I woke up just now very upset... I had a very vivid dream that I forced myself out of.

The dream starts in an apartment, and someone in that apartment is telling me how truly talented people are always crazy. He then began discussing a woman who could speak french, and then about this same woman's painting, and how it wasn't even what she was most amazing at. I can't remember (now) what she was supposedly best at. In the dream, I recognized the art work as my neighbor's, Caitlin's. We're a little older in the dream. Some things had changed.

I identify the art to the man as Caitlins, and return to working on my own painting. Caitlin is there now. It begins to rain, and the paintings begin to become wet, both caitlin's and I's. Shes there, and faces appear in the paintings that are getting rained on. Its beautiful, unintentional, and lovely.

The dream itself feels like complete reality. There is something going on across the way, in the dream, that requires caitlin and I's attention. I immediatly fear the worst, that something's happened to ashley. I think, in the dream, that she's dead. We run to where the ambulances are. Dream Caitlin is very worried, too.

We get there, things are fine, and the homes that have the emergency are rows of trailers, not unlike the trailer parks I recall from my youth. Caitlin chats up the firefighter, I chat up the other, nothings wrong. I realize I can't remember anything from Real Now to Dream Present Day (the dream, again, is in the future).

The dream goes on, I don't remember now for how long, and I'm now with Caitlin's mom. We're having an intimate time together, the three of us, I think over dinner. I confess that I may need a shrink. I also admit that I don't remember the past four months or so. Not a thing.

I ask them to tell me what happened, what had transpired in the time that I'd lost.

Her mom worries that it will upset me greatly. She, in the dream, is very close to me apparently.

I ask what happened, what I was missing.

They agree it might be time to tell me.

Caitlin hesitantly tells me that a very close friend betrays me. I am told I have nothing to worry about anymore. She tells me it happens on Feburary 22nd. I, in the dream, think thats Mark's birthday. She doesn't confirm or deny anything. She relates that I fell off crystal wagon, hard, and that I'm lucky to be alive. She also tells me that I don't have anything to worry about anymore. I ask if its what I fear, and she says yes. I think that means (in the dream) that I'm HIV +. I, in the dream, get upset, and she tells me that I am just plain lucky to be alive. It is implied that the betrayal and the HIV are related, I believe.

I realize, in the dream, that this can't be real. That I can't have lost THAT much time. I force myself to wake up, and I do.

I go to the kitchen, now in real life, and its flooding. At some point I left the kitchen sink on, or I slept walk and did it.

Weird, right?

Do I start fearing Feb 22?

Making efforts to be dirtier than Anna Nicole at the generous geriatrics nursing home, the Mid City Market directly below me has been indundated by something a little unpleasent. Something a little gross. Hell, lets just come out with it: I've shit on the market. Yes, kiddies, the minute you give me running water again, I go and break the pipes. The kitchen of the fishies store is now filled with floaters of a different kind.

The plumber came on an emergency call at like 5 in the afternoon this past Wednesday and I was just getting ready for my wednesday shift at the 'prov. He comes in, decides there ain't much he can do, and goes along his way. Friday morning, my property manager woke me up by coming into the apartment with three plumbers. My boxer clad ass, sexy at any given minute, was up and moving with out an ounce of frazzle. The good mood and sexy legs, not fear and reprimands, may have been what I remember for that first forty-five seconds, cause I somehow managed to put the bong and weed away the night before. Heck, the property manager even said he like what I'd done with the walls (painting was a bit of a no-no).

And, also luckily, there weren't any strange boys in my bed and there certainly weren't any lesbians on my couch. Pretty much the cleanest and emptiest you'll find my house, all things being even. There wasn't even a straight boy in the bar!

There has been a sketchy-scary in my neighborhood harassing me for about the past week. I'd say he's roughly 39, looks 29, and is hella ripped, if on the lean side. His body is developed enough, and he's shirtless in the neighborhodd enough for me to have noticed, that I can't imagine he got that way outside of a gym. I believe him to be homeless, and with that said, I see him three or four times a day. He's been threatening, verbally abusive, sexually offensive, and just downright scary on more than a couple of occasions. We've had a yelling match (or two) and for the past few nights I've carried my mace securely in my freehand, safety off.

I shoot off my mouth and have to back it up-- he doesn't get away with talking shit to me, but I'm not out to pick a fight. I don't want to get fucking stabbed.

Last night he apologized to me on my walk home from Geoff's. Weird. He thinks we run into each other too often to have animosity. I don't disagree, and appreciated the sentiment, even if I'm still scared shitless. How do you take something like that at face value?

You fucking don't.

We ran into each other once again today while I was out running errands. He asked me, "Do you wanna hook up?" "No," I replied, not into fucking those that scare me (excluding for now the empirical evidence that proves otherwise). "It doesn't have to be sexual," he countered, finally saying "Do you place chess?" I again answered no, and told him that those weren't the kind of things that I was looking for. He wished me luck on finding the things that I was looking for. I wasn't rude or standoffish-- He then hit me up for a dollar, and I gave it, pleased enough that I didn't feel as though he was an immediate threat any longer.

I say "immediate threat" without any sort of color coded Ashcroftian slant, but if there was one, I'd still say that we're on level lemon. I managed to make lemonade once, but I don't doubt that this could still end sour.