Lounging with the Lady

My alarm didn't go off and I didn't wake up until the time I was already supposed to be at work.  Freaking out and wondering how to get there before the boss noticed, I slowly crawled out of bed and started getting ready.  Somehow Lady Gaga appeared out of nowhere about the time I was ready to leave and offered me a ride.  First though, she needed to make a few stops.

Gaga was dressed in white jeans and a pink t-shirt.  Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore a ton of wild makeup.  She had the reddest lipstick I had ever seen.  We climbed into an old pickup truck that had seen better days.  We didn't talk much on the way there, although she reminded me that she had a few stops to make beforehand.

The first stop was at an art store where Gaga took her sweet time deciding on which painting she wanted to purchase.  We moved on to an office building across town and in the opposite direction of my job.  Lady Gaga went into an office while I hung out in the front room with the receptionist.  Some guy came to check on me after awhile and I told him I needed to get to work.  He said that Gaga was conducting business and couldn't be rushed.  I sat there seething for several minutes before resigning myself to the fact that I probably wasn't going to make it to work after all.

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.

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.
  

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.

hmph

This is just to say that I am officially mad at my subconscious: just before waking up this morning, it saw fit to present me with a dream where I was both at work and on a group trip. The coworker that I have some personality incompatibility with featured prominently, too, jumping in and doing something that was really my job [that's half the crux of the personality incompatibility right there].

Hmph.

group trips, and my subconscious attempts to hammer some sense into me

First of all, I had a very stereotypical group-trip dream last night. It was actually a bus tour (of where, I don't know). About 20% of the group were Chinese, and my seatmate was a Chinese girl. It was a pretty structured thing, with the tour guide telling us when to get off the bus, how much time we'd have, when to take pictures, etc. I really have no idea why I keep having these dreams--I haven't been on a group trip in years.

The other dream requires a little real-life background. I have a co-worker that I have a little bit of a personality conflict with. The only really objective problem I have with her is that she's kind of pushy/very sure of her opinions, and very quick to jump in and do things that are other people's jobs (for example, my job involves answering the phone, but she has a habit of picking it up micro-seconds after it's rung if she has the impression that I'm not at my desk [her impression is often wrong, and I'm actually at my desk, or close enough]--this is something that's persisted despite my politely requesting her not to do this). Anyway, thanks to the big difference between her personality and mine, and thanks to a tendency to paranoia and neurosis on my part, I've developed the idea that she disapproves of me and would like to be able to complain about me but feels she can't for one reason or another (certain things she does or says come across to me as veiled criticisms, even if they're not intended that way).

So that's the real-life background. In the dream, which was very realistic, I was at work. I was up doing something, and came back to find a sheet of paper on my desk. The paper had several receipts copied on it, with some specifications and instructions written on afterward by her. On looking at it briefly, I thought it was dealing with something that she wouldn't ordinarily have needed to be involved in; it looked to me like she was jumping in and assembling things because she felt like I hadn't taken care of it fast enough, and this was her way of shaming me for not being quick-quick-quick.

I was pretty angry, thanks to all that bottled-up resentment. I took it to a couple of other coworkers and waved it around, ranting about how passive-aggressive this was on her part (she wasn't around at this point). One of the other coworkers looked at it closer and pointed out that it was just some receipts she was submitting for reimbursement--so it wasn't something I had known about, or something that anyone could have possibly expected me to deal with yet. I was a bit deflated, but relieved that it wasn't actually a case of passive-aggressive criticism. Of course it was a little embarrassing to have ranted about it, but there was some solace in realizing that maybe I'd been too paranoid all along, and that it was possible that she wasn't constantly wishing for an opportunity to express just how awful (lazy, incompetent, backward) she thought I was.

I don't really know whether to be happy at this evidence that my subconscious is more sensible than my conscious, waking self, or to be annoyed at it for having this "I told you so" dream.

the zombie horde

I had a series of weird dreams this morning in between repeated snooze-button punchings. In the first, I had been obliged to attend a high school reunion and was not happy about being there. In hopes of avoiding being seen and having to fill people in on my current news, I escaped to the library (not my actual high-school library but a dream library). The rows of shelves were very low, about shoulder height, which dismayed me since I couldn't conceal myself without hunching over.

