The Diary of A Simple Man

Sebastian fell asleep in the car last night around 7 PM as we were driving to Wrentham to pick up Teri.

When we got home, we had a hard time waking him up enough to get him out of the car (he's really too big to pick up and carry for long distances these days). He cried and fussed. Once we got him on the porch, he dragged himself over to the couch, took of his shoes, hat, gloves, and coat, and tried to fall asleep. But it was freezing out there - barely warmer than outside, there's no heat except what radiates from the internal wall - so we couldn't allow that.

So with great difficulty we got him into the living room, where he laid down on the sofa again. Teri ended up carrying him up the stairs and into his bed.

She fell asleep soon after.

I stayed up and played some Diablo II: LOD. At around 9:35 I headed for bed. Ten minutes later, I sat bolt upright: I'd heard a cry of distress from Sebastian's room.

He was sitting half-upright, sobbing sleepily. "My tummy hurts!" he cried.

"Do you think you're going to throw up?"

"Maybe..."

I looked around frantically, but couldn't find a trash can. We'd left it in our room the night that he'd thrown up on our bed. So I ran back to our room and grabbed one (incidentally and not entirely unintentionally waking up Teri in the process), and ran back to his room. He drank some water, Teri came in and helped soothe him, and we left him in his bed with the trash can (a new one, quite clean) on the bed next to him.

I went back to bed and fell asleep. Sometime in the night, around 2 AM, Sebastian woke up and came into our bed; later, when I got up to got to the bathroom and came back, he'd stretched out his arm and taken up my space. So I went to his bed to sleep.

That night, I had a dream.

I was in a small bed, in my office. Of course, in the real world I work in a cube, not an office, but in my dream I was in a small bedroom-like office at my workplace. I lay there in bed for a couple of hours, worrying about sleeping at work - it didn't seem right - and then things changed.

There was some sort of odd corporate roleplaying test going on. We were at a rural location; we were all going to be cows. Each of us was given a cow costume to wear. They were designed to let us walk upright, and (since I'm sure you're wondering) they did not have udders. Or at least mine didn't.

We were each handed a piece of paper telling us what type of cow we were. We would be graded on how well we stuck to our roles. I was a "tabula rasa" cow, which meant that I had no memory and was unable to learn or remember anything; it would be a mark against me if I were to accidentally demonstrate learning ability.

This seemed pretty unfair to me, since the other cows were competing to become the leader of the herd; it felt as if I'd been forced into a village idiot category before I'd even had a chance to compete.

But I tried to play the part and make the best of it. Incidentally, in hindsight the whole thing was very much like most of the SIL/ILF-type roleplaying events that I'd experienced, especially the unfair role assignments. Slowly the dream ended and I realized that I was sleeping on Sebastian's bed; I was still asleep, but I had some idea of where I was. I guessed that morning was near.

My back was to the door, but I heard Sebastian's footsteps as he came into the room. He climbed up on the bed behind me, and kissed me on the shoulder. Then he rubbed his face on the top-back of my head, where some men develop a bald spot (and which is, in my case, completely bald); he's never done that before. It felt funny. Finally he climbed part-way over my back and planted a kiss on my temple.

"It's morning! Time to get up, Daddy!"

A long night. But not a bad one.

As usual, I had weird dreams when I got to sleep late on Sunday. What's slightly unusual is that I dreamed about two people on my flist.

I was lost in a huge, strange airport. All I wanted to do was get out, but no matter where I looked, I couldn't find an exit. I found maps, but they didn't make any sense to me. I found a large set of automatic glass doors that opened to the outside, but none of them were exits - they were "enter only", and they wouldn't open for me.

And then I ran into klyfix and charibdis. I think they might have been looking for me. Needless to say, I was terribly relieved to see them! Even better, they told me they knew the way out.

I was walking around with them, heading back to the no-exit doors (I think I wanted to show them how I'd tried to get out), when an enormous section of the airport floor moved to the next level - an area of about 1,000 square feet (including the entire area in front of the doors themselves) moved down a floor, just like an elevator. Light dawned in my head - no wonder I hadn't been able to figure out the map!

I tore over to the information booth and went on a long, slightly hysterical rant about issuing maps that couldn't possibly be accurate because the whole place kept changing in totally unpredictable ways. The girl in the booth was kind of amused by my reaction (which was partially my intention; I was shocked, but also playing my reaction for laughs), and apologized on behalf of the airport designers.

After that the guys took me over to an airport lounge. The menu was odd; there wasn't much that I would eat. So I ordered french fries. When they arrived, though, they weren't like any sort of french fries I'd ever had before - they were large oval disks covered in a sort of brownish breadcrumb coating. I tasted one, and immediately put it down: "I'm not eating that". There were a bunch of other things that had been brought with the "fries", all of which had the names of foods that I liked, but every single other one of them was totally weird and nothing like what I was used to.

"Let's get out of here," I said. And woke up.

Feel free to interpret all that as you wish. :D

I notice that I'm not the only one to dream about people on their flist...of course klyfix and charibdis are old real-world friends who I knew long before LJ even existed.

