Whatever

I am walking down a street in a more posh version of Fremont, when we suddenly feel the approach of a wave of excitement and cheers, coming from around the corner. It reaches us and suddenly we are caught up in the massive crowd as a group of cyclists in a race fly past. Ariana is there, yelling in a very appropriate manner for Kris, and Kris' mother Julie is halfway between me and Ariana, about ten feet away, also yelling. I stand on my tiptoes, craning my neck to see the contestants, about to cheer with everyone else, but I decide against it at the last second, as I haven't actually seen Kris. In any case the finish line is just past where Ariana now stands with Alex, out of my range of view. The race has already ended, and I hear Julie tell Ariana that the final run is about to start from that point; Kris should be in front. A gun goes off and Alex, Ariana, and Julie all see Kris before I do, but the instant I catch of him, his hair flying back, we all gasp. He forgot to put his helmet back on.
I am first to yell "Kris stop!", but is comes out as a murmur. His mother's attempt is louder, and I join her. Finally he realizes he forgot his helmet and brakes in shock. My heart nearly stops, as he is in the center of a pack, but the other riders miraculously avoid him (I suspect some ride through him, like ghosts). He topples onto the sidewalk and walks over to Ariana and Alex, unharmed as soon as the last rider has passed. Julie joins them and I remain where I am, wondering how to approach the situation.
Then I feel a heavy arm placed comfortingly around my shoulders, steering me towards the small group. I look up to see Kris' dad, and he silently tells me I don't have to worry about causing tension, just to talk to Kris.
I feel less anxious, but when we get to the group and Kris turns around, what comes out of my mouth is, "I thought you shaved your head. I saw you on your bike the other day, and you had a hat on but it really looked like you had shaved your head. I guess I was wrong." And he says, "Yeah," and turns away, following the rest of the group as they leave.

The Cold

Word spreads quickly through the crowd that there is going to be a fire tonight. Everyone in the parking lot speaks in hushed whispers, shivering in the cold antarctic night and wondering whether they should obey the hotel staff's instructions and go back to their rooms until it is time to evacuate. I decide I will go back to my room and pack up my things, and put on some warmer clothes so I won't freeze to death after the evacuation.
Up on the tenth floor I sit on the edge of the bed next to my suitcase, waiting for the phone call. Impatiently, I get up and look out the window to the parking lot and swimming pools below. I can just make out small specks of light from the lanterns of the nervous guests who refused to go back to their rooms.
I hear movement at the door- that must be him- the arsonist. I dash over and fling the door open, but he is gone; I just catch the last echoes of his laugh. I will beat him out of the hotel. My little sister and I take after him, alternating between flying and skating down the spiral ramps and staircases. The hotel has an old feel, though it has been recently renovated, reminiscent of the hotel from The Shining. The arsonist has taken the elevator, which is a stupid thing when there is about to be a fire. As we make our way to the ground floor we seem to switch roles several times from pursuing and being pursued- all I know is the rush of fear and excitement that means I will win.

In the parking lot I squint through the darkness, trying to discern my group of friends from the rest of the crowd. I determine I've got the right group, and out my arms around their shoulders, and turn my head back to the building- I can, now that I'm safe. Every window is dark, with the curtains open, and no sign of flame. I am surprised that everyone actually remembered the fire drill instructions from elementary school, forming a line and the last person out turning off the light. Still gazing at the building I say, "It's good that everyone made it out alright." I can hardly hear my own voice over the whistling wind.

At home, I prepare to go to an outdoor, middle-of-the-night dance. Our house feels huge and empty, and while it is well-lit, the darkness and cold press in. My mom is especially excited for me, running around with the camera like it's prom. She wants me to look nice, but I just want to be warm. I can't seem to find enough clothes, because I left most of them at home, not expecting to go to some crazy dance. I gather it will involve some freeform skiing and dancing in a snow-covered water park-type setting, and I remind my mother, "You know I haven't skied in years. How am I suppposed to stand upright, let alone spin around in circles with someone while sliding downhill?" She says, "Prepare for lots of bruises!" My friends wait at the door, all ready to go. At the last minute I decide I can't wear a windbreaker to a formal dance, and my shoes don't match my outfit.

