< 3 Story

3 celebrities
die in sequence.
3 funerals in the afternoon sun.

A 3 fingered priest
makes the sign of the cross--
3 children run across the cemetery lawn.

3's a crowd, so they say.
2 will send the third away.
Be civil at the service, for the sake of the kids.

In a 3 room house, I turn 3 times--
let my 3 wishes all come true!
My taxi stays idling beneath the stars outside.

There are 3 things I love most about you:
your eyes, your eyes, your eyes.
3 chances in 4, you'll leave the door unlocked tonight.

3 in the morning, 3 ghosts appear--
famous once, 3 sheets in the wind forevermore.
Now, honey, now's the time to love each other sore.
_______

for Real Toads mini challenge #29.

I was trying to make one of those emoticon hearts for the title, but it wouldn't accept the  < and the 3 together, so I had to leave a space between them. It's supposed to be a heart.

Shay Cheats The Reaper!

Every day I cheat the reaper. No, really, I do. And the jailer and Nurse Ratched, too.  Fuck yeah, as the kids say, get your hands offa me, witches!

In September of 1985, I was young, I worked in a little grocery store, and I lived in an upstairs flat in a hip little burb called Royal Oak. As soon as the air turned cool, I liked to wear a fake leather jacket I had, that a guy had bought for me in Texas. We were in a second-hand shop and I was coveting the jacket, but couldn't afford it. He said, "Put it on one more time," so I did, sad that I couldn't have it. Then he said, "Now walk out." He had paid for it while I wasn't looking. What a guy! How I loved that thing.

In September of 1985, I had been trying for a year and a half to get sober. I would get a few months, then relapse. It was no joke; when you find yourself standing on a chair in the middle of your bedroom with a broom in your hands, trying to sweep the giant bugs off the ceiling, it isn't fun anymore. Truth be told, it had not been fun in a very long time. 

I went to meetings, read the literature, did my meditations, used the phone, and still couldn't stay stopped, because....the craving, baby. In September 1985, I felt like I had been carrying a giant gorilla around on my back all month, a gorilla that kept chanting in my ear to take a drink. I resisted, fought, swore, lost sleep, and still, the gorilla. Finally, on September 29th, I caved and got drunk for what turned out to be the last time. I can't tell you how much I hated facing myself and my friends the next morning, having failed once again.

Earlier that year, I had prayed over a physical problem I had, that I couldn't afford a doctor for. Overnight--literally overnight--it disappeared as if it had never been. Don't talk to me about coincidence. So, the next time I felt that craving to take a drink, I prayed again. I prayed that Goddess would get me through the night sober. I did stay sober that night, and every night since, for the past 27 years.

Today is my sobriety anniversary. The jailer, the orderly and the undertaker will have to wait. I'm sober and sane and alive. Thank you, Goddess, for saving this girl.
_______   

Pipes

I've the desire to be a siren,
and so siren shall I be.

I'll wash my throat with strong lye soap--
my tongue with strychnine tea--
then when I sing, my cunning will bring
the doomed from out the sea.

I've the desire to be wicked,
and so wicked shall I be,

that the Lorelei will seek me out
to ask and bow and find out how
I sing so
sing-u-lar-ly.
________

for Fireblossom Friday.

Tidbits and TMI about Fireblossom!

Recently, I made a new friend who calls herself Blueroses and Stardust. She came up with this group of what I think are very interesting and fun questions, and as I am a notorious meme whore fan of questionnaires, she graciously gave me permission to blog them along with my answers. Here they are!

1. Would you like to be a mythological creature and if so which?(mermaid, fairy, dragon)

I would like to be a siren. I am not a good singer, though I wish I were, and if I were a siren, I could sing so beautifully that sailors would wreck their ships trying to get closer to me. Did I mention I like a little mischief?

 

2.What’s in your purse right now

Just work stuff. Bare essentials like a tube of lipstick, a mirror, nail file, blah blah, a paperback book, my little notebook full of bus schedules, a couple of hair bands, and two nice pens cos i am fussy about my pens. Just things I would be lost without.

3.Which is your favourite Alice in Wonderland character

Alice herself! It would be just like me to follow down the rabbit hole and have all those odd adventures. 

