Secret Admirer

I was in a suite on the top floor of a fancy hotel. I'd just gotten out of the shower and was in a white bathrobe and towel when there came a knock at my door. It was a little boy, about three years old, who handed me a note. I took it, thanking him, and remembering that "this had been happening all night." That is, little kids were delivering notes to all the hotel guests all night and this was the third one I'd received.

As the boy turned to leave, I realized that I recognized him. "Hey, are you Reginald?" I asked. He looked back at me and his clothes transformed from regular clothes to a plaid short-pants outfit and he said "yeah." I knew him from this website. If you ever want to know what's funny in life, check that link.

After Reginald left, I opened the note. It was from a secret admirer. It told me to open my door at 8:00 pm and follow the trail. The trail would be made out of "gruyère cheese pieces, each topped with a savory onion ring" (word for word, what I remember), and that there would be nine of them leading me to my secret admirer. The note was typed in a pretty, swirly font, but somebody had crossed out "8:00 pm" and written, in sloppy handwriting and with a pen that was clearly running out of ink, "ten after 9:00."

I was excited for a little while until I realized it might be this one particular ex-boyfriend of mine, who I would never ever want to get back together with. I got all nervous and started practicing how to "let him down easy."

two dreams courtesy of valarian root.

Every Time:

we were at my co-worker Breena's apartment which had about 6 inches of water on the floor continually and there were a lot of dolls floating in the water. So she had just come home and cortney (coworker) and i were there and Breena was really upset when she came home I could see that sh had been crying and so cort and i were trying to make her feel better and finally Breena started crying and she said

"i am upset because i am going to get a negative comment on the NESCO blog!" (our work blog)

And both cort and I were like,
"its ok breena, you can't please everyone. you do the best you can"
"Cheryl (boss) will be on your side"

and Breena got real upset and said

" I just wish I had called her back sooner, and got her a volunteer quicker and I WISH THAT I HAD FLUSHED THE TOILET EVERY TIME!!"

Sign My Book!

I was in a bed in a radio studio and James Kockalka (an awesome cartoonist) was there at the radio studio for an interview. I was just going to lay in the bed while he did the interview and listen. I noticed that he seemed to be REALLY skinny and his head was really too small for his body. He had this real high and femmy voice, that was distinctly male but really high. Best described as a wiener voice. And I thought "how can Amy (his wife) stand that voice".

SO after the interview I ask him to sign my copy of his American Elf comic diary. So I watch him sign it. And he signs it "From Alex" I was confused. THEN he writes "Gwen you are a total Cathy."......... and i know he means Cathy from Cathy comics.

top model

i dreamt that it was 90s MTV and i was in "america's next top model". i was really pretty and even skinnier than i am and i was really good at doing makeup and there wasn't a lot in the dream about actual modeling, just getting dressed and doing makeup. my hair always did what i wanted it to and i was pretty sure i was gonna win. *sigh*

Polly Wolly Doodle

I dreamed that it was Layla's wedding day, and I was supposed to play piano during the service. Layla had previously asked me to play five songs - I can see the way they were listed on the program, numbered with roman numerals. The first song was "Here Comes the Bride," the second was some folk song that I think maybe was "Polly Wolly Doodle," and the third was a Bach Prelude (for those of you who are curious, it's the Prelude in C Major, the one that's played under the Ave Maria).

The "church" looked more like a community center with long rows of pews. There was brown carpeting and some bulletin boards along the walls. It was noisy and unorganized, and people were walking around, even when the wedding technically started. Layla had told me to find a woman who would give me the piano music that I was supposed to play. She was late, but she eventually found me and handed me a thick folder. I opened it, expecting to find sheet music, but instead, found a huge stack of children's artwork. There were large piece of felt covered in glitter and glue, all in red and yellow and other bright colors. No music to be found...

