superman is coming! (and dreams 3 and a debate-related comic)

1. devin's film superman: the battle for home premiers wednesday night at seattle's admiral theater. admittance is free but popcorn is not.

2. sorry, everyone. as usual, i've lost interest in the three-part post that i was hoping to finish this week. i finished the storytelling and find myself far less interested in the punchline (i.e., my alleged ability to prophecy in my dreams). but i'll do my best in a sentence or three. here's a recap of what i dreamt:

• wednesday night: i met brady and his pregnant wife (as opposed to the not-pregnant one) alisha in the lobby of a hotel in belize. the stairwell to their room ended about a flight before their room, so i climbed on the roof to look for another entrance.
• thursday night: i hung out with a millionaire who liked ramming into cars, burning them, and leaving large checks for their owners.
• thursday night: i wandered over to an umbrella nonprofit outside the mall and saw brady talking with a volunteer. it turned out that an unknown woman had dropped her baby off with the nonprofit and not returned. brady packed the baby in his mountaineering bag and we set off to find the mother.

first, a little context. brady and alisha live in spokane. the last time i spoke to them was last summer when they attended danny's wedding reception. in other words, there is no impetus for them to suddenly appear in my dream.

well, on friday, the day after the second dream, i called my buddy jonathan to see if he was free to play tennis the next day. he was up for some morning tennis but had dinner plans--brady and alisha were coming to town! somehow my unconscious mind predicted their arrival...and alisha's pregnancy. crazy.

you may think, "that's just a pair of coincidences, mr. andrew," but my powers were later confirmed by my television. some friends and i are playing catch-up on lost, and sunday's episode just happened to be centered around desmond's strange new ability to see the future. is it a coincidence that i found a fellow seer less than a week later? hardly.

and since those first prescient dreams, i've had yet another vision of the future. one night i dreamt of an orange cat (if you're lucky, i'll share that dream in a later post), and then the next day, as i sipped tea and read cormac mccarthy's the crossing in my backyard, an orange cat secretly prowled in the grass. yes, i am a prophet.

3. here's a comic my roommate showed me that almost relates back to thursday's post about my mad debating skills:

it's from xkcd.com

dreams 2

[today's post is continued from yesterday's post in which i recounted 1.3 of my prophetic dreams and speculated about their cause.]

it was the last time that i ever saw the man: i watched him place the $5 million check a safe distance from the wreck and then return to the van. as a storyteller, i'll admit, this feels like an unpleasant way to leave the fellow; he should peel from the parking lot in a cloud of exhaust or shrink into the fabric of his grey tweed coat, a concrete chameleon, a certain spectre of some malovent surreptious secret. but, no, he walked at a rather ordinary pace to the rather ordinary van and i saw him no more.

instead, my dream suddenly exploded in a brilliant splash of colors. razzle dazzle rose, torch red, laser lemon, jungle green--a crayola parade of twirling octagons. apparently, i was surrounded by a throng of umbrella wielding shoppers returning to their cars, each peopling the drab lot with her own customized color. it dawned on me then that i didn't have an umbrella of my own, so i started walking purposefully toward the mall (yes, this is a remarkable dream). near the entrance, i saw a crowd, some tables, and an overhead banner proclaiming UMBRELLAS FOR THE POOR, A NONPROFIT. ah hah.

it was quite a spectacle; volunteers were busily attempting to distribute their wares to the hundreds of needy shoppers. as i watched, i gathered that the number of umbrellas was running low. it was nearing closing time. and then i noticed my college buddy brady hatfield off to one side, listening intently to a bespectacled volunteer in a red pant suit. she looked worried.

i worked my way toward the pair and greeted brady with a smile. he motioned me toward the woman.

"--carol, this is my friend andrew."

"yes, well, hello." then back to business. "after that, right, she asked me to watch him. she said she'd be right back. something about her keys or front door or i don't know." as she spoke, the woman brought a finger up to her cheek and absently performed tiny figure-eights.

"and i didn't have time to--" over the chaotic sounds of mass charity, an infant's screams momentarily interrupted the woman, but she continued. "she just left."

brady sprung into action. he gently removed the shrieking puddle of fat and face from the car seat and secured the boy in a burly-looking mountaineering pack that just happened to be waiting on the ground. "don't worry," said brady, "we'll find the mother."

unfortunately, that's where the dream ends--i awoke before discovering the baby's fate. however, that afternoon, i received an important phone call, and the prophecy was revealed....

