I was in Final Fantasy 7, part of my party, working our way from the levening forest towards the mountains. Think the entranceway between Nibelheim and the mountains. There were even 1998 graphics, and I had some kick ass limit breaks that blinked when I was supposed to use them.

If you can imagine: I was both playing the adventure as well as part of it.

Anyway, we’d just finished dodging an encounter with the Tunesmith; not because she was dangerous but because she was annoying, in that yellow dress and hyperactive J-pop manner. (Note: there is no actual Tunesmith in the game). I’d managed some kind of tic-tac-toe game; eventually just smashing it with limit breaks. Oddly enough the theme song was not playing-I’ve had the fight theme song play in my dreams before.

I think I had to pick up a sword, somewhere, too. Not sure.

Anyway, to get where we were going, we had to pass through a graveyard. It wasn’t a terribly depressing graveyard: aside from the black iron bars running around the outside, there was a white gazebo and tiny colorful helpful creatures running around. I’m not sure what the creatures where-but they were giggly and pretty much harmless. But we couldn’t just pass. We had a mini-game to play before we could get through. Some kind of hooded figure said so. Fuck it, let’s play the game.
The mini-game involved digging on the hill the gazebo covered. We had to dig more than the little creatures in the time allotted. True to FF7 gameplay; there was a tiny timer in the lower right hand corner of all the action, showing in mauve numbers the countdown.

Ben (there is no Ben in the game, this is a guy I know from Spokane who often astounds me with his wisdom), came up with the perfect plan. As soon as the timer started, he went over to the large soundsystem that suddenly appeared, and pressed Play. The greatest Slayer song ever rocked out (but I don’t know what the title is, because it’s coming from the new album and I haven’t actually heard it) and all the little colorful creatures did the metalhead rock out headbang thing. The poor dude in the hood just slumped his shoulders, and as the timer ran down, Ben just walked over to a small patch of grass, dug once, and we won!

And then I woke up.

I love the song “James” by the band Huffamoose – the title of this post is from that song (I changed the gender to make it about me :)… (download it if you can). That song came to mind as I read an email from a friend/colleague this morning. It’s always kind of fun and kind of freaky when someone tells you they had a dream about you.

“I had a dream that you were a really accomplished artist, and you were exhibiting your work–it was sculpture and paintings—and you were showing everyone around the gallery… are you an artist? Have we ever had a conversation about art? I have no idea why this was in my head last night, but it was really vivid, so I thought I should let you know…”

I did win a prize while in elementary school for a swan I sculpted out of tinfoil (like the ones they create for your leftovers at some restaurants — mine didn’t have food inside). I don’t paint, but if I did, I would paint like Diego Rivera. Any visual art that I have ever created has been like that – scenes with lots of people and activity – paintings that are really stories.

So, as I was trying to think about what E’s dream means (because I know it means something), I realized that maybe it’s my dissertation. If Diego Rivera wrote a Library and Information Science dissertation, it would maybe be like mine… (Information Needs of Mexican Immigrants Employed in the Meatpacking Industry). I am going to be using narrative methodology – telling the stories of three individuals. Maybe I need to think about it like creating art, which is so much more appealing to me and inspiring to me than just thinking about it as just an academic paper.

Or maybe it means I need to sign-up for a painting class.