bloody hand and bland cookies

I got shot in my dream last night. This isn't the first time I've dreamed of being shot - in fact, as a cops reporter, I had pretty disturbing dreams - but it always kind of shakes me up.

I watched a fairly violent movie last night with lots of murder and mayhem, so I guess I went to sleep with gun violence on the brain. In my dream I was being chased through an abandoned house with my (not real life) grandmother and grandfather in tow. Finally one guy catches up to us and he kindly gives me a chance to make a case for why he shouldn't kill us. I started on some teary rant that clearly didn't convince him, and he shot me twice in the hand. The hand. Why the hand? I remember feeling a sharp burning in my hand as I slept, and I look down at the bloody mess and wondered how it was that my fingers were all still intact.

Then I recall screaming out, "No! I'm a writer! I'm a writer!" As in, how dare he shoot me there? Like the shooter has just ruined my life by choosing my hand as the target. It felt so dire in the dream and now it just feels ridiculous.

Lest you all think I am just wasting my days watching movies and experimenting with blog layout, I'll have you know I have been a busy woman. I've even been dabbling in a new hobby: cooking. Yesterday I made whole wheat tortillas from scratch, which were surprisingly good, and today's exploit is low-calorie oatmeal cookies, which taste unsurprisingly not good. I substituted the butter for applesauce and the recipe called for a suspiciously small amount of sugar - and the taste corresponds: kind of bland, gummy and appley.

But the important part of this is that I baked. That's right, I used the oven. It didn't explode, no hair was singed, and I didn't have a come-apart. I think I am officially over my oven phobia. That and healthy cookies.