The Omens

It's all for you, Damien!First off, unrelated to everything else but I want to mention it: everybody check out the Child’s Play Charity. They’ve done a good job with it, they’ve added a bunch of recipients for this round, and it couldn’t be easier to donate. (Since it’s through Amazon, it’s actually kind of fun to donate, because you see what you’re getting and it feels like you’re shopping). Anybody who’s reading this and is the type of person who would be getting me a Christmas gift, make a donation to the Oakland Children’s Hospital instead. And everybody else, consider making a donation anyway.

Now: It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious, or the last 24 hours would be creeping me out. Last night, I had a dream that scared the hell out of me. It’s pretty embarrassing, because I know exactly what caused it — falling asleep right after watching “Heroes.” I’m hooked on the series, I’ll admit, but it’s still just not a good enough show to be working its way into my subconscious.

The dream started with me outside my apartment. I get picked up by a taxi. The driver takes off with tires squealing and he’s cracking jokes, so I’m thinking it was going to be a wacky adventure dream. Then I notice that all the lights on the street are out. The cab stops and picks up the political brother guy, who sits in the front and starts cracking jokes with the driver. I point out that the car’s headlights are off, but they ignore me and the car takes off again.

We’re headed up a hill, where there’s a road construction sign and a ramp for cars to jump over the construction if they’re in a hurry. I start yelling at the driver to turn on his lights, and he says they don’t work, none of the lights in the city work. I say that it must be because of an electro-magnetic pulse, but then why is the car still working? Right then the car’s engine goes dead at the top of the hill, and we sit there for a second. I’m about to turn around to look behind me, but suddenly there’s an orange light bright as daylight covering everything. I realize that somebody’s dropped a nuclear bomb at the bottom of the hill behind City Hall. Everything is still silent as we wait for the blast to hit us. Then I hear a sound like an oncoming train, I feel the fillings melting out of my back teeth, and I sit straight up in bed, wide awake, all TV-movie style.

I had jumped out of bed, gotten fully dressed, put on my shoes, and was standing in the living room before I was even fully awake. It’s your typical nuclear apocalypse unease dream, common to anybody around my age who grew up during the Reagan Administration and the airing of The Day After. I wouldn’t even have thought much of it, if it hadn’t been for the bird this afternoon.

A bird got in the house and started flying around the living room. We eventually chased it out a window, but still it was just creepy. It would have been a lot creepier if the bird hadn’t shit on me in mid-flight; that just made it annoying. I don’t know what the folklore is around having a bird fly in the house and take a dump on you, other than “you will be in the bathroom cussing and re-washing your hair within the hour.”