nice dream, pieced together

i was angry so i left home. i walk in the door of the anderson household in fictionalized rural kentucky. i think the most interesting part of the dream might be when danielle first sees me but i can't remember. the house is filled with people... family i assume, and their own closer-thans. sisters everywhere. it's not a huge place, just a single level house in the country. i sit with danielle in the kitchen and when the door starts to open i know it's her father and i get up to introduce myself. even though i wasn't eating, when i shake his hand i realize my mouth is filled with peanuts which i crunch and try to speak through, only to say hi hello i'm brooks and i'm here to visit danielle. he seemed pleased with me.

i meet more people in the house, cousins and sisters and maybe a mother. danielle is excited, moreso than i ever remember, and smiling a lot. i have the feeling that rob is in the past and that my showing up at her home indicates some new and official understanding between us. it's a good feeling. we move through the crowded house and to the dining room, which overlooks a long sloping meadow sparsely populated with big old trees. it runs down a few hundred yards to a country lane and continues on down the other side into a forest. the sun is setting and fog is descending in the most mysterious and majestic manner. the entire landscape is awash in a shower of pink and yellow. there are animals grazing and mingling. deer eating some grass near some bears. a few hyenas are laughing and fighting. they are large with enormous heads... blue and black and gray spotted fur. tossing their heads back and trying to bite each other. there's a film crew ostentatiously recording the whole scene from close range. i point out the hyenas and danielle's mother worries out loud. she shuttles the children and the rest of us out of the room saying that if the hyenas saw us watching them, they would certainly attack!

danielle and i sat near the edge of the kitchen beside the stove and watched everyone mill about and the children playing on the floor and held hands perhaps and smiled even. people were beginning to leave. when the house was finally empty, she decided we should leave and walk around for a while, she could show me her favorite part of louisville. we left the house from the kitchen door and walked out and down the driveway to the road. i found us in a small town area, about to cross the street towards some shopping area. there was an incident with a man before we crossed that danielle dealt with although i can't for the life of me remember what happened. we go on across the road and walk past closed storefronts of names and types that elude me. we took a left and strolled past a few more buildings on the right and i saw a structure straight ahead. it was almost a tent... the sort of large covered enclosure you might find housing a public market on an island. no walls, just large wooden beams and awnings.

this area seemed mostly devoted to furniture... couches and sofas and chairs that were five or ten times normal size such that a few people could climb on them and relax at the same time. there were puppies and kittens roaming about for cuddling. we walk inside and towards the center before taking a slight right towards a big chair we can both fit on top of easily. i climb on and she returns around the corner where there was a father sitting on top of a couch reading with his young son beside him. the kid had two furr ball puppies by the collars and danielle wanted one of them to bring back to our chair. whenever she would go near him, though, he would cartoonishly jerk the dogs back close to him. i sat in the chair until i saw her walk around the corner towards me, puppy in hand. the kid stood on the corner with a sad face. we enjoyed the puppy and i looked toward a column in front of us with a computer screen displaying a blog of sorts. it had a name and it seemed that anyone at any of the stations in this tent could anonymously comment or post under topics such as "post a happy thought" or "what are your dreams?" it was filled with pleasant notes from happy, puppy-intoxicated loungers.

i was happy as well. you can imagine which part of the dream is to blame.

<3