Felicia Day Pwns My Heart

**Another reprint from Pop Kultr.**

I’m an unabashed nerd. If it’s random or odd or geeky, I’m probably into it. Really, the only reason I don’t have a Mac is because I’m also a broke nerd. But I carry my iPhone with pride, and I pwn zombies in Left 4 Dead (not to mention, I have my own actual Zombie Apocalypse escape plan; Organize BEFORE They Arise!), and I’ve been to the Buffy musical sing-a-long. And with all that comes the pointless pining for nerd objects of desire. Natalie Portman, Summer Glau, Sarah Michelle Gellar…these are the ladies of nerdy dreams. And recently, a new idol has been added to this pantheon…Felicia Day.

My first encounter with Felicia Day was in the original airing of Season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where she played one of the potential Slayers (though I wouldn’t remember this until recently when I watched the DVDs). She was awkward and cute, and she survived until the end, which was no mean feat given the enormity of the situation before the Slayers.

Cut to a few years later (What? I’m not sure how many. If you really care, you too have the webternet on which to look such things up; I can’t be arsed) when a little mini-musical called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog was taking the internet by storm. Two of its leads, Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris, were well known within the nerd community: Fillion from Firefly and Serenity, and Harris from How I Met Your Mother and nostalgia. The musical was funny and dark, and the songs had that solid-but-fun feel that Joss Whedon first introduced in the special Buffy musical episode, Once More With Feeling. But songs about an also-ran villian and his smarmy nemesis, while clever, would not be enough to carry this little phenomenon through three episodes and into countless portable devices. No, what it needed was a center, a beating heart on which to hinge all the silliness. And that beating heart was Felicia Day.

Ms. Day is no opera singer. Her voice is a little thin and wispy, but it’s true. There’s no bombast or overkill to her singing, just sweet simplicity. Penny drove Dr. Horrible more than his need to be in the Evil League of Evil, more than his quest for power, even if he didn’t acknowledge it. And it’s not until the end, when she dies as a result of one of his malfunctioning contraptions (SPOILER ALERT), that Dr. Horrible truly becomes evil. He no longer can feel anything, because his heart has been ripped out.

I ached with Dr. Horrible when Penny died. It’s a tribute to Felicia Day’s presence and skill that her death in this silly little musical could be so affecting. Nerd tears fell the world over the day Act 3 was released, and Ms. Day became the new girl every unloved boy (and some unloved girls) would give their Macs to meet.

I recently watched Ms. Day’s ode to gamer nerds everwhere, The Guild, in its entirety. It’s a funny, and kindly mocking, slice-of-life examination of a World of Warcraft-esque guild and its members. Her character, Codex, is awkward, shy and unsure of herself…in other words, just like every nerd in the history of ever. But she’s also smart and dryly funny, and pretty darn cute to boot (anybody want a peanut?). Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh) represents all of us when he becomes smitten with her. Codex also represents another part of all nerds, the one that always longs just a little to be one of the cool kids (illustrated by her lust for the douche-y stuntman), but will keep plugging along when it doesn’t work out.

I hope Ms. Day continues to get work and be prolific. She is talented, and smart, and witty, and she’s one of us (gooble gobble gooble gobble). And we could do a lot worse than her as a representative.

You can find all episodes of The Guild at www.watchtheguild.com, or you can buy the DVDs on Amazon. Seriously, check that business out!

Extraordinarily Ordinary - Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

**This is a reprint from Pop Kultr, the new blog to which I'm contributing. You should check it out. It's shiny.**

I’m a diehard fan of superheroes. While I don’t read a lot of the “capes” comics, I’m fascinated by the almost infinite power of Superman, the self-made status and limitless genius of Batman, the…uh…boobs of Wonder Woman. (Mental note: look up definition of “misogyny”). I long for the day when my brain decides to stop being lazy and taps into one of the MANY latent super powers I’m sure I contain. The day I can wave my hand and have my remote fly into it using only my mind will be the happiest day of my life. I will follow the remote pretty quickly with my phone so as to make an appointment with the cardiologist I’ll need when my new telekinetic lifestyle takes its toll.

