Matt and I got into a fight at a book sale. We stood on opposite sides of a low bookcase, screaming at each other. We threw a few books from the top shelves at each other.
It was 3 AM when I, in a fit of desperation, turned off the television, to attempt sleeping. I woke up from the book fight dream around 4:30 AM, realized I only had three more hours, and groaned. I then had some dream about database design.
Before going to bed, I watched a rather amusing and creepy movie on AMC called 13 Ghosts. Essentially, Dr. Plato Zorba, the esteemed scientist of the occult, dies and leaves his haunted house to a heavily-mortaged family--his nephew's. Plato is not the only odd name. The daughter's name was Medea (which I didn't catch until after they asked the Ouija board if Medea was in love--the spirits thought it was a stupid question and so did I), yet her love interest's name was not Jason. The son's name was Buck. Medea and Buck--what an odd combination of names for siblings, until you consider that they were named by Cyrus and Hilda Zorba. I think it was one of the first movies to master the art of depicting ghosts--in their transparent and ethereal way--on screen. The most disturbing image for me was not Mario the ghost with his meat cleaver, but the headless liontamer who kept "looking" for his head in the lion's mouth. I then fell asleep watching Scooby Doo. There's a certain carry-over of the creepy ghost story, but surprising little. It was more the aura of poverty which forced the Zorba family to endure the ghosts of their dead uncle's home. The spiders, floating fork, and windstorm are also likely related to the influence of 13 Ghosts.
In a dream last night, I watched a Partridge Family Biography special. Towards the end of their career, they collaborated with Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein). After performing on stage together with another singing family (I don't know where they came from, but this family was attempting to escape the rural poverty which was so apparently a major factor in their lives), Keith Partridge (David Cassidy) threw up his fringed arms and said, "This isn't working." Then he left the stage.
I went into a dressing room and attempted to check the door to see if it would lock. It didn't seem like it would as I was trying to lock it from the outside, but it made a much more secure closure once I got in the stall. The room was a strange combination of dressing room/bathroom: long white cabinets (wooden, with obvious neglect, but not in that decorator "weathered" sort of way) used to have sinks, but didn't anymore.
There was a fierce windstorm. I was in the old house, looking out the master bedroom window at the cul-de-sac. Nearly all the cars nearby had been disturbed by the wind. There were two vans in the middle of the circle that had crashed into each other: they were white vans with blue logos and I intially thought they were Center vans. About three or four other cars littered the circle. I felt completely awful: my stomach ached, my head pounded, and I was slightly dizzy. I told Mom, who was lying in the bed, that I simply couldn't do anything today. We actually were in the middle of a move, as I discovered in a panning camera move that allowed me to see outside without being outside, and the two vans were full of our belongings. The logo, which I previously believed to be a column, was actually a white roadway with a blue background. We were moving into the Peters' house. My car was in Nicole's driveway and had not gotten blown by the wind. After seeing this, I went to my room. I had at least six plastic stacking tables all on top of each other. I was looking for my four-CD poetry collection. I moved the stack of tables and saw a murder of brown spiders (I don't know what the special name for a grouping of spiders is, so I'll just use "murder"). They had woven a web around two dirty forks, continually feeding off the residue. I put the tables back and tried to pretend I had never noticed the spiders. I put in the new 5-DVD Biography series on French existentialists that I had bought for $40. I was not happy to learn that I had bought the French version, so I had essentially wasted my money. I only comforted myself by thinking about how well I would sleep with French in the background. (I have a tendency to doze off during French movies--I've only stayed awake through Weekend, Breathless, Jules and Jim, and, after about five attempts, The 400 Blows. I fell asleep at least five times during Last Year at Marienbad.) I was quite amused to see that all music was provided by Pere Ubu; there was an interview with them which was the only part in English.
I dreamt something about Karrie and Olivia, but I don't remember anything except their presence.
I woke up from a fifteen minute nap only slightly refreshed.
In the dream, I was living in a house built like a capital T shape, suspiciously in a semi-Asian style like the Center. In the wide crossbar of the T, I fell asleep on the couch of the living room. I was covered, not with blankets, but with the remnants of 8.5 x 11" paper after nine 2.125" circles had been cut out of them. I was buried in baby blue shards of paper, yet not whole sheets of it. (You know the dough that's left over after using cookie cutters? The pieces of paper were like that.) I was watching some inane homosexual high school soap opera until I fully woke up in the dream. I realized (in the dream) that I had just had a dream about the lead character in the soap opera, a slightly ethnic boy of eighteen, who uttered some stupid punchline. The show ended, credits rolled, and I became aware suddenly that I was late for my dinner appointment. It was 4:18 pm, and I thought that the clock had to be wrong. Then Star Trek: The Next Generation came on as it did everyday at 4:18 pm and I knew I had to move and get going. I clicked off the television and stood up, but I could not stand up straight. It was as if I was heavily drugged or drunk. My head spun, or the room did, or both. I ran (for some reason), swerving and weaving like young boys who hold their arms straight out pretending to be airplanes. I was aware suddenly that I was naked and soaking wet, as if I had just gotten out of the shower, and I worried if anyone had seen me through the windows. I thought about drying off in my sheets, because I had made it to my room, but I remembered that the bathroom was certainly to the north of me. Directly west of me was the closet. I collapsed on a loveseat in my room. I heard the echo of water running outside and figured Jon J. had left the sprinklers running. I did not know if he was coming back or not; then I became terrified of being locked in and not knowing the alarm code to disarm the system.
