There was a spider in my dream last night. A massive fucking spider that was huge and had an exoskeleton like a crab, and it was so big and robust that when it's legs touched other surfaces they made a tapping noise. It was dangling from the ceiling in a hallway in my parent's house, its legs were knocking together and rattling like an evil wind chime. I must have been young in the dream because I yelled for my father to come kill it and I called him "Daddy."

Trophy hunting is deplorable.

http://www.themarysue.com/

Dear Game of Thrones,

Thanks for giving me rat nightmares. Jerk.

Give us more Tyrion and I'll forgive you,

Ellie

Nightmares

Because I'm one of those annoying people who is always telling other people about their dreams, I'll tell you about two nightmares I had in the last week.


The first took place in the great room at my cabin. I was there with my dad, and there was a trail of ants under the table, maybe about 6-10 ants marching in a line. As they marched around they got bigger. I asked dad what they were and he said they looked like carpenter ants. By this point they were big enough that we could see wings. They actually looked like cockroaches as they got bigger. They kept growing and I was freaked out, I ran from the chair I was in and onto a couch in the corner of the room.  At this point they were about a foot long, they had shiny, hard-plastic-looking white heads with black eyes. One leaped from the floor and hit me in/landed on my face. I screamed and tried to push it off, and that woke me up.


The second nightmare took place in a nondescript lobby somewhere.  I was with Alej and a childhood friend Angie. The ring finger on my left hand had a stiff joint and I couldn't  straighten my finger all the way. I held up my hand to show them, and before our eyes my entire hand started to swell. It happened really quickly and we all freaked out and Angie got on her cell and called an ambulance. As my hand swelled, it almost seemed to shrink, and my nails got longer, as if the pressure from the swelling was forcing them out. It freaking hurt too, I thought my skin was going to split open. All this happened over the course of a few seconds and I jammed my hand under my other arm because I couldn't stand to look at it. I woke up then, and my hand was tingling. It was gross and disturbing. Fucking nightmares. 

Having a pet shark never ends well

I had a disturbing shark dream over the weekend. It took place in my parents’ front yard. I had hatched a shark for a pet, I guess. In the dream I called it a shark, but it had no fins and looked like a giant planarian, but with gills and sharp, sharp teeth. It was able to live outside of water, just in the grass of the front yard. For whatever reason, it was decided that I needed to kill it. All I had was a pair of scissors. I don’t know if I was troubled in the dream by having to kill it, or if my conscious self is so bothered by the idea of having to kill an animal that it’s altering my memory of the dream. But I went about the task of killing it. The shark, I think, was pretty docile, up until I stabbed it with the scissors; it didn’t like that, and escaped me to hide under the tree in the front yard. After that I changed my tact. I took off my shoes and socks and walked barefoot on the grass, luring it to me with the promise of a human-flesh meal, I guess.  It took the bait, sinking its sharp little teeth into my foot. It hurt, and I suppose the pain gave me the motivation I needed to kill it. I used the scissors to cut at its mouth to get it to let go of my foot, then after that it was lots of stabbing and slicing. I don’t remember there begin any gore or blood, but I think at the time I was aware of the creature’s panic. After it was dead, its corpse was about half the size it was when it was alive. The dream felt very violent and I was pretty disturbed by it the following morning. Luckily, I’m rapidly forgetting it, so I won’t have to live with that feeling much longer. I won’t be growing any pet sharks in my parents’ front yard anytime soon, though.

Hypochondriac

I started feeling sick Thursday night. I had that bad taste and feeling in the back of my throat that usually heralds a killer throat infection. Then on Friday, the soreness started, and I had that draggy, fighting-something feeling. I don't think I have swine flu. I mean, I have none of the symptoms, but when it comes to the symptoms no one seems to really know what they are. It's possible I have some new atypical version of swine flu. Possible but unlikely given that I'm just a hypochondriac. Last weekend I was fairly certain I had a brain aneurysm.

