dance show

I was in a college town. It was dark overhead, i don't know if it was a huge overhead tent or stadium dome, or if it was night. I lived in a dorm or something with lots of other girls. I was getting ready to watch a show, and I pulled a gym mat up to the edge of the stage or arena and pushed the edge up. The proportions got wildly off so the matt was like ten feet thick and I was looking down onto the action. Some of my other girlfriends joined me--Rachel, Jen, Stephanie? We all wore dresses in pretty colors and patterns. I saw edges of the cloth overlapping--blue with a chain pattern, green with dots. I think Stephanie was wearing plaid (I had another dream with her a few nights ago where she was wearing a white turtleneck). We looked down onto the stage and I got so excited that I squirmed out and slid down the front of the mat to join the dancers on the floor. I had a headband that came loose and I just got rid of it. I danced and floated above the ground a little bit.

Puppet Ordeal; Sock Mess; Kiss Illusion

2/26/10

I was going to be sent to an ordeal. There was a row of marionettes with hatchets in a row like the trees in a yew alley, all about to chop me. I knew I could get through. I admired the workmanship and the effect of seeing them all lined up like that.

I was in a big dormitory at college or summer camp. Girls sat in three seat bleachers instead of beds. My little cube was full of colored wool socks that I was trying to organize but I didn't have quite enough room.

Slogging through the snow. I had to get back to my house. Once there, I realized a jilted lover, Jay, was there to menace me. He wanted some proof that I shouldn't be with him or didn't love him. I kissed him fiercely, knowing that soon I would have to fight him. I distracted him so the other women in the house could get out. I mocked him.

Model Failure; Violent Boyfriend; Ostrich Dance; Tintin Guys; Laundry

2/9/10

I was a model for my boss. She asked me if I would play the young ingenue character for fewer photos and less money, and I tried to convince her that I should be the older more sophisticated character. I pulled my hair up and gave her the profile. She was not convinced and I was annoyed.

One of my friends had a violent boyfriend. We were in high school or a carnival, somewhere really crowded. He pulled her long hair and she was frightened. We ran away deep into the school or plaza. We found a lot of people getting ready for a dance performance. There was a little kid in an ostrich costume doing a crazy dance and saying "I haaate feathers!"

I was on the top deck of a boat, or on a rooftop. There were a bunch of nerdy older guys with lots of facial hair wearing Tintin clothes or holding up a book of postcards. I impressed them with my Tintin knowledge.

A big glass room.

I was doing laundry. I recognized a lot of my real clothes, a silvery sweater, pink pajamas. As you did laundry a second tub filled on the floor and you took a bath at the same time. I had to duck under the water to wash my hair.

Walking Along The Highway; Garden; Get Out; Brownies; Bridge City

1/30/10

I'm a kid in my old neighborhood in VA. We're walking along the side of 123, a two lane semi-highway. The grass is long at the side of the road. Our parents told us to loop to the right around Kirby but I argue it's actually safer to go into our neighborhood. I turn and the gang of kids follows me. As we go down the steep hill, I see that everyone is dressed for Halloween, even though it's springtime and the middle of the day. I remember that Halloween was postponed last year after some disaster.

I get to my yard. My stepfather has changed the garden. He's extended the slate path all the way to the wild margin of the yard. He took out the circle of pachysandra and replaced it with huge flat sections of stone that rotate, like a mill stone. He's made a bench for my mother. I realize it's because my mother is very sick and she needs a smoother garden. I'm worried. We always assumed my stepfather would die first. Who will take care of him now?

I'm visiting friends of friends, a married couple, A and K. They have a huge, glamorous house. We're getting ready to go out. I go to the rest room and K follows me in, gabbing. I have trouble turning on the light. I can only get one little inadequate light to go on. K hands me a book with a interesting drawing of a topless devil woman on the cover. I would like to read it but she's still around. I finally kind of yell at her to get out.

Outside, I meet up with A and K and their gardener and my brother and his family. We somehow all pile into my mother's golden car. We're going to the movies. I section up a plate of brownies using a cardboard rectangle.

I meet with D, a nice girl I've been trying to befriend. We're in a golden city, canals and bridges and shops. It's late and we have to figure out how we're getting home but we also have to carry potted plants.

In a sort of fashion show. I'm wearing something elegant and I have to let people take my picture. Then I take pictures of another elegantly dressed girl. I think we're all taking turns with the camera.