The allure of super powers in the real world is a common one, and the primary stomping grounds of Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman. It deals largely with the newest world-conquering plot by its main antagonist, Doctor Impossible, and the disappearance of the world’s greatest superhero, the Superman analogue CoreFire. Doctor Impossible shares narration duties with Fatale, a cyborg and the newest member of the newest incarnation of the world’s greatest superhero team, the Champions. The two narrative threads tell the story from both the villain’s and hero’s perspective, and dovetail nicely at the end for the climactic battle.

Doctor Impossible is the smartest man in the world (he claims to have an IQ over 300), and he uses his intellect, along with a few minor powers gained from one of many lab accidents, to create vast, Rube Goldberg-ian devices with which he regularly attempts to take over the world. “Attempts” being the operative word. When the novel opens, the Doctor is in prison after the failure of his (I believe) 11th attempt at world domination, and he quickly breaks out to set in motion attempt #12. Impossible is, at heart, a nerd. He was the small kid who was too smart for his own good, who was either ignored or picked on, and who internalized every moment of pain and humiliation. Despite his multiple failures and arrests, none plague him so much as the one that should have made him a household name, but instead created CoreFire, the most powerful man in the world and the Doctor’s primary nemesis. Impossible’s ego makes itself known frequently in his passages and in the description of his past creations, but you get the sense that he’s really just trying to get the cool kids to pay attention to him, and he frequently muses as to whether he made the best choice in becoming a villian.

The other voice in the novel is one of the newest cool kids, the cyborg Fatale. Fatale was created by an independent company after a horrible traffic accident essentially destroyed half of her body. The company subsequently goes belly up, and so Fatale becomes a mercenary for the US Government so as to pay for the expensive maintenance her robotic parts require. Fatale joins the New Champions partly for the allure of working with the world’s greatest heroes, but mainly to keep herself fed and running properly. Fatale’s sections are infused with a sense of sadness. Despite the amazing things she can do, she’s still just a woman who lost her ordinary life in a horrific way, and longs for the days when she didn’t weigh 450 lbs. or when men would look at her as anything other than an oddity. Fatale is us, amazed at the wondrous beings around her, but confused and a little frightened by the extraordinary world in which she lives.

Grossman populates the books with a number of other “meta-humans” that keep the pace moving and also keep you interested in the variety of powers and abilities that exist within this world. There’s Blackwolf, the non-powered human who is this book’s version of Batman; Elphin, who claims to be a fairy; Feral, a half man-half tiger; and Damsel, who is half-alien, half-human, and one of the few heroes with inherited powers. There are numerous other minor characters mentioned in passing, but Grossman provides an index at the end of the book to keep track of who’s who and who has what powers and abilities.

Despite the presence of all these magnificent characters, Grossman keeps the book down to Earth by making most of the characters basically human in desires and limitations. Small details, like Blackwolf’s use of painkillers, or the home imprisonment and slow decline of Baron Ether, Doctor Impossible’s idol, make the book feel very real and grounded in a world we mostly understand. Grossman often references past heroic exploits as though they are common knowledge, immersing his readers in this world he’s created. And through it all is Doctor Impossible and Fatale, two (mostly) normal people gifted with amazing abilities. They are both searching for something incredibly normal: intimacy and connection. There’s a sad irony that they could each be the thing the other is looking for, but will never find because they stand on opposite sides of the law.

Ultimately, I think this is Grossman’s point. Super powers are incredible, and the things you can do with them delight the imagination. But in the end we’re all human, and all we want is someone like us to keep away the darkness. Grossman’s heroes are extraordinary, but the things that make them amazing are also the things that make them feel alone. What’s more ordinary than that?

Pop goes your head

For those few of you who are interested, I'm now contributing to a new pop culture blog started by my friend Jess. I don't know how much I'll be adding to it, but I will post the occasional article. My first is a review of Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman. It's not my usual of original fiction or douchey whining about inner turmoil, but it's something!