I wasn't going to buy just anyone's cockatoo

I have a bunch of posts in my head, I just haven't gotten around to making them actual. I realize that my internal thoughts are all well and good, but they don't really help any of y'all procrastinate. I will try to do better in the future.

Speaking of "y'all," I had a dream recently that I was in a meeting with my former supervisors and other people who were on my thesis committee, and I called them "y'all." Afterward it was all silence and awkwardness, and significant anti-Ellie looks were exchanged. That's a word I use all the time when I write, but I don't think I've ever used it (un-ironically) in reality - it doesn't slip out of me the way that "dude," somewhat regrettably, does.

I also recently dreamt that I was being hunted by this feral raccoon, but it was mutated and looked more like a sloth (holy crap, those are creepy animals, I don't care how slow they move, if ever there were an argument for animals not having a soul, the sloth would be it. Dude!). The sloth-like raccoon was pursuing me at my parent's house and I managed to elude it. Then it followed me into another dream! I've never had that happen before, when elements of one dream appeared in another. It was cool.

I also wanted to write about this great play I saw with Anne. It was called Ubuntu, and was about a man who comes to Canada from South Africa in search of his father. The cast was only 5 people, and the set was pretty stark, but it was amazing how they were able to create so much with their bodies and motions. In one scene, they were able to create the feeling of a large university library using only a cart and about 10 books. The man who played the father was especially gifted with his movements, able to convey a lot with just the way he held his body. There's a really great example I'd like to share, but it would reveal too much. The play has already been to Toronto, and I don't know if it's going to be touring, but if you get a chance to see it, go for it.

I'd also like to point out how much more rational the Pay What You Can procedure at Neptune Theatre is compared to the Citadell in Edmonton. At Neptune, the Pay What You Can ticket sales begin 30 minutes before the show starts. That's it - no wristbands, no lining up twice, no entire afternoons spend hanging around with the homeless people at the library. So much better.

P.S. -If monday rolls around and anyone is looking for a belated present for me, tickets for U2's Toronto show go on sale at 10am.

Buffy Dream

I had a dream last night that Buffy was coming back to TV! Except, the only way Sarah Michelle Gellar would agree to do it was if the show was renamed after her (as opposed to her character), so Joss Whedon renamed the show SMEAT, with the S for "Sarah", and the M & E from "Michelle" but I don't know where the AT came from. And they changed the theme music! It was slow and quiet, completely different from the real theme music. The whole show was really messed up, it was half live-action, half annimation, and Willow was back in a dorm and dating boys again. I'm glad it was only a dream.

And while I'm on the topic of the Whedonverse, I have to say that I'm torn over this new show Castle. I want to like it, because it stars Nathan Fillion, and he was awesome in Firefly and Dr. Horrible, and is just about the best thing to ever come out of Edmonton. But, sadly, the show (at least, in the commercials I've seen) looks a lot like Bones (which, ironically, also stars a member of the Whedonverse). And I already like Bones, so do I have room in my busy TV watching schedule for another comedic, character-driven procedural rife with sexual tension?

It comes from my mother

I had an even better dream last night. I think it was a reality show, or an elaborate hoax where all the contestants are convinced they’re on a reality show. It was an academic reality show, so the challenges were all feats of the mind and not, like, how long you could stand on a pole without falling. There were a lot of people there I recognized from elementary, high school, and undergrad. Elimination was based on test scores and there was no voting. The people with the two lowest scores would be identified and then everyone else would go back to the dorms where we lived. I got the impression it was a huge competition, there seemed to be a lot of people around.

Of the two people left, the non looser would be released, and I’m not sure if they knew what happened next, because none of the contestants knew what happened when you lost. But because it was my dream, I got to see. The looser was strung up with ropes at their wrists and ankles and they were ripped apart. That’s way more symbolic than putting out their flame or turning off the light in their fridge (or whatever). It turns out that the producer of the show had a really horrible adolescent school experience and was taking revenge on smart people.

And before you go thinking that my dreams are oddly violent, I would like to point out that it’s genetic. After I told my mom about this dream, she told me about what she calls her “Sniper dream.”

