December 2010 delivered what was (even for me) an unusually active dreamlife. One night I even harvested seven dreams!

I tweet them on a daily basis here, but always find they have added relevance and poetry (well, to me, at least) when gathered together. So here are the 107 dreams that came to me in my sleep during the final month of 2010.

DECEMBER 2010

I dreamt I was involved in a contentious, deadlocked school board meeting, so I suggested voters choose a side and vote half of us out. 31 Dec

I dreamt I couldn’t cross the border, so @doctorow lent me his passport. Only after I got home did I wonder — how exactly did that work? 31 Dec

I dreamt that in the midst of a party, our kitchen filled so deeply with water it spilled out the windows. Yet we continued serving food. 31 Dec

I dreamt I was dragging a massive alligator by its tail through a forest. I didn’t care that it was protesting, furiously snapping its jaws. 31 Dec

I dreamt I was at a massive Chinese banquet — in China — and didn’t recognize a single dish put on the table. It all looked good, though! 30 Dec

I’ve lost a dream. I can make out “one of my parents died” from my middle of the night note, but the final defining word is gibberish. FDSP? 30 Dec

I dreamt I made my living assembling massive DVD boxed sets in my basement, and grew weary of endless folding, glueing, and shrink-wrapping. 30 Dec

I dreamt I got in a gunfight with Richard Boone. Even though I shot him at least a dozen times, he continued to lie there, twitching. 30 Dec

I dreamt I chased chickens through the streets of Manhattan. Never managed to catch any, though. 30 Dec

I dreamt I hugged my late father in front of my house and said, “I miss you.” Smiling, he answered, “Why do you miss me? I’m right here.” 29 Dec (more…)

And the puzzles just keep on coming …

The latest unusual coin found among my mother-in-law‘s things was the non-metallic object below, about 3/8″ in diameter, with the letters OPA RED POINT and a large number 1 on it. Those of you of a certain age—plus those who managed to get a better education than I got—might be able to identify it immediately.

But as for me, I had to rely on my old friend Google to figure out what this was.

Somehow, even though billions of these tokens had been made—at least according to this site—I made it this far in life without ever having seen or even heard of them before.

I knew about the ration books used during World War II to parcel out meat, sugar, gas, and so on, but what I never knew was that people who used their stamps were then given coins in either blue or red for change. They were issued by the Office of Price Administration between 1942 and 1945, and those letters in the middle on either side of the number were apparently meaningless.

As for the approximate current value to a collector today, a minimum of 65 years later?

Forty cents.

But it’ll look quite nice up on the shelf next to my anarchist collectable.

One of the things I did on Christmas Eve was pull down my mother-in-law‘s copy of the 1912 Chicago Blue Book. She was born in Chicago, and remained there until she moved to Washington, DC in 1942 to help in the war effort as a cartographer at Army Map Service, so many of her books and other memorabilia are related to Chicago.

I love old advertisements, and the Blue Book was filled with hundreds of them. Here are a few of my favorites.

Need a private detective, ladies? Then you should get in touch with Cora M. Strayer.

I nominate this milk product as the most unappetizing of 1912 (and 2010 as well): GERM-NO! Yum yum!

And I toss in this ad for a swimming school simply because I always find the old-timey benign use of the swastika intriguing.

Our current ads will surely look just as quaint 98 years from now. Wish I could be around to see them!

In addition to finding a 1932 coin commemorating the end of the Depression and an 1887 coin commemorating Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre among my mother-in-law‘s possessions, we also came across an intriguing engraved key ring.

As you can see below, the words, “Andrew Russell for State Auditor” were inscribed on it.

But who is Andrew Russell? And when was it made?

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While at the World Fantasy Convention this year, I managed to hit all three restaurants visited by Adam Richman during the Columbus episode of Man v. Food. (You know that’s the show I watch while on the treadmill, right?)

Yesterday, I shared a list of the conventions I’ll be traveling to next year. And it occurred to me I should probably check–will there be any overlap between cons and food in 2011?

Yes!

First up, Man v. Food‘s Austin episode. Check it out to see where I’ll be dragging some of you during World Horror in April. (And I’ve already been to the Salt Lick, which is definitely worth the trip.)

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With 2010 winding down, I figured I’d better take a look ahead to where you’ll be able to find me in 2011, if for no better reason than to keep track of where I’ll be able to find me in 2011!

And just in case you’re wondering as you look at the list below, no, I haven’t been to a Philcon since it moved from Philadelphia, and I haven’t been to a Lunacon since it left Manhattan. (Making my last Lunacon a loooong time ago!)

