39,596

weird dream this morning. it had been a while since i'd had such a doozy. i was in a bus depot or a train station, sitting on a bench. on the bench opposite were two people with a horrific disease. their skin was disappearing. it was so thin as to be transparent. some of their bones and viscera were transparent as well. the process was uneven over their bodies but i could plainly see their internal organs, their pulsing blood vessels, their ribs, their skulls, the matter of their brains. apparently the condition was extremely painful to boot, as they both seemed to be writhing and convulsing with agony, a bit like the demons in this movie. perhaps their virtual skinlessness allowed entry of passing contaminants in the air. (they didn't look like the woman to the left there; i don't know why i added that image.) the knowledge came to me that i too might have this disease, whatever it was. evidently, laboratory tests were pending. i was gripped with the terrible fear that i had contracted this horrific ailment and that my days were numbered. symptoms would be manifesting imminently.

then the dream turned to jack bauer of "24"; he was working in the depot, unpacking magazines from those plastic double-hinged bins (his were orange) and stacking them on the racks at the newsstand. he had been fired again from the counter-terrorism unit in los angeles. it was very sad for me to see him so reduced (i used to have the job he had in this dream, though not at a bus depot), but he did not appear dejected. au contraire. he was enthusiastic about his chances for getting back to his (sometimes) government- sanctioned cruel interrogation techniqes and daredevil rescues made famous by that hailed television program.

anyway. then i woke up. and did a bit of writing. the writing is going all right. just over 10,000 words to go. i'm in pretty good shape. although i sometimes think i'm taking the whole thing a bit too seriously. there is a local message board on the nanowrimo site talking about how to elevate word counts by never using contractions, by elaborate and unnecessarily descriptive passages, by use of the passive voice, etc. i confess i have disdain for these tricks. i am actually trying to write a decent story. i know it's not really a decent story, my story, so perhaps i'm simply foolish, but i like to think it has the potential to be a decent story, some day.

and tomorrow's thanksgiving. how about that? i have a three-day weekend: tomorrow, friday, and saturday. yay. tomorrow it's just me and kara. we'll make a fire in our little wood stove thing. we're eating hens, stuffing, potatoes, and brussel(s) sprouts. we have a couple of bottles of wine. we have apple pie and vanilla ice cream. we'll eat. we'll listen to arlo guthrie's "alice's restaurant" while we do so, and we'll surely sing along with the four-part harmony. we might watch a movie or two. (i'll do some writing in the morning.)

and it's 43 years today since jfk was killed. incidentally. and robert altman died the day before yesterday. those items are probably not actually related. but i'm not particularly happy about either.