Those folding chairs would, one by one, fold under our respective weights – you know, Hubby is actually quite the gentleman and would, from time to time, offer me his comparatively comfy swivel chair and take the folding chair himself. The first wooden chair perished all to pieces and with a real bang under Hubby when we had dinner watching a DVD one unsuspecting evening. The second payed its debt to nature unter yours truly when we had another dinner watching another DVD another unsuspecting evening. Makes me think whether maybe the having dinner part had something to do with all that… Maybe we oughta switch to lighter fare. On the other hand, those chairs might have just been the crappy junk they looked and felt.

Today, Hubby told me the last of the folding chairs had a slivered leg and he wouldn’t stand for me sitting in that piece of crap any longer! So to IKEA we went and had a look around. Here’s the little baby Hubby bought as an addition to the careful interior design of his room, for me to sit in exclusively:

Ain’t she the prettiest little lady chair you’ve ever laid your eyes upon? I know she is the prettiest little lady chair my eyes have ever had the privilege to be laid upon. And a cinch to assemble, too.

So basically, I just wanted you to know: I’m in love!

Tonight, while I was asleep, as good girls should be at night – which doesn’t tell you anything about me being good or bad or a girl of either of these convictions because for all you know I could be an averagely okay-behaved boy who just happened to be asleep at night because he accidentally misread the clock – I had a great idea.

For a book.

I have great ideas for books all the time when I’m asleep. They usually involve me being chased by someone in a very complex and intriguing manner.

This one was different and I even remember what I think would be a great quote for a movie trailer (yes, when I dream, I dream big): “You don’t think my soul stays in this box of sand the whole time I’m gone, do you?”

Okay, so here’s the kicker: The quote is unaltered because the dream was actually in English. The whole thing, I swear.

I don’t usually dream in English. I admittedly talk to Hubby in a weird English-y kind of language most of the time we’re horsing around, and I have spent some time in English speaking countries. I sometimes can’t think of the proper expression in German and just blurt out the English one, making myself sound like a total douche showing off her mad English-language-Skillz.

But I don’t dream in English.

Well, I didn’t use to dream in English up until last night, to be perfectly accurate.

I had applied for the Green Card Lottery the day before, so maybe that had something to do with it, who knows. I just had the weirdest feeling when I was done waking up and noticed I hadn’t felt weird at all the first couple of seconds after just having awakened from a dream I had dreamed in English.

Anyway, the great idea for the book: There’s this man, who’s a strange kind of traveler. At certain points in his life, he turns to sand. In a box. And while the sand is in the box, his soul goes places. Which is why his soul doesn’t stay in the box of sand the whole time he’s gone, you see. In my dream, there also was a girl (very pretty, looked just like me) who held the box and had a very interesting look on her face.

There was more, but I forgot after having memorized the cool quote sitting on the toilet right after waking up. Well, there was of course a small time span between waking up and actually sitting on the toilet, because, a bit off as I might be sometimes, I haven’t resorted to sleeping on the toilet yet. I’m pretty much grossed out by toilets, so the chance of me falling asleep on one, which would entail me touching all kinds of parts of the bowl and the seat and… huh. This post is going places I hadn’t intended it to go. Go. Get it?

So, anyway, I guess there goes the book deal. I think there was something about shoes and interesting conversations with bums at a train station…

Oh well. Fame’ll have to wait a while for me.

I don’t have it often enough.

But when I do have it, there’s this fuzzy gush of yay soaring through me, and I can’t seem to find my head because I’ve used it all up.

Do you know that feeling? It’s “being-proud-of-yourself”.

In my case, it’s being proud of myself because I think I’ve managed to write a (first draft of a) research proposal in almost no time that would have taken most other people half a day.

I could be wrong, of course. Maybe what I’ve written isn’t even worth the paper I’ve written it on (well, I typed it on the computer, so there’s no paper, which means I should be safe as far as the value of the hypothetical paper is concerned). Maybe most other people could have finished it in less time, and done a better job, too. Maybe I’ll be told tomorrow that it’s all just a big fat load of bull crap and the worst thing I’ve ever written and how dare I steal everyone’s time. If that happens I’ll be ruinously embarrassed.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Just doesn’t. Because at this moment I’m feeling really proud of myself, and I don’t mind telling anyone who’ll listen, because I think I’ve done well. If I haven’t, I’ll find out soon enough, but until then I’m just going to enjoy that feeling of having no head because I’ve used it all up. I like it. And I need to cultivate that feeling since, as I pointed out earlier, I don’t have it as often as I should.