Priya's grandmother was a hell-raising nun in an Apple IIe computer game called "Summer of Love."
I was at some private school, and they had a career center that went by the intials WOIJC. To get there, I had to walk by the dorms (I lived in a tent near the dorms) and go through about a block of woodlands, then go up about ten flights of stairs straight up. I then entered the WOIJC hall on the top floor, so I essentially started at the top of the employment ladder ("Entertainer/Professional Athlete"). To go anywhere, I had to go down. There were no stairs, and I had to jump down to large inflatable tubes. I eventually fell all the way to the ground, which was a bookstore. There was a nonfiction writer attempting to sign books, but no one was interested. I had read one of his earlier books and thought about buying his new one, but decided that I couldn't afford it. Jerry Springer was wandering around; someone made fun of him and I said, "Stop it. That's my boss you're talking about."
I saw a black velvet painting of Richard Roundtree as Shaft in a trailer home. Then he and Pam Grier burst in, kicking down the door. I cowered in the corner, saying "I watch you every day."
I can't remember any dreams from last night or my nap. I only remember "had some dream about Erika," but that's not surprising since we hung out together last night.
Instead, here's a dream Phillip had about me. This is probably only amusing to Center people, but so are about half my dreams.
I was screaming in my office, telling Phillip that we needed to offer classes that would fill. So I decided that we would teach Chinese cooking classes in studios 2, 3, and 6. "Who's going to clean up the studios after the class?" Phillip asked me, and I said that I couldn't worry about that. We'd just do it. So poor Phillip worried about all his stuff in Studio 6 getting trashed because I wanted to offer Chinese cooking classes.
Since I'm almost feeling better again (except for a nagging sore throat which is unrelated to being sick, but probably related to the treatment), I think that last night made up for a lot of lost time dreaming. I had an incredibly busy dreaming night last night in my eleven hours of sleep. (I'd still be sleeping if I didn't have to go to work today.)
Let the long, complicated dreams begin! These are in two sections: the first is from 11:30 pm - 5:30 am (when I woke up and wrote them down) and part two is 5:30 am - 10:30 am.
---part one---
I was in a zoo with Johnny Depp and a Top Gun-era Tom Cruise. They didn't really know I was there, but I was. I thought it was very weird that Tom Cruise was there, but I hoped he would play his part successfully. They were both wearing lemon yellow jumpsuits; Johnny looked very nice in his, and I thought to myself "Awww, I got Johnny to wear yellow." I don't know why I was so touched by it, but I was. We were walking towards a barn, and we paused for a journalist and photographer to cross our path. We got to the barn, but more importantly, we got to the downed air conditioning duct that was lying on the ground outside. We were supposed to kill a man there, but someone had beat us to it. The guy was dismembered, "torn limb from limb like a dog does to a Ken doll." Every joint was broken or snapped apart. The journalist came back and opened the air conditioning duct with a laser pen, and we actually saw the remains of the body then. We moved on to the fish hatchery, near the front of the zoo. We went in and opened a car trunk to do something. When we opened it, the smell was horrid and bugs swarmed around us, biting any exposed flesh. We turned to go, but a guy with a gun stopped us. He said he was holding us up because someone held him up. He didn't really want to harm us, but he felt we were all trapped there together. He wouldn't let us leave the door without him, and for someone reason, we had to call someone's attention to where we were in order to leave. We went to the custodian's cart and pressed the red "help" button. We were patched through to the front offices of the zoo. We went to speak, but a mechanical Indian voice spoke for us automatically as a function of the help button."I am seeking to find my way out of the park," said the voice, sounding exactly like Apu from The Simpsons. The racist help desk clerk said, "You're lost. Consult the map." It was of no help since we were presumed to be Indian. I punched in code 555, not knowing what would happen. I just said, "I think the fish hatchery is on fire or something." We left, running out the back door, and we saw fire trucks coming from outside the zoo. We got into a late 1970s model Oldsmobile (me in the back, with the gunman) and waited for the fire trucks.
At an all-girl elementary school, a statute of Hunter S. Thompson greeted students at the entrance. A fourth grader there killed Hunter S. Thompson by shooting Jello pudding mix directly into his veins, thus turning his blood into pudding until it no longer could be pumped through his circulatory system. (Another guy was killed by his own urine, but we couldn't figure out how that happened. Johnny Depp seemed to think that something else was injected into his liver.) "Wow," I thought, possibly from the backseat of the car, "Some girl's going to be really upset that Hunter S. Thompson is dead." We (no longer Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise, but two females) debated about which of two obese girls would be the one who would turn into a hysterical mess when Hunter S. Thompson's murder was announced. The two females decided it would be one girl, but I chose the other, known simply as "Fat Doris" after years of teasing. The other girl, I commented, "just wants little girl piano fingers," meaning, I think, that she would only be upset if someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber was murdered. After someone in the school hallway laughed and twiddled their fingers in delight of my analysis (this was just a single image; I was never in the school, but I saw this anyway), we all looked on the front lawn as Fat Doris attempted to run and hug the statue. There were two girls trying to put Fat Doris in handcuffs. I then looked at the two females who had said that it would be the "little girl piano fingers" obese girl that would be upset, and the two females shrank down to three feet tall and shared one wheelchair: "We were going to win web awards, but I think we're of a pretty small stature," they said in unison just like the twin Japanese girls from Mothra.
Some female friends and I were friends with Jennifer Lopez. J-Lo had two baby girls and four bathrooms; she had to use three of the bathrooms to get ready to go out. She was dating Johnny Knoxville, and I had fun making up headlines for the tabloids: "J-Lo leaves one jackass for another 'Jackass,'" referring to P. Diddy, of course. J-Lo had Melanie Griffith-brand underwear. We kept discussing going to a diner an hour north of J-Lo's house. We finally got there (after J-Lo took forever getting ready) and found an abandoned bowling alley/lounge. Our dinner was catered, and I helped bring in broccoli and something else. I accidentally sat the broccoli in whipped cream instead of the ranch dressing. The chef joked, "Most of what we're eating could be stored in the desk drawer of the average dieter."
