Life mash-up dream

this is a long one.

i'm working at like, all the places i've worked. the buildings of sunyit, but also lemoyne and cornell. it's my last day or something and i want to talk to this person liz before i leave (i was close to her at lemoyne. her office does not say liz; can't remember what it says. maybe A. Sob.) i take a walk through the building thinking that i will take the back staircase to get to her office on the way back, but i don't ever get there because i'm distracted by the following: downstairs, it looks like airport security to get out of the building, and people have to remove all their winter gear, so it takes a while. i walk past them to get to the next part of the building, and it's like an old-timey shopping mall, kind of like the dewitt mall--windy and dark. i cut through a women's clothing store, ducking under racks of clothes and lots of scarves, hats etc. almost walk out with a hat on my head that i didn't pay for. then i leave that store and head for the back staircase, but get distracted by a store that has victrolas for 80% off. how can i resist that, right? it's near christmas and i'm thinking should i get one for just W or for A too? i decide to go for some other junk instead (weird string and bose speaker) and as the guy is ringing it up i remember that i don't have my money with me. i ask him to hold the stuff till later. i think the guy is stephen colbert. i continue through the mall to get to the back stairway and it's kind of maze-like, and at one point i have to turn around because there's this restaurant that extends into the hall in such a way that no one can pass (this place has been in other dreams i've had).

going back the other way, i pass stephen colbert again who is standing in line--maybe waiting to get in to that restaurant. we bump into each other. then i'm back at the building entrance but now it's different--it looks like those long tall steps entering a courthouse and AFC (forer colleague) is walking up with (maybe?) someone else i know who is long-legged and i can't catch up to them till the entrance of the building, at which point i shout to them and tell them how much i've missed them. we group hug and i realize that one of them is not who i thought she was, but rather the daughter of who i thought she was. i leave some papers and my macbook on a table as i start to go upstairs, so i go back for them and scoot around some people making a presentation to get my stuff. my papers are gone and i think one of the presenters accidentally picked them up so i ask each of them to look through the papers they just picked up to see if mine is there. mine has the word mommy on it, i tell them. this is embarrassing. none of them have my paper.

at some point in here, i'm with friends and we're at a restaurant and there's a disagreement about how to say a restaurant's name--it might be red robin, or rob roy or something, and one person in the group insists that it should be said the way that mexican people would say it. i find this offensive and nonsensical. while we're in the restaurant, i'm trying to make ricotta fritters, but i keep failing because i can't get the ricotta dry enough, or my fingers get covered in cat hair, or become gray with newsprint, and the fritters are a mess.

then i'm walking back to my desk (i think it was my last day) and i realize i have to pick up something from the print shop. i go there and they give me a pen, i think? and then i decide to take a shortcut through the music store to leave the building. the music store is also the ithaca airport. i peek in first to look at their piccolos (A wants a piccolo), and a clerk asks if he can help me. i ask about piccolos but decide not to get one, and as i'm walking through the store to leave, my box of pens falls open and i have to pick them all up, plus whatever else was in the box (scissors made out of saranwrap plastic, etc.) the clerk helps me pick everything up, and as we are picking things up, a plane takes off overhead and it sounds really low. it strikes the front of the building, and its tail is jammed into the front of the store. i think to myself, i am so totally in the wrong place at the wrong time. definitely gonna die. i shield my face and then i can't tell if the plane has stopped moving or if it is dragging the building into the air.

FIN