Prickle-Prickle, Chaos 64th, yC 3169 Welcome once again, true believers. I spent my second break writing down last night's dream for your reading pleasure when one of the girls asked me what I was doing. "I have a vanity site. I post my dreams there." She had no idea what I was talking about regarding a site so I dropped the subject and continued writing. "So do you believe in dreams?" she asks. "Dreams are the only proof of the existence of a world beyond the rational, empirical, physical world." I hoped this would put her off so I could get back to writing down what I could remember from the previous night. "Dreams prove that there is something greater tha..." I stopped myself because that was akin to admitting the existence of god or some other higher being and I immediately corrected myself then said I don't believe in god. Damn, her eyes got really big and she went into me about how god gives life and god's the reason why I exist and draw breath and the whole reason behind creation. Whoa, holy shit. I knew black people were religious but merciful heavens. So she asked, "What can be more powerful than God?" A trap question. If I said that there is no god therefore anything is more powerful than nothing that'd only make this drag on and any other answer would simply prove that nothing is more powerful than god. I told her that the universe is far more wondrous because everything is an accident rather than designed by something. "What about when you die?" "My spirit leaves my body and I can go wherever I want. I can haunt Mars." was my answer. Thankfully my department's manager came in and was asked if she believed in heaven and hell, she does, and I threw in the non-sequitor of "Hitler thought he was going to heaven" which elicited a whispered endorsement of Hitler's non-turning-Jews-into-soap projects. Holy fucking shit. I better keep to myself moreso than before from now on. Damn, that last sentence was really awkward in structure. I was so tempted to see if she wanted to talk later because I found her point of view so fascinating and unquestioning but I was afraid it would only lead to witnessing and other scary things. On my way to the parking lot I was visited by the spirit of the stairway when I realized there's something far more powerful than god. Faith. Gods require faith for sustenance, without faith gods merely fade away into the background radiation plus faith can be used for secular things. Anyway it wasn't worth it but I figured it'd fill up some space in tonight's entry. A House with a Clock in its Walls I found my copy of this book and I read myself to sleep with it the night before and I'm reading it again tonight because I enjoy this book so much. The second book The Figure in the Shadows is also good but I can't find my copy. It's still packed somewhere in here. I tried reading The Letter, the Witch and the Ring but I couldn't get into the story. If there was any influence on me wanting to be a writer it would be Bellairs's books. In Yer Dreams! A dream that takes place in Colorado and Utah. I stood atop a mountain that looked down at the terraces below that stretched out to the horizon. The curve of the mountain and the surrounding land gave the impression of it being an amphitheater for the gods rather than being an earthwork by man for his own ends. The landscape was full of trees, dotted with small town skylines like steeples, churches and the odd three story storefront bearing a painted billboard on the side for some amazing bifurcated snake oil fortified for rheumatism. What stood out as I surveyed the landscape was a structure to my left. The best impression I had was something gray and bulky, something which resembled church organ pipes. Take several grain silos from a farm, paint them battleship gray and stick them close to each other. The middle silos should be the tallest with the side silos being progressively shorter but not markedly shorter in comparison to the center structures. There were small additions on these structures that were reminiscent of art deco architecture but they were purely ornamental. Accompanying me atop the mountain was a friend, nameless but bearing the aura of being a close friend. We descended the slope and made our way towards a tree-lined road that led east which was the direction towards the horizon from the lookout point. A friendly cop drove along and offered to give us a ride. The officer said he was on his way to Colorado Springs's sister city in Utah and thought we would be interested in the sights since it was built long before Colorado Springs was a twinkle in Penrose's eye. The scenery passed by as we rode in silence, zigzagging along the terraces and making our way towards sea level or the plains level or whichever is lower and flatter in comparison to our former position. The cop pointed out we were almost there and urged us to wake up and watch the city's approach. This city reminded me of a previous dream about Colorad Springs where the city was hilly with tightly packed buildings. Everything was red brick or dusty and gave me the impression of being a less colorful and dryer mediterranean town from the narrow streets, narrow buildings and homes butted up against each other and a general mood of the place. I discovered that I was very near the gray structure from before and decided to visit it and discover its purpose. Up close it resembled an elephant far more than it did at a distance. There was no visible entrance or exit but I went to one of the outermost silos and knocked on its wall. The gray silo sat back, shifted and revealed an overstuffed gray chair underneath bearing the caretaker. He told me how this building was for orgies and how it used to be a great place but since everyone started going there for easy, free sex the allure has worn away. The caretaker bemoaned the fact that they had to implement a restrictive and imposing entrance fee in order to maintain some sort of quality except this made them sellouts in the eyes of old regulars and made them suffer the inanities of the idle rich. There wasn't any way I could get inside. Other parts of my dream were particularly thrilling when I travelled over a bridge to New York City that ended up splitting into various roadways, most of which were one-way dead ends but one stood out among the rest. In Ratchet and Clank there are these rails anyone can navigate with grindboots which is essentially sliding and jumping at a high rate of speed. One area was made up entirely of these rails and I could only navigate it partway before losing my nerve, stopping and putting myself at risk of falling into the deep green river shrouded in fog far below me.