I stand just below that exit ramp coming off of the West Seattle Brigde onto 99 that curves so sharply that you always end up squished next to the person next to you on the 120 to downtown. Part of it has disconnected, so that the ramp does not meet the freeway. Kris is up there on his bicycle, perched on the edge of the freeway, doing some odd maneuvers as a part of race. I wonder why he would do something like that to his bike. In a few seconds he is done and comes down to the basement of my house, located just under the ramp. We gather in the laundry room with Beth and Kellen. My mom bustles around doing laundry, she immediately gets them all engaged reading old Balderdash responses. Kris also shows them his latest project: his front wheel that he has begun threading with fine silver wire. It looks more like a sculpture, with an uneven web that bends the flimsy gold-foiled frame.
Determined to finally give Kris back his shirt, I tap him on the shoulder, but alas, I don't have the shirt with me. I do, however, tell him that I have something else from my dad that he might be interested in. I squeeze past my mom to get to a giant spool on the table and pull off a few pieces of the thick wire. I show Kris and his face lights up. "Copper wire!" he exclaims, as if it was just the breakthrough he needed to make the piece complete.
We all squeeze on to the piano bench and play fragments of pieces we remember from our childhood lessons.

Goat Car and Another 'Semireal Unfortunate Scenario' Dream

My brother is taking me out to Burien to get lunch with one of his friends. To get there we take a route down Ambaum, and when we get to the Baskin & Robins, which is a shady taco joint in the dream, we must take the most direct route through it before the owners get back. We walk briskly through the seating area and into the dirty back room, which is tiny and triangular, but with high ceilings. The only way out is through the small drive-thru window, which is very high up on the wall. Nick's friend goes first, then Nick, and finally I crawl through, contemplating Rikyu and the humbleness-inducing crawl-through entrances to his tea houses.

When I emerge, Nick and friend are nowhere in sight, but I am almost bowled over when a booming "EH-EH-EH-EH!" echoes through the neighborhood, and a giant old station wagon decorated as a goat barrels down the hill sans driver. It drives past me and turns to go up the next hill, periodically making goat noises. As I look around an obese black man steps out from behind some bushes on Kathryn's old street with a jolly chuckle. He clutches a crudely made remote control with a joystick, and tells me, "It gets 'em every time, and the fun never wears off!" My shock wears off and I laugh with pleasure at the man's joke. Nick and friend emerge from around the corner the goat wagon just passed, exclaiming at the genius of the social experiment.

The man directs the goat wagon over to us and parks it, and we all drink glasses of milk from the roof of the car. The man says he can't stand that watery milk, he needs something of more substance, and pulls out a carton of heavy cream. I jump up and pour it into a cup for him, but then he pulls out a stick of butter from his pocket to mix in. I stir the milk, now more than a little revolted, and wonder about the moral implications of serving pure fat to an obese man.


I am on vacation with Kris and his entire family, including the cousin I haven't met. His sister wants to go for a bike ride, but no one else is ready to leave yet. I don't plan on going, so while she is waiting she asks me questions about school, and then Julie says something that implies Mali was an art history major. Then she pulls out an envelope that supposedly includes her final grades, but the name on the envelope is not Mali, but an alternative spelling of the name Rebecca. I say, "Wow, I'm really embarrassed now, but I honestly thought your name was Mali and you majored in something like archeology or classics."

Then suddenly Kris comes up and says, "I want to get back together" and starts kissing me before I can get a word in. I find myself kissing him back, and realizing how wrong that is I halfheartedly try to get him to stop, mumbling his name. After about a minute of this I start to wonder why he hasn't stopped kissing me, so I say louder, "Stop! ...Beth!" Woah, wait, have I been saying everyone else's name but Kris' this whole time? "Why.. did I ...just say ...Beth's name?" I ask. "I mean... Stop! Kris!" Finally he pauses and I struggle to find words. I say something stupid like, "There's absolutely no reason I should allow this" and then trail off, wondering what I'm trying to say.
Kris is very persistent, not by saying much (other than "I want to get back together..."), but we still end up on the ground. While I know Kris doesn't actually want to start a relationship again (and neither do I) I don't have the energy to call him out on it, or the will to make him stop kissing me and END ALL INTERACTIONS IMMEDIATELY type of thing, so I decide to go along with it for the moment. I tell Kris that's fine, and get up to get breakfast, while he goes off to take a shower.

