pea nuggets. They all started out eating it, but it makes Neeka puke. $30 a bag. It’s a real drag.

I may or may not have had some tea. I’ve been drinking Gypsy Cold Care all the time. I think I looked at a few web sites. Gabe’s late on getting the comic up and Tycho’s early for a change.

I get in the shower. I need to think about ordering more conditioner. Is this stuff really working? There’s still a wad of hair in the drain. Getting out of the shower, I decide to postpone putting the waffles in the toaster until right before I have to brush my teeth. Defeats the purpose otherwise. Then I use The Device. I bought The Device a few weeks ago when I was ready to shoot myself rather than suffer another morning of hacking up snot due to the cold weather and how it interacts with my throat. The Device helps. Its pulsating jets of salt water ream out my sinuses. This morning I was able to smell the carpet. It’s that good.

The pimple by my nose is almost gone.

Even though my hair is fairly short, it is still not short enough. I tie up a little 1″ ponytail so I can see what it would look like with the back cut off. I will wear this the rest of the day so I can get a feel for it.

I make sure my iPod is all loaded up and then I head out for work. I’m maybe 20 minutes late. It’s okay because I’ve been going in 15 minutes early all week. I’m almost to the freeway when the coughing fit hits me. I pull into a parking lot and cough and choke and vomit. I head back home and cough and vomit some more. I think about eating breakfast again, but decide instead to take some of Amy’s Organic Ravioli with me for lunch. I head back towards work, listening to GeeksOn. They are having a rather heated discussion about copyright and deep linking on web sites. I haven’t heard them so wound up. Peter and Matt are especially intense.

At work there are now too many things for me to do. In addition to ongoing web site redesigns, I am learning CSS, writing articles for the new newsletter, running a batch of find & replace tasks on the site code, making icons, taking over some sites from the other designer, and thinking of new ways to revamp the company’s business model. I have some tea and answer emails. I finish another site. I never noticed how often I have to use the restroom until I started being someplace other than my apartment for extended periods of time.

I find myself thinking of someone awesome and smiling a lot, thinking I might just go for it.

Eventually, 1PM rolls around and I get out of there. I stop at Style America and have the hairdresser cut it even shorter. Sitting in the chair, I am painfully aware of how I am talking about nothing at all with the hairdresser and I am doing it vigorously. I used phrases I didn’t really need to in order to describe the simplest of things. So now I have a wedge cut, like Starbuck.

I listen to GeeksOn on the way home. There is traffic on I-40 as they have decided to do construction on the left lane. There is so much road construction going on around the city that the detours actually lead you into more construction. The Washington overpass is simply gone. There’s some kind of archeological dig happening on the eastbound side of I-40. Central is a nightmare of orange barrels. During one such meandering detour, I drove past the new Uptown, a dazzling array of new stores that once only existed in California.

At home there is no good email or regular mail. I file my taxes. I’m getting a refund for the first time in like forever. I already spent it on a new movie screen. For lunch I reheat the gnocchi I made last night, but it tastes like ass. Nothing like Saggio’s. I decide to rejoin the GeeksOn forums. I was gone for about a week, nursing a bruised ego. I had made a valentine for Lisa Lassek, building it from bits of Wonderfalls and Firefly footage she had edited. They called me a stalker and that hurt. It was a cool valentine. I get caught up on the forums and then write a few emails.

Then I started writing this blog entry.