For some reason on the past two mornings I dreamed the same dream: that I was Ted Danson, hosting the Emmys, while drunk. What's more, I was wearing a costume that was a replica of a giant computer monitor (not the flat-screened kind), with my head protruding out of the top; it was for a sketch on the show. Since I didn't want to ruin the surprise for the audience, the whole costume was covered with a white sheet. It was bizarre.

That's why I like sleeping late; I have the most interesting dreams.

I managed to get to bed by 9:30 last night, for once, although it took me a long time to get to sleep.

Once again, my dreams were particularly vivid.

I was walking down a hill in a city. In the buildings at the bottom of the hill, there was a large, wide door. Someone was walking with me, and I explained that the door led to my bar. We headed down through it, and it turned out not to be a bar, but a shell around a pirate ship. The shell opened onto a harbor.

I was dressed as a privateer captain from the 1800s, and my crew was working hard to get the ship ready. In moments, we set sail. I was at the helm, with both a steering wheel and a rudder (in reality, I don't know much about ships). The sails billowed as they caught the wind, and the ship slowly pulled out into open air.

The waters in the harbor were crowded with ships and boats of all sizes, all of the same era as my own. In fact, it was ridiculously crowded. I steered carefully, almost hitting other ships many times, but enjoying myself...and then the dream changed.

I was in a huge hotel in Las Vagas, with friends and family. Somehow I ended up talking to Leslie Nielsen, who was wearing a tuxedo. I assumed that he'd just say hello and "thanks", after I told him I'd enjoyed his work very much, but for some reason he wanted to walk around with me and chat.

A very odd dream. We went all over the hotel, which was also a casino, a giant mall with strange stores...just odd. I'm not quite sure how it ended. I probably just drifted awake.

Last night I had a dream.

Teri, Sebastian and I were in the city, in a crowded public area. Somehow Sebastian got away from us. We searched and searced, but couldn't find him. Finally the police got involved as well.

Finally I found him. His hand, that is. It had been cut off and sealed in a zip-lock baggie. I found it stuck inside the sleeve of an empty coat.

Moments later they found his body. He was dead.

My dreams are incredibly realistic. I can still remember the feel of the little hand inside the baggie. The little fingers felt like baby carrots. Holding the baggie, seeing the body, I asked myself "Why isn't this bothering me?"

"Because this can't be real," I replied, and then - there's no other way to describe it - I forced myself to wake up. It was 5 AM, fifty minutes before the alarm clock was going to go off. I wasn't even upset - I'd known from the first that the experience couldn't be real.

I wouldn't allow it to be.

That's the first time I've had a dream quite like that. Apparently Teri has them all the time, although in hers, he's usually kidnapped. I don't think she has ever found him dead.

My dreams this morning were surreal. I think it's because I'm sick.

First, I suddenly realized that I was in a dream. But there wasn't much I could do about it.

Then I woke up. Started picking out my clothes to wear to work. Remembered that it was Friday, casual day, so I dug out a pair of jeans to wear. Suddenly I felt that there was a hair in my eye, so I walked over to the mirror to take a look.

I felt as if my eye were firmly shut - I could definitely feel it! - but in the mirror, it was about a third open and entirely black - the white and all, all perfectly black and very freaky-looking in an alien sort of way. A bunch of my eyelashes were stuck in it.

And then I woke up - for real, this time. That is, I think I did.

It was a night of strange dreams. First, I dreamed about Monty Python.

I dream about them and SCTV once in a while, and in my dreams they're usually personal friends of mine. I don't know if this means anything, but much as I loved the original Saturday Night Live, I never dream about them.

In this case Eric Idle and Terry Jones were both being Welsh housewives. They were, of course, about the age that they were when they made the show. I was watching them on TV, and heard a critic saying that Idle's Welsh accent was not as well done as Jones'.

Then suddenly I was in college. An important professor was lecturing, and I was trying to keep up with notes. Suddenly I realized that he was giving us two essays that he wanted us to write, immediately, in class. These would be a major part of our grade for the year. But I hadn't heard what the essays were supposed to be about, and I couldn't figure it out from looking at the notebooks of the people around me.

He'd posted the requirements on the blackboard, but they were written on relatively small pieces of paper. I couldn't see them from my seat, so I went up with my notebook and copied the information off one of them - the other was illegible. I was to write an essay about mice from the point of view of a cat. I figured that would be easy; as I headed back to my seat, I was already blocking out ideas.

But back at my seat, I ran into trouble. The essay was forming in my mind, but I couldn't find any blank paper in my notebook. There had been a lot of blank pages moments earlier, but now every one of them was full. I started looking around for ANY paper, anywhere, but the other students were finishing their essays and handing them in. The classroom was emptying rapidly, and I hadn't managed to write a single damned word.

And suddenly I was in that kitchen with Terry Jones and Eric Idle.

"Don't feel bad," I told Eric, patting him on the back, "of course his accent's better - he's Welsh!"