A few thoughts

Change can be a slow process, especially when you're talking in terms of human personalities. It feels like change SHOULD occur at the speed of thought; I want to be different, so I become different. But who we are as people is imbedded in our minds, in the hardwired neural pathways that make us who we are, so deeply that change never comes as easily as we want. And so we struggle and flail against these ingrained personality quirks, and we make progress at a glacial rate. But the inability to change fully, immediately, feels like failure and therefore slows the progress even further. We are Br'er Rabbit fighting the tar baby, pushing so hard to change without realizing we are simply enmeshing ourselves further into the problem.

This is not to say change is impossible. I fully believe that with determination, belief, and the power of a strong will, we can alter those things about ourselves that make us feel incomplete or off-kilter. Habits can be broken or formed with enough effort. Still, even the strongest of wills can be eroded by the frustration to be found in slow progress.

Why all this focus on change and its frustrations? I'm dealing with certain personal issues, things about myself which push people away, and my inability to make it different NOW has brought me to a dark place. This dark place is familiar, one I visit often (though less frequently with each passing year; further evidence of the possibility of change). Most of this is internal. I berate myself for being this way or acting that way, for numerous quirks that I feel limit me as a fully realized person. But this internal struggle evinces itself in outward expressions: surliness, a general air of depression, a shortness with those in my small circle of friends.

I have a friend. This friend is, in relative terms, a new friend. I'm not known to be extremely outgoing, and meeting new people and making new friends is difficult for me. But I connected to this new friend quickly, and have come to care for the friend deeply in a short period of time. This care is in no way romantic or anything other than a connection between two like-minded people. For a long period of time this friend and I often spent time together, and it was always light and fun and full of laughs. Recently, I've begun to sense some distance between us, a cooling if you will. Nothing hostile, nothing intentionally hurtful, but a growing feeling that things are changing. THIS kind of change happens quickly, often without warning. Changes out of your control seem to come out of nowhere and can take your legs out from under you with little or no effort.

When I first sensed the change, I flailed and worried, trying everything I could to prove to myself I was being paranoid or was just simply wrong. And I'm still not denying that this could simply be me conflating two unrelated issues, i.e. my own personal demons and a change in circumstance for the friend. It wouldn't be the first time (I'm a perpetual self-blamer). But the longer it goes on, the more convinced I become that this is a genuine change in the tenor of our friendship, and I attribute this largely to my own shortcomings. I feel many things very intensely. I like to affect a laconic air most of the time, keeping my words sparse and my emotions in check, but internally everything feels immense and immediate. When it comes to my expression of care or concern for people, I have few filters. I am intensely in favor of those I care about. This intensity can push people away when they confuse it for other things, like romantic feelings. And the more they back away, the harder I try to pull them back in, which only serves to complete the loop. Loss and isolation are my biggest fears, but no one creates those circumstances for me faster than I do.

So I'm telling myself to back away, to let it go and have enough faith in myself to believe that my friendship is valuable, and that a little time and distance can restore what I feel slipping away. I choose to believe that I'm valuable to this person, and that when the friend sees that I'm capable of backing away, the concerns he/she has will be diminished and we can return to the lighter days. And if I'm wrong and the distance has nothing to do with my intensity (I'm often a negative narcissist), then distance won't hurt anyway. It will allow time for the circumstances which have created this situation to resolve themselves while also allowing me to return to a more level, positive state of mind. It's not easy, like any change, but it's worth the effort.

Thanks for reading (if there are any of you left). I promise in the future to return to what you're used to here, wacky shenanigans and hastily written short fiction. On a less serious note, I'm currently working on a new story that I'm pretty excited about, so watch this space if you're a fan of my writing.

And once again, the fruits of my boredom...

Are the fruits of your...uh...fun. Anyway, enjoy.

End of the World


Hot Corker

This is what my boredom gets you

Ready for another one?

I'm on a roll with this short story business. For musical reference, I was listening to "Modern World" by Wolf Parade on repeat while writing this. I think it kinda captures the feel I was going for in the story. Enjoy, and drop me a comment if you like it.

Happy Birthday, Martin Aimes!

On the eve of his 40th birthday, Martin Aimes travelled in time.

That's how it felt to him anyway. It could easily have been a product of an undiagnosed aneurysm or a flashback from his more drug liberal days, but Martin was convinced that the rapid rush of images he saw was a personal journey through his own timeline. He'd never been one to buy into the idea of past lives or destiny, but the chair and the sights it showed him quickly changed his opinion on the subject.

