I saw "Fellowship of the Ring" for the first time last night. I am not a fan of the fantasy genre, and I don't really go in for wizards, elves, or other woodland creatures. Human beings are all that I need to capture my imagination, for the most part. Usually my interests only lie in subject matter relatively close to my own time period, too. I am somewhat pedantic in this sense.

But, I enjoyed the film. Not having ever read the books, I am sure I can't really be taken in the way a true Tolkein fan would be. I do have a very clear memory of seeing The Hobbit on my mother's bookshelf when I was a child. I debated reading it, but gathered that it was about some kind of fantasy forest and quickly lost interest. I guess it's a pretty set preference.

I thought my dreams last night would be filled with battle scenes between elves and ogres. You know what I dreamed about instead? Women battling with angry men, ultimately me battling with my stepfather.

In one part of the dream, I was going out with friends. The group was comprised of one couple, one other woman, and myself. The man half of the couple didn't have enough money for his movie ticket,and began loudly posturing to cover up his embarrassment. His girlfriend, seeming to recognize this routine, refused to validate him by placating him or paying him any attention. We all came to a point of needing to cross a street to continue on to the movie theatre.

I hung back for what seemed a very long time (all the others had long since gone over without a hitch), because the drivers on this street were reckless. I saw several accidents, many of them quite bad, and this just confirmed my feeling that I needed to remain where I was until I was sure that I wasn't going to be made part of the asphalt road.

When my friends and I eventually went inside the cinema, it was actually my parents' house, and there was a party. The girlfriend half of the couple spent the bulk of the fete sleeping on the floor, still wearing her coat.

I don't remember a lot of the details, but eventually I detected that my stepfather's mood was souring, and I knew it would not be long before he instigated a fight. So, I called him on it, and he threw a steak knife at me, which I blocked with my hand. And then something else, which may have hit me, but did no damage. I told him he sounded angry, but he insisted (as did my mother and my step dad's good friend) that he sounded "comfortable."

I looked him in the eye and said "I know by the quickness with which you pounced on me that anger was rising in you. See, I spent my childhood learning to listen for the way your voice changes when you are spoiling for a fight. I heard that sound, that's how I knew."