I thought I was doing okay with this whole pandemic thing.

As a journalist, I've been able to work from home--which is awesome, since it used to take me an-hour-and-a-quarter each way to get to and from work. My morning commute would involve driving 15 minutes to the Scott Road Skytrain station, paying three bucks to park, hopping the train to Granville Mall ($4.25), then catching another bus to the office near Fir and Broadway.

I've never minded saving time and money. (I will admit, though, that I miss that half-hour of reading time I used to enjoy each way. I worked my way through quite a few John Sandford thrillers, but now have no idea what Minnesota detective Lucas Davenport's been up to lately.)

So career-wise I've been coping okay. And my family's been keeping safe. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones in that I don't personally know anyone who's actually been infected by COVID.

But the pandemic might be niggling away at my subconscious, because last night I had my first pandemic dream. Or the first one I can half-vividly remember.

I think I know what might have brought it on.

Yesterday afternoon a tweet from a former colleague led me to a story on aljazeera.com with the headline Scientists warn new COVID mutations in a year as vaccines stall.

"Leading health experts from around the world warned the slow roll-out of vaccines and unequal distribution could mean the shots become ineffective as new coronavirus mutations appear within the next year."

Well that's just great. Here I was thinking everything might be hunky-dory once I get my shot. Way to ruin my day with one paragraph, Al Jazeera.

Then last night I was scanning the TV news and came across a story on CBC's The National in which Margaret Atwood described one of her COVID dreams.

"I was at this big party," she explained, "which I in fact had thrown. And in the middle of it I realized: it's a big party, and none of us have got any masks on."

That must have stuck with me.

My dream involved me walking through a large bar on the Granville Strip somewhere, and realizing that hardly anyone was wearing masks. I remember the part where I was looking around at the scores of people drinking at the tables and only seeing one or two with a mask on.

For some reason I was carrying around a large bag with a bunch of unopened CDs in it, although the only one I can recall right now was a greatest hits by the Clash.

I eventually came to a table where my old friend Ferg, the best man at my wedding, was hanging out and I asked him if he wanted to go see the Who that night, as I had a couple of concert tickets burning a hole in my pocket.

As expected, he was up for it.

But that's all I can remember. Don't know if Pete Townsend kicked ass at that gig or not.

Maybe tonight's slumber will see the story pick up again, and include a backstage montage, where a ghostly Keith Moon destroys the snack table before waltzing over and offering me an autograph.

A guy can dream.