Last week I got really bad abdominal pain after eating Edamame. This past weekend, after eating Tofu, I got a lump on my tongue, and what felt like a lump in my throat, chills and diarrhea. I realized what is happening. I am allergic to Soy. Unfortunately, being a vegetarian/pescaterian was going really well. I'm actually someone who likes soy products...Edamame, Tofu, Bean Curd, etc. But I can't continue being a vegetarian/pescatarian without the Soy protein in my diet. I have to return to meat, so I get that protein.

Last night I ate half of a lamb shoulder cut, and for lunch I finished the rest of it. It was so delicious. I couldn't believe how good it tasted after all this time. While I had not been eating meat, I really had no desire to eat it, so I was fearing when I started again, the taste would make me sick. It didn't.

I can still eat other legumes, fortunately, green beans, lima beans, peas, peanuts, lentils, garbanzos. It's not all legumes, just soy. Stomach pains is bad enough, but getting bumps and lumps in my throat? That's scary. That could lead to swelling and anaphylactic shock.

I feel like no matter what I try to do for my diet, nothing works. I went off of meat because I wanted to eliminate the fat from my diet, because I thought *that* had made me sick. But it didn't work. Now, what is supposed to be "healthy" is making me sick too.

Labels: This Boring Life

I was walking around City Park in Fort Collins, near the tennis courts (they have tennis courts there, right?) It was sort of morphy because it also seemed like it could be near the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison (on the north side of the zoo), and also on West Laurel by the CSU dorms. There was a woman following me, so I stopped in my tracks and turned around really fast and she was right on my back. I think I might have cussed at her. She walked away. I was trying to get to the other side of the park (which would mean I had to go east in the dream), but in order to get there I had to go through some dorms or buildings. They were very metal inside, but not in an industrial way, but sort of a modern styling antiseptic way. The building seemed to take forever to get through, and I think I saw Sayid from LOST in there. A woman also ran into my back, and this time I turned around really mad and ready to beat someone up, but I realized it was a mistake on her part as she was carrying a humungous backpack that she could barely manage...she was very small. I exited out one side of the building and into a courtyard that was between buildings. In fact it was completely surrounded by buildings, but the courtyard was so vast it seemed like a "normal" outside area connected to the rest of the outside, but it wasn't. I would have to go through another part of the dorm, which was an identical mirror image of the part of the dorm I just came from. I stared at the long lines of windows and doors across the courtyard, trying to figure out which was the corresponding door to the one I came out of. I looked at architectural elements, trying to match them up. But before I could go through the other side of the building, Stan's alarm went off ending the dream.

Labels: Dreams

Stan and I were driving through some unknown town. We were driving down a one way street through an older residential area that was interspersed with businesses on the corners, sort of like Johnson/Gorham. We went past one business and I told Stan to stop because they sold beads. It was a converted drive-in restaurant. It had screen windows that faced a covered carport with blacktop parking. It had cheesey wooden signs that looked like the kind you'd see out west touting Souvenirs.

We walked into the building and headed to the back where I saw beads hanging from the wall. I noticed some agate/carnelian beads that had really neat nature-made designs in them, like clouds and fire. It was inaccessible behind a counter, so Stan climbed up on a tall glass showcase to get it. I told him to get down, that we probably weren't supposed to help ourselves to the off-limits merchandise. Soon a woman came to help us. I told her I wanted the beads and she had a hard time reaching it. Then Stan got on top of the glass showcase again, but then the clerk got a device from behind the counter that easily lifted the beads off the wall, sort of making a mockery of Stan's monkey climbing.

I left the beads on the counter as I walked around the store to find more. They really didn't have that much bead supplies...a lot of the interior/non-wall space was taken up by cards and trinkets. There was a young man, maybe early 30s, white, average length brown hair, sort of squinty eyes proselytizing to people. I guess he worked there. There was music playing in the background...I don't know what it was. The woman who helped me get the beads was saying how the song would be good to make something out of. I saw some rainbow moonstone beads and decided to get those. They were almost Labradorite-colored, but they were labelled as moonstone.