Good, I remembered this one better. I wrote it down in detail right when I woke up. I remember reading that light is one of the hardest things to control in dreams and not being able to turn on a switch should be a cue to spark a lucid dream. Well, it didn't work last night and instead just irritated me.

I've been having a lot of dreams where I'm being thwarted in bathrooms too.

This was mostly a pleasant dream. I've been dreaming of beauty a lot lately. It's conspicuously absent from my life right now as the weather is so miserable and I spend a lot of time putting on three sweaters.

Pink Lingerie; Floating Old Ladies; Spoon Bouquet

1/28/10

I'm sifting through piles of luscious pale pink lingerie. It's more cotton than silk. There's a table just heaped with pieces. I can't always tell what kind of garments they are, like light sweaters or tights or what, but I'm very enthusiastic.

I'm in the ocean on a pretty morning or sunset. It's somewhere where wooded islands are dotting the water, like the Chesapeake Bay or the Folly Channel. There's a crowd of people floating in the water and from a boat some military gang is haranguing them. Then I'm in the water and I see everyone else is an elderly woman, with long silvery hair wet from the water. The military guy is saying everyone should have a crew cut. I point out that we could kick his ass even with long hair.

I'm running on a stretch of asphalt. It's like the loop in central park, torn up and scattered with flattened pieces of horse dung. I'm having trouble going as fast as I want and soon I'm running with my hands as well, scrambling up a steed slope and pulling out chunks of asphalt with my hands.

I'm washes dishes. There's a bunch of white plastic measuring spoons, many more than would be on a regular bunch. It looks like a bouquet.

I've gotten in the habit of just writing down little reminders in a notebook and planning to post later. The reminders are not enough. For this entry, I also put down the following: "All the men died--mourning--back acne" but now I have no idea what I was dreaming. I have to put down the whole description and mood otherwise stuff just disappears. If I describe it carefully I can remember it, but otherwise no. Kind of frustrating. Why does it require so much detail when something that happened in waking life would only need a few words to recall?

I seem to be having a lot of shopping dreams lately. They are usually both pleasurable and anxious. Might it have something to do with how I think of myself as looking? They are often very specific and sensual, with the pieces of cloth being the most vivid part of the dream.

Young Bartending; Drinking in the Bathroom; Shoe Puppets; Monster Slayer on the Train

1/25/20

At a small, chic bar, I'm surprised to see my friend D is bartending. He gets me a big drink and tells me that he's lucked into this job but hates it. He goes around, being a horrible bartender. He ignores people and gives them like his sock instead of a drink. One of his bosses says they admire his working through school. Without thinking I blurt that he's not in school, he's too old. But then I look at him again and he's become a pudgy, round-faced youth. I pull him aside and apologize and explain I might have blown his cover. I didn't realize he was here incognito.

Then I'm a waitress, on a ship or something. Or I've been mistaken for a waitress. I find myself trapped in a corner with some grouchy old ladies. One of them asks if I can take an order. I don't have a book of restaurant tickets, but I have my memo pad from the office, so I write down what she wants and scamper off.

I'm in a spacious, nicely decorated bathroom of a farmhouse in Rhode Isalnd. I'm with a guy I know and we're having plum wine or sake out of little ceramic cups. I'm either revving up for a date or trying to avoid one, I can't remember.

The bathroom opens out into a hallway which turns into a narrow, dark beach. There's a collection of old shoes. I take two thong sandals and draw little faces on them and put them on my hands. This is part of an old tradition of shoe puppets.

On a train, a young woman who is a monster slayer is putting together pieces of paper like a puzzle to show a copy of the tapestry that shows her killing a monster.

I feel like I had lots of disconnected dreams last night, which I usually don't. Maybe I wasn't sleeping well and kept waking up? The biggest impression I have from all the dreams was a sort of summery, rollicking feel to them, especially drinking in the bathroom.

Call; Pants; Hitler Mustache

1/23/10

Several dreams of calling up T and declaring love. Very centered around my actual shitty phone. The reception is weird. Switching back and forth from computer screen to phone. Vague communication but I'm determined to get through. He's surprised but takes it well. In the dream I'm not anxious but just sort of ready and feeling strong.

