The Book of Ashes

The dream of the coins. The poem of hail. 11:11AM

There is a splash and I am submerged under water. It is warm and the water is blue due to the paint on the walls of the pool. It is the diving pool and I am taking powerful strokes towards the bottom. There is an urgency here that propels me through the chlorine-water and finally I see the bottom and there are coins there. I reach and begin to pick them up, but always there are more and I can never pick them all up and while I keep trying I eventually wake up.

I found a 5 cent piece on Thursday and another last night on the way home. Each time I find one I find my eyes searching the footpath for more for the next 5 or 10 minutes. What am I expecting? A huge pile of coins just sitting there in plain view? I don't know. The above dream is a recurring one I have maybe once or twice a year. I haven't had it for a while now but I am finding a few 5 cent pieces around lately.

There is no significance here, the mind just focuses on what it wants to see.

""For a while the drops mingled and made new friends amoung the many they had met and they told stories of their great Journey to the city and back again and of the exhilaration of free fall and the release on impact. And of those that heard the story some were moved and vowed to travel the same road. And so they trained and it began with the fasting and the exercise till they were so fit that they could run up through the air. And once up there they gathered in great groups and trained, toughening themselves for the coming ordeal. And there were those amoungst them that believed that the soft would perish in the fall and so they hardened themselves till they were hard as ice and then one fateful day they fell. And to those on the streets that Friday it was as if the flood gates of heaven had been opened as it bucketed down in huge drops and then the hardened ones came and great balls of ice hurtled from the sky. And all survived and the hardened ones saw that it was folly to be so hard and became soft again as they slowly found there way back to the rivers and streams and sought out once again their friends in the sea.""

The Moulin Rouge is climbable. I have noted the path.

I got a call from Kelly today. Damian and Kate were going work drinks and Crispy and Tammy were going home and not many others were about so we decided to go to Arizona for a few drinks to check out there 9th birthday. I first gave Crispy a few games at Fooze ball, but lost 2 to 1, which is not normal. Then we went to Arizona. We won spin the wheel and got some free fries which was awesome as we were both starving and we had a few drinks. I was reminiscing about past Arizona good times and so we decided to retrace my old hang outs and go to Dock Side as once I would have done.

Night out drinking and coming home to find Gerry had tried to short sheet me 11:37AM

We were starting to get a little happy by Dock Side (about 7ish) and when Kelly went to the bathroom this older chick pulled me onto the dance floor and made me dance with her. It was kinda cool except that when I said enough she pulled me closer and I got scared :) She passed me on to her friend who tried to dirty dance with me a little and told me I needed to wiggle my hips a bit more. I didn't want to wiggle my hips any more as she might have interpreted that as me liking her. I was glad when Kelly came back and I could escape. Then Damian and Kate met up with us and we went on to Zibbibos. I started on the Drambue there and I must add this has quickly become my favourite drink. The others decided that they needed to go home so Kelly and I went to Diva which was quite quiet then to the Grand. We had a feed at the Grand and discussed life over some wedges with bacon and cheese and another Drambue or two while we waited for people to gain confidence and get up on the dance floor. After a while they did and so we got up and had a bit of a boogie. Then we tried Coyote but there was not many people there and we were pretty much dancing by ourselves so we went to the sports cafe where there was heaps of people and danced some more. All up it was an excellent night. I hadn't had a good drinking session in over a month and have given up on the only 3 or 4 drinks a night as I surpassed that on Friday. I wasn't too drunk though.

So I got home around 1am and came into my room and noticed something odd. My bed was different. The pillows were next to each other and I always put them ontop of each other. My first thought was that Gerry and her friend Alice had been playing in my bed which was weird. Then I thought about it a bit more and realised they had probably been playing WITH my bed. So I pulled back the sheets and saw that Gerry had short sheeted me. Man did I ever laugh at that. It cracked me up. Mostly cause I didn't get caught out by it. She came home about 15 minutes later so I gave her some tips on how to leave my bed so that I wouldn't notice it had been tampered with.

Well now its Saturday and a nice sunny day outside for a change, although a little windy for my liking. I am going out to lunch with Mel and maybe Bev and Jo today as Mel is just stopping by on her way to Auckland so it will be good to catch up. Fi has invited Gerry and I out to a party tonight so that should also be fun. I might not know anyone there apart from those two but will be good practise to be more outgoing and meet people so am looking forward to it. Other plans are to repost this parcel to Dan and go do a little work on the server with Damian. Other than that I have house work and a book to read