I'm at my parents'. Stacey (the girl presently living in my basement in real life) is living there also, with a young man who is her friend or boyfriend. They say that they have a great idea for decorating the wall above the stairs and extending down into the upper part of the hallway, something to do with movies. They've started by dobbing some paint on there, roughly with a smattering of brush strokes, but I'm impressed with their artistry - with just scattered strokes of a wide paintbrush, there is already the profile of a person from the shoulders up, with good shape and shadow and emotion. They didn't even ask me or my parents if they could do this, but it's so good I don't stop them.

I go and find my mom, who I think is in the pool room that used to be my bedroom when I was little, engaged in some task. I tell her what Stacey and her friend are doing, and ask her whether I should tell them to stop. I also say that it looks like what they are doing is going to be pretty cool.

Some time later I go back out there, and see their nearly-completed work. The masterful painting is no longer there, instead it's been papered over with what looks like a wallpaper made of movie posters. It's very repetitive, shiny and tacky. I don't like it at all, and I don't think my parents will either.

I wake up in the middle of the night in the basement and, really sleepy and stupid, try to do some exercises on a rock-climbing exercise machine that is mounted to the wall, but I pull on it wrong and it breaks into pieces. It doesn't even seem like an exercise machine, it's just something made out of a baby gate that seems quite fragile if you pull it the wrong direction, which is apparently what I did in my sleepy state.

In the morning the broken machine (or baby gate) parts aren't even there; Stacey says she has thrown them away. But then I go down in the basement and there is my actual exercise machine (*), a heavy metal device attached to the floor. I guess in my tired state the night before, I was trying to use something that wasn't even my exercise machine.

(* Stacey asked me last night if she could use my elliptical machine, and I told her she could, although I have some reservations about it. Also she was encouraging decorating my sports card boxes, but I'm happy with them just being white.)