[stay tuned for the final prophetic dream post]

andrew david. "a little girl with some flowers." san ignacio town, belize

dreams

[programming note: it's not wednesday, but i've decided to post a little something tonight anyway. also, my travel writing experiment is turning out to be a flop, so i may return to regular blogging again soon. we'll see....]

for my trip to belize, doctor wendy prescribed chloroquine. "don't worry," she said, "this isn't the one that gives you crazy dreams or makes you monster-sick." indeed, there are several ways to kill the malaria bug and chloroquine's side effects are rather tame. it's malaria med cousin is a bit more interesting however: travelers taking mefloquine complain of the usual aches and pains--headaches, nausea, dizziness--and then some more interesting symptoms like vivid dreams and visual disturbances.

i picked up my chloroquine at bartell's pharmacy on march 24th and have been taking the pills every saturday since. they taste rather nasty, but i didn't experienced anything too alarming until late last week. that's when i started having crazy dreams.

okay, in of itself, crazy dreams really aren't that uncharacteristic for the typical andrew evening; my memory and imagination have collaborated on some rather bizarre late night escapades. but this is new: my dreams are prophetic.

the first visitation of the future occurred last wednesday night. i was dreaming of a hotel in belize when some friends from spokane appeared in the lobby. "what are brady and alisha doing in belize?" i wondered. before i could inquire further, i learned that the hotel's staircase terminated about a flight and a half short of their room. this was particularly awkward because alisha was pregnant (and this wasn't one of my office mate james's flying dreams). after clamoring up onto the hotel's roof and trying to find an alternate entrance to their room (you know, ancient apostle-style), i awoke.

no, i didn't climb my way to work the next morning, but there's a surprise embedded in that little adventure. but before i explain, let me recount thurday's dream. i'll warn you though, my newly discovered talent for divination is in no way correlated with an improved sense of timing. that is, i'm not about to interfere with this vision i've been granted, and although much of the dream may seem irrelevant, there's no way i'm skipping to the end.

my recollection of the dream begins with me sitting in the passenger seat of a nondescript white van, watching as the driver, a heavy-set bald man, scanned his mirrors, pulled into the parking lot arterial, and then attempted to repark in the neighboring space. i say attempted because the space was already occupied--my driver didn't seem to care. he pressed the gas and gunned our big white beast through the rear bumper of the unfortunate subaru. with a chuckle, he jumped from his seat and tossed me a can of lighter fluid. as flames reflected off the walls and cars and puddles of that concrete jungle, we admired our handiwork. the man happily quipped about the surprise of the owner when he or she stumbled from the mall into the presence of their smoking car-cass. he then wiped the grime from his hands and reached into his sports coat.

"how does five million sound?" he asked. he nodded to himself, scrawled a figure in his ledger, and dismissed me with a wave. as i walked toward the mall, i turned to watch him stuff a check in a bright green envelope. he placed the envelope a safe distance from the smouldering wreck and returned to the van.

[i foretell that this post will be continued in the future, perhaps tomorrow....]

[disclaimer: this is creative nonfiction with the emphasis on creative--i may be overplaying my response to these dreams just a tiny bit.]

andrew david. "traveling by van" the highway from belize city to san ignacio town, belize.

obama and i

some of you have complained that my creative nonfiction is a bit too creative. apparently you want me to warn you whenever i plan to stretch the truth. well, okay. the following story is completely true. this really happened*.

yesterday morning, senator obama and i were carpooling. well, to be more precise, i was escorting baraka--that's what i call him; he laughs and calls me andrewgah; then i frown and return to my story. anyway, the senator has a driver's permit, not a license, and he needs another forty hours before he can take the driving test. thus, as a happily licensed driver, i was obliging baraka with some extra drive time before work.

i climbed into his sleek black lexus and buckled my seat belt. baraka threw it into reverse, peeled out of the driveway, and thrust the car into drive. then, after we barreled along the highway for several minutes, the senator asked me whether the red camry on our bumper looked familiar. i turned my head back and looked at the car. no, i said, i've never seen it before. we were approaching a red stoplight, but instead of braking, he pressed hard on the gas. the lexus leapt through the red light. stunned, i glance back at the camry. it edged into the intersection and then burst after us. baraka was right; something was amiss. as we darted through traffic, baraka warned me that things might get a little messy. he had the look of jack bauer. i closed my eyes as he reached for the hand-brake, sending the lexus into a 180 degree spin. i heard the sounds of scraping metal and shattering glass, and inquired, am i dead?

