Kathleen, Lael and I were eating in a pub when Officer D*** walked in. We didn’t exactly want him to join us for some reason; I think Kathleen harbored a grudge or something. We were almost done eating and I didn’t want to sit there longer while he ordered something with his friends and we watched them eat just to be polite, perhaps intimidated because, well, they’re cops. So I hid in my napkin. He walked by and tossed a $100 bill on the table for us: my napkin disguise was not clever enough. Damn. But we ended up with an extra $100 bucks, which I pocketed and continued to eat my chips, er, fries.

We were then at a party in the afternoon. We had been split up into eight groups - I was in group eight - to go participate in a battle of the bands-type thing. I went outside and got into a 1930s-ish hot rod, gunmetal gray with black tape making an intriguing pattern on it. Inside was a band that looked like a combination between Interpol and Motorhead. Also sitting in the front seat was Heather H from high school. The seats were white and smooth leather, like Matt’s old car Darlene.

The lead singer/driver informed me that we had to do a Simon and Garfunkel song. Looking at Heather and thinking back at how often the two of us had been compared (we were both pale, smart, and somewhat outspoken — the same boys thought us pretty), I suggested “Bookends.” Then I asked why we had to do a Simon and Garfunkel song. The lead singer/driver suddenly had Art Garfunkel hair — he ran his fingers over (not through — that might loosen it too much) and said, “I do a mean Art Garfunkel.” I asked if anyone had a chicken costume to do Paul Simon. They had decided to do a different song, not “Bookends,” but I don’t remember what.

My stomach’s all icky and I haven’t been sleeping well. No big surprise. I haven’t had any really remarkable dreams, but here’s a few I remember from the past two weeks.

***

I dreamt I opened my insurance statement and was responsible for $2,495.84 worth of charges. Of course, I was quite panicked. Then I read the top of the statement and it was for Sara Hollander. (I have never met a Sara Hollander, but she’s obviously quite sick, so be a bit kind to her.)

***

Jake was laying down somewhere, possibly in a wooded area on some mattress thingy. I kissed him on the cheek and he said, “You know I’m gay.” I told him that of course I knew, but this was going to break Stephanie’s heart.

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.”

My dream was heavily influenced by E.L. Konigsberg’s The View from Saturday. Lately, I’ve been rereading favorite books from my childhood and the library didn’t have Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth which made it cool to eat raw onions.

I was “abandoned” with one bossy white girl, a small child–possibly Guatamalan, and an African-American girl. We were left out in the woods to survive, but somehow there was a house nearby and there were mature adults all over. The bossy girl was making us use lasanga noodles to make “truck ruts” in the mud–I have no idea why. I carried the small child with me to a structure somewhere and reassured it that no one would let anything happen to us and that my mom might be back with the van sometime soon anyway. I said something mean about the bossy girl. As we left the room, I looked in the other room: the two girls were in front of vending machines getting candy and Coke. I glared at them, knowing they had heard me. The small child was afraid again, and I walked off, saying “I don’t care if they heard me. I meant everything I said.”

It was a busy Friday night for dreaming (I didn’t have to get up early, but here it is 8:57 am and I’m already awake). Last night, I woke up at 4:30 am and thought to myself, “What a complicated dream. I wasn’t even involved.” I don’t know what the dream was, but I am amused at my pseudo “It’s not my department” kind of apathy.

I went to a very neat estate sale, but Beck was not my cashier this time. I was doing the usual–trying to figure out the previous owners of the merchandise–and it was fairly complicated. I got intrigued by a number of items: a multi-colored woven afghan, the Left Behind DVD (which was still $10, so I left it behind-hah! Sorry.), and several sequined shirts. One was all about time and had a big Father Time on the left sleeve, a clock with moveable arms on the left breast, a cursive “Groundhog Day” and red sequin stripes on the right side, and even more on the back. There was also a polyester shirt, mostly white, with old illustrations of Siamese kittens. The pictures were all on the sleeves though, so I passed on it. The shirts were $3.00-$4.00, so they weren’t too bad, but I’m a cheap girl, even in my dreams. In the kitchen were some wonderful baby blue Fiesta dining sets and a wetbar with a monkey on it. It was Monkey from Dexter’s Lab, and he was on the cabinet doors. For some reason, I knew I was on vacation or something and couldn’t bring anything big back home with me, not even the blanket.

Dad and I were wandering around misc. large city at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday. I tried to tell him that nothing would be open, but we went into a Kinko’s anyway. We ended up just bringing Mom back a McDonald’s Coke.