“My sniper dream, surprisingly, predated all the reality shows. It was about a show called Skate For Your Life. They locked 100 roller skaters in a roller rink and put a sniper in a balcony. The last one alive was the winner. It's very much like The Long Walk.”

The Long Walk was written by Stephen King back when he was pretending to be Richard Bachman, and before he started sucking. I would argue that her dream was more like the story Running Man. Hey, remember that movie? I should totally watch that again.

to see or imagine in sleep or in a vision

I have three separate dream memories from last night. Or they might be from this morning. I tend to have really vivid dreams between Snooze-button hits. And I hit Snooze a lot. I think it's only a matter of time before my very-patient roommate bursts into my room at 6:45 and throws my own alarm clock at me, screaming, "Just get out of bed already!" And I will deserve it.

The first is rather poignant, especially for me because my dreams tend to be run-of-the-mill surreal. In it, the younger of my older brothers had joined some kind of religious group, I think he had become Quaker. As part of his conversion, he had to renounce, and never again have contact with, his family (a bonus, I’m sure, in his eyes). It was a rainy night, in Cobourg I think, and he was on a sidewalk, waiting to cross the street. I was coincidentally inside a building right behind him. We saw each other, and I made some kind of gesture meant to convey that we loved him and missed him - I didn't try to talk to him through the glass. Even though he was not supposed to acknowledge his family, he gave a slight nod of his head to convey that he understood. Then he crossed the road and was gone.

The second is great, because it demonstrates how even my subconscious loves pop. I was in a bar, with some friends (no one I recognized), and my aunt Shelia and her friend. It was a pub, all low ceilings and dark wood. I think we were celebrating something, and since I was the only one with family present I suspect that something had to do with me. My aunt’s friend was leaving, so I got up to say goodbye. She gave me a hug, and told me in a confidential tone that I should go visit my father. I said, "Now isn't a good time, I've been drinking." And I gestured to my spot at the table, and a half-empty 2L bottle of Pepsi. She left with no further argument.

The third is more surreal. Later on, at perhaps the same bar, I noticed Edward James Olmos sitting at another table, and I thought that was freakin’ cool. I pointed him out to all my friends, I think I called him Commander Adama (even though, he's actually an Admiral). It was unclear if they knew who he was. Later on (after a long while of Pepsi shots, I'm sure) Edward James Olmos comes riding by on what looks like a sickly, starving bear. The bear is harnessed with a saddle and everything. After he passes I realize that he was actually riding a sloth. And the sloth had really long claws. Even in dreams, Edward James Olmos kicks ass.

Dream/Map

Time for me to share my dream from last night. It took place in my hometown, at my parent’s house. Their house is on a corner, and one of the roads is a gravel road. The road is named Brimley and when I was a kid, I thought it was a descriptive term, like “brimley” was another word for a bumpy, gravel road (and now that I think about it, Brimley would be a great bumbling-sidekick name). Still now, even though parts of Brimley are paved, it’s synonymous in my head with gravel. This road features heavily in my childhood memories. There’s a creek that runs underneath it, and through our property, and we had a fort by the creek on the other side of the road. Also, my best friend lived down Brimley road, and we spent a lot of time biking on that road, and exploring the fields and woods around it.

Anyway, in the dream, the creek that runs through the property had flooded, and there was enough water that people could boat down the road. I was on such a boat – it was big, flat-bottomed, and I think had gun turrets. It was daytime, and the water was so clear I could see down through to the road and the grass on the shoulder. I could see minnows everywhere and there was someone watching over my shoulder telling me what they were, and I was getting really annoyed because I already knew what they were. Then it was dark, and we were hunting for some kind of water creature that had been terrorizing the area. Every so often I would see a dark form dart through the water. I think the hunt became too intense for me, or maybe the boat was attacked, because I jumped ship and ran home. The road was bone dry, despite the flooding, which was convenient, and as I ran home, the theme music from the Bourne movies was playing in my head.

