Sheriff Woody and the Mall

MORNING OF AUGUST 22, 2010

I was designing artwork to submit to a "Create A Toy Story T-Shirt" contest. My design was a simple drawing of Woody, standing there with his arms crossed. Next to the picture there was text in a block-letter font that read, "Sheriff Woody". That's all there was to it. And I somehow felt confident it might actually win the contest!

The desk I drew this at was the old desk I had as a child and teenager. On that real desk there used to be a little fluorescent desk lamp, and I can specifically remember looking at it in the dream. I was also arranging little items on the desk, some of which really used to be on it, and others were random dream items.

Finally I was in a huge mall. It was all indoors, but it looked like a small town. All the storefronts were fully realized, with sidewalks and benches and everything outside them. Truly, only the roof over all of this kept it from feeling like anything less than an outdoor shopping experience in a city.

Lisa and I walked and walked and walked in this mall setting, and it never seemed to end. Eventually a fictional gay guy joined us. He was nice, but really talkative an annoying. He hung out with us for the rest of the dream, offering his opinion of everything in the mall.

Eventually we reached a place where all the stores were off-white in color and just drab and featureless. I saw an Old Navy sign above one of this colorless, featureless stores. The gay guy explained that this was the part of the mall that wasn't finished yet. It had only been "conceptualized".