4.Would you like to be forever kid like Peter Pan

No. If I thought I had to relive my childhood,  I would jump in front of a train right now. But I do think that I have retained the imagination of a child, and it serves me well.

 

5.Next to which nature phenomenon (aurora, lagoon, grand canyon) would you rather live

A woods. I love the woods! I find it restorative and beautiful. 

 

6.Do you like cooking?

I love cooking, though I am nobody's gourmet chef. It relaxes me and I like to do it.

 

7.What is your favorite book

"Keeping You A Secret" by Julie Anne Peters. Close second: "Pages For You" by Sylvia Brownrigg and "Lessons" by Kim Pritekel. Honorable mention: "Madeleine's Ghost" by Robert Girardi.

 

8.Would you paint your house an unusual colour like orange or blue (inside or outside)

Outside, I like earth tones. But inside, I love unusual colors! No beige walls for this girl.

 

9.Do you watch series?If yes what kind (drama, fantasy) and give an example

I have recently been watching "Major Crimes" on TNT because I like Mary McDonnell. 

 

10.Do you play a sport?If so, which?

I don't, but I used to love to play softball. I was one kick-ass hitter! (I was, unfortunately, not so good in the field.) I used to be good at bowling, too. And darts. I threw them wrong, like a baseball, but they went where I wanted!

11.Do you (still) watch anime-cartoons?

No. I don't care for anime at all. Except Derpy Hooves. Does Derpy Hooves count? Save Derpy!

I hope you enjoyed this. Be sure to visit Blueroses and Stardust at her blog! 

Mental Case Jane

It is Mental Case Jane's mother's birthday--
this is sort of like tax day and some sort of Chinese earthquake
all rolled up into one big ball of whee.

Mental Case Jane puts down her paint brushes, puts on her boots, and drives her 1998 hunk of shit up to the drug store.
The cards say
"For a mother who is also my best friend..."
"Thank you for always being there for me..."
Mental Case Jane can't find one that doesn't lie its head off,
but sits cross legged in the greeting card aisle braying like a donkey at the preposterous sentiments,
tears of merriment rolling down her cheeks as if she were at the circus watching the clowns' fire wagon routine.

"Mom, being your daughter is like..."
...like death by a thousand cuts, thinks Mental Case Jane,
but she was raised to observe conventions and so she keeps searching.
However, she is distressing other customers by moaning like a cow caught in a fence,
and finally a clean cut young man wearing a name tag asks her to leave.

Back home, Mental Case Jane goes back to her paints. 
Her long black hair and the bow of her eyeglasses are speckled and streaked
with saffron,
magenta,
and indigo smears
from adjusting and swiping at them with her hand as she works.
When she was five, she drew her mother a birthday card.
Astigmatic, near-sighted Jane, with the lines going all over the place,
and the "I love you" scrunched mostly up at the right border,
received instruction and art criticism from her mother, who laughed and asked,
"Is that the best you can do?" then walked away.

Mental Case Jane resolved never to make crappy art again,
and became a master, a creative angel of whom thousands are jealous.
"The bitch just drops a brush on the ground and it bounces up and makes masterpieces by accident," carps an admirer.
Her mother, distracted and barely paying attention, asks "Oh,
are you still doing that?"

Mental Case Jane has filled a thousand canvases;
she has slept with dozens of older women, searching with both
for something to plug her leaking heart.
It is Mental Case Jane's mother's birthday--
Jane is sober,
talented,
self-sustaining,
and buried under a ton of rubble like a Chinaman,
calling.
______

The Old Angel

The Old Angel
shakes bits of September from her wings
and stands at the gates of the prison from which she
has just been paroled.

The clerk had said,
"Here's your harp,"
but the Old Angel told her to pitch it.
She took her big drug store sunglasses,
her mood ring,
and allowed herself to be escorted outside, though she could have flown.

Where did the 90's go?
And the decade after that?
She wants to talk to God,
but there are no pay phones.

Stopping in front of a store window, she sighs.
"Look at me,
I am nothing but dry skin and split ends."
She almost cries.

The Old Angel is like any other angel--
She would like to be pretty,
would like someone's face to light up and for them to say,
"Well look at you."
She would like to have angel babies
and a garden.

Oh well.

The Old Angel is out on parole.
She sits down on a dirty bench and talks to the pigeons,
her fellow winged creatures.
"I was innocent, I tell ya."
They coo.
Bless them.