Towards the end of the night a clearer dream. I'm in college. I go from the hilly campus with a new girl friend, then we go second hand clothes shopping. There are gauzy curtains everywhere. I don't want anything for myself but when I get back to the dorm room I call the Conan O'Brien show and am put on the air. I offer to send Conan a pair of mint green checked pants I had seen there. He's playing it as a bit and I'm hilarious. I don't actually have the pants. I hang up and feel triumphant.

Some other people are around, baking. I sneak downstairs in the early morning to find my mother complaining that I want her to expand a dress I'd bought so my friend can fit into it. I refute this hotly. My stepfather has shaved his full Kenny Rogers beard into sort of a Hitler mustache and looks startled to see me speak so angrily.

Back upstairs I play trivia with some conservative old men and regale them with my knowledge about Gutsom Borglum.

About to call. Actually terrified.

Crotchless Garment; Monster Eggs; Art Party; Floating

1/20/10

I showed up to work even though I was sick. I crawled into a giant bed instead and slept while my boss went through papers. When she left I finally got some work done and took my lunch hour running up a grassy slope.

I saw a clip of a television show of Christina Aguilara on SNL wearing a crotchless outfit. I was a little shocked and then scolded myself for being prudish. I saw a preview for a movie about some monster that was like a big embryo. Then I was in a scene of it where there appeared to be fried eggs all over the lawn and people were debating whether we should eat them or not. On the one hand, we would turn into some kind of monster, but on the other we were really hungry.

There's a neighborhood party. It's in some weird combo of Brooklyn and Providence. I go with my Dad and meet up with my cousin and his family and my friend Eric who turns into my Dad. We go from a hip home where someone is making their own jewelery--with mosaics on the floor and tables--to an even hipper bar where people are assembling an installation they make every year. Some people are putting up a big wooden frame, and others are making little puppets out of gloves and mittens. I go to get chicken wings and my old roommate chides me for going off my vegetarian diet. I suspect there might be some cute men down the stairs, so I go down a spiralling, switchbacking staircase. It's hard to negotiate. I jump the last six feet and float silently to the ground. I'm very proud of my leaping abilities.

This was a disjointed but very emotionally vivid dream. I've been sick the last few days and probably not getting enough stimulation outside of potboiler novels (one ghost story, one crime/medical mystery) and watching movies (See No Evil, Hear No Evil and His Girl Friday).

The most disturbing part of the dream was the crotchless outfit. The best part was the floating down the stairs. I really should go to more parties with my Dad, he's very funny and gregarious.

White Jeans; Theater; Air Jordan; Dessert

1/18/10

I'm in school or in a fancy office. I'm wearing super pristine white jeans. I go out into the city on my lunch break and climb up onto a fire escape where some teenagers are putting up their manifesto in graffitti. One kid tells me "Stay in School!" and I say that I'm out of school, I'm thirty. The kid seems impressed and becomes my chum. Sort of without my noticing, he puts neon red, yellow and green graffitti lines all over the knees of my white jeans. I'm upset for a minute but secretly I think it looks cool.

Going back I get mixed up in a huge line, like airport security. I'm filling out a customs form and it looks like I'm going to China. The expiditer asks if there's anyone by the name of GG around. I remember just seeing my friend G and I ask for the ticket to give to her. They just give me the stub. They finally call me and I race in. My luggage has been put into a larger protective suitcase with wheels. Instead of going into a plane, I'm heading into an amphitheater. I think we're going to see a play about Tolstoy. But I lose my grip on the rolling suitcase and it goes down the slope of the risers and crashes into some other seats. There's an older woman there who hectors me and I'm rude to her. I ask a guard where I can put the external suitcase and she points me to a side room. I go in and sort out my stuff. There's a dizzying array of tiny tubes of toothpaste and junk and it takes forever. I'm just getting nervous about getting back to the theater/plane, when the side room pulls away--it's a shuttle bus taking me to air Jordan. I yell "Noooo!" several times but no one pays attention. I resign myself. We get to the destination--the Jordanian embassy. I meet a dignitary there who has a table laden with desserts. Tim shows up and gets cake. I get nothing.

I'm sick and hopped up on decongestant, so that might be what's going on with this dream. I slept freakishly late and kept waking up and dozing back asleep. Plus my housemate was practicing the drums, so I'm pretty sure that had something to do with a brief dancing section.

