I admit to only during a cursory glance online for references on this and found none.

Last night, I had a lengthy dream. Not uncommon certainly, though it might be the first time I've had a Tylenol PM to sleep and really remembered my dreams the next day. The real joy of the dream was that I spent a good amount of it flying. Swimming.

I don't have flying dreams. I don't think I ever have had one.

What I do have are swimming dreams — swiming as flying. It started in 2000ish while I was at VCU. For several weeks, I had dreams of being in Pollack (the art building), walking down the hallways, kicking my legs quickly, like treading water and rising off the ground, slowly.

These dreams were common and real. So real, there was a few weeks where I utterly confused if it was reality or a dream. For a while, I wasn't sure if I had the power to fly by treading water through air. I'm not stupid; the dream was so compelling I sincerely couldn't tell if it was real or not.

Then these dreams mostly faded.

The past week or two though, these dreams have returned. Last week though, I found it wasn't simply that the air was like Jello-o to me, able to be overcome because of its thicker viscosity. This time, I found I was actually freestyling through the air, swimming horizontally, flying. Last night, I spent most of the dream in the air.

I spoke to a couple of people at work on Thursday — it turns out that one of my co-workers also has swimming/flying dreams. It's nice to know that I am not alone. But it is still strange.

And I don't understand the timing. I believe in both instances, things were/are good. But beyond a general sense of kicking ass, there isn't a lot in common with these two time periods. But, honestly, I'm so jazzed by these dreams. I really love them.

You might be a parent if, when dripping with chunky vomit that is not your own, it isn’t even your primary concern.

Or, I suppose, you might just be really drunk.

Yep, we got a visit from the Vomit Fairy again. I really hate that guy. Rebekah’s been going all Linda Blair everywhere. I must say that I’m really impressed with the spread she manages to get out of what must logically—if not by appearance—be only a couple of ounces. Poor little thing just looks so stunned when it happens.

Cough. Urp. BLEAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!SplOOOOshh…

That’s been my last 24 hours or so. But it does remind me of a funny travel story. And by funny, I mean horrible and nerve-wracking, but, hey, it happened a couple months ago so I can laugh about it now.

Or at least ride it for a journal entry.

So, back in November, we’re headed to Virginia for a week. Getting the kids into the car takes longer than expected (doesn’t it always? See, we even EXPECT that and STILL it takes longer) and we leave the house at 4:08 instead of 4. Relax, my wife tells me. We could have left at 4:30 and still been on time. My wife, knowing me, has lovingly lied to me about what time we needed to leave. I might have to admit that it is effective, even if duplicitous. Anyway, we’re making our way to the airport as rush hour is getting underway. Rebekah, having just woken up from a nap and it being close to dinner AND having not eaten much for lunch, is hungry. I’d grabbed the bananas on the way out the door because, face it, those suckers weren’t going to last the week. So, she eats one happily in the car seat and Reed has one. A little later, Amy starts in on one and Rebekah starts raising cane from the backseat. She saw Mommy having something and—hey—she didn’t have one! So, presuming she’s still hungry, we give her another banana. And she downs it. Like, we had to make sure she didn’t eat the peel.

We’re on the interstate exchange about ten minutes from the airport when I realize: Oh Shit. Yeah. That’s right. I capitalized it. It was that kind of Shit. We’d forgotten the car seat for the airplane.

Now, for those of you uninitiated in child air travel, ‘car’ seats are actually designed for land yachts. SUVs, minivans and such. Frankly, they’re motherfuckin’ big-ass things. I had to search to find one that would fit behind the driver’s seat rear-facing in our car, a family-sized sedan. Needless to say, these things simply will not fit in an airline seat. So, we’ve got this spare travel seat that is really minimal and fits in the airplane seats. We’d done 30+ flights with this thing without a problem.

Only, now, our problem was that it was still at home.

Shit. (See, still capitalized.)

So, I take the interstate exchange in the other direction back to our house. I am hauling. We do some mental calculations and can just make it back in time to get checked-in at the airport. I take the back, curvy way to our house, skid into the driveway, snag the seat, repack the trunk (shoving a bag on my wife’s lap so everything would fit), hop back in and peel out for the airport.

We’re slinging through the turns (here, my wife refers to me as ‘Mario Andretti’) when a curious sound comes from the seat behind me. I glance up into the baby mirror to catch the first discharge of digesting bananas roll out of her mouth, down her front and into the seat cracks like so much fruit-n-bile lava. Seriously, she only ate two bananas, but it was more like ten that came out. In hindsight, that exchange rate is really good and I might consider feeding her hundred dollar bills next time.

