"A small incident will shortly develop to your advantage."

I had the lemon pepper shrimp, and I drank the oolong in tiny little sips.

P.F. Chang's is really noisy. It was not too difficult to talk, despite my reservations over the acoustics I remembered from the first time I ate at this restaurant (in SoCal, back when I was working for GlobalCenter), but I also personally didn't have a lot to say. I grabbed my brother's arm at one point, hooked my arm through, and squeezed him to me, and although he didn't really squeeze back, he also didn't resist me, he let himself be drawn and held for a few seconds. I listened hard to pretty much anything he said, and I kept an eye on my mom, for any serious swings towards the maudlin.

I've been getting randomly weepy, and while I think some of it is just staying up too late and not getting enough sleep, night after night, I know, also, that I am very sad over my brother leaving. He's got the truck ready to go for Tuesday morning, I think, and I am not sure I am ready for this. This is too soon. Even with spending some time tomorrow over at his house in Elgin, helping him pack, I am not sure this is enough face time before he's gone, gone, gone. Gone to Houston, and his new house with his Houston-born wife.

He nudged me hard about flying down there in April for a weekend. "Fares are not bad," he said. "Plus, who's gonna play pinball with me?"

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. Not in the restaurant, at least.

We ordered crab won tons as part of our appetizers, and he asked if he could have the 'ears' off of them before letting me eat them. Uncertainly, I said, "uh, sure!" Sure enough, he'd take the little fried pouch, break off the crispy corners, and leave me with the rest, to dip and eat. He and my mom had Mongolian beef, Tyler's sans scallions. Ro had the lo mein.

My tea was served in a little heavy pot, with a heavy trivet. We gave our waitress a $5 tip, folded like a bowtie.

I watched my brother drive off tonight, his car filled with empty cardboard boxes.

Too soon. This is no small incident.

Somnolent Detritus (so the name of my next band)

One part of the dream was chatting with Jessie for the first time in a long time. She seemed uneasy with me, and stopped short at some off-hand comment I made. I mean, she simply stopped. Stopped talking, stopped looking at me. In the dream, I finally just let my shoulders drop, I shrugged, I smiled.

Another part of the dream was an impulse audition for something Shakespeare. Something so impulse that the original monologue I'd gotten together was very unmemorized. I improvised, singing a song David Bowie-style, all about some boy. Said boy actually showed up at the end of the audition, drunk off his ass, and being all hilarious about it, taking part in the song, and wearing a ridiculous cape. He kept sweeping it over one shoulder and gesturing dramatically, a perfect satire of bad community theatre Shakespeare, and we had all the auditioners and the director howling. I sang really, really well in the dream. The director told me to come back the next day to read with more people.

I remember I had too many piles of papers with me, and I blushingly gathered them up as I thanked the director, and worked my way out of the house.

There was a third part of the dream, but I can't remember it. I think it was particularly real, and so it might be fading fast because there was nothing particularly odd about it.

I haven't been able to remember my dreams in a while.