I had a nightmare last night.

I don't often get nightmares. Heck, I hardly ever dream that I can remember. When I do dream, it's usually fuzzy half-dreams, without any real clarity. Nothing like what you might call a lucid dream.

The last nightmare I can truly remember is this one recurring dream I had as a child. I would float up out of my bed, across the hall and down the stairs into the basement, where monsters would leap out of the gloom and tear me to bits.

I always woke up just before the 'tear me to bits' part.

But last night was the most lucid, clear, utterly real dream that I've ever had. The imagery isn't even that horrible - Stephen King would yawn - but it left me shivering.

Lisa and I are living in this apartment on the 50th floor of the Empire State Building...

(I am aware that the Empire State Building is entirely commercial and office space. This is a dream. For the rest of this dream, ignore any inconsistencies and inaccuracies.)

...and we are just herding the last guests out of our apartment. You see the world is about to end in some sort of cataclysm. Everyone knows it, but people are debating how bad it is going to be. Doomsayers claim everyone will die, others claim that it won't be that bad, and many will survive it. So we've just had a dinner party with members of the 'not so bad' camp, as we decided to go out in style, just in case.

Lisa is over at the window. "Look at this!" she is calling.

Outside the window is a twister. A funnel cloud forming and floating in the air outside the building. At times it's a full cone, other times it's like three smoke streams twisting around each other. It collapses away without doing any damage, but it's the beginning. The true horror is just coming.

The seriousness of the situation begins to sink in on us. We scramble around, grabbing crystal glasses and loose papers so nothing gets broken or blown around. I run down the hall, through a study, and poke my head into the bedroom where my parents are staying.

"Come look!" I yell. "It's starting!"

My Mom and Dad are sitting on a couch. Dad's got his arm around her and they are talking like two college students on their first date. Dad glances out the window and says, "Wow."

"We've got to hurry!" I yell. "We've got to get all this stuff packed up."

"Why bother, son?"

I realize that they've accepted their fate. They know the end is coming and they are going to accept it gracefully. They will die together.

At that moment, the room tilts.

Whether from the twister, or from something else, the building has sheared off and the top of the building is toppling over to one side to be dashed to pieces in the street below.

"PHIL!" Lisa screams from another room.

I fall to the floor. It is a raised floor, like the ones in computer centers where they run cables and cooling systems under floor panels. I grab at the spaces between the panels to climb up out of the room.

I am going to die. There is no chance. But if we are going to die, I want to be with Lisa.

I hear her screaming for me and know she is trying to get to me. The room is spinning over and over as the ground approaches. I am barely able to hold onto the floor, but make it almost to the door. Lisa is just around the corner, out of my sight. If I could just get one foot closer, I could take her hand.

We hit the ground.

I wake up.

Re-reading the above, I find the fear and horror is diluted. Of course it is. The written word is truly incapable of capturing the frights of the mind. Stephen King's writing isn't scary in itself. His most frightening moments are when he awakens the root fears in his readers, the ones that we all share to a degree. The fears of being trapped, of being stalked, of dying in some painful manner. He isn't creating the horror, simply re-evoking it.

I didn't sleep the rest of the night, despite Lisa's comforting and cuddling. And it's haunted me all day since. I don't look forward to what tonight brings.

I turned 30 a couple weeks back.

Thirty. The big three-oh. I'm officially a 'thirty-something'.

It's not so bad, really. It's just an odd sort of sneaky thing that comes at you at odd times. Different check boxes on official forms, that sort of thing.

It doesn't help that I look much older than that anyway. I've always looked older than I am. When I was sixteen, I bought a case of beer in a liquor store where the drinking age was 19. When I was 18, I went to the band concert of my girlfriend's 14-year-old-sister. One of her friends came up and said, "Oh, is this your Dad?"

I haven't been carded in a dozen years. A couple weeks back, when I told me friend Vanessa I was going to be 30, her eyes bugged out and she said, "No WAY! I thought you were MUCH older than that!"

Sigh.

his name is Arvid!

Really, the only bad thing about this birthday is that it went by without a great deal of fanfare. I saw a number of my good friends, we went out for dinner, Lisa bought me an Albino Pac Man Frog... It was all good.

But because finances were so tight, we were unable to celebrate this milestone in big, gaudy fashion. The best way to put salve on a wound of age is to celebrate it in ostentatious fashion.

Ah well. The money will soon be rolling in. We'll do some celebrating then.

Speaking of which...

I am now technically working again. I say technically, because I'm not really getting paid.

See, a local, recently opened marketing company has brought me on to handle web development for them. It is all contract work, but should be pretty steady once things get going. My first contract is to design the site for a fellow running for Alderman in the upcoming civic election.

Should he get elected, there will be all kinds of money in updating and maintaining his site. Until then... well, it's just a resume piece.

As well, it's sort of a test contract. A quick and easy project for us to get to know each other and see how we work as a team. So no big pressure.

I'm still looking for a full time job, and have a second interview Monday for a project management position. I plan on working full time, and doing development contracts on the side to catch up on bills. Things will be good.

One final thing to talk about. And I've been working up to it this whole time.

I had my first full physical today.

I've never had one as an adult, and turning 30 is a good time to start, I suppose. I knew pretty much what he would say already: overweight, out of shape, eating the wrong things, spending too much time in front of the computer... and I wasn't disappointed. He also confirmed I suffer from IBS, and should be careful of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

What I wasn't prepared for was the weigh-in.

I know I'm overweight. Last winter was the last time I weighed myself and I pegged in at around 220. My ideal is about 190, so that's not too horrible I suppose.

So when I weighed in, the nurse told me I weighed...

...here it comes...

244 pounds.

And that was after I made her take off five pounds for my clothes and shoes.

I still can't believe it. I certainly don't LOOK like I weigh that much. 225 maybe, but not 244. I must have very heavy organs. A big fat spleen or something.

Something must be done.

Something will be done.

Oh, and on meeting Dirk Benedict? Let's just say that we all now call him 'Jerk Benedict'.

A Year and one day ago: Con-Version Report

Over in the forum:

A little lizard talk.

On Star Trek: The promos for the new series rock. Scott Bakula looks great and I am so jazzed about it coming out. I can hardly wait for the end of September.

A missed anniversary

What is new?

Take me home, big fella