I was on a photo shoot with Matt's mom (Ellen) and sister (Barb). I was wearing a pink boa, Mardi Gras beads, a silver wig, and other fru-fru things. There was a buffet at the shoot and I got a soft sugar cookie with one-inch-high frosting, chocolate chips, and cookie dough nuggets: as I selected one, I said, "Normally I'm not hungry, but I just can't resist" like I was in some stupid commercial. Back at the table, Barb was about ready to eat all the cheese dip. I said, "I didn't see the cheese fries or else I wouldn't have gotten the cheese dip too."
The post office had 3-D (or holographic) stamps that morphed from three flying falcons to a fencepost and back again. I wondered if they were self-incriminating, but I have no idea what I meant by that.
---part two---
Matt and I went shopping for a hot tub for my deck. I really just wanted one to use my inner tube in with jets that would make me spin in circles. We went to a store with lots of different types of chairs, and I started to look at hammocks. Matt told the salesman, "We bought replacement seats for the Suburban here, so we know our way around. Thanks anyway."
I went to my grandparents to see how the "exhibit change" was going. I guess they had some sort of amateur zoo. I peeked under one tarp and saw a large rectangular trampoline. There was a raccoon staring at me from a cage slightly beyond the trampoline and I thought about how cute raccoons jumping on a trampoline would be. I peeked under a different tarp, and it was a circular trampoline. I figured that they got rid of the black bear they had. As a pet, they had a bobcat they called "Wildcat." Grandpa told me that they would be happy to keep my hot tub or hammock there if I wanted to. Grandpa walked into the house, drinking straight from a bottle of Wild Turkey. Grandma (who died in August) walked by, drinking an bottle of something else. Then Dad walked by, and he was drinking Southern Comfort straight. I was thirsty, so I followed them into the house to get a Diet Coke. They only had alcohol or A&W Diet Sweet Ale. I decided to pass.
I was at a roller rink, and since I can't roller skate, I went over to the DJ booth and went through their CDs. They had a whole bunch of Japanese import Cartoon Network CDs on sale for $9.99. I couldn't really tell what was on any of them since they had no pictures except for the Cartoon Network logo, except for one with Hello Kitty and one called "Powerpuff Girls Radio Hits." All of the covers were hot pink with light pink Japanese characters.
I went to the doctor, and they were going to weigh me since one of the medicines they put me on usually made people gain a lot of weight. I said that that probably wouldn't be a problem since I don't get hungry or eat much anymore. I got on the scales and the nurse just kept saying, "This is impossible" and refusing to weigh me.
I was housesitting for someone, and I took the two days' worth of mail downstairs to sort. I had turned off all the lights because I didn't want anyone to know I was there and invite themselves over. While sorting the mail (there was quite a few people that lived there), I heard noises. I went upstairs, sneaking, trying not to be noticed, and Jake was throwing a party on one of the decks. It was a subdued party, mostly just people sitting around and talking. I opened the door and stuck my head out and told Jake "hi" so that he knew I knew they were there. Then I went back inside and hid in the back bathroom for no reason.
I was sitting on a young child's bed, and one end flew up because I was so heavy and it was so weak. Someone was lying in the bed and she said the bed was 25 years old, but very comfortable. Then she offered me a rocking chair for my room. I told that I'd be interested in looking at it, so we went to another room. Everything was fairly peach-colored, and the rocker was actually inflatable. I didn't want it. Then some guy ran by wearing a towel and hopped into the shower. I was suddenly only wearing a towel and getting ready to take a shower in other bathroom (there were two bathrooms side-by-side) when I heard him say that there was no more hot water. The girl freaked out because she knew her parents would kill her: no only would they be upset that there was no more hot water, but that she had guests over. I told her I could take my shower in lukewarm water and I wouldn't mind.
I woke up with this sentence in my head: "I'm going to paint my car eggshell. Wait, that's a lie and I never dreamed that."
I was on the roof of an industrial/office building. A short, cast iron fence separated me from Dexter (of Dexter's Laboratory, which was probably on my TV while I was dreaming: I sleep with Cartoon Network on), and Dee Dee was sitting right across from me. Dexter had on a knight's armor, and Dee Dee was wearing a bunch of pillows. I don't know what I had for protection, but I did need some: baseballs were being hurled at us. Dee Dee never got hit by any of them, but Dexter and I came awfully close to getting knocked unconscious from them. I watched one of the balls bounce over my head and another go asunder through space and land near the tires on my car, thankfully doing no damage. So basically I was stuck in that DOS game called Gorilla that's on the gallery computer; each player takes turn launching things at his/her opponent, and it supposedly helps you learn physics or something. I could be making that last part up, but hypothetically you should be able to learn something about trajectory from it.
I was in someone's basement, and I went into a secret room with no roof. Sunlight streamed down, and there was a ladder leading up. There were a bunch of paint cans, pesticides, and other miscellaneous stuff cluttering the way. Something black was hanging down like moss, but not as drippy. I wasn't really grossed out by it, but I did yell at my mom, "Sorry, Mom. I know you hate this room." Then I went to the ratty couch from the late 1970s and curled up with a knit blanket that reminded me of fuzzy sweaters. It was mostly pine-green, but also speckled with bright colors. There were a bunch of board games on a coffee table nearby, including Mom's and my favorite--Bargain Hunter. Mom wasn't "there," I don't think, but I still talked to her.
I saw a set of "Four Seasons Planters": a jack-o-lantern, a snowman, a floral scene, and something else hanging on a porch.