Jeans; Mystery: Nautical Symbols; Canal Village

1/15/10

Nick Cave and I break into someone's lovely apartment and fuck in a giant pile of blue jeans. There's a whole wall of them, sort of like a decorative tapestry. We try to get dressed again but there are heaps and heaps of clothes on the floor. I put on a shirt and just grab a pair of pants from the floor. The apartment is old-fashioned looking and pretty.

It's early in the morning and I have to get up. I stumble into the bathroom of the house in VA. I'm reading a mystery book I find there, a really lush high quality paperback by someone named Daevaid. He's a handsome British police commissioner. I can see through a window into my brother's bedroom. He's still in bed, so I guess he must be sick. The laptop is open on his desk and glowing. I tidy up the floor of the bathroom. There's Kleenex all over the floor and I realize I knew already my brother was sick.

My brother comes in but it's not him, it's the mysterious British guy from the book. He's dry and humorous and wearing a wool vest. I head downstairs. Our house is a private school or academic library. The downstairs is appointed with dark wood and rugs and there are long tables where students are eating. I'm waiting for the British guy, my favorite brother, when a young woman who is a student comes up with a question for me. She holds up a large piece of paper--maybe the size of a big menu. I open it up and see that it's full of cryptic writing. Splotchy writing and symbols. A lot of nautical symbols. Sharp crested waves and anchors. I get very excited as I realize I'm looking at a hand written draft of Moby Dick. I look around and see that lots of people have the symbols tattooed onto them. I look down and see that I have one too--waves on my wrist.

I go on a quest. I'm in a boat in a canal city like Venice, but it's really more of a small village. I keep a sharp lookout for the symbols and tattoos.

This was a very pretty, good humored dream. I'm impressed by the idea of space in it. In the bathroom in VA, the place where there was a window to see into my brother's room would actually open onto the room.

It's hard to read things in dreams. I was talking to my best friend later that day, who also had dreams where he had to read things and fill out forms, and then one of my clients (he just turned in a manuscript) said he had dreamed about getting notes from me but they were indecipherable because they were on faded 70s Polaroids. I was very pleased that I've gotten to the point with this client that we're talking about our dreams.

Spider Romance; Flying Skateboard

1/12/10

I was at a beach? Feet sinking in sand. Waiting for something.

At E's house. Her mom is around too. I drive to the strip mall, near the bagel shop. An order of two bagels costs $31 and I'm outraged. I go back to the house, realizing it doesn't make sense to go back to my car. My license is expired, anyway. I interrupt a therapy session E is having. There are potted plants everywhere. And frat boys. Some of them I know, they're pretty nice guys. One of them starts up an electronic Christmas globe. You have to peel back the rubber face of the figure in the globe to hit the switch on his eye. It starts into a musical about two spiders who fall in love which turns into like an urban romance sitcom. Then about Spiderman. Spiderman lets frat boys egg him on and he gives Mary Jane a flying skate board for herself. She floats to the ground and tosses her engagement ring up into the air. I wonder why they replaced Tobey Maguire with a fat guy with dreadlocks to play Peter Parker.

I go to some fancy store to buy corduroy pants. There are also gloves with cut out fingers. For guys, the gloves are just plastic tubes shaped like sharks.

This was a sketchy memory. I woke up really sleepy and kept hitting snooze. I didn't write it down in a notebook first. It wasn't a very satisfying dream. I spent a lot of it confused and irritated. In retrospect it was pretty funny but I didn't enjoy it at the time.

Chinese Class; Vampire House: Train: Costume Party

1/9/10

Chinese class. I'm sitting around a big table. Our Chinese teacher is actually Italian. I haven't studied and I don't know what section I'm supposed to be in. The teacher hands out pages from instruction manuals and magazines. We're supposed to look at pictures and the articles and tell stories about them in Chinese. I do a fumbling job. My article is about a country singer. I can remember how to say "She likes eggs" but I can't remember how to say "music". I see that my Chinese hostess mother is overwhelmed with big colorful rubber bands and I offer to take some back. She's delighted.

I'm in a big, stately house with garden elements, like the mezannine is a garden. There are zombies or vampires everywhere. It's supposed to be kind of humorous. We bury our Homer Simpsonesque dad. We brush the dirt back from his face so he can still talk to us and his long lips poke out above ground. I fight monsters off with a wooden flute or something. I wear a metal eye patch. Someone comes up with a plan to blow us all up when he becomes a vampire. To prepare for this, I collect some little wooden toys--like a rooster watch and a puppet of an animal playing the drums. I go to my room and offer to share it with another Vampire woman.

