The Time I Watched Tsunamis Roll In But Couldn't Find the Cat

Last night I dreamt that it was a dark and stormy night. My roommate and I were down in the basement but the basement was leaking, so we took the cat up to the small skylight/sunroom on the roof. He immediately disappeared among the boxes and old toys that the house owners store up there.

When we got to the top of the steep stair-ladder, two things happened. Dawn started to break, so I could see that my house was a few streets away from the ocean, and the rain went from heavy to torrential.

We heard a rumbling, and the ocean drew back. Next a huge wave rose above the roof level of our house and broke a few houses away from us. The remains of the wave washed up the street, coming just to my waist height outside the sunroom, and leaking a bit in the windows. My roommate and I stared at each other with wide eyes. A larger wave broke even closer to the house and washed up at the middle of the windows. Water poured in around the windows, over the benches, and down the stairwell.

Source.

"If the next wave breaks on this skylight," I yelled to my roommate, "it'll shatter the windows!"

"Should we go down, then?" my roommate yelled back, holding onto the railing next to the stairwell.

"I don't know! Maybe we're safer up here. Maybe the owner and her family should come up here with us."

Another wave obscured the horizon. "Oh, God, help us!" I prayed. "And where's the cat?" I panicked about the cat as the wave cast its shadow over the house, and then I woke up.

The Time Fergie Led An Ironic Christmas Program in My Mystic Falls Church

Last night I dreamt that I was on the planning committee for the church multiregional Christmas program. (I'm actually on the committee organizing the church multiregional New Year's celebration, but my sleeping brain can't get everything right.) Very suddenly, as happened yesterday evening with the New Year's celebration, we were informed that we weren't doing a multiregional Christmas program after all. Our local units would have to do their own Christmas programs.

I searched for "Fergie church" and only found pictures of the former Duchess of York. Anyway, this is closer to what Fergie was wearing in my dream. Source.

I'm not that great at organizing and I don't know a ton about music, who I turned to my Sister Fergie to help plan the last-minute program. She auditioned some singers from the area, but they all generally sucked. So instead of putting on a weak program in which the choir quietly mumbled "Away in a Manger" and other nonoffensive hymns and then shuffled back to their seats, Sister Fergie proposed that we be extra hipster and put on an ironically bad Christmas program. That is, she wanted our choir, with me and other recruits, to belt out "O Holy Night" and "He Is Worthy" with as much gusto as we usually reserved for a whole year of nonoffensive living.

The day of the Christmas program came. It was rousing. Half the audience was in the choir, and we filled the extra large conference building with our ever-so-slightly disharmonious singing. Next, Sister Fergie asked the regular choir to sit down, and members of every high school choir in the area—which was some, but not all, of about eight choirs—put on their high school choir robes and took up the choir seats in blocks of dark green, purple, cardinal red, royal blue, and lots of white (because a couple of the choirs had all the girls wear white robes). The choir seating behind the pulpit conveniently expanded upward and backward as things do in dreams. I nodded to my friend, and we ran up to join the high schoolers wearing cardinal red because we were wearing raspberry and it's totally almost the same color. Having an ironic pass to enjoy yourself really is awesome.The accompanists began the prelude, and suddenly we were surrounded by several hundred high schoolers belting a slightly altered version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" because Jesus eclipsed their hearts. "Turn around, save me!" they sang.

Apparently there's a church choir in the music video. Who knew? Apparently my brain, from back when that literal music video was viral. I hate the term viral. Source.

At the end of the song, the organist played a few minor chords, and most of the high school choir sank back into the choir seats, too weak to move and gradually falling asleep. The audience silently collected their things and filed out. "What's going on?" I asked Sister Fergie and the suspiciously handsome high school teacher with whom she was whispering gravely.

"Most of these high school students are vampires," the overly good-looking high school teacher answered, because apparently we were in Mystic Falls. (TVD season 5 premieres tonight and I'll have to wait for Hulu because my thrift-store TV is too old to process digital airwave broadcasts and I'm too stingy to pay $55 for a converter box.) "Uh, hello?" said hunky high school teacher, "As I was saying, we used a special frequency of sound from the organ to put these vampires in a dream state. We're going to stake them now, or at least inject them with vervain and stick them in a tomb for our great-grandkids to deal with."

