I Just Had the Strangest Dream

Last night I dreamt I was in Seattle, speaking at the Adobe InDesign Master Class. It was weird and wonderful. Such a vivid and realistic dream, too. At one point I was at a Japanese restaurant eating sushi with David and Anne-Marie from InDesignSecrets. I think I ate shrimp heads and geoduck sushi. Like that really exists!

Then before I knew it, I was presenting a session on Long Documents, which went great. I had practiced it so many times, I had the whole thing memorized. Plus I had my dad’s handkerchief in my breast pocket for luck.

And there was a tour of the Adobe building where they make InDesign, and I wanted to go on that tour since there was a page from the last book I did up on their Wall of Fame, but for some reason I missed the tour and didn’t see it.

I did a second session on INX and IDML, with three brainy Adobe engineers watching in case I got stuck. They lent the exact right amount of deep developer cred.

Then the dream got really weird. At one point I was in a trivia game and I won not one, but two nose flutes! One purple and one blue. What the heck’s a nose flute?!

It was always raining in the dream. There was a part when I walked through the rain to an Italian restaurant. Inside I found a room that was empty, except for a big round table with nearly all the top InDesign experts that I know of in the world. People who’ve been doing fantastic books, and videos, and seminars for years. They were all sitting around, talking and joking and having fun and there was one empty seat at the table. I sat down there and joined the conversation, and found everyone to be even cooler and nicer than I had imagined.

Throughout the whole dream I kept meeting more interesting people, and of course we always had something to talk about—InDesign. It was a very “command-shift-option” kind of dream.

Then there was a scene where I was presenting some tips in front of everyone at the conference, and I screwed up by opening the wrong file, but it was more funny than truly embarrassing.

The last night, I met up with an old friend from high school that I hadn’t seen in 22 years, whom I had found through Facebook. We had dinner and beers and had a fantastic time catching up and reminiscing.

Man, what a dream….hmmm, what’s this in my pocket?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!