Mr. Clinton's legs and Mr. Cantat's toothpick

I haven't been keeping track of my dreams for a while, but I just thought this recent pair of celebrity cameos was amusing.

In the first, I was working as a personal assistant to Bill Clinton, who was writing his memoirs [didn't he already do that?]. We were sitting and talking about something that needed to be done, and he was complaining about his legs being irritated. He hiked up his suit pants to reveal skinny, pale Old Man legs covered with weird scratches* and equipped with some kind of weird braces possibly meant to hold up his socks.

The second cameo appearance was by a French rock star [who did something terrible in real life that I won't dwell on here]. In the first part of the dream I had been getting ready with some friends for a Halloween party that would take place later that day. I'd been combing through my wardrobe, cobbling together an outfit consisting of vintage items from the 40s through the 60s to go as "an extra from Mad Men", which I saw as a cop-out, but a fun one. I didn't realize what a weird mishmash it was until I woke up; in the dream, I had much more interesting and historically accurate hair (well, historically accurate for the 40s!), and the outfit was going to be tied together with a cute little hat and coral red nail polish.

Anyway, I'd left my preparations to go to an antique store, although not with the purpose of adding to my costume. I was there just to browse, but a group of people caught my attention. There were 5-10 people gathered in a little sitting area in the middle of the store, around a table with lots of drink bottles and glasses. It took me a minute, but I realized that it was a class on cocktail mixing, with an emphasis on imaginative combinations of non-mainstream ingredients. It was being led by a few people, but the big draw was obviously this French rock star, who wasn't teaching so much as he was just mixing things up, imbibing, and commenting vaguely on people's concoctions. He seemed to be getting bored as I stood there observing, and soon just gave up the entire show to a Maggie Smith-like lady who started theorizing about why people were drawn to flavors like carrot cake (sentimental childhood-related reasons, from what I gathered).

I'd been gradually approaching the group because the whole thing was intriguing, and had even sampled one girl's drink, which just tasted like grape juice. Mr. Rock Star seemed to find me interesting for some reason. I fancied that this was because I seemed blase and unimpressed by his status. He started gesturing with his head for us to get out of there, but I stalled by commenting further on the poor girl's grape juice facsimile. I eventually followed him out to a little vestibule that led to the restrooms, where I commented on his large, elaborately carved ivory toothpick (really! and no, I don't think that was some kind of phallic symbol). I restrained myself from commenting sardonically that fancy ivory toothpicks were a nice perk of the trade. For some reason he seemed very interested in spending some time with me (not that kind of time, he seemed more bored and lonely than anything else), but I had to politely brush him off because of the costume party.

What a weird combination of cameos.


*This detail was almost certainly inspired by that gruesome and sad Downton Abbey episode where Bates tries to cure his limp using a metal brace.

weird combination

In all this time I haven't posted, of course I've had a lot of dreams. Last night's were particularly impressive, though. First, I had a terrible dream about my husband getting shot in the head. We were somewhere with a group of very young people (I don't know if we were as young in the dream, or just out of place). We were hanging around in a semi-derelict house, and one of the guys had a gun. He started messing around with it, shooting out the door at something outside. In theory it wasn't supposed to be dangerous because he was just shooting at a target, but somehow he accidentally shot my husband in the back of the head.

I don't need to go on about how awful that was, because it's self-evident. He was still alive, though, so the awfulness just escalated. The kids freaked out and didn't want to take responsibility (didn't even want to call 911). Of course I immediately started to try to stanch the blood (of which there was surprisingly little) and call 911. I failed at first at calling because I kept getting distracted with my first-aid attempts. Then, every time I tried to dial I couldn't get it right. I accidentally entered the wrong sequence of numbers, an extra number appeared at the end, I accidentally erased all the numbers, I pushed the wrong button, I accidentally hung up on the dispatcher, etc. etc. I couldn't find my own phone, which had fallen down somewhere, and kept trying on a variety of phones that were lying around, none of which I could figure out how to use (usually it was the crucial "call" button that I couldn't locate). Finally I decided to look for help on foot, while simultaneously trying to prevent the kids from burying my still-alive husband to hide the evidence of their accident. I eventually ran into some people outside who seemed helpful and competent. I think at that point I must have woken up and realized that he hadn't actually been shot, because I don't remember how it ended.

The other part was considerably less harrowing. I was composing poetry, which is something that I think I've dreamed occasionally before*. Usually when that happens I can't remember any of it in the morning, but this time I remembered part of it. It was a medium-sized poem, so at least half of it is probably gone for good. The missing part was along the same lines. I think it was inspired in part by some recent thinking about my personality and priorities and how to deal with people with conflicting personalities and priorities; and in part by a book I've been reading about slowness. Anyway, this is all I remember:

Manifesto

We reserve the right to dawdle, to hem and haw, to hedge.

We write poetry in our dreams, and knowing that it was graven once in the gray folds of our unconscious is enough.

We are not waiting for happiness.

We know it when we see it.

I found the dream really interesting and amusing, because I remember the thought process I went through choosing the wording there, including a debate about whether the word "graven" was too stilted (I'm still very much on the fence about that). I think the lines that came more easily were the ones I forgot.

*In real life, I haven't dabbled in poetry since late adolescence, when I think one is contractually obligated to do so.

retail

I haven't been remembering many dreams lately, although I know the group-living dreams are continuing, since I can recall a snippet of one from the other night (a friend was fixing a computer for me, pulled out a long, nasty string of mold/cobwebs, then carefully replaced it in the bowels of the computer).