"What? Why?" I exclaimed. "Have any of these kids even killed anyone? I mean, maybe a couple people each, but they're generally good kids." We were debating the rights of vampiric Americans when I woke up.

The Time Mr T Was My Khan

Last night I dreamt that I was on Babylon 5. I've never seen even a clip of the show Babylon 5, so my brain didn't have much to go on besides the fact that it's set in space and the show stole Cat Grant's character from Lois & Clark. I'm not even sure Babylon 5 is a spaceship, but it was in my dream.

Anyway, I was wearing an early Star Trek TNG jumpsuit (without the Federation insignia, natch) and had long permed hair. Suddenly some guards grabbed me and forced me into a small prison pod with a purple and green Muppet-alien because Mr T had arrived on board! He was a space villain! Mr T was wearing this white uniform with red piping, and he had a bunch of minions in similar costumes. They did a choreographed dance number about how I was going down, and then the pod was released, we fell down, down, down towards an earthlike planet, and then I woke up.

The Time I Had A Whole New SF Universe in My Head and There Were Literally No Pictures on Google Images to Deal with the Bizarreness

Last night I dreamt about a future postapocalyptic scenario (again). We were fighting zombie things who infected you if they touched you with their black tarry discharge. Also the world featured few translucent beings who didn't talk, had big eyes, and double tails instead of genitals. (They didn't wear clothes, which is how I know they didn't have genitals. I didn't ask or anything.) These things might have been aliens, but they also might have come through a dimensional portal or been created by some kind of nuclear fallout. This dream didn't really give all the backstory.

Anyway, my warrior group and I came upon three of the translucent beings lying on the ground, hands clasped, in a triangle. They were white and dying, so we decided to comfort them. I lay down next to one and wrapped my arms and legs around it/him in some vague attempt to warm him up. Meanwhile, some of the tarry zombies were bearing down on us. We were outnumbered if we didn't get the translucent beings to help us. I held on tighter to my being until I saw into his mind. He and the others were scared of the monsters. Not just scared. They had given up because hundreds of their fellow beings had been killed. I mentally told them to be angry instead of scared, and they turned red, got up, and fought with us. I had to keep holding the hand of my being while we fought to keep his determination up.

All of the beings but the one I had originally wrapped around to comfort as he was dying died in battle, but our side won. The translucent alien and I fell in love. But don't worry, fan-fic readers, humans cannot breed with the translucent beings, though another woman told me that the tail had "possibilities" for non-procreative purposes. I was secretly intrigued but told her that I couldn't do anything sex-like with the translucent being because we weren't married. (Since society had completely collapsed and we were running for our lives in a survivalist mode, we probably wouldn't ever get married, and I was a bit disappointed.)

Flash forward. We are part of a small group of ocre-painted humans on a kopje in the African savanna. (Or, I realized, we could be anywhere, since the apocalypse had changed the earth's geography.) We are dressed in skins, and we are alone in the world.

Okay, so maybe I found a picture of a kopje with the right light. Source.

We find out that a few of the monsters have arrived below our kopje. (They might also be in another dimension below us, but that's confusing.) My translucent love, now an accepted member of the group, says we must go down and fight. The other warriors agree, so we go down in a psychic elevator and fight. there are only three or four monsters. Some of us die. Two of us are infected and must be put down. However, we finally triumph. We go back up the psychic elevator, and I realize my love is injured and dying of black discharge. I should be afraid to touch him. I walk to the Lion-King hanging rock outcrop and vocalize: "Ah, ah, ah, we are alone in the world! Praise Triana! Ahn ah, ah. Here in the caves we live, no threat to any peace! Ah, ah, ah! Praise Triana!"

I go back to comfort my dying love. A large group of skin-clad humans and three translucent beings find us. At first, we point weapons down on them from the kopje, but we finally realize they are friendly. My group introduces me as the priestess because I lead the praise of Triana and can communicate with the translucent beings (through forehead and hand-holding). I am very apathetic because my being has just died. And then I woke up.

