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.