end times?

I.

i'm with some members of the extended group, though it's not exactly clear which ones. we're at the richmond beach/innis arden bluff (non-shorelinians: compare to bluffs you find around discovery park overlooking the sound) and i'm giving them a tour of a house i bought. as i'm showing them this orchard of pear trees, an older woman comes out and tries to interrupt my tour. she starts yelling out obscenities, so i try to make my voice louder than hers, which doesn't work. my entourage suspects something is up, so they let me confront the woman, who's still fuming.

she invites me into the house (the one that i just "bought") and says she's seen me vandalize property in the area before, blaming me for the recent desecration of a neighborhood shack. i profess my innocence and try to escape the house, but she demands that i fill out a job application to work in her garden (so i can earn the shed money back). i tell her how ludicrous this is, since i had nothing to do with bringing the shack down, which was the neighbors' property anyway. she then gets up real close to my face and starts trying to shout me down, but i'm not really paying attention. out the window i spot this kid sam who i went to high school with getting splashed by a wave coming up the side of the bluff (which is a couple hundred feet above the sound). i get it in my mind that a tsunami has hit, so i head inland. at this point, the landscape ahead has transformed from a lightly wooded trail into rolling hills of pasture. i would compare it to the hill that the kids run down in the intro to the "little house on the prairie" tv series, minus the theme music + actors, and with me running up it.

people seem to be going about their daily business as i walk along a street resembling the alki beach area (yeah, i somehow ended up in south seattle). the waves are still coming in, so i head up this hill and climb onto the roof of a house and watch as a 3m or so wave crashes through the street. there are some surfers who try to ride it, but they're immediately swept up. a few other waves hit, and after a moment of relative calm, i head for the railroad tracks to make my way back to richmond beach. i meet nathan friend here, which i find really strange. he tells me that bitter lake has been completely inundated, and we both have a hard time understanding how we ended up this far south. the tracks roll through some unfamiliar areas that don't seem to resemble seattle in the slightest, but i put my trust in him to get us further north. we end up having to scale the side rockery on a beaten up stretch of tracks as a train makes its way by, literally hanging on for our lives as the train rushes above us. we climb back on and make our way to this aquarium/restaurant a couple hundred meters ahead. the place seems pretty upscale, somehow. there are glowing blue tanks everywhere and a bunch of besuited aristocrats in tuxes and fancy dresses. i'm a little weirded out by the fact that no one there seems aware of the recent natural disaster, and i'm feeling a little out of my socio-economic bracket, so i slip out after a few seconds. nathan lets me borrow his phone (or "iPod," as he calls it) so i can call my parents' house to see if everyone is okay. they are, which is a relief.

II.

i'm stuck in this run-down, kinda soviet-style apartment building, several floors up and waiting outside a room. people are in line for acting auditions, and i guess i am too. the guy in front of me is really nervous, so i walk into the room next door (which is completely torn apart) and turn this stereo on, which starts blasting out some really obnoxious house music. it's actually starting to piss him off, but i'm really amused by it and laugh at him. his audition is up next, so the woman in charge (who also happens to be the woman from earlier whose property i allegedly damaged) opens the door and yells at him to turn the music off. when they shut the door and continue the audition, i stick my ear up to it to try to hear what kind of things i'll need to go over. i can't really make anything out, so i head back into that room and turn the stereo up real loud, just to fuck with them. i do this off and on for a couple minutes until its my turn to go in.

the woman doesn't seem to recognize me, but that's probably for the better since i want to get the audition right (i guess). she gives me this card to read, and says that the last guy really showed no creativity, so i should try to explore the set. i'm thinking to myself, "does she mean do something with the props?," so i grab this bowl of chips from a nearby table. i'm kind of sitting there, holding/looking into the bowl for several minutes, and there's a really awkward tension building. i know she's staring at me, but i refuse to look at her and sit in silence, gripping the bowl of chips while trying to suppress a smile.

III.

i'm holding a newspaper with a headline that reads "Daedelus 95% Dead." this is a complete shock to me. still, i'm not really moved to tears or sadness or anything, at least not right away. i immediately call asher to inform him:

K: "Daedelus is 95% dead."
A: "Oh..."
K: "I know."
A: "I gotta go."
K: "Same."
--end--

it's clear that we're both crying by the end of the call.

spice trade disputes

ok. let this post be a sign that i'm at least attempting to keep up with this. last night's dream could be considered a nightmare, at least partially. let's start.