Last night, though, or rather this morning just before waking up, I was having a different recurring-theme dream, a theme I like better than the group-living one. I was in an Anthropologie-esque store, looking at the sale section*. Actually, this store was a lot less attractive than a real Anthropologie store, resembling more closely a mall Dillard's or something like that. The merchandise, however, included some very cute clothing. I particularly remember a strapless dress made out of a linen-y fabric with multicolored blowsy roses printed on a deep rose background. It doesn't sound like me, not being either a strapless-dress or a cabbage rose kind of girl, but it was actually very appealing, and I was sorry it wasn't in my size.

The really great thing on offer, though, was a home fix-it book. It had simple, clearly written instructions on all kinds of things, accompanied by photos and drawings. The design was very well done, clean and attractive and just girly enough to be a good fit with the store (but not too girly; not festooned with pink). There were instructions on unclogging a drain** and rewiring a lamp, and I don't remember what else. It was quite disappointing to wake up and realize that I couldn't actually buy the book for $5.99 or however much it was on sale for.




*Not too far off from reality, since I often troll the sale room at Anthropologie, it being my "pass" to park in their parking lot so I can avoid the highly unpleasant Whole Foods parking garage. This particular retail dream differs from the usual, though, in that it's the first I can remember not involving secondhand merchandise.
**Also reality-based, since we've been having some bathtub drainage issues.

more celebrity appearances

Well. I'm tempted to restate my lack of real interest in celebrities, but since they keep showing up, I guess it would sound like a case of "doth protest too much". Here are the latest two cameo appearances.

The other night I dreamed that I was transitioning to a group living arrangement (of course). I suppose I was in school, because it was rather dorm-like, but I don't remember the details. I was supposed to be sharing accommodations with Chloe Sevigny, which startled me a little--didn't she have enough money to live in a place of her own? After my initial surprise, I thought she might be an interesting roommate. She seemed interesting, nice enough, and I figured she would probably have interesting taste and introduce me to interesting people. Being an introvert who has a hard time meeting people, the idea of a built-in source of acquaintances appealed to me.

I was still in the process of beginning to move my possessions in when Chloe presented me with an itemized rundown of all the food that she estimated I'd consumed or would consume within a certain time period. This included groceries and eating out, and I was floored by her attention to detail. It was all listed by item, estimated serving size, and price--including estimated tax. The estimated-tax part rankled me a little, and I started to think that maybe her financial fastidiousness was going to be a pain.

++++++++++++++++++

I'm not completely sure who last night's cameo was. It was either Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, or a hybrid thereof. My husband and I were in the process of establishing ourselves in yet another group-living arrangement* (sharing a house, I think; we had our own space, at least, but it was within a larger dwelling). We had pretty much settled in, and our dogs--our real-life Doberman and a dream German Shepherd--had too, making themselves comfortable on a top bunk that our Doberman would never be able to jump up on. Despite some climate-control issues (no heat?), it was a fairly comfortable arrangement, and we took a break with a movie.

The movie was some kind of comedy featuring a gone-to-seed boys' band. They were singing a semi-choreographed song in which they wandered around a vacant lot. The lyrics included something about "until my hips get soft", which puzzled me--I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a sexy double-entendre or a wry commentary on their age (they were all 40-/50-something). They were dressed in either jeans/black leather getups or track suit/gold jewelry ensembles, and the Ben Stiller/ Adam Sandler hybrid sported a spectacularly ugly hairdo: slightly bleached (orangey) dark hair on top, curly but brushed out to fluffiness, and a darker, gelled longer layer (mulletlike but equally long all around) consisting of tiny, bouncy little curls. I was transfixed by its ugliness.



*WHAT is UP with this? What unconscious fixation keeps making me dream about group living arrangements? Am I going to have to join a kibbutz to exorcise this?

I'm disappointed in you, George

Here's another embarrassing one. Alert Readers may recall that I've had two or three dreams in which George Clooney shows up randomly and reveals himself to be a charming conversationalist and a good companion to kill a little bit of time with while waiting in public places (??). Unfortunately it turns out he has a darker side below the charm.

This encounter began with my needing to take one of our dogs to the vet. I had found a vet that was more conveniently located in relation to my house and work, and wanted to try it out (inexplicably, we were living in something resembling a poor-ish neighborhood of a third-world city). The building was a three-story concrete building, with parts of it in okay shape and other parts that either had never been completed or had been destroyed by some unidentifiable catastrophe. I was poking around trying to figure out where the vet office was located (not easy, despite a prominent sign on the roof indicating that it was somewhere in the building). At some point I realized that I had forgotten to bring the dog (??), but since I didn't have time to go back for him I decided to at least locate the place and see how it looked, and maybe try to ask a couple of questions.

In the midst of my pokings-around, I ran into George, who was sitting at a counter in a cafe/bar restaurant in the building, looking out a large glassless window onto the parking area (keep in mind that the whole atmosphere was one of picturesque third-world decay, almost post-apocalyptic). I decided to play it cool and ask him if he knew where the vet's office was (you know, treat him like a regular layperson). He was, as usual, charming and helpful, and gave me directions involving navigating the destroyed part of the building that looked "like Kosovo" (his words). He then invited me to sit down and eat something with him, an offer I accepted both because I was hungry and because who would refuse a lunch invitation from George Clooney? We had a pizza, which was quite good.

We got along famously over the pizza, although I don't remember the conversation. Nor do I remember how we got to his house, but the next thing I can remember we were in his house, which had a larger selection of chotchkes displayed than you'd expect. By this time I felt like I had known him for ages, and he was being very nice, in the manner of a guy that you're getting to know and fast moving toward relationship territory with (you know, very interested in what you have to say, doing all the right body-language things to appear interested but not creepy). I was enjoying myself very much, although I certainly wasn't thinking "I'm going to have an affair with George Clooney"; he was much too smooth to provoke thoughts like that.