I'm trying to flee town on a train. I jump off the platform at the last minute and grab it. Then I realize I don't have a ticket or any money. The conductor comes by and I have to prove my identity. We stop at another station and I scramble to try to get a ticket but the train is leaving again. This time I have to outrun it and leap on. Other hobos are impressed. The conductor, who is the doorman Willy from my office, stands around boredly while I produce ticket stubs with mangled versions of my name on them. Finally he says my driver's license will do, so I show him that. He tells me the ball of brown yarn I have in my bag is dangerous.

It's a village wide festival of costumes. I walk past people dressed elaborately. There's a guy dancing in the river and I yell at him to keep dancing. I get to an old but pretty factory where a guy has set up a huge juice factory. Old machines are squeezing citrus and the juice rushes into a porcelain tank. He's also making opaque but beautiful juice out of pears. His role is as juice gangster.

What a beautiful, elaborate, exciting dream. The most fun was outrunning the train and jumping on it. The Chinese class was both a little anxious and a little fun. When I woke up I was pleased at myself for remembering so much Chinese even in my dream. The costume party was so fun and comradely. The juice factory was beautiful. I couldn't wait to drink the delicious juice.

A couple of things: I seem to dream an awful lot about putting on costumes or plays. It's interesting that when I was looking for someway to prove who I was, I couldn't find anything with my name on it correctly. There were a lot of botched variations.

Forest Band; Big Rabbits; Dust

1/8/10

I'm in a forest/living room with my buddy B. We're playing rock band. His tiny passive aggressive neighbor woman cmes over to complain. I sit down in the moss and look at maple trees. Two friends come by and ask what I've learned. I say glumly that I've learned C. I was playing key boards and hitting a button every time a tiny glowing blue C appeared. Then I make up for my slow learning by saying I can identify trees. Looking around, I see oak, maple, and sweet gum.

I'm in M's new book. I'm one of the young girls in the woods, playing pretend. This forest is very hilly. I go deeper into the woods and see huge rabbits playing on the hill. They laugh so hard that they fall over.

On Covey Island with my father and stepmother. I have a huge suitcase, and when I unpack it, the dark clothes are covered with light colored dust.

I'm driving a huge car.

Well, now it looks like the big car dream is at the end of the night.

I keep having these very beautiful, bucolic dreams. Odd since I live in the city. But I do go to Central Park every day. That's where I try to brainstorm about my writing. There's a a grove next to a bridge with a giant beech tree that's especially helpful.

No I Will Not Hang Out With You; Bug House; Censorship

1/7/10

I get into a van in a gravel parking lot

Going to the movies with my brother and my loathed ex, JM. JM is scruffy and pimpled. We go to lunch after and my brother discreetly finds another seat so I'm alone with JM who wants to spend more time with me.

Maybe the movie but then I'm in it--John Flansberg from TMBG is in a dangerous construction site. An old house all crushed in with pieces of broken timber poking out. I gingerly follow in. I soon realize that each little fallen in room is also full of huge, hairy, neon colored venomous insects. They are glossy and wet-looking too. I watch an ant-like creature the size of my hand slowly scramble out from other a piece of debris. I'm hesitant to cross the room at first but then I remember I've brought my toad. I take the toad out and he eats a path of insects for me so i can go through the room.

Putting on a play with kids about their ancestors. Someone goes through the library and picks out all the racist books. I'm sitting there, pulling up my shiny blue socks and drunk. I say that while racism is terrible, I'm against censorship.

I'm making furniture in an old house. There's a primitive iron chandelier and old carpets on the floor.

Video game of bowling or driving--the point seems to be knocking down things that look like long skinny traffic cones.

Okay, what the hell is going on with the first dream of the night being about getting into a van? That's always the part I remember least. But I've had three dreams this week about running away or traveling and two of them start with getting into a van in an empty outdoor lot.

Again with the young black kids putting on skits.

I loved the part of the dream with the toad. I was looking at the insects, thinking hey, normally I don't have a problem with bugs but these are gross, and then remembering the toad at the last minute. I was really pleased with myself for being prepared and very fond of my toad.

