Last night I had the strangest dream...

And I woke up, thinking "man, last night I had the strangest dream," hearing the words to the intro of "Break My Stride." Now, I am a child of the 80s, and for the most part embrace my nature as a lover of post-disco dance music. However even I was a bit disturbed to wake up with a terrible pop music reference as the soundtrack for a simple 1-sentence thought.

About my dream...

Bruce, myself and the dogs were driving through a strange city on vacation. Apparently we were camping as we had plenty of gear packed into the car. As we were cruising along, the speed limit changed from 55mph to 25mph and a motorcycle cop pulled us over for speeding. So far, this is all quite plausible... hmm?

So once we are pulled over, the cop starts to open the car to search it. Bruce and I both stop him immediately to ask if he has probable cause. His reply, "obviously you're not from around here. we search every car we pull over, but I will need you to unload all this gear first."

So, for some bizarre reason we start unloading the car. It takes hours. The dream started in the morning and by the time we are finished unloading the car night has fallen. Armloads of clothes. Pots and pans. An electric mixer. 5 computers, a large television, a vacuum cleaner, a synthesizer (perhaps the source of the soundtrack?), piles of dog toys, food of all kinds, at least 10 umbrellas, all of which were found to be broken when it started to rain. Our car has turned into the clown car of clutter, no matter how much we unload, there is always more to be taken away.

While we are unloading the car, the cop is playing gin with his other cop-friends in the same parking lot staging nearly tectonic growth of our mountain of belongings. When we finish, he sends Bruce off on some imaginary errand. We then start walking up the road together, my response to his terse command of "Follow me."

After about 10 blocks, we end up at a restaurant called Pan Fish. The sign was a large black oval with a shiny gold-painted flounder sculpted in high relief. (Why did I remember this?) The restaurant is composed almost entirely of stairs. People are sitting on stairs instead of at tables, talking and eating. Everyone's meals are identical, but I don't remember what the meal was. The cop sits down and invites me to sit as well. We have cocktails and watch people singing karaoke on a separate set of stairs. It is not clear what is at the top of all these stairs, they continue upward into darkness sprawling in random, almost clumsily constructed looming blocs.

The cop turns to me and says "I'm really glad I remembered where this place was, I really wanted to bring you here. The food is great." When I asked him why in the world he would take me anywhere, he doesn't reply and simply walks away. We never ate any food.

When I realize my choices are to stay in the bizarre circus-of-stairs-and-fish or follow the only person I know, I follow him again. We walk and walk and walk. Eventually we are walking along a waterfront, watching ships pass by. I'm sure we talk about something but I can't remember what.

The dream ends with us walking back to the location of the car. Bruce is asleep in the passenger seat and all of the cop's friends are still sitting playing gin. Our mountain of belongings somehow eroded to a few handfuls of dust in only a few hours. The cop flashes me a grin and sits down, picking up the hand of cards he had laid away when our walk began. I get into the car with Bruce, turn the key in the ignition... and wake up.

I must admit, the strange dream I would prefer is closer to this:



Truthfully, I love John Denver :) And I've thawed some fish for dinner tonight. Perhaps I will cook it in a Pan.