Crocheting Friendship

Sometimes I dream about the shows I've been watching or the books I've been reading before I go to sleep. I've even been known to dream that I'm still working after coming home from a late shift, the beep of the drive thru permeating my soul. But I've never dreamed a crochet pattern before.

Last night I was trying to figure out a shell stitch for a mermaid tail I'm planning to make for a Christmas present for my daughter. I kept consulting the pattern, one of the first chart-style patterns I've ever used. Instead of writing out the words, the author of the pattern draws a picture. This is especially useful if you're planning on using a pattern from the other side of the Atlantic; a double crochet in the US is called a treble crochet in the UK, and a US single crochet is a UK double crochet. (Who knows what they call a single crochet over there... and where slip stitches come into it.) This particular pattern was from across the pond, so instead of trying to figure out as I read, I used the picture, with its ovals, plus signs, and Orthodox crosses.

As I worked, I feverishly tried to make sense of what I was seeing; to make the picture into a tangible thing with yarn. I had to understand the symbols on the page, translate them from "someone else"-ish into "me"-ish. I had to make the pattern my own. I worked hard at this until my eyes were drooping. I set the yarn and the three rows or so onto my bedside table.

And the pattern entered my dreams.

I was still seeing a crochet pattern, only I knew that it wasn't a pattern for a mermaid tail. It was a person. It was a person in crochet pattern form, and I was struggling to understand it. Why had it been written that particular way, and was there anything I could do to change it, to help it, to make it better? I tried to understand it while trying to remember that because it wasn't me that I shouldn't place the same expectations on it that I had for myself. It was a different person, with different experiences in life, and it didn't see the world the way I did. I wondered if we would understand each other better if there was a way for me to show it how I saw the world, so it could understand my point of view, and if I could see the reasons why it saw the world the way it did, if that would help me understand why it did the things it did.

It was a weird dream.

Maybe what I should take from it is that getting to know someone new is like trying to read a crochet pattern. First you have to figure out the style of writing used by the person who wrote it, and only then will the information it's trying to convey make sense. Like we don't realize that we're all speaking different languages. It sounds like the same words we speak, but we don't have the same experiences as the person speaking the words, so we can't know what those words really mean to them.

The statement "the dog died today" could mean many different things depending on who said it, who heard it, and the dog in question. Maybe both people hated the dog because it stole their dessert every day and then pooped on their beds. Maybe the dog was their best friend from childhood and had suffered a long illness. Maybe the dog had just turned up on their doorstep a day earlier smelling like it had been rolling in week-dead goose.

Every situation, every word, every interaction is different for every person participating in it. We have to translate if we want to understand. And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it takes a lot of time. Sometimes we want to give up.

But if we don't try to understand, we'll never know. If we put in the effort, the time, if we're willing to learn and see the world through someone else's eyes, then we may end up with something beautiful.

A mermaid tail.

Or a friend.

First Impression: 750 Words

Yesterday I found this fun website called 750 words. It's a free writing tool to help writers set and keep writing goals, and sharpen their skills by practicing them every day. It's got a function that keeps track of how many words you're typing as you type them, and saves your work every couple of seconds. After you're done you never have to look at your writing again, so lots of people use it to journal and get bad feelings out by writing them down.

I have a lot of trouble free writing. I never saw the point. To me, if you're going to write something, you should take a little time and think about what you want to say before getting it down. I like to edit as little as possible. I was the one always getting in trouble during English class because I'd glare at the clock during free writing instead of putting a pencil to the page. "I don't know what I want to write!" I'd protest to my frowning teacher. "Then write THAT!" she'd reply. My glare would grow deeper, because I knew in my heart that writing "I don't know what to write" is a HUGE WASTE OF TIME, and of my writing talent. If you're going to write, write something interesting.

Anyway.

