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.

Friends and pig heads

I was visiting a friend, she has blue streaks in her hair and they were present in the dream. We walked up to a woman who was sitting poolside and I wasn't introduced. I said 'nice to meet you' and shook her hand, which felt like she had something wrong with it. Her hand was disfigured. It looked like a shopping mall with a pool and tables inside.

People started to show up and it became more like a dinner party. Everyone who came to sit at our table told my friend she looked fabulous. I felt uncomfortable and bored, I didn't know why we were here.

A man was carrying around a pig head on top of a bucket. I was uninterested. The head looked like it was alive with pink flesh. It had fake eyes that looked like blue human eyes. The man was making the eyes blink as he brought the head around to all the tables, as if it were on display.

An older woman started talking about what a long walk it was to get outside for a cigarette. She was going on for a while and I started to look around. I saw the pool and people walking on a cement walkway behind it. Then, an attractive and young black girl with a drink in her hand approached the pool. She had a black strapless ball gown. She walked down the pool steps and into the pool, seeming to go unnoticed and she was very casual about it. She held her drink over her head and went in until the water touched the top of her dress. I remembered thinking it looked refreshing and I wanted to try it. I pointed her out when people seemed interested in knowing what I was looking at. She started walking up the pool steps and had a white dress, like a wedding gown, with pearl beads and layered in front like an open style. Everyone in the place clapped and hooted when they saw her. She waved and walked on.

The pig was getting too heavy for the man to carry. He set it on a table and was going to carve it. Before he set it down I couldn't stop looking at the eyes as he made them blink. We then were served what was called garlic shrimp, but it was fried and overcooked. The women at the table said 'isn't it fabulous?' I nodded but didn't think it was. I thought it was dry. I looked at the sauces, red and yellow... I was looking for melted butter. Then I woke up. - GirlX

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.

Bits and Pieces

These are brief and vague but it's alls I've remembered lately.

i had worked really hard at putting together some kind of party, putting in lots of time and money to get it ready.  after sending out lots and lots of invitations and doing my best to get the word out about it, not a single person showed up.  i sat around the empty room looking around at all the decorations for a long time, feeling sorry for myself that no one was bothered to come.  i woke up feeling much the same way.

********

i was outside with a group of people at a park or something.  i don't know if i knew who they were or if they were just random dream people.  it seems like we were attending some kind of art faire, although i didn't really see any art or vendors anywhere.  it was really hot out and i was thinking that i should've brought a hat because i tend to get really vicious headaches from the sun (IRL and in the dream apparently).  i also remember being really thirsty but didn't seem to have any money to buy a drink.

more group trips, and a trompe-l'oeil bird

My brain is back to its old tricks, apparently--I had another group trip dream last night. It was a combination group trip/family reunion. All of the extended family members from my dad's side had met at some location far from where anyone lived. The first part of the dream involved some socializing with older relatives. Then someone tried to do an organized activity, and encouraged us to break up into groups of 3 or 4 (I've never been all that keen on activities involving a structured forming into groups). For some reason, a real-life friend (Curly Sue, as it happens) was also there at the reunion, so we formed a group with two of my younger cousins. In real life, one is my age and one is a few years younger, but in the dream they were teenagers, probably because I haven't seen them for years. We started talking to them, and I was aware that I was feeling happy about being the cool older relative (and simultaneously really annoyed at both the feeling and the awareness of the feeling; my self-analyzer just won't ever leave me alone!).

After that, the group broke up pretty quickly and people started leaving. I guess we had planned to have a "friends" outing after the family reunion, because I was supposed to meet another real-life friend. I did some random wandering around, and then Curly Sue and I met her at a cafe that bore a strange resemblance to a cross between a laundromat and a Chinese restaurant.