White Rose; School Theatricals; Shopping For Glass

1/6/10

Going on a trip. Bundling kids into a van

Visiting a boyfriend at the cafeteria of a big business or college. I don't recognize who the boyfriend was, but he was nerdy. We have lunch with two friends, British brothers named Tom and Sam who think I'm funny. Go back to bf's house and kiss but when it's time for sex I insist on a condom. He's holding a white rose. I'm not sure if the rose is intended for me or if he's in love with the rose himself. He refuses to have sex and I'm terribly upset. I go upstairs where he has a row of old boom boxes.

In a class. I look at an old picture of grade school. We're in a school theater--makeshift out of the cafeteria or something. Student groups present skits. They're wearing beautiful clothes from a costume box. Old tablecloths and curtains with beautiful patterns are folded into tunics and robes. I am watching myself in a skit. It's about a time traveling black kid.

I babysit my niece. She wants me to read Where The Wild Things Are.

I go to a big department store. It's like a cross between a sketchy discount store like Ocean State Job Lot and H&M or something. The front is a grocery store and I compare the price of broccoli raab. In the display is a tiny Christmas tree decorated with a sparkling boot. I wander into the clothing section and go to try on a blouse when I find I've taken off my pants. I manage to get them back on and abandon the clothes for a section of the store that's a junk shop. I find boxes full of bottles made of Roman glass and old boxes of film.

This dream had some anxiety but the colors and patterns were very beautiful. At the end, the Roman glass was the most spectacular. It's old glass that's semi-melted or something and has an iridescent sheen to it.

For some reason, when I dream of school, which I do a fair amount, the students are always middle school aged black kids. I used to teach at a non-profit and while my students were almost all black, they were my age.

Caper; Comedy; Ghost Eyes; Cab; Eagle Museum

1/5/10

I'm back in Virginia, getting ready for some important trip or mission. I can't remember what it was--I think I might have been getting ready to blow something up, or going on a tryst, or running away. Something that made me anxious but terribly excited. I filled my bag with socks, pastries, and juice. I had to talk normally and pretend to be asleep at points. A really delicious feeling.

At a summer camp. The director--my grandmother? Says that we should all come up with jokes. We all do and then she says the boys will go on stage at midnight. I'm kind of outraged that girls can't tell the jokes. I think about how hard it is to buck the system. We go across a Chinese lake in a boat. Another woman puts my hair up into cute buns on the top of my head and talks about her life in comedy.

We land and go to a big pavilion. The MC is all ready to introduce my old roommate H when some old guy with a blood pressure cuff on his arm takes the second mike. The MC starts nudging H off but she's not going without a fight. The MC and the old guy try to be conciliatory. "Do you want to go next?" they ask. "No!" says H. "Do you want a stick with a nail through it?" I ask. (Meaning like a weapon for H to attack the old guy with.) I think it's a hilarious joke but I don't know if anyone else hears.

Walking through the streets of New York. It's like that scene in Ghost when Whoopi Goldberg cashes the check and Patrick Swayze has to convince her to give it to nuns. She's upset. I can't tell where I am in this dream. And then I see that Whoopi is dead too, her head is a skull. Everyone is dead. Everyone has a gauze patch over their right eye. I ask someone why and they say it's just something pleasant when you're dead. I don't know if this means it enhances vision for dead people, or it keeps us from having to look at their eyes. Why just the right one? I also see a man with an incredibly long thin nose. It looks like an insect antenna.

We climb into a cab, my companion reassuring me the living will never notice. But everyone notices us right away. We drive through the city to a newly restored Greek temple/museum. O says he's excited about seeing a play there soon. I counter with some other fancy play. The cab driver, a feisty woman, drives the cab right up the front of the building, bumping against the columns and ridges. It's fun and hilarious. We all overtip the driver and she tells us she'll drive us anytime.

We go into the temple/museum. The old guy from the comedy show is there. We walk through halls and there are rooms where there are "eagles". They're really beautiful young men with wings. One of them sees the crowd of tourists coming and shuts his door. I think of it as being in the zoo and the lion goes into his cave. I'm disappointed but not resentful.

I remember a lot of detail from that first part of the dream, like the flaky pastries I packed and sorting through the laundry in the basement. It was a very realistic version of my home back in VA. I wish I could remember what was going on. I think it might have to do with my memory of going to the inauguration a year ago. Lots of my friends came down from NY and spent the night. We all got up super early and my mother packed us tangerines and Kleenex and hand warmers. My mother is the best. There was that same caperish feel in the air. But in the dream, I was doing it secretly, which made it even more delicious. What was it?