I stopped Layla right before the wedding was about to begin and said "This is just the rehearsal, right?" She replied "No, this is the real thing." I instantly got worried and said to her "You didn't even invite my parents!" She assured me that it would be fine, and the wedding began, amidst the people milling about and the background noise. I had a very hard time doing Polly Wolly Doodle by ear - I kept messing up the left hand chords, but I did okay with the melody in the right hand.

no brakes

i dreamt that i had two VWs. one blue and one green. the blue one's brakes didn't work. they slowed the car, but wouldn't stop it all the way. so it got it towed to the repair shop. the mechanic was really hot and we flirted and went to his bedroom to do things. he stuck his dirty fingers in my vagina and then didn't want to fuck and he called me a whore. i got pissed and i was like, "if i'm a whore, pay me then!" and he wouldn't. 

later, i was waiting for my car to get fixed and they weren't doing it, so i did it myself. for some reason i knew how to fix cars. 

later, devin and alix were here to visit and they had the most beautiful baby i'd ever seen. i was like "can i have it?" and alix said, "yes. we'll give you a two day trial period, and if you're good at it, you can keep it." so i took care of it. it was way too heavy for me to lift even though it was a baby. it took all my strength to pick it up. it sucked, but i loved it and did my best. i kept on losing it though. i would wake up, not having realized i fell asleep in the first place and it'd be gone. i would search and find it and it'd happen again. sometimes the baby was a bird and sometimes it was a cat and sometimes a human. 

then later i realized that i had my shirts on in the wrong order. i was trying to take the bottom one off without taking the top one off and i got all tangled up. i was going about my day, trying to fix these shirts. it was frustrating and shitty, but it was the most important thing in the world for me to get these shirts right and not let it get in the way of my day.  then my pants would be off and all tangled and then i'd realize i had the wrong shoes on and on and on.

nightmare

i dreamt that i was at a dinner with my mom, my sister and my cousin. my mom was nagging and picking on me. i was getting fed up and i told her to stop. she didn't stop, so i walked out and she followed me and continued to say rude things to me. i told her that if she takes another step i'm going to get violent. she took another step and i attacked her. she blocked my punches and held my fists. i kicked her in the stomach and she vomited enormous amounts of wine and dinner. it was ten times more barf than anyone could actually barf. i felt guilty and also satisfied with what i had done. 

i woke up after that and it was 2am. i was sweating and my heart was pounding. i got up and smoked a cigarette and peed. i was afraid to fall back asleep because i didn't want to dream something like that again. eventually i fell back asleep and the rest of the night was fine.

i can't remember what she actually said in the dream. i know they were totally out of line and pushing my buttons. 

japanese amusement

so i was in japan with devin. we went to the same amusement park every day. we felt kinda guilty that we were doing the same thing ever day, but it was so much fun! 

it was a 10 story building. every floor had many rooms, full of fun things to do: movies, bands playing, etc. so you'd go through the floor, do some fun stuff, then go on to the next floor, do some more stuff and when you got to the top, you'd jump off the roof into a pool, and start over. eventually we were just going up the stairs and jumping off into the pool over and over. it was sooooo fun!!!

the bands were bands i've never heard of, and the movies were one's i've never seen, but in the dream i heard the music and watched the movies. does that mean i was writing music and movies in my brain? i always wonder that. 

Eyebrow Superstore

I dreamed I was at an airport. Once I was through security, I started running, but then realized I had plenty of time. I started browsing, noting that "the bagel place" was now called "Christie's" and it was a fancy-shmancy lunch place with giant glass windows.

I walked past a giant store called Eyebrow Superstore. Now, being one to grasp any opportunity for a quick "gettin' my eyebrows did" moment, I walked inside the store. There were about five separate "pedicure stations" (all of these things had names in my head - not sure what they were or meant though), each of which was filled with really awful people - all impolite and bossy and snotty. I got out of there quickly. I headed towards the "retail area" which I assumed was where I could get my eyebrows did, and saw a giant shelf with hundred of pristine white boxes with black block lettering that spelled "Laser Eyebrow Removal."

"This isn't what I signed up for!" I thought to myself. I didn't want laser eyebrow removal - just a simple wax or something! I tried to get out of there, fast, but every which way I turned, I encountered either more "pedicure stations" or people in white lab coats, holding samples of something.

The dream ended there.

Unresolved Adolesence

I can't remember too much but I do remember:

Everyone in my high school orchestra hated me (sucky!)

But the cast from "Popular" was there (cool!)

And I could skateboard! (totally cool!)