I was still vainly hoping that I was somewhat hidden when I noticed that a group of older people had come in. I'm not sure what they were doing there, but they had some connection with the reunion or with some other event that was going on. I sensed that they were trying to get away from the action and into a quiet spot. However, lined up evenly spaced between the rows of shelves, they just looked alarming. They all had salt-and-pepper hair in exactly the same shade, were all about the same height and weight (short-to-medium height and skinny), and they all moved very slowly and had vacant looks.

I shouted, to no one in particular, "look, it's the zombie horde!" In real life, of course, this would be extremely rude and not funny at all, but in the dream it was absolutely hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing and congratulating myself on my wit. I was also relieved to have had a bit of comedy to take my mind off my undesirable situation.

I don't remember much of the other dream, except that the protagonist was a rather nondescript man in his mid to late 30s. He had somehow gotten himself employed as a telemarketer, calling up a narrowly defined target demographic (doctors or engineers, something like that) to try to interest them in some very specialized consulting service. Of course none of them were interested, which made him hate the job even more. He was sitting at his desk trying to assemble his lunch, which consisted of sliced turkey lunch meat, sliced cheese, and some kind of flat bread*, and having a meltdown. He was yelling at his boss about having to call these people who weren't interested, how that wasn't what he wanted to do, etc. etc. I really felt sorry for him, because I knew that he was highly educated and had gotten himself into this job by mistake and necessity.


*This was undoubtedly thanks to a recent viewing of the remake of The Prisoner, wherein the only food available was "wraps" (I recommend it, by the way--the program, not necessarily the wraps).

Used Car Saleswoman

In this dream, I was scouting around for a new job (as is always the case in real life). I'd decided to try out selling used cars (?!). In a dingy, dirty, run-down part of the city, an older black man who owned a used car lot decided to give me a chance.

This was a tiny car lot, squeezed onto a street corner. It wasn't even a square lot, but was very irregularly shaped, hemmed in my a huge chain link fence topped by razor wire. The main office was in an old RV or bus.

The owner of the business gave me two crisp hundred dollar bills, presumably to use in Making Deals. And then he kind of left me to it. I was pretty nervous, since I've never sold anything to anyone in my life.

Pretty soon, however, a small group of middle-class white people showed up, though not to buy a car. It turned out that the owner of the car lot was involved in the local at-risk-teens program, and these white people were delivering some kind of program materials and some money for him to run it.

They were kind of milling around, so a woman (much shorter than me) started asking me about myself. I told her I was just trying out this job because I was dissatisfied with my current job. She said she could tell that I was smart and a nice person, and she knew of a place that was hiring, and that it would be perfect for me.

I was kind of excited, so I asked for details. She said that the job was in a library. I was pretty let down, since that's my current job, and I told her that I already worked in a library.

literature-inspired, and annoying

I had the most vexing dream this morning. To begin with, I kept almost waking up, thinking it must be time to get up, getting frustrated because I was wasting my precious last few minutes of sleep, and going back to sleep only to return to the very same dream cycling over again.

Obviously influenced by yesterday's reading material, I was dreaming that I was a secretary in a southern African country (although I don't think I had completely morphed into Mma Makutsi). I kept receiving a cc'd memo from some guy, and I couldn't figure out whether he was sending me the same one over and over, or whether these were all irritatingly similar and equally inconsequential. I never grasped the subject of the memo(s), just that the guy was copying me on all of them to cover himself somehow. I resented being involved in whatever he was trying to drag me into, and I also didn't like the impression I had that he was somehow attracted to me (what is with this theme?). All in all, it was one of my most annoying dreams in recent memory.

in which my subconscious wins the Gross and Creepy prize

If you're ready for another excrement-themed dream, read on! (You can guess the corollary to that, I'm sure.)

The dream started with a work trip with a nameless, faceless coworker and a real-life coworker who, although nice, has bossy tendencies. We were in a small car, trying to go somewhere to do some sort of site-based work (I have no idea why I was along). It started raining harder and harder, and at some point we had to ford a rushing creek with the small car, which I now noticed was either completely topless or just open on all sides like a Jeep. The bossier coworker was issuing directives about how to go about crossing the stream ("gun it" being the main idea). She said something about bracing myself, but I wasn't entirely braced, and I certainly wasn't ready for the head-to-toe spattering with muddy water.