I walked by the proselytizing guy as I looked at more beads. He somehow knew my name and asked me "Who are you, Ann?"

I said, "Pardon me?" Not understanding his question...shouldn't it be, "how are you, Ann?"

He asked again, "Who are you, Ann?" I then realized this was one of his "pick-up for Jesus" lines. I told him I wasn't interested in cults, and that I'm an atheist, and that I hated being raised Catholic as a kid, and as an adult, I hate these culty Evangelical religions even more.

Stan, who is sitting on the floor looking through the moonstone/Labradorite bead selections, starts talking to him. I don't catch what Stan says, but it's along the lines of religion. Cultboy picks up on something Stan says, recognizing it as Jesusspeak, and goes over to him, extends his hand and introduces himself. Unbeknownst to Cultboy, Stan was making a mockery of it, but Cultie was a little slow to catch on. I then say something about "meet Julie K. Clark*, Culinary Killer." I then look down and Stan is covered in black lace, in a strange goth girl sort of costume. Cultboy is totally bewildered, but he's laughing, realizing Stan was making fun of the whole Jesus movement. I wake up, and although I didn't really understand what was happening, I was laughing too.

*Julie K. Clark was an alterego for Stan many, many years ago. Long story.

Labels: Dreams

Back many, many years ago when I worked about 16 hours a day on my computer creating fonts and graphics, I had a program called "Poser." I never really mastered Poser--I found the interface a bit awkward, but it was a nifty program that allowed you to pose human figures and create images with them. This was version 4. There have been many advancements since then, although I have not upgraded. There are also enhancements you can buy that are like presets created by other Poser artists that feature these human figures in various costumes (or lack thereof) and hairstyles. It all seems too sci-fi heavy metal renaissance dragon airy fairy woo woo sex goddess porno 13-year old boy's wetdream starfighter bitch fantasy, with names like the Dragynfyre Goddess Corset Packs and the Barbarian Skeleton Gore Bundle.

This whole fantasy thing won't die, will it? It just gets more and more absurd. I thought boys playing D&D when I was a teenager was silly. And here it is, 30 years later and that genre still exists. Why? It hardly seems worthy and redeeming. Is it just me?

I'd love to see some Poser designers come up with something different. Something not so medieval, but something a little newer, like maybe 65 years back or so. Something also very relevant to the times we are in. Yes, I'd love to see The Grapes of Wrath Pro Bundle, or at least a Joad Family Starter Pack. Seriously. I might even consider upgrading.

Labels: Curmudgeon Rants

I dreamt I was standing in a rather posh room...I don't know whether it was a hotel lobby or what. Lots of marble. There was a man standing by a reception counter staring at me. I don't know why he was. I got an an elevator and he followed me. The elevator morphed into a Ferris Wheel/Tram/Ski Lift. It had a wooden bench to sit on. As this mode of conveyance started to rise, the low wooden door/gate started to roll shut. As it did, I realized there was no room for my legs, so I put my legs up on the bench. The whole thing seemed very precarious as we rose several stories high, and I realized he could at any time push the door/gate open and I would be vulnerable to falling to my death. He was stronger than me, and he could easily then just push me out. I was very scared, and don't remember what happened next.

Labels: Dreams

Obit.

This is so strange, because I never would have known had I not found it accidentally by searching for something completely unrelated which caused me to bring up the Ft. Collins obituaries. Today's obituary. How odd is that? It was like I was supposed to know. Why? Dick was an Old Towne Fort Collins institution, like Barney. Stan and I knew it was a good trip if we happened to see Dick and Barney on the street while driving through Fort Collins on vacation. And I was just writing about those vacations in my previous post today. Odd.

Labels: This Boring Life

Yesterday I took Stan to the Dentist, and afterward I was going to head off to the Cottage Grove Post Office as I always do when I take Stan to the Dentist...a errand driving consolidation type thing. It was hardly a consolidated trip.

