the Dalaverse

Ugh. I had the sort of dream last nght that leaves you unsettled for the rest of the day. I was at the house of this family, for some reason, who I think were Mormon but might have just been some uber-fundamentalists -- all the women were subservient to the patriarch, everybody was very quiet and polite and didn't question anything. So I got into an argument over the historiocity (if that's a word like I think it is) of the Bible over dinner and left the table in a huff. Then the neighbors started making a lot of noise and most everybody went out into the backyard. I asked what was going on and was told they do this a lot, and suddenly a guy about my age comes running into the room all panicked. An even younger guy followed him, pointing a gun at him and yelling. They were secret lovers; I don't remember what they said to one another, but I imagine the first one had just broken things off with the gun-wielder or something. The first guy got withiin reach of the gun-wielder, whose hands were shaking, and took the gun away from him -- but he pointed it at the guy for a second, and then at his own head like he was going to shoot himself. Everybody else came rushing in and he didn't. Right before I woke up, I said to the room at large, 'I'm not going to say one word,' and what I wasn't going to say was, 'This is what repression does to people.'

Watched the extended edition of RotK last night. The whole Saruman thing was much, much better. Still cried like a baby at the end. Think I'll give the books another try when I get home.