Last Night's Dream

As far as I can tell and remember, all of the following was one stretch of dream, though I don't remember how the first part transitioned to the rest. There was something before what I have written here that led into it, but I can't remember enough details to mention it.

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 On an alien planet with Anita, Elvendrums, and some of the Next Generation crew of the Enterprise, it's cold, and I use my cloak to keep people covered and warm, making reference to the fact that I'd used it to keep Anita and myself warm in KC at the renfaire, so it was good enough to keep everyone warm here.

 In a school, not because I'm one of the students but to "register" my proficiency with blunt weaponry, such as warhammers. Either by myself, or only with Anita now. One of the students accidentally jabs me in the shoulder near the neck instead of on the upper arm when trying to do a "friendly punch" greeting. I get irritated, possibly moreso because he didn't apologize before going off into a classroom. One of the teachers nearby asks what happened, and I explain but more or less brush it off.

 At a park, with swingset. There's some sort of water toy there, too. Someone I know, possibly one of the teachers at the school but a friendly figure regardless, asks if I can go get her and the person she's with (and presumably myself as well) some drinks, fruit punch. I start walking off (by myself) towards where I thought was a nearby place to purchase them, but it doesn't look right, so I turn around, head other way, still isn't right, so I stop, look around, head off in the direction it should be. Entering buildings which I thought had multiple eateries, end up having only one, they don't sell what I'm looking for (first asked for fruit soda, then pink lemonade, before remembering it was fruit punch). The restaurant has some kind of odd promotion/gimmick going where there's a $20 bill laying on the steps, and someone asks over intercom who dropped it there, but no one is claiming it - had the thought in-dream that maybe the longer it stayed there, the larger some payout would be. I went down the stairs, which are wide and rather opulent, to leave the restaurant (floating/sliding down rather than walking). I'm having trouble remembering, now, whether there were other stairs on my way in or through.

 Leaving restaurant, still trying to find place with fruit punch. Looks like an old-town shopping district, but larger, maybe similar to HP Diagon Alley. I make the comment that I need to find the right alley to reach the main street. My mind makes the connection that this place is like a labyrinth when a spectral image of Jareth appears in the next "aisle," which I hadn't noticed existed (when I entered my "aisle" it had been an alleyway between two buildings). I start to address the spectral image, something which my dream-self thinks Jareth may not have expected - maybe I wasn't supposed to be able to see him. He claims that this is his dream, which I reject. As I'm walking back to round the "alley" into the next aisle, I state instead that it is our dream. "You opened your gates to me, Jareth. I call you." At which point he solidifies, stating. "I am here."

 I ask him why he is preventing/impeding my progress. He makes some remark about my purpose here being to seek the Holy Grail, and starts taunting to the effect of, "You don't actually think it's a cup, do you?" I respond, "As if." (Post-dream, as I'm writing this, realize that I had actually been seeking drinks in the dream, which would have been in cups.) We start talking about what the grail actually is, and I make some clarifying remark about some early Christians knowing the truth despite modern ones believing otherwise. Jareth asks me to explain the nature of intellect and belief (not sure if "belief" was the actual word, may have been "spirituality" or something else). I quip, "That's kind of a fuzzy topic. So I imagine it's rather hairy." This earns a laugh. Then I continue with "I think that the intellect and (belief) are what (go/we lose) when we... die. I think they comprise the soul. At least, that's what I believe."

 The aisles we've been walking down, I've noticed, have shelves, like a thrift store. Jareth picks something up from one of the shelves, it looks like a couple pieces of fried chicken (one was definitely a leg) and a container for it of some sort (cone-shaped?) which may have had the Popeye's logo, and makes a comment about it being a shame (possibly that someone dropped or didn't finish it) before offering it to me. I think I politely declined, or was about to, when I woke up. Post-dream, it occurs to me that the items on the shelves may have been a correlation to the soul-items from A Dirty Job, in which case was Jareth offering me a soul or was he offering a receptacle which would hold mine? I got the feeling that the reason the chicken had been (at least mostly) untouched is because the person who had it before died, and that's why I was reluctant to take it.

Delusions of Shakespeare

So why am I "The Bard?"

Contrary to the title above, I'm not trying to horn in on Will's racket. I've always been very musically inclined, and am an accomplished vocalist. I've been operatically trained, have been appearing in plays and musical theater productions since Elementary School with an actor's resume some 5 pages long. I've played trombone, piano, and guitar, but my primary instrument is my voice. As a young child, brought to events by my parents, my goal in the SCA was to join the musician's guild (and go fight in full armor, but what kid doesn't want to do that?). I am a Master Harper in one such SCA guild, modeled after Harper Hall in the Dragonriders of Pern series (and sanctioned by Anne McCaffrey).

