The rain in Maine

[After falling asleep by candlelight on a powerless thunderstormy night on an island off the coast of Maine...]

Christian said calmly, "I just wanted you to know that after storms like this, there's probably going to be a pandemic." Apparently after large storms that crossed state lines up from Massachusetts, the likelihood of mass infectious disease soared.

We walked outside the beach house to see bodies lying on both sides of the road up until it curved around the bend. The road itself was muddy and running.

I figured we should get out of there and head back to Massachusetts. I was supposedly the medical professional, but then again, he was from the Northeast.

Some sort of psychic pathologist

Much like Alicia on sfgate.com, I had "soft part"-something cancer. The tumor was small, but I knew that it had spread and was going to be pretty much impossible to treat. The strange thing is, my tumor hadn't been biopsied, but I knew what it was anyway.

I was sitting in this waiting room with other patients who all had cancer, waiting for the specialist. The rest of the patients were all used to having cancer and were pretty chill, and I was the only one who was scared. I had to get a biopsy, but I knew it would only show what I already knew I had.

My Nose

I was followed incessantly by a tiny, one-foot-tall alien who really wanted to touch my nose. I kept telling him no, and he would slink away, only to excitedly return a few minutes later, repeating "Touch your nose? Touch your nose!"

I became angrier and angrier, and finally resorted to physical abuse. I kicked him through doorways, throttled his neck, and still he would run back, unaffected. "Touch your nose! Touch your nose?" I became terribly frightened that I would kill the alien because he was pushing me to the brink of homicide.

Where it's at

We were backstage at the Beck show and Beck was late to go on, as he was on the phone on the sofa behind us. Rini and I were putting on these matching shorts and got ready to leave. But instead of going to the show, we went outside.

First, we passed by the Harry Potter Hogwarts Photo School, on the second floor of an old tenement building, which had a huge line in front. There were also striking fans holding signs that said "Move the photo school to the first floor!" Pretty much everyone there was wearing wizard robes, which we found out were on sale at booths set up for people waiting in line.

We passed by the photo school to end up at the "Dress Up Like Beck" area. I thought this was hugely lame and walked around, shocked that the place, kind of like a flea market, was so packed with people who really wanted to look exactly like Beck. Rini said, "Can you imagine, if it was 'Dress Up Like Vanilla Ice', no one would be here!"

The Cyclone

I was waiting in line to ride The Cyclone, the roller coaster at Coney Island. Instead of stopping at the end of its run to let me on, the coaster flew by the entrance area and sped up for its second go-around.

Right after it looped-the-loop (in real life, there's no loop) The Cyclone derailed, smashing into the ground. It was obvious that there would be major injuries. I ran away to a pay phone to call 911.

[Aside: These days, it costs $5 to ride The Cyclone. Initially it seemed like a rip-off, but after riding the thing last fall--it's not.]

Agapanthus

I was being quizzed, or "pimped", as we like to say in the medical world, by this woman who was a hard-core Lily Tomlin/Susan Sontag blend. She was pimping me about plants, asking, rapid fire, "What's this?" "What's this?" "You can tell by the branch pattern!" as she frantically pointed at different plants and trees.

Dr. Cox appeared and astutely related that I knew the answers, but was overanalyzing and getting too nervous to answer correctly.

Lily/Susan showed me the next plant, and I got it right away. Agapanthus.