I dreamt that Stephanie brought the rest of her key lime pie to work for a special snacktime treat.
Grandpa wanted me to learn how to shoot a gun in case I was ever attacked. I was in the old house, on the landing between the two flights of stairs, shooting out the front door. No one was there. I used up all the ammo, then I went downstairs. Mom was cleaning out the room that was my playroom when I was a kid, later her craft room, and later my bedroom. She had a huge decorator's basket and she took my two guns away, hiding them under the scraggly peacock feathers. There weren't nearly enough to hide the guns, but Mom seemed satisfied.
I had gone to Sam's and bought a huge box of candy (probably a bleed-through from that Dexter's Lab commercial about winning a year's supply of Airheads candy). I was brushing my teeth, then I was going to eat candy and fall asleep. My mom was in my living room, talking to me as I took my candy into the bathroom with me. She told me that eating candy after brushing my teeth was the stupidest thing she had heard in a while.
Someone and I were shopping for a birthday present for Bev, but we had no idea what to get her. For some reason, we were rather limited to the four aisles or so of groceries/housewares at Target. I found a cobalt blue trashcan and laundry basket set that I thought was cute; whoever I was with thought some laundry detergent would be a nice touch.
Lael was a detective of some sort, and was getting ready to confront someone about a stolen manuscript in the apartments across the street and a touch south of Olive Garden. He had all the proof he needed: a CD-R of the manuscript and audio tape recordings talking about stealing it. After that, he was going to join us at IHOP. Joel, Bev, Matt, and I waited on him, and when he showed up, he wasn't very happy and refused to talk about it.
I was in the old house and Matt's band was playing at the playground. We walked there, he played one song, and they realized they couldn't do much with Adam (the drummer) out of town. So Matt and I went for a walk and ended up back at my house. I remembered that my car was still parked at the playground, so we went back to get it, and talked about where Adam had gone.
Nelda wanted me to set up something on the website where people could request what they really want in life. She thought it would be interesting, but Howard didn't want it to be published.
I had to find a picture of Marilyn Monroe in a particular movie (called Up in Our Town or something) for the newsletter. When I went to find Jake to ask for the DVD cover, he was on the phone with Joel E. There were a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink, including two empty tuna cans. I went to wash them, but there was a dish that was for Joel that had a cup of sour cream and a cup of cheddar cheese mixed in it with a light dusting of potato soup mix on top.
I was in the kitchen of the old house, reading the newspaper. Mom and Dad came in: they had gone on vacation. Mom sarcastically said, "we left the lights on in the garden just you like." She knew I normally hated that because the lights would shine in my bedroom and I wouldn't be able to sleep. I told her that I had a blindfold now and it didn't matter. She seemed a bit put off that I wasn't irritated. I really was quite apathetic.
I was a banker (hah!) and I was tabulating the different rates I could invest $2000 (another hah!) at: a savings account would earn me 1.4%, a three month CD would earn 3.6%, etc.
All I remember is that I was directing a movie or music video and the star ate the set. "My god, he just ate the scenery. Is that postmodern or what?" I shrieked.
I haven't been remembering my dreams lately because of my horrid sleep patterns. Instead, here's a link to a lovely essay by William Dean Howells. Unfortunately, "I Talk of Dreams" was written in 1896, so I know a lot of people won't care. It's really quite funny at times in that academic 1896 way though: "no doubt the reader will agree with me that it is much more romantic to be pursued by a statue than to be threatened by burglars." Indeed.
I did not sleep well at all last night. I woke up about every two hours right on the nose.
My dream about the preschool program is obviously heavily influenced by the Scooby Doo Movies episode with Jerry Reed that was on Cartoon Network. So at the program, we couldn't start because someone stole Jerry Reed's xylophone. There were three families that wanted to sign up for Thursday afternoon preschool, and one has waiting to have a baby until they had enough money--even though the lady was already pregnant. I guess she just wouldn't go into labor until they had more money. Mom came up to me and said, "I'm so bombed." She had drank too much (my mom doesn't drink often, so this is not typical, as it may be for others). As I was getting dressed for the program, I heard about reports of a flood in Hutchinson, and I thought to myself, "We could have died. We were just there."