Now that I think about it, not a very eventful dream. Oh well. It gives me an opportunity to share this map that Kimmy made for me a long time ago (click for a slightly larger version).

She sent it to me after I sent her my first (and last) attempt at using ArcGIS.

...at night I close my eyes and I dream

This post is dedicated to Cricket, Mika, & Oz. I had lunch with them yesterday, and at some point the conversation turned to piercings (of which I have the fewest in the group, whereas Oz is 90% piercings). Because of them, last night I dreamt about piercings.

In the dream, my cousin Becky was going to pierce my ears, but because I hate needles, she had to put me under to get it done. But when I woke up, my ears weren't pierced, instead she'd pierced my nose and my neck. I had a stud in both nostrils, and studs in my neck, one on each side below the corner of my jaw bone. She said those were "practice" for when she did my ears. She wouldn't tell me how she got the neck studs in. After a while, my chin started to go numb and she had to take them out. The best part about the dream was that it took place at my cabin.

I've got to say it again - I freakin' love dreams. I love how my addled mind puts things together and makes them almost coherent. The dream components make perfect sense. It was about piercings because we'd talked about them at lunch. It was my cousin Becky, because whenever I saw her when I was a kid, she would braid my hair (which my mind linked with piercing my ears). And it was at my cabin, because that was the only time I spent any considerable time with her, because she lived in Alberta and I didn't see her as much as my other cousins.

Long Post-Vacation Post

I’m writing this from my cabin. I’m going to post it when I return to civilization and internet access. From where I’m sitting at the table in the “great room,” I can see the whitish-gray water of the lake through the spring green foliage. On a sunny day, I love how the lake sparkles through the trees. Today, it’s overcast and raining and I’m taking advantage of the weather to work on my thesis and catch up on my blog.

First things first: Congratulations to Kimm & Tomm who actually, really, legally got married on Friday. It was a quintessential small town wedding. Of the 14-member wedding party (bride and groom included), over half of us went to high school together. The best man (and one of the guests) I went to school with from preschool. Even a member of the wait staff at the reception was in grade school with me. It was also a quintessential Cobourg wedding with pictures at the waterfront, on the boardwalk and in the sand. Kimmy looked great and my hair rocked until it all fell out:

(I’ll post more and better pictures whenever Kimm get them to me.) It was a long day, though, and I think I’ll have to take a break from weddings for a while. As I write this Kimm & Tomm are somewhere off in the Mediterranean, but I have to say, I don’t envy them much because I’m at my cabin.

We drove up Saturday morning after the wedding. It was an overcast, rainy day but the rain let up enough in the afternoon to go for a very fast swim. More specifically, a jump in the lake followed by a sprint indoors to stand in front of the woodstove. I like the cold water only when it’s warmer than the air. In those cases you get used to the water, and getting out is the hard part. But when the water is colder than the air, and the air is cold, it’s hard to get out.

Sunday was another rainy day. It was passed reading and playing card games. I ruined my pretty wedding manicure in a impromptu Racing Demons tournament. Racing Demons is like competitive Solitaire. It’s one of a suite of Demon games that are the staples of cabin life: Racing, Sleeping, and Fishing Demons. It cleared up in the afternoon and I ended up going for a paddle with my Uncle in my father’s 35 year-old pink fiberglass canoe (in his defense, it used to be red). We were on a hunt for our bridge. A chunk of the bridge floated away in the thaw this year and getting to the island by canoe is quaint but not practical for the entire summer.



We paddled to the end of our arm of the lake and back, scanning the shoreline for the missing span of our bridge. We found the bridge, but not at all where we thought it would be. Luckily, it’s in a place where it’s not likely to be claimed by someone else on the lake. That happened one year, part of our boat dock floated away and my cousin found it later that summer anchored on someone else’s waterfront and she stole it back. Next time more people are here, they’ll haul the bridge back to its rightful place.