Mom and I were in a field behind a farmhouse, and she was telling me her dream. As she described it, it happened. Ten white children ran towards us, then immediately to the left, and then hid. When they stood up, they were all black slave children in rags. They again ran towards us and disappeared as they got nearer. Then Mom told me about a sculpture she had seen made out of straw that was clearly a Texan woman. She was about eight feet tall and had real breast implants under her straw shirt. She had a cowboy hat on a pole behind her, so she could appear to wear it, but it wouldn’t muss her hair. Then the slave kids were back, and we all ran through the farmhouse, slamming doors behind house, as we ran to the street. It was almost like a time travel thing, where the house served as a gateway from rural to urban. In the house, which we were only in for just a second, I worried about someone yelling at us, and one of the kids said, “They always yell at us. You stop listening after a while.”

On TV, Barb and I watched a semi slam into a parked car while the man was sitting in his parked car. They then showed a map of where the accident was, so Barb and I went there. Once we got there, we found out Caryn was hosting a murder-mystery party. There were a bunch of weird people there, like the woman who kept repeating “My husband’s at an Avon conference in Bolivia.” Another girl laid on a couch and kept chanting “Brian, come here.” There was an African-American homeless man wearing an apron. Another girl said, “He was homeless, but they gave him an apron. I’m going there.” We all were invited to the murder-mystery game, so we were taken to a rental house. There I went into the closet to hide. Some guys were escaping through the bathroom window. One of them turned to me and said, “There’s no screen; it’s okay.”

I’m pretty sure we’re into the fall semester of the school year here. Again, I’m just sharing some of the highlights. Most of my dreams from this period focus on my anger at Karrie for her “boyfriend” damaging my car by throwing tennis balls, basketballs, etc. at “Dyke” (my white Chrysler Le Baron Turbo) and doing $1800 worth of damage.

Asterisks separate dreams from different nights.

****

I was on the set of the John Tesh Teeth Whitening System infomercial along with Sharon Stone and John Ritter. They were there testing a new BBQ sauce. Sharon called out to me, “Hey skinny. get over here and have a hot dog.” There, arranged in a lovely display, were Vienna sausages wrapped in a thin sheet of Velveeta and BBQ sauce.

****

Mother, Amy (siamese cat), and I were touring a national park. Amy needed to be locked up, but our car doors wouldn’t lock. We stuck her in someone else’s trunk, but didn’t think the owners would understand. We stapled her in a grocery bag (paper) and wrote, “My cat is sick.” Mom said, “No one will steal her now.”

****

There was a restaurant named “Welcome Home.” A woman with long black hair was there. A short-haired woman was preparing to jump out of the window (a fall of 5 stories or more). “Billie” tied a rock around her waist and plunged to her death.

A woman’s conscience or intuition (IC for short) took different forms. She was in a bathroom with her “man” whom I think was a womanizer. Her IC started barking like a mad dog (glimpse of barking Great Dane). The woman ducked into a stall. Her IC became a woman, talking to her, whispering about the evils of this man. The real woman refused to believe her IC. IC went and seduced the man just to prove he was a good-for-nothing asshole.

****

I was living in a negative utopia Seaquest-type society. All the powerful people wore sequins and lived under water. The two most powerful individuals were God and Johnny Carson. Dad was meeting with both of them. Someone told me that God was in town. I cheered and asked if I could talk to him. “He’s underwater.” So I followed my dad and I got to meet Johnny Carson. He wore a fur-lined purple crown and black tuxedo with sequined suspenders. I asked if I could have one of his sequins and he said absolutely not. Then dad and Johnny climbed down the ladder into the pool. I was walking through water, my head held high. Two rival hotels both had flashing neon signs. One was a pig-like face in a hat that turned around and winked. I thought about how it would make individual frames for cartoons. I went swimming.

****

I took two girls with me to Japanese class. There were crows on the computer screen. I looked for John, but Jon walked in instead. He asked for Grands Biscuits, but I plopped down a bran muffin for him on his desk.

Loyal and I were in the WSU library. Mom came to pick me up and over the intercom we heard, “He’s bloated and he needs tacos.” A delivery truck pulled up.

****

Zach asked me to marry him.

Doug discussed manly dogs.

I threw my coat on the stairs.

****

February 1994–

I held the turnstile for Anthony Hopkins.

I was in a hotel room with a strange guy. Moths clung to my legs. The man asked me if I had killed all the hunter moths yet. I called the front desk to complain about the blinking orange “no vacancy” sign.

****

February 1994–

Ginger Grant (Tina Louise from “Gilligan’s Island”) was Eve and Cary Grant was Adam in a very wrong Garden of Eden.