Randy, David, Matt, Mom, Dad, and I all moved to Japan. Mom and Dad bought a bright red 1930s car (a Pierce Arrow?) with a matching trailer. I spotted Engrish: a sign from the "Potato Meatball" Restaurant advertised "Meat Poptein," not protein. I kept wanting to go to a bookstore, but we never found one. David worked at Benetton and I visited him in the mall where he worked. It wasn't really a mall, but more like the basement of a fancy hotel. "Man, I used to not be able to afford this stuff, but now, it's Japan . . . I used to think I'd get here and just totally immerse myself in art." I told him that I thought I'd get to Japan and just watch TV all the time. The American district was signified by the picture of Queen Victoria on the Bombay Sapphire gin label.
I was at a modified zoo full of "therapy animals," domesticated versions of wild animals that people could pet, bathe, feed, etc. They had horses with long hair (basically they looked like their manes had taken over their bodies), Siamese cats, and tigers. I massaged cold water into a polar bear's fur.
Mom was with The Rock for some reason, and he was in an industrial looking kitchen, swinging a large, heavy object over his head.
I was on a bus trip. I sat near the back of the bus (it was a short school bus) as we drove on the highway. I've now forgotten most of the dream.
I had a turtle named O'Shea Jackson (Ice Cube's real name).
Margaret (my ex-boss, last seen in 1997) was mad at me for not telling her that there was going to be construction done in the theater, and we got into a little war. I chased after her through a festival downtown, screaming all sorts of things at her. After my throat hurt, I turned around and went back, remembering that the plans had been drawn before I even started working there, so there was no way it was my responsibility to keep her informed.
I was in New York and bored out of my skull. I was entirely alone for some reason. I only stayed within a one-block radius of where I was staying. There was a movie theater that was playing the uncut version of sex, lies, and videotape, which I didn't really care about seeing, but it was directed by the same guy [Stephen Soderbergh] who did Kafka, so I thought about giving it a chance. Admission was $2.93. I had picked up a CD somewhere, and I abandoned it in a CD store because I was afraid they'd try to charge me for it.
I was at work. Stephanie had just wrapped up a volunteer meeting that was held in her cubicle. A woman named Mary Johnson was the last to leave. She had left me an email asking for a copy of her enrollment form that she had faxed. I tried to make a copy, but since it was faxed, the quality wasn't excellent. Add to that our horrible copier, and I wasn't getting anywhere. A different Mary (this one from the university) appeared and told me not to use the copier or else it would go down forever. I was tempted to ask what the good of the copier was if it was unoperable, but I didn't.
Then I woke up, wrote down key things and went back to sleep.
So I dreamt the work dream all over again, only I told Mary (from the university) that I had just had a dream about her and wasn't that odd since I hadn't seen her in over a year and a half. She pointed out the enrollment numbers Stephanie had thought we should post on the cubicle wall of the copier and said we shouldn't let people know those statistics. She also complained that they were low. I went back into my office and was hounded by people wanting to enroll in classes. Someone waiting kept turning on and off the lights, so it was very difficult to maintain a semi-professional atmosphere. They weren't filling out enrollment forms right and didn't know which classes they wanted. One family had about eight kids and said, "Just put them in whatever class you want. We're unemployed, so we can get them to any class." A group of two black boys and one white came into my office asking for a drink of water, so I showed them to the water fountain. I almost launched into a brief history lesson telling them that once upon a time, they wouldn't have been allowed to drink out of the same fountain.
Again, I'm writing from notes scribbled in the middle of the night. This time, instead of filling up the back of a receipt, I nearly filled up a spiral notebook page.
Mom and I were going to my old high school. In the parking lot, there was an ice skater darting between cars. Mom said, "She's talented; you should ask her--" She skated in front of our car and nearly killed all of us. We saw a parked cop car. Mom said, "I hate to ask an off-duty policeman," but he left before she could complain. We headed towards the building. The power had gone out and as we walked in, it came back on. The library was locked, so, since we couldn't get in there, we walked around the commons area. We kept bumping into people I knew from then. No one else's mom was there. Zach said, "Hey, Jen," and Mom whispered, "Follow through," code for continue the conversation with him. I told her, "Ease," meaning for her to stop nagging. Most people were eating. I found Amber's credit card (Amber was a girl I went to high school with, but the Amber whose credit card I found is really the mother of one of our preschool students) and said I would return it to her, as I would see her later. I picked up two keychains. Then we walked outside. Mom said, "I forgot I had to buy you strawberries." I told her that "I would have asked for them if I really wanted them." Then she bought me two prescriptions, four CDs, and lunch. In the parking lot now were two white Corvettes and Howard's car. I woke up to one of the Scooby Doo Mysteries, sleeping as always with Cartoon Network on, as they were talking about racecars.