Martin had spent the day prepping his house for the celebration that evening. Finger foods were in the refrigerator or oven as necessary, beverages chilling in one of the dozen or so coolers housed in the garage, decorations collected from Martin's various journeys across the world had been hung or strategically placed throughout the house. He had even somehow managed to hang the 300 lb. ceremonial fertility sculpture he had acquired in Brazil over the arch connecting the living room and front entry area, though he was convinced it would probably come crashing down any second, leaving Martin to celebrate his 40th with a personal injury lawsuit. But he was incredibly proud of the sculpture and the journey it represented, so up it stayed. The use of his souvenirs as decorations was his way of celebrating the 40 years he had already lived, and of the many things he had seen in that time. It was also to be a reminder that he still had many things to see and do, and that despite this milestone in his life, he had many years in which to see and do those things.

Since he had already thoroughly cleaned his house to the point that every surface sparkled and squeaked, even the cloth curtains, he was almost completely ready for the party when the knock on the door came. He answered, expecting to see an early party-goer, and was instead greeted by a nice but modest looking chair on his front step. He stepped out and looked up and down the street, but saw no one running from his house, nor any cars he didn't recognize from the neighborhood. Assuming this chair was an odd gift that would be explained at a later time, he dragged it into the house and closed the door.

Martin had several friends who were practical jokers, so he thought it prudent to thoroughly examine the chair for breakaway legs or a false back before trying to sit in it. The chair was of average dining room table size, solid wood that looked old and expensive and stained a light chocolate brown. It lacked any flourishes or adornments, and looked like it was created for solid function rather than airy form. There were no notes or greetings of any kind attached to the chair, save for a simple card reading "Happy Birthday, Martin Aimes," so the mystery of its origins remained a mystery. But the seat was nicely padded, the construction looked to be of quality, and Martin (an avid lover of antiques of all kinds) decided that he owed it to the chair and the craftsman who created it to put it to its intended use, just for a moment. So he sat and leaned his head back against the chair's back, and closed his eyes for a brief rest before making his final party preparations, which is how he ended up taking the strangest and most intriguing journey of his life so far.

The rush of dizziness that overtook Martin as soon as he had settled into the chair startled him, but he simply attributed it to the work he'd been doing since he got up at 8 AM that morning. He figured keeping his head back and eyes closed for now would allow the spell to pass. He realized how wrong he was when the smell of manure and dirty humanity hit him. Thinking again of the joker friends and the riot act he would read them for stinking up his immaculate house, he opened his eyes and quickly rose from the chair, but stumbled both from the continuing dizziness and from the sight that greeted his eyes.

Martin had been to France on several occasions, and loved every trip, but had never seen it like this. Everywhere he looked he saw horses, goats, cows, and other animals associated with farming. Stalls of fruits and vegetables surrounded him, all staffed by dirty and unkempt French people. Most alarming was the smell. His nostrils were assaulted by a mix of human and animal waste, rotten produce, and almost sentient funk of thousands of unwashed humans. Thinking he was dreaming, Martin pinched himself, but only succeeded in adding a smarting arm to the rotten stink and bizarre images surrounding him. Being an avid student of world cultures and history, he easily recognized the dress of the people as being from the mid-1700s. Certain of the impossibility of the situation he found himself in, Martin stood stock still and tried to simply observe, at least until a fat Frenchman started pointing and yelling in his direction.

Martin had never fully learned French, despite his numerous trips to the country. He understood some basic phrases, but would find himself hard pressed to communicate if left alone with solely French-speaking people. So he reeled from the confusion that hit him when he realized he could understand every word the fat man was yelling, and even more when he realized he was yelling back in French. Of course, despite the fact that Martin's confusion and embarrassment made it feel like this exchange took an hour, it all happened in a split second. It was just enough time for him to realize that what the fat man was yelling was "Look out, you stupid pig! Above you!," and for Martin to look up and see the globe-sized chunk of masonry hurtling toward his head from the building behind him. "Merde," thought Martin, and then all was blackness and dizziness again.