This friend recently had a baby in real life, but in the dream she had apparently, in addition to having her real-life baby, had another baby who was still-born. She started talking about how she was looking forward to the second coming (of Christ, that is) because then her baby would "rise first" with a wave of other babies who had been still-born. In real life I'm not quite clear on the various Christian denominations' views on this, but in the dream she held a view that was supposedly the "evangelical view". She said that she and her husband hadn't thought they had any particular religious views, until the birth of the still-born baby, and then, very abruptly, they "saw the light" (she worded it more gracefully than that) and suddenly started subscribing to this mainstream theology. She even had a printout of something referring to the mass resurrection of still-born babies, some sort of liturgical thing printed out on the typical half-page paper with poor copy quality. I think both Curly Sue and I were a bit surprised at this, but she made it clear that she hadn't become a hardcore conservative and was still her old, open-minded self, so we figured it was a good way for her to adjust to and accept the death of the baby.

After that, I went on a hike with the other friend (not Curly Sue), and we ended up on a very steep scaffolding-like section of trail above a boardwalk (almost Coney Island style, but with less people and more nature). There was an odd encounter with a little bird. It was hopping around, and I noticed it looked strange. I realized that the actual bird had been encased in a covering (made from an old sock!) painted to look like a bird. I managed to catch the bird and remove the covering. It was a bit unsettling, but the bird seemed to be happy either way (with or without the trompe-l'oeil covering).

Demon Cat

My psyche totally made up for the last thoroughly uncharacteristic, but lovely and affirming, dream I posted here by waking me up this morning screaming. In the dream, if was a full-throttled anguished wail, but what actually woke me in real life was my own pitiful whimper.

A couple of my best friends were in town for my wedding (what?!)*, and he brought their daughter and cat to my apartment so that I could watch them for a while; I think his wife was sick. Almost immediately, though, this cat (which in real life is lovely) revealed itself to be an absolute demon. It went behind the TV and there was a theatrical flash of light blue light and a powering-down sound that indicated that the cat had chewed through the TV wires. The same thing happened and the computer went down. As I tried to catch and contain the cat, it chomped down hard on my left wrist and latched on. I tried blowing in its face, swatting it, flinging it off, and prying its jaws open, but it held on, and although I knew it was inflicting a pretty serious injury that would hurt a lot, I also didn't want to hurt the cat.

But then, then! It let go, only to dart into a large cage that had appeared on the floor and contained another couple of best friends' kitties. These kitties were somehow much smaller and more fragile, and the demon cat killed them almost instantly.**

This time I picked up the demon cat and sort of flung it to the floor. Even though it was nothing compared to the shaking that completely failed to loosen it when it had its teeth in my wrist, this time it, of course, suddenly died.

It was the realization that I was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of basically all of my best friends' cats (though thank goodness my subconscious forgot the toddler in my care and thus allowed her to escape unscathed!), and the fear that David wouldn't love me any more after I'd killed all those animals, that woke me up howling. What an awful dream.

*This getting-married-oh-no! themed dream broke with convention, as the potential groom was my current boyfriend, it was a day or two before the wedding, and before my brain could totally freak out over the idea of getting married, it was interrupted by the antics of a demon cat.

**In real life, one of these kitties really is kind of demonic.

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]

crocodiles and mobsters cont.

(cont.)

Part 3:

I was now out somewhere with a group of people, including the friend and some random dream characters of a wide range of ages and ethnicities. We were in a big concrete building on an upper floor--it was a very bare, industrial sort of building, all metal and concrete and very Soviet Eastern Europe. We must have been on a guided tour, because we had all entered a rather dodgy-looking restroom (this was part of the tour, not a bathroom break). About that time, I realized that we were being guided in there by Russian mobsters. They did the requisite yelling ("get down! Shut up!" etc.), and I dove into the first available stall. Unfortunately it turned out to not have a door, so my hopes of crouching on the toilet to avoid detection were dashed.

The mobsters singled me out for some reason and yelled something at me. I'm not really clear on what happened next because it was very quick, but I realized that a grenade had been unpinned and it would behoove me to get out of there. I had a very weird sensation of simultaneous extreme fear and complete fearlessness, and for once my dream running was very effective (probably faster and with more coordination than in real life). I ran right past them and out the door to try to get out of range of the grenade.