This is where things started to go downhill fast. In an embarrassingly ham-handed bit of G-rated symbolism, my subconscious chose to indicate his wish to take things further by having a wrapped condom drop out of his pocket onto the floor (??!?). Of course I freaked out because I had just been basking in the warm glow of his charming company and apparent general regard for me. I backed away and started sputtering, at which he abruptly lost his temper completely. He started yelling that I had been leading him on, with the reasoning that I accepted his gift of lunch ("you took the first piece of pizza, too! You just jumped in there."), and that the logical implication of that was that I was agreeing implicitly to "pay" later. I was completely crushed--what I thought was a spontaneous meeting of minds (and, well, yes, I did find him charming) was actually, in his mind, a way to get some action. I was crying by this time (loud wails and hiccups, the whole spectacle) and said, "but I'm MARRied", which I figured would surely appeal to both his reason and what gentlemanly side he did have (although I was beginning to realize I had seriously overestimated his gentlemanly side).

As I was wailing and he was berating, a young brunette slipped out of a bedroom and left the house, obviously having been there all night. Of course that didn't help things either. I beat a retreat, having completely changed my assessment of Mr. Clooney.

But that wasn't the end, oddly. A short time after I got home, someone delivered a medium-sized box, from George. I opened it and found a wild assortment of things, heavy on the books but with other things like event tickets, information on the stock market, etc. As I started to look through it, I realized that this was George's identity encapsulated in a box, and that he had somehow, drawing on his celebrity status as bosser-around of assistants and obtainer-of-favors, to assemble all this in that short amount of time (there were documents that would have had to be obtained from businesses and agencies, for example). Despite my resolve to have nothing more to do with the nefarious George, I began to soften as I realized what an effort he had made to be understood and explain himself.

What an odd and embarrassing dream. Once again, I promise I am not obsessed with Mr. Clooney. The only times I think about him are when confronted with a bit of celebrity gossip and when I have these random dreams in which he shows up. I have to say, though, I'm curious whether his Jekyll or Hyde side will show up in the next one (I doubt I've seen the last of him).

Gandhi??!

I've been having lots of really detailed dreams that don't stay around once I've woken up. Here are the two that I remember best--they're widely divergent in style/subject, as you'll see.

The first is kind of embarrassing, and I hesitated to post it, but it's just so surreal I couldn't resist. I'm not sure what the situation or setting was, just that it involved men coming out of the woodwork to reveal that they had all been coerced by Gandhi (!!?!) into performing sexual favors on him. It was alarmingly and gross-out-inducingly explicit (which is the embarrassing part). Obviously this was brought on in part by the recent scandals involving politicians, but why Gandhi?

The other dream was one I would rate as one of my best overall, for subject matter and scenery. I was taking a boat tour of a South Carolina swamp with my husband, and there were animals all over, a range from animals that would actually be in a southern American swamp (alligators) to real animals that live somewhere else (hippos) to completely made-up animals. There was a small fish/mammal/bird hybrid that I caught in my hand and kept holding onto because I wanted to take a picture of it. I don't remember exactly what it looked like, but I think it was bright orange, and very wiggly.

the mechanics of dream crying

I had the saddest dream last night. So sad, in fact, that I woke myself up crying (or maybe the dog barking woke me up; it was simultaneous). My husband and I were living (with other people, of course--I couldn't possibly have a dream in which I don't live in a group arrangement) in a rooftop apartment. It was really just a small box-shaped one-room building with extremely low ceilings, on top of the flat roof of an older building. I think the building itself contained a mixture of offices and apartments, and it wasn't in great shape.

We had been out and about and were returning home, if you can call such a living arrangement "home". It had been raining, and as we neared the top of the stairs leading to the roof, I noticed water pouring down the stairs from the rooftop. I made a note to let the building manager know (incidentally, the same guy who manages the building at my real-life office). It didn't really occur to me to be worried until we came out onto the roof and saw that it was completely flooded, almost up to the wall around the edges, which was about six feet tall. We could still walk through the water easily, but it was threatening to fill up the apartment to roof level. When we went inside, everyone was confusedly trying to gather up their things to evacuate. I looked around for our dogs with an increasingly sinking feeling. I asked someone about them, and just as they started to answer I brushed up against what was obviously one of their bodies floating around under the surface of the water*.

Of course no one had thought or had time to rescue our dogs, and it was terrible to think about them struggling to keep their heads above water in the middle of the crowded bunkbed setup (the room was filled with bunkbeds like a summer camp). I felt terrible realizing that if we had been there we could easily have gotten them out of there, and terrible in a different way thinking that if the roof had had proper drainage this wouldn't have happened at all.

I've always kind of wondered about the mechanics of crying in dreams, in those cases where you wake yourself up sobbing violently--how long are you actually crying in "real time" (it always seems to me like I cry for hours in the dream), and are real tears coming out? I still have no conclusion, but found it interesting that I woke up with tears in my eyes (but not streaming down my face) after what seemed like ages of crying. I also woke up slowly enough to note that I was gasping, sob-like, but my sleeping partner is a heavy enough sleeper that I've never been able to get an outside observation of whether I'm actually sobbing or just gasping.

Anyway, it was a harrowing dream, and I was very glad to hear the dogs barking when I woke up from it.


*This seems like a weird detail, that they would be floating around at a 3' depth, but I don't know enough about the physics of water and dog corpses to say whether it's really inaccurate. Another weird physics-related detail was that after we had removed the dog corpses from the flooded rooftop I was carrying them around in a garbage bag, casually slung over my shoulder--all 170 pounds of them, which I would surely not be able to do in real life, especially if racked by sobs.

