2003-03-11 - 8:38 a.m.

Huh? My Windows clock says 3:08 am. But but.. it's 8:10 am, really.

Anyway, I'm up early and would you believe it? I'm drinking a glass of orange juice and writing a diary entry before my shower :o) Just like old days.. and it feels.. nice. Familiar. Positive.

Anyway, haha you're going to laugh when you read the next bit because I woke up after an extremely disturbing dream and those are incongruous thoughts to be starting this entry with. Just the way my mind works I guess.

The dream sketch started out familiar. I was in a golf place that I've been to several times before, I'm guessing approximately two years ago. It's the strangest idea for golf you ever saw because it's like it's inside an old house, but a lot bigger. Anyway, I was there with some friend and I started playing but realized I'd forgotten my clubs, so I went back to get them while she went a head to the next hole. The way back was confusing as hell (again, just like the old dream) and not only that but the passageways were so small at some points I had to crawl on my belly. Come to think of it, one passage reminded me of a skulk vent in ns_bast haha.

At one point, I had gone the wrong way and ended up at an unused passage where there was an elaborate set-up to deter people from proceeding. There was a big warning sign that I just had to peek past and sure enough there was some nasty machine with whirring blades just on the other side of some identically nasty pit that looked like it went down hundreds of feet and had a few old boards laying haphazardly across the entrance. Not very inviting, so I turned back. I eventually got back to the golf game, which I have to describe because it's just so weird. Like I said, you're in an old house, and in this particular "course", the first tee is at the top of the house. I watched a guy tee off and he hit the ball off the wall, around the corner, and down some stairs (he'd played there before). I stood at the stop of a stairwell and watched and listened as the ball proceeded along the hole and got to the bottom floor (4 in this case) which was a great shot, I gathered.

There was a bit more to the house golf part but nothing worth writing, mostly about me stuffing my coat into the bag and other things that seemed important at the time, but the next thing I "saw" in my dream was just astounding.

I was watching golf on tv now. I don't know if I knew this right away, but I was, and I was sitting in a room with a few other people. In the game, some dude had made a terrible shot and gone from having a great hole to having no shot at all to getting the ball near the hole or something. So the commentator said, anyway. It was so weirdly accurate, too, with the same camera angles showing the hole and then an above view of the green where the guy's ball was behind a tree and all the while the commentator going on in that quiet golf drone. Ohhhh yeah another little bit came back. There were two guys, both very near the other. The guy nearest the hole made his chip (and the point of view was a few feet in front of him, right on the ground, so it looked like the chip came flying toward the camera sort of). Here it starts to get strange because the other guy just behind him (like 2 feet) hit his chip a split second after, where normally they wait a while. So from the point of view of the camera, you see these two chips and these two balls come flying at the camera on identical paths and bounce a few times.

At this point, I start saying something along the lines of "that's strange, you figure he'd have waited so he could see where the first guy's ball would go" but the last half of the sentence is forgotten or made unimportant by the weird images on the screen. It looks like orange-y green sponge material or something on the green and the announcer says "it's in the hole!" and "it's in the hole!" again, and I think what the heck, that can't be, and I'm watching these balls and don't see a hole at all, just this strange orange stuff that seems to be spreading. It's like the green is dissolving into brighter and brighter orange stuff. Then it hits me. The orange stuff is lava, and the centre of the green is just becoming a pit of lava. They are on the island of Hawaii btw, I "remember" at this point. Now, I have a collection of lava movies so I do have a good idea of what on of these melting-away land "eruptions" looks like, so the thing proceeds quite realistically. This is all in the space of seconds after the balls were hit.

So the balls have disappeared and the camera pans out a bit, now televising this eruption. The announces is mumbling something about hoping everyone is safe in his quiet golf drone. The people around aren't running.. there's no point because either they are going to get it or nothing is going to happen to them. Then, just like in real life, the eruption intensifies dramatically. The area of land affected grows quickly, to well past the green, and the famous golfers who were on the green literally sink down into the lava. I remember being so shocked that these golfers had just died, that people were being scorched alive by lava on tv. My mind's eye was so glued to that image because I had no idea how much worse it would get. The camera kept panning out and then it happened.. the center got suddenly bright and a large section of land just melted away, with hundreds of people caught unawares. My hand was covering my mouth, I was thinking.. "My god, all those people".

The camera panned out more and you could see this slowly intensifying lava pit erupting, oozing, and I was starting to wonder if the whole island would go, if the camera would get it next and the picture would just wink out to static. I couldn't do anything but stare in shock at the image. Then, it faded to black and I thought that the network had done it, and woke up.

What a feeling. A reminder that nothing is safe, that we just assume the world will remain a benevolent support system for us. I'm glad I live on the Canadian shield because if I was living in Hawaii I would have freaked I think.

I wish I could link to the particular lava movie I'm thinking of that I have on my computer. I signed up for a Gold membership 4 days ago but PayPal unfortunately has to bill my membership number to my credit card company and then I have to wait for it to show up on my bill before I can activate my account. It sucks that so many people are so greedy that they think it's a good idea to hack credit cards and make life so much harder for the rest of us. Besides, the video would take up too much of my space I'm sure. But it's really freaky, and some day I'd like to link to it.

Ok, I'm spent, baybee. Time for a shower.

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