Batch

10-03-2012 -- [Two dreams tonight, and no idea why when last few days have been so bad ... especially since 1st one was clear, detailed, and made internal sense, even though I dreamed it in first 2 hours of sleep, which is usually short, choppy, and impossible to make sense of. Can't fathom why unless imitation apple soda is as good as apple juice before bed, even though no real apple in it. Don't know.]

I'm in my 1st bedroom in the Hickory House. Kevin B and I are sitting around writing stuff, except very unusually, Kevin is not trying to write stories, but is trying to write a love song. Suddenly he bursts into two lines of song, and they flow, they sound quite musical ... he may well be on to something. The lines are something along the lines of 'thinking about you, thinking about you' and I think he may be on his way to a great song. [Didn't note it in the dream, but the fact I woke with the words "I can't live with or without you" running through my mind tells me my mind probably stole the tune.]

It does sound amazingly familiar, and I don't want to encourage him on trying to rewrite an already published song, so I am really trying to think of where I might know the words from, and I find myself thinking of a New York public service thing that was supposed to make New Yorkers think about making a good impression on the tourists or something. I even find myself remembering a red and blue circular sign with the wording on it from a New York trip ... and no reason why that shouldn't work, is there?

In trying to remember this and research it, I have somehow stepped into an office somewhere, and started looking at some books. One of the books I have somehow come across is a digest-sized book of Spider-Man comics, except it is about 6" thick and claims to contain all the cross-over stories or some such thing. I am flipping through it and seeing sections labeled Spider-Man and Superman and others, while the person whose office I am in is talking some sort of business deal on the phone.

When he finishes up, he turns his attention to me, and I am talking about the book, and wondering where he got it. Though nothing is said about how I got there or why I am in his office, he is very friendly and helpful. Somehow as we're talking, I reveal I am out of work and need a job. He is asking about my skills and encouraging me to talk about what I am good at, and I mention my computer skills and on the computer nearly every waking hour, but then admit I don't have a computer science degree because of the math requirements, and he doesn't seem to think that is a bar, though it will require a different angle of attack.

Then he is on the phone again, this time with a woman from Minnesota. Somehow she knows me, and he is wondering if I sent her an application sometime. I am trying to figure out where I know the person from, whether it be something Disney or some sort of balloon gig, or a research letter for a story or song or something connected with church. Whatever the reason, he has come across another person who thinks highly of me, even though I don't know them, which only increases his interest in helping me regarding job.

But suddenly there is a huge snake (about 4" around and perhaps 10-15 feet long) that slithers out of a bag on the floor by his desk and heads in my direction. It seems to pause, lifts itself off the ground like a king cobra preparing to strike and sort of sniffs the air, then drops to the ground and slithers at me remarkably fast. I kind of scream, bolt out of my chair as fast as I can move, and start running out of the office. The snake is right behind me, and I keep screaming and running, but oddly I almost seem to be composing an incident report or something in my mind, calmly, at the same time, noting that if I am running at top speed, the snake falls behind.

I run past an elevator and down a hallway, into a reception area, and the person sitting there is Joy (in charge of hiring for Mears, hired me for my original job there, and will not rehire me now). I am still screaming about the snake, and she is instantly on the phone to animal control or something. She knows it is the guy's pet, and harmless, but she's been wanting a reason to get rid of it, and she is jumping on the opportunity. The guy might have every reason to now hate me, but he understands that I was scared and surprised and doesn't hold it against me. Instead he just gathers up his snake and his stuff and takes it to his car to go home before they can come for the snake. I go with him to the parking lot to continue our conversation.

As we are talking in the parking lot and he opens the door to his car, it turns out he has a lot of other pets, mostly much smaller snakes, and one tiny little dog (was it a dog? It might have been a prairie dog or something odder like that, instead), all running around the area. I am sitting on the ground, and a small snake (perhaps a centimeter around and about 10 inches long) seems to be cuddling against the bottom of my bare foot. While I am slightly uncomfortable with this, it is nothing to being chased around by the huge snake, so I can manage to ignore it. Thing is slightly cute, after all.

We walk past some ladies in the parking lot, and seem to be heading for another building, when for a for seconds the scene changes completely, and it's almost like an entire different dream. I am in an apartment or hotel with Bonnie C., and somehow the key for the door lock is in the door kind of like a locker key. I take the key and somehow make a duplicate of it so I have one to keep. Bonnie is asking me about it, and says I have taken three keys, when I think I have only taken two. I feel in my pockets, and do find three keys, but one is from earlier, and has nothing to do with here. Weird and out of place.

So now we're in a parking lot on the other side of the building, and there is a landscaping guy blowing leaves with a blower. The guy I am with (looks like a thinner version of Christopher Bean) is determined to know if it is a gas blower or an electric blower, because in the dream an electric blower would be much better for the environment. So he unplugs a cord for an instant, and the blower starts to die. He plugs it back in, it starts to blow again, and he has his answer. Meanwhile, I seem to be glancing at a book by Rush Limbaugh about buying wholesale to save money or something odd like that (business, rather than politics.)

As we start to walk to the building again, I oddly find myself humming 'Jolly Holiday' from Mary Poppins, and the guy instantly starts to sing along with me. So we're both walking down the sidewalk singing "Ain't it a glorious day, bright as a morning in May; I feel like I could fly ...." But as we reach the point where the penguins start calling out ladies names, the names he is calling out are completely wrong, and don't fit at all. I am correcting him with names that are still wrong, but much closer in sound and cadence to the correct names. We're laughing, as others are just staring at us.