We made it across okay, except for being completely wet and muddy, and stopped at a ramshackle house where we were going to stay. There were some other assorted people there, although I'm not sure who they were or what they were doing. The overall atmosphere was sort of scientific field outing (or rather, what I would imagine that atmosphere to be like)*.

The place was pretty makeshift, with a toilet out in the middle of the room. No one seemed to find this odd or unsettling, and consequently I didn't either. I sat down and did my business**, and that's when everything started to go off the rails.

For some reason when I stood up, the *ahem* excrement ended up in two [rather large!] piles on the seat (?? it was definitely in the toilet before). That disturbed me quite a lot, but I was even more disturbed to see a little worm-like creature wriggling about in it***. And then, as if that weren't disturbing enough, the real freak-out began: on closer inspection, the "worm" turned out to be a snake! Wriggling around in the excrement, mind you. The body was about the size of one of those small green snakes, but it was oddly segmented. The head was disproportionately large****, at least 2 inches across, with large, very creepy roundish yellow eyes. It was bobbing its head about like a cobra (no hood, at least), looking at me in the most alarming way. I can hardly emphasize enough how very alarming and disturbing it was.

I had started making alarmed noises on seeing the mounds of excrement on the seat, and they had escalated by now to full-blown, terrorized screams (although I couldn't properly get out half of them, so they were half raspy whispered screams). A kid that I had "dated" in 6th grade (?!?) was sitting near the toilet and hadn't reacted at all until this point. He suddenly had had enough, though, and told me to pull myself together and stop the screaming and freaking out. I pointed out to him that he might be freaked out too if confronted with the fact that such a vile creature had just passed through "one of the most sensitive holes in [his] body" (?! sigh.).

That's all I can remember, but it's still disturbing me.



*An interesting detail was that the makeup of the group was eerily multicultural, although disproportionately male.
**Odd variation on the theme of having to go to the bathroom in public--ordinarily in those dreams that's a major source of distress (although, oddly, I don't really have those dreams).
***The real-life inspiration for this undoubtedly being a real-life colony of fruit flies in the compost I just emptied yesterday.
****Which, with my limited herpetological knowledge, I took to mean it was a viper.

george clooney

I had one of those annoying late-for-work dreams last night. I had run a bunch of errands and badly miscalculated the time that would take (as usual in real and dream life). I was supposed to be going to work at 10 or 11 a.m., but still needed to take a shower. In the dream, I was living (temporarily?) in some group setting* with common bathrooms. There were about 4 shower stalls in the bathroom, and I had just peeked in and seen that they were all empty with no one in line for them. By the time I gathered up my stuff and got there to shower, though, they were all occupied and there was a line of about 6 people waiting, including a girl I had found annoying in high school.

That was the boring, unpleasant part of the dream. After that, I was at an airport with both indoor and outdoor waiting areas, and I was supposed to get on a flight to somewhere for some kind of work-related trip. There was a giant snowstorm/cold front over pretty much the whole northern hemisphere, and all flights were canceled until further notice**. I was waiting outside on a high concrete balcony with an assortment of past real-life acquaintances, random dream people, a Norwegian girl whose design blog I sometimes read, and George Clooney (?). We were all leaning against or sitting on the balcony railing, and talking about random things. Incidentally, I was dressed in a very ratty pajama ensemble, possibly having given up earlier on getting a shower.

It turned out that George Clooney was extremely personable and funny, capable of a wide-ranging conversation. He had the sort of dry, punny, double-meaning humor that I particularly enjoy, but at one point he got serious and launched into a rather long, Steinbeckian soliloquy on the salt-of-the-earth working man and the dangers and hardships he faced (I think he was referring specifically to truck drivers, in the context of the big winter storm).

George stayed there for quite a while just chewing the fat with us, and I kept thinking, "he's a great waiting companion, but doesn't he have bigger fish to fry?" At one point he abruptly buried his face in my stomach to warm up his nose, which I thought a bit odd (although I realized that it must be an effective strategy, and that he probably found lots of willing stomachs to warm his cold nose, being who he was).