'the camry hit a tree,' explained the senator. but now there was a honda on our tail. the car chase resumed in a busy shopping mall lot. baraka weaved through parked cars, old ladies, and shopping carts. somehow he managed to lose the civic as he skidded into a parking space at the local gas station and mini-mart. i took a breath and considered our position. there were no cars or buildings within 20 yards of us; nothing obstructed us from the view of that shopping center or the lights of that prowling civic. obama has his head bowed and his hands are rattling in his lap.

we're a bit conspicuous, i thought. searching the grounds for a plan, i spotted my good friend john brawner chatting with a gas station attendant. i figured that if we're being followed, the perps wouldn't suspect us if we're in a larger group. i stepped out of the lexus and waved at brawner. oblivious to my panic, he walked over and blessed me with one of his characteristic bear hugs. and then life slowed down. mid-hug, i saw obama bending over outside our car, i heard the desperate buzz of a floored honda, i felt john's arms tense as he sensed that something was awry. then time snapped back into the frenetic pace of real life. the civic tore through a yellow caution sign, jumped the curb, and slid to a stop 10 feet away; baraka, brawner, and i backed toward the lexus and scrambled into its black leather seats. angry screams burst from the honda and were muffled by the staccato of rapid gunfire. instinctively, i ducked, perhaps hoping that the engine block might somehow impede our assailants rounds. out of the corner of my eye i swear that i saw baraka obama smile and then mumble some wise words of passing. i shut my eyes and began to pray.

on the other side of my eyelids, the world erupted into bright colors: orange, yellow, red. a heavenly welcoming ceremony perhaps. but i was could still feel my legs bunched up awkwardly in the front seat. the fiery plumes of color faded to grey.

i opened my eyes and looked at baraka. instead of seeing a smoking corpse, i watched as the senator dusted himself off and turned the radio dial to npr. i straightened my body and surveyed the scene outside our car. a smouldering wreck sat in the place of the honda. obama grinned *and then i woke up. and, yes, that's exactly how i dreamed it.

dizzying dream

it's 4:36am, sunday morning. i'm blogging at this crazy hour because my dreams are bothering me. a moment ago i was kissing beth. this is usually one of my favorite pastimes, and i suppose that it also makes for a pretty good dream. however, as i was kissing beth, a wooden chandolier appeared behind her face. then, i had this sudden third-person omniscient premonition that the chandolier was creepy, bad news. dream prescience is never wrong. the chandolier started to spin. ordinarily this would be okay; after all, i tend to kiss with my eyes closed. however, in the dreamworld i couldn't close my eyes. and beth's face joined the chandolier, traveling in strange circles, like a crazy shipwrecked kaleidoscope. i felt myself getting dizzy and light-headed, yet her face continued to spin. then i realized that i was sleeping and snapped out of the dream. okay, i feel better now. hopefully i won't be updating this post at 5:21am to complain of more spinning faces....

[2:36pm update. the good news is that once i got back to sleep the whirling faces went away. the bad news is that it took me several minutes to recover from the incident. i found myself puzzling at the significance of sight. i was wondering about real life parallels. when my eyes were closed, i could see a merry-go-around of faces, but when my eyes were open, the world went black. there must be something to this, i thought. i don't know what to make of the kiss or dervish chandolier, but perhaps we sometimes see better when we're not looking for things. or perhaps life is clearer when our heads are bowed in quiet contemplation or meditation. yes, these were the thoughts that kept me up for another half an hour. at the time i thought that these deep nuggets might make an interesting expositive essay, but in waking i'm rather doubtful....]

happy new year!

errrrrrr....what's become of the 17 point scale? well, i've been spending my week brewing tea, watching lost, and guzzling nyquil. it's been a blast, but i didn't have much energy left for blogging. besides what would i say? apparently the rattling in my throat is so raucous that the garbage collectors were afraid to visit our block. even beth's house, some fifteen blocks away, missed a pick-up. this is prime time news. in our new age of herocentric dramadeys (lost, heroes, etc), every network is looking for someone just like me. a man that can topple buildings with his herculine sneeze yet--and i don't think that waste management got this memo--has the selfless decency to shield his mouth with a tissue or a sleeve. yep, i'm their guy.

no, that doesn't really fly. but i did have a disturbing dream. last night as i tossed back and forth, i dreamt that i was sleeping with two crumpled lengths of toilet paper jammed in my right nostril. don't coil back in horror yet--that's actually rather realistic; i find that a dripping faucet is less troublesome when plugged. in any case, the makeshift kleenex was getting grimy and needed replaced, so i unconsciously pulled the mutant paper from my nose and prepared to snatch a clean square from the roll. and then, the nightmare. the old paper plug tore in two. one half was safely plastered to my thumb and the other was somewhere in that nostril. panic set in. what if i was unable to retrieve the lost toilet paper? it might slide surreptiously up my nasal cavity and then coagulate, thereby forming an indestructible barrier (of paper) between my lungs and nose. soon it would cut off the circulation of blood to my head. i would most certainly die. fearing the worst, i dug around in the nostril, trying to differentiate between my nose and that dastardly toilet paper. and then, as my finger was going wild, i awoke.

well, errrrr....look at what you have to look forward to this year!