Last night I dreamt that i was in the second grade again, but i was 24, like i am now. I was friends with this one kid who was awesome, and we'd do "bad" things together. I acted all like i was a second grader for fun. Then one day i was trying to convince everyone that i was 24 and should not, in fact, be in the second grade. No one believed me. 

Later, at lunch time, someone stole my laptop. The thief replaced it with their laptop, which was a 10 year old piece of junk. I was ENRAGED and called 911 to report it, expecting a Law & Order style investigation. The person who answered my call only spoke spanish and couldn't understand me. 

Kristi the Gem Poached Eggs for Me, the Jerk

I had this long involved and hilarious dream last night but I'm struggling to remember more than this one piece. In the piece I remember I was kind of a jerk I'm embarrassed and pretty amused to say. I called my friend Kristi - who with her lovely hubby threw a fabulous Dirty Santa party last night - and demanded that she cook eggs for all the party guests on the following morning to help with our hangovers. Kristi, being the gem she is, agreed and then we were all back at their house sitting on bar stools waiting impatiently for Kristi to make us eggs.

And as if I hadn't been enough of brat, I then insist that Kristi poach the eggs because "it is SOOO much healthier that way". So dear Kristi starts poaching eggs, one by one in boiling water. She carefully lifts the wobbly eggs out from the water and lays them on a porcelain white platter.

And that's all I can remember at this moment other than at one point we were all at Manuel's Tavern (a political mainstay in Atlanta) and my sister lobbyist friend Shelley and I escape from a creepy legislator via an elevator that has no walls, the carpeted floor just starts falling or rising.

Frog guts and dangling mama.

This dream was presented almost as a news-story ala Dateline or 20/20, but with much darker lighting. The story was about this Ivy League school system for middle school students, and about the rampant "gang" activity that occurred there. These gangs were really just clusters of three or four bigger, older students, who would pressure all new students to choose a side, and then beat up anyone who was not on their side. Not choosing a side and remaining neutral was not an option, for as one gang-member girl said, "If you're not on our side then it means you could be on anyone else's side." There was a small gang of about three teenage guys who were threatening a new student with a rock. If he didn't choose their gang they would beat him with this rock. "If I choose your side, will you have my back?" the boy asked, and they said they would. So the boy chose their side. We follow them into this house where there is another boy who is somehow involved with the gangs. He has been poisoned and starved (but for some reason we don't feel sympathy for him) and he is kind of doubled over and retching. Eventually he throws up, but since he's been starved he throws up his entire stomach, as in, the organ. At the time of this happening, my dream turned this boy into a frog, and there was a graphic little picture of a squished dead frog with his tiny frog stomach hanging out of his mouth. At this point I was actually present in the space and time of this boy's death (no longer watching as if on the news) and I rushed out of the house along with a group of people, I think other students. As we were leaving the house there was a man and woman who had parked their car and were approaching the house, unaware that this boy, their son, had just died. One of the students I was with announced dispassionately to them, "Eric is dead," like she was reporting the weather, and walked on. I didn't see how the parents reacted but I felt really shocked that this was treated so commonplace. I continued rushing into the parking lot and the group I was with became my family, and we were planning to go to a restaurant for dinner. We split up into two separate cars, so that my mom would drive her car and the rest of the family would drive in the van. We all climbed in the van and even our dog was curled up in the back seat. We were just about to pull out of the parking lot when my mom came over to tell us something. She leaned in through the side window to talk to us but my dad, unaware she was doing this, began driving away. My mom hung on tight and we zipped down the road with the lower half of my mom's body dangling out the side of the van, not dragging on the ground but just flying there in the air. She was laughing and we all thought it was silly, except for one lady who we passed on the sidewalk. She gave us a disapproving look and kind of killed our fun.


(Hi, I'm a new contributor... this is fun!)

Proving Ourselves

So in my dream, I'm a kid, but also my present age, and I'm with my immediate and extended family at "an old friend's house." In real life, I feel like it was my parents very old friends, the Kumars (Dr. Kumar sold my parents their first house for a buck or something and their son was a county supervisor here in Madison until last year). But the family we were visiting did not look like the Kumars. They were Indian, however. Just a different family.

