Chutes and Ladders

We are entering the Puyallup Fair. We have some sort of priviledged pass, but we have yet to purchase them. We are already late for the event we were hoping to attend, so we hurry up to a ticket kiosk, set somewhat apart from the others. As soon as everyone has their tickets, we are told to put them in a large metal box, much like a postbox. Someone, I don't see who, makes to deposit theirs, but as soon as they get close, the box grabs their arm and devours them. Everyone is alarmed, but the person calls from below that the landing is fine and to hurry up, we're going to miss the show. One by one, we cautiously approach the postbox and are devoured in turn. I find myself in a small metal chute, with a square of sunny cement below. I am afraid of landing wrong and injuring myself. I wedge my feet against the edges of the chute and stay there. Jenny and Alex coax me down with the reasoning that the person following me would soon crush me, and I drop to the ground, thankfully without harm. I find our small party underneath a very large space shuttle, and in the distance I can see a large crowd gathered, and I hear people cheering. After Kellen arrives, we seal the chute to deterr the FBI agents from following us, and joing the throng of cheering people

We appear to be on a road trip. Andrew is driving; Holly is in the front and I am in the back with Kellen. Suddenly she demands to stop, and is unusually snappy with us, so we decide we had better stop, even though we are running late. We pull into the parking lot of a department store, and Kellen rushes inside as Andrew and I get out to stretch our legs. It starts to rain. We see a crowd of people standing underneath a gigantic statue of an ant but it looks a bit unstable to me, so we find a picnic table underneath some trees. As we sit down, everything around us disappears, and suddenly I find it very hard to concentrate on anything Andrew is saying because I am so amazed by the infinite grass fields that surround us.
Andrew begins to tell me about some freshman girl that has taken an interest in him. Her name actually consists of five names, and I feel slightly sorry for her, and wonder what her parents were thinking. Trying to describe her, he holds his hand down to his waist: "She's about this tall." I vaguely wonder if he is crazy - she couldn't be just three feet tall - then decide that he must mean three feet taller than the picnic table. Suddenly I think of the time, and as soon as I stand up, we are back in the parking lot of the department store. I look in the glass doors and I see Kellen waiting patiently on the floating escalator that will carry her to the door. Somewhere along the way she has lost her pants and hasn't noticed, but I decide not to tell her because we would lose time while she tried to go back and get them.
Now I am in Mr. Wilder's classroom, sitting in the desk that I sat in last year. There are a few other people in the classroom, talking quietly. Wilder comes over to me and demands, "What makes you angry?" I am puzzled by his question, and he repeats it three times before I shrug and pretend to be captivated by a poster across the room. He leans down next to my face, and says quietly, "Do you get mad when the little girl on your team doesn't get enough points?" Now I am even more confused, and I slip out the other side of my desk and ask him what I can do to get out of here.
He tells me he has dropped his DVD player outside, and he wants me to go get it. I walk outside and I see it laying on the grass, in pieces. Looking out to the street, I am frightened by a gigantic ant, possibly the statue that was in the department store parking lot, who is chasing a crowd of screaming people. I fumble to pick up the bits of DVD player, when off to my left, I see my old ballet teacher, Miss Sandy, walking towards me. She looks angry, and she is foaming at the mouth. I begin to run. I stop along the way to pick up an open physics book lying in the grass (I'm positive it's mine), and even though I'm running and Miss Sandy is walking, she is gaining on me. Finally I reach the door, where the janitor lets me in with a smile, then disappears.
I walk into my room, where there is a party going on. Wilder takes the DVD player out of my hands and starts a movie. As I sit on my bed, I notice Andrew cuddling a three-foot long sock bunny. I realize that the stuffed bunny is the girl he was telling me about, the one with five names, and I wonder if maybe he's been overworked and that's why he's acting so strangely.

Why fly when you could hop?