In the kitchen, I contemplate the English muffins, more than a little pissed. In the bag there is one half of a muffin, on top of the last whole muffin. I decide I want a whole muffin, so I take it out and cut it in half. This is when I notice that there is also half a muffin sitting at the bottom of the bag and I could have taken that and not cut up the last whole muffin.
That pushes me over the edge. As I stand there staring at the muffins with a knife in my hand, getting angrier, I decide Kris needs a taste of his own medicine, and if he's going to pretend he wants to be in a relationship with me, he's going to have to live up to the responsibilities. I am disturbed from my thoughts when his mother comes up and asks me if I've seen him recently, and I say I think he's in the shower. She asks if I will go tell him she wants to talk to him, and I say yes, quickly forming a plan in my head.
It goes something like this: If Kris wants to get intimate under the false pretense of wanting a relationship, things are going to get real intimate- and real inconvenient too, as goes with the responsibility of a relationship, right?

So I march down to the basement, planning on barging in on his shower time and demanding intimacy, but when I get down there, I can't barge in because the door to the bathroom, and the shower for that matter, are wide open. I am caught off guard, so when I get to the bathroom door, I stop and say, "Hey Kris."
And he says normally, "Hey. What's up?"
I'm feeling comfortable and say, "Not much."
"Really?" he says, kneeling down in the shower, as if posing for a gesture drawing. I am about to respond when I see he has some serious bruises on his legs.
"Yeah, hey- what are those bruises on your legs?" He looks down and examines them. "-If you don't mind my asking-" He looks at me and opens his mouth, and I can tell he could answer me if he wanted to, but instead he's about to tell me something completely different, and be open and honest for once. I know that as soon as he says this thing I am going to be able to talk to him about knowing he doesn't really want a relationship but being ok with that as long as he's honest; and we will be able to talk about what we really want without saying anything wrong.
But just then his mom comes up behind me. I didn't realize she had followed me down there, and so I quickly say, "Oh yeah, and I just wanted to tell you your mom wants to talk to you," and leave.

Awkward Covers

I am holding a conversation with my mother in a parking lot, but I am late to get on a bus with my French class. My mother seems concerned for my safety, but I insist I must get on the bus or I will be left behind. I board the yellow school bus, showing my U-Pass to the driver. I take a seat near the front, and see that my mother has followed me on board. I stand up, glaring, and say quietly, "Mom. What are you doing on this bus?" and then louder, "Excuse me. What are you doing on this bus?" She finally gets that I am embarrassed and I don't want my classmates to know my mother wants to chaperon our field trip, so she says, "Oh, right... Ahem..." and turns to the bus driver and announces, "I am interested in psychology-gical... anthropology. I want to research- cite sources of the study of."
Meanwhile the bus driver has assumed she is crazy but starts driving anyway. We make a circle in the parking lot, but eventually my mom distracts the her so much that she veers off into a field, turns off the bus and everyone gets out.

I go to stay with a friend for the night, and when I go to shut the bedroom door, I am extremely embarrassed that the younger brother is awake. I think he is also frozen, although I can't recall how literally.
In the morning I get lost in the covers, and detach myself reluctantly.

At some later point I remember complaining to a friend in a cafe about my embarrassing experiences.

A man dressed as an asparagus spear nervously shuffles through his jokes written on the backs of carefully clipped coupons before his audition. He carefully stores them in a small carved wooden box before cautiously stepping out onto the ice.
Now from the view of Asparagus Man, I feel incredibly disappointed in myself as the winning couple skates around me, waving to adoring fans with affixed photogenic smiles.
Disappointment doesn't last long, because Asparagus Man climbs onto a stage with the encouragement of the crowd, crying with happiness, and steps into the waiting coffin, surrounded by cheering costumed creatures.