At one point in the dream, toward the beginning of the George Clooney episode, I was very concerned because I had noticed that several of my teeth seemed loose***. I was very worried, and asking everyone if they knew anything about it and if I should be worried or if it was normal****. No one had anything too reassuring or useful to say about my problem (I think the girls were all too focused on our distinguished companion). Only George had something somewhat helpful to say, and he also reminded me that [in this alternate dream universe] people's teeth were generally spaced far apart (??).

Anyway, if you're ever stranded at an airport in an open-ended, weather-related travel complication, look for George Clooney. I highly recommend him as a temporary waiting companion.



*I'd really like to someday get to the bottom of this group trip/group living thing.
**A relatively rare intrusion of current events into my dream life.
***I've experienced this loose-teeth thing a lot in dreams before, although not for a while.
****What a charming thing to bring up with a very attractive celebrity: "Nice to meet you. I think my teeth are getting ready to fall out."

Hugely Embarrasing

ATTENTION: this dream contains several gross-out moments. I even considered not blogging this one, but we must be honest.

I dreamed that I was reporting to work at Whole Foods (no, I don't actually work there, but I've considered it). I needed to use the bathroom really badly, so I figured I'd go before my shift started. When I got to the bathroom, however, I discovered that it was more like a department store's dressing rooms, i.e. no toilets.

I really had to go at this point, so I figured (gross out moment #1) why not just go on the floor? I'll clean up afterward. Accordingly, I leaned against the wall in a corner and, um, went. This wasn't (gross out moment #2) just going "number one" either, if you get my drift.

So, now I had to clean up my mess. I found some paper towels and started to clean up, but I was keeping an eye on the clock, which was inching closer to 3 p.m., the time I was supposed to start work. At this point, the whole thing just got out of hand.

Every time I tried to initiate a part of the cleanup process, the mess spread to something else. I continued trying to clean up the floor with paper towels, but somehow, I managed to forget that I'd laid my keys and wallet on the floor nearby, and in my cleaning efforts, I'd managed to get the mess onto them. Then, in the course of cleaning other things, I forgot about the keys and put them into my pocket, which was gross.

At one point, I even managed to contaminate an enormous pile of fruits and vegetables: kale, bananas, carrots, apples, onions. I started trying to wash each one, but realized the futility of this effort. I ended up piling them into one of those coffin-sized rolling beer coolers to take care of later. The mess was all-encompassing and seemed to be expanding: all over the floor, the walls, and my hands, the pile of produce.

By this point, after piling the produce into the cooler, I realized that it was 3:08, which meant that I was late to work, but I still had to wash my hands.

I was so exhausted from worry and frantic (and futile) cleaning that I think I woke myself up at this point.

in which my subconscious's superego punishes my subconscious's id

The other night I dreamed that my husband had branched out at work into managing not just landscaping stuff but computer/software/marketing things. It wasn't clear how he had gotten this particular project, but it seemed like he had maybe taken it over from another manager who wasn't getting things done. He was excited about having such a big project; it was something for a huge, important company, and although I didn't really get what it was, it was something fundamental like managing orders or something. That's the boring part, though. The funny part was that he introduced me to the guy who was going to be his assistant in charge of all the computer aspects: it was Sam Worthington, in a wheelchair, no less. He was grinning affably and seemed about as happy about the job as my husband was.

Perhaps I was feeling guilty about my glee that the spouse had an attractive sidekick, but the next part of the dream was extremely unpleasant. We lived in an old fixer-upper house in the country (although not our real-life house). I was rooting around in a cluttered room trying to find something when I saw a flash of color. It turned out to be a black-white-yellow-and-red reptile. At first I thought it was a coral snake and went through the little ditty in my head ["red and black, friend of Jack; red and yellow, kill a fellow"] and was alarmed to see that the red stripe was right next to the yellow stripe. Then I noticed that it had legs and thus couldn't be a snake. I was still thoroughly freaked out, though, assuming that it was some kind of equally poisonous "coral lizard". I jumped up on a chair like the stereotypical woman-confronted-with-a-mouse and tried to figure out what to do. There were three big dictionaries within reach, so I figured I could try crushing it with those. I hurled the first one at it, but it landed an inch or so away from the offending beast, prompting it to scuttle away.