The Time I Was a Flippant Flapper

Last night I dreamt that I was a flapper, but I was nearing thirty, unmarried, and watching my inheritance trickle away. I decided to remedy my situation by getting a new outfit, attending a fancy opera, and catching a husband as soon as possible. I got my ticket and swept off to buy an outfit with my chaperone/maid. And where does a dream-flapper get reasonably priced fancy clothing? you ask. Why, at the vintage clothing store! Hahaha! The store and everything in it had that musty-sweaty-oily vintage clothing smell, but I found some nice, if wrinkled, pieces. I also decided to strip down and try some dresses on in the middle of the store because I didn't care who saw. I was a modern woman! A jellybean was in the men's section of the store. I'm sure he noticed me changing, and I was a bit intrigued but also frustrated that another poor, useless hipster was interested in me rather than the steel barons I wanted to attract. I considered how a vintage shop in the 1920s probably wouldn't sell clothes from the 1920s, and if it did, the clothes probably wouldn't be all old-smelling and faded, and then I woke up.

Why are the poor ones always the romantic ones?

The Time I Heard the Pitter-Patter of Little Feet and Bombs, Also the Mouth of Hell and Racism

     Last night I dreamt that I was working as a teacher during WWII. Most of my students were Ethiopian, but we weren't in Ethiopia. It might have been London. Anyway, bombs were going off everywhere and, rather than schoolwork, our classes consisted of running between makeshift shelters in gray, damp slums while urban warfare bang-bang-bangbangbangbangbanged around us.

Like London during the Blitz, but without the civility.

     Then we met this Russian sailor who had blue tattoos all over his massive arms and bald head. He was on leave, and he helped my little team of refugees find a safeish, dry hotel to sleep in for a few nights. I tried not to smell the sheets or think about what might live in them. The sailor and I hit it off, and when he had to go back to his ship, there were all sorts of swelling-music goodbye kisses.

     Anyway, pretty much as soon as he left, we were kicked out of the hotel. My Ethiopian students got a chance to ride a refugee bus back to safe, safe Ethiopia, so most of them got on. However, one super-cute five-year-old girl was left behind, and her teenage sister jumped off to get her.

Even cuter than these girls.

     We jumped forward in time, and the teenage girl was being rushed to the hospital in labor—but wait, it was me! "Are you going to have a black baby like I just did?" the teenager asked, holding her baby. "Well, I hardly think it would be really black," I responded between contractions. "Your baby is super light, and I'm white already. It'll just be kind of tannish."
     "But, ew!" I suddenly realized, "If I have a black baby, then I would have had sex with one of my students! Gross!" (Apparently the only Africans in the whole town had been my students.)
     Then something went wrong with my labor, and I was suddenly on a white plaza with the sun shining and four dark-haired people in black and red powersuits were carrying me by each arm and each leg. Other scary businesspeople surrounded them and looked down hungrily. I was dying! I was being dragged down to hell! I woke up (in my dream) in the hospital and realized it was just a hallucination brought on by blood loss.
     "Don't give up now! Keep pushing!" said the dirty-faced nurse. I slipped back into hell's foyer. The sky was darker and glowering. The businesspeople's eyes glowed red. I—this is so gross, but I'm the only one who reads my blog—sprayed blood all over them. I thought the blood loss would take me closer to hell, but instead the demons were repulsed. I finally woke up (in my dream) again, and there was my baby! I missed all the awful parts of childbirth because I was fighting demons in my head!
     What color was my baby? Um, red. So that told me nothing. I really didn't want to have had sex with a fifteen-year-old boy. They're just so incredibly unsexy.

This baby could literally be any race.