Yesterday was nice and sunny (also ridiculously buggy) and we went to a nearby, fairly new, provincial park, the Limberlost Forest and Wildlife Reserve, which is on a huge plot of land that touches at least 4 lakes and was donated to the province by some rich German guy. They have a network of trails that go around the lakes, and to lookouts, and around an old resort. The woods were impassable, however, due to blackfly season, so we stayed on the roads and walked to a few of the lakes and looked at the old buildings. I saw about a dozen toad metamorphs which I felt safe (based on my teachings from Cricket) in declaring an emergence.


(I swear there's a toadlet in that picture).

I haven’t been swimming since that first time. Swimming from the bridge is a hassle at the moment because you have to canoe to the part of the bridge with the ladder. I don’t want to swim from land because every time I walk in the shallows I get fed on by leeches. The boat dock doesn’t have its ladder in yet, but I think I’ll reattach it and swim from there. It’s supposed to feel like 28oC on Thursday. Good swimming weather.

Wednesday

Went into town today. I can’t remember the last time I was in Huntsville; a long, long time ago if my unfamiliarity with it is any indication. The black flies have given way to hordes of mosquitoes. I read a lot today, this environment is just so conducive to reading. Since my trip began I’ve read:

The Touchstone by Edith Wharton
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay.

The Wharton I read because I love her and must read every word she’s written before I die. The Hosseini was recommended to me, and given the lasting impression his first book left with me, it seemed like a good choice. It was sad, but managed to have a hopeful ending. It was not as sad as Kite Runner; I didn’t feel nearly as desolate reading this. The last book was recommended to me by a Cobourg bookseller when she didn’t have the book I really wanted in stock. It won the Giller Prize and I have to say it was beautiful. It really made me want to move to Yellowknife and go on an ill-fated canoe trip through a barren wilderness. Okay, maybe not the ill-fated part, but I totally want to do the barren landscape bit.

Thursday

It doesn’t feel like 28, but tomorrow is supposed to feel like 36. I get this from The Moose, broadcasting from Bracebridge but calling itself the voice of Muskoka. It’s slightly easier to tolerate than The Dock, which I had to turn off after only a few songs (and, which I initially thought was called “The Duck” which I thought was just a vastly stupid name for a radio station). The Moose is interesting in that it gives the forecast no less than 5 times an hour. It must be aware that weather is the only reason most cottagers tune in.

It is so going to rain. The sky is dark, the wind is chilly, and it smells like rain. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a really good thunderstorm. I haven’t heard a good storm since last June in Caroline.

…Later

It’s raining! This is the only place where I truly love the rain. The roof of the cabin is so thin (and practically not insulated) that you can hear that patter of every drop. You can hear the rain increase and decrease in intensity. We have the doors and windows open and the cabin is full of that great spring forest scent. I know I sound like a fabric softener commercial. But it’s such a great smell. If I didn’t have to write a G.D. thesis, I’d take my book out onto the porch and read there. No thunder yet, though.

Friday

Today is the nicest day we’ve had since we got here, and it happens to be our last. The rain has stopped (for now) and it’s sunny/cloudy and humid. I went for a swim in the bay. I sat on the dock for awhile first, the bugs weren’t too bad, although I noticed horseflies for the first time today. The water was cold, but I think warmer than last Saturday.

I had this weird, sad dream last night. I was escaping from somewhere with Bret from Flight of the Conchords. We were literally running from The Law and we broke into an empty house at one point, and while we were there, a woman came home and heard us in there. She thought we were her ne’er-do-well husband and she started yelling about how horrible he was and how he ruined her life. We left by the back door and I was so upset about having witnessed such misery.

What was my subconscious thinking?

I had a dream about Jeopardy! last night. I've always liked dreaming about TV, it's just like getting a new episode of my favourite show(s), even if it is a nonsensical episode in which I sometimes happen to be starring. Another thing I like about TV dreams is that it's like multi-tasking for the extremely lazy. "You mean there's a way I can sleep AND watch TV?! I'm sold!"