What makes 750 Words even more fun is that when you're finished, it shows you all kinds of stats about your words: how long it took you to get them down, how many breaks you took during that time, and how many words you typed per minute. Then, it shoves eight or nine pie charts in your face, showing you the main feelings of your writing. Yesterday I wrote about a game I'm playing called Neko Atsume (Kitty Collector), and mostly whined about the money mechanics, so my stats for that day say that I was mostly "self-involved." Well, yeah, but it wasn't a bad thing. There was also a chart that informed me that I spent most of my words on the subject of money. I didn't need a colorful pie chart to tell me that, but it's pretty, and I like the font. There are a few bar charts near the bottom of the page that I'm not sure about yet, but since today I'm writing about something completely different, I'm hoping that I'll be able to puzzle them out when I look at my stats from THIS piece.

I had so much fun with the site yesterday that I told my very-busy-doing-National-Novel-Writing-Month writing partner about it so that she could check it out if she wanted to. I don't like to recommend things to people unless I know they're not going to come back to me and say "hey, this thing you told me to check out is crap; why did you tell me about it?"

So that's why I was so disappointed this morning, when I was poking around on the site and saw a teeeeeny tiny bar at the top that said something along the lines of "you're enjoying your 30 day free trial of 750 words!" And I was like... "Um, I'm WHAT?"

Usually when a site makes you pay to use it, they won't let you sign up for any kind of free trial without giving them the goods so that they can start charging you the second your month ticks over. But there was NOTHING about paying after a certain time, or paying at all, when I signed up. Just name, email address, password, make sure your password is right. No check box for a terms of service, making sure I knew what I was getting into, nothing.

I was really looking forward to using the website to get back into the habit of writing every day, since it was super easy for me to fall out of it. And based on some of the things that other users are saying, it's a really fun way to do it... and it gets addicting. "We hook you with the free Flamingo Badge, and you'll be paying us five bucks a month for the Super Squirrel Badge!"

I guess I'll stay... I mean, I do have 30 days. I really enjoyed taking days off of writing, though, and just relaxing on the weekends, back when I was posting every weekday on my blog. If I'm going to pay to write, I'd feel bad taking a day off to relax, even if I needed one.

Also, there's no italics. I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT ITALICS. (Apparently caps lock will have to do.)

I mean, how fun is that?! (Answer: SUPER FUN!!!)

kindle Love

On this day in 2007, Amazon released the first Kindle e-reader, allowing users to download, browse, and ‪‎read ‎ebooks, newspapers, magazines, and other digital media.How has the e-reader affected the way that you read ‪‎books?

From the Writer's Relief facebook page

I saw this post in my facebook feed this morning and stared at the picture for a while. The first kindle I ever held looked exactly like this one, only instead of gray it was white. It had belonged to my husband’s best friend, and he had cracked one corner of the screen (a small crack). So he offered it to us after he ordered a new one. It was still attached to his amazon account, though, and he had all the Dresden Files novels. Since I had already borrowed another friend’s collection of paperbacks to read them the first time, I read them again, and didn’t mind the screen’s cracked corner one bit. I enjoyed highlighting things, getting the definition of a word immediately, and adding notes (the full keyboard was very helpful for this). I’m sure JR enjoys his Tricia-annotated kindle versions of those books now.

Eventually, my husband and I went ahead and purchased our own kindles, to buy ebooks on our own amazon account. We got the cheapest versions, sans-keyboard, and I immediately re-read everything we owned by Jim Butcher so that our versions would have all my highlights and notes. It’s definitely harder to get my thoughts down when I only have an arrow key and “enter,” but the keyboardless version is more compact, and therefore less apt to get its screen cracked if you forgot it was in your back pocket. They’re still pretty delicate, and back-pocket storage is definitely not recommended. I can proudly say that I’m still using my first kindle, while my husband is on his third (admittedly, I was the one who cracked the screen of his first one. The second was all him).

