dream theater

Very vivid dream last night or this morning in which I had lost my shoes in a ... store or restaurant or something, while waiting for an escalator. That is, I was waiting by the escalator, for reasons that aren't clear to me, and I'd taken my shoes off, because in the context of the dream that was a reasonable thing to do; and then a large family with many rambunctious teenage sons and just one daughter came along and hopped on the escalator (that's easy to diagnose: I spent a great deal of yesterday playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii, so my brain is full of Weasleys), and when I was through being amused by them, I had lost track of my shoes. There was a guy in charge of the restaurant-or-store where I was (it seemed like your basic mall Nordstrom, really, except that there were tables and booths and menus and everything; maybe it was a Cheesecake Factory?, where I haven't been in aaages), and I had a hell of a time getting enough of his attention to let him know I had this problem. It was vital that I get my shoes back before leaving of course; and I described them as cordovan mary janes, which they are, but immediately started noticing that there were cordovan (or oxblood or burgundy or wine-colored) mary janes everywhere, but most of them had black edging or were otherwise not like mine - there were other variations, but mainly there was a lot of black edging and I really needed the guy to understand that mine had no edging of any sort.

At which point I woke up, unable to move my arms or my legs (mild sleep paralysis is a little exciting, no?), and remembered that my shoes are ... near my front door, right where I left them on Friday. I wonder what the trouble is, to have made me have this dream.

white collar

( I'm sure there will be spoilers in the comments. )

dear law & order

Look, I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure no country has an embassy in New York. (Consulates and all the diplomatic missions you want, why not. And if I'm wrong about the embassies, I'll say so.)

signed,
Washington, DC
you know, the actual capital.