In the dream, it was Celebrity Jeopardy! and they were filming on location somewhere sunny. I don't know who all the "celebrities" were, but one of them was Santa Claus. I only remember one question, and it was the kind that has a music clip to accompany Alex's text. Except they played the clip first and instead of reading the clue, Alex started rocking out to the music and doing the DJ-scratching motion with his hands. One of the contestants - not Santa - buzzed in and guessed "Martin Luther King, Jr.," but s/he was wrong. I remember thinking that guessing MLK when you don't really know the answer is a good strategy for Jeopardy!.

On a somewhat related topic, [in real life] I wonder if Alex gets as frustrated as I do when the contenstants can't answer the questions about Canada. Does he ever just want to throw his hands in the air and shout, "Come on! The Bay of Fundy National Park is in New Brunswick! Everybody knows that!"

No one remembers Richard Bachman

I had a dream last night that I met Stephen King. I read a lot of Stephen King between the ages of 12 and 18. I haven’t read anything of his since The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which came out in 1999. So, in my dream I was at his house and he was sitting on an easy chair and I was lounging on the floor, all relaxed-like. He had flying fish in his apartment. They were just swimming through the air, and crapping everywhere the way I assume a pet budgie would when let out of its cage. They looked like parrot fish.

What do you suppose we talked about? Me, the one-time aspiring author and Him, the one-time greatest horror writer in the world? (He’s not the greatest anymore. He hasn’t written a decent thing since some guy plowed him down on the side of the road. I don’t read horror anymore, so I’m not sure who usurped the throne.) Well, I (of course) lectured him on the ills of the commercial fishing industry. I seriously told him that he shouldn’t eat fish, then I told him why, in great detail. He wasn’t listening to me and was trying to convince me that eating fish is okay. I don't care if you are they guy who wrote IT, and therefore caused generations of adolescents to be afraid of clowns (my best friend was afraid of the shower for weeks after seeing the movie). I don't even care if you wrote the original stories for The Shawshank Redemption and The Shining. Eating fish is never okay, Stephen.

Mousemares

I had a mousemare last night. I was sleeping on a couch (in the dream) and I saw a mouse run across the floor, and as I did I felt something under my sheet, running up my torso. A mouse! Crawling! on! me! Shudder! I grabbed it to get it off my chest, but then I was HOLDING THE MOUSE, which for me is as bad as having it on my chest. I was hyperventilating and panicking in the dream and woke myself up. This reminded me of another rat dream I had once, I had to go looking on my old site for the original posting:

I had a dream the other night. In it I had to sign some kind of contract or legal document. My lawyer had wrapped the contract in a towel then covered it with a pillow, for safekeeping. When we uncovered it, the contract was wet, so was the towel. The pillow was wet as well. The lawyer pulled the pillow out of the case. "Here's the problem, " he said, pulling out a handful of baby rats. Rats. They started running everywhere, not just babies, but full grown, huge rats too. Hundreds of them. I jumped onto the nearest piece of furniture and screamed uncontrollably.

Jumping onto furniture and screaming is how I deal with mice and rats in real life, too.

Perchance to Dream

Dreams are pretty awesome when you think about it. Not “someday I’m gonna be famous” dreams, those are total crap and only lead to disappointments. I mean sleep-dreams. I have no idea what evolutionary advantage they have, but I’m so grateful nature managed to select for it.

I usually remember my dreams really well. I also tend to write about them very often. I hate to brag, but I've had some wicked dreams. Like the time I dreamt I was invisible. Or the dream where my brother paid my roommate to kill me. Or the dream where my mom married my Honours supervisor. Or, the dream I had recently where I called my friend an "invertebrate assoholic."

