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 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 was going to Sam’s (Wholesale Club) with Jon. He didn’t have a card, so we went to the membership desk. They had a card with his name on it and two pictures from when he was a kid. They also had a card for Greg, Jon’s best friend in seventh grade. It was quite creepy, and I told Jon that it was part of Sam Walton’s massive photo project: to get a picture of every person in the United States. Jon then vanished, and I was shopping with two women in Wal-Mart, possibly Mom and Grandma. I was a little upset that we weren’t at one with a grocery store, but I wandered nonetheless. Of all the Wal-Marts I’ve been in, it was most like the Blackwell, Oklahoma Wal-Mart: like Newton’s, but more claustrophobic and dirtier. Anyway, I saw long baby pink and baby blue spandex skirts that I thought about, but decided against. I picked out three pairs of corduroy pants until I noticed they were $35 each: out of my price range. It was then that I stopped and wondered what I had become–I was looking at a corduroy, a fabric I swore I’d never wear again after failed slide attempts in third grade–and thinking about buying clothes . . . baby pink spandex skirts even. I shuddered, put the pants on the rack, and went to find Mom and Grandma. Tom F. had gotten in an argument with Grandpa, so I screamed at him. “How dare you insult him,” I yelled, “He’s done more good in the world than you can even comphrehend. You, of all people, should have the decency to leave him alone.” I could tell Grandpa didn’t really care what Tom F. had said anyway (not that I really knew, beyond a vague “he was mean to my grandpa, that bastard” sense), but I also sensed he was proud. Then Grandma and I looked at some miscellaneous items. I was still furious.

(This is the first “normal”–meaning nothing related to death–dream about Grandma I’ve had since she died in August.)

A busy night of dreaming . . . no wonder I woke up tired.

I was with my mom and dad in our old house. At first, we were in the living room reading the newspaper. Mom tore out an ad for a Siamese kitten and handed it to me. “Go call them,” she told me. I didn’t see why she made me, but I went to my old bedroom and called. The lady asked if why I wanted the kitten, it had “knocked a guy out” and “refused to be T.T.” (toilet trained). I asked if we could at least meet the kitty, and told her about how Mom could make the gorillas talk to her. The lady thought it would be okay.

Matt was getting out of the Army (perhaps a sequel to the dream of him entering the Navy?). Maybe it was just a movie set where he playing a soldier because it wasn’t that disciplined. For one thing, they had sheets with little Hitler clipart on it: there was Chef Hitler in a chef’s hat chopping vegetables, and Clown Hitler, etc. If you’ve seen Rocky and Bullwinkle plenty, you’ll remember the janitor at the end of Mr. Peabody’s segment: Hitler looked somewhat like him, but it was unmistakably Hitler. About twenty or so soldiers went into a convenience store and said, “All hail America’s heroes!” and took baseball cards. They opened up them and up and said, “Hail Jackie Robinson,” etc. As we were leaving, I said, “Hail Babe Ruth” to the poster of him. Back in the room, I asked a man who looked like Lou Rawls if they got to keep their props. He said sometimes.

Then Katie E. and I were going to school early. I didn’t know what we’d do because, as I told her, “we can’t exactly wander through the barracks now that Matt’s out.” Jon J. said “Be glad you’re not in the room. It smells like ‘party’ in there. I can’t exactly put my finger on it.” Dan S. was dipping chicken nuggets and french fries into mayonnaise on his hamburger bun.

We were in a sandwich shop, and we left when Greg and his girlfriend did. Matt’s former bunkmate tried to leave too, but he wasn’t allowed to. He sat in the corner and talked to himself a lot; he went crazy after he was released from the army. Outside, I removed the tomato from my sandwich and threw it away. Even if I liked tomatos, it was a bit too green around the seeds to eat.

I was standing in a line, holding Matt’s hand. Jesse Harris wanted to be involved in our hand holding too, but found a girl behind us and held her hand. Aali was in front of us, and he turned to me and asked if I had read his poems. Then I had a flash of a poem titled “Girl, You’re Like My Cappuccino” and another one which included the lines (roughly remembered) “All I want are passing glances / From the people I knew five years ago / And maybe a word too.”

I was in some compartment (truck or tractor cab?) with Grandpa and two women. One woman (sort of Marlo Thomas-ish) opened the window and “let the air in like old times.” Somehow I ended up driving Grandpa and Matt in a pick-up, and we were at an intersection much like that of US-50 and Hutchinson’s airport road. Grandpa was talking about close calls, and I made it across the highway with one close call that wasn’t terribly close. Then Matt and I were in a room outside Puff Daddy‘s courtroom. Matt was eating these slate blue caps (like you might use in a toy gun). “Does Puff know you’re eating his candy?” I asked Matt, then Matt told me that “what this really is about is state’s rights.”

