You're a dream to me.

Last night I had a dream that I was on my way to Australia. In my dream, SFO was a sprawling airport... okay, maybe that part isn't so unusual. But the strange part was that you had to wait outside, on the runway, to check in - with all the planes coming and going pretty much right around your head.

(I have had that exact part of the dream before - checking in, outside, with planes flying around my head. I wonder what it means.)

I started out in the line with a current co-worker who I was either traveling with or just carpooling with - I was never quite sure. I had a couple freak-out moments where I thought I'd left my large bag, you know, the one with ALL MY TRAVELING NEEDS, at home and did some quick time calculations to see if I could make it back home to pick up my bag and still make the plane... Only to look down and see my large bag, the one with ALL MY TRAVELING NEEDS, right there at my feet.

(Not an unusual freak-out in a travel-related dream.)

Once I got into the airport, the terminals/waiting areas were a maze of amusement park games and activities. Mostly on the crappy boardwalk amusement park end - lots of pinball and other arcade games, some skeeball, but also a few water slides, a ferris wheel and a couple other county-fair-type rides. Soon after entering the airport I lost my co-worker (although I am still not sure we were actually traveling together) and started to wander around the maze of neon spinning shouting machines.

(That part of the dream could mean any number of things. I'm not too worried about it. For example, I'm really dreading a whirlwind trip back east for my best friend's bridal shower, and also planning a whirlwind trip to Puerto Rico for the same friend's wedding, so this travel anxiety is all totally reasonable. I mean, when you really think about it, pinball machines/skeeball + boring airports before an excruciatingly long flight = GOOD THING!)

And then I ran into HIM. And it was like we were old friends, meeting after not seeing each other for years. We smiled, we joked, we wandered amongst the pinball machines. He eyed a few of them with a childlike glee, so of course I encouraged him to play. But he just smiled, and took my hand, and we continued to wander around like an old married couple - holding hands, smiling at the kids and shooting the breeze.

For those brief moments, dream or not, I never felt so comfortable or content in all my life.

(I have a sense of what this part of the dream means. It could be any of the following, or a combination of all of the following:

• today was the last day for the JGL-ish type on my staff and I've been dreading it for many reasons, mostly because I really respect his opinions and input and it sucks that he's leaving and I couldn't do anything to get him to stay.
• the last conversation I had last night had to do with physical intimacy (or lack thereof, or desire therefore), and I realized on the way home that all I really want on the boyfriend front right now is a cute boy that I can hold hands with. That's ALL I want. And that seems weird to me.
  
• JGL is freakin' HOT, and my subconscious won't let me forget that.)

Anyway, back to the dream. Customs kept hunting me down because I'd left my bag sitting with his bag in the arcade but we hadn't stayed with our bags as requested, we'd just been wandering... And there was a question as to whether I'd actually make the plane to Australia since customs was trying to detain and question me. When I did finally make it on the plane he was nowhere to be found.

And then I woke up. At 8am. Which meant I was going to be late for work.

Which, in the grand scheme of things, is truly perfect, real-life expectation-setting after coming out of such a lovely dream.

Which is not to say that I didn't exert myself trying to get back to sleep, back to that dream, no matter how late for work I already was.