Which reminds me of another gorily specific detail: I was carrying the dogs around because I hoped to find someone to flay them and preserve their hides for me, and also to remove and clean up their skulls so I could keep them as mementos**. When my husband expressed dismay at this weird and excessive desire, I said, "but think, don't you know any hunters who could do it? It would be easy for a hunter who was used to processing deer!"


**I probably shouldn't confess this, but I have considered in real life (although purely theoretically) the possibility of keeping the skull of a dead pet as a memento (in my defense, the hide idea hadn't occurred to me), although I'm sure I wouldn't due to a lack of butchering/taxidermy skills/cast-iron emotional constitution, and the fact that I don't know any local hunters.

zombie apocalypse

Last night I had a mixture of what I'd call a Classic Zombie dream and a home-renovation dream. The zombie part hewed amusingly to the basic zombie movie tropes*. I was in a house with a lot of other people [Group Living trope alert!] when we realized that there were zombies approaching outside and then milling around, true to form, outside the door. I don't remember any gore or anything, but there was a fair amount of panic before we settled down to divvying up domestic tasks after realizing we were stuck in the house for the long haul.

The house renovation part was, I think, in the same house, although I'm not sure if the plans were being made during the zombie apocalypse, before, or after. They involved putting skirting around a pier-and-beam foundation (like our real-life house), and we pretty much settled on using sturdy 2x4-like wood and painting it red, which seemed like a wonderful idea in the dream.



*I know this because I'm married to someone who has a fondness for the occasional zombie flick, not so much as to be fanatical but enough so that I got a good score on one of those "would you survive a zombie apocalypse" online quizzes.

physically retarded and mealy-mouthed

I woke up this morning with the phrase "physically retarded and mealy-mouthed" ringing in my head. I don't remember the exact context, but I had been using it to describe the CEO of some large, nasty corporation. I was trying desperately to determine whether or not my terminology would be considered crass and insensitive to the actual disabled population. I decided that it was okay, since it was a figurative use (??). [This struggling over semantics happens a lot in my dreams, and I almost always end up hitting on some word combination that seems brilliant in the dream but which makes no sense on waking; or something that rhymes in the dream but that doesn't actually rhyme at all.]

I had also been dreaming about shopping for dress pants with my husband. Most of the men's selection of dress pants featured semi-flexible tabs sticking out all over, in various shades of gold and yellow. Once I was awake, I realized that they were modeled after the tabs that road crews stick on the center stripe. I have absolutely no idea where this could have come from, other than the seemingly endless road construction projects scattered along my daily route.

unsettlingly realistic

All I can remember of last night's dream is an unpleasant episode at work that was disturbingly realistic. I've probably mentioned before that in real life I have a coworker who, while meaning well, comes off as pushy. In the dream I was trying to do some task that was going to require a document that was probably somewhere in one of two wire inboxes on my desk. Just as I was poised to start looking through them to find the document, this coworker (who was not specifically involved in this part of the task) came up to my desk and started flipping through the inbox contents to find the document first. With no warning (even to myself), I exploded. I picked up the tray, brandished it while yelling at her to back off and get her hands off my stuff, then flung down the tray hard on the desk. For good measure, I heaved the other tray onto the floor beside my desk (it should be noted that none of this physical outburst involved people, just the two inboxes).

She seemed taken aback (and rightly so, I'm sure), and I was immediately embarrassed at my loss of control. Although I was still annoyed with her, I realized that I had just come off looking bad, since she had been well-meaning in her interference. To make things worse, she started talking about how she was "just trying to help", and how another coworker and I were "always whispering together and gossiping". I tried to tell her that 1) I couldn't help it if this other coworker came up and started a conversation with me at my desk; and 2) we weren't "gossiping", just talking about random things of no import.

Ugh. Very unpleasant. I can't deny that I have some pent-up real-life annoyance about similar issues, but I certainly hope the outbursts stay confined to my dream life.

too much tabloid-reading

I've been both distracted by other things and not remembering many of my dreams lately. That's too bad, since I know I've had some very strange ones--I just can't remember them. All I remember of last night's was that I was comforting a rather distraught Suri Cruise (??)*. I don't know why she was distraught or why I was there with her, but I felt very self-satisfied, like the Cool, Understanding Aunt. I have no idea what I said to her, but it felt like a very profound nugget of wisdom that every little girl should hear but that few were lucky enough to be told.



*I think this might have been inspired by having spent some time recently plunged down the rabbit hole otherwise known as The Sun**. They seem to have an unhealthy obsession with the little tyke's wardrobe and sleep/wake schedule.
**Follow that link at your own risk. Side effects may include schadenfreude, nausea, confusion, and disappearance of significant amounts of time.

recent snippets

Some real-life stress/busyness has kept me from posting a lot of strange dreams lately, which is a little frustrating (they've mostly gone down the memory hole), so I thought I'd post a few random recent snippets that I do remember.

• I was dating Bob Dylan. I had put him on a "health plan", for which he was touchingly grateful. He didn't say it outright (being Bob Dylan, his phraseology was great, though), but it was clear that he was happy about the improvements I was making in his life.

• This one is hardly worth recording, it's so hazy, but it's a departure from my usual tropes. It involved very old people committing (or rather, admitting to having committed recently) heinously violent crimes. They indicated that they had gone off the rails after experiencing Nazi concentration camps. This was undoubtedly influenced by a spousal tv viewing of parts of a violent horror movie involving old people, so that explains the departure from the usual group trip/mafia pattern.
  