I.

it's dawn. the setting: the streets of richmond beach, around the area with the richmond beach store, pizza mia, etc. i'm walking around and absolutely no one is in sight; all the buildings and houses are boarded up and an eerie silence abounds. soon i can hear what sounds like thunder, and look up to see lights in the sky darting around between the clouds real fast. they start flashing and the noise changes to what sounds like objects being dropped/shot towards the ground. bombs start hitting the streets and blowing up houses, but i try to keep my cool and pretend like it might be something else entirely. i speed-walk around the streets, dodging explosions, and continue to inspect what might be going on. more and more bombs drop, each one getting closer to me, so i pick up the pace and bolt for the alley behind my house. i find my way indoors, and downstairs i find tegan and meon knitting in my garage. they confirm what i had suspected: some kind of aerial bombardment was going down. apparently the argentinian government authorized the firebombing of richmond beach after months of "spice trade disputes." after hearing this i for some reason feel relieved, and head to the refrigerator to find something to eat.

II.

walking aorund downtown seattle on pike street at night, i come across a brick building identified by a man standing outside as "Montana." i walk in and end up in a wheat field sort of setting. there's an audience, and it looks like they're observing some kind of festival. there are a bunch of activities going on related to southern culture, plus a lot of rednecks walking around. i wander around for a little bit, then catch up with nathan.

nathan tells me that these people are "celebrating the death of john denver," and that we need to get back at them for being so disrespectful of the dead. we find that part of the audience is watching a performance from a group called "the rocky mountains," a folk ensemble that was supposed to have played music from that region. nathan approaches them and tells them that if they're going to celebrate southern culture, they shouldn't claim to be from the rocky mountains, all the while performing bluegrass music. i just kind of stand there nodding, and the crowd begins booing us. we realize things could easily turn violent, so we make our way off through the wheat field to meet up with a small circle of people we spot in the distance. one of them, a young girl of some kind of asian heritage tells me that someone would like to talk to me. she hands me a picture of moscow state university (in russia), which has this distinctive three-pronged tower type look. i look at it and can see a tiny version of me walking into it, and then i'm transported there.

when i materialize on the campus, i take the form of some rip-off cartoon character, kinda resembling donatello from TMNT. i'm walking around halls and each one looks like different comic booky images of abandoned factories. this goes on for what seems like an excruciatingly long period of time. finally, i find the room i need to be in. i go into this office and sit at a table to meet with the dean of the university, who is also shredder from the tmnt. he said that because of my bad grades, i have one of two choices: 1) we can fight each other (except he just pulled out one of those "creepy crawler" oven sets where you make little goo figures of spiders and such with the creature template), or i could have my mom replace me in all of my classes. i choose the latter.

i end up at my house in richmond beach. my mom is telling me that it was selfish of me to make her take my place, since she already has a full-time job. i feel kind of guilty and just sit there in the middle of the hardwood floor.

happiness is like crumpets

lukas, gavin, and myself are standing on a hill above richmond beach. the vantage point resembles the front of gavin's house, but we're covered in thicker wilderness. we can see everything below us really clearly; the olympic mountains, the kitsap peninsula, and the shore. it's low tide, and we're pointing at all the intertidal creatures scurrying around in the clear water. i spot a spiny dogfish, and the other guys can see a sevengill shark. finally gavin points out that there are rockfish swimming around, so we get really excited, since it's not every day that you find bottomfish hanging out in tidepools. they're kind of playing back and forth with each other until one of them, which i identify as a tiger rockfish, starts to nip at the face of a smaller one, a china rockfish (alright, basically i was really into andy lamb's "coastal fishes of the pacific northwest" as a young child). this goes on for a while until the larger rockfish just starts chomping at its adversary's face and keeps growing, hulking out of the water and devouring all of the smaller fish. we all get really freaked out and start screaming, heading for the backyard of a recently-built house nearby.

we're standing on the deck of the house and start talking about past summers when we'd all hang out. the grass on the lawn is impeccably mowed and incredibly bright green. we all acknowledge how blissful the moment is. lukas tries to liken times like this to how crumpets are lighter to hold than english muffins. he's standing there really focused on getting the metaphor across, but we just start laughing and making fun of him. he gets really flustered and drops the issue, but as we continue down a trail and keep talking gavin and i bring it up again. he starts to act distant and says that if we dont follow the path he's trailing with a walking stick, then we never understood what he was trying to say to begin with. we shut up and follow him through some foxglove and assure him that we never meant any disrespect. standing on a rockery overlooking what looks like a broken down ferry dock, we start to skip some rocks.

blue ghost head

I.

