When I wake up, I don't realize I just dreamed. Because what's in my head seems… like memories.
I'm walking between cubicles in the basement of Kane Hall. It doesn't feel like I'm here for any particular reason. I just sort of wandered in, wearing my Vans, black jeans, black T-shirt, black wool coat, with my rucksack over my shoulder.
This is UW Video and I stop at a desk in front of the door to Media Distribution.
I'm here to talk about the BrainWorks shoot that's happening tomorrow. At the meeting is Michelle, a producer I've worked with who seems to be sitting in for the producer I currently work with, Stacy, who usually handles this part of the BrainWorks production.
At some point, an editor stops by for a question and leaves. He's tall with frizzy red hair and I've never seen him before.
To my right is a photographer who I can't identify. In front of me on the left is a production manager I can't identify. But who I can identify is John Jones who, for some reason, is lit rather harshly by the halogen lamp on his desk. John's a cook with whom I worked once upon a time at The Royal Fork Buffet who is, right now, this very minute, conducting this meeting about tomorrow's shoot.
He looks about the same as when we worked together. Only now he's dressed as a grown-up by-God manager. White and light blue striped button-down. Maroon and white angular striped tie.
And then, at some point in the meeting, John looks at me and asks
"How long's it been since you were here last?"
"A few years," I say.
Now Kimmer and I are up above somewhere. As if we're in the lower level of the Space Needle. But not.
I can't make out anything outside other than a general sense of overcast. And I think… this is a restaurant. The interior’s dark wood. We're standing by a table along a long window where people are gathered. But before anything starts—
It's a sunny Fall day outside. I'm walking through the “lobby” of Kane Hall, dressed as I was downstairs, walking in the direction of Odegaard Library on my way out.
Taking a right out the door, instead of the flight of brick stairs leading up and away from Red Square, there's a wide cement path that leads to the front of one of the halls that normally borders The Quad. Behind the building is a massive cliff face in shades of tans and rusts that makes a magnificent backdrop to a photograph.
Now I'm on a monorail. Not the one from Disneyland... but something like it. I'm on the right side as we head south about to pass Kane Hall on the left. On the right is a sort of massive shoe shaped tree that's under construction. The exterior seems complete and you can see straight in to the construction continuing on the inside. There are white painted French doors on either side of the opening.
I get a pretty good long look in there considering I'm traveling on a moving monorail.
I wonder if I'm actually in Disneyland... but an illustration of the Autotopia-like ride they have here comes to mind. It's based around the design of a large white boot kind of thing.
So I figure this isn't Disneyland.
But it sure is someplace Kimmer would love to join me for a photography adventure like we used to do.
Now I'm walking along a tree-covered, incandescent lit path later in the day. There are shops to either side but it's pretty dead here.
What I think is that I'm in another part of this park or campus, lower right, somewhere in the southeast corner.
At an intersection of three paths under cover of trees, a young woman in medieval period dress walks by with a duck perched on her left arm. She’s complaining a bit (the young woman) but I don’t catch the details ‘cause now she’s walking away.
As she goes by, I notice a light grey wood structure behind her. A dressing room, it turns out. Cramped… with a door that's opened by pulling on a black cable on the right side.
Above the door, I notice a small pair of cabinet doors, maybe six inches high. The doors are ornately carved all the way through so that only about half the wood of the doors is left. Meaning, you can see through the design to the inside of the cabinet which is dark.
Now, when the cabinet doors are closed, there are lights that shine through the open spaces from the front upper corners. And when the doors are open, those lights turn off and the lights centered above the interior space turn on. And so forth.
I actually test this out a bunch of times just to be sure.
Then I wake up.