• This one involved a coworker with which I have a little bit of interpersonal difficulty due to personality differences. In real life, she's a take-charge overachiever whereas I'm the exact opposite (I hate anything that smacks of taking charge or, conversely, being taken charge of). Our company had either been restructured or had acquired some very important new clients with whom we would be working very closely. Whichever the case, the new people showed up at our office, three or four older/middle-aged business types (I think they were all men). The coworker immediately turned on the charm full force, and her brand of charm had the desired effect on the new people, provoking grumbling and annoyance on the part of the other office denizens.

• This is not my dream, but I made an appearance. Another coworker told me she dreamed that she and her husband, along with my husband and me, were on the run, being chased by unspecified bad guys. At one point I stopped, got out a slab of rock, and started preparing to do Korean-style "hot rock" cooking, saying that I was starving. She was startled but very accommodatingly told me that it was okay, she had to go into an adjacent business to use the bathroom anyway, so I had time to cook.
  

stressful heist

I had a very stressful dream last night. My husband was working for some industrial company (mining? petroleum refinery? chemicals?) in a lower/middle management and/or possibly security capacity. For some reason I was there with him at the main office. No one else was around, so it was just the two of us. I'm not sure where the office people were, but it was clear that they would be gone for a while.

In the middle of our uneventful office visit, there was a loud explosion from the direction of the factory/mine/refinery. From the sound of it, no one was going to make it out of there alive. I asked him what it was and he replied "kryptonite" (??). He then sprang into action, although I couldn't determine whether this action was premeditated or a spur-of-the-moment idea. Apparently there was a huge amount of the company's capital just stored in cash in the office (??). He filled up two or three paper Whole Foods bags (again, ??) with what supposedly amounted to 400 million (billion?) dollars.

I found this sudden turn of events disturbing in the extreme. First of all, the idea that he was going to try to make off with this enormous amount of money was alarming both on an ethical and a practical level. How did he think we would ever get away with such a thing? And then there was the disturbing question of whether he had known about or somehow been involved in the explosion, which was such a terrible idea that I didn't want to dwell on it.

I guess my hesitation and nay-saying cost us some time, and we didn't end up leaving right away (I also argued that skipping the country at the exact time of the explosion and disappearance of the cash would make us look way too suspect and that it was better to stick around for a while to lessen suspicion on us; I think I was also hoping to talk him out of his scheme). I also pointed out that any business who kept large quantities of cash would be foolish not to mark the bills somehow, and that the first bill we attempted to spend would get us caught.

I woke up around the time that the police were starting to swarm around the place (amazingly, they didn't nab us immediately; I don't know what became of the paper bags full of cash, but they were still somehow in our possession). Then I kept drifting in and out of sleep, anxiously concocting strategies to keep us from getting arrested--plant a bill or two on an unsuspecting passerby? Drop a bill in a place where it was likely to be picked up and spent by someone else (I was very preoccupied with the whole marked-bill scenario)? I was afraid we were condemned to a fugitive life and would never actually be able to spend any of the money--so it was obviously better to just abandon the whole idea while we were still somewhat uninvolved.

squalid group living

I guess this dream was prompted by our recent housekeeping woes (as in, lack of) and our attempts to find a leather couch that the dogs won't dirty up so much. We (my husband and I) were sharing a house with some other people, a couple of different parties consisting of two or three people. All of them were Asian (I think one party was Indian and the other, with more members, was Korean). All were either students or had "knowledge economy" type jobs*.

Anyway, my husband and I had the living room as our area, and we had never properly moved in so everything was a huge mess (you know what happens when you've run out of steam in the end stages of a move and haven't found a proper place for everything). To make things worse, we had our two dogs with us--I think they were in an indoor-outdoor living situation, and the doberman had been inside.

[At some point in the middle of this dream, the dwelling curiously transitioned into a huge construction-parts warehouse; even while dreaming I was aware that this was my subconscious's way of voicing its displeasure/overwhelm at our real-life messy house.]

Back in the actual house (not warehouse), I was trying to tidy up while my husband, who had a cold, was lying on the couch watching TV. I wasn't really upset by his lack of help because he was sick**, but I was completely overwhelmed and questioning the utility of my endeavor. I had just discovered that the dog had thrown up in several places after chewing on a rawhide (so it was that whitish, milky post-rawhide throw-up that will be familiar to dog owners).

I was trying to find something to clean up the mess (and not finding a rag, of course). In the adjacent kitchen, a couple of the Koreans were eating their breakfast, like perfect little robots: get out the food, dish it into one dish, eat it all quickly in a focused manner, quickly rinse single dish and single glass. This only increased my feelings of inferiority, since I have never been able to eat so neatly and with such little production of dirty dishes.

Breakfast tidily put away, one of the Koreans grabbed his backpack (without fumbling, of course) and started to very quickly navigate the piles of junk on his way out the front door. I panicked and tried to warn him about the dog-vomit piles, but couldn't get it out fast enough. He landed in the biggest one with his clean be-socked foot***. He was too polite to register more than the briefest expression of surprise and discomfit before he whooshed out the door, sweeping up his shoes in one smooth motion.

I never did find a rag to clean up the vomit, I just sunk into self-recrimination and amazement that the tidy Asians hadn't already kicked us out, then woke up.