On she goes, into a little coffee shop called Danny's.
The waitress watches her walk in and she tilts her head.
"Well look at you," she says,
just as if she knew her well,
just as if they were old friends
and she had been waiting.
_______

Sevenling (Noble Steeds)

Time was, you loved my riding boots,
My jacket snug,
My crop;

Our busy lives have made that moot,
No time for bridle or bit--
Our noble steeds reduced in needs,

Just eat and quarrel and shit.
______

Photograph taken by the fiercely talented Mama Zen

for Real Toads mini-challenge: sevenlings. 

Book Review: "Enemy Women"

Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If I could give this six stars, I would. When I chose this book to read, I expected just another of my western novels centering on some interesting female character. Such novels follow a pretty predictable formula, and though enjoyable, one is always aware that one is just reading a story. "Enemy Women" is much, much more than that; it is an ambitiously researched novel that feels like life itself, raw life in a place and time where society has broken down.

The story takes place in southeastern Missouri in the final two years of the American civil war. The main character, eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, lives with her sisters and brother and their bookish, kind father, Judge Colley. All of this is shattered when the Union militia ( a rag tag collection of river rats from St.Louis and environs, basically doing what they want to whomever they want) arrives and sets the Colley house and barn on fire, takes their horses and belongings, randomly destroys things like an heirloom mirror just because they feel like it, and after beating Adair's father in the face with a wagon spoke, they take him away under arrest for "disloyalty."

Adair and her sisters set out on foot, northward, to try to find their father. Upon arriving at the Union headquarters, Adair finds she has been denounced as a spy by a fellow traveler, and is thrown on to a train and taken to a dismal prison in St. Louis.

Jiles opens each chapter with quotes from contemporary diaries and books on the war in Missouri, and in fact, women were imprisoned as Adair is.  Major Neumann wants Adair to write out a confession. Adair writes a rather amazing account of her life which, while useless militarily, fascinates the major, but not as much as Adair's dark eyes, long black hair, and spirit do. With the Major's help, Adair escapes, but faces a long hard road back to a home which may not even still be there.

Jiles is a poet, this being her first novel, and her poet's voice runs all throughout "Enemy Women." The language is gorgeous, without being intrusive. When describing natural scenes, or animals, Jiles puts me in mind of Thomas Hardy, also a master at these. Then she can turn around and describe the most vicious, terrifying occurrences of war without blinking. She does not sugar coat; this is war up close and unvarnished. There were times when I had to close the book and gather myself, it was so immediate and visceral.

Throughout all of this, Adair is someone I fell utterly in love with, cared deeply about, and strived and suffered with. She is not perfect, she is human and unforgettable. I became absolutely emotionally engaged with this story and this character. In fact, it seems odd to refer to her as a character...the best fiction doesn't seem like fiction at all.

There is no neat happy ending, but neither does it disappoint, as I felt that "Cold Mountain" (a book this one is sometimes compared with) did. This is a beautiful, horrifying, wartime love story that I simply cannot recommend enough.



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Song Of A Mad Girl

Where have you been, girl?
Down by the root-rot black-barked trees;
Walking in the bad water up to my knees.

Why, girl, why?
To carry these tarantula babies in my hair,
So they don't sink slow with their bellies to the air.

You know I love you, girl.
The road is flooded where the water snakes slide;
They feel like the arms of the devil going by.

Come back home, girl.
In my room is a hat pin long and sharp,
Like the scorpion tail hidden under my heart.
____
 

2012 Doomsday Theory

I carefully constructed a doomsday theory
with bible quotes, Mayans and graphs;

I told a cockroach my doomsday theory
and the cockroach

laughed.
_______

 

Wait

Wait for me,
wait--
where the river runs
softly south.

Night will come,
night--
let her let her silver
stars come out.

Stay, my love,
stay--
though the hour goes
two, then four;

Then come, my love,
come--
and you'll never have to wait
anymore.
_______

Ward 7

A little bit of needle and thread will put that limb right back where it belongs;
There's no need for panic,
No cause for foolish rivalries with the other patients.
Do you know,
With that stick clenched between your teeth like a rose stem,
You look almost angelic
In a shocky, poleaxed sort of way.

