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.

crocodiles and mobsters

I know I say this fairly often, but I really had the most exhausting dream just before waking up this morning. [This is Part 1 and Part 2, since blogger won't let me put in all the necessary labels. Part 3 is below.]

Part 1:

I had a plane ticket to go and visit a friend of mine. There was one connection, and for some reason I thought the hour or so was a huge amount of time. I left the airport and ended up in a national park near Houston (apocryphal as far as I know) known for its crocodiles. I had no car and no camping gear, but I had completely forgotten about my flight and was walking around the campground choosing a site. I felt slightly liberated by the idea of camping all alone, like I was doing something very brave and adult. I guess it was rather brave, since the campground was surrounded by a bayou (of very clear water, weirdly). The water came right up to the campsites, and the bottom sloped down very slowly, giving the impression that you were actually in the water while you were still on land. I didn't see any crocodiles, somewhat disappointingly.

Part 2:

Before I could settle on a campsite, I remembered that I was supposed to be making my connection flight and was now about three hours late for it. I was extremely unhappy with myself, and stressed out about what to do. I hemmed and hawed for a while, and then finally realized that I was actually at my friend's house, having somehow magically arrived there. For a while I was very confused and kept thinking that I still needed to arrange transportation to get there.

She lived in a weird building with a labyrinth of rooms and an assortment of people. At one point I found myself squeezed onto a couch with her (somewhat portly) father and some random young bearded and hatted musicians, all singing and boisterously celebrating their newly-released cd, the product of a collaboration with a lot of high-profile people (including Charlotte Gainsbourg). Her father was getting very excited about the music and the cd, and kept encroaching further into my personal space. It was all completely innocent, but I was getting very physically uncomfortable being squashed, and couldn't think of a way to extricate myself without making a scene. I think he was also shirtless, which added to the discomfort.

[continued below]

Staying Cool

I had a horrible dream last night involving stabbing someone. This was not the first stabbing dream I've had, but I certainly hope it's the last.

The first part of the dream was pretty inoffensive. I was supposed to be going to something referred to as a "charity gala" (yes, really) for some organization my husband was involved with. Once again, I was trying to figure out what to wear. A coworker's husband called and just kept on talking and talking and I was getting frustrated because I couldn't figure out how to get him off the phone so I could get on with my charity gala preparations.

Then I was at resort/hotel with my husband. I think we were there for a convention of some sort (not a charity gala!). The atmosphere was kind of 1960s, which came in handy later. The hotel was on a hillside with a pool overlooking a valley. At some point we were in a sort of auditorium with very steep steps up to the exit. The auditorium was fairly empty, and I think we were among the last to leave. We suddenly found ourselves facing several young guys dressed rather snazzily, who wouldn't let us pass--not overtly threatening at first, then becoming more so.

I realized that we were in some kind of life-threatening situation and it was a matter of us or them. I'm not sure if I grasped the plot against us, but there clearly was one, and these young men were clearly its executors. One of them pulled out a knife, and I either grabbed it from him or somehow produced one of my one. *****Warning: rather graphic stabbing content***** Before I could really think about it, I plunged mine into his abdomen, and here's the worst part: I remembered that in such a situation one was to twist the knife for maximum effectiveness, so I did. It was horrible! Just the same sensation as in the other stabbing dream.

As expected, the young man crumpled to the floor, and his companions ran off, although I figured they were just going for reinforcements. My husband had also had a knife in his hand, one of those utility knives (dark red with stainless steel), and he let it drop to the floor (I don't think he had done any stabbing; maybe some light slashing, but nothing fatal). I thought it was very unwise of him to just leave the incriminating weapon like that, but didn't say anything about it. Instead I carefully wiped off my knife (a burnt-orange Swiss Army knife) on the dead guy's shirt and stashed it away in my bag.

We high-tailed it out of the auditorium and into the adjacent parking garage. We knew we couldn't take our own car and would have to steal one for our getaway. My husband said, "so which car should we take?", to which I replied, "our yellow one, of course". He nodded sagely with an admiring look at my presence of mind.

About then we realized that an even better course of action would be to fly somewhere from the airport (the airport was attached to the resort complex). Our first impulse was to fly back home. We were already at the parting gate, talking to the girl at the counter [this is where the 1960s-era vibe came in handy; there was no security to speak of--also, everyone had 1960s hair and clothes]. Of course I realized that flying back home was the stupidest course of action possible and managed to calmly intercept my husband just as he was opening his mouth to buy tickets and somehow indicate to him that we needed to go somewhere else without exciting the suspicion of the ticket-counter girl. He immediately saw my point and congratulated me for being so smart (!), and proposed that we go to Detroit instead.

So I think I woke up just as I was thinking that Detroit was a pretty smart choice, being somewhat of a modern-day Wild West. Also I thought that with the depressed economy it might be easier to start from scratch there if we ended up having to stay. And then as I was further waking up but not fully awake I moved on to strategies for changing one's appearance fast and convincingly and Staying Cool [I had resisted, in the dream, telling my husband to Stay Cool because I rejected the phrase as too hackneyed, no matter how appropriate to the situation].

Moving

Sorry, this is a rough sketch because I have to run to work.

And the dreams about moving have begun.
A family was moving into my apartment with me. Somehow they were on a luggage carousel they came out when the luggage pops out. Pleasantries, nice to meet you, etc. Suddenly I knew it was a subway track, because I saw the headlight from down the tunnel. Trying to save their stuff instead of themselves and take their bags off the track. I was able to get them also off the track, but then the train didn't come for a long time. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and suddenly I was in my bathroom but instead of my normal toilet there was a stainless steel airplane bathroom toilet that I didn't notice until I sat down and it felt lower to the ground than normal. I couldn't figure out why my roommate would replace the toilet or move it to a different spot, which I realized was also true once I stood up to inspect it.