     Then the door to my filthy hospital room opened and my giant Russian sailor walked in! He asked to hold the baby and sang a Scots lullaby to it. He looked up at me with teary ice-blue eyes, "I was worried it wouldn't be mine," he intoned in a Scottish brogue. "I told myself that I'd be happy as long as the baby was light-skinned enough to pass. But I'm glad he's mine!"
     I was a bit confused because I couldn't remember having sex with the sailor either, but, whatever, at least he was, like, a fully grown man with muscles and working facial hair follicles and stuff. And he apparently was Scottish now, so communication would be simpler, and he probably wouldn't drink as much as he did when he was Russian. That was a plus. But why did everyone assume I slept with my students?! I smiled at my sailor, and then I woke up and had to shower again. Oi.

The Time I Was a Prisoner in a Heavy Metal Band and Nothing Made a Lick of Sense

I am a convict escaping from a horrible prison. There is a hospital in a hill above the prison, but they turn me in. I'm also a new age Celt because of a heavy metal band I heard from the prison walls. Also I'm me shopping for stuff at a Grocery Outlet. We try to decide whether Dennis would like a squashed box of Berry Cheerios

Then I'm in the prison trying to help the convict who was caught and will never see the outside again. Just sits in his own filth with the guy who ruled the guards, talking about his escape and counting days on the wall.

Also playing a game. My mom and I try to go to the doctor. Hear the prison and the Celtic heavy metal band. We went to the wrong hospital, but maybe I should wait until I'm at the right one. And then I wake up and can't write this down correctly.

The Time I Married a Bum

Mmm, that's marriage material right there!

Last night I dreamt that I was married, but I was also away from my husband, working. He kept asking me to come back and live with him. (That is pretty much my real-life roommate's situation, but I digress.) When I finally did quit my job and fly out to meet my husband, expecting ever-so anachronistically that he would take care of me, I discovered that my husband was homeless. He also may or may not have lived in Alaska, which you may notice is the worst possible place to be an urban beggar.

He was white, tall, and overly thin, and his brown hair was shaggy and smelled like sweat and dry skin, as if he hadn't washed it for five days. (Yep, I smell in dreams. It sucks.) In addition, he was wearing the standard-issue drab green and gray multilayer outfit that homeless guys are so fond of. I let him hug me, but all I could think was Lice! Scabies! Aah! Must burn clothes and shower in the next ten minutes!

Naturally, I refused to join my husband on the mean streets of Juneau, so I was a couch-surfer or something. My husband said I was dishonoring my marriage vows by not living with him, and I said he was dishonoring his marriage vows by not bathing or getting a job. I was working at a fish cannery or somewhere equally sad. Then my husband showed up one day and said he'd gotten an apartment, so I should move in with him. I agreed.

Home sweet home!

The so-called apartment was one room in a stinky motel with a dirty blanket on the floor for sleeping. We lay down together on the filthy floor, my husband cuddled me with his olive-green clad arm, and then I woke up.

The Time I Rehearsed for a Religious Song-and-Dance Number

Welcome to hell.

Last night I dreamt that I moved to rural central Pennsylvania. For some reason, (I think I might have been an reporter or police officer or something.) I had to go back to twelfth grade, which was annoying and boring. I'm telling you, whoever wrote Never Been Kissed has obviously not been in a high school since they were an actual teenager.

After school, I went to a church youth activity and discovered that everyone was practicing a complex song-and-dance number for some kind of church celebration. It was very intricate, and I felt awkward and lost. First, there was a dance to honor the first settlers of Pennsylvania. There was a dance with everyone together facing forward, and then we split into three or four circular groups. Many of the people had matching fabric pieces they were waving. Next, we celebrated America. That ended with many girls in the circle on pairs of guys' shoulders and others waving red, white, and blue calico fabric. The last dance had something to do with flowers. The fabric pieces were pink and yellow, and the circles crouched down and covered themselves with the cloth until all you could see was the cloth, like an American Chinese dragon moving around in a circle.

These kinds of "celebrations" always seem to involve large groups of people running around in circles.

A guy came up behind me and lifted me onto his shoulders. I didn't feel dizzy or fall, so I put my arms out and held the hands of people on both sides as we flew around the pink and yellow wheel. The guy had wide shoulders that were easy to stand on and could easily carry not-exactly-a-skinny-fourteen-year-old-girl me, and I looked down and saw gray hair and realized one of the adult leaders was carrying me on his shoulders. That made sense, since your average skinny teenage boy does not have shoulders conducive to small, but fully grown, women standing on them.