I dashed out into a hallway and out the door, which led me to a long concrete exterior staircase with no railing (this was probably at about a 5th-floor level). At this point I realized that the bathroom mobsters had let me go knowing that they had companions outside the building who could take me out. I got to the bottom of the stairs and started running across an open space of packed dirt (there were buildings all around similar to the one I'd come out of, all deserted). I knew that there were mobsters around, but I also realized that I had to keep running even though the open space left me vulnerable to being picked off.

At about this point, I think I was caught by one of them, but this is where things got weird. Because when I realized that I was being caught, I also realized that this was a movie dream, and my perspective shifted to outside myself. When it shifted, I saw that I wasn't really me, but a much smaller teenager with long dark hair and bangs. This smaller "me" started belting out a song and I realized, "great, I've gotten myself trapped in a musical". [I'm not a real-life fan of musicals; I find it disconcerting how they burst into song at random times.] I tried to put the movie/dream on fast forward so I wouldn't have to listen to the songs and could get to the end faster, and it worked.

Weird Time Mashup

This dream is a strange combination of two different periods in my life: high school and grad school.

I dreamed that I had gone back to my high school to attend some kind of alumni function. I went into the dormitory where I'd lived in high school only to find that it had been extensively renovated. This renovation involved restoring it to its original ornate decor (very different from real life, I assure you), and, as a special touch, the heavy, carved oak doors had been elaborately inscribed with the names of the original occupants.

I found my room, which was upstairs, second door from the stairs. The names on the door were lovely, but I didn't recognize them. They were something like A. D. Smith and Mabel Something.

I wandered around the dorm, at one point going into the basement looking for the "trash room." I found it, and realized that the basement had certainly not been renovated, and the trash room was overflowing with garbage.

Later, I attended a performance of some kind. Someone I knew from my grad school days (here's the mashup) was in this show, playing a piece on piano (as far as I know she doesn't play at all). In the dream, I knew this piece, having played it myself. I knew that it was very difficult, with an elaborate accompaniment pattern played in the middle register with the thumbs and forefingers, and the melody played with the right pinky finger. It required lots of delicate touch and jumping around on the keyboard, both of which require absolute control.

I was really impressed with her performance, and during the applause, I went backstage to congratulate her. I found her stretched out on the floor (apparently exhausted by the effort of performance). She was surrounded by family members, her two babies, and a couple of small dogs. As they all swirled around her, I knelt by her head to gush about her playing. I kissed her on the forehead and told her she'd done a wonderful job, and that I totally understood how hard it had been.

(Upon waking and considering the piano piece, I know that whatever she was playing wasn't what my dream self thought it was.)

border adventure!

I had the most exhausting and ridiculous dream last night. I dreamed that, with Curly Sue and another real-life friend, I was going to try to sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border by rafting across the river. At no point was it clear whether we were trying to get from Mexico to the U.S. or from the U.S. to Mexico, or even why we were crossing clandestinely (a lot of things in this dream weren't clear).

At the beginning, I was trying to pack my things to go. I had it in my head that I needed to fit everything necessary for 8 months or so into a small backpack, besides my share of the necessary stuff for the trip itself--tent, blow-up raft, life jacket, food, etc. All my possessions were disorganized and all over the floor of a room in my parents' house (different than my parents' house in real life). I was preparing for an academic year in a dorm atmosphere, so I was thinking about what I would need in that situation and including all kinds of not-strictly-necessary things like a tin of colored drawing pencils. I was also concerned about the mess I would be leaving behind, all the disorganized stuff that I wouldn't be taking with me.

