In last night’s dream, Irene and I are at a science-fiction convention walking through the halls of a hotel, heading toward a ballroom at which a cocktail party is being held. As we near the room, we bump into David Hartwell, and continue along with him, chatting. Once in the vast, high-ceilinged, and crowded room, we grab drinks, split up, and proceed to mingle and schmooze. As I stand there, drink in hand, surveying the crowd, I realize that I don’t know what day it is. Is the Hugo Awards ceremony still to come, or have I missed it?

I spot David again, this time standing by a small table with Marty Greenberg. I go over to ask them, because if the Hugos are that night, I need to head back to my hotel room and change into a suit. But before we can talk, we’re suddenly no longer at a World Science Fiction Convention …

… but instead in the cul-de-sac of Woodview Drive, the street on which I used to live over in Maryland from 1989 until 2004. I’m standing in front of my old house with Irene and Marty and David, but also with Lois Gresh, and they all have luggage, as if they plan on staying with me for awhile. There’s a problem, however, I tell them—I don’t live there anymore. We need to head over the West Virginia, where I’m living now.

So I get into my Jeep and drive down the street. I don’t get more than a quarter of a mile before I realize that my guests are not in the Jeep with me, they’re instead walking alongside it. I decide that this is silly, that we won’t get very far that way, and so stop, get out, and tell them to get in. But once I do, the vehicle is no longer something large enough to carry us all, but rather a motorized golf car, open to the air on all sides. Perhaps four people could fit inside, but not a fifth, and certainly not the luggage as well.

I wake as we try to figure out the puzzle of fitting in bodies and bags so that no one will be left behind.

In a later dream this morning, I’m inside Robert Silverberg’s house, bringing him a small sculpture as a gift. Only, it’s not a gift from me, it’s a gift that I’m delivering from Barry Malzberg. The specific look and details of this gift have faded. I can only remember that it was about ten inches high, and on a pedestal, though I do recall that the statue by its shape and form was meant to represent the ideals of rationality and skepticism.

Bob points out that he already has a second copy of that exact sculpture. He holds up the duplicate, and says that he got it from the Amazing Randi.

I tell Bob that considering what the statue stands for, it makes sense to have received it from the Amazing Randi.

“But,” I ask him, “Do you know how the Amazing Randi got his statue?”

“How?” asked Bob.

“Why, he got it from Barry Malzberg, of course,” I tell him.

At that point, I wake up. I continue to lay in bed, only half-conscious, trying to remember the exact form of the sculpture. But I find that the dream memory has faded, and its shape never returns to me.