1) I kept a bottle of brandy by the bed so I could just take a swig and go back to sleep easily.
2) I crawled through a old house and ended up cooking for Napoleon.
3) A twelve-year-old was getting married to a thirtysomething-year-old. He was sending her video letters. She was most concerned about his balding. The rest of us were just concerned.
4) Something involving a large display of a movie in a setting like a shop class.

Dates unknown, but both happened after John Kerry announced Edwards was his running mate.

Dream #1: I was sitting at the foot of my mom’s bed in my childhood home as Mom was watching television. Edwards came in and gave me a big (platonic) hug. It was an excellent hug.

Dream #2 - weeks later: I was watching CNN and saw Edwards getting into a presidential-looking helicopter at a Camp David-like setting. He got trapped between the door of the helicopter, which was mechically trying to open, and the helicopter itself. So basically Edwards was getting hurt (though not bloodily) by being squeezed on live television. It was horrible.

Perhaps that one was just a reaction against the whole “Jacuzzi case” crap that Tucker Carlson is spewing.

Some dreams to catch you up on:

Early last week sometime:

A business partner (not co-worker) I’ve only talked to a few times was married to Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He would keep throwing himself out the window. She finally locked him in bed by embedding a padlock in his meat.

****

Sunday night’s dream was very tainted because I accidentally fell asleep when Saddam Hussein addressed his people at 2:30ish a.m. my time.

Wolf Blitzer of CNN was congratulating me on my first national broadcast, although I did “ramble a bit.” I pointed out that I was just a kid and he agreed. He was very nice and served a mentor figure; he was also going to introduce me to some BBC and NPR personnel. Then the dream shifted to the Academy Awards. The red carpet had been rolled out and the Clintons stepped out of a limo. Chelsea was wearing a black dress, Hillary wore a white pantsuit and dark sunglasses, and Bill wore a tuxedo. Bill had offered Chelsea as a spiritual leader or princess for the new Iraqi regime. The huge cameras became guns. On the steps of the mosque/Kodak Theatre, a Japanese girl of about sixteen was blindfolded and wrapped very tightly in a kimono. She was promptly killed by the cameras/guns. An American solder, on his stomach with his gun aimed at the doorway of the mosque/theatre, was right in front of a television broadcasting the same scene live. So the television was caught in an endless loop. Very tiring.

****

Monday night:

I almost stole two different Mini Coopers (one British racing green, one yellow).

Jacques Chirac, President of France, had pledged to help me move, but he wasn’t too thrilled when I asked him to help me move the box of “French stuff”: some Beck French import albums (vinyl even), the Serge Gainsbourg CDs, etc. “But I got rid of all the Balzac; I’m not asking you to carry that,” I whined, and he just irritatedly lifted the milk crate of French stuff and hefted it away. (In a previous dream from July, Marlon Brando helped move stereo equipment.)

I was having lunch in a small restaurant (kind of like Bel Ami, but brighter) with John and Cindy McCain. Someone was going to introduce me to John, but as I shook John’s hand, I told the introducer that we had already met. We had a pleasant lunch. Leaving the restaurant, I ran into Woods.

I moved into my new place and ripped off the wallpaper in the kitchen only to find orange and gold foil. (This is obviously related to the estate sale I went to a few days ago that made me dream in orange and red last night too.) Also, when I moved in, a little girl stood in the kitchen as I was looking at the odd things remaining in the refrigerator. She said, “I come with the house. I’m going to my room now.” I was not amused.

I also dreamt about speed traps on the expressway.

Now, a collection of dreams from previous nights:

11/15: My boss gave me a Sit ‘n’ Spin and I was, of course, deliriously happy.

I visited DRC in his Comotara home. A strange man outside wailed and wailed, so I took shelter inside. He had to go throw pots, and I did him a favor by going to KU and getting some clay for him.

I was either in a large arena or an airport and I ran into the mayor.

11/16: Kathleen and I were playing in my new house when we discovered that it had a whole additional level in the basement. We walked into one room and it was very much like Larry’s Piano Bar. There were nine circular booths, like the corner one in Angela’s where Linden, Jaime, Matt, and I had lunch last time Matt was in town. I heard Kathleen squeal, “Oh my God! You have to make them leave the dance floor.” We turned the corner and found several rooms with 1970s dark wood bunk beds. I reasoned that the previous owners had a Little League team spend the summer with them.

Al Gore was hawking Suzukis for Carbanc.

I took an elevator to New York after returning curtains to JC Penney’s.

The airlines would charge passengers who went to the bathroom within five minutes of takeoff an additional $2000.

11/17: Lael sent me an e-mail entitled “however; angle 2.”

11/18: I was running with a flashlight on my grandfather’s road, dodging between cars.

In some smallish room, Mom was half-asleep in a chair. Linden came in and went to another room to sleep. An woman in her mid-forties came in and went to Linden’s room to sleep, gushing that he could “recite Shakespeare, no, Chaucer, even in his sleep.” Some guy from NPR came in: he was about eighteen, with a mohawk, piercing, and Black Flag t-shirt (it wasn’t Jeff). He settled on a fainting couch. I didn’t leave because of him, but I knew I had to leave right then. I had been on the phone with Mari, although I called her Zorak, and just left the phone dangling when her mom started screaming at her dad.

I went downstairs, which was a high-dollar department store. I walked past the four people in the basement and went straight to the fancy porcelain dolls and tin movie posters. One of the dolls was a 8.5″ fashion doll with slots cut in her so she could identify clothing. She would say, “I want my flip-flops” and you’d put her flip-flops on, then she’d say “thank you.” She randomly barked orders about pieces of clothing to put on or take off. Not wanting to be bossed around, I glanced at one of the movie posters. When I found one that I “recognized,” I saw the opening scenes of a movie starring “Beulah” or “Bertha” or “Beatrice”–I can’t remember which. It was a woman who looked quite a bit like my aunt Marie screaming as the camera zooms in closer. Her face is lit by rotating police lights (red-blue-white). The film is in black and white except for the colored lights.

When I look away, I’m surrounded by a lot of high school people. Jon was twirling around. Someone said to me, “he’s always been much too skinny.” I said, “Would you believe there was a time when I was that thin?” Then I spotted Josh, and I ran towards him to give him a hug. “I love you for eighth grade,” the last time we were in a class together. He started crying and said, “I don’t know why I’m crying, but I am.” I walked through the crowds of people, chanting, “I have three secrets. I know what Olga is getting her husband for his birthday . . .” and I can’t remember the other two.

I found a set of photo albums and started browsing through them. There were several of a carnival. Dawn and someone else babysat needy Asian children for National Honors Society community service hours: it had a very Dorthea Lange quality to it. Charlie was shown wearing a full cowboy outfit; the backdrop was a map of New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas. The name “Lamar, New Mexico” was bolder than any other word.

Sitting with Karrie, Erika, and Olivia, they pulled out a Diet Dr Pepper can with which I had won a decorating contest. Since my design was chosen, they had printed it up on several cans. I had done this in middle school (c. 1990) and had based my words on the theme “Louisiana Democrats for John McCain.”

Two quick nightmares (probably induced by Lortab):

I call the Center and either Rebecca or Katie answer. They murmur into the phone the typical greeting, then add “or whatever.” I want to talk to Matt, but my mouth is unable to open.

I am asleep on the marble dining room table. Mom is throwing a dinner party, but I’m too near unconsciousness to move. I hear the doorbell and know that people will soon be staring at me as if I’m some buffet item. I hear footsteps on the linoleum. I want to tell them I’ll move, but I’m unable to speak.