magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

dreamt that we were having a big party, new year's or something. the shared areas of the place that we were living was laid out like the kitchen, dining room, entry, and bathroom in my mom's house, but the walls were arranged a little differently, and the rest of the apartment was positioned differently around that space.

before people started showing up, i was taking a look around at the art on the walls. garth had been doing a lot of decorating for the party. along one wall of our living room there were some big pieces that i had done, i don't remember what they were individually, but from a distance they looked like some sort of sci-fi landscape, which i was surprised at, as it had not been my intention. on the other half of that wall there was what at first glance appeared to be five framed 8x10 photographs, hung in a line, but on closer inspection, the images were moving, different views of the living room, three focused on the viewer, made by little spy cams hidden in the walls. i didn't think that i looked very much like myself, my hair was medium length, i was clean shaven, and wearing headphones.

later, when people had arrived, i found myself sitting on the stairs with a girl who i had apparently been involved with some moths earlier. from what i could recall, it had been a fairly short, primarily sexual relationship. she seemed interested in rekindling the relationship, flirting and then some, but was also upset that i had dated someone else in the interim. "and how many guys have you been with since then?" i asked.

"two or three, but that's different."

"how is that different?" i was still sort of interested in her, but not right at that moment.

i disentangled myself and walked across the living room to say hello to molly. i was sort of interested in molly too, and didn't know what signals this was sending to the other girl. i didn't get too caught up in thinking about it. i sat down next to molly and said "it seems like i haven't seen you in weeks, even though you live here." our apartment may have been more of a house. dave.z was sitting on the other side of the room. he lived in the house as well, and i realized that i saw him so infrequently that sometimes i even forgot that he lived there. someone said he had been in europe.

there was some sort of commotion from the kitchen and the caterer (this wasn't a typical college party) came out and said that the coffee machine was leaking water everywhere. i went to take a look and couldn't figure out how that much water could have gotten into the coffee machine to begin with. i popped my head back out into the living room and found chris.k with my eyes. "do we have a wet/dry vac?"

"i don't think so." he wasn't too enthusiastic about helping. i wanted to get back to either molly or the other girl, but it seemed i was elected to fix this coffee problem.

and at some point i noticed that a smaller apartment that was connected through an open door off of our living room, that had been empty for as long as we had lived there, now had people in it. there were three or four of them, sitting in their kitchen in various stages of undress. i wished that there was a door between us and them so that they wouldn't affect our party.

in another bit of dream, maybe a few days later, i was on a freeway, driving to school. at first the car had buttons for acceleration and breaking and steering, and i was having a hard time figuring them out. then there were the normal pedals and steering wheel, but they weren't all that responsive. i kept worrying that i was going to hit the car in front of me. at one point an ambulance sped on to the highway, coming the wrong direction, with a few flashing lights but no siren.

then somehow i was on a bicycle. there was a girl behind me who started up a conversation, and we continued talking all the way to school. the school that we attended was an incredibly built up version of my old grade school.

i stopped in wood-paneled room to lock up my bike, which was a strange process. there was some sort of painting class going on, and they were trying to get the lights right. i liked the sort of warm, soft glow of one of the options but most of the painters didn't.

leaving the room, i saw the girl who i had come in with and we agreed to meet up later. and some talk about cleaning up from my party.