I had to run a store in a mostly abandoned mall. Dad and I were the last ones there, so I went around with the keys to lock up. I found a folding wooden door that led downstairs that didn't looked like it ever had been locked. When I put the key in the lock, it came out the other side of the door, but still fit through. It wouldn't lock though. I checked both bathrooms to make sure there were no people left, and I found two fake blonde wigs.
I think this was in the same mall. There were about four homes in the mall: they had remodeled them into spacious rooms with high ceilings, etc. I was in one of them and I spotted a horrible light fixture. I commented to someone that even if I had enough money to fix up a fourth of the mall into a private residence, I'd still want to live somewhere else.
I was in the smallest Target in the world with Mari. They only had candy, toys (water guns primarily, and some Play-Doh), and gardening supplies. Mari got a florescent green plastic megaphone and screamed at a family, "We've got your daughter!" Then we had to run for it; we ran through through an emergency exit (and the alarm DID sound). After that door were public restrooms, and I thought that we could just loiter there until the situation blew over. Instead, we ran all the way outside to the car in the rain. I immediately got into the backseat. There was a fight over who got shotgun that held us up.
Last night, I had the usual odd dreams. I dreamt that I was making a stop-motion animation movie exclusively using Fisher-Price Little People from my childhood. (Back in the day, I used to pretend the blond girl in braids was me, the boy was my friend Lance from preschool--or he was just left on the floor, then Dad and Mom, and the dog was a substitute for my cat.) I remembered all the accessories I had for them, particularly the yellow BBQ grill. Unfortunately, I only have a few pieces of them left. I really want the 1973 Fisher Price Village set that I used to have. I had to cruise eBay for pictures.
I also dreamt that I walked from work to downtown (approximately ten miles). Once I was downtown, I tried to catch the subway (green line) back to work, but it only circled around the downtown area. I kept asking if it would go to places near work, but no such luck. Everyone stared at me and thought that I was incredibly stupid and/or insane. I managed to get to my boss's house, which was strangely only a few blocks from downtown, and he drove me to work. (I wish I knew why I had all these mass transit/subway dreams. It's not like I've ridden a subway since December, and it's not like I live in a city with a subway.)
I had a long dream about the student-faculty art show coming up, and I'm sure I've forgotten a large portion of it. I was helping David and Brian put stuff in the cases, and there was quite a bit of dreaming activity concerning the jewelry cases. Mom put in an enameled copper bracelet, and I put it in the bottom of a jewelry box to prevent it from falling over. There was something about a Christmas ornament that I can't remember anymore. (I didn't write full descriptions, and I didn't write a full summary early this morning as I normally do. I'm a bad girl.) The reception was more like a Christmas party with everyone in warm clothes, rosy cheeks, and holding hot chocolate or apple cider. There was a lot of singing in unison, and it smacked a bit too much of a Folger's Christmas commercial. Then it was my turn to pick the music, and I decided to focus my selections on rap feuds. I played some Ice Cube, then an artist Ice Cube was definitely against, then someone who hated Tupac (2pac) Shakur, and then I played Tupac. To show his gratitude of receiving equal time despite his death, he reached out from under the couch I was sitting on and shook my hand. I was moved, and Tupac was grateful. We shared a moment.
I was working on the twentieth floor of some highrise. Barbara A. showed up for work wearing pastel pink pajamas with footies and bunny ears. I just gawked at her for a while, then ran and told the boss. The boss had short brown hair and was in his early thirties/late twenties. He reminds me of someone, but I think it's like Andrew Sullivan or a British journalist. Anyway, he said that she could wear footie pajamas; besides, she had another two minutes before she clocked in, and there was a possibility she would change. I told him change was impossible. He said it sounded like I had something I should tell him, and so I closed the door, fell at his feet (like I often sit on the floor in Jake's office), and told him the whole story of why Barbara A. pissed me off so badly last week. When I was done, he didn't say anything, and just said, "Okay." I was pretty unsatisified with that, but knew it would be the only response I would get. So I looked out the window for a while and then left. Donna from That '70s Show walked by and shrugged her shoulders; I guess she worked with me too.
I got about twelve hours of sleep lastnite, but none of them were very happy hours. I really am not happy with the new medication.
Erika took me to a mall, then we ran into Priya. Then we all went to a bar and proceeded to get into a drinking game. I wasn't looking forward to it because I knew I had to win. I have a very strong competitive streak with Priya and I was convinced I would not fail. The problem was that I was already nausated and hadn't even entered a smoky atmosphere yet. Luckily, somehow we left after Priya got drunk, but before my turn. (This is most likely the result of me watching MSNBC's "Spring Break: Parental Advisory Warning," and being pretty amused/repulsed.)
I took enrollments for summer classes, and ending up begging teachers to teach more classes.
I was cleaning up beside my bed, taking the empty Diet Coke cans away, when I noticed that there was orange juice in one of them. I tried really hard to remember when I might have done that and if it would be okay to put it back in the refrigerator and drink it later. I decided that was not a good idea. I had three spray bottles, and I mixed up the liquids for some reason. This comes up later.
