This is all old content, but I'm keeping it around.

My dorm is near the library and the main classroom building! My roommate is from Lesotho! My assigned dining hall is the one that serves vegetarian/vegan food for all meals! Yay!

In other news, I have survived tooth removal, but I didn't get to keep 'em because someone threw them out. Grr. I am unswollen, but I ooze blood and hurt so I am on narcotics.

I have twelve cups of rainbow layered Jello! It is a ridiculously large quantity to possess. It took a ridiculously long time to make. It makes me happy! ... I just can't eat it today, because I hurt.

Instead I play with frozen peas and listen to NPR jazz. Annie began reading me "The Silver Chair," because someone mentioned it recently and I couldn't remember much of it except the snake person.

Lesotho! Yay!

040711dream 10-11

It begins with a murder. Several people stand around in a small, dusty, libraryish area. An older gentleman makes fancy prints on a table. My father (?) and I are investigators. Two other men there are conspirators.
    I go to the scene of the suspected [for there is no body] murder, which took place on the middle landing of a flight of stairs in the style of school stairwells. I collect items: two books wrapped in brown paper, a feather pen drenched in magenta/purple ink, and a cloth or something that is on the lower flight of stairs to the left, under a smudge of magenta/purple. One of the conspirators, who looks very jittery, has accompanied me. He reaches toward the sideways bottle of magenta/purple ink, and I warn him not to taint the evidence with fingerprints by touching it. With a sneer, he touches it anyway.
    Returning to the cramped library, I see that the seated man is making prints. As I place each item before him, he picks it up and touches it gently against his paper so that it leaves behind an image in the magenta/purple ink that coats them all. He does this to appear more casual, as he already knows who the villains are.
    My mind knows I have seen this all before (?), so I know who to keep an eye on. The two shady men are fidgeting, and keep eyeing the books I am holding. I begin, casually, to slit and remove the brown paper covering on the premise that I want to see what books they are. One is a jungle novel of some  kind, I think. I ask whether, as I have just finished reading a book, I might borrow the book to read. The men look anxious, but must agree so that I will not suspect the importance of the volume. I open the book deliberately, slowly, so that a bookmark that had been zippered (?) in the spine of the book falls freely to the ground. "What's that?" I ask innocently, as the younger of the villains, the underling who had accompanied me earlier, stoops suddenly after it. The two men can't hide it, now that I have inquired. They decide to let me have it; they can retrieve it later.
    The bookmark turns out to be a certificate, approximately 400 years old, which guarantees that any bearer of the certificate may present it to a member of the family line and receive a piano tuning free of charge. The two men obviously plan to ruin the family (which may be related to Chagall) by sharing the certificate and requesting numerous free piano repair jobs.
    
  {Random unrelated section removed}
    
    I[a young girl] go[es] swinging through the jungle, trying to escape capture. This is related in tone to the conspirator storyline. This sequence turns out to be part of a movie that will be coming out [in my dream] in a couple of days.
    My sisters and I must pack for France, where our family is heading. I hide the book that had been wrapped in brown paper in someone else's house, inside a mattress.
    Once in France, I visit a silk tapestry store. Wei and others (Sara, Elyse?) are there, and one of them points out a geometric design made by Chagall or similar to an image Chagall had painted in an early series. I also find a large, mostly dark red tapestry by Chagall that is priced at about three thousand dollars. I am not sure why the prices are in dollars; my mind rationalizes that the European Union, like El Salvador, accepts US money. Anyway, the red tapestry is important. I must pay attention to it; I know that the conspirators have some connection to  Chagall- the piano tuners may be related to him.
    To avoid drawing attention to that one tapestry, I wander towards the smaller tapestries (about 40cm by 60cm) that Wei had been showing me. A Japanese tourist with a Nikkon camera aims at her small daughter who is standing in front of me. I realize that the tourist is a spy for the conspirators; because the child faces away from the camera, the photographer must be after my image instead. I will have to inform the shopkeeper.
    I go speak to the shopkeeper for a couple of reasons. After some of the following events, on my instruction, she confiscates the film from the camera "because flash photography is prohibited within the shop." To reduce suspicion, also on my instruction, the shopkeeper compensates for the film with several postcard images, which she does permit. [End out-of-order segment.]
    I want to either buy the red tapestry or have it moved to safety elsewhere. I have to act like a customer to avoid arousing suspicion. The shopkeeper and I will meet elsewhere for tea to discuss "business." I tell her about the conspirators, and show her the piano tuning certificate, which I may use as collateral if she will allow the tapestry to be hidden elsewhere. For security, I am using the name Emily Cargo. I tell her that it is a family name, not the shipment word. My mother comments that she may be descended from Chagall.
    The dream ends as I am making arrangements with the shopkeeper for the safety of the red Chagall tapestry.
   
Sources:
    
    Ink: Dave Carlton had ink last night, and Marisa was talking about needing India ink.
    Books: I have recently finished Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.
    Chagall: Antiques road show print that Chagall collaborated on. The printmaking comes from the same source. Chagall also came up because Sara's grandmother (whom I met for the Friday family dinner) had met Chagall.
    Conspirators: Sara's mother had spoken of a shady relative [who turned out to be a spy] who had gained access to a president's house in Israel and had removed from there many pieces of artwork. A different relative had seemed to be related to many mysterious deaths.
    Piano tuning: The Pevar household piano is in need of tuning (?)
    France: My family /is/ in France.
    Tapestries: The stacks resemble the stacks of quilts and especially Hatian voodoo flags
    Cargo: I explained at dinner with Sara's family about the name of our folk art gallery, how it is a family name and not a clever idea for a gallery name.