I woke up late.

Late late late late.

Fading into a daydream I wasn't willing to fully whisk away - where everything fell into place. Where my future felt fulfilling, filled with fumes of passion and praise and plans and freedom and grace. I relaxed for a little bit longer; erased some of the wrinkles on my face.

I had weird dreams before that, as always. I was in a hotel bathroom for a while - reminiscent of one of those small ones they have on cruise ships. Though with a bathtub.

Come to think of it this one was probably inspired by the one I saw in Jack Reacher yesterday - where Jack is whacked in the back of the head with a baseball bat and falls into the tub, and two thugs come in and wreck havoc before he has a chance to react.

It's such a good scene.

I wasn't a huge fan of Jack compared to the contemporary John (Wick) when I saw the movie last time, but I think I've been turned now.
I appreciated this one so much more than I did then. For the intricacies; for the so flawlessly choreographed and necessary chaos to match his quick wit and professionalism. For the unorthodox and very cliché-combatting methods and mannerisms of combat and revenge. For the welcome minimalism in a world of action that's become all the more a mess.

In the dream I was just making a mess of that bathroom myself though.
It was a weird dream, like I said. And apart from the bathroom I was... somewhere else... wandering... not sure anymore. Fragments of subconscious thought flee me quick.

In real life I think I may have a tonsil infection or something. I'm chronically tired lately, the hearing in my left ear - adjacent to a paining tonsil - seems a little dull and obstructed. My teeth ache.

I hope I can rid myself of this shizzle before I take the train up to Duved next week, to celebrate my brother's girlfriend's 50th birthday. I have the presents ready, but not yet packed - hope to manage that and a quick watercolor card this weekend. Which is passing too fast for comfort.

Where does the time go. Row row row your boat... column.
(Say that like 'Gollum').

In more positive news that title track that's been on the backburner for all too long at this point that I believe I've mentioned in plentiful a previous post is nearing completion, finally! Hopefully it'll be up and out next week, and I can move on, and I'll be back to the gym with a vengeance after this upcoming trip.

Been playing it a bit safe lately. Instead of getting in shape lately.

On the one hand I still need to get in shape - I am working on it, and it'd be good with more routine exercise to fuel my focus; help me get more done... but on the other hand (or foot - why discriminate) I feel like I ought maybe as mentioned play it safe when I'm at this tier of tired.

Walks are a more moderate and sometimes suitable exercise option. The weather's rainy but I've been taking more of those...

And tonight I want to sleep! Already I just want to sleep. Just blackout for the night and

beep beep beep.

Speak more to y'all next week.

I dreamt I was an old lady detective, solving crimes.

Which was new. I don't think I've been an old lady before.

It started with a swim though, in a very twisted part of the dream I think may have been partially inspired by Eminem's Godzilla music video, and/or an Alice in Chains live performance of pain that I watched yesterday (Love Hate Love). It's the song with the 'peel the skin of your face' and 'in my sick head' references and all (and a ton of emotion, really, impressive)...

So that's what I was listening to before I went to sleep. Great songs the both of those, but they do have somewhat sinister themes. That may impact dreams.

In the dream family members were going against each other.

I'm not sure who was going after who, but there was actively talk of killing people, and getting away with it, though I'm not sure of the reason... We had arrived at a mansion-type building at the top of a steep, slanting grassy green slope - I think by boat - and as we neared the house we realized that things were about to start going down for real.

I didn't want to be a part of it.

I made my way to the road instead, maybe to flee this debacle, and then I made my way through the woods, down to the water, and we swam away.

At this point it wasn't just me, but also my sister and brother - maybe others? I was holding a book, swimming difficultly as to not let the pages get wet, because for some reason this book was important. It was a central part of the whole operation. It was why everything was as it was, and why were finally escaping, and why we felt relieved - safe with the book in our hands - though I'm not sure why.

It looked a bit like the slightly worn and yellowed Clive Cussler novel I've had in my backpack for a while now. The Chase. Great read.

I think I did feel a little threatened by my kin on the swim though.

They closed in on me occasionally, in a playful way, yet it made me swim a little closer to the shoreline as we swam onward.