The assault on his nose ended almost immediately, to be replaced with a stifling feeling of heat and the smell of dust. Afraid of what he would find yet still infinitely curious, Martin slowly opened his eyes only to be blinded by the brightness of the sun beating down on him. The fear he felt at finding himself in a new locale with no explanation as to how he got there was ratcheted up several hundred degrees when he realized he stood in the middle of a dusty street, large wooden buildings rising up on either side of him, and that a large and angry looking man stood at the opposite end of the street with a gun pointed in Martin's direction.

The angry man was dressed much like the men from the Westerns Martin had so enjoyed as a child, and he realized, looking down, that he too was holding a gun and dressed like an extra from The Rifleman. Fear more than instinct made him squeeze the trigger, and he jumped what felt like 15 feet in the air at the explosion that emanated from the barrel of the gun. Shaking in fear, he threw the gun down even as a large whoop went up from the people standing on either side of the street, watching this showdown. Guns were fired into the air in celebration all around him, and he cringed and shook with each one. Men poured onto the street around Martin, slapping him on the back and yelling for whiskey for the hero. Martin allowed himself a small smile at being called "hero" and looked forward to a bracing shot of whiskey from the saloon he found himself dragged into, but the smile quickly faltered and disappeared when he heard a loud crack from above his head, as the people around him yelled and scattered away from him. He looked up to see a large, ornate chandelier tied to a huge beam that sunk inward and broke apart even as he watched. As the chandelier shot rapidly toward his head, Martin had time to think "Again?," before he was overtaken and shot back into the dark.

Next Martin awoke to find himself in the Industrial Revolution, in a large factory producing some product or another. Men and smoke surrounded him, and he found himself covered in grease and grime, and sweating profusely. As per the previous experiences, he became aware of his situation even as shouts warned him of some disaster. He looked up, expecting to see the ceiling of the building hurtling toward him, but instead fell flat to the floor as an explosion rocked the factory around him. After several confused moments, foremen came around and started ushering men out the door, and Martin found himself shoved unceremoniously into the street. He decided to take advantage of the longer duration of this visit and take in some of his surroundings. He walked down the street, nodding at people who passed him, and generally enjoyed his bizarre once-in-a-lifetime journey. That is, until shouts around him warned him, once again, to look up just in time to see the next in the series of head-trauma-causing objects whistling toward him. This time it was a large, dead, vulture-like bird, beak pointed straight at the crown of his head. "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding," his mind exclaimed shortly before being pierced by five pounds of carrion fowl and hurtled back into the blackness.

This time, Martin came to comfortably seated in the grass, leaning against a tree and surrounded by music and the smell of marijuana. Looking down at himself, he saw his clothes were of varied shades of tie-dye, and he suddenly realized the music he was hearing was Jimi Hendrix's famous version of the Star-Spangled Banner. Amazed at his good fortune at being able to see such a legendary musical moment, Martin threw back his head and whooped with pleasure.

And saw a naked man sitting in the tree above him, holding a set of bongos hooked on one finger and gesticulating wildly toward the stage. Martin's joyous yawp turned into a resigned sigh as he watched the bongos slip from Tarzan's finger, and he thought to himself "Stinking hippies," before the bongos crashed into him in the least musical way possible.

When the blackness and dizziness subsided for the last time, Martin found himself laying on his own couch, in his own home, in his own time. The chair was not where it had been when he sat in it, and a quick perusal of his house likewise turned up no mystery chair. Since his head still throbbed and he could still detect the faint smells of farm animal, grease, dust and pot, he quickly came to the conclusion that all the experiences were real glimpses of himself throughout history, and that once the chair had shown him these sights, it had travelled on without him to who knew where or when. He wasn't sure why the chair had shown him these things, except maybe as a warning to go through life with a hardhat. Martin realized he had only a few minutes until his guests were due to arrive, and so rushed upstairs to clean up and change for the party, filing away his journey for examination later.