We all laughed, and then I woke up.

I'd gone to sleep relatively early, so I felt rested, for a change. Headed downstairs, started the shower running, then headed back and turned on the upstairs hallway light (there's a switch at the bottom of the stairs).

"Hey!" came a mildly outraged cry from Sebastian's room, "I'm tired!"

"But it's time to get up, baby boy!" I answered.

"Oh. Okay," he said, and came out into the hallway.

If only it was always that easy.

Damn, my dreams can get strange. Particularly lately. This morning I dreamed that Homer Simpson was knocked up into the air, ending up stuck behind the jet of a large jet plane. A creature something like the gremlin in the The Twilight Zone was dancing around on the roof of the plane, except that it didn't look anything like a gremlin; it was more like a flesh-colored blob with an evil cartoon face.

It kept turning up the fire from the jet and burning Homer to cinders. Finally it reversed the jet for a minute, sucking Homer in and grinding him into ashes. The ashes spewed out of the engine and down into the ocean, reforming into a tattered Homer on the way down. As he splashed down, he just missed hitting a huge ocean liner...but the plane didn't. It sliced through the ship, dividing it neatly in half. The halves rapidly proceeded to sink, along with the plane, creating a massive whirlpool. Passengers screamed in terror. As Homer was sucked into the funnel, sharks cruised in and ripped him apart.

Damn, my dreams can get strange.

So Teri and I were driving around an old-fashioned neighborhood when we saw fire licking up out of some of the storm drains. It turned out there was some sort of building with an internal fire pit nearby, and the flames sometimes traveled along the sewers and came out in other places. The sewer grates looked like barbecue grills.

As we drove past the flaming grates, Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" came on the radio.

Then we parked and walked a bit. There was a ten-year-old kid who was operating a three-card monte game. We watched for a while, Teri lost a few bucks, and then all of a sudden the kid got very nervous and told us that she could keep her latest loss - a five-dollar bill. I was puzzled until I realized that there was a street cop walking towards us. So I went over to a set of display shelves that the kid had up, showing money that you "could" win from him, and grabbed a five and a few ones - the money that he'd just won from Teri. Then we walked on.

And then I woke up.

Yesterday the three of us were at Stop & Shop, getting some coffee at the internal Dunkin' Donuts. Sebastian couldn't resist playing with the plastic coffee cups they had on display: he grabbed one and ran away from me, down the laundry detergeant aisle. When he saw that I was catching up, he turned, laughing like crazy, and threw the cup behind a row of bleach bottles. I grabbed it and him, and brought both back to the Dunkin' Donuts line.

He immediately started grabbing more plastic cups, but as he did, one of the little shelves came off its supports and crashed onto the next one down. Which promptly fell off its supports. The cups flew everywhere. Sebastian got scared.

I held onto him while I picked up the cups, and then I explained to him that these weren't OUR cups, and this was why I didn't want him to play with them - they could make a mess. Then I gave him a big hug. A guy standing behind me in line was apparently fairly impressed, because he told me several times that I was a very good father.

A dream, and a memory.

Advice: I've been going a bit insane with the advice column; it's really kind of addictive (obligatory joke: "Now I know how George W. Bush feels about wine and cocaine". Updated version: "Now I know how George W. Bush feels about wine, cocaine, lying in order to send poor young people off to die in Iraq, and shredding the Bill of Rights^* )".

Anyway, I've answered 44 questions so far. My current average rating is 5 (which is perfect, of course), and I have 70 feedback points. Of course, I'll probably be crushed by the first less-than-perfect rating I get. :/

HAH! I walked away from my computer before posting this, came back, and sure enough, someone just gave me my first "4". Most unfairly, too. I was the only person to even TRY to answer her question! Oh well.

RuneQuest: Something strange: I was just added to the Mongoose RQ playtest group after all. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Greg Stafford's remarkable rudeness, though, so right now I'm not very excited. Still, I'll check the rules out soon.

Dreams: Another funny thing: The night before last I dreamed a neat and funny idea for a roleplaying scenario. I even dreamed that I was writing a snatch of poetry for it. When I woke up, I ran to the computer and noted it all down. The couplet wasn't bad, I guess (it sounds a little familiar, though), but it doesn't actually fit into the scenario at all:

I could not save him, although I tried;
I rode to live, he lived to ride.

Health: It was a sinus infection. I'm 99% sure. Steady pain in the lower sinuses, and random pain EVERYWHERE. Every little movement hurt. Every bump hurt 10x more than it should have. So I took a lot of Tylenol over three days, and used saline on my sinuses just before bed for two nights in a row.

But man, the saline hurt. Even WITH Tylenol, the sheer pain kept me up for more than an hour each night. Agony. On the plus side, I didn't have to use the saline or the Tylenol last night. I'm mostly better.

Apology: Apologies to Kat for kinda stealing her subtopic style. But come to think of it, I used to the the same style back when I was writing for The Wild Hunt and Interregnum.

So maybe she stole it from me.

---
^* Except the Second Amendment, of course.