Can anyone guess what's bugging me today? Actually nothing, with the minor exception that my computer is giving me fits. I got it paid off, so I guess now it's just waiting for the warranty to run out before it completely stops functioning, forcing me to go back into debt for the next 3 years. It's a neverending vicious cycle where computers and credit companies unite to conspire against poor individuals like me. They know I cannot survive without a computer. This machine is my one and only connection to the outside world. If I were thrown out on the street, I'd be camping out at the library or something so I could have an internet connection. I have a friend whose one indulgence is Gevalia coffee. He told me that is the one thing he would never give up, even if it meant going without toilet paper. Not sure if I'd go THAT far with it...

Oh and the other thing that bugs me is that I know more than 3 people read this blog, and only 3 people every reply to anything. New rule. If you read, you reply to something, dang it! You are not allowed to read about my life if you do not say something. It's like too ultra creepy to know that people are reading this and I don't know about it until like weeks later when someone says "Oh hey, I have been reading your blog!" Okay, well, you don't have to reply if you have a really darn good excuse as to why you don't! You don't even have to reply every single time, just sometimes! There, I feel better now.

Speaking of coffee, my coffee was extra good this morning, maybe because I was extra asleep and needed a good eye-opener. I had some straaaaange dreams last night. Most of them involved people I went to highschool with, including an old boyfriend. It was one of those dreams that kind of went back and forth between more than one setting. When the dream started out, me and a bunch of girls I went to school with were crammed on this bus or van. We were going on a fieldtrip to somewhere. Then we get off the bus and we are at this playground. All of us wanted to get on the swings. I can remember some of the swings were lower to the ground than others. So I sat down on the swing next to this redheaded girl...her name was Patricia, and then this guy, who really was her boyfriend back in highschool, Robbie, made me get off the swing because he wanted to sit by her. So I got up and walked over to another swing that was on the other end of the swing set. I remember this swing being higher up off the ground than the others. So I sat there by myself and my old boyfriend from highschool, Marc, walked up to me. I was like "what the heck are YOU doing here? aren't you in the war or something?" So we started talking, and I was telling him I had 2 kids. So then all of the sudden, the dream switches over to another setting. This time I'm at my parents house and Marc is there. We are in the kitchen and I'm making something to eat. I can even remember hearing my parents talking in the den. I asked Marc a whole bunch of questions about what the Air Force was like and how long he had spent in the war. Then we decide to get in my SUV and go somewhere. Then the dream switches back to this playground and everyone is getting back onto the van. The driver of the van, who was supposedly a teacher, had a camera and was going to take a picture of a bunch of us in the van. So we all squished together like happy giggily girls do when they are getting their picture taken. Then we take off down the road in the van, and we were heading north on I-55. We drove past the Southaven (Stateline Rd.) exit, which is right next to where the old McDonald's used to be before they tore it down, and I looked up in the sky and there was a HUGE arch, (bigger than the St. Louis Arch) FLOATING in the sky. Then I woke up.

By now, you're thinking "The heck??" So let me try to interpret. I think I understand the part about the swings and the fieldtrip and seeing people I went to highschool with. I dreamed about because I have been saying for the last 3 days that I want to find something to do to, just me, once a week, a break, just to have some time to myself to stop the insanity I get from being around the house all day everyday with the kids. The swings and the playground and the fieldtrip represented my escape, getting together with old friends, being a kid again, etc, etc.

And then there's Marc. Marc was in the dream because just last night I was reading about the situation in Iraq, and I started wondering if Marc is over there, whether or not he's even alive. People are dropping over there like flies. (That's a whole nother blog.) It's almost too scary to think about just knowing that I know someone that's over there and not even knowing if that person is still alive. Was that his :::gulp::: ghost visiting me?

Then there's the part about the giant floating arch. I know, you don't have to tell me I have whacko dreams, I already know that. But I think the arch represented a part of my childhood that is gone. That McDonald's is no longer there, but I will always remember the countless memories I made there. Like, my Dad would take me and my sister there EVERY SUNDAY after church for a Happy Meal, get mad because the order was screwed up, stomp in there and tell off the idiot behind the counter, stomp back out, and say "I ain't never coming to this place again!" and then turn right back around the very next Sunday and go right back there again. (Love my Dad's temper...wonder where I got mine from?) And then who can forget playing on the playground? I played in that thing with my cousins every summer they came to town. I would practically get suffocated and trampeled in the red and yellow balls, but it was fun. And then that McDonald's is where Michael and I had our very first lunch together the very first day we met in person. I think every single kid that grew up in Southaven has a million memories of that McDonald's. It was the only one in town for a long, long time.