Dressed like a crystal ball reader, or like a Fleetwood Mac vocalist. I was minding my own business in their backyard garden, sipping at a pear cider, when she walked up to me and gave me a queer look.

We know each other, she said. At night, in dreams, we've met many times and in those dreams, she knew me as a teacher. She told me I was very wise about the ways of the universe. She'd learned a lot.

Like what, I asked, genuinely curious about the advice my dream-self might be handing out, then insuring I forget as I awake.

All sorts of stuff, she said, then she rejoined the party. I remember smiling indulgently and thinking: California. I moved to California, so this sort of thing is to be expected.

Forgot about it until this morning when I woke from a dream where I was in a library, talking to someone about how they had taken down my favorite print, a poster of three Japanese sisters that had hung on the wall, by the reference desk.

The person I was talking with asked me to provide a slogan for another acquaintance, one that might provide them with a fearsome reputation.

I said: How's about, Beware the [word] of her head!

Except [word] may not have been a word from the waking world. It started with "p" but meant "resilient," "unyielding," and implied "empty" all at the same time.

In my dream, I found this back-handed compliment to be very amusing.

All day, I've been trying to remember that word and have been thinking that if I'm a teacher in dreams, I'm also a jerk there.

Persistence... posterity... perpetuity...