Anyway, the rehearsal finished, so I went over to one of the women who was helping with costume to get my bag of fabric scraps and instructions. I had to fend off a teenage boy who was trying to chat me up on the way over. "So, what are we rehearsing for?" I asked the seamstress. "The Philadelphia Temple opening celebration," the woman shrugged as she handed me a small gray bag that seemed way too small. I heard floor polishers start off on the other side of the gym. "But isn't that a ways away?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "we'll perform on May 14, 2017."

Maybe 2016. Maybe. © 2011, Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

"WHHAT?! I won't even be here then! Most of your best dancers won't be here then! We're graduating and getting out of here!"

"The more time we have to practice, the better our performance will be. We want to do our best for the prophet, of course."

I wandered off. Part of me was disappointed that I never would be performing for the prophet and all the curious residents of Pennsylvania who would come to gawk at the Mormons. And why was I even bothering to practice dancing when it's so freaking difficult?! Were they just expecting us to come back for the performance in three years?! I wasn't even supposed to be in high school or at youth activities! I'm a fully grown woman, darn it! I realized the gym was in some kind of mall complex but all the stores were closed because it was nine in the evening, and I wasn't sure where the exit was because most people had left while I was getting my supplies, and then I woke up.

The Time Vesuvius Erupted and My Mom Was Painfully Bourgeois

Last night I dreamt that I led a group of high school and college special education students to Naples for a conference on helping teenagers and adults with developmental disabilities. My mom came too, because she cares for an adult son with autism, but also because it was an excuse to visit Italy.

Our group visited a home where some Nepalese adults with disabilities lived in unstimulating and crowded conditions (I read this article about disabled Romanian orphans before bed last night), and then we went for a tour of the old city. Our guide pointed out nearby Mt. Vesuvius and showed us that the older part of the city is built on top of even older parts of the city, so the whole seismically active area is just a very bad place to be in the event of an earthquake or volcanic eruption.

#ifeelsafenow #hashtagsarcasm

Finally it was time for the huge final conference. My mom wore a turquoise t-shirt with little silvery appliqués around the square neck. I don't remember a lot about the actual conference, but when we left the large Renaissance hall around six and went down the wide, shallow stairway to the medieval street, my mom was separated from the group. I hadn't noticed at first because a dark-haired college student in the group was wearing a turquoise t-shirt with white appliqués around the V-neck. (When I realized she wasn't my mom, I felt a little silly for thinking someone so young and so average height could have been my mom in the first place.) My stomach tied in knots, and I left the group to find my mother.

The Centro Storico, whatever that is. Imagine it's yellowish and has steps.

It turns out that turquoise had been a hot color in Milan a few years ago, so plenty of the not-very-fashion-obsessed Americans and Britons were wearing shirts in that color (like that cerulean discussion that really stuck with me from The Devil Wears Prada). Appliqués around the collar were also hot for the not-hot. I had a whole mental conversation with myself about the bourgeoisie thinking a t-shirt with appliqués was business-casual, and I was ashamed that my mother was bourgeois.

Milan Fashion Week, 2011. Dream-me nailed it.

Anyway, I finally climbed up some stairs to a more modern part of Naples where there were asphalt roads, turned, and saw my mom in a plaza near an ancient passageway through an ancient dark-red building. Just then, the earth rumbled and shook. I was afraid that I was going to watch my own mother be crushed by the building she was near, but the shaking ceased after about three seconds. Phew, but it could be a foreshock to a larger earthquake or a volcanic eruption! Everyone around me was screaming and running around, yet I somehow managed to get all the way down to my mother without getting elbowed in the face, trampled, or carried backwards by the crowd that so wanted to get to the newer part of the city.

Dream-me always seems to have a slightly more elevated perspective than real-me. I'm pretty sure dream-me is quite a bit taller.