We were swimming the full length of a lake. It was a long swim. The sun shone and the shoreline consisted of sloping hills with thick greenery - save for an open shoreline at the very end, the canopies of the trees somewhat shadowing the open land.

And I was wearing a fleece sweater. A worn black and blue one I commonly wear indoors while I sit by the computer, with broken pocket zippers and SPORT texted in large letters on the front.

So that was the swim. I'm not sure how it went. The way to that mansion I think we were traveling by boat - possibly by hovercraft...

Moments later I was the old lady (not that old - middle-aged maybe - though with a calm, cheery and old-like demeanor... and graying hair), and I was in a small town, that reminded me of the Wild West, also on a slope.

It was pretty big. It was really more like a city, though the part of it that I started out in was smaller, and consisted mostly of wooden housing.

I was there to get to the bottom of something. Something bad had happened. Not sure what.

I talked to a bartender, who was very forthcoming but also avoiding.

He didn't reveal anything.

I asked about something that was broken and he said it had to be replaced with a very advanced sounding item, that he clearly came up with on the spot just to avoid suspicions, but though he clearly was suspicious I realized I could not do much there, so I left... a band of hooligans swept into the city around this time, but a (corrupt, I believe) Sheriff kept them at bay, saying I was there, and they'd best keep calm until I left.

Later on I was by a pond, partially covered with ice, or mist. I searched for a body who had crashed into the lake in a car, and I found it.

He seemed dead - the person I was with proclaimed - but I had certain skills with acupuncture, and I wiggled a needle somewhere around his throat area (been listening to vocal coaching videos too recently - lots of focus on the larynx - that might explain this bit) and suddenly he seemed stable again! He was going to wake up!

And it's around this point that I woke up from my dream.

There was a bit more to it. I was riding in a jeep towards said lake with said companion a little earlier - maybe we were chasing the guy who crashed into the lake... and I'm sure there were more nuances to our conversation, but this is all I recall.

I woke up and got up quick and I'm a little stressed today, so the memories fade quick, but it really was an interesting dream...

Different. A bit like The Glass Onion Mystery. A bit like Scream.

A bit like some odd mix of all aforementioned references and potential inspiration sources that only my mind could connect and concoct.

Wonder if I'll ever dream of being an old lady again...

I dreamt I was walking through the streets of the city with a horse.

It was cold.

We were a gathering of people and I didn't know anyone in the group, but we had a leader who seemed caring and tough. Could've been a person from a movie.

It feels like we started out in an airport or some kind of gathering site but I'm not sure where we were or where we were going, but it was winter, it was icy and we were alone in the world, and needed some place of refuge.

We came across a horse and I tamed it, and became friends with it.

It was unwilling to come along at first, but eventually it did.

I found it in a barn, and it didn't want to come outside at first, but eventually it did.

It really was winter. Freezing weather.

Unhealthy weather to be out in for too long.

We took refuge in a restaurant, a little place with lots of small tables, and plenty of people who didn't pay us much mind. I was with my sister and someone else - my brother possibly, not sure. In a little backroom we were talking about orders and what-not, looking at menu items on a screen.

There were just three items, one of which was Conan-shaped French fries - French fries that looked like Conan O'Brian, with the grumpy kind of frown he puts on occasionally, his face molded into the fries.

We stood there and talked for a while, and the employees talked about something else, and people were sitting around eating, and I started feeling sorry for the horse since it shouldn't be outside in this weather.

So I went outside and brought it in. To a little glassed-in area with tables right outside the restaurant. It was tight, but there was a bit more space between a few of the tables, so I brought it there and tried to make it understand that it was supposed to sit down, and it did, and we sat there and waited, the horse on the floor and me on a chair beside it.

Eventually a couple of other people sat down as well. Initially it was still cold - not an insulated area of the restaurant at all - but it did get warmer with us all there.

It went alright... and that's where the horse part of the dream ends.

Way earlier in the dream we were at a cliff of sorts, a steep mountain side, where I was on the shoreline with someone, not sure who.

He managed to get up in a genius way.

He stuck a sword into the wall, and somehow hoisted himself up to a wooden platform by looping a rope around the sword.

