I have a few intriguing observations to make, I will tackle them chronologically.
I'm living in my friend's basement. It's pretty awesome. I'm the sort of person who is not only willing to make due with eccentricities like "no walls" and "only one power outlet" and "no closet" and "no real ceiling," I rather enjoy the tricks I come up with to circumvent this status. Looong power plugs, a portable clothing rack that has more stamina than my old closet did anyway, and cleverly arranged furniture that simulate the effect of a wall. I arranged what I like to call my room into something of a gentleman's robber cave. Sometimes, I take advantage of the lack of ceiling to use the floor beams as a makeshift pull up bar. My record is 1/4th of a pull up, and what a mighty 1/4th it was! I also tacked a dream catcher onto the floor beams above my head, not so much to protect me from nightmares, since I only get those when I'm delirious or need to work out something unpleasant and should probably go ahead and have the nightmare, but because I made it myself and am very proud of it, and feel that a dream catcher has a logical place in a room: above the pillow. I dwell in a dank dungeon and, as always, I love it.
Okay, okay, a brief deer trail: talking about nightmares made me remember a funny story. Usually I don't remember my dreams, sometimes I do, I had one near my birthday one year that I will always carry warmly in my heart and has influenced more than one story fragment that I've written, and I've had a couple of delirious nightmares that are still terrifyingly vivid, but occasionally, I will have some remarkably practical nightmares, too. Way back when I was 19 or something, and I still didn't have my driver's license. I had had my permit for a while, but the "incident with the mailbox" haunted me, and I did not like driving and was content to keep things as they were, even if it meant waiting to be picked up and dropped off to and fro from college. In those days, I was walking to work in the pitch dark hours of the early morning, through unlit streets and increasingly cold paths. One night, a chilled, blustery night of glowing porch-lights and fog-padded silence, I dreamed that everyone except my brother and I had been transformed into a zombie, and all my co-workers were out to eat his brains no matter what I did to protect him (which included hiding him in the rafters and covering him with some old dress-up clothes that my sister and I played with when we were kids). I woke up to the unpleasantness of the early day and after a long inner monologue convincing myself that there were no zombies outside and it was safe to venture out of my bedroom, I knocked on my parents' door and asked for a ride to work, which they were already half-expecting. On the ride, I abruptly said "next week, I'm taking my driver's test." Dad said, "heh, sure you are." The following Wednesday I had my license.
Back to my observations. A few weeks ago, I woke up to discover that my ring was no longer on my finger. This would be the one that is ALWAYS on my finger, never leaves my finger and as of yet has neither symbolic nor practical reason to stop being on my finger. It had been there when I went to bed, and by the time I woke up it had gone. It put me in mind of the story about the tinderbox: a soldier commanded his new-found otherworldly servants to fetch for him the daughter of the king, who was as beautiful as the day. When she was brought to him, it was with such gentleness that she still slept, and he did not wake her. Instead, he took the ring from her little finger as a keepsake. Now, though I am unspeakably beautiful, I'm pretty sure that with a guardian as faithful as my dog sleeping on the edge of the bed, any otherworldly servants employed by any lecherous old soldier would think twice before nicking me in my sleep. They'd probably re-examine the definition of beauty before they did so and find themselves a loop-hole, and find someone else who is also as beautiful as the day to satisfy some creep's voyeurism. I figured that I had somehow taken it off in the night, and I searched the bedclothes and the vicinity with all diligence and sincerity, but I still haven't found the ring. I have come to believe that I, in an unprecedented fit of activity, pulled the thing off and flung it with all my might into the nether verse of the unknown. I'm wearing the claddaugh my sister gave me in place of the original, which makes me look like I'm engaged. Considering that its predecessor was a Celtic eternity knot, I rather think that the alternative is an improvement.
Okay, third observation. My two favourite nightgowns, the ones I wear almost every night, and my most used blanket have all taken on an odd smell.
Let me rephrase.
The smell itself is not odd, but the fact that I cannot explain its origin is. It started out kind of "plant-y" like that wholesome smell that the healer woman described at the houses of healing in Lord of the Rings, not offensive, merely present. I'd wash my clothes, but that made no difference because the smell would only come back. Lately, it has evolved, it's become stronger, more distinct and harder to ignore. Now blanket and nightgowns alike have a lovely lavender-ish, sandalwood-ish smell. The lavender is very common in my bedroom, though not among my clothes, but the sandalwood scented stuff only comes out on special occasions, and I don't arbitrarily sprinkle it on my nightwear. The blanket is a little different, since my dog spends half the day laying on it or snoozing under it, but it, too, has the effect of the smell. Someone suggested to me that this is actually my smell, which would be nice, but what would be even nicer is if all my clothes smell that way, especially the ones that I get all sweaty in, it would also be more true to the explanation. I like it, but it's weird; it's like I've been sleepwalking through a sultan's garden every night.