I'm not sure why my mom had stayed in the plaza. It was probably just convenient to the plot that she stayed where she was once I'd spotted her. "Mom, we've got to get out of here!" I said when I reached her. I grabbed her wrist like she used to grab mine and realized we'd have to go under the building that crossed the passageway to get out of the plaza and closer to the new part of the city. "We'll have to run really fast!" I said, tugging on her arm. The earth rumbled and shook again, and a large plume of ash rose in the distance above the new part of the city. "Ohhhhhh, craaaaaaap," I said, and then I woke up.

The Time I Found the Dark Underbelly of the Mermaid World

This is actually a crumbling overpass in Portland. The sky is much too dark for LA. Source.

Last night I dreamt that I arrived for shore leave on Earth on the USS Enterprise-D, which looked more like the Galactica in that it was crumbling and even Dr. Crusher was jaded. Western civilization was in decline, so LA's infrastructure basically looked like Portland's. I knew we were in LA though because it was sunny. That pretty autumn afternoon golden sunlight that I love so much was glinting off a extremely high, extremely angled overpass and one support had been snapped like a toothpick by a large weed. Cars were still driving on the rickety thing because the other supports were still more or less intact. Nevermind that the whole overpass shuddered when large trucks went over it and that LA has lots of earthquakes. Come to think of it, we were all standing on a platform under that overpass, and only I was worried about it.

My dreams have no taste. Or appropriate bosom support.

Once we decided when we were going to meet up, I went down to the water and dived in to visit my sister (Phoebe Halliwell), a witch-mermaid who had a split tail. We met at an underwater bar, which was very snazzy with neon glowy cocktails. My sister told me that mermaids and humans were being attacked by a vicious monster. I decided to investigate. My sister's friend came over. She was a werewolf-mermaid, which meant she was a floating scary head with four white jelly arms. After asking around, we found out we were looking for a beautiful single-tailed mermaid who turned into a scary CGI too-open-mouthed monster before she devoured her victims.

P.S. Did you know that there is a Mermaid Wiki? And that it has very little about melusines or Romanesque iconography? Also, that's Rufus Sewell in a low-budget creature feature, which I think is his rightful place, if he has to be in films at all.

We went to a mermaid bar. We checked out a blue vampire-mermaid by spying on her, but she didn't devour her victims, so it wasn't her. (Btw, I have no idea how I was breathing during this dream. Maybe I was a vampire and didn't need to breathe? I may have been a witch?) Anyway, I finally hid behind some coral and saw a beautiful single-tailed mermaid seduce another mermaid, turn into the floating scary head, and devour her prey. Or she was a mermaid-banshee. It was confusing. And then I woke up.

The Time Everything Flooded

Thanks, NOAA!

Last night I dreamt that western Washington started flooding. Like, the whole freaking half of the state. Luckily, my family was already on I-5 when the flooding started, for all the exits were so flooded that the police and National Guard closed them. We were just driving and driving, on a north-south road, trying to get away from the west-east flood. It was less than effective. We needed to find higher ground! We were winding around the mountains! We were back on I-5! We were on a millionaire's awesome houseboat! We were out in the often-flooded lowlands were my parents live in real life! More driving! More flooding! More houseboats! Noah! John Cusack! And then I woke up.

WTF, this dream.

The Time the Dentist Pulled All My Teeth Out

Last night I dreamt that the teacher who I'm subbing for came back to teach his class for a few hours, so I went to a dentist appointment—y'know, a regular cleaning. The dentist noticed that one of my teeth was loose and told me he would have to pull it out. "Can't I come back and do that later?" I asked. "I've gotta get back to my classroom in an hour."

"Oh, this won't take long," the dentist assured me as he closed in with the pincers. "You'll be back to class in no time." He ripped one of my premolars out.

It was excruciating! My mouth filled with blood, and I looked I'm the mirror. My face had swelled up in response to the trauma and was puffy, pale, and bruised. "I can't go back to my classes looking like this!" I thought, but couldn't say.

"Whulp, looks like some more are coming loose," said the hygienist, and they were! The dentist couldn't pull them as fast as they were coming out, and then I woke up and frantically counted my teeth.