These days, I use my kindle every single day. I reread old favorites and new favorites. I find free versions of classic books and enjoy those for the first time. My favorite thing to do is read a stack of books all at once, a chapter at a time. This is something I definitely can’t do with a hardback; there’s a copy of the Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy next to my bed, but I’d never think of thumbing through it to find the next bit, reading only one chapter, and then putting it down so that I could read a chapter of something else. A tome that heavy has to stay in your lap.

I don’t think I would trade my kindle out for a newer version, unless it was going to be the paperwhite, or something that came with a light attached to the top so I could read it in the dark and not bother my light sensitive husband if I wanted to enjoy books late into the night. I don’t think I’ll ever need a device with a touch screen; buttons suit me just fine. And while it might be nice to have something small to watch movies on while I crochet from the comfort of my own bed, I really enjoy the way I use my kindle now: for books, and only for books.

Joy and Sorrow

We pulled into the parking lot and both glanced around for a space. There wasn’t one. Nick said, “Don’t worry, we have two minutes to spare.”

“Uh, no we don’t,” I replied, pointing at the door to the church, “It must have started at 4 and not 4:30; look.” Well-wishers crowded around the door, making use of bubbles even though the bride and groom were still inside receiving hugs and congratulations from guests. We joined the throng and waited. Soon, Emily, who had not been busy setting up a system for a DJ or a photo booth and had actually made it to the ceremony, came out of the church and I waved her over. She handed me a vial of bubbles and told me how wonderful the ceremony had been, about the vows and how to tell which of the guys standing around were groomsmen: “They have a Power Ranger figurine pinned to their jackets.”

“This is going to be an awesome time,” I said.

“Oh, yeah!” Emily agreed.

A girl came out of the church and joined some of her friends who were standing behind us. Emily discovered some relatives standing on the other side of the sidewalk, and while she was occupied I had nothing to do but listen to the conversations taking place around me (I couldn’t enjoy the bubbles yet; the wind was blowing toward me, and I was already dodging bubbles headed for my face.)

They were talking about her shoes.

“Why did you wear those?” one of her friends asked.

“They’re brand new!” she declared, then admitted, “I’ll probably take them off soon.”

I glanced behind me at the footwear in question: the shiny, six inch taupe heels were definitely not made for dancing. The girl was already uncomfortable, shifting her weight quickly from one foot to the other.

It wasn’t long before all the guests were outside waiting, and the bride and groom made their grand exit. Andrew stopped to kiss his beautiful wife, and the wind had changed directions, so I blew as many bubbles as I could manage.

Nick loitered near his vehicle, clearly waiting for me while I said hello to my friend Li Hui from Chinese class (that’s not really her name, but I called her that for so long that it seems weird to call her anything else; she calls me Pa Li Sha). I wanted to talk more, but we had to get back to the reception venue to make sure everything was ready. “I really hope we have time to catch up later but right now I really have to go!” I told her, smiling at the little one she held.

We booked it back to the banquet hall.

Guests arrived and made use of the photo booth while waiting for the wedding party (who, instead of stopping at a bar for some shots, had gone to a local comic book store for some quick purchases). Among the first to dig into the props was the girl with the new shoes. I was paying attention to some other guests, so I didn’t notice her or her friend until I heard them talking about her feet again.

“Are you sure about those shoes?” he was asking her.

“It’s the first time I’ve worn them!” she said.

“Well, they’re really cute,” I told her.

“Thanks!” she said, bouncing a little. “I’ll probably need to take them off to dance later.”

“You can borrow mine if you want,” I offered, holding out a flip-flopped foot.

“That’s okay,” she laughed, “I’ll be all right, but thanks anyway.”

The wedding party arrived with all the pomp and circumstance that a cheering crowd can give, in addition to a saber arch provided by the groomsmen and bridesmaids (though the swords were slightly mismatched. The best man held a replica of The Sword of Omens from ThunderCats, while the rest held Japanese katana or other replicas).