Knowing that the "coral lizard" was hidden somewhere in all the junk was even more alarming, and I had no idea what to do. I knew I had to find it and kill it so one of our dogs didn't stumble on it and die (not to mention the humans). Then I looked around (still standing on the chair) and noticed that there were all kinds of big, dangerous-looking scorpions* and other insects on the walls. The whole thing was rather creepy, especially with the added layer of guilt at lusting** after my husband's coworker.

*The scorpions on the walls of my house do have some basis in reality.
**Yet another illustration of how embarrassingly G-rated my dreams tend to be: said "lusting" was really just the idea that he was cute and it would be kind of fun to make small talk with him.

co-worker dream

In addition to a lot of other stuff that I can't remember, I dreamed that I was at a doctor's office for some minor ailment. They sent in a nurse for my preliminary check-up, and I guess she had looked at my employment information because she said--very excitedly--"you work with Such-and-Such Male, right?" I said yes, and then she asked, "has he been around lately?", to which I replied that he had. She said, "oh, because he hasn't returned any of my calls. I keep trying to get ahold of him and leaving messages, and I haven't heard anything back." At that point I thought maybe I shouldn't have said that he'd been around. She finished up her exam, and before she left said, very insistently and enthusiastically, "tell So-and-So that if he wants to get together and do anything, go out or anything, I'm totally up for it".

Poor thing.

I related it to the coworker in question this morning, and he asked if I had been withholding any messages from him.

Surprise Visit

I dreamed that I was at work, but was told that my coworker C was absent and that I'd have to do her job for the day. I was taken to sit at her desk and I was really irritated that I'd have to pretend I could do her job. I looked up at the clock and noticed it was only 2:30 pm, and I was a little huffy that I'd have to spend two more hours pretending that I knew what I was doing.

Then I went downstairs to the exhibit area. Apparently there was some kind of reception going on, with people standing around holding drinks and snack foods. Suddenly, Barack Obama showed up, and I seemed to be the only one who was surprised. He was wearing a very nice suit and a really great hat, a 1940s fedora, which actually looked a little too small for him. He was making the rounds, shaking hands, but I was too shy to push forward.

High School Flashback

I dreamed last night that I was at work on a normal day. As I was walking through the building, I noticed a girl that I'd gone to high school with (odd enough, since my entire workplace is ID-access only...no strangers CAN wander around). I recognized her at once because she looked exactly the same, but I pretended I didn't see her. Later that day, she cornered me and started quizzing me: "You're so familiar...don't I know you?" I said something non-committal and she recognized me. I had to pretend that I finally recognized her too.

Suddenly, I was in the position of dragging her all around, showing her the place, as she talked non-stop about high school and all the people we used to know. I asked her where she lived and she said, as though I should have known, "Dallas!"

At some point, the dream shifted to a performance in a big concert hall. It was a Christmas concert (undoubtedly influenced by the Christmas carols !!! playing in the car rental place yesterday). The hip-hop artist Jay Z performed Oh Holy Night. Everyone, including myself, was skeptical about his ability to actually sing, but he did quite a nice job. His performance combined this huge orchestra and choir with some really interesting electronically-modified sound effects, which came off quite nicely. I was very impressed. At the point in the song where it goes really high--oh niiiiiight di-VIIIIINNNEEEE--the orchestra and his pre-recorded soundsd created this whip-like effect that seemed to lash all around the room.

I walked up the long, sloping aisle to use the restroom, and came across my mom and grandma sitting on a park bench outside. At first I was going to avoid them, but I had to walk right past them. They were looking at a tree that was shedding thousands of tiny, white blossoms and petals, so that it looked like snow. I decided to joke around, and I started tossing the petals around and striking poses like a supermodel.

extreme changes of mood

I woke up in a great mood yesterday after dreaming several pleasant things (I don't think any of them involved Johnny Depp). The only thing I can really remember was that I had made a lot of headway on a freelance translation career and had been engaged to translate a real book, and a work of fiction at that! I was hopeful that this was going to be a launching pad for a specialization in translating fiction and that I would end up being one of those translators the merits of whose versions get debated in scholarly papers.