i'm walking around a farm with a bunch of barbed wire fences, reminiscent of a mix between the long driveway to this coastal resort our family would go to when i was younger, and the farm that my aunt used to own way back in the day. lots of salmonberry bushes and kinnikinnick leading into patches of open, grassy field. i walk around and check out some old shacks north of this abandoned barn, blistering my feet on these really thorny prickled plants that dot the field. i decide to stand still for a minute and wait for my brother to join me, so we can go look for lizards and garter snakes. the wind is blowing me really hard. i'm getting kind of impatient.

i hear what sound like voices coming from one of the shacks. i sneak up on it and decide i'll give whatever's inside a surprise. i kick one of the doors wide open, and looking inside, find a sort of fatherly-looking man reading a newspaper on the patio of a gazebo. we have a stare-down for a few tense moments. i decide i better come up with something on the fly, so i ask him if i could go play in his backyard. he gives me the OK.

i go outside and meet up with these children who are baking some deliciously scented cupcakes in the yard. they tell me that i can only eat the ones with blue frosting "because (i'm) jewish" and have to adhere to kosher laws. i take my kosher cupcake and follow them down a dark path resembling the kinds of creepy woods you'll find in early disney movies like snow white. they lead me to this basement which resembles to a tee the cave from an especially frightening "punky brewster" episode (the one with the giant spider? anyone?). here we find a giant blue head speaking in some inexplicable language. the kids tell me that it's a ghost and ask me to do away with it. though pretty spooked, i casually stand up and walk right through it, showing them it was just an illusion. i receive a standing ovation from the children and am lead through the cave's exit.


II.

on the other end of the cave, we end up back in that yard, now covered in gravel and dead grass. one of the girls in the group has aged considerably and i can't help but find myself attracted to her. she tells me that she's decided we should become a couple, which i don't argue with. she then decides that we need to play a game of one-on-one basketball. even though she says she's ranked "4th in the state," i insist that i can beat her. in response, she places her palms around my head and starts to press on it violently, shrinking my whole body by a couple of feet. afterward, i grab her around the waist and gently roll us into a pile of quicksand.

broken homes

i tell my cousin jeff that i'll give him a tour of my old high school, and he comes by to get me at around 11pm. it's really late and the school is locked up, so we decide to go to our aunt's house, where a party is being held. when we get there, all we find is a run-down tarp on some marshland near lake washington. they're throwing a party here alright - we've got a huge bonfire, plenty of vodka bottles and maybe fifteen people. still, it's soaking wet out and nobody looks particularly amused. this guy in a robe then emerges from the lake to everyone's excitement and informs the group that we need to move the party to a traditional coast salish longhouse accessible via the burke-gilman trail. we all join hands and make our way toward the house. it's pitch black and i can't see anything. i ask the person ahead of me if they knew where we were supposed to be headed, but all i get are angry grunts.

when we reach the longhouse (it's actually more like an outdoor restroom, but who's counting), a handful of members run inside and barricade themselves in, locking the rest of us out. some of the people outdoors become enraged, picking up logs and boulders and slamming the small house. the damage gets to be enough that the house begins breaking into pieces. inside i find two of the conspirators to be my cousins brendan and brian. they catch a glimpse of me and begin to bombard me with chunks of rotting wood. i get knocked backwards, tumbling down a ravine. i hear a huge crash and see logs rolling past me. the house collapsed completely and i'm sitting there stuck in thick rainforest, maybe three or four centuries prior to the time i got there.

some of the remnants of the party grab me and bring me into a formation around a bonfire, where that same robed guy is giving an oration. according to him, the only way we were going to make it out of the forest alive was by "fighting the dark." he assumed control by dividing everyone into regiments and putting us in army uniforms. "we're being sabotaged by terrorists," he said.

i calmly walk away and find a huge, glowing supermarket, some houses, and a small bi-plane. day was starting to break, and i can make out what look like dinosaur tracks in the mud ahead of me. something is rustling in the bushes to the side of me, but i don't dare look over. i can distinctly make out the image of an enormous flamingo in my peripheral vision. i decide i need to get out of there immediately, opting for the plane to make my escape. taking flight, i look down into the thick forest, unable to spot any of the company i was with before. as i get sucked up into the sky, i let out a shout into the woods below:

"that's for my childhood!"

back to school

I.

i'm peering over a hill watching high school kids being loaded onto schoolbuses (apparently i am skipping some class at shorewood). i follow the buses to this children's theatre which is like 200 meters away. the organizers are trying to take the most talented students from a bunch of different schools and have them perform music, act, dance, whatever. it doesn't seem like anyone wants to be there. the setting is a steeply inclined stage that could've well been a planetarium. a bunch of acts are going up and there's this table of asshole kids making fun of everyone on a balcony. kind of like those old guys from the muppet show, but human and even more obnoxious.