I was on a class field trip to go camping in a forest. I had already scouted out the location, and I knew that if I didn't get to the front of the line I would miss the best campsites, so I forged an alliance with a very tall boy with mad hopping skillz. We hopped from one branch of the steep zigzagging trail to the next with ease, but nearly slipped down several times due to the heavy downpour. Fearing we would fly off the steep wall of the ravine and into space, I used my tiny invisible wings to control our movement. I wondered what the purpose of having such tiny invisible wings might be, and decided I was actually a semi-visible tiger-dragon.
We got to the bottom of the path, but I realized that the best campsites were actually in the middle because the bottom ones were actually sloping into the river. By then it was too late to claim any of the good ones, so my slightly amphibious friend and I hopped/flew to a red auditorium where we were to watch an educational film instead.

A neighborhood crisis, everything is dark and cold. We are told not to venture out into the fog until daybreak. I am aware of someone going for help, traveling out onto the frozen lake in search of something. The light moves off from shore, and I am left alone.
The fog still clings obstinately to the area come morning. In the classic fashion, our street congregates in front of our house to discuss the recent goings on. The air is still damp and cold, and the meeting is soon adjourned. Everyone returns to their houses, but my mother, sister and I head uphill to the lakefront, to see if we can help with the search.

There seems to be a soft morning light burning through the fog. There is a very large and intricate slide. Instead of being a regular water slide, it seems to be generating some sort of force field around the tube, in which riders can slide any way and however fast they want to. I clamber on, and am zipped away by the magnetic field. I gain an incredible amount of speed and upon reaching the peak of the slide I launch myself off and into the morning sun.

It is no longer morning. The light is warm and yellow, that of late afternoon. As part of the camp curriculum, they are teaching us how to skateboard. I don a helmet and pads. but when the teacher tells us to begin, I immediately skate over the edge of the ramp and huddle behind it. There, Matt, Meaghan and Eva have begun a game of underground basketball. We play, with the light filtering through the trees and dark, rusty iron walls cut similar to pegboard. I find I can skate up the ramps and halfpipes without a board, aloowing me to slam dunk quite effectively. I soon tire of basketball, and dash past the teacher into the open, away from the iron and concrete. I stumble along the uneven path, watching the dust motes in the sun.

In which I recover a lost child, encounter a devilish sea creature, and save the day again.

I find myself sitting in a restaurant booth on the wall of a large room. There is a stage at one end, and in the middle there is a large mossy rock. We appear to be attending some sort of social function, most likely to do with camp, as I recognize several leaders. I myself am one. There seems to be a lot of attention on me, so I think perhaps it is my birthday and we are celebrating.
Miss Amy announces the last party game. One of the small girls has found a golden box with some valuables in it. The first to retrieve the girl from the crowd of people in the center of the building wins. A horn blows, and I soon find myself in the middle of the crowd. I see the girl slipping towards where I was sitting minutes ago, and I make to follow her, but I find an obese woman in my way. I try to go around, but a balding man and his wife are standing, talking to some acquaintances. It seems that the crowd moves to block all but one way, leaving me with very little decision to make. I give up on finding the girl, and let the path guide me back to the edge of the game boundaries. On passing other booths, I stop to visit my sister and her friends, who are not playing. With them is the little girl that I was chasing, who I hadn't recognized as one of Kyra's groupies. She is much younger, four or five, and is wearing a puffy pink jacket. She smiles at me and I pick her up, depositing her on the stage as the game dissolves. I am announced the winner.
Sitting in my booth celebrating, some of Kyra's friends arrive with a camera. They get pictures of me glaring at them; of me squinting at a guy I think is a jerk but incredibly attractive. I hold my shirt out for them to take a picture of, but it comes out a black and red mass. I am disappointed.

