Where's the Fire?

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 20, 2009

I was at home (which seemed to be located in a fictional neighborhood in the dream). Looking down the road I saw smoke coming from one of the distant houses, and thought I caught a glimpse of an actual fire in the carport. At that same time, my phone rang. It was my mom, telling me to call the fire department so they could put out the fire in the house before it spread. They way she talked, it seemed more like she was referring to the house I was in, but I saw no signs of it being on fire, so I assumed she did mean the one I saw down the street.

I kept trying to dial 9-1-1 and for some reason kept having problems. During this process, I somehow accidentally dialed my dad's cell. He was really horse and sounded like he'd been sick, but immediately upon answering he told me how glad he was that I'd called on his birthday (it's nowhere near his birthday in real life). I didn't want to be rude and just hang up on him, but I knew I needed to call 9-1-1 very soon.

In the world of stupid dream logic, I kept on the phone with him for way too long without explaining why I needed to call the other number. Suddenly, as I was talking to him, it looked like I was walking through a department store or a mall. I came out the front doors and was standing on a sidewalk in a huge city--it actually looked like New York at Christmas time.

Down the city street I could still see that burning house, and now firetrucks were beginning to arrive. So someone else had called. Good! The next thing I remember is hearing the story about the fire on the news, and apparently the house belonged to some kind of bikers, and they were plotting revenge against whoever set the fire.

My last memory is riding on a public bus. It was very crowded and at one point I remember a girl came on looking for a seat. She was rather beautiful, and was wearing an unusual fleece dress--basically looked like an oversize sweater with pastel stripes of blue and pink and yellow. In the dream I was pretty sure I recognized her...and that's because she was Zooey Deschanel, though I didn't consciously realize it yet. She tried to sit on the seats in front of me, but those guys wouldn't share with her. I promptly offered her a seat with me, and she sat down in my lap. We were immediately getting along really well.

Then, for some reason, I remember walking back to the rear of the bus. Due to some series of events, I stood up and balanced myself on the back of one of the seats (all of them with people seated in them). Naturally, I had to bend forward while balancing in order not to bump my head against the roof of the vehicle.

The backs of certain seats were marked with a specific type of label. I began leaping from seat to seat, taking great care to skip the ones on which the label was absent. It was extremely difficult to maintain balance and not kick people's heads while doing this, but in the world of dream logic, I was pulling it off. I somehow knew that if you successfully jumped on each labeled seat without hitting any of the others, you won a prize. As I jumped, I remember thinking of Mario.

Finally, I was with Zooey Deschanel again. Though she'd been her normal, pretty self before, I now suddenly realized she was just jarringly skinny. Emaciated, in fact--not in a manner of being sick, but in that oft repeated Hollywood attempt at sexiness. I was so disappointed to find out that another attractive one had been lost to the overly-skinny cult.