i'm getting really annoyed at those dicks, and i snap at them after nathan goes up and performs an elton john song and they start booing him in the middle of his performance. i yell "SHUT UP" in the loudest voice i can, and the room goes silent. they come over to my table, and the ringleader - this stout kid in a huge t-shirt and cargo shorts with a buzzed head - tells me that he will meet me in front of "the restaurant by (my) house" tomorrow so he can "punch (me) in the stomach." if i dont show up, he's going to kill me. i try to get away from him the entire time we're at the theater, but he keeps following me around. i walk up to several authority figures in attempt to tell on him, but each time he's watching me from a close distance to make sure i wont. i really didn't want to get punched in the stomach, or worse yet, killed.

i meet stuart young so he and i can eat with chris goiney at this restaraunt (the same one that this guy threatened to punch me in front of). everything on the menu is awful; one of the items is clam shells. i refuse to order anything and keep walking in and out of the building to see if this kid is gonna show up. i spent the whole night there and he didn't show up!

II.

i'm at the uw. i'm just getting out of an outdoor lecture on the hebrew bible, only my professor is the history prof. i had last quarter. i leave right in the middle of it because i'd already memorized the whole lecture. i'm crawling up a ladder to get to the bus stop, but the the wind and rain are nearly blowing me off. i see jeremy from far away standing on a building top and ask him if he drove, which he did. i told him i'd meet him on the second floor. i get to the second floor and find kato and ohman wandering around an old fashioned library. kato gives me an old wooden clock and i pretend to read it while sitting in a leather chair under one of those green lamps. everyone in the room starts laughing at me. jeremy comes up and tells me that i really confused him by climbing up to the second floor. we then meet alaina and tell her that we're giving her a ride home. we take her over the aurora bridge, which turns into a drawbridge made of wood and vines. it breaks apart and tumbles into the puget sound (not lake union), which has drained completely. i get excited because i think that it's low tide, and i start lifting up rocks and looking for plainfin midshipmen and gunnels. it's pitch black out and i can see a red dot following me. i turn around and find a woman with a bow and arrow shooting at me. jeremy tells me to run into a nearby cabin, which we do. this turns out to be an entrance back into the uw campus, which kind of bums me out.

i'm back at the uw, going into my hebrew bible section. i take nathan and lauren with me because i'm still afraid that the kid who wants to punch me will come to class. thankfully, he doesn't. everyone started coming in late. my friend muhammad and i start making fun of this guy sitting next to us whose hat is slowly engulfing his entire head. we compare him to the seahawks stadium and its retractable roof. i leave class after 2 minutes or so and look around for the guy who wants to punch me. i can't find him and whisper to myself that he's a coward. just as i say this, i see stuart young again, who's now black. i keep calling his name but he doesn't seem to pay attention to me. i finally get his attention and tell him to call chris goiney because i just found something neat:

*flashback to me looking around the drained puget sound for items*

in this flashback i find what looks like a tent belonging to a young girl. inside the tent are piles upon piles of electronics items that don't excite me all that much. there's a bunch of broken radios, a children's keyboard, two x-boxes, a playstation 2, and a special "girl's x-box," which is just the same thing as a normal x-box, but pink. i just kind stare at them for a while, decide i have no use for any of it, and walk off.

highlights

-me trying to escape fires in a forest in the ozark mountains. something is starting the fires and i'm trying to get away from them.
-climb up a hill overlooking the ocean (where?)--a lot like the cliffs around whidbey island. a blonde girl and an elephant are hiding up there. i tell them to look around for geckos, and we find a rock with a pond under it. it's pitch black but you can see a neon blue gecko hiding in the water. the girl grabs it but i tell her to put it down because the skin's toxic. lukas then appears and starts kissing these really colorful frogs. i tell him to stop doing that, too.
-jeremy is playing a left-handed guitar for a performance at his church. he's in a band with his dad who was playing drums, a reincarnation of paul cho's "stillborn fetus" outfit. in the middle of it, they stop and his dad gives this long speech to jeremy on how it doesn't matter how well they play, just as long as they try and have fun. he reiterates the same points several times and jeremy seems to have enough of it. i am laughing at them.
-walk around this house reminiscent of my brother's friend kevin's old house, which is three stories high (i haven't seen it since the late 80s). i am playing a guitar on his back porch and there are a bunch of people "from my college" gathered around a television, but i don't know any of them. i try to impress them by playing guitar covers of manitoba songs, but they don't really pay attention. i offer to play the bridge to "brandon," but they pull the guitar away from me angrily, telling me i'm awful at it. they hand me a crabpot and tell me to cut it apart, saying that would sound better.