Whenever we near a full moon, my brain kicks up a heavy chop of stormy dreams, and in looking at my Art's Delicatessen calendar ("Every Sandwich is a Work Of Art"), I see that we're due for a full moon on the 21st. I also see that once again, I neglected to celebrate the anniversary of the U.S. landing on the moon on July 16, 1969--I didn't even send a card.

I do love my Art's Delicatessen calendar, though. Tahmi brought it to me out of the goodness of her heart. Not only does it denote the cycles of the moon with pensive-looking little faces, but each month's birthstone and flower are pictured. This month features a ruby and the larkspur. Mm. Evocative. Anyway, July 16th is illustrated with a little cartoon of a spaceman standing next to an American flag, and the words LAND ON MOON. Here, see the beauty for yourself:

And this is all really beside the point, which is: For the past few days, my sleeping brain has hosted the Cavalcade of Nighttime Weirdness, featuring in no particular order: Jack White, Shania Twain, my boss "Mr. Paul," and my friend Chavis. The Jack White element is not particularly weird, as he's been showing up a lot in my dreams. (Note to Jack: are you psychically stalking me? Cool!) The Shania Twain element is thoroughly unfair, because it caused me to wake up this morning with the one song of hers I know stuck in my head. Literally, it was my first waking thought. OK, figuratively. The first thought was "OW!" because the cat I'm house sitting took a swipe at me. Then the Shania kicked in--I don't know the name of the song, but it's essentially a long, pseudo-sassy posturing that any man of hers had better kiss her ass even when she looks like dog vomit. I'm guessing it's called "Any Man of Mine," and the reason I know it at all is that Lorelei and I witnessed a particularly grim karaoke rendition of it recently, with the singer plodding through the long, faux-spontaneous "come on, y'all, get out on the floor, yee-haw! Hoo!" bullshit ending.

So. Where was I?

Right. Dreams.

Last night's most disturbing dream involved a big presentation my boss was making to all our employees here. My job was to make the cue cards, and his job was to read them, while wearing a bunny suit. I made the cards, which included a line about all of us getting into heaven, to which I took it upon myself to add, for Mr. Paul's humorous benefit, "Except for all you Scientologists!" Unfortunately, he ended up reading that part out loud, thereby incurring the wrath of the many Scientologists in the audience. Horrified, I ran down to the front and told him I needed a moment to straighten things out. He was calm, but agreed that the presentation hadn't gone too well. I stood up before the crowd of angry people (who knew so many of my coworkers were Scientologists?) and in a self-effacing, logical argument that I have since forgotten, proceeded to totally explain away my gaffe and win them back over to my side.

If only my waking life were as vivid and satisfying as my mental arena.

Still, acting on the recommendation of the lovely Ms. Jehsika, I checked out astrologer Susan Miller. My horoscope for July is, so far, startlingly accurate. I'm going to cross my fingers that it holds.

P.S.

Is the mustard on that pastrami sandwich not thoroughly obscene?

Star of the day. . .Art, Sandy, Harold & Roberta