There were two men in their twenties and one who was a teenager, maybe about 13 or 14 (the sons of the family we were visiting). While our parents sat in the dining room talking, the older sons came into the side room of the house where my siblings and cousins and myself were. The two men were holding machine guns and had bandanas around their heads that looked curiously like what Ralph Macchio wore in the The Karate Kid.

The two men announced that we were about to play a game to "prove ourselves." They headed out to the giant, dark backyard, guns in hand, and we all kind of looked at each other. Their younger brother got ready to go meet them, and we all knew he was about to get shot because nobody was as good at the game as the older brothers were. He looked devastated and full of dread as he slowly walked outside.

My siblings and cousins and I sat around, half watching television and half talking about why we shouldn't have to participate in this game. We kept saying things like "Isn't it time to leave anyhow?" And "We should check with the parents to see if we can get a ride home." We knew our turn was coming though.

At some point, one of the older men brought my friend D into the room and held him up against a dark green door. He used some thing on him that looked like it shocked him, and then something else that looked like a nail gun. He put the nail gun right up to D's chest and shot it. We knew D wasn't hurt or dead - he had just lost the game.

Finally we went into the room where all the parents were, which was bright and pink and yellow, full of cakes that were pink and white. The carpeting was yellow too. "Why didn't you guys get dessert?" my mom asked?

Then we left.

Silver or White or Burning

It's not really a recurring dream, but I often dream about my hair. I don't know if its because my hair is currently having an identity crisis and changes color literally every time I wash it, or because my hair is important to me, or maybe because I could be anywhere from vain to losing self-esteem to organized to sexually curious. Check that link - it's funny. Anyhow, I probably dream about my hair once or twice a week.

Last night, I dreamed that I was blow drying my hair in my parents' bathroom and the hair dryer kept slowly dying. I'd hit the button that said "Extra Surge Power" or something, and there would be a little surge, but then it kept dying out. I looked in the mirror and noticed that the sides of my hair were a white/silvery color. In my head, my hair was "Ice." Ice didn't mean actual ice, though, it was just what my hair was, and the color it was. Once it was "Ice," then my hair turned into a cool light/pale blue and I remember not being able to tell if it was closer to "silver or white or burning." That's what I thought in the dream.

Cardinal in the Kitchen

I was in the kitchen at my parent's house. My mom was there, cooking dinner. I realized there was a bird inside the house, which is something I'm terrified of (bats and birds alike...flying things indoors = BAD NEWS to me). It looked like a gray bird with red specks...maybe a female cardinal. It flew back and forth across the room. I was really upset and nervous.

My mother tried to calm me down. She opened the sliding glass door and told me to try and get the bird to fly over that way. The bird flew right towards me and I put my hand up, thinking I could somehow guide it towards the door. Instead, I accidentally swatted it. It fell to the ground and I sort of screamed. I looked at it - it was a male cardinal now, and about 8 inches tall. One leg was extended and it's wings were spread. It was, like every other effing animal dream I have, frozen still as if it were a stuffed bird (see here, here, and here).

Mom moved a shear white curtain away from the door and the bird's wings fluttered slightly, then it quickly made it's way out the door.

barack your moves

i decided to start throwing dance parties around town, much like indie-queer. not like indie-queer in the sense of being linked to the glbtqwxyz crowd...but in the way that they host their dance parties around town at different venues and throw a few each month or so, rather than owning a venue and booking/creating theirr own parties/bands/etc. so basically i was some social diva in town thinking i could upstart something rad. there had to be a theme, of course. so the theme was barack obama dance parties, playing only barack obama songs. whatever that is. i only thought of two: the "yes we can" song and "it's a new day" both by will.i.am. i guess there's obama-girl but she didn't enter my dream. my first dance party would be at monona terrace.

later i remember a totally different scene where a coworker of mine said she was moving back to india but didn't want anyone to know because they would think she was stupid for it. i was sad because i would miss her. i'm selfish like that.

HIV+

Last night I had a dream that a friend of mine found out she was HIV+. For some reason we were still in high school and people were being mean to her because of her status. I was very upset at people's prejudice, more so than the actual disease. We decided to educate people on the realities of the disease, versus the stereotypes.