I dreamt Grandpa had two new calves, both bulls, one had the beginnings of horns on his snout. I could the bone beginning to form under the skin like new teeth. The calf was trying to bite me. Grandpa told me that he had traded that "yappy dog" (perhaps a bleedthrough from the Scooby Doo meets Courage the Cowardly Dog commercial on Cartoon Network), one of the calves, and his "son" on a treadmill for cash. The "son," a transient Grandpa had picked up somewhere for odd ranching jobs, said, "Oh, you've found another son?"
I haven't been sleeping well lately. It's because it's already too damn hot, and it's only the middle of May. August is going to be hell.
So when I woke up sometime between four and five, I grabbed a pen and a piece of scrap paper from beside my bed and scribbled notes.
There were severe foundation problems at my parents' house in Newton. I went to take a relaxing bath, but the bathtub was breaking apart. The end with the drain had broken, and I could see earthworms crawling around, just begging me to turn on the water. I went upstairs and Craig Kilborn (I misspelled his last name in my notes--ooh, what could that symbolize? Go, Freud, go.) was leaning back in a recliner, some girl drink (perhaps a mai-tai?) in hand (umbrella and all). "Please, call me Kilby after 5. Of course, I'm not here all that often after 5." I said, "We'll make you a banner" announcing the rules for when the use of "Kilby" was appropriate.
I have no damn idea what "R's cabin to 7" means, although Lael says it sounds like a chess move. It does, but I wasn't dreaming about chess. I guarantee that. I do vaguely remember the crowd of Native American kids (see how I'm unconsciously, or subconsciously, politically correct?) and I know I uttered "I have to get a hamburger for Lori." But I have no idea how those connect.
Again, I have a vague recollection of the "rap wedding" and Juvenile kissing someone (not me). Perhaps Lil' Kim got married. Who knows?
I REALLY wish I knew what "the whole serial murder thing" was, but I know that when I woke up momentarily that I thought there would be no possible way I could forget it. I did. Perhaps someone was plotting to kill Rosie O'Donnell. "I guess we need to close the door," was said by me after I/we found the body.
I didn't scan the two phrases I wrote on the back, but there was something about a "poor repair job." This may be connected to the foundation problems mentioned above. The phrase "all the silver is broken" kept repeating in my head too.
I don't know if taking notes is such a good thing, because I've spent all day obsessing about what "the whole serial murder thing--Rosie O'Donnell" was.
I got lost on one of Grandpa's farms, and I had to find my way back. The farm was flooded, but the waters had been stagnant for a while. I found two cross streets, Lebanon and Lakelong, and then I made it to the barn, a metal structure with two regular doors on the front facade. Duchess, Grandpa's dog from my childhood, was locked up in the barn. I checked on her, but left her in there, assuming Grandpa had left her there for a reason.
I was digging in the refrigerator for something to eat. I only had twenty minutes to get to my English 890 class with Brooks. I found a large, precooked hamburger patty (complete with the little grill lines). I added cheese to it, though about how it was a perfect protein diet meal and giggled, and ate.
Miscellaneous stuff about preschool meetings.
We were having a garage sale to raise money for the playground at preschool, so I donated a sack of clothes. I went through my closet with Debbie, an ex-co-worker, and couldn't remember having most of those clothes anyway.
I dreamt that I was at the old playground in my old neighborhood, and one of the preschool kids almost got eaten by a crocodile. His mom came up to me and explained that there were caymans in the kiddie swimming pools and it just wasn't safe at all. I agreed, but didn't know exactly what to do, so we all stayed inside a lot from then on.
I had to go to back to the university for some reason and Mom drove me. We miraculously found parking spaces right in front of the building we needed to go to. Mom drove past the handicapped parking (which was full) and the "Professor of the Month" type parking stalls. We pulled into a free space on the other side of those reward stalls and we noticed that, instead of parking meters, they had actual policeman standing in front of each stall. We continued into the parking space and the policeman got out of his little tollbooth-type box. He told us we owed $7.00 to park there for one hour. Mom said that was a little high and she decided she'd just drop me off and pick me up later. The policeman got very upset and said it was $9.00 to refuse to park there. We quickly pulled out and Mom sped away. I remember thinking that I was glad that she had a handicapped tag so that her license tag was simply a line of five numbers instead of a more memorable combination of letter and numbers. She dropped me off and I realized how ill I felt. I went on a roller coaster and, while it didn't help my headache, it still was neat.
