1. My friend Joe and I are walking in the woods (Joe is someone invented by my subconscious). We're some sort of gypsy people who leech off of others, a la The Riches. However, right now, we're wandering through the woods and we're getting concerned. Nothing looks familiar, and we can't find a path or anything to follow. I'm getting disoriented very quickly; everything looks the same in this area of woods. There are many animals in these woods. I see a group of monkeys about the size of house cats playing around, and I want to mess with them. As soon as I grab one, they all begin screeching and clawing at me violently. Joe and I work together to pull the attacking monkeys off me, and we have to sprint away to avoid further attack. As a result, we're now really lost. A few unnerving minutes pass, and finally we see a group of people walking through the forest. We follow at a distance, and they lead us to a clearing in the woods, in front of which is a paved road and a row of houses -- a normal city street.

We join the group of 20-odd people. They are headed to the waterfront and board a large cruise boat. We soon learn that we're going on a cruise with other students from Alaska to Vanilla (In my dream state, Vanilla was an actual place name). Joe and I find it easy to assimilate with the other students, as we're the appropriate age and have similar interests. We have no problem convincing everyone that we, too, have dropped several thousand dollars on a cruise dream vacation. I find myself very attracted to my friend, Joe, and we share some picturesque smooches on the deck of the ship (think Titanic, without the tragedy part).

When we reach the next port o' call, the people in charge announce that they're going to go through our payment vouchers individually. We'll need proof of payment, photo ID, and proof of vaccination (I'm not sure exactly what disease we were planning to catch in Alaska, but whatever). Since Joe and I have none of the above, we invent a scheme to get off of the boat. I invent a sob story about my family and have the head woman in tears. She lets Joe and I go without a hitch. We're disappointed that we have to miss out on this amazing-sounding cruise with some great fellow travelers. Joe and I resolve to have a better back story and forged papers the next time we board a cruise ship.

2. I had another dream starring my family, but I only have fragments:
- My dad lines up all of the debit cards of all my family members in a row on a table. Mine is missing, and I'm distraught. I go on a mad search for the card. It turns up eventually.
- My entire family is being towed behind a large motorboat. We're going out to some island owned by a family friend.
- This "family friend" has some sort of plot to kidnap us and force us into a life of hard labor / sex slavery. We foil the plot, of course.

1. I'm at home and Mama tells me that Laura and Emily are going on this cool canoe trip. It's been organized through my old high school somehow and, from the sound of it, the trip's going to be a couple of days long. She asks me if I'd like to go. I haven't been in a canoe for a while, and this trip sounds like a great idea. I get busy packing for the trip. Among the items packed are half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and my pink bikini (which seems ill-suited for use on a canoe trip). Everything's packed in this black backpack that I bought at Afterthoughts when I was a kid.

Anyway, we get to the launch point and there's a handful of kids and our guides there. For some reason, someone brought a monkey with us. This monkey is the polar opposite of the gorilla in the last post; he's playful and friendly and just mischievous enough to keep us interested but not piss us off. I'm really into the idea of this trip and am ready to get rolling. Just then, my mom asks me if I brought the money for the trip. She drops this bomb on me that the canoe trip costs $1700. Since I definitely don't feel like emptying my checking account for a trip I thought was free, I can't go. Laura, Emily, and the monkey push off and leave me.

2. I am in the Sparta library (I haven't been there in years, on account of I owe them a chunk of change in fines from high school). I walk into a side room that's used for meetings. In the room are a dozen or so naked people, mostly couples. They're engaging in a raucous partner-swapping orgy. I'm not really into the whole orgy scene, but I do see one guy I'm attracted to. He's delivering a news broadcast in the corner of the room and looks suspiciously like the guy who played Doogie Howser, MD. While he's on camera, I go under his desk and begin having sex with him (I don't understand the mechanics of this, either). I'm amazed at his composure; he continues to deliver the news without much ado. Fast forward a few minutes, and we're all dressed, sitting in on a Q&A session for the people who organized the orgy. They're asking questions to its patrons -- what did you like, what didn't you like, etc. A woman gives me her business card and says that we have to do this again sometime. She looks like one of the women on Real Housewives of Orange County, but the name on her business card is the same as the name of the dean of students here.

I go upstairs in the library and look for a journal article about Dickens. They keep all the journals behind the desk in the library, and I'm struck at how few there are here compared with the libraries at the UW. Instead of my article, the librarian mistakenly hands me a stack of papers that Kori wrote in middle school. Included is the one she wrote about the kid who painted his car with a illustrated version of "American Pie", including "The day the music died" scrawled over the hood. I'm excited to show the papers to Kori, but the librarian won't let me keep them, says they're a matter of public record now. I resolve to break into the library later and get them.

This is a rehash from a few nights ago.

I am in my house in Sparta. Much to our surprise, we find a baby gorilla in the house. It's about the size and weight of an average three-year-old. I'm pretty excited when we find this animal, as the primates on TV always seem like they'd be fun to play with. However, as soon as we pick this baby gorilla up, we realize it's going to be no picnic to deal with him. He's scratching and clawing at us, and as he squirms it becomes evident that he's not going to be a pleasant pet. We decide to leave him outside the house, which we manage to do with some difficulty. A few minutes later, we find another baby gorilla inside the house. This second animal is about as much trouble as the first to banish outside. Additionally, this gets us worried that mama gorilla has made the house her stomping grounds. As anyone who's seen a nature channel special on mothers and their young knows, this would be a bad situation, especially as we've forcibly removed several gorilla toddlers from the area. This ends up being an unfounded worry, however; we see mama gorilla playing with her babies outside a few minutes later. We then go around the house, locking all windows and doors. The gorillas have gotten much better at manipulating door handles and we don't want them getting in again.

I woke up several times during this night and therefore had a couple of unrelated dreams. One of them involved me being a member of SWAT about to stage a tactical assault on a building. Here's another, which I've got a little more detail on.

Scott and I are in some tropical city on the ocean, possibly in Mexico. Neither of us speak the native language. We're walking around the city for a while, and then we decide to head to the beach to mingle with people. It's dusk, and the beach has become a gathering point for a bunch of out-of-towners. We find a group of 4-5 extremely attractive people (a mix of male and female) and approach them. They're English speakers, and we are quickly accepted and assimilated into their group. I'm feeling like these modelesque people are out of our league, but we go with the flow and as the sun sets, we run into the water for a little dip.