The night only got more awesome and nerdy from there. After dancing their first dance (to a song from an anime soundtrack which was particularly close to their hearts), Andrew and Vanessa danced Gangnam Style with their friends all in a line facing the tables, as though the dance floor were a stage, and those who had chosen not to dance, the audience. This "stage show" trend continued the whole night, through two Pokémon and a Power Rangers theme song (not to mention Bohemian Rhapsody), and only dissolved during the Cha Cha Slide and the Cupid Shuffle.

Any lull in the music, and, instead of clinking their glasses, people were rolling a big inflatable d20 to determine how the bride and groom would kiss. A Dungeons and Dragons-style roll/action chart was on every table, letting everyone know what to expect. There was an action for every number: a 10 (the “average”) was an Eskimo kiss, while a 20 (the best) was “a kiss to rival the end of The Princess Bride.” Lower rolls had the newlyweds high fiving, fist bumping, or hugging. A few times they had to give each other an awkward sibling hug (lean in, but not too close, one hand on the back, and “pat pat”). On a 1, the person rolling had to go kiss someone else (guess who rolled a 1? Yeah, me. Emily was surprised, and a reply text from Lionsby showed that he didn’t believe us, demanding, “pics or it didn’t happen”).

The guests fresh from Anime NebrasKon were best able to appreciate the movie, anime, and video game references on the signs had I made for the photo booth. I saw several people I knew by sight from the couple of times I attended the anime club when I was in college. And though I didn’t get actually get to talk to them much, Li Hui came over with her family to get in the booth. The girl with the brand new shoes joined them, and I looked at the scrapbook after they went back to sit down, and saw that her name was Jaci. I puzzled for a while over whether it was pronounced like “JC” or like “Jackie,” and thought that it would be cool to get back into the anime crowd, since a lot of them looked like they would be totally awesome people to hang out with.

After such an fun, energetic night, I’m sure everybody needed some time to rest and recuperate. I took a nap in the afternoon and was sleepy the rest of the day, but that didn’t stop me from hopping online and leaving a message for Li Hui on facebook, since she and her husband took their girls home (understandably) early.

I enjoyed looking at pictures that Andrew and Vanessa’s friends and family had already uploaded to facebook. Among them were shots of the pre-wedding 3DS session, several of people dancing, and some even of the pictures that were taken in the photo booth. It made me smile to see that Li Hui’s friend Jaci had snapped a shot of a couple she had taken and put them up, and even made one of them her profile picture.

Right before I went to bed, Emily posted a news article on facebook, along with something about the NebrasKon family “losing another member.” The headline of the article was “Car vs Motorcycle Fatality.” The video on channel 8 hadn’t released the name of the victim, but after some more glancing around on facebook, I found a mutual friend who had linked to her page.

It was Jaci.

I stared at the screen.

“But she was dancing yesterday,” I told it. “She was wearing her brand new shoes and making faces in the photo booth.”

She was 24.

Life is wonderful, amazing, and fun. It’s full of joy and sorrow. I didn’t know her, but Jaci seemed like a great person and a fantastic friend. For those who knew and loved her, I’m sorry for your loss. I hope that soon you forget your pain and remember Jaci laughing, smiling, and taking off her shoes to dance Gangnam Style at Andrew and Vanessa’s wedding.

Can't Stop

In high school my friends and I used to say, “the only time laughing hysterically isn’t fun is when you can’t stop.” As young people, we enjoyed laughing together, sometimes just for laughter’s sake. I don’t have as many of those hysterical laugh attacks as I used to now that I’m an adult. This could just be because I don’t hang out with my high school friends daily like I used to, but I think it’s probably more due to the fact that I am an “adult” now, and I realize that while rolling on the floor laughing may be fun, it doesn’t make me look terribly mature.

But sometimes I can’t help it.

“Madam, this is a glorious hedgehog goulash. I can’t remember ever having had better.”

My husband had to pause the movie.

One witty line from Robert Downy Jr. and I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.