After this packing stress went on for a while (forever, seemingly), I finally realized that this was just a trip to Establish a Presence, and that I was going to be able to retrieve more belongings later (what?), not to mention that wherever I was going was bound to have stores to buy things in. So this threw off my whole strategy and I had to start all over. By this time my traveling companions were pretty much ready to go, so knowing that I was holding them up added to the stress.

I ended up finally just throwing a change of clothes and what I thought was my share of the supplies into my bag, and we got ready to go through the security checkpoint (what? again). This was manned by U.S. agents, although, again, I'm not sure where we were leaving and where we were entering, or why (even better question) we were going through security and THEN sneaking over the border. The security procedure was onerous and there were lots of annoying, noisy kids running around underfoot.

We finally made it through, and then I realized that the river looked pretty wide, deep, and fast, and that I hadn't actually packed my life jacket. At this point, I think my companions' patience was running quite thin, especially after the whole security-checkpoint experience, so I decided to get a life jacket at the first opportunity instead of being picky.

The first opportunity turned out to be a ramshackle taco/life jacket/whatever else stand. They wanted $40 to rent a worn-out orange clip-in-the-front life jacket, to be returned the next day. I tried to find out what would happen if I didn't return it, but they were evasive on that point. Then I bought a taco, which turned out to be one somewhat undersized tortilla and one seriously undersized tortilla (silver dollar-sized), with about 6 bits of ground beef and a smear of vile-looking sauce (all this warmed up in a microwave). I was indignant and tried to protest to the seller, but my Spanish came out all wrong in my indignation (even including some French words), and the guy just laughed at me scornfully. (The guy manning this shady operation was a stout middle-aged Mexican guy with a distinct air of doing business with the wrong people, so I didn't rant for too long.)

After that, my companions revealed that they had been looking at the map to plan our route and had decided that the best strategy to avoid detection was to circle around--waaay around. The proposed route would include a trip through Big Bend, and we were going to take our giant SUV, so at least we could sleep inside it.

On that note, I think we decided we needed a real meal before undertaking the next leg of the trip, because the last thing I remember was a plate with some kind of chicken-fried-steak type meat atop a small mound of mashed potatoes. I was disconcerted because it wasn't the type of meal that fit in with the whole Texas/Mexico border theme, but I was also happy for something more substantial than the so-called "taco" from the stand.

how could i forget johnny depp?

I guess the most astonishing part of last night's dreaming is that I realized later that I had dreamed about {adolescence alert!} kissing Johnny Depp and forgotten about it. I always thought that was the sort of dream that should be more memorable [glossing right over it being pretty embarrassing to admit to having such a boilerplate Romantic Fantasy bit in a dream].

The very last part of the dream was pleasant too. I dreamed that I made an almost-instant friend at Target. We bonded over gentle mockery of Helicopter Parenting. Either the new friend morphed from a middle-aged woman with dark-rimmed glasses and short dark hair, or there were two people at first and the woman disappeared, but the friend turned out to be a tall nordic-looking guy with a beard. He mentioned that as a child he was given a "farthing" every day and told to go buy a dairy-based treat with some germanic-sounding name. In the dream I recognized the brand name as something distinctively Swiss, so I got excited and asked him if he was from Switzerland. He said, "no, I'm from grmphshmumblemumble". I kept asking him to repeat himself, and every time I had no idea what he was saying. It was so frustrating, since I was really curious about where he was from.

The part of the dream before that was less relaxing. I was driving with a lot of other people on an elevated roadway. It's hard to explain, but the impression was akin to caravanning with tiny little go-cart-like vehicles that resembled shrunken 1950s and 60s cars. We came to a point in the route where we had to jump, with or without vehicles, to exit the elevated highway. There was water below, contained in a series of lock-like walls of various size. The first couple of people revved up their cars and successfully made the jump, but my car fell into the water. It turned out to not be a big deal, since the water was shallow. Someone else left her car entirely and jumped over the side to land on her feet in the water, saying that her mother had warned her the water was shallow here and she shouldn't try to jump in it with her car. Throughout this scene, the perspective was very weird, almost like the perspective when you're playing with dolls as a child. That's really the only way I can think of to explain it.