He (for the sake of mystery, I'm not saying who) came back. He said that he got an email from T and was inspired to tell his side of the story. I had no idea what he was talking about, other than vague ideas. He took a spray bottle of a liquid and started misting my walls; it was a red liquid he didn't expect, he thought it would be plain water. I told him it was Cherry 409. When he sprayed the walls, they would become mostly pink with pale lavender boxes, rectangles, and circles. He didn't really talk much, but he did discover a way into the attic from my old bedroom. He spent most of his time doing that. I replaced the batteries in the flashlight for him as he climbed into my ceiling. I could see a bunch of lightswitches and things and I urged him not to do anything that would make everyone else know he was here. After digging through boxes of things, discovering all sorts of toys and collectibles of mine from elementary school, he stared at me. Then he just smirked, climbed down, and proceeded to ask me to whisper something to him. Well, it was all an elaborate scheme to get me to kiss him by the electrical outlet under the window (where my Sesame Street Nightlight was placed when I was a wee baba). I instantly wondered about what I would tell Matt: then I figured that my visitor would be gone soon and nothing would really come of it. He left a business card, which just had his name on it and no contact information, which didn't help me at all since I already knew that. He told me he didn't want me to know his email address because he liked to remain elusive. Then he disappeared into the ceiling. Caryn was in the room and she said, "Well, he said you two were back together." I looked at her and said, "He never said we were together before, and I doubt he did it this time either." She agreed and said that he didn't tell her anything. I said, "I bet he didn't even say he was back because it would have taken admitting he was gone before, and he wants to pretend that he never knew me. He likes to waltz in and out of my life." I asked Caryn if we could do some investigating, and she said that we had eight free passes to the FBI database at monster.com. I didn't think it was worth using up one of those. Later, I was in a car with him and I chastized him for not being very hospitable, then he let me lean against him. We were on the left side of the car in a backseat (there was another guy on the right side of me). I don't know who was driving, but it was rainy and dark. (Two potentially psychic moments: an interpretation. I ended up watching part of American Psycho (the business cards) and my roof leaked when a rainstorm came through (the attic/spray bottles). So there's some interpretation for you...)
There was a large, black, mean dog on my bed who kept trying to bite off my fingers. He thought it was a game and I couldn't convince him that he was really hurting me.
Mom and I went to a bar (I think I must be having all these "Mom and I in a bar" dreams since we're on the same medication right now) that was having a concert on the patio. There were barricades blocking the pation on three sides; the tour buses (which looked like subway cars with graffiti on the outside of their silver shells) made the fourth. One of the barricades was from Los Angeles, although I have no idea how I knew that. It said it was from the Hilldale Stadium. I wanted to steal it for Kathleen, but I didn't because I'm a good girl, even in my dreams. I went on the tour bus and it became a school bus. I couldn't find anyone who would share a seat with me, so I threw a temper tantrum and sat by the girl who smelled like urine (whose name was Julie in real life, and she didn't smell like urine in real life. She was an outcast though. She's dead now; I can't remember or I never knew what she died of. Two days after this dream, I told Jake what my new medication was, and he had a friend named Julie who killed herself by overdosing on what I'm on. Great...).
I was in a library with my father, one he said "used to be the best." However, they had cancelled all their subscriptions to academic journals and had instead only gotten issues of Playboy and Penthouse. They also had comic books, including one of Disney's Three Orphan Kittens. They also had an irridescent yellow marble track that kept getting clogged with marbles of different sizes. It was above the bookshelves.
In a nap I took yesterday, I just remember there being something about the sound of breaking glass.
Francine was registered in Who's Who in American Poets, but I was more confused than proud. Who filled out the paperwork for her? How did they determine her birthday?
I was in a hotel room changing my clothes.
Mom and I were in a mall and we asked when the bar opened, not to drink, but just to sit down.
I had a terrible fight with this girl. We were in high school, in the wing with the pool, and each student had his/her own lane in which to swim and sleep. She slapped me, and I told her "I'm a half-lesbian," and I kissed her very violently, not out of passion, but to hurt her. "Of course, I could just be acting. You know I feel absolutely nothing for you." Then she fell out of a window, and I wondered if people would blame it on me.
I was driving north down Rock, and all these tuxedo-wearing teenagers ran across Rock from Olive Garden to Atomic Burrito to have a fight. I was in a car with Carol H. and Carolyn K.; beside us was a red convertible filled with at least eleven girls. There were three in the trunk, four in the back seat, and four in the front, give or take a few. Barb walked by the fence, and I could hear her mom saying, "She's enjoying being in control of her men."
Matt came over to my apartment and told me that my trash "smells like ass." So I had him give me a ride to the trash dumpster. Three Arabic guys (one looked like the manager at IHOP and another looked like an Arabic version of Michael Ironside, the drill sergeant from Starship Troopers) broke into my apartment while I was throwing away trash. I didn't lock the door behind me, but I still felt incredibly violated. I could see one of them serving as a look-out while the others tore up the room. They weren't there to steal from me, just to find some certain mysterious item.
At the playground in my old neighborhood, I found a flower arrangement (red roses and baby's breath) sitting in a swing. A boy with a larger floral arrangement walked up and asked me if I'd give him mine. I said no and pointed out that he already had some flowers. I took them home and gave them to Mom. Mom told me to be nice to that boy because "he doesn't have nice clothes or furniture." While we were putting fresh water in the vase, we found a tag that changed every time I read it. The main message was "If you donate $100 to us, then [unknown]. If you deposit $100 you get [unknown] free. Write your address and pass it on." There were about four other addresses from homes in the neighborhood.
Johnny Depp had released an album in his pre-21 Jump Street days, covering songs like "Oh, Girl" and "Party Goin' On Tonight."
I was leaving for a trip, but I didn't pack any music. I wasn't going to be able to listen to anything.
I took a workshop on something, perhaps writing, but I had a terrible time keeping up and finding my books. Somehow, my papers and books kept ending up on the teacher's desk, so I'd have to walk up and get them. I was in a room that I used to teach in, so I was familiar with it and hard a somewhat hard time being a student again. After the workshop was over, I patted the table and thought about how I used to sit on the desk while I taught (I don't think I really did in real life, but it wouldn't surprise me). I went out into the hallway and saw Zach; he didn't see me. Jon and Priya were there and we decided to go to lunch; we'd have sub sandwiches. On the way there, we walked past Bam from Jackass. I looked at Jon and he winked, so we both were in the know. "Who would have thought he'd be on a college campus?" I asked. Priya then demanded who I was talking about, but I didn't say anything else. I knew Jon knew. We got to the sandwich line and I almost lost Priya and Jon. I finally did lose them, although I didn't really mean to do that.