I followed suit. In the dream it seemed genius, but looking at it now I have no idea how that worked at all. There was no motor, the cliff wall was steep, and there's no way he could've thrown the sword into the top part of the cliff wall in the first place, or hoisted himself up on a rope tied around the blade of a sword without it cutting through, but in the dream it worked!

I spoke to my brother (in the dream) about this in awe, and I think we figured out a similar trick to get across the river before we reached the cliff... without a canoe.

A while later - above the cliff - we walked into a building with security.

I was with a few people now, one of which was a rich person - a part of some elite family. He talked to a guard and we got into the inner sanctum, rode up an elevator into the hallowed grounds at the very top of this cliff, and I'm not sure what happened then. Then came the horse.

Even earlier we were in a plane. I'm not sure with who or why again, but for a while I'm pretty sure my nephew was there, and we talked about interesting things as we usually do. Movies probably.

That's it, that's all I remember. Waking up from a dream, and it's 10:13...

Woke up from a musty Äppelmust dream today.

We were just getting ready to taste-test a year old brew that had been stashed away in our outhouse for some time, when beep goes the alarm.

There goes the dream.

Before it ended I was scooping away foam and apple residue from the glass, and though some of this stuff looked a bit oddly yellow - almost mustard-like, the remaining content looked good.

It fizzed with promise shortly after it had been poured up, and the remaining liquid - though most of it disappeared as foam and remains - was suitably clear and tasty-looking. We were JUST about to have a sip of it! Come on!

It had been stored in a plastic bottle with maybe not the best lid though, as it didn't give off any kind of psshh sound when opened. Together with a bunch of other odd and old stuff in the shed. We were digging through; cleaning stuff out.

Just a little earlier we'd been out on the lake, fishing I think, and there was some issue with the water... it was drying up. A portion of the lake had been turned into land, and you could basically walk across it, the bottom like dunes of wet sand, the water was almost gone entirely.

We were there for the fish though, which had something to do with the land conversion, and I don't think we saw the problem as seriously as it maybe really was.

The weather was nice and nature was plentiful, and there might've been something there in regard to cloudberries too...

I forget. The morning lecture's started and I have a cup of tea beside me for wake-up purposes. Educational matter emitted via loudspeaker is pushing away the remainder of said musty appelmust dream. And maybe that's best. Maybe I can get back where I left off tonight...

Time to learn about zinc. That's it.

I think.

Before I forget, I dreamt I was riding in a car along with a buddy (presumably Good Buddy Bear - we were just out on a trip together) and another guy - he was the one driving, and he was just about to reveal a name when my alarm clock rang and I jolted awake, temporarily forgetting said scenario and zoning in on instead getting the latest information on the snow chaos we're having here at the moment, and potentially calling in and asking if I can work from home if the transit time has become unreasonable...

It didn't seem like it had - everything seemed to be on time thus far - but SL warned it may get worse, recommended you work from home if you could, and one commuter train had already derailed so... I'm working from home! Good boss.

Now that that's out of the way: Back to the ride. The dream.

In it we had been cruising around a city for a while, looking at sights it seems. I assume the city was Warsaw since that's where we'd just been, but I didn't recognize any of the buildings specifically.

The streets were snowy and empty - it seemed like early morning there too, and in one area there were two glass skyscrapers, or just large cubes, with lobbies that seemed made up of glass walls entirely. There was a hallway of glass that kept going inwards and inwards, like a maze, until finally it reached some kind of counter in the center.

The glass hallways were divided the same way the exterior was, in large rectangular panes.

I don't remember ever entering said glass structures, but a while later we were in a car with one of the guys from one of the counters in said structures. We didn't know about both of them at the time - he told us about the second one.

He and his compadre/companion/compatriot (?) each worked in one of said glass structures, and sat at the center, where they received people and communications... I don't recall exactly what they did with them.

I suggested in jest that maybe they could hire paramilitaries to guard the facilities.

I'm not sure why they would, but in the dream it seemed like a relevant idea, and he seemed to think it was a GOOD idea, and we all laughed in an appreciative manner, and then he told me he had a friend who'd actually suggested a similar approach just recently, and since it was such a coincidence he wondered if maybe I actually knew that friend?

I felt like I actually might. I was curious and expectant about hearing the name of said friend - in the dream - and then suddenly my alarm clock blares and here I am again.