Then I was in a lawyer’s office writing “Ahcroft” (I knew it was Ashcroft, but was purposely spelling it wrong–I don’t know why) painfully slow in D’nealian cursive. Every letter had to be just perfect, and I traced letters over and over. Then I went into the bathroom to take a shower. When I turned on the water, warm water came out initially. Luckily, I wasn’t in the bathtub when the excrement came out. It was like someone flushed and it went directly into my bathtub instead of the sewer. Somehow I knew Attorney General John Ashcroft was behind this attack. Rather than deal with it, I woke up.

I was working as a floral arranger in the mall. I was talking about Caryn’s four children (Nathan, Inga, Sarah, and someone else) with her nanny, primarily about not switching Nathan to a different school because he’d think he was moved because he was too stupid. The other son needed that though. I also told her that Nathan was tired of getting a present that was just a step (like a computer book) instead of the whole thing (the computer and a book). Then Jon bounded into the store with the combination broadway musical and goosestep movement that’s entirely his own. He saw me and nearly started to run. Matt came in at the same time. By the time they both got to me, I was on the phone answering someone else’s questions. I waited on Jon first–Matt wasn’t there to buy anything. Jon wanted long purple trumpeting flowers in his arrangement and one bright pink one. Matt eventually came behind the counter and took over, saying “I work here too.” Jon had brought a twelve year old boy with a Gameboy printer to print off his card and seal the gift envelope. While Matt helped him, I had to help this girl cut out pictures for her cassette tape liner notes. Matt, Jon, and I went out in the mall and it started to snow. Bill Clinton was laying on a square bench around the trunk of a peach tree. He was babbling about his favorite southern recipes. That night Matt and I had pumpkin soup in a sugary pastry crust. “I bet you’re not going to give me my flowers,” I said, convinced that Jon was going to give me the flowers and that’s why he couldn’t tell me what to write on the card. So Matt and I fought over whether the flowers were mine or not.

I was on a roadtrip with Mom. I lived in an apartment that hung over the road, so I pretended that cars were crashing into my house. I took War Machine (Matt’s Suburban) to an Arkansas wedding portrait store and it was robbed. Mom and I were going to fly to Boston, but it was hailing and the air was so dense that the hail couldn’t even fall: it was just suspended in the air. At the restaurant, the waitress said I “was supposed to get mesh in your baked potato” and started digging through it. I slapped her hand away and told her that it was my potato, mesh or not, and I was going to take it home in a box until she touched it. Then Mom and I went on spinny rides.

I accidentally hung up a naked poster of Britney Spears in my office at work. She was wearing a cupless bra and holding a teddy bear between her breasts. She also had a penis and ugly legs. Once I realized how grotesque it was, I stapled a Chicago t-shirt over it just before Howard came in with the mail. He threw down the mail and said, “Caryn’s getting her master’s degree.” I pointed at the door to the metals studio and said I was going to make it metal and cover it with magnets from Arkansas. “Ugh,” he said, “I hate those.” Stephanie then came in and tried to cut up her Columbia House Play card.

Grandma stopped by for a visit. We exchanged pleasantries, like “How are you?” “Fine, how are you?” She was wearing a lavender shirt and lemon yellow shorts. I only started crying when we both got on the phone and I kept asking Mom, “Can you hear her? She’s here.”

Kathleen and I went in the petites door on the east side of J.C. Penney’s at Towne East. We shopped for clothes briefly, Kat deciding to wear a suit. These old guys were all dancing around us in slow, arthritic motions. As Kat walked by two Arab men, they did the macho head nod thing. As I followed her, I kept chasing after her saying, “I have a suit at home.” We then saw two boys fighting, then we pointed out how they were both wearing orange. We asked if there was a pumpkin fad going on, pretending that we didn’t know that Halloween was coming. I asked if it was like Pac-Man or Garbage Pail Kids. They just stared at me. Then we saw George W. Bush (Dubya) on the floor. He was in prime form, explaining to us that, although he found our young, nubile bodies attractive, he didn’t think of them sexually. Instead, he thought about us “merging,” but he also said he “wouldn’t say that.” We went out and watched a failed attempt to have people chant “from Wichita to across the nation.” The security guard spoke too slowly. I then decided to ask for Dubya’s autograph. When we got back in the store, he was gone. Kat started looking at jewelry cases filled with Happy Meal toys. Then another Kathleen (redhead, not blonde) got in blonde Kathleen’s way. Once “now Kat” and I got in the way of “then Kat” and a bunch of mean glares were exchanged, I mentioned that there’s one reason to avoid cloning: more competition for the stuff you want. Kat just said, “well, that was weird.”

We then went outside (which was the Peterson playground), and all the Designing Women were throwing punches. Nancy L. picked my pocket when she hugged me, so I playfully slugged her and she gave it back to me. I found Barb and we went through her school notebook: she had a Franklin Spelling Ace, calculator, cd player, etc. Her car stereo handbook had her name (which was Violet in the dream) printed in the text. “Must be nice,” I mentioned.