Just open the window, already!

So this website developer has a neat little tool that tracks where my readers come from, and it surprised me greatly to learn that I have a fairly regular audience in the Maldives, Russia, and even Turkey.  Holla, you guys!

Then of course I worried because some of the stuff I've chosen to write about on here offers a scary insight into how my brain works (or doesn't).  But they keep coming back, so they mustn't mind, right?  Perhaps it's nice to know there's always someone out there weirder than you are.  So today's post is another exhibition of weirdness, dedicated to my friends in the far-flung lands.

There have been some germs going around our office lately and people have been dropping like flies.  And not just for a day or two either.  When they succumb to the latest strain of cold/flu, they are down for the count.  I don't know whether it's a cold brewing, or just because I slept with my windows closed last night and my room got super-stuffy, but my subsconscious went on the rampage last night.  My dream wasn't as disturbing as the one I had the other night, but it still woke me up at 2am.  And I really hate that.

Last night's dream was one of those that chopped and changed all over the place, but it was still in full and living colour, as all my dreams are.  The majority of this dream took place in a bar and I was there with a guy from my previous job, and a girl I used to be best friends with a million years ago.  In my real life, they don't even know each other exists, but in this dream we all knew each other (but I could tell we hadn't seen each other in a while).

I'm not sure what the guy was up to, but after we had left school the girl had become a primary school teacher, so while we were sitting at the table in the bar she was grading the kids' schoolwork.  People in the bar kept coming up to me and asking if I was feeling okay.  I told them I was fine of course, and neither of my friends reacted so I wasn't sure what was going on.

Then one of the guys from the bar gave me back my digital camera and no kidding, there were over 400 photos on there.  I slowly went back through them, and it was all very much like those photo montages at the end of "The Hangover" movies.  In my dream I was looking down at myself, scrolling through the images and cringing at seeing myself in all these compromising and horrible photos, and I couldn't remember any of it happening.  There was me falling off the bar; me having my knee bandaged by the barman (presumably this prompted the earlier concern of the patrons); me dancing with friends I literally haven't seen in twenty years; me leading a conga line; and finally, me fast asleep at the bar as the party rages on around me.

Now I don't need a dream dictionary to interpret the symbolism in this one. But what intrigued me was why my subconscious chose those two people to be in the dream with me.  In life, they're polar opposites and would never have anything in common (other than knowing me).   And even then, I haven't seen either of them in a really long time, and yet there they were in my mind.  Weird.

When I woke up at 2am and finally opened the window, I managed to fall back to sleep and left the bar-dream behind.  My next dream was about playing with my dog back home in Australia.  A good puppy dream.  At last.