I was making movies in a program similar to Flash. Persons could download the real music video to any song from a mysterious website, then fiddle with it, and upload it to share their modified video. I had a Christina Aquilera video to work with, and I immediately added subtitles and so on. Her video thankfully wasn't of her, but images of Marlo Thomas from That Girl and other dated things. Then, towards the end of the video, a bunch of current-day teenage girls ran out of their high school and towards the woods. White italicized Helvetica text told me it was "a few years later," and I changed that to something smartass. I was doing all this editing work in the old upstairs bathroom of the old house. I went to preview my video, but it had somehow gotten intercut with commercials starring Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. I was a bit upset that it was continuing past nine o'clock, but I don't know why. Then I was going to take a shower, but I was bit by a spider on my right index finger. I ripped the spider from my hand--it was a tiny tan spider--and smashed him on the white porcelain sink. I saw the blood smear and thought about how it was really mine.
I went to a garage sale and bought several cookbooks for $2 each after debating whether I really wanted them that badly. I bought Beyond Parsley and the full, hardback, brand new version of The Joy of Cooking. Later, Mom called and told me that she had bought me James Beard and other cookbooks at the same sale.
I had an incredibly horrifying nightmare. I was trapped in a "Hitchcock" movie, even though it was completely unlike Alfred Hitchcock movies in any way. I was simply in the movie, just existing within it, with no sense of being on a movie set: I was also watching myself in the movie on television. In the movie, I was told I had to give Scott Baio oral sex, and I promptly vomited in the fireplace and on the tiles around it. I switched the movie off at that point and went the patio door, where I stood with my squirming Siamese cat (Amy, who was put to sleep in 1995) and I refused to let her go. She finally escaped and I went back to the movie, knowing I had to finish it or else something even worse would happen. Then it seemed like a real Alfred Hitchcock movie, the highly stylized 1950s Hitchcock of Rear Window and North by Northwest.
I hope I never dream about Scott Baio again.
We were at some sort of Center retreat. I rode with Caryn and we had to park on the side of a dirt road. When we looked up, a tornado was whipping towards us. We put our heads down and walked towards the building. Inside, we learned that the tornado had hit the packing room. "That stuff's insured for $50 a shelf!" I screamed. (I don't know why I screamed that, but I did.) Then Charla greeted us and led me towards the City Arts store. I dove through a little door (think Being John Malkovich) and landed on a huge pile of Play-Doh . . . still in its containers, so it didn't soften the blow any. After making my way down the huge pile of Play-Doh, I went to a jewelry case and saw works by Melanie J. Then the tornado started to come back again, and I ducked. It went over my head (these were just little funnels, about six inches wide) and then another one came, and I ducked.
In another Center dream, I had a lot of people coming in to my office. The phone would ring and people would also walk in. I helped one lady named Minnie Pearl (I even looked at her and wondered how many people thought she was Minnie "How-DY!" Pearl) enroll for portraiture and creative writing. She asked if I taught it and I said yes, then backtracked and remembered that I wasn't teaching at all. I told her the truth. My desk was incredibly messy. The UPS guy stopped by and told me the new instructions for shipping things and gave me new labels. I took another phone call and realized that the east wall of my office was now a peanut gallery: five or six people would criticize me as I worked. "That's sexual abuse," I said at one point, "and I don't have to take that--in my own office especially." Then the peanut gallery asked me to sing Kris Kross's "Jump Jump" which I did for a while (an obvious bleed-through from Cartoon Network, which is always on while I'm sleeping, and its Ultimate Hip-Hop Party CD ad). Then I saw Jeff S., a boy who lived next door to me while growing up, and now he and his three brothers were a successful boy band. I asked them which song came first, and he said "Love Will Never Do Without You." I murmured, "of course," wondering if they ever did an original song.
I was running up a large hill with Jason (that's Princess Jason really, and I can imagine him playfully hitting me now, managing not to disturb his tiara) to go to a playground. When I got there, it turned into a boat ride, and Matt and I floated down the valley. We waved to Linda, an ex-co-worker of both Matt and I, and I whispered to Matt, "She doesn't recognize us." Then we went to another playground, and after climbing on the jungle gym of sorts, we went back to Matt's house. He was living in a traincar with his brother: the ceiling was low and a lot of electrical wires were exposed. I left, and Bill's Asian wife (don't ask me) came up to me and told me that she was leaving Bill after her next official function. I was surprised, and wondered if I should tell Ellen about this.
I was standing in a forest with Renaissance Fair people for some reason. Matt was in a suit of armor and I was in some princess outfit. I wondered what the hell was going on.
The preschoolers were "acting like a raspberry" in their creative movement activities.
I played laser tag with Ryan at Village Inn. He was more than a little surprised to see me, but he was also relieved to find that I didn't have a real gun.