The party seems to be over and the building has filled with water. I make sure that everyone else has made it out. Before I can row my dinghy out the front gate, I am stopped by a golden lizard-like creature with a grappling hook. Every time I make for the exit, he hooks it onto the edge of my boat and pulls me back. Time is of the essence, so I let him climb into my boat and I row us out of the building.
As we are rowing under a rocky overhang, we see a sort of inverse waterfall. It seems to be a mode of transportation to the top of the cliff. We jump into the waterfall and it deposits us wetly onto a thin patch of grass.
At the top of the hill there is a large mansion/castle/musuem. We see a large, evil-looking man leading his entourage up the drive to the building. In a clear briefcase he carries what appears to be a rare sort of octopus. My lizard friend becomes very agitated, insisting that we retrieve the octopus from the landlubbing fiend.
We follow the line of people at a discreet distance. When we reach the museum, we find the door wide open. We enter. The decor is very sanitary, flat gray, and there is nothing in the room but aquariums. We hear the man giving his party a tour of the building and follow his voive through the maze of his private collection.

Triangular Baby Arrangement

I cross 15th going towards the lawn next to Parrington, where there is going to be a croquet match. start to pull myself over the high cement wall to get onto the lawn, when I see that Kris is there talking to Michelle Burce. He yells my name as I stumble over the wall, and I worry that it looks like I am running towards him. I walk up to him very slowly, wait for him to say something, and look into his eyes. Then I slap him, which would have been alot more satisfying if I had done it harder, or perhaps with my right hand. I pause, he turns away to talk to someone else, and I walk off.

Solstice is just north of the Henry, and Derrick is working when I come in. I put on some Radiohead and leave for class.

Class is a lecture of about 50 people on Parrington Lawn. I sit near the front, and hear a voice that I recognize. It is the British girl who comes into Solstice, sitting next to Seamus from the fashion show. I turn around quickly, hoping they didn't see me look. We can hear the music from Soltice very clearly, and it starts skipping. It skips on the same phrase for nearly a minute, and finally I get up to go fix it.

Now I'm getting into an elevator in a Hospital. There is a nurse already inside, and three babies on the ground at her feet. I am really nervous that they will get injured on the hard floor, but the nurse talks to us cheerfully about their condition. They are all bundled up in cute little outfits, and face the same direction, with a tiny triangular reflective marker at each of their heads, like the ones large trucks put out on the road when they have to stop in the middle of the street. All of the babies have way too much hair; the one in the teal fleece jumper has thick wavy black hair and is incredibly obese.

Projection

On a road trip through a woody mountains. We stop for a naturalist tour to learn about how endangered the environment is, hopping out of the car by a river that is very nearly dry. The smell of pine trees and blackberries lingers, with a background of the Olympic Mountains at 200% resized. The color is faded cinematically faded, giving the feeling that it is very cold.

Our tour guide leads us down to the riverbank. There is a vehicle waiting for us, similar to the ones you see on the "duck" tours around Seattle, only it is made of wood and has no canopy. In my excitement, I hop in. The vessel is dislodged from the river bottom and I begin floating dowstream. The guide runs along the bank, instructing me on how to steer. The river seems to be tiered, and as I go flying off the first one, I'm afraid I will land in a shallow part of the river and wreck the wooden craft. Upon landing it doesn't smash, but it does get somewhat smaller. By the time I am three tiers downriver it has shrunk to the size of a jet ski and I am able to control it with considerable more ease. The next tier, I launch myself into the air and try to keep myself level. The boat is now similar to a pogo stick, with handlebars and a small shelf for my feet. I feel myself begin to tip backwards. I know I cannot right myself in time, so I flip myself backwards, just barely landing right side up. By this point the river is a small series of puddles, and I land on the sand and stagger off the craft. The other tourists are very impressed.

I shrug it off, and the tour guide leads us all out into the mudflats. We are assigned different areas and habitats. We begin by examining a large green tidepool for arthropods. I am irritated that I have forgotten to take off my socks and shoes in the excitement, for which I blame the tour guide. She didn't remind us.

