Trigger Warning: Note to Fairfield University Faculty and Staff Who Walk Into the Digital Neverlands. This is Art on Their Walls (Dream Trauma)

There are two dreams that I've taught myself to wake up from. The first involves any and all variations of being buried alive: quicksand, dirt, rocks, buildings. I can't stand the suffocation, so I wake up instantly to shake it off. The second is the pervasive high school locker dream. You're running late for class, your locker is on the 3rd floor, and you need to get to the gym on the first floor, totally other side of the building. But you can't remember the combination. Sometimes I do, but then I don't have gym clothes packed away. I have this dream once a month. 

Perhaps that is why the wall art in the Dolan Commons of Fairfield University struck me as triggering. I wanted to leap up and start spinning the gigantic lock on the wall.

As a follow-up to yesterday's chaos, I can report that the car is done, the new laptop is in my home (and I love it! And I love Sherry Salafa who is one of Fairfield's most amazing workers), and the inspectors thumbed-up the new gutters and trim. It looks great. They gave me a quote for a new bay window, too, and I coughed. Um no. Then they came back and said, "We have what you need in stock, and a green campaign not to have any waste. We can give you a great discount. How about 50% off?" Um, suckered in. Now that all windows have been done and the trim looks great there are two major eye sores: I need to paint the porch and the bay window is like 40 years old. It is starting to detached from the house and I'm afraid I'll have another disaster. Why not mess with my credit a little?

Karal was an absolute nutcase with the inspector. I had to lock her away. No combination on that door. She was obsessed with jumping on him and biting his shoes. Some people she goes cuckoo over. He was one of them. And I loaded him up with books to take home to his two children.

Finally, the boot is off. And I walked Karal 4 miles. There was no pain. That was probably the greatest part of the entire day. Actually, no. I got to play trivia with some of my Syracuse University peeps in an online platform. Not bad for a day that was suppose to be terrible. We came in 3rd place, losing 2nd with a tie-breaking question we didn't know. The 1st place team gets everything right, every time. We just know this is the way they are, and let them do as they do. We simply compete to have fun, which we always achieve.