Dreams are awesome because it’s like watching TV and sleeping at the same time. How can that not equal greatness? Last weekend I had a dream that I was living in Halifax and zombies were attacking the city. I took refuge in Joel Plaskett’s house. Not only did I get a full night’s sleep, I got to hang out with Joel Plaskett. Dreams are also, at times, very educational. For example, in my dream last night I learned that leeches don’t make good pets. I had a leech in a cage. It was a wire cage with giant open spaces that a small hamster probably could have crawled through, and we kept our giant leech in it. We spritzed it with water occasionally so it didn’t dry out. This leech was huge, maybe as wide across as my hand and l-o-n-g. It was also kind of hard at the edges, I think from being dried out. Anyway, the leech-as-pet thing didn’t last, and before long the leech has escaped from its cage and was crawling across the floor, chasing me. As I write this, I’m struck by how many of my dreams in the last few months have featured invertebrates. Not surprising, given this is what I look at all day:

Whatever will I dream about once I finish this degree?

Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred

I had a dream this morning. It occurred in the space of time between my alarm going off and me getting up. Since this period averages 60 minutes, it’s plenty of time for another REM cycle. In the dream I was living at my parent’s house in Grafton. I had acquired two large aquaria. One held some fish – I didn’t actually see the fish, but I knew they were there. The other was more of a terrarium and contained two miniature wallabies. I actually don’t know how large wallabies are in real life, but I assume they’re larger than what I had in the tank. At one point I went to look at them, and I saw that my cats (dream cats, I don’t have real-life cats) had eaten them. Except they hadn’t eaten everything, so there were still little wallaby corpses in the tank. It was awful. In the dream, I told my father that the cats had eaten my wallabies, and he said that cats will do that. As if there was some axiom that, given the opportunity, cats will eat wallabies.

The worst part of the dream, other than the waking-up sad part, is that I’ve had Tie Me Kangaroo Down stuck in my head all morning, particularly the part about the “wallaby's feed.”

The remedy for such a situation

I’m drawing a blank as to what I should work on next. I know there are many, many things I could work on, but I can’t think of any of them. The only remedy for such a situation is to do nothing until the answer comes to me.

I had another invertebrate-themed dream a few nights ago. In this one, President Bartlett (the fictional President from The West Wing) was helping me out in the lab. And in my dream it wasn’t the actor, it was the President, and I called him “Sir.” I gave him an easy sample to pick, because when the Leader of the Free World volunteers to help you in the lab you don’t give him some assy 6-hour sample, you know?

I’ve read a number of books lately and haven’t felt compelled to write reviews of them like I used to. They were all very good books, and I enjoyed them immensely, which makes my way of reviewing them particularly difficult. High on the list (and I mean that everyone should read these) are: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner and The Girls by Lori Lanses.

Freakonomics makes you look at everything from a different prospective, and it’s ridiculously interesting for a book about math. One cool experience I had while reading the book: there was one part where he used a multiple regression and had to explain it for the broad audience of the book and I skipped the explanation because I already know what that is. The cumulative 20 months of stats training I’ve had in my post-secondary career has finally paid off!

The Girls was about conjoined twins. They were joined at the head. It was an amazing work of fiction. One thing I thought about a lot while reading the book was how those girls were never alone. The most solitude they ever had was when the other was asleep. The author had the potential to make it unnecessarily sentimental, and there was a while there I was worried about how it was going to end. I hate when good books have bad endings. However, I wasn’t disappointed and it had an unexpected (in a good way) ending.

Before I go, I want to send a shout out to Monica Estevez for tomorrow is her birthday. Happy Birthday Monica! I’m posting an awesome picture of you below, you look very bad ass.

Ah, family

The following is an email I sent to my [eldest] brother telling him about a dream I had.

You were in my dream the other night, and I thought I'd tell you about it. We were living in a slum apartment. We were each sitting on a couch, they were brown and covered in a corduroy-like material (like the couch mom and dad have). I was sitting on the arm of my couch because I was afraid there was rats under the cushions. I had good reason to be scared because there were rats all over the floor. I was cooking chicken in a little microwave, but it was too close to a hotplate and the side of the microwave melted away. You took my chicken and threw it out the window. I got mad, because that was my dinner. You offered to slaughter our goat so I could eat that, but I said we had already killed two ungulates that day and we should leave the goat alone.

His reply:

You've always been soft on the ungulates, if you ask me.