and this is why i shouldn't eat honey dijon kettle chips and a cookie right before going to bed.

i had this dream in which i was visiting with a dear friend, and we were somewhere in the jungle where she was living. one of her other friends was there, and she and i were looking around at our friend's furniture and belongings. in the middle of the jungle, in a little clearing, she had a huge inflatable couch, and also an enormous bunk bed that was covered in inflatable flowers. it was very strange.

and then we were at some sort of campground, and then the boy who i dated in high school and i were riding mountain bikes up a big hill, and his younger cousins found a bright orange car. it was made of paper mache, i think, because when they touched the bumper, it started to spin and spin and eventually flipped upside down into a depression in the road.

and then we had to run from the police. we ran and ran (and at that point, i woke up a little bit, realized i didn't really have to run from the police [although i had been really scared up until then], went back to sleep, considered walking for a bit, but then decided that i don't get enough exercise anyway because of the soul-crushing office job, and went back to running, which had really become more of a full-body upright swim through foam resembling vanilla pudding.)

we reached a campsite, which had apparently been ours, and hid in tents, but then decided almost immediately that we had to leave, and that we had to pack and bring everything with us. (we were still running from the police at this time.) we were furiously throwing things into bags, and trying to disassemble the tent and get everything into cars as fast as we could, and there were a lot of people with us.

then i ended up going over to this huge wagon and talking to the people there. it seems that two women who had been friends for a long time had always dreamed of owning a costume business. it hadn't really seemed like it was going to work out, but then one day one woman decided that they were going to do it after all, and they would start off with a bang by duplicating the costumes of the fire dancers in labyrinth. (you know, the awesome movie from 1986 starring jennifer connelly and david bowie's pants?) okay, okay, here are the fire dancers doing "chilly down," their song from the movie:



anyway, only one of the women had stayed with the costume company, but she had this huge wooden wagon full of costumes and clothing and jewelry and hats and accessories of all kinds, including the fire dancer costumes that had started it all off. because we were all trying to get away from whatever was chasing us all (i don't think it was really the police anymore), she had decided to give away a bunch of her stuff, starting with the fire dancer costumes. i really wanted one, for some reason, but i felt bad taking it since it was such a complicated costume. (they really did look like they did in the movie.) then there was a bunch of awkwardness because i couldn't find it, and she kept telling me to look for it, but they were all gone, and we were both very confused.

then i started to pack other things there, because i thought she wanted me to, but then i wasn't sure, and she had a little boy there who seemed kind of confused and frightened, and i was worried about him but i wasn't sure what i could really do.

and then i was looking at old zip disks (thanks, brother bear!) and found a very, very old journal that i had written in college all about a mean boyfriend, and i was so sad to see how much i had cared about him and how much i had overlooked in trying to be happy with him.

and then i woke up.

ps: check out this awesome video! it's a clip from the making of the labyrinth about the fire dancers scene. remember, dudes, they were doing all this during the 80's, back when movies had to really happen and they couldn't be created in a lab. amazing.