See the pretty nurses,
Wringing out cool cloths to place upon your face?
If you ask them, between moans,
They may even dance for you as they did at the Spanish Theater;
They may lean to kiss you while checking your intracranial pressure and your vital signs.

Once, you sat upon a futon in her silly studio apartment,
Sipping Tab,
And feeling at once aroused and idiotic.
No cataclysmic events disturbed the two of you that night--
No bleeders,
Just sweet warm capillaries expanding like tiny flowers;
Blushing her,
And making it awkward for you to stand up,
Back when you could, sir. Back when it was easy.

This is a place of healing and of peace--
If the doctors have threatened you, waving their pen lights like signal lamps,
Tell me. I'll shoo them away.
Most of them are dedicated and well-meaning, but if you'd like it to be just you and me,
I can pull the curtain and keep them away,
As if we were honeymooning at a fine hotel and needing our privacy.

Catastrophic things happen--
Flesh tears away, one is made hideous in an instant;
Even loved ones rush, queasy, from the room.
Drugs can be dizzying,
Despair even more so...
But does this have to mean that no beautiful woman, no handsome man, will ever smile across the room at you again?

Quite the opposite is true, in fact.
Let go,
Trust us,
Be something you could never have been before--
A spirit among the corporeal,
A broken toy still beloved
If useless.
________

for Flipside's word list #13

Summerdale

At Summerdale,
big cats got right up on the dining room table;
They leapt over our shoulders
as we sat sipping tea, still wearing our robes.

Tiger swallowtails swarmed around the sweet-cube bowl,
while sailors called from the samovar;
A thousand sets of hooves thundered down the hallway,
rattling the pictures of our forebears in their frames.

Wolves and wild dogs sang us lupine,
as your dark almond eyes brown-sugared my bones.
Your lips had the power to make eye or wing flutter,
and I love you now as I loved you then
at Summerdale.
______

for STWIASD, with her beautiful dark eyes and her sexy lips!

Tanya

Do not rely on time.
It recedes unendingly--
There is less of it now, even, than there was when you began to read this poem;
The grave yawns.
Do not rely on time.

Do not believe in your own wits,
Or that yours are sharper, somehow, than others'.
Once, you believed that lost teeth were boughten by fairies,
And that only old people died.
Do not believe in your own wits.

Religion, causes, various grand undertakings--
Do not live for these,
They come and go.
Do not live for fame or wealth--
Every third chump on the street is famous, wealthy, and echoingly vacant and hollow.

Only these things matter-
Tanya,
Tanya's thighs,
Tanya's face,
Tanya's breasts
and Tanya's pleased smile.

Take my advice--
Sell everything,
Compromise everything,
Forget position, principles, pride--
What good do they do you?

Find Tanya at the place they call
La Maison de L'oiseau Vert.
Kill or betray anyone who gets in your way.

Leave now--
The things that matter matter only for such a short time.
Go to her,
She is waiting.
_______

Cheetah

Cheetah be on the big bus, rollin'. 
Gypsy she was born, and Gypsy she stays;
Her black-haired mama pick her up from under her armpits,
hold her up, shake her a little and say,
"Mama loves you, Spot. To the moon and back."

She say this in Romany.
Cheetah curl her lip and snarl, wavin' her paws.
This means, "back atcha, mom."

Cops pull the Gypsies over, fuck with 'em a little.
"You got a license for this here cat?" says the ex-jock-y lookin' one.
Cheetah's mama say somethin' in Romany. It ain't "Good afternoon, officer."
Animal control get called.
Cheetah's mama go nuts--
a thumb gets bit, some nuts get kicked. She get arrested, screamin'.
Her Gypsy man get backed up quick with a gun to his nose.
Cheetah ain't never been in a cage before,
leastwise one tied to the roof of a truck speedin' down the freeway.

She watch the bus gettin' further and further away behind her. It ain't a good day.

Cheetah go to foster cheetah care.
She get pitched into school.
What the feck is this? 
Other kids welcome her to class by singin':
"Cheetah over there!
Cheetah got no hair!
Cheetah don't wear any underwear!"

Cheetah get in fights at first, but Cheetah always win,
so the fights stop, but nobody talk to her.
Teacher say, "what is the quadrangular hypothesis of a Mimbis angle?"
Cheetah don't know.
Out the window she go, fast as ten dollars from a sailor's pocket.