Then it turned out that I was at a university and I kept sleeping through work and forgetting to replies to emails.

Then in real life I woke up late for work.

Coca Cola Contacts

I dreamed I had taken out my contacts because they had makeup all over them - I'd previously done it up for the sexy party I'd been at earlier that night. I put each contact lens in separate plastic cups. Lynn watched, saying "This is a great idea, Reem." I then proceeded to pour, from a can, Coca Cola into each glass. I filled the one with the right contact up almost to the brim. The other one, only about a third of the way.

As soon as I finished pouring, I realized what I'd done. "Shit, Lynn, what the hell was that?" I asked. She just laughed.

Later I discussed the positive aspects of going through people's backyard to get places, as opposed to sticking to the main streets, and Emil and I did homework and filled backpacks with looseleaf paper. And my parents had a billion guests at their house, and we kept having to clean up really fast.

Married to Myself

I had a really weird, long, kind of depressing dream last night. I dreamed that it was the day before and the day of my wedding day. The day before, I was at the mall with Sara and Emil, and different people kept appearing and helping in preparation for the big day. Here are some of the things that happened:

-Mom gave me a little cup in which I was to provide a urine sample. "I just peed four times in the last hour, Mom!" I exclaimed. "Why couldn't you have asked me earlier?"

-Lauren O'Flynn showed up to help Sara make all the beds, at my parents house and at the mall

-I went to a wine store and bought two bottles of wine (one "cherry" and one "sweet apple") only so that I could use their bathroom, but then I was carrying too many bottles to actually use the bathroom.

-I had to go to the second floor of the mall to find a specific painting

-There was no parking, and I had to run through the parking lot for a long time in silver glittery high heels that look like a headband I have

Throughout all the adventures, I was really excited about getting married, but then I realized...I had no idea who I was getting married to! It wasn't until cousin Layla whispered to me "I'd be too embarrassed to do what you're doing...all those big moments!" that I realized I was going to marry myself. All of a sudden, anxious thoughts regarding those "big moments" flooded my brain. Who is my first dance going to be with? Who's going to stand up in front of all those people with me? Who am I going to cheers my champagne with?

That's when it got really sad and depressing, especially since, earlier yesterday, in real life, Sara and I had been talking about sad things like being alone and not having people around and all that. The idea of marrying myself really made my heart sink in my dream. Ugh.

One hilarious part was that I had laid out my entire outfit, which consisted of the following:

-white tights
-a really ugly white bra that totally didn't look big enough
-boring white underwear that I usually wouldn't even wear on laundry day
-a white men's undershirt
-a black half-slip
-a white wedding dress that's skirt was the same as my awesome purple skirt (that I wore on the last 2 Halloweens), all ruffles
-the silver glittery high heels

I was pretty concerned about the black slip...I thought it might show through and that, for some reason, people would judge. Jerks!

Also, there was yet another bathroom moment where I was in the bathroom in my parents' house, the one near the kitchen, and I could hear my sister was telling my father that he should have shopped for my wedding gift earlier and I was trying to pee (have you all guessed by now that I had to pee in real life?) and I was holding my dress up, all bustle-y and ruffle-y, trying not to let it get in the toilet.

This dream seemed to last all night. I woke up sad and exhausted. Yuck. If I ever say I'm going to marry myself, please stop me.

Barak Obama Sex Dream

I couldn't bring myself to write about this before, but now it just seems funny and isn't as saturated with real emotion as it was originally.

Barak Obama and I were boyfriend/girlfriend. He and I were very into each other, and we were always holding hands or kissing. We had sex in my parent's back porch, which is kind of a dirty place where they keep the dogs, but it was awesome. He was really supportive emotionally, and I remember grabbing his ears a lot.

But when I woke up from that dream, the emotions were so real, it was like I was really in love with Barak Obama, and I couldn't write about it.

Geesus. He must've run a magical freakin' campaign to make people have sex dreams about him.

63 Bus

I can only assume this is an anxiety dream about my first trip to a psychologist today.

