my grandmother's house had opened into a marble museum--long halls spotted with brass busts and streams of tourists looking left and right. a speaker warbled overhead creating an atomosphere of going someplace like an airport. i was also a guest, but had an air of special priveledges (besides being the dreamer) as the house owner/curator's granddaughter, exentuated by the company of my extended family. as we took our own tour, we came upon a small, curved section of beach--right in the middle of one of the great halls--formed of ice with water rushing up onto it like at the turn of a river rapid. we promptly dropped all of our laptops into the rushing water, as we took turns jumping and splashing around. my aunt (a very healthy hippie) played lifeguard to our doomed electronics. following this, my mom and i took to the highways in a borrowed pick up truck to attend a series of intellectual convention-style weddings. one in particular opened with a shower of fruit-flavored candy to arouse the congregation. i was seated next to my (real life) ex-boyfriend who blamed me for stealing candy from an old lady, one turning out to be a friend's (from elementary school) australian grandmother. at no point did any of the buildings i found myself in have ceilings; the sky was grey and overcast, the shade suggesting twilight.

later i was sitting on the edge of an old man's bed, which had been placed in the kitchen of his house. i think this is beceause he lay dying upon it, and no one wished for him to miss a minute of what was going on with everyone else in the family. (everything happens in the kitchen.) his wife--much younger, tan, engergetic, vibrantly dressed, physically beautiful--announced that she was going to the post office as she slipped a carton of soy milk back into the refrigerator. (awake, i wonder why she would leave so non-chalantly in the last moments of her husband's life.) sitting beside the dying man, i provided a listening ear. he told me, "i've had a girlfriend for eight years and a boyfriend for nine hours, that's why i've been talking about him so much..." then he died. (my reaction was a sense of settlement, peace, an ending.)

took a trip into tv land...

first, it was a managerial meeting with the cast of Saved by the Bell during their rockstar phase. all i remember was lots of underlying tension in the room between lovers and lovers. cut to running up and down st. charles ave. with Elaine from Seinfeld, knocking on doors demanding that they pay back the money they owed her. shortly after this rampage, we strolled into a pet store. it was full of protestors demanding the freeing of these peculiar little creatures most closely resembling tiny puppy-sized lizards with lime green velour fur. in moments the city was crawling with these cute little pets, and then we realized someone had to take care of them.

(i have abandoned capitalization due to my habitual infidelity to the rules.)

stopped for a drink at a pizza joint gas station--the bar stools were covered in cracked, emerald green leather and everything else glowed red. the scraggly staff kept asking politely if we would take up the mop and give the place a quick wipe.
then, i stumbled into the re-building of a house for a family i played nanny for during the summer. as i swirled around to admire the new look everything appeared to be made of wood-a shining, glazed oak-except for the ceiling, which required snapping together millions of tiny glass tiles with rubber edges. the project of this intricately geometric glass ceiling was taken up by the dad who squatted on the roof to put together the puzzle. it was not long until the boys stormed me, swinging their stubby baseball bats while chasing me through a flourishing jungle of plastic house plants into a safe corner of the garage .