Nothing good
May 31st, 2005 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I am at the Pavilion, rather unexpectedly. I am standing behind Kevin and Anna, who are getting into a movie. They are talking to James Case, who for some reason has to look them up in a database to verify that they can get get in for free as employees (James knows them both and shouldn’t need to do this). He asks their names.
After he’s finished, he looks up at me and asks Kevin, “Is Sampson with you?” Kevin, obviously surprised by my presence, does not turn around and answers in the affirmative. I feel a little bad using Kevin for his employee discount, especially because he is not acknowledging me.
James asks for the one dollar reduced fee for employees (really, employees get in free). Anna and Kevin are able to talk him out of it, and we walk into the hall where the theaters are. They still have not met my eyes. I stop in the threshold of the hallway, realizing that I have a lot of work to do and I don’t really want to see any of the movies that are playing. There’s an action flick and a sappy feel-good movie that will probably win an Oscar.
Patrick Stewart materializes beside me. He suggest that I go in and watch the action movie for a while and then go and watch some of the Oscar-winner. This seems simultaneously even worse than just watching one bad movie (which, in reality, it would be) and a viable solution to my dilemma. I follow his advice.
Vegan Anxiety: Triscuit
May 31st, 2005 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
There was some sort of a movie-morning at school before it started that involved Mac and Claire Hosterman and possibly other theatre people. Some people were inside and somewhere outside and some had breakfast and the movie might have been Monty Python but we never actually watched it.
I accidentally went to French instead of American Studies second period and then had to work out going to American Studies instead of French sixth period.
During lunch, I went on this hike down a trail like the Forest Theatre trail that had at one point a locker to put clothes in so I took off my clothes (they included my grey skirt which is strange because I don’t usually know what I’m wearing in my dreams and also I’ve dreamed about that particular skirt before) and put them there. Kris was in front of me and was wearing a weird ugly floral vest which didn’t close without anything underneath. At the bottom of the trail I knew there would be water but I knew I could wade in the skirt. I don’t remember if I actually made it to the bottom but probably.
(A few days ago I remembered a really complicated dream long enough to tell my parents about it and then forget it but from what we could remember: ) Someone offered me a Triscuit cracker so I read the ingredients and it was vegan except for the last three which were: chicken, an egg, and a baby. (Vegan anxiety dreams.)
Puzzles
May 28th, 2005 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
(I have forgotten a good portion of this dream; the remainder follows.)
I, along with a group of friends, have been attempting to procure some object of great value to us. It has been protected with a great number of cryptic puzzles, and we have finally arrived at what seems to be the last puzzle. It is a large underground room, whose floor, ceiling, and walls are all entirely made of brick. Against one wall is a ramp that leads down to a closed gate of iron bars.
On the walls are thirteen strange puzzles, all of which must presumably be solved in order to open the gate and proceed. That there are thirteen puzzles is significant in the set of myths that surround the quest that we are on.
I and Angela Chin begin to work on identical puzzles, which involve sliding strange symbols on several vertical tracks to create a desired scattering of those symbols. A good analogy for the design of this puzzle would be the volume sliders on a soundboard (in reality, I just recently had a fairly negative experience with such sliders).
The puzzle is entirely mystifying. Eventually, I notice a diagram detailing exactly how to arrange the sliders just to the left of my puzzle. I point this out to Angela, and we arrange our puzzles to match the diagram. Apparently, everyone else has also finished their puzzles, because a cheer erupts as the gate below opens.
It is at this moment that we realize that the puzzles are not only puzzles but also works of art. The significance of thirteen works of art is even greater than that of thirteen puzzles.
Vegan Anxiety: Buffet Table
May 22nd, 2005 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
I was at the Science Center only it didn’t look like the Science Center and I was about to go on a tour of something really sad and they were giving us headphones and little glow-in-the-dark plastic jellyfish. A man was explaining that these things added up to $30 and the price could be made up with donations. I reasoned that the Science Center was able to pay for the stuff in the same way school pays for club funds with ASB money. Someone behind me was talking about something that turned into a nightgown (it might have been the jellyfish) and I knew that what it turned into was the glow-in-the-dark nightshirt my mother has but I didn’t have an opportunity to tell them this because they started talking about a car (I think a Ferrari) that turns into a night gown also. The night gown it turns into was brown.