I even bring my guitar, a Martin Backpacker, to gaming sessions. When I was a regular attendee at the Tuesday Games(tm), I would have it out nearly every session. Because of its small frame, it didn't interfere with most dice rolling, and it's easy to put to the side when the action gets heavy.

One particular Tuesday night, playing 3rd Ed. D&D, the party was trying to make their way down a corridor that was bottlenecked by a horde of goblins. As the rest of the group began discussing options, I started plucking out a tune I'd picked up at the St. Louis Renaissance Faire a year or two prior, modified for the current events:

"They're standing in line.
They're standing in line.
They want to get killed so
They're standing in line.
They're standing in line
For a very long time.
They want to get killed so
They're standing in line."

"Everybody sing!"

And everyone did. I led half a dozen people on an impromptu sing-along reprise, most of which had never even heard the tune before. There was no hesitation on anyone's part. No one missed a beat, and no one missed a word.

To make a group of full-grown men break into song without prior training or expectation of performance? That's a powerful feeling. If I'd needed any more convincing of real-world bardic magic by that point in my life, that event would have satisfied me.

So that's why I'm the Bard.

This post brought to you by the numbers 7 and 15

Absence is a bloody liar. A heart will grow fonder even in close proximity. But apparently while I wasn't looking, I got tagged for a blogger award, in the same post by Cap'n Kyrie that tagged Hyperbole and a Half. Allie is freaking awesome, and I love her humor and insight, and I feel terribly out-of-place getting any award she received.

Now, I'm flattered Cap'n, but I'm sorry. I just can't accept this award. Not because I feel I'm outclassed by the company it keeps, but because I just simply don't know fifteen other bloggers. That means I can't follow the rules of the award, and so I must refuse. That, and I'm pretty sure the ones I do know have already been tapped for it, so I'm actually preventing an infinite loop that could crash the internet... or not, since Demotivational Posters have already divided by zero.

But, I will go ahead and tell seven things about myself:
1) I do not have a PhD in Horribleness. I am working on a BA in Sociology, though. Working on semester two of my first year, through online courses, and I made the Dean's List last semester, so go me.

I do have a pretty good evil laugh, though.

2) I get really, really focused. If I'm working on something, I will try to hammer out each and every bit of minutiae I can long past the point at which it really matters, and react poorly when interrupted, even by the call of nature.
2a) I absolutely love and adore and cherish my wife, and am grateful for her patience with me.

3) My favorite X-Man is Nightcrawler, and has been since I was a little kid. I may not have a lot in common with him from a religious standpoint, but I've never been one to let religious differences stand in the way of a good friendship.

Blue or not, the man has skills and looks great in tights.

4) I used to be a Final Fantasy Fanatic. I own every Final Fantasy game released in the US, up to X-2, but I only ever finished one of them (X, so that I'd know where X-2 was picking up from). I'm convinced that this is because I didn't want the game to end, because that meant the fantasy was over. I didn't get into Final Fantasy XI Online because I didn't really have a disposable income and was, at least at that point, very against the idea of paying subscription fees for games, especially since I was already heavily involved in a free-to-play MUD. By the time FFXII came out, October 11 of 2006, I was busy starting a fantasy of my own, making arrangements for my wedding at the end of the month. I don't even know how many they've made since then. Take that, LegendaryFrog.

5) I am better at carpentry than the previous owners of my house, who apparently (according to a sign left in the shed when we moved in) ran a contracting business. I've learned more about power tools, floor supports, and fitting square boards into not-square rooms in the past few years than I ever did in high school. Guess I should have taken shop class after all. Maybe the vocational aptitude test I took back in elementary school was right when it said I was most suited to become an interior decorator.

6) I know more about computer troubleshooting than my best friend, who was trained as a CAD Technician by ITT. Seriously. I've debugged his computers multiple times, and even installed a new power supply for him because, while he may know how to use CAD programs, he has no clue when it comes to opening up the case of his tower. And here I thought I only really knew enough to get myself into trouble.

7) I play guitar. Acoustic, not electric, and not what I would consider well, but better than I can play the piano (which isn't that hard, since I know about 3 tunes on the piano and they're all from video games). I picked it up in high school, and have mostly used it as a means of enhancing my vocal performances with a few chords thrown in. Somewhat recently, though, my limited guitar skills landed me a position in an established group that travels the Renaissance Faire circuit (and other venues). Again, go me.

And that's my seven factoids. We now return you to your regularly scheduled, non-updating blog.