Then we with a bunch of people completely destroying a house. Some guy ripped off the door, and I shot my laser tag gun at the windows. It actually made holes and I was surprised.
I had some rare disease that caused me to ooze blood. I didn't throw it up, but I just turned my head and blood would drip out of my mouth. I went to the bathtub because it was flowing so heavily out of my mouth. When I got into the shower, I turned my head a little too quickly and blood got all over the shower stall. The tiles were covered with blood. The blood was a bit thinner than molasses, but just about as dark: the consistency was about the same as motor oil.
After that, I had to go to a Scholar's Bowl thing outside. Jesse was surprised to see me as I was driven to the meet. I got out of the car, very weakly, and I could see his jaw drop. I tried to play it off by making fun of myself: "Jesus, Jesse. It's just a skirt. I've worn one before." We all knew that wasn't it. He whispered to someone else, and I knew he had hoped I would die so someone more together and healthier would be on the team.
I was getting dressed to go to some formal event, and I wanted to wear a hot pink silk shirt over my outfit. It wasn't working out well: it wasn't too small or too big, but just wrong. It had shoulder pads (which didn't help) that didn't fit on my shoulders. I thought about ironing it, which I was going to do in the kitchen (at the old house). I held my hand in front of the iron, feeling the heat from it, and decided I should turn the shirt inside out in case I burnt it. Then I decided that nothing would help it and unplugged the iron. I then flipped over, or maybe the alarm clock sang its awful tune, and I immediately went back to the twilight stage, wondering "what happens if you forget to turn the iron off in a dream?"
I was invited to view mammoth works out of art outside. An artist had created huge painted murals and sculpture. I crawled under "Cranium" and looked up to see the bars and support beams. There was a house made out of blocks of pressed flowers in resin and a massive clock with symbols for the numbers. I was invited back anytime, and I wouldn't have to pay the $5 admission.
--Night time sleeping--
I only had boring dreams about posting web pages for other people. I didn't sleep well at all, and didn't get nearly enough sleep.
--Nap time sleeping--
I had some rather frightening fertility rite dream or something. I was with another person at a place that would supposedly find your dream mate. I wasn't there to find anyone; I was just being moral support for the friend I accompanied there. There was an incredibly pregnant woman doing a television show about childbirth, but the back of the set kept falling down. She'd get up and fix it, even though she was enormously pregnant, and her male co-host never offered to help her. The pregnant woman refused any assistance; she had had seven children earlier and was pretty accustomed to being pregnant.
You can always tell when I get a LOT of sleep, and that happened last night. I went to bed at about 1:30 am and woke up at 1:21 pm when the phone rang. I also woke up at 7:00 am, but I went right back to sleep. Even now, almost 3.5 hours later, I really just want to go back to bed.
I was both watching the Oscars. I was very confused, because I knew it wasn't time for the Oscars. Yet I still watched. At one point near the beginning, I was onstage. I was upset because I couldn't draw a box around me by rubbing my hands together and pretending to draw a box. My hands had bubble solution on them, so I wasn't completely insane. It had worked earlier. Instead the bubbles just burst and were not editable. Christopher Walken followed me onstage (I was now offstage, watching it all on television) ad said that there would be "some humor, some singing, and some old-tyme musical theatre acts." There were about eight pages worth of awards to hand out. I had the pages in front of me and they were for very odd things, like best use of a wa-wa pedal (or however you spell it) in a theme song (which went to a Wayans brothers' movie). The best love song by a teenager for another teenager came from a guy named "Tyrell," a white kid with deep chestnut eyes. The awards show played a clip from whatever movie it came from: as Tyrell sang, the love of his life, a female soccer player in a yellow jersey, was running in a meadow. She got up to accept the award for Tyrell, and she had her hair in two ponytails with big knots at the tops, somewhat like they do in Sailor Moon. Her best friend, a Japanese teenager, was sitting across the aisle, and they hugged and shrieked together. Then the awards production showed a clip from the Asian girl's movie: it basically involved her sitting on a boat, very dramatically, much like early on in The Piano. Then the show moved on to some animal theme, and we watched a clip from someone like Tom Green singing a love song to a dolphin. I noticed we had only covered about one page worth of awards (they had paragraph-long descriptions for each winner) and we were an hour into the program. I knew it would take forever to give out all the awards.