See you on the road!

April 8-10
Ad Astra
Toronto, Canada

April 28-May 1
World Horror Convention
Austin, Texas

May 19-22
Nebula Awards Weekend
Washington, D.C.

May 27-30
Balticon
Hunt Valley, Maryland

June 16-19
Horror Writers Association Stoker Awards Weekend
Uniondale, New York (Long Island)

July 14-17
Readercon
Burlington, Massachusetts

July 21-24
Comic-Con International
San Diego, California

August 17-21
Renovation: the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention
Reno, Nevada

October 14-16
Capclave
Rockville, Maryland

October 27-October 30
World Fantasy Convention
San Diego, California

That 1932 seeing-eye/shamrock/swastika/Star of David coin I told you about a couple of weeks ago wasn’t the only intriguing item we found among my mother-in-law‘s possessions. I also came across this even older coin commemorating Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre, a token I would not want a curious TSA agent to find mixed in with my change as I went through security.

Oh, the front of the coin, which was apparently struck in 1887 on the one-year anniversary of the event, seems innocent enough.

The reverse, on the other hand, might raise a few eyebrows. (more…)

Another month has gone by, which means I’ve dreamed another mess o’ dreams, so I’ve gathered them in one place because they somehow seem more meaningful when they rub up against each other like this. And more surreal, too.

Special guest stars this month include Bob Newhart, Bob Silverberg, Fred Pohl, Cybill Shepherd, Don Draper, the Queen—and who knows, maybe even you.

I dreamt I was scripting a new issue of a comic about a hero I’d never seen before, flipping through pencil art bound together like a book. 30 Nov

I dreamt I was giving my opening talk to a new class of Clarion students. Inexplicably, on the wall behind me were huge drawings of the JLA. 30 Nov

I dreamt I was explaining the allure of San Diego Comic-Con to Adam Richman of Man v. Food. He seemed amused, but not convinced. 30 Nov

I dreamt I discussed my past life working for the company that imported St. Paul Girl with Barry Longyear, who said he’d worked for Beck’s. 30 Nov

I dreamt Lt. Dangle wasted his bullets firing his gun into the air rather than at the armed gang approaching, then looked at me sheepishly. 29 Nov

I dreamt I was at the bottom of a flight of stairs staring up at my son and sister-in-law across a pile of hundreds of empty VHS tape boxes. 29 Nov

I dreamt I rolled out huge squares of dough on a glass table and topped them with jam, but woke before I was able to cook or eat the result. 29 Nov

I dreamt I waited outside a Giant supermarket for it to close, after which I scavenged discarded onions, grapes and purple and white lilies. 28 Nov

I dreamt a man was telling me the tale of how my mother-in-law saved his family business from going under by buying out the store one day. 28 Nov

I dreamt I had trouble juggling (pointlessly using my glow-in-the-dark pins during the day) because everything kept trying to float off. 28 Nov (more…)

Yesterday was quite busy. Irene and I headed into D.C. for a matinee of Henry VIII at the Folger Theatre, taking off early enough to first visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum for an exhibit of Norman Rockwell paintings owned by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. (And leaving time for lunch in Chinatown, too, of course.)

In the evening, we swooped down on Rockville and had dinner with our son, after which we hung around in Maryland poring over family memorabilia. One particularly fascinating item was a coin which we assumed had belonged to my late mother-in-law’s father, John Aloysius Brown. The coin, celebrating the end of the depression, had been produced in 1932 by Stewart-Warner, a company that in its earliest incarnation had produced the speedometers that were used in the Ford Model T.

On one side, we’re exhorted to “Stop Crying, Start Buying,” a sentiment I could imagine our government urging us to embrace today.

So far, that makes this an interesting curiosity, but nothing that verges on OMG or WTF territory. No, for that, you’d have to turn the coin over. (more…)

Thanks to all of you who took part in the first two auctions of Irene’s artwork meant to help fund a trip sometime next year to Machu Picchu. (One pleasant surprise—who knew how much love there was out there for Doom Patrol artist Bruno Premiani?) A third auction of items from Irene’s collection started last weekend, and runs until 11:00 p.m. this Sunday, but life’s been so busy this is the first moment I’ve had to let you know about it.

Only four items this time, and two of them are quite unusual. First up, an unpublished X-Men page by Werner Roth and Sam Grainger that was meant to appear in issue #48 back in 1968, but never did. It was part of the back-up story “Metoxo the Lava Man,” starring Iceman and the Beast, which was promoted at the end of issue #47, but didn’t see print. The page features both Hank McCoy and Bobby Drake in civvies.

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