I went back to sleep after the alarm went off for the first time thinking, "Oh, how nice. The alarm clock drew a grid for us to run in."
I can't remember any other dreams. I've been put on a new medicine that I haven't adjusted to yet.
Two brief dreams about software (because installing software was one of the last things I did last night), one about work, one where I'm a child again, and one about mass transit: it's another typical night.
I installed a paint program for Windows 3.1 on my 386, but it would only export *.avi files. I was confused and irritated.
I installed a word processing program and all that would appear is a table full of letters like [A] [B] [C] etc. I was again unimpressed.
Stephanie was attempting to bring the Jerky Boys to the Center for a performance (an obvious reference to last night's Space Ghost episode). She was down the hallway making the most incredibly annoying sounds. I went into the room just behind my office and found Jon J. and Linden watching television while they cleaned. There was a 286 computer outside my office for volunteers to use: I have no idea what they actually did with it though. I was annoyed and bothered by all the noises.
I had to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom. (We're still in a dream here.) I noticed that the kitchen was very bright, so I turned off the light. The hood over the stove fell and make a loud crashing metal sound. Dad came running in, followed by Mom. They got angry and I just murmured, "I'm so tired. I just need to go to the bathroom." I went to the bathroom, closed the door, and cried. I could hear Mom say to Dad, "I can't even hear her in there. What's she doing?" So I ran water in the bathtub and turned on the black and white television, then I did my business. I took a bath right after that and was cold.
I was on the "New York subway," riding the Green Line into downtown NYC. We were in the last mile, but there were five stops. Still, we reached speeds of 50 mph between them. The last stops were "City Exit (E)," "City Exit (D)," etc. I got off at Exit (C) and couldn't find where to go to catch the Green Line to Exit (B), or even Exit (A). (Of course, I shouldn't have gotten off in the first place, but oh well.) This dream is a likely reference to last night's episode of Jackass where Chris Pontius (a.k.a. "Party Boy," "Bunny," etc.) is roller skating in the London underground, even when the cars are in motion.
I was rearranging my bedroom (which wasn't really my bedroom, as dreams sometimes go) so that a thin bookcase was going serve as the headboard of my bed, essentially. The bookcase was the width of a CD case laying flat and was actually being used as a CD holder. It was built out of toothpicks and held together with masking tape. It was falling apart and not very strong. I yelled at Mom and told her I needed a new dresser.
I was on the phone in my office, talking to someone who sneered, "You know whowgot that scholarship: Mack." So I told the person on the phone the true story of the time Matt, Jay, and I built a man out of bolgona and aerosol cheese and left it on his Jeep. One untruth that I believed wholeheartedly in the dream was that Mack gagged at the mere smell of lunch meat.
The Center agreed to run classified ads for a teacher to find a job at Collegiate.
I was in an elementary school library. Caryn was there. I was trying to remember all my favorite young adult authors (Paula Danzinger, James Howe, E. L. Koningsberg, etc.). I couldn't find Norma Fox Mazer and I couldn't remember what she had written either. (I still can't: I'm researching that in another browser window as I type). I just looked at her oeuvre and I can't remember reading anything by her. Anyway, I went over to the little kids' section and checked out Harold and the Purple Crayon. When I got it home, I noticed that all the pages had been torn out. I was worried that I would be blamed and charged for it even though I didn't do it.
I saw, in a Macintosh way, rows of file icons and memos with all sorts of different numbers. I internally groaned.
I dreamt someone hacked into my diary and changed all my HTML.
In a different dream, Kathleen was coming up to visit this weekend, only I forgot and had made other plans. We had worked out an agreement to visit each other every other week, so one of us would drive to see each other once a month. Well, it was her turn. I told her it probably wouldn't work out. Then we were in a helicopter looking at storm damage. There was a flood and most of my city was under several feet of water. One intersection only had a sign and the roof of a fish bait store visible. I pointed to it and told Kathleen it wasn't a good weekend. She nodded.
I was in a run-down apartment complex, somewhat like the one that Vincent and Jules break into early on in Pulp Fiction. Really, any seedy apartment building featured in a cops 'n' robbers film would work. Think Shaft and Bullitt. I can't remember much else about the dream, but Johnny Knoxville was breaking into apartments (usually by kicking down the doors) and hiding behind his aviator sunglasses, thinking no one would know his true identity. I cowered in the corner of a pitch-black room.
A semi-truck kept almost hitting us: Mom and I were in the left turn lane, and a truck coming from the right had to back-up three times to avoid hitting us.
Another dream dealing with weird time issues. I decided that my dream wasn't being "refreshed" (a Windows term that has annoyingly entered my subconscious) often enough. Mari went into the bathroom and heard someone peeing, but didn't see anyone. She was terrified and ran back out into the main room where I was standing. A weird electric sound came from the ventilation ducts and the wallpaper changed to mostly white with large yellow triangles pointing up towards the ceiling. "If you check the bathroom, I'm sure you will find Matt there. We just experienced some sort of hiccup in time." We stood and waited: there was no furniture in the room. Then Matt came out.
Matt and I were in War Machine (an old Suburban). He missed the turn for the Westlink library, and we kept heading north. He stopped War Machine, then told me he couldn't restart it for thirty minutes after it had been turned off. I wondered why he had turned it off in the first place, but I didn't say anything. The back of War Machine was more of a conversion van. We both got out of the car to get into the back. I burst into tears and said, "I just don't want to hurt anymore." Matt got mad for some reason and went fetal, falling asleep on the little table with four cupholders.
