Raven on a Writing Desk

Mark was telling me all the reasons people who are caught up in planning for the apocalypse/Rapture/collapse of the economy/depression/tsunami/hurricane/TEOTWAWKI are just crazy and failing to understand real survival issues.

I woke up this morning after dreaming of being a food whore in a post-apocalyptic world.  In my Mad Max world, you eat contaminated food because it's that or no food.

Just general notes, it being too early in the morning (and too frequent interruptions) to expect to get a long narrative in.

If anyone wondered what I was on about last night, Amanda hates peas. Amanda really doesn't like peas. I don't have the least clue why, but Janel made peas and was teasing Amanda about how good the peas were. And somehow, somewhere, the phrase "wholesome, green pea-ness" came into being. And I couldn't stop laughing. So now I have shared it with all of you.

Mark authored the comment about the gay sex. A telling (for Mark) addition to the old "Every guy who ever thought of it would do David Bowie" conversation.
Maybe that one is better out of context.

I am at the pledge drive again. Today is the last day of a 10-day drive. The goal is $850,000. So, that would mean an average of $85,000/day. However, we still have $221,714 (the most current figure) left to get, and there's actually a good chance that that will happen. I'm agog, though, at the idea of taking in 26% of our drive collection in the last 10 hours. Although pledges have been accelerating right along (I think it took two days to get the first 85K, but we did almost $100,000 yesterday), we're going to have to speed up even more today if we're going to make budget.

I try not to worry about it, though. I'm a volunteer. I pledged $7.50 a month because I figured I never let my checking account get below $10 balance and so I won't have to worry about insufficient funds; and it also allows me to give $90 for the year instead of the $35 I could afford if it were all taken at once. But that's the reason I don't expect to keep a coherent train of thought this morning (well, that and 4 hours sleep): We're going to be busy trying to get a quarter of (pause for Dr. Evil) One Mill-yun Dollars!

This morning, I was completely late (6:20 a.m.!) because I was having this "Groundhog Day" kind of dream. I dreamed that there were these monsters (big blobby vague things, not very smart, but extremely dangerous and deadly if they came in contact with you) coming after me and my family; one was tearing down the house. They're ravenous for any kind of flesh, but poisoned by chlorine. They're attacking everywhere (alien invasion?) and shutting down everywhere, and we're all running for our lives before they zombify all of us (wait -- I thought they were eating us, how do we become zombies? Oh, that's if they bite you and infect you, but don't get to eat you...) and finally we break through the police lines (why are the police trying to stop us?) and find a giant swimming pool cum water slide (I guess I just needed a water slide) and we're saved!

But the whole thing kept happening over and over, like a video game. (I've been playing Amazing Machine: Contraptions, and it came out a little like that.) Every time it would repeat, I was trying different variations: Giving people information I'd gathered from the previous time I went through the dream, making different decisions (do we sacrifice the cat here? will it help to take the neighbor with us? is that trailer slowing us down, or will we need those supplies?) and seeing different consequences: check EVERYONE or risk necrotic green friends biting you! --or -- no, setting off that explosion seems like a good idea at the time, but then the police mobilize more quickly and we can't get through....

And every time I hit the snooze alarm I started the dream over.

And speaking of starting over, the computer just ate the second half of this entry. I'll see you guys on the road. (Watch out for the mad pizza Deliverator!)