Around Town

Once again I was hanging out with my parents, and this time with my boyfriend. We were going to some sort of college sporting event--maybe football. It was fairly raucous and involved a lot of undergraduates. There were a few sort of closet-structures around, and I took a chair from one labeled "Communications."

As we were leaving the event (about which I don't remember anything), I realized that I hadn't returned the Communications chair, and I felt terrible. I had the impression that different departments sponsored these chairs as a fundraising opportunity at the games.

We strolled happily through a very nice downtown-type area, which I realized, upon later analysis, was an amalgamation of all my generic dream cities. I think it was mostly supposed to be Minneapolis, though, and I was pointing out various areas of town and businesses.

And then we stopped at a laundromat near a thrift store. For some reason, my parents (or were they my grandparents by then?) needed to use a laundromat. I started poking around the thrift store, having been enticed by shirts in the window that were on sale for $0.50. I picked up a lime green polo, and was going to get it for fifty cents, when I looked at it more closely, realized it was pilled, and decided I didn't want it even for that price.

At some point, I realized the store was actually closed and that I couldn't buy anything. The two women who ran it were rearranging and pricing things, but weren't willing to ring up any purchases. They had apparently just opened the store, and I thought it was pretty cool that they were privately running a thrift store to help the community, and not to have some chichi boutique.

Disturbingly, however, now it was my ex-boyfriend who was hanging around in the store. We seemed to be attempting to mutually avoid each other, but then he was lingering closer and started to talk to me. I turned and walked away. I woke up with one of those lingering gross feelings.

building! exploded!

i was at a roof-top party in downtown orlando. it was nighttime and it was a family-type party, or maybe a church family type party. my family was there but they were mingled in with everyone else. i was on the far side of the rooftop playing with a group of little kids. we had music blaring and we were dancing around and being all silly and jovial.

then, i caught a glimpse of something strange out of the corner of my eye. it was the sunbank building (i'm not even sure if it's still called 'sunbank' but it's the building with the pyramids on top that my old architecture firm employer's office is in) that was about a 1/2 mile away. i'm not sure why it caught my eye but i immediately knew that something bad was about to happen.

then, the building exploded. it was very loud and dramatic. and THEN the rest of downtown began to ripple like an ocean wave as a result of the explosion. the ripple was heading in our direction and i knew that when it hit us it would have terrible effects. i quickly grabbed the children around me and huddled into a corner with them waiting for the destruction. but the ripple stopped short of hitting us. it knocked out all of the power in the city and there was screaming and chaos all around but those of us on the rooftop were safe.