He had just finished his ablutions and was slipping on his shoes when the first knock came on the front door. Giving himself one last look in the mirror, he smiled at the almost-40-year-old version of himself in the mirror, and laughed at what he was quickly becoming convinced was the dream he must've had while dozing on the couch. He giggled quietly to himself at the sheer absurdity that a mystery chair could take him on a space-time tour of his previous lives. He was still giggling to himself when he opened the door and welcomed his friends to his home. And he was still giggling to himself when he heard one of the supports he had installed for the Brazilian sculpture, under which he was currently standing, crack and start to give way. His giggle subsided when he looked up in time to see the 300 lb. sculpture slowly descend toward him, the figure's huge erect phallus pointed straight at his skull. "Happy birthday, Martin Aimes," he thought to himself even as the black embraced him once again.

More Writing (Part 2)

Scroll down for Part 1 of "More Writing" (but note, these stories are not related in any way).

Reborn

The infant stirs, not yet awake but partially aware. It dreams lush dreams of ancient seas and warm sun, of creatures great and small, of plants and insects and other things for which it does not yet have a name. Its eyes flutter under translucent lids, preparing for their time to open. Occasionally it feels warm on the inside as well as out, and this is love, though it does not yet know that word. A high lyrical voice sings numerous lullabies in many languages as it slumbers. This is Mother, though the voice is all it knows of the idea of parentage. At somewhat regular intervals the voice, now harsh and loud, proclaims, “NEW SECTOR CLEAN -- CONTAMINANT LEVELS REDUCED.” The infant feels fear when it hears Mother speak in this way, though fear is nothing more than the rush of adrenaline that courses through its veins; it does not yet know the name of the emotion. Again Mother speaks, now flat and even, speaking of food and nutrients. The infant does not know these ideas, only that when Mother speaks this way it feels contented and at peace.

In time, the child dreams of science and religion, music and literature, war and poverty and disease, all the things that make its kind wonderful and base. It sees images of men and women in white coats, urgently working together deep underground. It sees them pressing buttons and speaking to Mother, telling her she is their only hope. She sings to them as the poison they swallow takes hold, and sends her first children to clean them and inter them when they are finally and forever asleep. The child dreams of great cylindrical machines flying through the air, and of flashes bright as the sun, and towering dome-capped clouds. It sees men and women staggering and falling, burns and wounds covering their fragile flesh. It sees what Mother sees, great swathes of land full of fire and sickness and horror as its kind struggles to survive. And it feels Mother’s pain as the world turns black, cold and silent.

But then it watches as Mother watches, as ages pass and the land becomes green again. And suddenly it feels fear when it hears Mother’s loud voice again, this time saying, “SURFACE LEVEL CLEAN – BEGIN NEW EDEN SEQUENCE.” It feels her joy and hears her song as she releases her pets all over the world in pairs, and celebrates with her as the pairs become more. It watches as she samples water and proclaims it clean, as she samples fruit and declares it edible, as she watches her pets’ offspring and sees no mutations or sickness. And when Mother is satisfied, she speaks softly to the child, telling him to come forth and claim what she’s prepared for him.

So the child is released in a torrent of fluids and tubes, in a wave of fear and new sensations. Mother’s first children clean and swaddle the child while Mother sings of discovery and hope and new life. Mother helps the child, who she now calls Adam, learn to walk and talk and write and sing and embrace the world she has kept safe for him. Mother watches and teaches as Adam becomes a man, and her pride is as limitless as the stars.

And one day Mother tells Adam that her time is short, that the tasks set before her have been accomplished save one. Mother tells Adam of other humans the world over, kept safe and taught in the same way as Adam, ready to be loosed on this pristine new world to form it in the image given them by Mother. She tells him of love to come, and discoveries to make his heart sing, and reminds him of the lessons of peace and respect she has taught him. And she sings him one last lullaby as the doors open onto the new world, as her last thoughts end and she bids him farewell.

And Adam weeps with both joy and sorrow, for his beloved Mother is no more, but the world has been reborn with her passing.

More Writing (Part 1)

I don't know what's up with me lately! Suddenly I feel like writing ALL THE TIME, and I find I have more ideas than usual. Anyway, the piece below is something I wrote a few years back after a dream I had grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let me go for several days. The second one (above in a separate post) is for a new blog I'm contributing to called Blog Me A Tale. It's a themed blog, and this month's theme, as you'll see, is mothers. Enjoy!