Then I was 'at work,' but not where I usually work, watching the awards show. I began talking about how I had given scholarships to this semester with Howard, and we thought about putting their names in our newsletter. I had given $200 to a home-schooled student who was unlike most of them. In the dream at that point, I knew her name. I think it was Mia now, but I knew for sure then. Mia had won the scholarship by passionately defending Dar Williams in an essay. So Mia took that $200 and joined the ultra-secret, ultra-powerful, ultra-exclusive "Boys R Us" club. They tried to block her, but couldn't since she could now pay the membership fee. Jon ran the club and started it for personal profit. He wrote out her check for her and made her sign it. The figure on the check was originally $700, then $100, and finally $200. With her generous membership fee, she was now an officer. Mia told Jon that I'd take over the website since I had five years of experience and would be vice-president of all of her committees. I took both of Jon's hands and held them in mine. "This doesn't change the state of our personal relations. Oh wait, there weren't any." I then giggled evilly, dropped his hands, and hugged Mia. I had no idea she'd completely destroy the Boys R Us club.
I then drove home from my parents' house (in my dream) and walked around my apartment complex. I noticed eight cars that were up on blocks and their back wheels stolen. I was glad I had stayed at my parents' house instead of coming home. I was amazed at how quiet it was though, and I took a walk since it was so peaceful. I knew it was early on a Sunday morning, and I was wearing a trenchcoat as I meandered down the street. Then I saw Holly fighting with the school's network, trying to get into her room. "Tell me about the whole scholarship thing. I hear Jon's determined to kill you." I told her the whole story about Mia, although I couldn't remember Mia's name. I told her that I could in "the dream," and we both knew the whole Boys R Us coup was a dream. We agreed it was a pretty funny dream.
Kathleen and I went to play slot machines, only they were more like those gift-dispensing machines at grocery stores. We played a game that was similar to Plinko from The Price is Right. Kathleen spent five dollars, and I spent one dollar playing the various games. I was much slower than she was: it always seemed that someone was in my way when I wanted to use the machine. I got gifts from another machine; someone had won trashy toys, but didn't bother collecting them. There were four things: a rubber superball, a glow-in-the-dark butterfly, a statue of a prince, and a glow-in-the-dark salt shaker in the shape of a bird that hopped a little bit. I kept the salt shaker and gave the butterfly to Kathleen. "Don't spill it," she said. I, of course, did spill a little, but I just wiped it off with my hand and pretended it never happened. I then left Kathleen to finish her gaming, and I put a quarter in a different machine to play a trivia game. Three players would line up at the trio of machines and shout out answers to basic questions, then the first person to answer a follow-up question won. "Name an animal," prompted the announcer. "Cat," shouted the first person. "Frog," I said, wanting to be the one who said cat. "Moose," the third person said. "What is missing from the series?" asked the announcer, and the third person said, "Scuba gear!" That was the right answer, and since I couldn't make sense out of anything anymore, I pressed the coin return button and got my quarter back. I also got an additional $1 in quarters and a bunch of CD-Roms: Spiderman Cartoon Maker ("I can always use another copy, I suppose," I thought), Spiderman Summer Update, Windows 1.0.0 ("WARNING: This is highly unstable release" it said on the CD), "Chapters 1-3" of Final Fantasy III ("free version"), and a few shareware games. I was happy, Kathleen had spent her limit, and we left. As we left, two secretary-types with big 1987 hair, were getting prizes from machines.
I had another dream about the armless and legless Fisher Price Little People. That's about it. I spent the night at my parents' house since we went to three city-wide garage sales today. I was awoken at 5:11 am by the crows that live in the woodlands behind their home, and awoken at 7 am by Mom. It wasn't a highly restful evening.
Barb and Bill left me stranded on a porch. It was a screened-in porch, and I couldn't move. I was flat on the floor. Earlier, Barb and I had been in Wal-Mart. I can't remember anything else, and it's frustrating. At 5 this morning, I woke up and thought, "Boy, I really need to remember that dream. How can I forget it?" But, by 8 am, the dream was forever hidden in a veil of frantic sleep.
I was in a Taco Grande or something, and I ran into an old friend, Toni. She did the whole European two-cheek kiss thing, and had me do that to her new female friend too. I did the "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine" thing and felt so incredibly fake.
I was in the basement of the Center, and I was cleaning out the book display. We had multiple copies of odd books, like Island of the Blue Dolphins and other Scott O'Dell books. I got rid of the duplicates, wondering why these were even at work. Stephanie was throwing away old copies. Caryn asked me for web reports for each of the department heads.
I finally had the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon dream I knew I would have someday: I was in a three-story building. I can't remember most of it, but I do know that I was flying and running up the walls. At one point I almost hit my head on a ceiling fan. Dad was with me, and it was dark and rainy (like most of my dreams have been lately). The building had quite a bit of glass in it, but no one smashed through it. I wasn't exactly fighting, I don't think, but just sort of flying.
