It's another one of those moments where I'm holed up in my younger son's room, trying to soothe him and get him to SETTLE DOWN, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!...you know, help him relax and drift off to sleep. I have my Treo with me, so I could pick up where I left off, reading more of Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island. However, I decided to poke around on my Facebook profile and try to add a friend or two. Lo and behold, a couple of my friends responded right away and accepted my offer of friendship. *sniff* I feel so loved! Anyway...

Coming here to leave another little faint mark on the world, my mind started pondering and wandering, and it landed on my house. Not my house as in the place where I live right now, try to shelter my family, and pay the mortgage. No, I mean my dream house, the one I visit when I'm asleep. In my dreams, my house is always huge. Often it sits on the shore of a lake and looks like the Grand Hotel om Mackinac Island. It is then invariably not just my home, but home to my entire extended family. Most times, though, it looks about the size of my real house. However, in these dreams I almost always spend some time exploring The Other Rooms.

It's wierd. I must have some subconscious desire for more living space--although my real house is plenty big, thank you very much, I can't imagine trying to keep a bigger one clean. Anyway, in the dream house I usually come across a door I had almost forgotten about, and I go through it to a room--or, more often, an entire wing--of the house we never use. Sometimes it's storage; sometimes it's a bedroom suite; once it was a dormitory-style shower and bathroom two hundred feet long. whatever it is, though, it's always spotless and furnished, and I have it all to myself. I always end up saying to myself "Now, why on earth don't we use this terrific home theater / private gym / library/ indoor pool? It's been here all this time. We might as well make use of it." Then I wake up, and it's gone.