Last night's dream was awful. My husband and I had decided to take a little jaunt to Paris. I don't know where we were, but Paris was within driving distance. The only problem was that I wasn't dressed appropriately and couldn't figure out what to wear. I was very flustered and nothing was coming together, although I was pretty sure that my rose-colored turtleneck* needed to figure in somewhere. He got really annoyed really quickly and stormed out to drive away in the car because I was taking too long, ignoring my tearful entreaties to wait.

It turned out that he had only gone for a short drive because he was feeling antsy and didn't want to sit there while I had a closet meltdown, but it was still pretty harrowing. He came back after about 15 minutes, not mad at all, but I think I woke up before we could get to Paris.

*Notable because this is one of the very rare occasions when an item I actually own shows up in a getting-dressed dream.

More crying

I had a night full of nightmares last night. One involved someone following me through what was ostensibly my building at work, but was much larger and more echoey. I was walking as fast as I could without appearing to walk fast, but he just kept gaining on me. I hurried to open my locker (we have to leave our stuff in lockers at work) and as I was closing it, he was behind me. I just hissed "get away," and ran out the doors onto the steps, which were much longer than my real workplace. More like the US Capitol building. I was running down the stairs, hoping I wouldn't trip, but he was behind me.

The other nightmare was more definable. At one point, I was working in a store when guy came up asking for help. He placed his hands on the counter and leaned over to ask me. He told me he was Canadian, so I made some kind of inane joke, all while noticing that his fingers were blunt appendages with pale skin and a light coating of fur.

Later, I was sneaking into a movie late and there was some confrontation over the placement of my head. Apparently I was being difficult and placed my head directly in front of a woman's view. Every time she tried to move, I also moved. I didn't think I was being difficult.

Eventually, I ended up back at my apartment, where my boyfriend was frantically writing in the office (as he's been doing for the last week, working to a deadline). He was clearly angry with me, but I didn't know why. I noticed that the office was totally empty except for his desk, chair, and computer. The walls were bare, the rug was gone, and all of my stuff was missing. I was afraid to ask him about my stuff, but I was worried about it.

He snapped that he needed to reduce the distractions, so he threw away all of my stuff. He also managed to convey that I had done something really stupid and he was very angry at me. I couldn't understand what I'd done. I tried to ask him, but he just said he had to get his work done.

I went out into the hallway, but I didn't know what to do. I was very upset and was starting to cry. I kind of wanted him to hear me crying, so maybe he'd feel sorry about being angry with me. He came out of the office and started shouting at me that I was just pretending to cry, and that I was being distracting. This naturally made me cry harder, and I woke myself up by sobbing out loud.

My sweet boyfriend, who has never done anything like his dream self, was understandably freaked out.

miscellaneous husband dreams

I dreamed I was on some kind of group outing, and the female part of the group was supposed to all be getting haircuts. I was waiting around for mine when my phone rang. It was my husband, and he sounded extremely stressed and not like himself. After some digging to find out what was wrong, he said that he had gotten into an altercation with someone at work and ended up punching the guy. I was somewhat relieved, because he sounded so upset I was afraid it would be something much worse.

He was freaking out about losing his job and maybe even going to jail over this [apparently somewhat-merited] punch, but I was pretty calm about it. I tried to remind him that he had a very good record at work, that there had been witnesses to the situation, and that probably they would just discipline him somehow instead of firing him. I figured that we were going to have to hire a lawyer, though, and that we were probably in for a couple of years of expense and complications before the whole thing got ironed out.

Also on the subject of husband-related dreams, I dreamed the other night that he offered our larger, unrulier dog to my sister (who is not in the market for such a high-maintenance beast). She was interested, but then he started to have second thoughts and specified that he only wanted her to take the dog for a couple of years--until he [the dog] calmed down and got older and easier to deal with, basically. I told him that he couldn't just try to pawn his dog off on someone for his unruly years and want him back when he was better-behaved.