As you approach the Dental Office/Fitness Center/Bank/Who Knows What Else building complex going east on Cottage Grove Road, you turn left, then another left to get into the parking lot. I guess I had been on auto pilot, so I knew I had to then turn right, then right again to get back out to the Cottage Grove Road intersection, where I would at that point turn left to head to Cottage Grove. I've done this several times before. I know how to get to the Cottage Grove Post office, it's the easiest trip in the world, just a straight shot down Cottage Grove Road. Except my mind was occupied. Earlier that day, an ebay customer, a Disney Witch who bought over $200 worth of merchandise from me and had not yet paid after 18 days, became NARU*, which meant, I was out that $200. Sure, I still had the merchandise, but I'm out the time initially organizing her stuff into neat little packages, I'm now out the time having to put her stuff back into the original packages they came from, I'm out the time contacting her asking her when she was going to pay, I'm out the time having to file to get my Final Value Fees back (she bought a lot of items) and I'm out the mental $200 that I had planned on using to pay bills. Bitch. Psychotic #&@*!%$ "My Bank is issuing me a new Credit Card and I haven't gotten it yet" Bitch. So that was on my mind. So when I exited out the back entrance of the parking lot, not the entrance I came in, my Autopilot turned right, then right, and then left. But since it was not the entrance I came in, I needed an extra right in there before the left. So I headed out toward Cottage Grove Post Office, but not on Cottage Grove Road...on Sprecher Road.
*Not a Registered User

Stan and I had remarked as we were heading there how Cottage Grove Road was getting more and more built up. Years ago after you went over the I-90 Overpass, it was all country. Not any more. And as I headed out on Sprecher Road, which I thought was Cottage Grove Road, it seemed even more built up. It seemed weird. I didn't remember that median. And where was the 55 mph 2 lane country road? It was now 40 mph and a 4 lane. Everything looked different. And what was that interstate underpass? I didn't remember that before either. Things sure changed in the few months we were out last. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention before. Maybe they were always there. Maybe I just couldn't remember.

I drove quite a ways, thinking at any moment the scenery will start to look familiar. It never did. After about 3 miles I got a strange panicky feeling. I realized I had no idea where I was. I retraced my steps and realized my error of prematurely turning left and not getting on Cottage Grove. I figured out I was going north, not east (it was a cloudy day...there was no sun to guide). I then thought if I turn right, I'll be heading east at least, and then I could find another north/south connecting road to Cottage Grove. I turned at the first stop sign I found, Nelson Rd. I headed east about a mile, but I don't think I'd ever been out there before and didn't know where it would lead me. I decided to turn into a country residential neighborhood road that looped around. I then took Nelson back to Sprecher (which had turned into Reiner at some point...roads do that a lot around here), and then back to the Dentist office/Cottage Grove intersection, and then back out to Cottage Grove to get to the post office. By the time I finally made it back to the Dental Office, Stan was still waiting for his appointment. I was hoping that wasn't the case. I had hesitated calling him on our cells because I wouldn't want him to get the call while he had dental junk in his mouth. He had been worried why I had taken so long, fearing I'd been in an accident. No, the car was fine. But was I? It was all like some surreal dream. I have dreams where I find myself in the middle of some country area and I don't know how I got there. That's what this was like. I hope it wasn't some early senility. I'm hoping it was just a preoccupied mind. Stupid Manic Bipolar Disney Witches on Shopping Sprees.

As we drove home, I started thinking about the Homologous Streets of Madison and Fort Collins...you know, a street in Madison that reminds me of a street in Fort Collins. Then it hit me...they'd make great names for characters in novels or movies:

Monona Lemay. Elizabeth Milwaukee. The twin brothers, Winnebago and Williamson (Willy) Remington (very old west sounding, that). Mason Atwood. Stuart Buckeye. Sherman and Johnson Shields. Harmony Pflaum. Mr. Nesbitt Bingham Hill (proper English chap). Drake Midvale. Lesser Loftsgordon**. Sheldon Forster...Stan might not get that one...I had to look it up myself...Sheldon is the road by City Park where we fed the seagulls heart-shaped biscuits and Forster is the road that goes by Warner Park where we hear frogs in the spring.
**I totally see Lesser Loftsgordon as a William H. Macy Fargo Jerry Lundegaard character type.