russian money

I had another dream the other night involving foreign currency. I wonder what that's supposed to mean. All I can remember is that someone I had gone to school with owed me and my husband money for something. It was one of those situations where no specific sum had been settled on. He just kept peeling off more and more Russian bills. I didn't know exactly how much they were worth, but I was pretty sure that he was paying us way more than he needed to. I was a little stressed because I was trying to calculate unknown values in my head as he was handing me money.

weirdly detailed

I had the most absurdly detailed dream this morning. First I was at a shopping center here in town that morphed into a more upscale (although strangely empty) enclosed mall. I guess clientele was scarce, because I was begged by desperate shop and salon workers to come in and look at their wares/services. One blond and very-made-up lady in a salon was especially desperate-sounding. I didn't like the begging and found an empty office to wait in. I don't know why I was there to begin with, but I ran into a couple of classmates from way back. I was ambivalent about seeing them, since I inexplicably had a clay mask on my face. I decided to go ahead and try to enjoy the interaction, though, and assume that they would understand and give me time to wash off the mask if they decided to go somewhere else for another activity.

Then it morphed into a workplace, except that it was still in the mall building. I was organizing a cabinet with all kinds of dried tea and spices, and feeling on edge because a somewhat bossy person I actually work with was making suggestions about how it should be arranged.

Then the interesting part started. I can't really explain how I was perceiving this, or in what sense I was "there", but it was like a hyperrealistic film. The image started out as a still image that I was looking at with some other people, including my husband, and gradually elements of the image started to move until finally we were actually *in* the image. It started out as a wild, deserted beach, and the camera panned to include some sea stacks. We were bent on guessing where it was, but not really sure. Then people started moving into the image, a lot of them with wild dreadlocks, and this prompted me to guess that it was Australia.

Maybe as a reward for guessing right*, at that point we were absorbed into the image, although it didn't stay a wild and deserted beach peopled by post-apocalyptic hippies. We moved up the beach toward a city and started sightseeing. There was an absurd quantity of very vivid detail packed into the scenery: a shoreline, a fancy Calatrava-esque bridge and a much smaller Victorian-era footbridge, complete with gazebo-like folly; lots of plants and flowers; a marketplace that was tourist-y but not offensively so; a cemetary with above-ground graves; a school complex that turned out to be the Savannah College of Art and Design (and somehow here we were either thinking about it or had actually moved to Savannah); etc. We were with another couple, random dream people based loosely on past classmates/coworkers, and I commented to the woman how interesting it was that there should be such vivid details in a dream. She completely ignored me and I assumed that was because she didn't want to recognize or be reminded that it was actually a dream.

*I think this is because we watched Part 1 of "Che" last night and at one point I recognized a place we went on vacation last year. Also, I know there was a mini-storyline featuring revolutionaries on the run somewhere in the dream, but I can't really remember that part.

Gritty Opera

I dreamed that my friend Beth* and I were discussing casting an opera (in real life, she works in opera), as though we were coworkers. We were talking about getting this person named Pam* (who is one of my current coworkers, a librarian) who I thought would be more "authentic." We were comparing Pam's performance in, I think, Aida, with what she might be in Carmen. I thought that since she had lots of tattoos and sometimes shot up with heroin (totally not true of coworker!!!!) on the stage (!!!) that she was more authentic than the person Beth was considering. She were arguing that we should hire someone else because, after all, why else are they trained as actors?

As we were discussing Pam's attributes in a role, we would see a replay of her performance in that role, like a montage summary. There was one scene in which she was singing in an opera (not sure which now), looking like a total junkie, crouching at the corner of the stage smoking a cigarette and handling a crack pipe or something. I was pointing to this example as one reason that Pam should be in this opera, for her authentic gritty qualities.

*Not their real names.