Another of Andrew's great ideas

I am downtown after school with my backpack and drawing portfolio. I have to go to the Opera, so I stop in a stuffy women's clothing store, where many women buy fancy flip-flops. The saleswomen are suspicious that I am mentally handicapped, and have escaped the care of my parents, so they call my dad to take me home. He arrives, awkward in his suspenders and cut-off polar fleece, and talks to me soothingly.
Eventually I give up trying to go to the Opera and end up heading south on I-5 in the backseat of Andrew's car. I talk to Kathryn, who is in the front seat, then Alex appears and we understand each other. Then Ariana appears between us and sings. I rummage around in a paper sack and pull out a plain bagel that as been slightly tainted with blueberry. Ariana asks, "Is that for me?" and I lie and say yes. I take the blueberry-tainted pepper bagel instead.
Andrew mutters something about a watershed, and veers off sharply to the left just before the tunnel, where there is an exit I've never seen before. Although this is somewhere on Capitol Hill, the exit is steep and overgrown with blackberries, and leads us to a snowy field. We all jolt around as he drives us into the middle of the field. I hear a strange noise. Creaking.
"Andrew!" I say, "This is a lake! Are you trying to kill us? Get us off of here!"
He doeesn't believe me, go I get out of the car and brush the snow off the surface. It just looks like ice and Andrew is not convinced. I decide to at least save my own ass and head for the shore. As I walk, my footsteps reveal a different surface. Examining it more closely, I discover it is dark wooden planks, similar to the flooring in Solstice. Everyone else approaches and enthusiastically brushes off a large area. Andrew says, "Look, they've reinforced the lake, it's safe!" Then he comes up with the idea to use our matching planks to reinforce the lake even further, so everyone pulls out a hammer and nails planks on top of the existing ones.
Deciding it would be a better use of my time to go to work, I walk over to the espresso machine on the south end of the lake. The order is a triple tall two percent caramel latte to go, but there's something wrong with the beans... someone has filled the grinder with hard candies. This seems like a really bad idea, but I figure someone knew what they were doing, so I pull the shots. They come out multi-colored, and then deflate to a sugary residue.

Carnivores

My father helped me to shoplift a pack of beef jerky and a Yanni CD from a modernist-style Wal-Mart.

Afterwards, he took me to a phö street vendor and bought me a bowl full of chunks of beef, over which they poured a watery broth.

Hail falls; Picasso instructs

Hail, or something like it, is falling, but doesn’t collect on the ground. There are a number of black trees with no limbs (just gnarled, pointed trunks). Picasso speaks to me about automobiles and their futility. Briefly I see my Sanskrit book is falling apart in my hands. I am aware that Picasso is a school teacher with a rotating blackboard. This is amusing but troubling.

He is precarious

On the grey level top of a skyscraper, I am balancing the old wooden chair I sit in on its back two legs. The wind blows hard, and I wobble back and forth with my arms out for balance. Between my teeth I clench a paper cup which I am also spitting in to.

I hide in a white room. When Gabriella walks in I am surprised, and hit the tile floor with a pick, trying to escape. She turns to see me and I take two of something from my mouth and hide them in my pocket; then I crouch behind a stack of firewood.

Notice: the sock has been removed on account of the depressing foot

I am in the alley by the University Bookstore. By Orange King there is a large (3 feet long?) broken down stone foot (cracked and shattered) and a sign that says “NO SOCK ON ACCOUNT OF DEPRESSING FOOT”. The owner shakes his fist when I walk by.

In front of the bookstore a little Asian child is chasing a professor with two things that roll: an enormous stone head (matches the foot?) and poles which have been constructed to make a sort of steel sawhorse. The professor cries out “but i can’t take them both with me! Aiee! I ‘ll have to chase them down 15th!” He rounds the corner out of sight.

More poles are out front of the bookstore, and Alex Chen is using them to teach history to his students. I take one of the poles (~40 feet long) and clang it against another. It is exactly what I want for my next symphony. An eagle falls out of a cloud and hits the ground with a flop (or something), and the depressing foot and enormous head go rolling by again. How the hell am I going to move this pole. And what is even the deal with that eagle.