For a millisecond or so I considered just ignoring the alarm - maybe enabling me to turn it off without properly waking up - and letting my subconscious possibly pull out the name it had intended to, but alas I am a diligent individual and so I woke up instead.

I'm not sure what else was going on in this dream world, but prior to said office complex car encounter I'm pretty sure it was something exciting.

There may have been action. There may have been intrigue. There may have been some elements related to the trip. There may have been meaning, too...

I picked up a new book during the weekend btw. Day of Reckoning, by Jack Higgins. That may have something to do with it.

And I'm back!

Trip went well. Warsaw's a nice place, the food is good and cheap, and they do have this one gigantic skyscraper - the tallest in Europe possibly, with at least a lobby made entirely of glass...

I woke up thinking about a movie review that I'd written in my head. Or visualized. I thought I wrote down notes for it on this square of toilet paper on my bedside table but apparently I hadn't, and I realized in the dream that it wasn't a movie that I was reviewing at all, it was just a dream.

It started out in a parking lot, in some Northern city.

I was driving around with my mom and sister, and my sister noted how there were only old cars up here... in a somewhat derogatory way. I said something along the lines of: but that's why I love it here! Because we don't have any of those chunky; ungainly cars you have down South. These cars actually have metal chassis. They're real cars. Plus every third car or so is a SAAB. Was it every third car though? Maybe SAAB was a bit less common?

Anyway the season was winter, and the landscape snowy - though not overly so, and we drove around an open block surrounded by low apartment complexes and buildings. The roads were wide, as were the pavements, and there was a rectangular parking lot in the middle with a looot of cars.

The low and open landscape made it feel all the more icy.

Moments later it's sunny. Summer. California maybe. We venture into a city a little bigger than the last, and a little more dangerous.

I'm with two buddies now instead of family, though I don't recall exactly who. We run into a gang, and for some reason two of us decide to climb a very steep hill with one of them. I'm not a part of that particular expedition, but I trust it'll be alright as one of the buddies I sent along with the other gang leader has a horrible scar on his back - no idea as to what or where that came from, if ever I'd dreamt of him before, but I really trusted him. The scar was irrevocable and awe-inducing proof.

During the climb I think I am one of the guys after all. We're headed up a very steep and grassy hillside. The gang member leading the way is in incredible shape I think as we move upward, but so are we, as we follow him easily. I might've been as surprised as I was mostly because I'm really not in that good shape in real life, but it is a dream so...

A way up the hill he turns around and asks us for something. I don't recall what it was, but we're suspicious, thinking maybe this is when he'll make his move... when suddenly a man, sitting in a tree with a rifle, reveals himself beside us.

He's on our side. He's the law, possibly, and the gang leader doesn't have a chance. I wonder if maybe I'm a gang leader myself though.

The dream switches over to the gang house, where another friend is left with the gang, and gets on friendly terms with them by taking control over the kitchen, and selling and/or making them something, don't recall what. He's Asian btw. Very friendly. It seems like a parody of sorts. The tough gang members all gather around, and suddenly they're kind and gullible and they're all laughing and having the time of their lives...

Switch over to a school, where all students apparently have to move through security, and it's this one kid's fault. He's the son of a police man I think, but maybe he is one himself too, because as he passes security he shows his badge, only it's a credit card, but he knows it's an ID card in the dream. A golden MasterCard.

Two guards look it over closely and let him through. He's only allowed to carry the weapons he carries because of that badge, which really isn't a badge, which really is a problem. But in the dream it wasn't, even though the reason they had that security check in the first place was in fact specifically because he had said weaponry.

I'm not the gang member up on the mountain any longer. In fact I'm not even sure I'm part of a gang. I meet up with my mom by a market, she has a table there that I take over as she moves off to manage some other errands, but the ladies she was with are on their way away somewhere and soon I'm headed off in a car with them. We're driving to meet up with my mom though. Some kind of meet. Hopefully not a gang-related one.

I managed to sift through some boxes before we took off in the car, and though I don't recall what they contained now that I'm awake I do remember there some items of interest there...

And that's the dream. Woke up and tried to memorize at least the essential parts of it to write down but certain details have now withered away.

It's Sunday, and day. Just posted, this late.