Cheetah find the city, but can't find the bus.
Cheetah real lost.
It startin' to rain and she don't like it much.
Her mama woulda threw her in the sleepin space, stick her hand under the blankets and pretend it a creepin' monster for Cheetah to get.
Big sigh.
Things looking poorly, if you want to know.

Cheetah go to sleep in some trash behind a store.
Pretty soon, some townie poke her with a boot toe and she curl her lip n snarl.
"Who are you, Spot?"
It's Savanna, the teenage runaway. She wear a back pack and keep a knife in her boot.
Pretty soon, Cheetah find herself stuffed into the back pack, 
just her dome stickin' out, watchin the streets go by.

"Looky what I found," say Savanna,
and she plop Miss Spot down in the middle of Danny's Coffee Shop.
Right away some crazy cat come up and stand there like he own that place and seventeen others, too.
It's the kitten Giuseppe Verdi.

At the closest table, a convo goin' on.
A man sayin' to a waitress, "It's in the bible. You can't argue with that. It's His word."
Waitress say, "What make you think God is a guy?"
"He just is," say the man, lookin at her like she just flew out of the nut house.
"I see," she say, walkin' away, and her smirk could win a prize at the Spring Fair.

Turns out, this place got a serial murderess,
a Succubus,
a seriously hot dark-haired chick,
and also The Queen of the Vampires, who can shape shift into a black panther.
They also got killer coffee, reasonably priced.

The Queen of the Vampires say, "What happened, Spot? Who done you like this?"
She say it in Romany, and Cheetah's ears prick up like they on fire.
Just then some dweeb from the city walk in and say he lookin' for a truant pursuant to article blah blah and he "got to take Spot here."
Chloe roll up her music magazine and brain him with it.
"Like hell!" she say. She ain't known for her subtle ways.
The dark haired chick grit her teeth. "Mister, you are SO workin' my last good nerve."
The QOTV say nothin, she just shape shift and fly through the damn air like a giant black bird with huge fangs.

Over goes the dweeb, like a bowling pin been hit by the space shuttle.
She drag him outside and down to the cop shop.
She shape shift back, and stand there lookin fine and sayin "Here's your man. Don't ever send him back."

Back at Danny's, Cheetah got a whole pile of mamas now.
They teach her what they know, which is
mostly sass and illegal junk.
Chloe sing, "Spot's a rebel and she's never gonna be any good..."
Everybody hoot n holler and whoop and so forth.

One day soon, all the Danny's girls gonna take a road trip.
They all gonna wear Blues Brothers sunglasses, and carry Tarot decks.
They gonna find the bus.
They gonna find the cops what done this, and then
they gonna open a can of whup ass.
They gonna take Cheetah home, Spot the Snot who they'll have raised up like their own,
and she will know all that they know, and be all different and brassy and high steppin' down all the days of her life.

On that righteous day of homecomin',
Cheetah's mama gonna cry and clap and 
be so proud.
__________

for Izy's Out Of Standard challenge at Real Toads: rebel girl

Poem inspired by this photograph taken by the matchless Mama Zen:

Book Review: "Twilight Girls"

Twilight Girls by Paula Christian

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Two lesbian pulp novels from the vaults. The first one, "Edge Of Twilight", is surprisingly good; the best such novel I have read, having gotten started with Ann Bannon's "Odd Girl Out" which I found by accident in a used book store. In the 1950s and early 60's, there were no lesbian presses turning out books for gay women to enjoy; these paperback novels with their lurid covers were it. In "Edge", airline stewardess (they weren't "flight attendants" yet!) Val McGregor has a cool job, her own apartment, and male pilots wanting to paw her luggage. But Val feels like something is missing, and that something turns out to be another stewardess, the very fetching Toni Molina. The first story bucks the norm of the time, which was that the women in these novels could get a taste of honey, but then had to commit suicide, go mad, or end up in ruins. In fact, it has a sweet happy ending, much to my overjoyed astonishment when I read it.

But then it's as if the powers that be must have insisted the author atone for that by writing a sequel in which everything goes to hell in a handbasket. In "The Other Side Of Love", Toni inexplicably has morphed into a psycho stalker, Val moves back home where she can get terrible advice, and just to make the destruction of the first story complete, she goes to a (male) headshrinker and receives the most unintentionally hilarious bad advice ever. Val even mulls this stuff over and decides he may be right! The ridiculousness of all of this is tempered by the knowledge that this scenario actually played out far too many times back in the bad old days. Skip the second story, unless you just want to read it as historical dark comedy.



