Reverse Status Post

So, Monday... we took a car trip (about an hour and fifteen minutes) to Sarasota for some quality edutainment there. I'd planned on finishing up the Aidan's Father story, which is shaping up to a piece of awesomeness (actually, it's one piece of multiple pieces of larger awesomeness) on the way, using my phone and Google Documents. But something was wrong with the phone or the network... I showed 3G coverage all the way out there, but I couldn't actually connect to anything. Couldn't make phone calls, either. I could receive them just fine. It was pretty distressing.

My Kindle was working, but I'm not quite to the point where I can write well on it, and I couldn't access the existing draft. So I ended up using it to read The Big Bah-Ha on the way out and Water For Elepehants on the way back, both of which proved to be excellent choices given that we were going to the John & Mable Ringling Museum, an expansive estate built by circus money and housing two circus museums on its grounds.

Awesome day, not terribly productive. If I could go back in time and shuffled things around, I would have announced a scheduled break for most of my time here in Florida instead of trying to keep up an update schedule. Schedules are important. Breaks are important, too. Both are lessons I need to learn better.

On Wednesday I'm flying back to Omaha, and then I'm in one place until the end of May. It'll be nice.

Off target.

I keep having a weird Human Target (the TV show, not the comic that nominally inspired it) themed dream where I'm in the Christopher Chance role and am among a handful of passengers (sometimes only one, my client) trapped in the "rear cabin" of an airplane, that because it wasn't intended to be used on a flight isn't equipped with seat belts and worse, for some reason the rear door (which is basically a hatch that is the entire back of the plane) is going to open as the plane touches down and we're all going to be sucked out and fly out onto the tarmac.

The resulting scenario and its improbably solution are basically a mash-up of the crisis resolution from the pilot (with the California bullet train) and an airplane, and the first time I had this dream it really followed that formula pretty well: only one other person, we made an impromptu parachute and made it out with little more than scratches.

I've had the dream a few times since then, though, and it seems like each time the situation spirals more and more out of control. In the version I had last night, the hatch was going to blow while the plane was just beginning its descent, there were too many people trapped in the rear for making an impromptu parachute to be a plausible solution, and I'd just got done arranging people into the most survival-optimal configuration when I turned around and most of them had moved back to their original seats against the rear of the plane because they didn't believe I was telling the truth about the danger. As a result almost everybody got sucked out when the hatch opened.

I subscribe to the theory that really quite often a cigar is just a cigar. These dreams have been occurring and recurring during a time of my life when I'm pretty anxiety free, and none of my anxiety has to do with the thought of others depending on me or an inability to inspire trust or anything like that. I have had dreams that I'm pretty sure were triggered by anxiety, and they're all a lot more straightforward and less allegorical, and tellingly, I wake up from them feeling all the more anxious. This is just a weird, random mash-up of things that are in my head.

But it's happened at least five nights in a row at a time when I don't happen to be making status posts, so I wanted to get it on record.

Status: Tuesday

News For Today

Today is my last real day in Florida with my folks (flying out early tomorrow afternoon), so I'm going to be out enjoying it. I'm putting off the finale of the "sins" post until tomorrow, both because that makes one less thing that I must get done while sitting at my computer and because it'll be easier to write a post on the subject of "lust" in the comfort of my own house than in space I'm sharing with my parents.

Personal Assessment

Pretty good. Yesterday was a lot of walking, and it was kind of hell on my knees, but there appears to be little to no lingering effects.

Dreams From Last Night

See previous.

Random Link

Today is s00j's birthday, according to the Book of Many Faces. As a birthday present, please consider buying some music from her, if there's something you've heard and enjoyed. Even just a single song. Or if that's not an option for you right now or you already own everything she's released, why not share a favorite song on your Facebook or Livejournal so that other people can discover her?

And if you don't know s00j's music, you can use that same link to listen to it for free. Click around.

Also, don't forget she's nominated for a Rose and Bay Award for her album Mischief... click here to vote.

Plans For Today

The Unplanned Aidan's Father Story is inching towards completion. Even without spending the whole day at my laptop, I believe it will be finished tonight.