Crime scene

I have found myself and two of my friends — X and Y — in the hospital, though I don't think any of us are sick or hurt. X is wearing hospital garb, though, and reclining in one of the room's twin beds. She seems in good enough spirits, and I find myself wondering where her boyfriend is, as they're usually together. I also notice that Y has a sister there with us, although in real life he doesn't have a sister at all. I also realize that Y's dream sister is the real-life sister of my first boyfriend Jeremy (I'll call her C.A.).

We're hanging out in the hospital room, being generally goofy and making each other laugh, which is what we normally do in real life. Y does or says something — I don't remember which — that is so perfectly amusing that I can barely contain myself and lean over to give him a quick smooch. He quickly turns and presents his cheek to me, and then reconsiders and kisses me on the mouth. We don't think another thing about it, but X gets really upset and starts berating us. She storms out of the room. The three of us are left wondering exactly what we did to incite such a lecture.

Somehow we discern that there's a commotion going on outside. We leave the hospital room and follow the labyrinthine corridors to the hospital's back exit. There are tons of people doing exactly what we're doing — going toward where the action supposedly is. We reach the outside and continue walking along the sidewalks of a residential neighborhood. I see my mother walk right past me, and I stop her "Mom! momomomommom! Hey!" — and hug her and walk with her, even though she's acting incredibly distant and very much unlike how my mother would act if she randomly saw me out somewhere.

As I'm walking with her, I notice I'm leaving Y and C.A. behind, but I figure I'll catch up to them later; it's my mom! We finally arrive at where the supposed action is and I realize there's been a horrible murder and everyone is standing around gawking at a crime scene. I briefly glance in the direction of a house surrounded by police tape, and see a body under a white sheet on a stretcher. There's blood flecked on the sheet and pooling on the stretcher below. I look away and don't notice anything else about the crime scene.

I infer from the conversations around me that there had been a horrible knife fight in the house, and many people had been carved up. No one seemed to know the victims. Or the killer. I notice that Y and C.A. are gone, so I tell my mom bye and head back to the hospital to tell them what I found out. Once inside the hospital, I can't for the life of me find the outpatient corridor. It's a swank hospital. Think something done in the design style of CSI: Miami, except classy. I rush past the nurses' station and head down a hallway toward surgery. I double back. I head down another hallway, and find a fucking aquarium. Double back. Two more false starts down unfamiliar halls and I finally find the outpatient hall beneath the stairwell. I don't remember which room we had, but I find one that has a post-it with "Lindsey Turner's blog" written on it. Um, okay.

I go inside, and Y and C.A. are there, but X is still nowhere to be found. C.A. has blood all over her face, except it's theatrical blood — bright red and goopy — so I don't think much of it. I tell them all about what I know about the crime scene, and C.A. asks me if I saw the other bodies. No, I said. But she did! She said one of them had "xoxo" carved into the chest.

Somehow I missed that.

The operation

I am in a hospital, alone but surrounded by familiar people, and I am there to have an operation to fix ... something. I keep wondering why my parents or friends or someone isn't there with me. I'm called back but leave my bag in the front room, and have to request it once I get to the back waiting area. The nurses are skeptical that the bag is mine. They request ID with my name on it to match with any ID in the bag. They go to retrieve the bag but take so long that I suspect something bigger is happening.

I amuse myself by farting around in the back waiting area, where it's seemingly empty. On a counter nearby is a giant tub of multi-colored pills of all shapes and sizes, some as big as those nasty orange marshmallow peanut-shaped things my grandmother used to eat all the time. I chuckle to myself that I will be taking the bucket home with me after the surgery. In an instant I am trying to take a photo of the pill bucket for my daily picture. I'm worried that I'll get in trouble for photographing the giant, unprotected bucket of painkillers.

The the paparazzi show up. There are maybe eight of them, including a blonde reporter with a microphone and a dude with a giant light he sticks in my face. And big cameras they shove toward me. I sit down, sure that they're trying to humiliate me, and put my head down as far as possible, taking care to not speak at all. If I don't say anything, they can't use but the most brief clip on the news or whatever they're planning to use the footage for.

It takes a while and some creative footwork, but I finally evade them with the help of some burly dancing men who are apparently starring in an impromptu musical all around me. They gather in droves around the back entrance to the clinic and, with coordinated creative flourishes, erect a big sign over the door that says "Blogger Entrance" to distract the media into thinking that's where I'll be heading. I am grateful for their assistance, but still wondering what the fuck is taking so long with my upcoming surgery. I just want to get it over with.

There's a bit more, but it would be unwise to post it here.