I started the tour alone (without my headset, which I had lost somewhere, which was okay because the narration was actually projected from speakers) and the first stop on the tour was in a hallway like the one at the hotel in Berkeley only there were glass doors on both sides one of which I found myself leaning on which was scary because I wasn’t on the first floor and there was just a drop to the ground outside the door.
After I finished that stop on the tour I remembered that last time I had taken a tour like that I had been with someone so I saw Anna Scott who was still in her techie clothes and asked her to go on the rest of the tour with me. The next stop was a room with a table of food which was I guess the room my mother was in charge of because she was by the door. I started to serve myself food and then questioned if it was vegan because it didn’t look vegan at all but the person behind me was the person who had cooked it and she said it was. There were very buttery green beens and a quiche-like dish. The cook woman said I would have to ask about the ice cream but I didn’t because of course ice cream isn’t vegan. She also said to the person next to her that she was bad at the catering job and only did it once in a while.
(There are two other story lines that I swear were all part of this one dream but I can’t figure out where the would fit so I’m going to act like they were separate dreams all along.)
I was outside (possibly in Winslow Green) at a picnic table with Kris and lots of other people. An unfamiliar but attractive boy walked up and said “we really need to talk about what happened” I asked if he was Jesse and he didn’t say anything so I asked him a few more times until he said yes. (He didn’t look at all like Jesse.) Then I hugged him and said into his shoulder that I had made a terrible mistake (which I immediately realized I had already made when I met him and that I had made any new terrible mistakes) and we talked for a while and after a while his face transformed to look like Max Jowise and I told him how unfamiliar he looked without his mustache (except he had a beard and side burns and no mustache in real life). While I was talking to him I turned and saw all my friends looking hurt, holding and comforting each other.
I was in one of two adjoining rooms with different-sized mattresses on the floor. In the other room were a bunch of people including Amy Beth and possibly some people from Ometepe. I stretched out on a mattress that wasn’t mine and it was really comfortable and I felt totally tired. Then it was time to race toy cars so I took out a small plastic cylinder full of toys and rummaged through it for a toy car. I found lots of really, really small ones like 3 mm long and there was one that was like a centimeter and a half at the way bottom and I had to get to it. Once I had it I realized that the person I was to race had one of the much bigger inch and a half long colorful VW bugs that I used to collect so I painstakingly picked up all the minute cars from the cylinder and then grabbed one of the bugs to race.
I talked to some Ometepe people somewhere in there and my sister Angela could speak a lot of English and they were teaching me words and just chatting.
Gringos
May 21st, 2005 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I and fifteen or twenty other people are staying in a town on Ometepe. It is not a town I have ever been to before, but I may be called Urbaite. Things are going very well until something happens that exposes a deeply-rooted philosophical difference between the visiting gringos and the native nicaragüenses. We, the gringos, try to leave, but the only way to get out is over a long, rickety wooden bridge. The bridge is well-guarded by burly, armed men.
We gather at one end of the bridge, and to be let through. We are refused. Someone tries to walk forward and push through the guards, but is shoved back unceremoniously. Christian Berg or Adam Smith suddenly gets an idea and throws himself into the woodwork below the bridge. The planks that hold up the bridge are arranged in complex geometric patterns, and Christian or Adam is able to rocket through the forest of wooden planks like a monkey. I am in awe of his agility.
The guards notice Adam or Christian. One of them swings off the side of the bridge and is able to pull him away, dragging him into the water. Adam or Christian shakes off the guard and swims back to the bridge and continues on his way.
Having seen Christian’s or Adam’s success, the rest of us storm the bridge and run through the guards with as much force as possible. While a good proportion of us make it through, many are killed or seriously injured along the way. As I run to the other end of the bridge, free of the guards, I see Daniel Cox walking the other way. There is no blood, but he is missing an arm and, with his other arm, he carries a box. I know that this box contains his other arm. He wails, “How am I supposed to clean up my own body? How can I clean up _my own body_?” This is very disturbing.
The twelve-ish people who made it across the bridge are now standing on the beach just below the bridge trying to decide what to do next. I have not descended to the beach and am standing just at the end of the bridge. There, I see several of the guards calmly walk back near to where I’m standing. They carry dart guns. They load them up and begin to fire on my friends below. I begin to scream at them to look up or run away, but they can’t hear me. One by one, a large majority of them are hit by darts and are immediately knocked out — but not dead. Someone below yells, “¡Hasta la próxima playa!” and we begin to run.