I was in the parking lot of a mini-mall. There was a strip club there where no one really stripped much. They had a storefront, but hadn't bothered to frost the windows or black them out. The stage backed onto a large window, and I had the misfortune of seeing some girl's flabby ass. I wondered if she went to my high school back in the day. The lady of the club opened the two doors, and some fully clothed twenty-something in overall shorts played on the theft prevention devices (or metal detectors), splaying her legs for all the world to see her denim crotch. Mom, Dad, several other adults, and I got a 1950s automobile that really was a modern conversion van. We looked out the windows and giant birds, completely out of proportion to the mini-mall, were perched on the roof. We saw puffins, toucans, and other birds with unusual beaks. We turned the corner (left), and I pointed out birds with horns. I couldn't speak very well, and I stumbled over words when I spoke to Mom: "That's what you need, Mom, birds with beerhorns, er, longhorns, just horns. Whatever." We turned again (this time right) and our driver, a Hispanic fellow, spotted a cop car that had pulled someone over in the right lane. He moved into the furthest left lane and said to my father, "They may not pull you over for nothing, sir, but they'll pull me over" in a thick Spanish accent. "Especially with a van full of whites," I added. "And a rifle pointed at them," Mom quipped, and she held up a rifle that she had, I think, located under the seat. Someone dubbed it a "Texas War Weapon."
Randy, Stephanie, and I were loading up Randy's car with merchandise from Sam's. We were on a tree-lined road by a lake; it was somewhat reminiscent of a combination of Godard's Weekend and Henson's The Muppet Movie. There was a red fox in the tree who was scared; it acted a lot like Bogie, an older dog I petsat recently. I pointed it out to Randy, then asked him if he had foxes on the farm. We couldn't fit all of the stuff he bought in his trunk. Some of the things were not great buys: he had a sack that was bulk size, but only had enough pasta in it for one person. The rest of the sack was air. He complained.
I was in charge of a fleet of ambulances, only I couldn't see where they were going. Once they left this particular intersection, I had no way of knowing where they were.
I was walking through this strange place, and I kept seeing boys pursuing girls. One looked like it might be a rape. That's when I figured out that I was in a movie called Big Kids, which was a lot like Kids only with younger stars. I got handed a note that said "Tits is gonna beat the shit outta the little guy." Some twelve-year-old girl was named Tits, but she was the toughest one of them all. I wandered near the fight and saw all these prepubescent kids sitting in a Coliseum-type auditorium. I walked past them. Somehow I ended up in a river, holding two bags of McDonald's food over my head so they wouldn't get wet. I went over several small waterfalls before landing at my destination. There were no houses there, just a K-Mart and a big run-down brothel. I took the food to Bridget Fonda (obvious reference to Lake Placid, which Matt and I watched for a while last night) who was a call girl. She talked business for a while, explaining how the whole city was going downhill even though she had been immortalized in a certain romance novel. I helped myself to some strawberry and cherry Starbursts, perhaps a bit greedily, before making my way upstream the river again. As others had done before, I put my empty wrappers back in the candy bowl so my gluttony would remain a secret a few seconds longer.
Matt and I were at the zoo. There was some incident with mashed potatoes and underage drinking, then the police came, and we ran. What struck me as amusing were the two different exits: one was unmarked, the other was marked "rude customers exit here."
I went to Wal-Mart with Mom and Dad for clothes. I thought about getting a lemon yellow skort (shorts that have a front flap of fabric so they look like a skirt) for work, but decided against it. There was still a lot of winter merchandise around and I left once I found silver coats. I like silver coats, but I didn't really need one. So I found Mom and Dad in the men's section, and they had found a sale on silk shirts. Dad was getting a grey pinstripe shirt and Mom was fixated on a mauve silk shirt (the kind that seems to have two colors and changes in the light).
I was Kathleen's house, only it was set up differently. We were talking to each other on the phone even though we were in the same room: it's not like she even had gotten her dream warehouse yet and we were that far apart. Then we got into a fight about my shoddy work habits (which would be better if they needed to be, but I don't always have enough to keep me busy. Kathleen understands in real life.). "If you're so bored, why don't you refresh yourself on the latest brochure?" she demanded. I lost it, becoming the irrepressible combination of defensive and bitter: "Listen here. I do my job. I only goof off when my job is done. If I needed to refresh myself on the brochure, whatever you mean by that, I would do that before I started to goof off. But I don't have anything left to do that's related to my job, and that's the problem." Then I noticed she took down the Pedro Almodóvar poster (not of Almodóvar, but probably Laws of Desire or Dark Habits). Matt called me at Kathleen's house (Kathleen and I were still on the phone with one another) and so we all talked together. He started mentioning some show we needed to watch. Still on the phone with Kathleen, I sat down on the floor by her recliner and we watched TV.
Then we saw a very weird show on MTV. Two tarred and feathered men (obviously a reference to Sunday's episode of Jackass) ran all around their set, hopping on chairs, screaming, etc. They were acting like a combination between a Neanderthal and a three-year-old on speed. There was something mentioned about the Flaming Lips performing there next week. Then they showed a video that made me very happy: I have no idea what the song was, but all the characters were either from Pinwheel (the bunny with the telescope, Lulu, Molly the Mole), Sesame Street (Harry Monster, Big Bird, Cookie Monster), or McDonald's characters (Early Bird, Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese). I was so incredibly amused. I saw a short owl in glasses and asked Kathleen if it reminded her of Drew Carey. "Did Matt tell you this was on?" I asked her. She shook her head and said, "There's no copyright information. There should be."
