I'm in downtown Portland, but it isn't familiar. I'm with a group of people, I think including my mom, and leading them somewhere that is supposed to be the center of town, but we're at the wrong center, we're on Broadway and we're supposed to be on Burnside. I have to leave to go somewhere else, but across the square there is a stairway that goes up to a higher street-level, and I tell them I think if they go up that stairway, they'll be at the right place.

I walk one block toward the river, where there is a Taekwondo studio, and take an afternoon lesson. It's the first time I've been to a lesson in the afternoon (true to life, I've been planning to go to such an afternoon lesson). We practice this self-defense move, and it just doesn't work. My partner, a girl, completely stiff-arms me and I can't get her into the position, even though I think I'm doing the correct steps. Somehow I manage to throw her down by brute strength, but that's not how it's supposed to work.

Then class is over, and I'm gathering up my stuff, but somebody has placed small potted trees with each of our belongings, as if to give one to each of us, but nobody has explained it and everyone is confused. My tree, which is about five or six feet tall, but just a twig, is actually sticking through my jacket, where it has poked a hole right through the back.