We do not run to the next beach. We decide that we will let that be a decoy for the guards who will undoubtedly chase us. I begin to recognize the roads and terrain and lead the group in running toward a larger town that is paved and has a train station. I am very fortunate that we happen to stumble across roads that I recognize that lead me directly to the town.
I take them to the train station in the town, and suggest half-heartedly that we take the train to get away once and for all. I and they know already, however, that there’s no reason to do anything that brash, and we should just keep running. This we do.
In the process of running, the town becomes Puerto Angel (which is actually in México) and the people with whom I run become Ariana and Jonathan Hallet. As we reach the edge of Puerto Angel, I remember the restaurant at the top of the building on the right side of the road up the hill at the end of town (this restaurant actually exists, but it looks quite a bit different). Despite being very out of breath, I gasp to Jonathan and Ariana a suggestion that we go to the restaurant. It will be a good place to hide, and the food is excellent (true). I’m not hungry, however — I just want to experience eating the food they server. We might or might not have any pesos (the currency of Nicaragua is actually the cordoba).
As we ascend the stairs to the restaurant, I realize that my mother and father are staying in Puerto Angel and, suddenly, my mother is walking with us. We exchange pleasantries and Ariana, Jonathan, and I promise to tell my mother of the strange thing that’s been going on after we sit down. My mother is having a wonderful time. It is at this moment that I begin to worry for the things that I left in “Urbaite”, including my computer, which I have not backed up for a week or two (I actually have not since I installed Tiger).
As my mother and I enter the restaurant, she, Ariana, and Jonathan are for some reason already sitting down. They have chosen a table in the corner and well out of sight. A waitress is serving them each a slice of gourmet pizza on paper plates (the restaurant does not actually serve pizza and does not use paper plates). She holds a fourth piece in her hand, and I wonder whether she will see me and serve me the pizza. As I sit down, she gives it to me. I am relieved.
Humanity aquatic
May 19th, 2005 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I am in a class which might be Humanities (in reality, I do not take Humanities), and it is held, as always, in Ray Williamson Memorial Pool. We are discussing our final paper, which is to be the ultimate expression of our _selves_, in the spiritual sense of the term.
The teacher surprises us with an option to complete an alternative creative project of a type from a prescribed list of options in place of the paper. This is controversial because some people have already completed the paper (a situation similar to my real-life English class). A movie is an option, and Kevin is in my class, so everyone assumes — vocally, for some reason — that I will do a movie. This is attractive for a moment, but then I realize that this is an individual project and movies are only fun when one works with other people — specifically, Kevin _et al_.
I am out of the pool now, somehow, and I slowly walk away, subtly and quietly suggesting that I’ll probably write the paper. I have some ideas, and am rather looking forward to putting them in written form.
Tooth Thread
May 19th, 2005 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
I was at T & C and I asked for a piece of thread and the checker said there weren’t any although he had one around his neck. I needed it to hold my pants up while I slept and I found it between my teeth. I was really proud of this.
The Da Vinci Code
May 15th, 2005 by Adrian Sampson; 2 comments
I dreamt some more plot additions to _The Da Vinci Code_, but I can’t remember them first because of my ordinarily poor dream memory and second because the events were too similar to and intertwined with the actual events of the novel to be isolated and recalled.
The Ghandi-Divelbess Commonality
May 15th, 2005 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
I was sitting at my kitchen table with Cynthia and somebody else and Cynthia kind of coughed and I backed away and then she threw up.
I was somewhere with a bunch of people and Tim went to take off his pants and accidentally took off everything. He was female. Later he was sitting on some ledge with his back to me with his boxers up around his waist really high and it made me think of Gandhi.
I was at this weird dance in the LGI with really complicated rules. I forget everything else.
In America, life is Monopoly
May 12th, 2005 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
Sara Sheridan was getting up in the morning and there were a bunch of people there and she was telling us about what happens in the morning in her house. Her room opened directly to outside, and was in sort of a circle with other rooms around this open courtyard. She was saying her family all gets up at different times and does their own thing in the morning. Also she might have been running for ASB.
I was at Tim’s with a lot of people and the light was really warm and yellow and I was planning to sleep over. I went to ask my mother for permission and Tim’s mother told me I could stay if I used one of my Sleep Over at Tim’s House cards. My mother said I could without me really having to ask.