I drempt I was in my home town, in Connecticut. I stepped outside of my house and walked to the end of the driveway by the mailbox. I stood there and saw that the 7 bus was coming (one of the buses I have to take today to get to my appointment). I got on and it was crowded. As I sat down in the front row I looked back and saw my mom and my sister, Victoria sitting on the bus with me. They smiled and waved and I smiled back. I assumed that Victoria had run to the previous stop to catch it before me. We drove around and finally we were at the Capital in Madison where I have to make my transfer. I jumped off and saw the 63 bus speed away. I ran to catch it and then it flipped over as it made its turn down one of the roads. Victoria caught up with me and said "God, aren't you so happy we weren't on that bus?" I ran up to it, worried about the passengers on it. It was on its side and one of the passengers came out and said "Help me lift the bus! There are three kids under here!" So along with a bunch of other people we lifted up the bus and a few kids were under some rubble. But they were ok. And I woke up.

Sex with Satan

I had a dream that I had sex with Satan.

I'm not even kidding. Unfortunately, I can't remember the details except he looked some some regular old dude.

I woke up and told my real-life lover about this, and she said, "Perhaps you've been watching a little too much "Pick of Destiny." Touche!

Thanksgiving Miracle

I'm in some sort of Thanksgiving Class, making an oral presentation about something. I'm not sure exactly what I said, but I know it had to do with John Redcorn from King of the Hill (which I watched right before bed), and about how the white man stole his land. Also, I recited a lot of recipes. I did it in a real sing-songy voice.

Then I realized we were supposed to have made posters. Shit. I thought it was just oral (hahaha oral). The person in front of me, Kyle, got up and presented his shitty ass poster that was a crumply piece of orange posterboard that had been dropped in the mud or something. On it were The Far Side comics - they looked like they'd been ripped out of a daily calendar or something. His presentation ended up being really good and informative, however, and what made it the greatest was that he spoke in a baby voice (a la Jack Black in the Sasquatch scene of The Pick of Destiny) and finished with the wonderful sentence of "And that, folks, is what I'd like to learn in my life."

Later, I dropped my car keys on the floor of my bedroom at my parents' house and they whirled around on the floor like a crazy mouse, running in circles and under the bed and back around. They kept going near drains and vents and stuff they could fall through, and I had to fold up the end of my bed and move it to the other side of the room. I chased them for what seemed like forever, not being able to catch up with them at all. I was so mad for most of it until all of a sudden I started laughing really hard. "These are my keys!" I exclaimed, laughing. The they were all of a sudden sitting on the table next to the door. I grabbed them, stuck my arm out the front door, locked my car, and went back to my bedroom.

Okay, here is a video of the scene from The Pick of Destiny. You should really watch it. The baby talk voice part is right at about 1:34.

Not a Dream...

Okay, so this is not a dream, but I want to share what was in my head when I woke up this morning. It was my voice, saying to somebody:

I've had enough of your Farrah Fawcett hair and dead eyes!

What the hell?? I wish I remembered what I was dreaming!

rental property intrusion

my hub and i saw this huge, beautiful, old, brick, warehousey, industrial, yet refurbished apartment building. it was for sale but we did not have an appointment with our realtor for an official showing. i wanted to see it so badly at that very moment so i began climbing some wooden structure attached to the outside. i found a way into the building and saw that there were about 7 apartments and the hallway was vaulted, so i could see down a few stories to a lobby where some hipster guy was at a desk. i worried that he'd see me in the building. i came upon a tenant who invited me into her place. she also gave me keys to another apartment so i could sneak in. i left her place and suddenly felt really paranoid about breaking in, realizing i could be charged with attempted something-rather. i thought, not only could i ruin my reputation in the income property world, but also i could lose my day job if i was charged with a crime. i had to be really stealthy about my next move, as i was in the building, unauthorized, and could still get caught. i hemmed and hawed about going back to give the girl the keys she gave me, as giving them to her would be evidence that i had someone else's keys (?). i reluctantly decided to go back to her apartment and hope for the best. i gave her the keys and a pair of baby shoes from her apartment but then took the baby shoes back and told her that, no, those actually weren't hers. for some reason i thought that the baby shoes would be solid proof of my crimes. i knew it was flakey to give them to her, acknowledging that they were hers, and then take them and backpedal on my story, but she didn't question it.

when i somewhat-awoke, i felt relief to realize that this was only a dream and that i was not truly in any criminal trouble.