Laughter is good for the soul. People should laugh more. It’s why I like to watch or read comedies: romantic comedies, action movies with plenty of comedy, and stupid movies that have nothing but comedy.

However, since I was sick last week with a cough that I’m still trying to shake, laughing hysterically isn’t really as amusing as it could be. My body reads laughing as “lung upheaval” and the cough thinks it’s a perfect time to join in. So between enjoyable peals of laughter, I had to endure several rounds of coughing. It didn’t stop me from laughing, it just paused my fun for a while.

“I think I changed my mind,” I told my husband as we took a break from the movie to get some ice cream (throat soothing? Yes, but mostly it tastes good). “The only time laughing hysterically isn’t fun is when you can’t stop coughing.”

Fingernail Polish on a Plane

In 2006, I received a voicemail from Samuel L. Jackson.

I hadn’t gotten to my phone in time to answer it, so I put it on speakerphone, and my husband and I stood there and listened as the movie star encouraged us to go see his new movie, Snakes on a Plane. “Stop painting your fingernails over and over and over again,” he admonished me, “go and see my movie.”

I didn’t go see the movie, despite the fact that its star took time out of his busy schedule to call. (Or rather, that one of my friends didn’t want me to miss out on one of the most hilarious movie marketing campaigns ever.)

But to this day, I’m unable to paint my fingernails (or take the fingernail polish off) without thinking of that call.

That's not me on the other end of the line. Probably.
(Found this picture on theurbandaily.com.)

Lord of the Nostalgia

I recently took a backpacking trip behind the couch in my living room to find my DVD copies of the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I found them after spelunking in some boxes. I dusted them off, and plunked them into the PS3 to watch them (because when you don’t have a working DVD player, a 7th generation gaming console will have to do).

There are lots of great things about December. Christmas reunites you with family, and New Year’s Eve with friends. Aside from the holidays, what December reminds me of is my senior year of high school and the first two years of college.

On December 19th, 2001, my best friend Bruce was visiting from the east coast. We went to East Park Theater and stood in line, then found seats next to each other while his parents and brother had to sit several rows behind us.

On December 18th, 2002, we found space in two or three cars and drove across Norfolk and stood in line along with everyone else from school. Afterward, pushing the later dorm curfew that had been stretched just because it was movie night, we gathered back at Sam’s apartment to recap it. Jonathan jumped around making “arrow from the string” noises, pretending to be Legolas sliding down the stairs of Helm’s Deep on a shield, taking out imaginary invading Orcs. A couple of days later at East Park, Schmoove started giggling during a very serious Ent scene and leaned across me to tell Sloan what Jess had quipped to induce his amusement: “Fear the Maple Leaf.”

On December 17th, 2003, Lindy used one kleenex out of the box and I used the rest. There’s nothing more emotionally draining than last stands, heroic rescues, friendships reunited, and Kings restored to their rightful throne.

It’s fun to get out the movies and watch them again, because it reminds me of a time when my friends and I could get together without having to reschedule three or four times. When Lindy and Elizabeth and I played drinking games to Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit (and even knew most of the brown “movie” answers!). When I went to see Two Towers by myself and ran into Forrest and Jason and other Star Wars Classic Card Game players that I’d met in high school. When sitting up talking late into the night in the living room at the guys’ house was a common way to spend an evening. I miss those times.

When the credits roll, I can close my eyes and remember how much fun it was seeing those movies with the people that I love, and treasure the fact that I will get to relive those memories anytime I watch them.

OCTOBIRTHDAY

It’s October. And you know what that means.

OCTOBIRTHDAY

I once asked my friend Matt what his favorite month was. Without stopping to consider, he answered, “October.”

“And why is that?” I followed up sneakily, confident I knew how he would answer.

Make your own basketball for your the Octobirthday/NBA fan
in your life using the recipe for this cake on tasteofhome.com

“Basketball season starts!” he shouted excitedly.

Dumbfounded, I pointed out, “Our birthdays are in October.”