The Best (And Worst) Dream

I enjoy dreaming. It’s like a little stage play just for my benefit. One night, I had one of those dreams that leave you feeling melancholy when you wake up. I know you know what I’m talking about. We’ve all had them, and had terrible next days as a result. One of those ones that seems terribly realistic, in a utopian sort of way.

I dreamt that I was on vacation with friends, though friends in the abstract, of course. They had that disconnected, I-don’t-really-know-you-people presence that our dream characters always seem to have. I knew they were friends because I was with them on vacation, and what other possible reason could I have for being vacation in the woods (did I mention the dream was set in the woods?) with a bunch of strangers? Maybe they were subconscious representations of my waking life friends. Like, one was maybe really greedy to represent a friend I viewed in real life as particularly selfish. And one may have been particularly kind to represent someone in my life that I saw as my safe haven. Or maybe dream interpretation is all bullshit anyway, and I should just enjoy them for the cinematic magic shows they are.

Anyway, I was on vacation (in the woods) with these avataristic friends, enjoying the peace that only that sort of location seems capable of bringing. We drank, smoked out, played ridiculous made-up games that would only amuse a close circle of friends, and generally made a party of life. I know I make this dream sound like some sort of perfect life (I believe I already used the word “utopian”), but what good are dreams if they can’t occasionally show you things in an ideal sense? If all we dreamt about were number crunching, meal preparation, filling up with gas, dreams wouldn’t carry the power of myth that’s been attributed to them throughout history. So if I make my vacation (in the woods) dream sound wonderful and perfect, maybe it was at the time. And that gives me a little pleasure in what can be an otherwise often dreary and mundane life.

As the general sense of well-being and joy carried on throughout the dream, I found myself floating through conversations and events as a detached observer. Of course I also participated, but that’s the interesting dual nature of dreams. From this observer position, I spied a girl that was new to me. I was instantly fascinated; maybe even, dare I say it, enamored. She sparkled and was intoxicating to me, even from a distance. My participating self felt the pull and made his way over to the small circle of which she was a part. I observed with amazement as I, normally shy and reticent, introduced myself and struck up a conversation with her about the latest music, or books, or Britney Spears scandal, and she listened with seeming fascination and enjoyment. We laughed, talked, laughed some more, and generally just had a wonderful time learning about another person.

Now while this may not seem like anything particularly special, just enjoying getting to know another person, stop and think about your day-to-day life. How often are you able to simply relax and receive joy just from learning about another person? We all walk around, waiting to be hurt by others, by circumstances, just by life in general. We’ve all been stung so many times in so many ways that we’ve learned to walk through life playing ostrich, heads buried in the proverbial sand, avoiding trouble at all costs. How else do you explain unreported crimes to which there are multiple witnesses, so many people sliding into alcoholism despite being surrounded by friends and loved ones, teenagers with years of wonder, joy, and pain still ahead of them, taking their own lives? We avoid conflict at all costs, even if one of those costs is intimacy with our fellow humans. And so in the act of avoiding conflict, we avoid learning anything about those that surround us every day. But sometimes you let your guard down, someone slips in, and suddenly you’re reminded that life is full of things that make you laugh, make you cry, but generally just remind you you’re alive. And for me, the simple act of meeting and getting to know this entrancing girl was enough for the moment.

From that point, time skipped in that easy way it often does in dreams. There’s no sense of having missed anything, just a natural progression or flow of time. At this point it was apparent that my dream girl (in the literal sense) and I had made one of those random connections that happen all too rarely, and I, continuing to display huevos grandes far beyond any I display in real life, had asked her out on a D-A-T-E. We were sitting outside at night, under that perfectly clear and starry sky you only find in unspoiled nature, making plans, deciding when and where to meet up, what to do on the D-A-T-E. We also were laughing, ribbing one another, and enjoying each other’s presence in a very easy and familiar way. I remember thinking in my dream “She’s the one I’ve been looking for,” which, while clichéd, felt absolutely true. Its truth made it even more special because it proved the cynic in me wrong. Proved that sometimes the cheesy clichés are truth, and it’s wonderful to be surprised by that revelation.