I was in front of an old TG&Y, staring at three vending machines. One of them was certifiably broken, the other would eat dimes, and the last one had no sign indicating a problem. I needed to get some Almodóvar perfume for sixty cents, so I put six dimes in the one that was supposed to work. Only then, stupid me, did I bother to look and see if the vending machine had it. The way it had been filled, nothing could fall from the top rows because the second row from the bottom was so crammed with chips. They were weird chips too, with flavors like red wine vinegar, etc. The bottom row was the only one that could possibly fall out, and there was a bag of pretzels marked ten cents on the bag. I can't tell you how far back in time you'll have to go to get a "king size" bag of pretzels for ten cents. So I tried to get my money back and it didn't work. I then noticed two cans of Diet Coke on the ground around the legs of the vending machine. They were old and had started to get a patina finish around the opening for the can. I left them be.
Some newspaper reporters were talking about a family-run business. Everyone thought the two offspring would have it easy working for their father, but the brother-sister team agreed that it was worse: "Dad wrongly believes we're smart and he expects to do smart things."
At some hotel, Dan G. and his wife were helping their son Tanner down the slide into a pool. I went into the hot tub and found Mari; we were wearing almost identical swimsuits (the black one with orange and hot pink stripes from Land's End). Also in the hot tub were Zach, Blake, Anissa, and a whole bunch of other people I haven't seen in a very long time. I told Mari, "I'm going in the deep end." Mari came with since she wanted to be in cooler water. By the time we walked over there, more people were in the once-empty pool. I was in an inner tube and kicked Blake's inner tube. Then some sort of safety break was called, and we all had to sit on the concrete by the pool. The management threw nets over us, then gave us these claim check-lookin' things with numbers on it. Each person had about three or four different numbers on their ticket. Then a piece of paper was circulated and the management told us to sign it and give our number: since we each had four, I didn't know which number. I wasn't going first, so I figured I'd wait and see what everyone else did. As this was happening, I realized we were being put into groups: the other two sounded like they were based on Irish names, but our league, the Arkalexa league, clearly had no Irish background.
When we got the paper to sign, I noticed Erika had signed it and written down three of her four numbers. To be safe, I wrote all of mine. While it had just been a steno-sized notepad, now it was a formal invitation, and somehow I weaved a fiber globe just by moving my pencil over the front. Then I passed it on. Erika smiled at me and said, "I gave my tax ID number just in case I win." I didn't know that it was a contest I had entered. I wondered if I should put mine down, then realized I didn't have one and maybe I shouldn't go out broadcasting that sort of information anyway.
Erika then showed me her paintings, including one of horses running through the ocean: it looked faintly like a perfume or beer ad, and I told her I thought I had seen it before. Then she showed me a painting of fish running away from a painting of fish and that one was somewhat intriguing.
Someone complimented me on my use of color, although I have no idea how that fits into any of these dreams.
I was redesigning a web site advertising workshops in web design, and the first thing I did was remove the splash pages. Then I toyed around with the idea of starting a "Beautify the Web: Delete Your Splash Page" campaign.
I went to Wal-Mart with Mom and Dad for clothes. I thought about getting a lemon yellow skort (shorts that have a front flap of fabric so they look like a skirt) for work, but decided against it. There was still a lot of winter merchandise around and I left once I found silver coats. I like silver coats, but I didn't really need one. So I found Mom and Dad in the men's section, and they had found a sale on silk shirts. Dad was getting a grey pinstripe shirt and Mom was fixated on a mauve silk shirt (the kind that seems to have two colors and changes in the light).
I was Kathleen's house, only it was set up differently. We were talking to each other on the phone even though we were in the same room: it's not like she even had gotten her dream warehouse yet and we were that far apart. Then we got into a fight about my shoddy work habits (which would be better if they needed to be, but I don't always have enough to keep me busy. Kathleen understands in real life.). "If you're so bored, why don't you refresh yourself on the latest brochure?" she demanded. I lost it, becoming the irrepressible combination of defensive and bitter: "Listen here. I do my job. I only goof off when my job is done. If I needed to refresh myself on the brochure, whatever you mean by that, I would do that before I started to goof off. But I don't have anything left to do that's related to my job, and that's the problem." Then I noticed she took down the Pedro Almodóvar poster (not of Almodóvar, but probably Laws of Desire or Dark Habits). Matt called me at Kathleen's house (Kathleen and I were still on the phone with one another) and so we all talked together. He started mentioning some show we needed to watch. Still on the phone with Kathleen, I sat down on the floor by her recliner and we watched TV.
Then we saw a very weird show on MTV. Two tarred and feathered men (obviously a reference to Sunday's episode of Jackass) ran all around their set, hopping on chairs, screaming, etc. They were acting like a combination between a Neanderthal and a three-year-old on speed. There was something mentioned about the Flaming Lips performing there next week. Then they showed a video that made me very happy: I have no idea what the song was, but all the characters were either from Pinwheel (the bunny with the telescope, Lulu, Molly the Mole), Sesame Street (Harry Monster, Big Bird, Cookie Monster), or McDonald's characters (Early Bird, Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese). I was so incredibly amused. I saw a short owl in glasses and asked Kathleen if it reminded her of Drew Carey. "Did Matt tell you this was on?" I asked her. She shook her head and said, "There's no copyright information. There should be."
I was in front of an old TG&Y, staring at three vending machines. One of them was certifiably broken, the other would eat dimes, and the last one had no sign indicating a problem. I needed to get some Almodóvar perfume for sixty cents, so I put six dimes in the one that was supposed to work. Only then, stupid me, did I bother to look and see if the vending machine had it. The way it had been filled, nothing could fall from the top rows because the second row from the bottom was so crammed with chips. They were weird chips too, with flavors like red wine vinegar, etc. The bottom row was the only one that could possibly fall out, and there was a bag of pretzels marked ten cents on the bag. I can't tell you how far back in time you'll have to go to get a "king size" bag of pretzels for ten cents. So I tried to get my money back and it didn't work. I then noticed two cans of Diet Coke on the ground around the legs of the vending machine. They were old and had started to get a patina finish around the opening for the can. I left them be.