Some of the street combo names make better sounding places, like Washington College, or University College (Stan says it was just a college with no panache, so they named it "University College" to make it sound better.) Then there's the employment agency that all the graduates of University College end up going to, "First Prospect."

There are probably more homologous name possibilities, and I've exhausted my mental map of both cities. I used GoogleMaps to help me remember street names, and in doing so I found all these names of neighborhoods in Fort Collins that I didn't know existed when I lived there. If I look at a Madison map, neighborhood names appear...Tenney-Lapham, Greenbush, Old Market Place, Carpenter-Ridgeway, (oddly, my neighborhood, Schenks-Atwood, is not shown). But GoogleMaps shows a whole new side of Fort Collins that never existed to me before: Sinnard? What the heck is Sinnard? (just north of 14 on I-25) Black Hollow Junction? (between Sinnard and Andersonville...actually, I did hear of Andersonville when I lived there). Side Hill? (east of Parkwood). East Dale? (around Stover and Locust). And here's a shocker...Omega!!!!! (corner of College and Horsetooth). Back in high school, there was a spot called Omega that was behind an old Safeway store off Prospect and College. It was undeveloped near a creek. People went there to get stoned. That's all I'll say about it. Not really sure of the places I lived...my parents live between "Old Fort Collins HIgh School" and "University Acres," although I only heard them refer to it as the latter. When we lived on Grant Street, it was either "Mantz" or "University North." On Peterson, it was sort of triangulated between University Park, East Dale, and Old Fort Collins High School. Very weird sensation thinking about this stuff. Just last year, I was there. Visiting. I had fun. I love vacations. But I can't go every year. I guess it's part of the deal I made with Chief Niwot.

Labels: This Boring Life

So everyone's heard of Dick Cheney's Assassination Squad by now. Over the weekend, Stan and I mutated it into Dick Cheney's Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Kill Dick!

Dick Cheney of course is Bill, The Snake Charmer, er, I guess it would be Dick the Snake Charmer in this case.

Dubya would be cast as Budd/Sidewinder his brother, in this case it's Budd Weiser. An alcoholic living in a trailer. Perfect.

Condi Rice is Vernita Green/Copperhead.

Michelle Malkin is O-Ren Ishii/Cottonmouth.

Ann Coulter is Elle Driver/California Mountain Snake.

But that leaves Beatrix Kiddo. Who gets to be Black Mamba? Stan suggested Scott McClelland, since he used to be on the dark side and then turned against them, but, and nothing personal against Scott, but he is so very un-Uma Thurman-like. At least with the others they match, more or less. OK, Dick Cheney and David Carradine don't exactly come to mind in the same breath either in terms of physical appearance, but their initials match.

I'm a bit puzzled by this and it will no doubt take up my subconscious thinking about casting the perfect politico as The Bride.

----

I had a tragic perfume spill. Previously, I had diluted some Golden Champaka (super expensive stuff!) essential oil to a 33% solution so it would be easier to drop it from an orifice reducer. Unfortunately, it was still really thick, so I had removed the orifice reducer. And duh, today when I tried to make a recipe with it, I forgot the orifice reducer was no more, so I immediately took the top off and tilted the bottled, which elicited a flow of very fragrant Champaka out onto the table and all over my recipe cards. I sopped up what I could and put it back into the bottle. It is sad. It's not like it happened to Lemon or some inexpensive EO. But no, it happened to Champaka. The rest of the spill was sopped up and worn on myself, not to let any good Champaka go to waste. I smell great, a little strong, but good. I took the dogs out and was immediately surrounded by several early spring bees. I was highly desirable. Nothing smells like Champaka, in fact, literally to these bees, nothing smells like Champaka because it is from India. It was an exotic treat for them. It was a bit freaky. I hope most of the smell dissipates by the time I go for a bike ride this afternoon.