“Eh, who cares,” he answered, “Basketball!”

This conversation occurred when we were 10 or 11 years old, so perhaps this showed not his enthusiasm for sports but his wisdom at such a young age, knowing that we might not always be excited about being another year older. But who knows, maybe today he’s jumping around about counting down the days until the first NBA game of the season instead of remembering that he’s turning 30 (Happy Birthday, Matt!).

October has always been a favorite month for me. Since my Grandma’s birthday is about a week before mine, we’ve always had a family birthday party, where I could be excited that it was my birthday, and the rest of my family could celebrate my Grandma’s birthday while she said it was a party for me. The birthdays of two cousins got added to the Octoparty when I was in junior high, and then when I got married in 2006, I had to head to the calendar to write down my husband’s and mother-in-law’s birthdays in October, too.

October is a GREAT month to be born in, so if your birthday is this month too, here is a birthday high five for you. Happy Octobirthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STELLA!!!

TableTop: Cards Against Humanity

“The main reason I created #Tabletop was to make more gamers. I love it when I see families playing together.” @wilw, April 6, 2013

I’ve seen a lot of advertisements recently for board games. “Have family time with your kids! Play a board game!” they shout. It’s probably just Hasbro trying not to go broke, but it could be that in this world of handheld computers, with everyone paying attention to their smartphones instead of the smart people sitting with them on the couch, a family game night is a great way to reconnect with the people that you love to spend time with.

There are tons of games out there to play with your kids, your friends, or your extended family. Some are a huge production that take hours and hours to set up before you can play, and others need only the players to have a willingness to be silly. Sometimes just watching the game is as fun as playing it; if that sort of thing appeals to you, you’ll want to look into TableTop.

Dungeons & Dragons takes too much time to prep and doesn’t have enough monster-bashing? Try Munchkin, in which you can “Kill the Monsters, Steal the Treasure, Stab Your Buddy.” I’ve played both D&D and Munchkin, and enjoyed both. D&D often has more story and less stabbing, while Munchkin has less story and more stabbing, but they’re both in the same genre, and if you’re pressed for time, Munchkin is the way to go. (If you’d rather have both the story and the stabbing, there’s luckily a Munchkin pen & paper RPG made by Steve Jackson Games! I walked in on my regular gaming group playing it once and was astonished to find that they’d never played the card version. Needless to say, we remedied that immediately.)

My husband and I loved watching the TableTop episode that featured Say Anything. It reminded us of a game we play every holiday season with his family, especially the copious laughter and the Star Trek references. (The line, “I think the most confusing thing ever is magnets. Also: juggalos” made me laugh so hard that we had to pause the show and wait for me to stop rolling on the floor before we could finish watching the episode.)

If you’ve never heard of Apples to Apples, I would suggest you acquaint yourself. It’s completely simple and tons of fun. Green cards have words that the red cards can be used to describe, and each person takes a turn choosing which of the red cards everyone else handed in matches the green card the best. It’s fun to laugh at the different random, off the wall things that other players say, and my favorite Apples to Apples quote is from a game I played with my brother and several of our friends in 2005(ish): “Marriage is nothing compared to rust.” I can’t even remember who was judging or what the green card said, just that “marriage” lost out to “rust.” Apples to Apples is an innocent game that can become rather rude depending on your mood and the people you’re playing with.

Cards Against Humanity, however, starts out that way. A co-worker described it to me recently as “Apples to Apples for horrible people.” And that’s not far off from the motto on the CaH website. Cards Against Humanity is free, and last night some friends of mine and I decided to give it a try. Teaming up a Skype voice call with Vassal (“a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games,”) allowed us to play together, even though we were all in different places, trying to keep the volume of our laughter down so that we wouldn’t wake our kids.

I definitely stole this picture from wwdn.