The Great Gatsby (non-3D): My Review

Pros

• Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, and I don't even like Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Gatsby's ridiculous mansion. It's perfectly grotesque.
• The green light.
• The Valley of Ashes and the main characters' clothing.
• The party scenes.
• Myrtle's death scene.
• Tea at Nick's.

Cons

• Daisy is way too sympathetic.
• The floating words.
• The unnecessary framing device.
• The black extras are all horrific stereotypes. Like, wow. It's a white, white book, and pretending there were no other color of people in the world would be better than what they did. It was like National Geographic in the 1920s, except without the irony.

The Time I Was Hired to Fix The Return of the Jedi

They really needed my help.

Last night I dreamt that I was living in the early eighties, and I was hired to fix The Return of the Jedi, which was in production, because George Lucas was ruining it. I headed over to the current filming location—a cheap arcade. Han Solo was getting in a fight with Jabba's henchmen by the basketball shooting game.

"Your budget is millions of dollars, and you didn't even build a set?!" I said to George Lucas. "I know you're trying to say that there are universal constants in humanoid behavior, but we're supposed to be in a galaxy far, far away, and all the signs are in English!" I pointed to the orange neon snacks sign above the air hockey tables.

What a hag.

George Lucas muttered something about realism and wandered off to direct a chase scene through the bar. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind about realism and resolving a love triangle by magically making two of the parties magical siblings, but I next saw Carrie Fisher near the pizza parlor. "You need to stop smoking—it's making you look old," I told her. She agreed with me even as she took another drag.

Then we went to the basement of the arcade, which had psychedelic white, red, and lime green walls and, on one, a spinning blue and silver vortex that opened to another dimension. An alien or demon or something emerged from the vortex and started chasing Harrison Ford and I, and then I woke up.

The Time Wolves Attacked My Bus

Last night I dreamt that a friend (I don't remember who) and I were riding a long-distance coach bus on vacation Out of Town, only we hadn't gotten Out of Town. We were still in The City, and it was a warm evening at that awkward time when the sky is getting deep blue and the orange street lights are coming on and most of the cars have their headlights on but not all of them. Then three wolves appeared and started running alongside the bus.

My subconscious is so uncool.

The wolves were gray and black with yellow eyes, but they were also about two to three times bigger than actual wolves are supposed to be. (I'm guessing here. I don't exactly have the most proportional mental picture of wolves in my schema. The worst thing is that the wolves were probably so big because I've seen Twilight sequel previews that were burned in my brain. The wolves are big in those movies, right?) Anyway, the wolves also stank like dog urine and musk. I can't describe the smell much better than saying musk.

The smell was more terrifying than watching them catch up to the bus and dart in front of it, but no one got up to close the windows because the driver was making wild evasive maneuvers, and we were holding on to the seats in front of us as the bus careened wildly over the road.

"I didn't know the Alaskan wolves had reached Seattle!" said my friend. Then the dream rewound and she said, "We need to get out of Seattle. These are city wolves!" which makes much less sense.

Anyway, I got this horrible impression that this was turning into another post-apocalyptic dream, except instead of the city breaking into warring tribes, it was being overrun by giant man-eating wolves. Maybe we weren't even going on vacation! We were evacuating! By that point, the wolves had cut off our path out of the city, and we were heading back downtown. A female wolf ran ahead and stood in the street that we were currently barreling down. The bus driver decided to make an offensive maneuver and slam into her, but she lay down at the last moment, sacrificing herself for her hungry comrades, so that instead of knocking her out of the way, the bus rolled partly over her body, tipped, and fell on its side. The two remaining wolves got closer. We crawled out of our seating, bleeding and bruised, and then I woke up.

The Time I Was Recruited by an Evangelical Commune

Last night I dreamt that my beloved deceased cat was finally given a breed by the American Cat Fanciers Association—Mackerel Tabby—but then this morning I dreamt that my friends Jessica and Heather and I stopped on a roadtrip at a free Christian hostel because (1) it was free and (2) the rooms were single-gender. Most of the residents were still in their teens, especially one Mormon boy who was staying there while preparing for his mission. Of course, the other residents loved showering him with pamphlets and worrying about the welfare of his immortal soul, but they were generally very nice.