*Yeah, my subconscious hews closely to racial stereotypes.
**This does at least show a departure from the trope where I start yelling at assorted family members because I'm doing all the housework.
***Because, being clean, he didn't wear shoes in the house.

weird miscellany and zombie shooters

I had the weirdest and wildest dreams last night, but I won't be able to do them justice, partly because my memory is a little hazy. Of course there was a group trip, a rather epic one involving travel on a giant bus with my mother and various random people from my past. I tried to find a seat, but each option presented problems. There was a very back row facing backward, which I thought would be okay although I don't like facing backward in a vehicle. But when I tried to sit down I discovered why the seats were empty: it really only worked if you hunched over or lay down across several seats, because of the combination of window and ceiling heights. Then my mother pointed out that there was a row of seats running up and down the left/driver's side, facing out sideways. I didn't like that option either because I thought it was dangerous. I was worried about the lack of seatbelts and what would happen in the event of a side collision*.

I finally sat down (in a rear-facing seat, but in the middle of the bus) next to a guy with a baby. The guy looked vaguely like Sean Bean, and I didn't really interact with him because I was distracted by the baby, who was dangling in front of me without any apparent support (although this didn't seem odd). Acting on reflex, I took the baby and set him on my lap, at which point I realized that he was actually a small freckled boy, maybe 6 or so**. I started talking to him rather animatedly, which surprised me since I'm not normally one of those people who makes over small children (not that I have anything against them, I'm just not the one who runs over and starts talking baby talk to them).

I'm not sure if this was the trip destination, but the next thing I remember I was at a house on a very steep wooded hillside. This was surely inspired by watching several historical British dramas recently featuring those long-term (by modern standards) visits in which a group of random highbrow people would descend on a manor house. There were a lot of people around, a few of whom I knew but most of whom I didn't, and I was trying to navigate the bathroom-use system because I wanted to take a shower.

I had laid claim to a bathroom (one of a pair in an odd layout: they were on a stair landing near the entrance, and had white louvered Western Saloon type doors) and was just about ready to take a shower. I don't remember all the details, but the owner of the house (who I think was the Sean Bean lookalike from the bus) arrived and made it clear that his routine was to use this bathroom at this exact time for his ablutions. So I apologized, gathered up my stuff, and went to wait outside.

I don't know if I ever got my shower, because the next thing I can remember was being outside. I realized that something odd was going on, but it took me a while to grasp the basics (I never did understand the details). In a nutshell, there was a shootout between some people, at least one of whom was a doppelganger of the host. This doppelganger had been activated by some action or event, but was apparently a chronic presence who appeared every so often--locked in semi-permanent conflict with the host.

The most fantastical moment involved a zombie-like young man propped up against the exterior wall. He had appeared to be dead, actually nailed to the wall by a gunshot. It became clear, though, that this was just a disguise to hide in plain sight--as the doppelganger (or maybe the host, I couldn't straighten out their identities) rounded the corner, the young man practically exploded from his position flat against the wall, shooting the doppelganger/host. I finally realized that this was a dangerous situation, and I started running/rolling down the hill. I'm not sure how I managed to avoid all the huge conifers, but the pine needles made a forgiving surface on which to roll, and when I had gotten to the bottom of the rather deep ravine I looked around and appreciated how beautiful it was, even though I didn't know how I was going to get out of there.

At some point a couple from my parents' church made a cameo appearance. In real life, this man has very straight, wiry hair that grows straight out from his head in all directions, and he favors a buzz cut of varying length. In the dream, he had curled his hair in a foppish late-18th-century/early 19th-century style***, and had caused some kind of unnamed scandal of medium-level seriousness. In real life, his wife has a rather old-fashioned haircut styled in a way that might be described as marcelled. In the dream, my sister informed me that he shared her husband's hair woes and that was why she always wore it quite short and curled in a standard "old lady" helmet style.



*I don't want to delve too deeply into this recent dream concern for vehicular safety.
**Nor am I going to meditate on the recurring theme of small boys.
***Thank you again, British historical dramas.

mr. clooney makes a reappearance

I've been lax lately about recording the dreams that I've remembered (which haven't been many), but I couldn't neglect this one, since I find repeats amusing [although, note to subconscious: group trips/group living arrangement repeats are no longer amusing!].

Anyway, my situation alternated in the dream between being an 8th-grader (??), being an older student (as in, I was my age or maybe even older and returning to college), and being on a trip with my husband. I switched back and forth between these situations as they seemed to make more or less sense within the context*. There was a lot of rather tiresome back-and-forths involving being in a younger classroom (a first-day-of-school atmosphere), finding my college classes, and making travel plans with my husband. I should add that at times I was in Paris and at times I was in New York.

Anyway, there was a lot of low-level stress and interaction with peers of various ages, but the noteworthy part of it was another conversation with George Clooney, in which he proved just as agreeable a conversationalist as my first [dream] encounter with him**. It started in the 8th-grade classroom, although I have absolutely no idea what he was doing there. He seemed slightly bemused, and I made a little small talk with him before asking, "Honestly, what is it like to be constantly assaulted everywhere you go by eager females? Doesn't it start to get annoying?" He seemed slightly amused but very deftly answered in a way that wouldn't get him in trouble with his female fan base. Then the situation shifted and I was in college. I turned around to talk to him again, but he was gone.