I really liked the summer camp/ghost town/museum sequence. I liked the feeling of defiance at the comedy show. The cab ride was hysterical. The eyes with gauze on them feel like they should mean something but I don't know what.

Etiquette Class; The Flood

1/2/09

My mother was telling stories about when I was younger and I was both listening to her tell them and in little vignettes of the stories. In one of them, I was five years old and sent to see my mother's best friend. In another, I was in an etiquette class, wearing a skirt suit and cotton gloves. I sat in a row with other women. The instructor told us how to sit with our legs crossed all at the same angle, and hold our arms in front of us so we could sit closer. I kept getting wedged out of place by the other women.

My family got ready for a flood. I pulled my car up to the top of a hill. My mother didn't want me going out alone but when the flood hit I went around the neighborhoods. I saved a tiny girl--she was really tiny, the size of a doll. I wrapped her up in my sock and fixed the tiny toy boat she was floating in. She told me how to find her family, who were grateful.

Strange Mop; Cucumber Plant; Sweeping Up Cool Stuff

12/28/09

One of my first dreams that featured 3. I don't remember much but he was there.

Also a dream about TB, the first in a long time. I wanted to see him of course but I didn't feel desperate. In an empty high school? Talking about music.

I'm in a high school auditorium and we're putting on a show. I'm sitting near the middle while everyone is gathered around front as the director explains what's going on. I'm sort of the jack of all work for the show. I make suggestions on the script, help find costumes, and wrangle with the director when he tries to foist a fancy new mop on the janitor. The mop is a gray loop of cloth suspended over the stage. I become the janitor and insist on sleeping on the floor.

I'm in Providence or DC or Canada, somewhere associated with my dad. A neighbor has grown a cucumber plant that goes all the way across the sidewalk. My brother and I go around it, but then someone just cuts it out of the way. I'm sweeping and there's lots of weird crud on the ground. Lots of summer dresses and blocks of cheese and things I have to keep rescuing.

This wasn't an especially interesting dream, and it was sort of low key anxious, like I had chores to do that weren't getting done. Which doesn't actually make me anxious in waking life. Conversely, in the dream I was seeing two men who interest me and/or freak me out and while I was glad and a little sad in the dream, the emotions were vey tamped down.

Scheming Wife; Fashion Sucks; Mouse Movies

12/22/09

The dream was like a movie. It was about a successful business guy at a garden party who little knew his wife and architecture partner had been getting together for four years. They talked on the phone and the wife and partner made a plan to get rid of the husband. It backfired somehow and instead Danny Devito gets buried in an open grave but he popped up and the police took him in to a doctor, who said he was in great shape. Danny Devito did a bunch of bench presses to show how healthy he was.

In a college class on fashion. We also had to read a manuscript at work that was accompanied by a glossy magazine of the heroine dressed up in hundreds of different magazines. The novel was unbearable.

Back to the movies. I watched an amazing three dimensional preview from a mouse's point of view. Giant looming plants and food. Everything was lush and beautifully colored.

H's New Acting Career; Towels; Nap Victory

H. wondered if she should quit her job acting in a sopa opera and take a more fulfilling role, but she was worried if she could go back if it flopped. I offered her a place to crash. I was the landlady of a big rambling house.

I was doing laundry and forgot to put money in the dryer. The towels came out just cold at first, but then a little damp and finally sopping wet as I realized my mistake.

While visiting my brother and sister in law, S&E, I took a nap. The bed is surrounded by pictures of my niece, Little S. My stepmother L came to wake me gently. I didn't want to get up so she climbed in bed with me.

In the kitchen in Virginia, S, my stepfather T and I are eating something rich and delicious--chestnuts? Truffles?

Parkling lot? Road Trip?

H. is my old college roommate. She actually is an actress and she herself is the landlady (or super?) of a building her folks own.

Lots of step parents in this sequence. My parents were both remarried by the time I was ten and I get along with S and T quite well.

I remember the sections with the towels and then napping the best. The towel dream was exasperating but beautifully detailed. My towels were very realistic. I recently bought white and blue towels and the colors are still very bright and I'm kind of proud of them. The nap dream was superb. I was in a cozy cave of a room in a small child's bed and my stepmother, who can be a little bossy, was very sweet and gentle in the dream and I was pleased I could get her to cave and take a nap too rather than make me get up.