Biathlon

I dreamed that my sister had talked me into competing in a biathlon. I struggled through the first leg of the race--the foot race. Every time I dream about running it's always the same: incredibly frustrating and slow, as though I'm running through chest-high water. This dream was no exception, and I fought through the foot race part, arriving at the bike race completely exhausted.

Ahead of me was my sister (in real life a bike enthusiast) and some other unidentified friends of mine. They were already taking their bikes and jumping astride as though they had found the foot race an enjoyable little diversion.

I took my bike out of the rack and followed the signs for the race course. Apparently part of the race was through a building, part of which included a school gym and part of which was something like a small grocery store. I rode into the grocery store room (very small) and navigated around the wire racks, trying not to knock anything over. I was very frustrated because I couldn't see the next arrow for the race course. I rode around and around this grocery room, getting increasingly angry. Finally, I rode over to this door (which had no race arrow) and saw, far ahead now, my friends and my sister. I rode out the door and, sure enough, across the road was the elusive race course arrow, pointing the way up a giant hill.

I started to ride up the hill, but quickly realized there was no way I could actually ride up that monster. I got off and started walking my bike. Suddenly I realized that I was dragging my bike; it was attached to my waist behind me. At this point, I was near tears because everyone had left me behind and also I was struggling to walk, again like I was walking through chest-high water.

I thought that I really wanted to finish the race for personal pride, but I was so tired, angry, and frustrated that I wanted to quit.

Old Flames, New Flames, Old Friends

I was in a small room with my ex-bf. We were sitting next to each other on a twin bed. Things were building slowly between us - we held hands at first, then held each other, then a bit of fondling/groping, then kissing. I was stretched out on top of him when he asked me what I wanted. He said I could have anything I wanted. We flipped over so he was on top. I whispered I wanted him inside me. He immediately got off and said something like, "See that is your problem. You're too fast." I was upset at first, but then realized that I was moving to sex before I really knew anything was there.

Scene switch: I was coming home - lived in apartment 625 in building 79 of a group of apartment buildings. I had a lot in my hands and had to balance my bicycle on my hip while I checked the mail. I carried the mail, other bags and the bicycle to my apartment, opened the door and went inside. Two seconds later, I hear a knock on my door. There was a cute guy (about 5' 9', caramel skin, head shaved bald) standing there. I had dropped something on my way to the apartment and he was returning it. I felt an attraction there, but just said, "Thank you" and quickly closed the door. I was thinking I should have at least asked his name and where he lived in the building. Then I heard another knock on the door. He saw some mail for my apartment on the floor when he was checking his mail and thought he would return it to me. This time, I asked his name, shook his hand and asked where he lived (724 in building 81). His name was something I never heard before - I asked him to spell it (Knaan - or something like that). Just then I recognized him from somewhere else. I looked at his face again and he turned into a girl I knew from elementary school that I just friended on Facebook (long dreadlocks). I asked if the K name was the real name - knowing that it wasn't. She looked at me funny. I said, "Michelle, don't you remember me? Pamela Taylor from elementary school." Then she realized who I was.

Wedding

My boyfriend and I were going to a wedding. It was to be held in a mall, and as we walked up a ramp to the upper level, I kept noticing tacky little "venues" for other weddings, some just in food court style eating areas! When we got to the area where my friends were getting married, however, there was a quiet, nicely lit balcony filled with round tables with white linens and gold flatware. He walked me over to a table near the back, and as we sat down I saw that it was by a big screen that was showing a college football game--I think it was EWU vs. OC (whatever those letters stood for; I think at least one of the teams was from the Northwest). There were a lot of players on the field, at first in uniform and then in street clothes. At some point, we were no longer looking at a screen, but over the actual game itself. In the stands, I saw a hand-drawn poster supporting keeping religion out of schools (it featured a large electric guitar, a trap set, and a Bible with the words "lust" and "lush" written on it). A girl with hair down to her waist turned and waved at us.