There isn’t a Cards Against Humanity episode of TableTop, perhaps because it’s a show that a lot of people let their children watch, and it can get out of hand very quickly on the “not suitable for those under X” scales. But Wil Wheaton enjoys it, and if you meet him at a convention and bring along a blank card, he’ll make a custom one for you. He often posts pictures of the CaH combinations he’s seen or created on the various social networks he uses and on his blog.

If you’re a horrible person, I recommend Cards Against Humanity. If you’re not a horrible person and like to watch hilarious (and/or nerdy) people play games, I recommend TableTop. If you don’t like to watch or read about board games, then please disregard all of the above.

Infectious Syntax

Having a roommate is awesome. My roommate and I lived together for 2 years. We shared an apartment as well as a place of employment, interests, and a sense of fun. We visited the same websites, watched the same television shows, and loved the same movies. We could play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit together and never have to look at the answers. We had nicknames for each other and could finish one another's sentences.

Most importantly, we shared the same style of speech. I don't mean merely that we both spoke English, but that we used the same kind words, the same sentence structure, so that it if you were talking to one of us on the phone you wouldn't necessarily know which one was which.

After moving away from one another, “Lindy” and I have continued to speak similarly. Every time we get together (which, sadly, isn’t as often as we would like), there’s at least one moment that we say the same thing at the same time.

I always thought that this similarity was because we were together almost all the time, so our way of speaking just naturally mixed. Things that pleased us got the response, “HOORAY!” or “HUZZAH!” and displeasing things were met with “BOO, FISH.”

But I never really knew that I was evangelizing my speech patterns until an internet friend of mine mentioned to me the other day that she had started saying “YAY FOR [whatever]” as well as typing it. I wonder if Lindy has had any converts of her own.

HOORAY FOR INFECTIOUS SYNTAX!

Revenge is a Dish Best Served... in a Dream

Have you ever found an unattended wallet with money inside for the taking? Have you ever accidentally left your wallet and found that someone helped themselves? Have you ever threatened someone with violence until they gave you everything they had that was valuable? Have you ever been robbed in broad daylight?

When I was sixteen, I traveled to Guatemala with my school's Spanish Club. We saw wonderful things, took many showers that were meant to be warm but turned cold halfway through, and shopped like tourists. We visited many awesome places: a tiny town just off the Pan-American highway, a gorgeous lake in the mountains, and an ancient Mayan ruin called Iximche.

Iximche is a big place, with lots of open area dotted with buildings that used to be regal and grand and are now decaying. While we were there, we were allowed to ramble around and scale the tall, thin stairways to see the view from the top of pyramids. I enthusiastically took pictures of everything, stashing the used film in my brand new bag next to a photocopy of my passport, twenty American dollars, several hundred Quetzales, and a delicate teacup with a matching saucer that I’d just purchased as a gift for my mother.

Several minutes later, six other girls and I were walking out of a wooded area nearby when we were accosted by several men who demanded our things. We watched as everything was taken from us, except for Diana, who only had her hair clips to offer and was ignored. My favorite hat, with the crappy sunglasses I loved perched on top, fell to the ground as one of the villains removed my bag from my shoulder. I looked down at the hat, which I had purchased for fifty cents at a garage sale, and the sunglasses, which had been pink when I’d traded for them at a white elephant gift exchange at a school Christmas party but were now black because I’d chipped all the paint off of them, and hoped that since they were worthless, they would go unnoticed. But the man stooped and scooped them up. Everything that I’d had was now gone.

As we rode away from the ruins back to our hotel in the city, one of the girls exclaimed angrily that she couldn’t remember a thing about the culprits, even though her father, a policeman, had trained her to pick every detail out of a scene.

The delinquents were never caught and our possessions were never recovered. There was no chance for revenge or even closure. My favorite hat has been rotting in a ditch somewhere in the western highlands of Guatemala for thirteen years.

Last night I dreamed I was on a long walk across the city with my friend Sam. As we often did on these long walks, we stopped to rest for a bit in a nice air conditioned convenience store before continuing on our way.