Labels: Politically Incorrect, Scents

Last night I tried out an accord from a perfume recipe (not my own recipe). Just at first glance without testing it, it seemed to call for too much Frankincense and Vetiver in proportion to the other ingredients. I was right...the Frankincense was too acrid and the Vetiver too overpowering. Maybe I needed to use the Frankincense absolute that it called for instead of the essental oil...I only had the essential oil, so I substituted. I suspect the Aura Cacia Frankincense is just too acrid-smelling for these perfume recipes. It's almost like a really strong orange citric smell. I should probably try some from my favorite online companies instead, and maybe a different species besides Boswellia Carterii. Or an absolute or CO2. As for the Vetiver, I absolutely fell in love with Vetiver in the form of the Crystalized Essence from Eden Botanicals. It was sweet and earthy, all the best scents of soil and none of the bad. I bought some Vet. EO at Whole Foods in Ft. Collins, although it came from somewhere in the Orient and was quite smoky. I think later I got some Aura Cacia Vet. EO, which was Haitian, and not quite as smoky, but very strong and sort of molassesy. In doing research, it is recommended to get Haitian if you don't want that smoky quality. The thing is, all my fave EO Companies. online are completely out of stock of Haitian. I have tried cutting down the Vet. about 10% in my own recipes, but it still seems so overpowering even at that quantity. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Eden Botanicals states their Indian Vet. is less smoky than the Haitian, so maybe I'll try that. Meanwhile, Vetiver totally influenced my dream last night:

I dreamt I had a large bottle of what I thought was Chanel #5. It looked just like my long square black spray bottle. I smelled it...it smelled similar, but had a very pronounced Vetiver scent. I examined the bottle again and it said "Erica." I asked Stan, who was in the kitchen on the floor doing his exercises, if he had gotten me Chanel #5 as a gift. I think he said he had gotten Erica. I told him I had asked for Chanel #5. He wasn't making much sense, and said that's all they had. It was hard to understand him because he was lying down and sleepy and sort of incoherent. It was sort of an annoying dream.

Erica? WTH?

Labels: Dreams, Scents

Sawyer and Juliet make a cute 70s hippie couple in a Dharma Initiative Infiltrators sort of way. And it looks like, with Sawyer in his Dharma Jeep (a blue Dharma Jeep...can you beat that?) finding the "Oceanic 3" (Jack, Kate, and Hurley) that Jin found in his Dharma Van (and they've got a whole fleet of Dharma Vans!), we might be in for not just the return of the Sawyer-Kate-Jack triangle, but now with Juliet in the mix, a love quadrangle! A love polygon! But not a square, daddy-o. It is the 70s after all. Well, at least for the real Dharma people like Horace Goodspeed--what a name...it's got to stand for something but I haven't figured that out yet. I guess it's...2008? for the O6/O3...but where did Sun and Sayid end up after the crash? And what the hell did Kate do with Aaron? And, I know this is off topic but where on EARTH are Rose and Bernard? Are they in a different time loop as Sawyer/Juliet/Miles/Daniel/Jin? I know they're older people in their late 50s and a bit overweight and not as sexy as Sawyer or as important plotwise as Locke but come on, they can't just write them out of the script. They're not redshirts.

And this has sort of bugged me when Richard Alpert appeared last night. He looked just like 1950s Richard and 2000s Richard, which, is quite understandable because he is after all Non-Aging Man, but remember the Ben backstory that showed Ben growing up as a young DI nerdboy and he encounters Richard in the jungle (which I assume was sometime in the 70s)? Richard, although his face looks the same as 1950s Richard and 2000s Richard, his hair was longer and more disheveled...hippie Richard. So why is this 1970s Richard clean cut again? I'm really confused by this. Either the production crew messed up big time (you'd think someone would catch it!) OR we haven't figured out something in the timeline yet.