Other recent snippets that I remember:

1. I had gotten myself roped into knitting a rather complicated light blue lace scarf for a coworker. I had gotten about 8 inches of it done and was showing it to her when she said that she might really rather prefer a cowl. I was proposing various ways in which what I'd already done could be converted to a cowl format, trying to be nice while at the same time annoyed at her presumption since I didn't really want to knit something for her in the first place.
2. [I was living in a group situation when] while walking home one day, I was accosted by a developmentally disabled man. I couldn't find a way of avoiding him, although I didn't want to talk to him because I was afraid he would ask me for something. He did, although not what I expected: he wanted me to look over a book on jewelry making and do a (positive) review of it online. I tried to be noncommittal, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.
3. I had been on a semi-long visit somewhere (living in a group, of course), and was ready to go back, or maybe go on to another destination. I was traveling with my sister, and there was some miscommunication all around as to the time/place of departure. When one bit of confusion was cleared up, another one cropped up, and when we finally cleared up where and when we were supposed to be leaving, it was almost too late and our luggage was still with our hostess. She finally came running up with it, in a weird, construction-tunnel-like part of the airport, and we made it on the plane. Once on, though, we were informed that because of our lateness we had been relegated to "the upper deck". This turned out to be a small balcony in the back of the plane, overlooking the rest of the seated passengers. There were no seats on this balcony, and not even any railing to prevent us from falling on the heads of the passengers below during turbulence. I was really worried and annoyed that the airline*** would think this was acceptable, but finally discovered a few seatbelts coming out of the back wall. I figured that we could strap ourselves in with those and lounge on our luggage (which had stayed with us), and thus be reasonably safe. The other "upper deck" passengers didn't seem worried, and spread themselves out near the edge, looking very comfortable.
   

*I'm not sure this situation-switching has happened to me before, although surely it has.
**Although I can't deny his attractiveness, I feel I should specify that I am not, nor have I ever been, obsessed with Mr. Clooney.
***The airline was African, a detail I'm sure was due to my recent thrift-store purchase of a blanket from Kenya Airways.

more ugh

[Another "ugh" to go along with the previous post.]

I don't remember what led to this, but I was settling into an educational institution. It must have been a co-ed dorm*, because I was in a restroom with a couple of guys I had known at various points in my real-life educational career. They're both fair-haired, and they were wearing similar but not exactly-matching plaid western shirts, lending them the air of a hipster comedy duo.

I was trying to find a toilet suitable for use, but, as so often happens with public restrooms, they all had issues. I finally settled on the one with masses of waterlogged toilet paper covering the seat. I brushed it off into the bowl and tried to flush the toilet (which was fortunately free of unpleasant matter as far as I could see). When I started to flush, it began to spew water all over**, on the walls and--more importantly--on me. It was a spectacular geyser made up of both larger solid streams and fine spray, and it got all over my face and even in my mouth, which I suppose was opened in astonishment and alarm. Of course my thoughts immediately turned to e. coli.

This awakened the sympathy of my two friends, who, it became obvious, didn't remember me at all. They said, "aw, what a bad start to your freshman year!" I was taken aback, realizing that they had mistaken me for someone a good 15 years or so younger. On one hand, it filled me with glee that I (apparently) looked young; on the other hand, I felt like an impostor due for a fair dose of embarrassment when they would inevitably realize that I was not, indeed, an 18-year-old and that I hadn't corrected them. My feeling of fraud increased when they very kindly offered to show me around (it also didn't help that we would be exchanging the relative obscurity of the restroom for the less forgiving sunlight outside).



*Really, WHY do i so frequently dream that I'm moving into or living in a dorm?
**I'm sure this was prompted by my intense hate of those odious auto-flush toilets that start to flush with excessive force right as you're sitting down, spraying your backside with a fine mist of water containing microorganisms I'd rather not think about.

ugh and ugh

I've had several unpleasant dreams lately. Here are a couple (breaking them up so as not to overload the tag limit).

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was on yet another group trip, this time to Hong Kong, with a group made up largely of young and youngish Asian women. We had just arrived, and our first stop was a large park on the top of hill so high it might better be called a mountain. There was a spectacular view, and the mountain/hill itself was covered with green vegetation. The park was very touristy, with a gigantic parking lot, a bus station (we came by bus), and lots of touristy amenities.

Instead of confining ourselves to gawking at the scenery, we were supposed to doing a craft activity. It was one of those very specific, structured projects with little room for individual variation (I think some kind of paper folding was involved). I had been vigorously reproached by the tour guide for my clumsy American lack of politesse, grace, and social nicety, and I was trying desperately to prove my worthiness by perfectly executing the craft project. This backfired on me, though, since as a result of my care I took too long and was still working on it when the rest of the group had finished. Of course the guide was unhappy about my slowness.

After the craft fiasco, we all went to a restaurant to eat lunch. Because I had been so focused on my project, I hadn't changed my money at the nearby exchange kiosk like everyone else had, so I had no Chinese money. Since the whole place was so extremely touristy, I was clinging to the hope that they might accept payment in dollars. On entering the restaurant, which was cafeteria style, I realized that wouldn't be an option, but the extremely nice girl in front of me in line offered to pay and I could pay her back later.

So all seemed to be going reasonably well, until I tripped with my plate of food and spilled it all over. I was confused at this unexpected catastrophe, and went to get a refill. I was so shaken by my showy accident (food went all over) that I didn't stop to think that they would want payment for my replacement food. I guess I consumed it, because the next thing I remember was a confrontation with a cleaver-wielding chef who demanded payment (and not in dollars). He insinuated that I would be pursued by gangsters if I didn't pay up.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In another unpleasant dream, I was working as a secretary in a large and somewhat weird building. My boss was the woman who in real life is the boss for the business occupying the first two floors of my real-life office building. We all have the impression that she's much stricter than her predecessor, although that's not based on a lot of data.

I was working away, although my job (like my actual, real-life job) didn't require a whole lot. I wasn't actively loafing, so I had no reason to be on the lookout for a scolding of any kind, but the boss came looking for me, extremely angry. She started ranting and raving about how I couldn't "control the infrastructure". I finally realized that she was referring to some cars that were parked illegally downstairs, one in an actual space and a couple in a grassy area next to a sidewalk. None of these cars were in places where I could have seen them from any of the windows--I would have to have been outside, and thus not inside doing my job. I tried to tell her this, but there was no reasoning with her, and she insinuated that I might lose my job over not having called a tow truck*.