The biggest problem was flirting and sneaking into the opposite-gender rooms, which bugged me, so I started yelling at the residents for it. The movie-worthy straight-laced pastor and his calico-button-up-wearing wife loved me and quickly set me up as a hall monitor or resident adviser or something. (Dream me failed to be a good member-missionary and mention I was Mormon.) Pretty soon I was blowing a whistle and getting everyone out of bed for morning devotional. And they obeyed me!

Anyway, the dream ended with us all attending a revival service led by the pastor, at a simple wooden church. We sang hymns with familiar tunes and different words, and I even led us in one song that included shouting and dancing. Then I saw my friend Laura, who had been trying out this congregation for a while. We held hands in a circle with Jessica and Heather and sang, "Every Time I Feel the Spirit". The sun was starting to go down, the pastor took the stand to give his sermon, and then I woke up.

Letter to My Washington State Senator and Representatives

Washington State friends,

I have been interested in public policy regarding people with disabilities and people with mental illnesses for a long time now. The way we treat (or more specifically, do not treat) some of the most vulnerable people in our population is appalling on so many levels. One program that has been wildly successful in New York State in treating people with severe mental illness and allowing them to safely live in the community would also be successful in Washington State: assisted outpatient treatment. Below is the letter that I sent to my state senators and representatives. You can find who yours are by going to the Washington State Legislature website and clicking on the tab "Find Your District". If you select the option to send a message to one of them, a checkbox will let you send the same message to the other two state elected officials who represent you. You can just fill in the blanks on my letter or send your own. Thank you for helping me with my cause.

Dear Senator ________, Representative ________, and Representative ________:

The recent mass shootings in Seattle, Clackamas, Sandy Hook, and many other places have brought mental health care into the public consciousness not only as an issue of welfare but as an issue of public safety. The time is now to make real, constructive changes in the way we as a society and a state care for citizens with severe mental illnesses. Assisted outpatient treatment is a program that has been extremely successful in New York State since it was introduced in 1999; the evidence suggests that a similar program in Washington State would reduce homelessness, improve relationships between social workers and clients, and allow more people with severe mental illness to safely live in the community. In addition, if even one mass shooting tragedy could be prevented by assisted outpatient treatment for people with severe mental illness, the program would be worth implementation.

Kendra's Law was passed in New York State after a woman named Kendra Webdale was killed and another man was severely maimed by people with untreated severe mental illnesses in 1999. The program allows for a court to order an adult with a mental illness who has been assessed as unlikely be safe in the community to attend mandatory outpatient treatment. The person must have a history of noncompliance with treatment and multiple recent incarcerations in either a psychiatric hospital or the justice system. A history of recent violent threats to self or others might also make someone a candidate for the program. The treatment is tailored to each patient's needs and would not necessarily include medication. A copy of the original bill can be found here: http://www.omh.ny.gov/omhweb/kendra_web/interimreport/appendix1.htm. The law as it stands today can be found here: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/MHY/B/9/9.60.

The 2005 report on the program's outcomes in New York State is available here: http://www.omh.ny.gov/omhweb/kendra_web/finalreport/. This study found that, among other things, recipients of outpatient treatment were 87% less likely to be incarcerated, 74% less likely to be hospitalized in a psychiatric facility, and 74% less likely to be homeless during treatment. Perhaps more important from a moral standpoint is that 81% of recipients reported that being required to participate in treatment "helped them to get and stay well" and 75% said it helped them "gain control over their lives." The participants were also much more likely to receive other social programs such as housing support and case management.

The 2009 report on the program was conducted by professors from the Duke University School of Medicine, Policy Research Associates, and the University of Virginia School of Law. It found more modest improvements in the same areas: http://www.macarthur.virginia.edu/aot_finalreport.pdf.

As an employee of ________, I see the positive impact of well-researched social programs on our society. I look forward to hearing your ideas about drafting a bill that creates an assisted outpatient treatment program in our state.

Sincerely,

Bethylene