OK, I'm assuming Benjamin Linus is probably around my age, maybe a year younger. I'm not sure, but something is sticking in my head about it being the year 1962 when he was born. Lostpedia just states "early 1960s". Ben was 11 when he and his dad became Dharma people, so maybe he was about 11? 12? when he saw Richard in the Jungle, placing it very close to Last night's Richard encounter (that was 1974...we know that as a fact).

And now that injured, unconscious crash-survivor adult Ben is on that small Hydra station island, will he ever counter Little Ben on the main island? And if so, what will happen?

Labels: LOST

Stan returned from the grocery or drug store and said "I got you more of these." I open up the bag and see a box of Sudafed. I'm really puzzled. I don't use Sudafed, and I tell him so. I'm rather mad because, in the dream, he had been doing this for a while, getting me a box of Sudafed every so often because he thinks I'm running low. I then show him a stash of maybe two unopened boxes and one partially used box of Sudafed that I am not using. I tell him to please stop buying me Sudafed, we'll never use it. He then says he'll use the ones I don't use. Yeah right.

Labels: Dreams

I had insomnia last night. I don't know why. When Stan got up to go to work was when I was in the deepest sleep, which is usually when I wake up (before I go back to sleep again). Sometimes in the morning when Apollo is accessible, Stan will bring him into the bedroom before he leaves and put him next to my face. I felt him do that this morning, but I couldn't pet Apollo this time. All I cold do is moan, as I was in that paralyzed deep sleep phase.

Shortly before I got up, I had a dream that I was looking at pastel colored tank tops and white shorts...clothes I do not own. The tank tops were the color of sherbet, one orange, one lime, very pale. They were pretty, but I've decided to stick with dark colors. Then in the dream I hear this crying, like a child or possibly an animal. I go outside trying to locate the sound. Right outside my back door is a black cat trying to get into the house. We do not, and never did, have an all black cat. Then I see another all black cat in the neighbors yard, not the neighbors whose all black cat passed away a few years ago, but the other neighbors...the house that exchanges hands frequently. TTBOMK, that house has not had a black cat as long as I've lived here.

I notice that the garage (our storage shed...too small for a modern-day car) door is open, and I find that odd. I look inside it and see what looks like our oldest cat, Caligula, in there, surrounded by other cats, mrrrowing, trying to defend himself. In my dream mind, I think it is Vladimir, the cat we lost over 10 years ago. Both cats are/were grey tabbies, except Caligula has white bib, boots and mittens, but Vladimir didn't. I pick the cat up, who then mutates into my Boston, Plato. I try to get back inside the house without the other mystery black neighborhood cats getting inside. I think it odd that he was cowering in the garage, surrounded by a bunch of cats, meowing like a cat. I put him down on the floor and then he immediately heads downstairs to the basement. IRL, our dogs never go to the basement on their own, despite the fact that is the where the motherlode of literpan treats are. I think they're freaked out by the basement stairs, as am I (I walk down our basement steps like an old lady...if you saw it, you'd know what I mean.) We only take them down there during a tornado warning.

:::right now as I'm typing this, Dr. Donna called to tell us Plato's test results ruled out Cushings Disease, but further tests should be done eventually to determine if his liver protein numbers are getting higher and maybe put him on a liver supplement. Weird that just happened right as I was writing about Plato:::

So Plato's heading down to the basement and I realize I need to put shoes on to go down there after him, so I head back to the bedroom to get shoes, which is where I wake up.