The couple who I realized were getting married sat at the table with us, and I was thrilled to be surrounded by such good friends. In real life, these two have been married for almost six years and have a baby. The lights went down and we held hands for a blessing. The groom's mother, wearing some sort of cowl, the bride's mother, and a few other women were singing a haunting song for the blessing when my alarm went off.

I hit snooze, naturally, which meant I also got to dream that a squirrel had gotten into my apartment somehow and was tearing around my bedroom.

Amusement Park Voodoo Ride

I dreamed that I was at an amusement park with a group of friends. I had been there before, and knew that I wanted to take my friends on one particular ride. It was more of an Experience than just a ride. It was run by a woman who conveyed the impression that she was a Haitian voodoo practitioner and that voodoo played a part in the ride. Basically, you sat down at her table and she would say some spooky incantations. In front of her was a bowl of Kandy Korn-shaped candy (but each piece was either red, black, or white) and you would eat a few pieces as she talked. There was some kind of drug in the candy and it would kick in later. You started out the adventure ride in her apartment and then you'd somehow get to the top of a really tall tower, climb into a boxy car, and then basically free-fall to the bottom. Because of the drug in the candy, you'd blank out what happened next, so your next awareness would be in a DIFFERENT room, decorated in a lavender-heavy Victorian style. On the dresser was a pile of legal-sized papers that revealed where you really were, which was so mindblowing (but I can't remember exactly why) that you were totally excited about this ride. You couldn't believe how you ended up in this Victorian room with a truly giant bed.

Anyway, I took my friends on this ride, but somehow the lady messed it up (like when someone tells a joke wrong) and nobody's mind was blown this time. All of my friends thought it was just OK and I was really disappointed.

corn, peas and onions

Yesterday (in real life) I asked a couple of friends for some information about organic produce growing as a business. This morning just before waking up I was dreaming that I had asked one of them, not about organic produce, but about dark under-eye circles. They referred me to a friend who was some kind of skin expert (somewhere between a cosmetologist and dermatologist). She didn't understand at first and said, "she's asking about crepey-ness, right?", which kind of freaked me out because I didn't think I was *that* wrinkled yet. When she understood that it was about dark circles she recommended that I get checked out by an endocrine specialist to see if my lymph glands were functioning correctly. She said I should eat a lot of corn, peas, and onions. I wasn't too excited about the corn and peas and wondered if I was already making up for it with onions, because I hardly ever cook anything that doesn't have onions.

When I woke up and looked in the mirror, I did indeed have dark circles under my eyes. Maybe I should get my lymph glands checked.

Teaching

For some reason, Ellen and I were sleeping by the side of the road in a city. There were beds there, and even a toilet in the middle of nowhere--which I used, right out in the open, with a sense of something being slightly out of place, but hardly even of shyness.

Later, I was in the TA office at school, where I saw one of my friends with huge dark rings under her eyes. Instead of asking her if she was okay, I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her. She brightened up, and said that actually I could help cut out all of these little figures out of colored paper. But as I was about to help her, I got a call from one of my students. In real life, this student's name is Evin, and I think she's a girl, but in the dream it was a boy. Partly due to the connection, and partly due to his circuitousness, I couldn't figure out what he wanted from me. I kept giving him generic tips about being a better student and trying to reassure him, but I wasn't sure it was working.

When I hung up with him, another student wanted to talk to me. She had very curly hair and skin that actually looked like porcelain. I couldn't remember her name, but I glanced at her paper, and said, "Do you go by Lyligia?" She did. I had apparently given her a C+ on this paper, and she couldn't figure out why, because she'd worked so hard and "shared some really meaningful things." So I looked at the paper, and remembered that although she had presented some very personal details, the essay overall was fragmented and non-cohesive. "And how long is it?" I asked. "Seven pages, single spaced," she answered. "The assignment was for three pages, double-spaced," I responded, "so this doesn't fulfill the assignment requirements."

I guess I was dreaming about grading since I've so far managed to do so little in my waking life. Sigh.