Green Beans in my Purse

I am in the cafeteria across from the Capitol where we eat every day during the legislative session. The line is super long and when I finally get to the front I realize that the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections (basically the head of all the prisons in Georgia) is working at the food booth as part of this "giving back for the holidays" program. He is wearing one of those puffy white chef hats, a Bill Cosby sweater (probably because he's always reminded me of BC is real life) and an exasperated expression.

When I get up to place my order he says to me, "Sara, please just take this broccoli pizza I accidentally made, I'm so behind with the orders." I agree, I'll eat the shit out of some broccoli pizza! When I get to the part of the line where I am served my food I am handed green beans with an Asian, sesame sauce in a wax paper bag - like the kind french-fries usually come in. I like those too so hey, no problem.

A little while later I am outside and ready to eat. I look in my purse and it seems I put the green beans in there. They spilled all over everything and the inside of my bag is covered in sesame sauce. Its a big mess but boy it smells great.

How to make Pumpkin Pie

I had a dream that it was Thanksgiving Day and I needed to make a pumpkin pie. I was stressed out because I had never made one before and didn't know the ingredients. I went to my pantry and grabbed a bag of egg noodles and flipped it over to the back. The directions for making pumpkin pie were on the back. There was a really long list of ingredients that I didn't have! I took the bag of noodles and headed to the store. I went through the isles filling up my cart. Midway through the list I got to two ingredients that stressed me out, listed on the package for pumpkin pie was "bulghur wheat" and "cracked wheat." I thought, hm, aren't those the same thing? And I never knew that there was bulghur wheat in pumpkin pie? Then I realized that all those little black specks in pumpkin pie was bulghur wheat and it all made sense. So I grabbed bulghur wheat and the rest of the ingredients. I started getting stressed out when I realized my shopping cart was practically full, so many ingredients! I was mad that I was spending so much money to make a pie from scratch when I could just buy it. I went home and unloaded all the ingredients and realized I had nothing "pumpkin" at all. I looked at the noodle package and there was nothing listed. I thought, how does it get the pumpkin flavor then? i decided I would add something anyway. So I went back to the store and stood staring at a huge display of different products that are pumpkin- canned pumpkin, pumpkin spice and various other boxed, jarred and canned items. I grabbed one and headed back home. Then I realized it was 3:00 and I was supposed to be at my friends for Thankgiving Dinner at 3:30 and hadn't even made the crust yet! I was so upset that I had all the ingredients, but didn't have enough time to make the pie. So I sat down in the kitchen and just imagined in my head what it would be like to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. I pictured rolling out the crust . . .

Proud to be an American

I was at Sara's Halloween party, only it was taking place in a Sam's Club or Costco or something. I remember seeing parts that were identical to the place where the party actually took place, but then there were also aisles and aisles of groceries and outdoor furniture, all stacked up high.

Sara brought out the karaoke machine and said "Okay, the next song is yours." I asked her what it was and she didn't know. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the song "Beauty School Dropout" from the movie Grease. Nevertheless, I rocked it. I remember thinking about how it was a little too low for my voice, but how awesome it was that I was able to sing it. I drew a crowd and the party got all crazy. Everybody was excited about karaoke!

The song finished, and somebody (I'm not sure who) called dibs on being next. They were all excited to see what song they'd sing, and then the song title appeared on the screen: "Proud to be an American." Everybody started booing and groaning, and the party guests all slowly disappeared.

The all the Hodi cousins (parents and all) appeared through the crowd carrying boxes and trays of snacks, like what one might buy at Sam's Club. Included were lots of Hostess Cherry Pies and tiny little martinis (I think this was because I watched Top Chef last night). "Where should we put all of this?" asked my uncle. "Just throw them in the Burrito Room," I replied. "That's where the food goes."

Later on in the dream, my friend Dan tried to kiss a girl and somehow his mother ended up with a broken nose. Also, I was in Canada with my family and my dad was talking about how none of his "band members" would be able to get back into the U.S. because none of them had brought the correct papers and all of them were too drunk from the wedding the night before. He laughed as he said it.