Labels: Dreams

I was with a group of young girls...I was supervising them at some camp. There was a restroom with changing stalls and toilet stalls, both with curtains instead of doors. But instead of having a bare floor for the changing stalls and a toilet in the toilet stalls, Each stall was filled with a wood and laminate structure that took up the entire stall and was about 3 feet high. One couldn't even sit down on top of it without their feet sticking out the curtain. So in order to go to the bathroom, one had to go on the structure. I asked a woman in charge of the place about it, and she apologized for it being difficult and told me we'll just have to do the best we can. So I just urinated on the wooden structure, hoping it would make its way down into a pipe. In fact, I did hear the sound of liquid traveling a distance, and when I looked down I noticed a galvanized steel pipe. Even though I didn't sit on top of it, somehow I managed to get it down the pipe. I was relieved...on a couple levels.

To add to the poor plumbing and design aspect of this room, on the sink counter was a stack of freshly made breakfast rolls and coffee. Not something you exactly want in a restroom. It had this country kitsch quality to this food dispensary area, with cheesey country crafts scrapbooking mom handwriting on a small dry erase board saying to please take one (smiley face, smiley face, countrystyle flourish).

I don't know if this restroom was attached to a house or whether I just went on to a different part of the dream, but I was at the home of one of the young girls I was supervising. It was cold outside, with a snow-covered ground. It seemed Colorado-y, suburbany. It was a suburban street, newish houses, no trees. I was standing in the drive way. I saw guys across the road and realized I recognized them. It was Russ and Bryan (graphics major from CSU) and some other guy who were all roommates back in the 80s. And they were still living together as roommates. In their late 40s...early 50s. Weird LOST timetravel thing maybe? I called out to them. They were about to leave, but they saw me. I invited them into the house I was staying at. The young girl's mother was there, and I realized I didn't know how to introduce her because she was divorced from her husband. I had no idea what her name was. I said, "This is Mrs..........." (long pause. This woman (who was probably my age or younger because her daughter was tweenish, but she seemed older) looked at me coldly and said "I still have the same name." But I didn't know what it was. I started squirming and feeling very awkward. I squirmed myself awake, and then had to tell myself it's only a dream and to forget about it.

Labels: Dreams

I dreamt Stan and I were staying in a room, like someone's family room. We had to sleep overnight there. We had to sleep on the floor. I saw a couch that turned into a rol-out bed, like the one we had in our first apartment*. I thought at least one of us could sleep on that...it might be more comfortable than the floor. Then I saw an old couch like the one my grandmother stored in her dining room area**. Even though the cushions were flat, that still might be moe comfortable than the floor. Then somehow I spilled some oil on my laptop. I was trying to dab it up with a towel, but instead of absorbing into the towel, it just kept spreading across my laptop. It kept growing in size. I woke up, freaked out about my laptop, and I had to tell myself it was only a dream.

*This apartment was in the heart of the city in a fairly rundown old red brick two-story duplex converted into a fourplex, but at the time, anything was better than living with my parents. Stan and I were in our final year in college. The apartment came furnished with a double mattress and box spring (no bed frame) and a gawd-awful gold-colored mid-century sleeper couch. It was convenient that there were two places to sleep since my parents freaked out if they thought I actually slept with Stan. They were so naive and easily placated by telling them "no, we weren't." We slept on the mattress, but not the sleeper couch. That thing was pretty uncomfortable, but not as bad as one sleeper couch we slept on as guests in someone's house once...that thing had that bar going down the center that would kill anyone's back, as it did Elaine's in that famous Seinfeld episode where she had to take muscle relaxants for the pain. Stella! Stellllaaaaa!

**This couch was like something out of the early last century...20s? 30s? Who knows, maybe it was as old as my grandmother's house, which was built around 1910 or so. It was made with a maroon velvet fabric with a large floral print. The style was rounderd, not angular like the one that replaced it. In its day, I'm sure it was gorgeous, but by the time it reached my era, it was a collapsed shell of its former self. The cushions were all flat, yet oddly puffy at the same time. It was not a sittable couch, but served as storage for afghans and linens and was moved to the dining room where it was out of the way. It had been replaced by a mid-century (1950s?) green angular couch and chair set in the living room. which was more stylish for the geometric modern times, but felt out of place in a bungalow with floral wallpaper and built in wooden cabinets with leaded glass doors.

Labels: Dreams