I was in an used clothing store on some class trip. There was to be another leg of the journey that involved going to another clothing store, trying on clothes, and a big graduation party. I didn't really want to go try on clothes, but I couldn't remember having a really big graduation party and that sounded like fun. There was an African-American girl who was flying on to Australia (it was just an hour plane ride away; I don't know exactly where we were, but it wasn't Kansas). She was terribly excited and couldn't stop chatting, "Flying at night over the ocean is so exciting. It's like you can't tell what's up anymore." I wanted the people at the cash register to hold onto my bags while I shopped, but they refused to do that. I was very worried about "getting back in time," although I have no idea where I was supposed to go.
About six other people and I went to go either watch someone die or kill ourselves at this person's house. We were at the big metal gates begging to be let in when Bill Clinton walked by and shook everyone's hand. He was quite jolly and relaxed, and I realized just how much I missed him. (This dream obvious reflects some of the main issues--euthanasia especially--tackled in last night's moving episode of That's My Bush).
The annoying client at work that has tons of ideas for how we should run our company called me on my cell phone. First, I was slightly disturbed that I had a cell phone, but realized it was "necessary." Secondly, she just got my voice mail and it garbled part of her message. I threw the phone and said to Jake (I think), "See, I don't want to be reachable."
I was standing with three people (Lael, Joel, Bev?) and we were trying to will Sally (Lael's wife) to turn on the air conditioning. We were on the east side of a highway and she was on the west side in a greenhouse-type building. She could only turn on the AC by making the large sign display the proper series of logos. I knew the last two symbols had to be "Union Label - Chevron," but couldn't help on the first two.
I tossed and turned quite a bit last night, and that definitely played a part in some of my dreams last night.
I flipped over, thinking to myself, "When I get to the next list item, I'll flip back over."
I had dreams about two different menu button designs.
I can't remember if this dream was from last night or the night before last: I was in a California Pizza Kitchen, trying to ring up a pizza by scanning the UPC code on the bottom of the box. I was the only one there; it was dark and rainy outside and I was working by various blue lights. I could have easily stolen the pizza, but I wanted to pay for it and I was trying to figure out the cash register. As I rang it up, the recipe for the item appeared on the screen. Then I realized I could steal the recipes (even though I couldn't ethically deal with stealing a pizza, stealing the recipes was fine) if only I could figure out how to print them out.
A teacher, somehow a combination of Anthony and Mac, was packing up his books and materials to leave the Center. I was helping him by reaching the books on the bottom shelf. I wouldn't let him take the Needlepoint for Children book because I had looked at it so many times when I was a kid. He said I could just keep it, as well as another book on color that was very cool. Just as What Wood Is That? has wood samples, it had paint samples and, I think, it had transparencies too so you could play with color mixing. We put his belongings in a white metal crate. Also in the crate was a small white stool that belonged to Pat, but Pat said she didn't want it anymore. She too was packing. I helped Anthony/Mac carry his stuff to his truck: when I went outside, I was in my old house's driveway. I set the crate in his truck. Then John Ritter, rolling two suitcases behind him, came out of the house to the left and headed towards the house on the right, wheeling his belongings across part of my driveway, I followed him into the neighbor's house (Nicole's) and he settled into the master bedroom. The master bedroom had three beds; five people lived there. Now that John Ritter was there, there were six people living in that one room. I suppose I was one of them now (I was included in that six) and I had to share a bed with someone. My cousin Barbara was there, and we decided we could share a full-size bed. I told her "I promise not to kick you on purpose, but I can't be held responsible for anything I do unconsciously." She agreed.
I had another dream about my cousin "Craig" (real name is Chris, but I guess I didn't remember that), but I only vaguely remember that he was there. We were on the mezzanine level of the McKnight Arts building. He was teasing me about something.
I forgot two of the dreams that I had remembered when I woke up at five and couldn't go back to sleep for an hour. It wasn't because of horrible dreams or anything though, just some weirdness. It's probably related to the Nyquil that I took for my cold--but at least I can breathe with my mouth shut today.
The dream that I do remember took place between 8:00 (when I called and told work that I'd be a little late so I could get some sleep) and 9:00, when I officially woke up. I was in my office when a woman walked in wanting a job. She wanted to work for us about one or two hours a week so that her current employer would see that she was employable somewhere else. I gave her the speech about modeling for a portraiture class as compared to a life drawing class. "But what about my skills?" she demanded. "How much per hour can I earn for my skills?" I looked on the resume she shoved in my hands and, under skills, she had listed "the ability to put data into forms using Microsoft Word." I told that she'd probably make $6-$10/hour if we had a position where that was required. She got quite angry and I told that the pay was in that range because we were a non-profit organization. She screamed, "No, it's because they like keeping you hungry!" I told her that if we wanted to close the doors tomorrow, we could all retire nicely, but that we all worked there out of some sense of doing good. We weren't there to get rich: that's impossible.