View all my reviews

Thoughts From A Walk In The Blue Dawn

I received a letter from my own near future,
and it said
oh,
girl,
oh.

I made a poem upon a window pane,
but I drew it
slow
so
slow.

Hurry Autumn, hurry love--
I so seldom feel beautiful at all;
I've no idea what I've been thinking of,
or who that is that
calls
and 
calls.
_____

Sacrifice

"Come upstairs," he said.

"I think I won't," I said. The black llamas woven in a line around my cream white sweatercoat perked their heads, listening.

"Come up and see my etchings," he said.

I lowered my head, letting my hair fall so he wouldn't see my lips twitch. "You're good," I said. By the time I raised my eyes, we were both laughing. "All right. But just because you bought me a filet o' fish doesn't mean you own me."

He did a Groucho Marx duck walk to the building door and held it for me. "Mind if I smoke?" he asked, flicking imaginary ash. I walked in, and he added, "I should never have put that cigar in my pocket!"

He was a nice man. 

Above his bed, he kept a row of books on a home made shelf. I took one down. "You read Colette?" He did. 

He said, "You have beautiful eyes." People have always told me this, and yet, I blushed because of the way he said it.  It wasn't a line. When he looked at me, when he touched me, the familiarity stopped my words. I have looked at women like that. I have touched women like that, and when I did, I handed them something they could hurt me with.

I should have stopped things there, but I didn't. I let him gently undress me, and he thought that made me naked. 

"I think I'm falling in love with you," he said, and I tightened my arms around him, my skin against his skin, my hand at the back of his head as if I were holding a baby, my cheek on his hair. I didn't want him to see my eyes. I hoped he would mistake the catch in my breathing for the passing of that phantom I had tried too many times to summon.

Over his shoulder, I saw my sweater folded neatly over the desk chair. The llamas were woven facing west, they can never know east. Beyond them, not far, his door and its small gold handle. Beyond that, the dark stairs and the noisy confusing street.

He looked up. "What's wrong?" I could have said, what's wrong is that I have lied every minute of my life, and been rewarded for it. What's wrong is that I have sat quietly, cutting out my own heart as if it were needlework.

"I have to go," I told him, escaping, standing, gathering my clothes. 

He wanted to know if he had done something, or hurt me. He apologized, not knowing for what. He was nothing but a sweet, beautiful man, and I have thought of him often. I hope that, right now, he is some woman's love.

I ran down the stairs, into the street, and stood there out of breath. I never tried to be with a man again. I have tried not to hurt anybody, like that, again,

But I look at women,
I touch women,
And give them my heart.
If, the next time, mine is the sacrifice,
At least I can scream my joy and my pain in my own language.
_______

photograph by Margaret Bednar. For Real Toads Sunday Challenge.

Tiger On A Chain

There were two of you--
you,
another woman,
and your brother the defective, mumbling and beloved by you.

There were two of you--
a Nordic blonde and you, strawberry cherry curling red around my dreams.
All the while, your brother wandered,
bashing his head against walls and counting the ceiling tiles.

There were two of you--
and two is one too many.
I knew I loved you best, as close as my next breath,
but I didn't say it in time, and you were gone;
leaving only your brother with his tiger on a chain.

There was only one of you--
back to the snows went the interloper,
carrying a reindeer rack for a trophy.
The longer since you left,
the more I suffered, orbiting your batshit crazy brother
begging him to tell me how I could find you.

I never missed anyone so much,
never regretted anything so sharply, like nails through the heart.
Your brother was my only hope,
busy making math out of heaps of junked cars,
his tiger forgotten and loose, threatening.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up.
Imagine my incredulity when I realized that I never even knew you,
That my penance and my passion were nothing more than vapor.

Imagine the numbering and secret sense in loony delusion.
Imagine me awake now, rocking and twisting my hair,
Staring hard into the golden eyes of a killer, and wondering where you've gone.
______

For Marian's music prompt at Real Toads. The song "You'll Lose A Good Thing" was in my head all day yesterday, and last night I had this dream.