Some newspaper reporters were talking about a family-run business. Everyone thought the two offspring would have it easy working for their father, but the brother-sister team agreed that it was worse: "Dad wrongly believes we're smart and he expects to do smart things."
For some people, this would be a nightmare; at my job, it's just pretty hilarious.
I was sitting at my desk, and for some reason Steph and David were there, discussing their business. It seems that Tom had held a special "dinner with the cast" event and only eleven people had come. They had Katie keep track by gluing different colored Skittles on a piece of paper for an instant graph: orange stood for comps, purple/grape meant members, etc. There were about six comps, three members, and two walk-ins. Steph was pissed about the whole thing, and David was crossing off Skittles when he could tell who they were. "So-and-so doesn't count," he'd say, and take a pencil and scribble over the Skittle. (There's a fun phrase: scribble over the Skittle.) Meanwhile, I was taking a survey on inter-office dynamics and found a question which didn't make sense, but had something to do with how I coordinated deadlines with the PR department. I reached into my little refrigerator (I don't really have one) and pulled out one of four big bottles of Scope and poured myself a "drink." David looked at me and said, "Isn't it a little late for your morning rituals?" I asked him what he meant and he just tapped at my clock: it said 1:15 pm. I was amazed; the last thing I had known it was morning. So I asked them if I had fallen asleep at my desk. They both nodded. Steph asked, "You seriously can't remember that you fell asleep?" I shrugged. I asked them if anyone noticed and they said not really. Then I pointed at my digital camera and said, "Would you please take a picture next time that happens? I want to see what I look like when I fall asleep at work."
I was living with a family in Boston (for some reason, whenever I don't dream about my real city, it's Boston) and the eighteen-year-old son told me I didn't have a personality. So I packed up belongings, which fit in my Teletubbies backpack, and prepared to run away. As I was gathering things, I took two chocolate chip cookies. I went into the bathroom to look for things I had left behind, the guy told me how he had frosted the windows--finally--because anyone on the street could look just right in. I hopped on my bike and ran away. I didn't really know where I was going; I ended up at some soul food restaurant called "Mama Sugar Snap Peas." The woman greeted me at the door, so I walked in and went down the back stairs. I saw a scruffy gray cat.
I couldn't remember if I had started a diary called eva.diaryland.com or if that was someone else. (It wasn't me.)
Dinner at Angela's included too much salt and stale corn chips, so I wasn't a terribly happy camper. Add to that the humid weather, and I knew I'd never get to sleep. So I took one Tylenol PM and can't remember much about my dreams last night.
Howard pointed out that we didn't have to send memos with our company's logo on it, and perhaps that might help people from feeling overwhelmed.
I saw some awful animated background on a web page that was purple and gold.
Mari and I were invited to go to France with Johnny Knoxville and a few members of the Jackass crew. Steve-o was there. We met up with them at a farm--I don't know what skit they were shooting--but a man came out of the farmhouse with a huge legal contract. He showed us a line about "Knox Knoxville" and started talking about sueing Johnny for stealing his name. Steve-O or Bam lit a long fireplace match and hopped into the van. Others followed suit, and I was in there as well. They left a lawyer to argue with the man. We had a discussion about arson: "So, if someone crosses you, you leave lit matches in their grass?" They said that I was dead wrong and what they did was something completely harmless and innocent.
Then I went to work, which wasn't the Center. Matt had gotten Caryn's computer to play CDs, but hadn't gotten the modem to work yet. ABBA was playing quite loudly; Matt wasn't there. I started to clean out my backpack and thought about making a list of things I'd need for France.
Then I was in a city I called Boston in a city park with Mari. She pointed out an ice sculpture across the street and talked about how the continual melting and refreezing actually made the statue stronger. I couldn't tell exactly what it was of, but it was some sort of combination of Paul Bunyan and Joan of Arc.
As we were walking along towards a bookstore, an old man told me not to worry because I had "amazing hair." I didn't know whether to be scared or flattered.
We then went into a bookstore and I was panicking. How could I leave for France? I hadn't packed. I knew I needed to take a purse of some sort, but didn't know if I had one that would work. In the bookstore, I asked Mari to show me the travel section so I could read about France on the plane. She took me into the library portion of the bookstore and showed me a Fodor's 1985/86 Travel Guide. I wanted something a little bit more recent. We found something that would work: I opened it up and started reading about the different electrical outlets. I reminded her again of how long a plane ride it must be and started to worry about feeling cramped and trapped on the plane.
I'm not sure where this image goes, but I saw a highway backed up with a lot of traffic.
While it may seem that I start every dream with "I had a weird dream last night," this time it's true, but in a different sense. My dream was like those IQ tests where they make you figure out which scene happened first: my dream was in chunks, and I had to determine what led to which event. I can't remember anything about it, but it was something related to Kathleen's party, I believe.
There was a biker bar in an old castle called "The Mission," and I told Jon that I was going to storm it. He was amused. I also told him what my biker name was going to be (I can't remember it though) and described the black leather jacket I would wear. Then we crossed a river and went to a walk-in store front for registering domain names. I told him I had registered one while we watched Crash, but I couldn't remember what it was called.
I had to take care of four puppies and keep them on their pedestals. They didn't want to be on the pedestals, so it was quite a challenge.
Decompressing from Kathleen's birthday party:
I dreamt that my boyfriend (or Elvis) was passed out (or dead) and some annoying girl was arguing with me about who knew him better. I was on the ground floor while she was upstairs and I heard her throwing around cliches: "appearances can be deceiving," etc. I went outside and told Erika that I was going to walk home since I was only four houses away. She wouldn't let me leave without a flashlight even though I assured her that I could find my way just fine.