It must have been a shady neighborhood, because while we were chatting, a nefarious passerby tried to distract me long enough to make off with my beverage. I was so upset at the attempt that I ended up driving the straw through the bottom of the styrofoam cup and spilling the rest of the drink. Sam made an attempt to calm me down, and we left.

A few blocks later, we were talking, and I reached for my bag to show him something. But then I realized that my bag wasn’t there. Realizing that I must have left it at the last place we stopped, we rushed back to reclaim my possessions, while Sam tried to convince me that they would still be there, safe and whole. I wasn’t convinced, because I had been keeping a quantity of cash in my wallet. Not a ton, but enough to make anyone who is sneaky enough to rifle through my things lucky that they found it.

Sure enough, we reached our former resting place, and there was my bag. I picked it up, a wave of relief flowing over me, but terror striking again when I found my wallet was not inside. The tide of relief crashed on the beach of apprehension once again when I spotted my wallet, but then went back out when I looked inside to find it empty.

Sam tried to be the voice of hope and reason, sure that we could ask someone about it, that we’d get it back, and apologizing for coming through this neighborhood and stopping here to rest in the first place. I was incensed. I was determined that I would find the thief and that they would get what was coming to them.

As luck (or maybe fate) would have it, the cocky, opportunistic person who made off with my possessions came around the corner at that very moment. Not only did he arrive, he immediately started bragging. Seeing me clutching my things in rage, he commented, “oh is that your stuff? Yeah, I’ve got your money. What are you going to do about it?” Sam whipped out his phone to call the police. 

I attacked.

There was a short period of time with lots of scuffling and shouting, with both of them asking me what I was doing and me wrestling and growling that if the police were coming, then we couldn’t give the culprit a chance to escape.

I suppose since it was my dream, I was predetermined to triumph, because I succeeded in subduing the boasting pilferer on the ground with his arms above his head.

And when the police didn’t immediately arrive, my captive began to squirm and gloat that there was no way I could hold him until the authorities came for him. So I did the only thing I could.

I scratched him.

My fingernails have been getting pretty long lately, and I was holding both his wrists with one of mine while sitting on his chest, and his t-shirt had ridden up during the scuffle, so his belly was exposed. The scratch wasn’t anywhere near hard enough to draw blood, but it can’t have been terribly comfortable.

He started to protest, and I began to demand the return of my possessions. He refused, but I figured that while I had the upper hand, I may as well gain back what I had lost.

I pried a crumpled five dollar bill out of one of his hands, then threatened to scratch him again. After this, he seemed utterly defeated, and pulled my cash out of various pockets in his massive cargo pants until all of them were empty.

Satisfied that he wasn’t hiding anything, I allowed him to depart while I sat down to make sure it was all there. Sam, who was proving to be the fairness and goodness portion of my subconscious, sat down with me, scolding me for my behavior. Upon inspection of my spoils, I found that the miscreant had indeed returned everything he had taken.

In addition to this, he seemed to have turned over everything else that was in his pockets, which amounted to an alarming number of newspaper clippings about Christmas festivities. Sam’s admonishments got through to me at that point, and I felt bad for the lengths to which I had gone to regain what had been taken from me.

“These are obviously important to him,” Sam told me, “maybe he’ll come back for them.”

So we sat and waited. The dream ended there, with us asking anyone who came by if they knew who we were looking for and could return what we had seized. No one did, and no one could, and I sat there feeling sorry for myself and what I had done.

Though I never got to confront and wrestle with and pry back my lost possessions from any thieves in Guatemala, I never thought beyond their initial greed. I never thought that maybe they felt genuine remorse about what they had done. It had never entered my mind that maybe, possibly, one of them went back to that place and sat waiting for me to come back and retrieve what they had taken.

It is strange that a weird dream years and years later would make me remember and let me resolve some feelings. It seems that revenge truly is a dish best served cold... and even better when in a dream.