01 September 2009
Last night's dream

My friend Juuso and I were in the East German town of Frankfort-Oder, trying to hitchhike to the far side of Poland. We saw a Chinese truck stopped, and the driver, a Chinese man dressed like a garbage man, was smoking. I approached him and asked if we could hitch and he said yes. We got in the truck - Juuso in the front seat and me in the back, and made small talk. He told me his name but it was something Chinese so I forgot it. Suddenly I realised we were driving through Pittsburgh so I started shouting out landmarks and other things - and I got excited by it. I insisted that we stop for the night and stay with my parents - the other two guys weren't so into it, but I talked them into it by promising lots of free food. We actually stopped at my aunt Janice's house, where some family gathering was going on. The three of us sat in her living room and everyone said Hi, though no one seemed particularly surprised or excited to see me (which irritated me). In fact, everyone was running around and shouting at each other and ignoring us. I made smalltalk with the Chinese truck driver and again asked him his name. He said it was Philniekro. I said "like the baseball player?" and he said "I guess so" since they don't really follow baseball in China. I started to tell him about how I always drove past Phil Niekro's hometown on I-70 in Ohio and there was a billboard about it, but then I stopped telling him because I realised he didn't care. Juuso asked me if all the Fails were this crazy but I explained that this was my mom's side of the family, so I was the only Fail present.