In the first dream I was going back to work, except it was more like going back to college, where I'd be away for a while. Instead of the ponds behind JHT, there was a system of little creeks through a forest of low trees and bushes, and a couple of little red kayaks that you could take out. For some reason I felt a little bit guilty about taking them out, maybe because something about Coronavirus, or just because I was supposed to be working. But I really liked the idea of exploring those swampy creeks.

I was coming back to Madison after some long trip away. My mom was picking me up from the airport. And then there was some stuff about needing to go back and get my luggage maybe, but it seemed more like going into the grocery store to get a cart. The building was where West Town is, but it was a bigger, brrutalist version of the mall, which was actually a hospital now, taking up most of the space around it (so not as much parking lot). I was walking around the outside of the building for some reason, and there were at least a couple of places where a smaller (though sometimes taller), special-purpose building was built onto the side. And it was interesting because even though those buildings were smaller (the one I was standing by had maybe a 1/4 acre footprint and was 4 or 5 stories tall) their interior space was where stuff actually happened. As if the whole main part of the building was all hallways and lobbies.

In a seemingly separate dream I was reliving dates that I'd gone on years ago. As if my 2020 mind suddenly appeared in my 2012 body just as I was heading out. There was one particular date that I was focused on. It seemed to happen around the intersection of Gammon and Mineral Point (so, right near that mall/airport), and we'd gone to a few places already. I knew in hindsight that I had been very interested in this person but that, even though the date went a long time and we went to several places, I never heard from her again afterwards. I wondered if I could do things different and get a different result this time. Maybe by coming off as more confident (confidence should come easier this time, since I know I've gotten married and stuff) or less awkward, or by having more interesting things to talk about than software development, or by understanding that sometimes people are looking for insta-sexytime, and being able to ask flat out if that's what they were going for.

Towards the end we were headed to the Union Terrace, because I had suggested it, because I like that place, just like the first time around. Hmmm, union. Maybe I should talk about socialist stuff lolol.