Strange, like most of my dreams are, but stranger still because of it's banality.

I was getting married. Snapped back from a daydream, in a consultation with a wedding planner. I almost jumped out of my seat when I realized I was sitting next a woman. My fiancée.

The rest of the afternoon was spent debating table settings, venues and imitating the planner's floral vocabulary. Unfamiliar gestures of play-affection with someone entirely foreign, though even I had a difficult time not liking her in a friendly sort of way. My eyes, however, were set on my brother-in-law-to-be.

I had the feeling he was happy, or he was suppose to be; strange doppleganger of mine. Between his dry but practical white collar job; his family and friends that knew nothing about him; his intact hairline. And that was the ticket out the paper doll reverie. Friends. He had chosen those ones, the disposable shiny happy people who were anything but. And he fed off the pathetic scraps of actual friendship that they fought each other for. A true, dyed-in-the-wool self-destructing clique. Miles away from the loosely knit, and sometimes unexplainable relationships I have with people.

And I laughed. Somewhere inside of him I laughed at how ridiculous he was. Oblivious as he raged forward in his own quiet way along the rails to tragedy. It became a lot clearer how much the people I met and know have helped shape what I am, and how grateful I am to them.

The irony is if my own naivéte, awkwardness and attempts at honesty were visited upon him, he could just as easily deride my life as equally absurd.

***

I had to take off the woolen toque, I woke up still wearing. I wonder if I can blame it for the soapy dream(s).

***

To be honest I didn't like any of the houses we looked at. Two were okay and one looked unlived in enough to project myself into the idea of being there.

It's odd the things we overlook when we grow accustomed to them. Weird mistakes and shoddy repairs. Where we see character and memories, are another persons poor maintenance. Old clothes hastily hidden, the lost button and odd niche. Knicknacks and old photos. And it's worse still, the idea that the place that has never known anyone else is to be given to a stranger, while moving to another's home. The smells and evidence of another life slowly wiped away with every spray of Pledge.

I would dearly like to stay and fix up this place. Own it, perhaps. Leaving when the time is right, and not just because circumstance allows now or out of convenience.

Maybe it's selfish, and more sentimentality than even I should have, but it doesn't feel right.

Keith