#holy shit i can't believe we're only halfway LOL

[mmmatchasims]

(I'm sick of meaning, I just wanna hold you)

[barrowdowns]

dream lol

work meeting...store deeper/wider with less seating than usual. more steel, more glass, less wood. I get there; it takes a while to start and I don't have anyone to talk to, so I decide to quickly go through this museum of flight (which also had something to do with abraham lincoln???) w/ els until the meeting starts. the entrance to the museum is like an airport. I need my ID to get in...someone's waiting behind me...I scramble through my pockets but I don't have my ID and I realize I left my bag at work. then I realize that the meeting must be halfway over already and I panic and then debate whether or not I should show up at all, but my bag has my ID, wallet, and my notebook so I go back. only C & M are there, cleaning up after the meeting in a much larger, much steelier, back of house. I feel bad for not showing up so I try to clean with them, but there's nothing to clean so I douse some to-go boxes with water from a hose faucet in the wall, no hose attached. I soak them through, then try to hide that I've ruined a bunch of to-go boxes. finally M leaves, I wait for C to say something to me and she doesn't so I talk to her first and lie and tell her that els had been in some kind of trouble so I had to leave and I didn't expect it to take this long, and then she suddenly looks at me and she looks so sad and says "I was just worried that you would leave and never come back!" and I laugh but I don't tell her I considered it.

Suddenly people are back of house sitting in this weird steel benches built into the wall, eating burgers and drinking shakes. I make myself busy cleaning up after them. A person I don't know is sweeping and muttering "I can't believe I'm doing this right now." I try to extend some empathy but I don't know if they hear me.

I leave soon after. In this version of town, some of the sidewalks aren't elevated from the road at all and are just lighter-colored asphalt. Some spots you have to walk in the road because there are no sidewalks (like real life!) but worse. There's this oaxacan place on the corner of the street. people are lined up inside, but the line isn't moving. I don't think they're open yet but they're waiting. Nobody shares the sidewalk or road with me until I turn a corner and I'm by a different version of the river. The paths are beautiful. It's like if the back bay hadn't been destroyed by oil spills. Everything glows a little bit. The soil is deep orange and there are bunchgrasses everywhere. I see Sa & Sp here and start chatting with them. It's so easy and I realize holy shit! maybe we could be friends! There's no car road visible beside us. We keep talking and it feels so real and easy!

We reach the end of the path and then we're at a car intersection. we cross it and we're in a parking lot. Sp says I better get home now or something along those lines and I say something like I need to see the ocean! and he says "only go to the ocean if you're ready for transformation" and I look at him like o__o because that's exactly what I was thinking. I wish he would come with me because if he thinks like that then we must end up friends but he gets in his car and gets ready to leave. But next to us in the parking lot (Sa is no longer Sa) there's L & her not-bf in his car. it's a white jeep-looking thing with a aromantic flag bumper sticker on the back with some kind of symbol at the center (???). Sa gets in the car to get a ride home and there are a bunch of other people in there. Instead of L's bf driving as before, she takes the wheel and she slams on the reverse (I can hear people yelling inside that she might clip me as she backs up because I'm standing there trying to get out of the way), tears backward out of the parking lot, into the street, then tears around a corner in a way that was so dangerous but somehow perfectly aligner, and only slams on the breaks right before they all hit a wire fence in an alleyway. I run after them to make sure they're ok, Sp gets out of the car and does the same because he hadn't left yet. Everyone's out of the car at this point and sitting on the ground sweating and panting and stuff and I ask if everyone's okay and one person in particular seems dazed so Sp gets an ice pack (the kind that's encased in a hard plastic so it's hard even before it's frozen) and tries to hold it up to the person's head but he accidentally hits them over the head and knocks them out cold. A moment later they sit up and go "what happened?!" then we're like shit we have to take them to the hospital because they have a fucking concussion . and that's when my alarm went off