N suggests cures for writer's block:

-Watch a lot of anime
-Fix a bike
-Watch Macgyver
-Actually consume laxatives
-Listen to some music

two dreams about friends.

One is about Meredith, at College Place. I go to visit with someone else who is showing me her life. she has things up on the walls about her next trips - she takes annual trips with friends and plans them down to the last detail. I see that she has nothing else in her life. she's very pale and dry, almost corpse-like, with painfully dry lips.

the other involves a boat trip or bus trip, by the coast in south america, we see a house that has iced over - more like a silo sitting in the water. Katrina's there and cuddling me, it's sweet and lovely. 

Dreamed about a boarding house. There's an older woman leaving - some kind of drama around this. She's beautifully groomed. I think I have to try to sort out the drama and convince her to stay, even though I don't really know what's going on, it's not my job, she doesn't really relate to me. There's a large and (to me) very special, valuable pack of cards of a particular type, sealed. I'm excited about them but she's not.

dream-words: adoption - witness/witless - Red Lakes - Victoria

---

We're staying at LA's for her birthday weekend. I've forgotten to get her a present. I want to have a shower so I hop in - she's already put it on - I'm wearing underpants, I start to pee in the shower - she comes to hop in - she put it on for her and not me - I get out to let her have it and I dribble pee on the floor - swipe it with my foot - I'm in the toilet room sitting on the toilet by the window, I try to pull the clear patterned shower curtain across the window it's very short. There's a public swimming pool outside, kids gather to start watching me - I try to make it more private. I go into the bedroom where everyone is taking a nap. I pat a guy's head because I think it must be Nic but I realise she has three other guests and none of them are Nic. she's asleep in the next room. I didn't realise she was going to have guests other than me, that it's a big weekend and they've brought presents. I start to massage her feet, that at least is nice for her. 

I dream we're living with my parents, it's a split-level house. To get to work in the mornings I have to go through my parents' bedroom. I wake up, I'm grumpy, I'm going through, maybe that's where I get dressed in the mornings. Nic's already up and about. He's left my vibrators on mum's bed or near there. I'm irritated with him, it's a privacy violation and a dumb idea but then I start thinking maybe I'm grumpy because I haven't come for ages. I realise there's a Hitachi Magic Wand there which I've never bothered using because I'm irritated with him about sex toys. So I decide to use it. I lie down and start figuring it out - it has a panel with a music selection on the back, headphones, all kinds of attachments and gadgetry.

As I'm figuring it out my mum walks in. I'm surrounded by toys and lube, it's obvious what I'm doing. I put my hands out to cover all that and say something really grumpy. Nic has walked in after her and is delighted that I was going to use it and finds all this really funny. My mum has walked off, either mutually embarrassed and annoyed at me for the violation or pissed off that I'm being so grumpy. I'm annoyed and humiliated. I walk up to the next (split) level to continue getting ready for work and my brother is in one of the bedrooms, he's young (a teenager) and slim and Asian. He tells me about once when the same thing happened to him and I'm so grateful, it makes me feel heaps better. 

Dreamed of an African-American man, thick-set and with a short beard, walking in jeans and a black turtle-neck beside the pine plantations on the way into Taupo, near the flowering gorse.
-

Dreamed that I was consulting with a student, she wants to write an essay on a particular aspect of South African history. She's written an abstract, it's quite a well defined thesis. She's asking me what grade she would get for that sort of essay. I say it depends how well she develops the argument and how thorough and precise she is with her historical detail but the essay has a lot of potential. She says could it even be an A-? I say yes, trying to figure out how to tell her it could be an A if she works hard on it, but without encouraging her to have expectations for the grading.

I go on to lunch with my colleagues, which is in a large marquee. I'm talking to one of my colleagues about this, telling the story with irritation, rolling my eyes that she'd wanted to know the grade before writing the essay but maybe not saying that clearly. My colleague indicates something to me - I turn around and the student is beside me. I am embarrassed. I try to pick up the conversation with her about the essay again, tell her I think it will be good, and she's polite but I know she'd overheard and is upset and annoyed. Eventually I say something like - you talk about these things to let off pressure at work but it doesn't necessarily indicate what you really think. What I really think is that the essay has a lot of potential. She nods and seems to accept that.

Then I'm trying to get food. One colleague wants something to cool his mouth; he's vegetarian and maybe he's eaten some chili. I indicate a couple of salads, including a tomato salad. In looking for vegetarian food I end up with half a roll of compressed spinach on my plate. I have to move this away from my boss's backside, which is inadvertently very close to it. Then I'm looking for other food for myself and others.

Somewhere in there are two versions of the "seed of life" pattern, one only in outline and one more filled in, but a little further out of sight.