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Because it’s the day before a long weekend and I am unbelievably bored, here’s the Friday Five:

1. What’s the last vivid dream that you remember having?
I have interesting dreams and dreams I remember, years later, but they fade quickly and get so jumbled together it’s hard to remember any one as particularly vivid. Last night, I dreamt that my sister had published a book of short stories, and I was vaguely jealous because they were so good. My sister is not a writer.

2. Do you have any recurring dreams?
Not so much a recurring dream as a recurring type of dream. I sometimes dream that I’m at a final exam for a class I haven’t attended in months. This may have something to do with the fact that in my senior in year of college I had a final exam for a class I hadn’t attended in months. I also had a Statistics class where I went into the final having missed the first midterm. I think I still managed a B, but showing up to an exam unprepared is now how anxiety is usually expressed in my dreams. Even some three years after graduating.

3. What’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had?
Again, dreams fade, and what seems terrifying in the middle of the night or in those first few moments after I wake up is usually forgotten before I take my morning shower.

4. Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not?
Once or twice, if the dream was particularly interesting and I feel I absolutely must write it down. The details are never as interesting on paper, though. That would require embellishment and the addition of plot.

5. Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it?
I can never realize I’m dreaming, and I’m a little skeptical of people who say that they can. How do you know that you’re in control of your dream and not just dreaming that you’re in control of your dream? I never feel like a passive observor in my dreams, but I also don’t think I have any real control over what happens.

Duncan D. Dawg, 1990-2002

It happened a week ago, last Thursday, while my mother was out and my father was at work. They think he had a heart attack. He had been sick for awhile. A month ago, he developed cataracts, and earlier this year he had been diagnosed with diabetes. It hadn’t been an easy winter. He had been uncomfortable, walking had become difficult, and he cried if you left him alone for too long. We knew he didn’t have many years left, and we didn’t want him to suffer, but we never expected him to go so soon, or so suddenly.

My parents decided not to tell my sister until after her finals, which is why it’s taken me so long to talk about it here, even though I don’t imagine she knows I keep a weblog or would be interested in reading it if she did. It must have been unimaginably difficult for my father when he drove out to Baltimore this past weekend to help her start moving out of her dorm. I just hoped for his sake she wouldn’t ask him any questions. He loved Duncan — we all did. It was impossible not to love him. “Labradors,” his obedience school instructor once said, “think life is just a bowl of cherries.” In Celtic, his name meant “brown warrior”, and there wasn’t an ounce of unfriendliness in him.

You know, it only hurts when I think about it too much, when I really remember him. That’s the only time I start to cry. I’m sure it would be more difficult if I was surrounded by constant reminders of his absence — his toys, his leash, his water bowl. I still find it hard enough just to believe that he is gone.

Duncan was loving and loyal — he was a good dog — and he will be missed.