*In my real-life job we have limited parking space, and it falls to me to call the tow truck, which I must admit I sometimes do with relish if the car is expensive and parked directly in front of the very visible "no parking" sign. There has been some hinting on the part of a coworker that I'm mean for calling the tow truck (I actually have only called a very few times, and never for very battered, run-down cars that, to my mind, indicate someone operating on less than a full share of resources); other people are perhaps more strict than me regarding cars that don't belong there, so I feel like I'll be seen as not doing my job if I don't deal with it when a car is parked in one of our spots. Apparently this car-towing thing causes me angst than I might have thought.

Brits in drag

I don't have time right now to describe the other night's extremely trippy dream featuring a gigantic moth man (yes!), or the movie/crime mystery dream loosely inspired by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the interest of not falling behind again, though, here is last night's dream.

I was in school, although "school" was vaguely defined and included some of my coworkers* in vague capacities as fellow students and/or instructors. We were supposed to be putting together a paper/presentation, and the first group was going to start presenting later that day. Of course I still hadn't even settled on a topic. I had been fairly sure of a topic I can't remember now, involving serving food as part of the presentation. Then I decided that a topic involving Japan and serving sushi (which I'm not an expert on) would be better.

I was feeling okay about my presentation (although I didn't have any material), until I started to deal with the sushi-making. I looked at my raw materials (leftover long-grain rice with bits of carrot), and realized that it was all wrong and I would never be able to pull things together. After some desperate thinking [during which there was a mini subplot in which a boy I had a crush on in elementary school was now divorced with a kid or two and expressing interest, which was kind of flattering even though I thought he might just be looking for childcare], I came up with an idea. My topic would be "why do men in drag feature so prominently in British sketch-type comedies?"**

I thought this was a great topic because it was something I was personally curious about, but I had the wind taken out of my sails when I asked around and none of my fellow students had even seen Monty Python (not that I'm a huge Monty Python fan, but I figured everyone would at least know that reference). I then started doubting once again my choice of subjects, which brought on a full-blown crisis regarding inability to focus and commit to a decision. I hate it when my subconscious has to bring up and rub in these real-life character flaws.



*I've been having an inordinate, and annoying, number of coworker dream sightings.
**Prompted, no doubt, by my recent viewing of said British sketch-type comedy.

in which I dabble in the Albanian underworld

Well. After yesterday's extremely mundane dream, last night I had a pretty wild one. Following a bit of conversation about the Balkans yesterday, I dreamed that I was in Albania. Not only was I in Albania, but I was--wait for it--dealing drugs.

I'm not sure how I came to be in Albania, but I had our (real-life) old Jaguar with me (this will come up again later). Despite having transportation, though, I was stuck because I didn't have enough money to leave the country. So, logically, I turned to dealing drugs to make a quick buck (or lek, as the case may be).

I don't know how I made the acquaintance of the local underworld figures, but I had ended up as sort of a freelancer, only dealing with them in an off-hand way. I think I was obligated to turn over some kind of "tax" to ensure that they wouldn't meddle in my affairs. I also got my drugs from them. Of course they fit the exact mental image you'd have of a small-time Albanian Bad Guy: greasy hair, gold necklaces, track suits, unfortunate choice of headwear.

At one point I was in the lair of my drug provider to get re-supplied. There were several young women/girls in various states of intoxication and undress--it was obvious that they were working in a state of semi slavery, serving both as prostitutes, sex slaves, and drug customers. One of the gangsters was beating one of them up*, and I was trying to think of a way to get these girls out of the situation, while realizing that most of them were too addicted to participate in any way in their extrication.

During this same visit, while the guy I was dealing with was otherwise occupied, I started idly examining some of the wares on the table. I wasn't sure what it all was, not having any experience in that area myself. There was a pink package with some pink plastic objects resembling short pens (the labeling and packaging style was very Feminine Hygiene Product**). They had a little hole near one end, which I deduced was supposed to be sucked on or inhaled to get a hit. I tried it once, and got enough of an indefinable sensation to remind myself that rule number one was always that a successful dealer didn't consume the goods.

One of the most noticeable things about the dream was the feeling of being in a dangerous situation but of being tough and "bad-ass" enough to not be worried about the gangsters trying to mess with me (where this came from, I don't know, since I'm not exactly a toughie in real life). The scariest moments were two encounters, while in or near my car, with a group of young knife-wielding Roma boys intent on carjacking my car (I put that down to a stereotype about them favoring Mercedes and Jaguars). They were significantly scarier than the grown-up gangsters, but I managed to evade them both times.

In the end, the dream wound down in a fairly tiresome way. I had met up with some random young-ish American(-ish?) dream acquaintances, and we were all hanging around waiting for something undefined. I think we were waiting to be able to leave the country, although I don't know what specific event was going to allow us to leave. I finally got tired of them and their uninteresting and stupid conversation and went off by myself.

So there's another one to add to my collection of dreams dealing with unsavory themes. In my defense, I don't actually remember selling any drugs to anyone, and I remember having a philosophy of not introducing new users to drugs.


*In an interesting twist, I'm positive that this brutalization was inspired by that recent video of the guy stomping on the moveon.org protester's head. He used the exact same foot action.
**I was surprised to note a manufacturer's name and address in China; I hadn't thought that a manufacturer of illegal drugs (in my mind, this was some new exotic form of crack) would label their products as if they were, say, something you'd buy at Wal-Mart.