Plans made for the D-A-T-E to come the next day, we began to head our separate ways to bed, to rest, and perhaps, in an already perfect dream, weave even more perfection that we could return to at any time. She started to walk away and I, bemused, watched her go for a short while, before turning in the opposite direction toward my lodgings. I had a walk of about 100 yards back to my cabin, and I was in no hurry to get back. I wanted to walk slowly, breathe in the cool night air, and think about this new friend who already felt like so much more. The night was chilly enough that I could watch my breath plume out from my mouth like harmless dragon’s breath. The dry pine needles crunched under my feet, reminding me of the crunch of snow, which is one of my favorite sounds in the world. I was so enraptured by nature and by my thoughts of her, that at first I didn’t notice that the crunching of the needles was much more rapid than my own two feet could account for. In addition, the sound was coming from behind me as well as under me, and I knew that no matter how clear the air, I couldn’t be producing an echo that convincing.

I turned around, already preparing myself for a playful tackle from one of my other companions on the trip. So when I swiveled 180 degrees, a vulgar greeting ready to leave my lips, it’s only natural that I stumbled a little when I saw not one of my buddies, but her, jogging toward me. She stopped about 3 feet from me and laughed quietly at my defensive posture, knowing, I’m sure, the mistake I’d made and finding it silly in a sweet sort of way. I was excited to see her back so soon, and was preparing to ask to what I owed the pleasure, when she took a couple of tentative steps toward me. Those steps brought her eyes into the light, and as always (something I knew instinctually in my dream logic), they took my breath away a little and made me forget what I wanted to say. She had golden eyes, ringed black and flecked with glittering reddish-copper. Dream eyes, in other words. We watched one another, unsure but comfortable, and neither of us moved for a moment. Then she closed the remaining distance between us, reached out a trembling left hand (though whether from the cool air or from nervousness, I’m still not sure), and took my right hand. She simply held it for a moment, and looked into my eyes in an intense and absorbed sort of way that no one had ever looked at me before. She then lifted herself up on her toes (she was 4 or 5 inches shorter than me) and kissed me. It was a movie kiss, perfect in every sense. The night’s chill did not extend to that small surface area of skin that connected us in that too brief moment. The kiss was not forceful, not hurried, not lustful in any way. It was simply an acknowledgement of the bond we had formed so quickly and strongly. It was innocent, intense, and the best kiss I’ve ever had, awake or asleep. She reached up with her right hand, lightly cupped, and gently ran the back of her fingers down the side of my face. The kiss lasted forever, but that wasn’t nearly long enough. When she finally pulled back, I could see her cheeks were flushed, and the burning sensation in my face told me mine were as well. We looked into each other’s eyes again, and despite being dazed by the wonderful kiss we had just shared, I was still overwhelmed by the strength and intelligence and life I saw in her impossibly beautiful eyes. The look lingered only briefly; then, with a quick squeeze of my hand, she turned and jogged back toward her cabin. Not a single word had passed between us the whole time, but we had communicated more deeply than I ever had with any other person. If I sound overblown or overly effusive, it’s only because I’m trying to fully illustrate the beauty of that moment in the dream. I realized, once I’d regained the ability to think coherently, that my lips tingled slightly from the contact we’d shared. I carried this pleasant sensation with me back to my bed, ignoring all entreaties for conversation or a game of spades or Xbox, and fell asleep to dream about the time I knew was to come with her.

And that’s when my alarm went off, awakening me to start my day in the real world. The world where I usually avoided eye-contact with others due to my painful shyness, the world where I couldn’t remember the last time a girl had agreed to go on a D-A-T-E with me, nor the last time I had asked. Sadness hit me in an instant and powerful wave when I realized the beautiful moment was little more than the elaborate stagecraft of my sleeping mind. I lay in my bed, gathering my wits and summoning the courage to rise and face my day, my responsibilities, my life. Finally, I shook off enough of the dream’s vestiges that I could successfully prepare for the next 8 hours of work-a-day life, and I headed to the bathroom to shower.

It wasn’t until I was washing my hair that I realized my lips still tingled.