At this point, I pined for the knowledge and skill to pull one of those high-speed, 180 degree turns. We went straight back to the house and dived out of the car. I handed Rebekah to Amy, who sprinted inside, stripped her, hosed her down and re-dressed her. Meanwhile, I began feebly trying to FIND the car seat under that mountain of puked produce while simultaneously trying not to vomit myself. I gave it up as a bad job, yanked the entire car seat out, set it in the garage ("That'll be nice after a week!" I thought aloud), fished out the travel car seat and snapped it in just as Amy was coming out with the clean-if-still-a-bit-damp daughter.

All the while, I’m pretty sure we’re boned regarding our flight. Which is, pretty much, the only flight that will get us to Virginia in time for my Dad’s wedding. Didn’t I mention that part? Yeah. He kind of postponed it from it’s original date especially so we could be there.

As I navigate the traffic, Amy prepares me that we, in fact, might not make our flight. Fortunately, I’m outdriving the feeling of screwed-ness for the moment at least. We, being the engineering types, strategize our attack for arriving at the airport. There’s no way we can all go to long term parking, get out shit on the bus, then get to the terminal, check our bags and make the flight. We decided to go directly to the terminal, drop off everything and I’ll take all the bags and the two kids in, drop off the bags and make my way to the gate/plane while Amy parks the car and hopefully gets to the gate in time, unencumbered by any bags at all and aided by all kinds of uber-traveler first class status.

Though, in retrospect I’m thinking she was secretly hoping to get to fly solo.

Anyhoo, even though it’s about 40 minutes before departure, I’m able to check my bags curbside, whisk the kids through security (and, seriously, my 18-month-old is not a terrorist; why must I take off her shoes? All the dangerous stuff is in the diaper, anyway.), meet Amy and make it to the gate just as they begin boarding.

Oh. And Reed? He slept through the entire ordeal.
 

just bought a plane ticket to l.a. for next fri/sat. i haven't been back in almost 18 months now. seems so long.

i already have a full itinerary, full of silliness, fun, people and places i have missed.

i think this is going to be very good for my mind.

i love airports. i'm sitting in san jose, waiting for my red-eye to nyx. by the time you read this, i will be in the city. but now, at 9.40pm on may 24, i am sitting waiting for a flight on jet blue.

and i love airports. i love people watching. i love wondering how many people i would actually like if i got to know them, as they walk past with their bags. it has to be a small number, but i like to believe that its large. unfairly, the percentage seems tied to attractiveness somehow. i guess none of us wants to be friends with people uglier than we are.

this morning, i've been listening to the old op ivy album, as well as gnr's use your illusion 2. they both hold up much better than i would guess.

what a holiday. i'm still exhausted. it's easier, for now, to perhaps do a carter style list.

crowded planes. sleep dep. burger king's sneak king.* mst3k. broken baggage carousel. super shuttle. misunderstandings. emptying boxes. vomit on a plane. ihop. kilmarnock. moonshine. fried food. christmas lists. eggnog. the sopranos videogame. carter verus carter. petunia, her father and diesel. anna and elizabeth. winning the airplane seat lottery twice. the office season 2. grupreet in sfo. mike's xbox collection. caltrain and bart. wrapping christmas presents. carting food back and forth across the country. tetris ds. cindy, john and ben. a confederate flag and trying to explain why there isn't a reason to fear terrorism. david, melissa and julia. the atlanta airport. seeing jaffrey. mike's moving plans. weight watchers.

* seriously, if you have an xbox, go to burger and, for 4 bucks, buy their 'sneak king' xbox/xbox 360 (same disc for both systems) game. creepy, weird and very amusing, it's worth every penny of the 399 you will spend.

zefrank nailed it today. i woke up an email from roxy about the arrests in britain and couldnt believe the article i was reading.

according to cnn: "The plot was "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale," London's Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said."

what? really? because, from the rest of the article, it appears they were going to hijack 10 planes. granted, thats a really really bad day. im not making light of 3000 lives. (10 planes x 300 people a flight. give or take.) but i can imagine it. its bad. but its not ww3 bad.

bush went on to say that the us is: "at war with Islamic fascists."

thanks bush. 6 years in the white house and you havent learned to make statements that dont insult entire groups of people. why cant you just say that we are fighting terrorists and leave it at that? why bring religion into it?

and now, because of this, i cant bring water on the plane on sat. boingboing makes a great point — the liquids that are being confiscated are simply being poured into plastic tubs before you go through the xray machine. that sounds safe. since we are worried the liquid is harmful, why not dispose of it in the most unsafe way possible?

we are now reacting hysterically over theoretical attacks. and the government says 'be scared' and so we are. where is the line for people who are tired of this type of mentality? can i go hang out with people who behave somewhat rationally about the reality of the world?