For the past few days, I've been house/dog sitting for friends. Even though I'm pretty darn close to my own apartment and still kind of in the neighborhood, it feels like I'm on a mini-vacation. Except instead of warm, sunny Chile, I'm in cold, freezing Noe Valley.

The dog I'm dog sitting for occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night with a doggy nightmare. She's been doing this for awhile, even back last year when I was dog sitting her. So I wonder, what makes a doggy nightmare? Are they dreaming that they're chasing after a frisbee but can't run? Is it where they show up to doggy training school late or realize it's the finals and they haven't even begun to comprehend what the word "sit" means? Or are they dreaming that they're showing up in public wearing clothes?

Speaking of dreams, I've been having some weird one's lately. One of them is where I am about to get married and it's a couple of days before the wedding and I suddenly get panicked, wondering what the hell I'm about to do feeling like I'm trapped into making a big mistake. It's a pretty weird dream to have when not only are you single and not dating anyone, but living a carefully planned life in which you're pretty much not commited to anything. The other one is a twist on the old back to school and not able to study thing, except that in this one I am trying to study, but I keep on getting distracted by other people. Other than the obvious shout-out to Sartre's"hell is other people" meme, this one is weird because I don't particularly feel that way about anything. In fact, I can say that while I have a project management type job, I'm not that frustrated with anyone in it right now.

Which makes me wonder- since I'm in one of those strange places where I'm not particularly stressed out about anything nor upset about anything, why am I having these dreams? Is there something lurking underneath or does the subconscious play re-runs when it has nothing going on, kind of like how networks show repeats during the holidays and summer? All of which brings me back to a conversation I had with a friend over the weekend, how people tell us that we worry about everything. Isn't that what you're supposed to think about? What does one think about when they're not worrying? Is it all puppy-dogs and rainbows? What's it like?

Seriously. What's it like?