$11,000

I had a lot of stressful dreams last night. I had just bought a new car, a "Jetta" but really it looked liked a Prius. We went to a club and parked it outside. When we came back out to leave all the tires were gone from the car and it had been booted. When I called the number to deal with it this woman I used to lobby with answered the phone. She looked up how much it would cost me to get my tires back and the boot off. She said "11". I said "11 dollars?" and she said "11 thousand." Apparently I had broken some bigass law.

This car problem followed me through the night in other dreams. In one I had to help this woman escape from her abusive husband while he stole all her stuff, but uh oh, my getaway car had no tires. In another, I moved into this awful house with Reem and this scary woman who had rabies kept trying to get inside to get us. She basically looked like a clown with whiteface, too much blue around her eyes and lipstick smeared big around her mouth. When we tried to get away from her, the car had no tires and we were stuck.

Finally, there was the dream where I called my mother and confessed to her of my car fuck up and that I had an $11K bill to deal with. She called the company and it turned out it was all a big mistake. All of a sudden a marching band that included my cousin Layla came marching out carrying my tires which had been painted white. They laid them next to my wheeless Jetta.

traffic stop

hey there - - i'm the new girl. this should be fun....

i think i dreamed a lot of things last night but i only recall one chapter. i was stuck in traffic, a la beltline, or basically the highway from hell for those not familiar with the madison area. i hadn't moved for hours but could not see what the hold-up was. finally, a cop strolls up a few cars ahead of me and i see that he's taking out a tape measure to see how far apart cars are, apparently to ticket anyone who did not leave enough space between them and the car in front of them. it was some sort of ticketing operation - no real traffic jam at all. the car in front of me passed the test but the space i left in front of me was a bit smaller so i worried. in the end, i passed.

Tutus

I dreamed that I was in a store looking at all these tutus in all different colors and probably would have bought several of them, but the person I was with made us rush off to catch the bus. I was so mad - those tutus were amazing.

What made it worse was the fact that the bus we were catching was taking us on vacation to Germany. Stupid Germany!

Craftin' Machine

I had a dream that I had taken a bunch of my art to a store to sell. I had a bunch of crocheted brooches and such. When I got there I set all my stuff down on a table and waited for the clerk to come and help me. When she came over she looked at the table of things and I realized it was hard to tell what stuff I had just brought in. I picked up my things and said "These are mine, this stuff on the table was already here." The woman glared at me over her glasses and took my things to look at. She said flatly, "This stuff came from a machine." I immediately got defensive and said, "No! I made this stuff, I'll show you right now, I'll make them again!" I started looking around for some yarn or something so I could show her, but she just walked away. I was so mad, but I stood there and pictured a vending machine dispensing my art out of it.

Spider Webs

My business partner and I were harvesting the webs of spiders in a house; but the exterminator was due to come and though it was pests he would be targeting, we worried the spiders' webs would be wiped out and the spiders killed. I was trying to think through the options while my partner just went around and gently curled each spider up in a washcloth and scooped as much of the web as possible into a trashbag. I was miffed at first thinking that we could try and distract him from the webs or say we wanted the spiders in the house, but grew to realize we didn't want to risk the exterminator as we could lose everything.

Vacuuming Roaches

I dreamed that I was stuck living in this decrepit motel room and there were roaches everywhere- crawling around, dead with feet in the air, I even watched them hatch out of egg sacks. It was horrible. I went to the front desk to complain and the receptionist was Amy Poehler. She was like "oh don't worry, just use this," and she handed me a box. I opened the box and it was filled with dead roaches including one gigantic yellow one. I showed Amy Poehler the inside of the box and she gave a high-pitched laugh "oops! that's the wrong box!" and handed me a dustbuster. I went back to my room and used the dustbuster to vacuum up all the roaches living and dead.

Piece Missing

In real life, I have been scratching my skin in my sleep so hard that it bleeds. It's not exciting to wake up to this in the morning. It finally invaded my dreams last night.

In my dream, I'd been scratching the outer part of my upper left thigh, kind of on and off for a few minutes, as I talked to people at some sort of ball or party that was decorated all in gold and black and sequins. I could see people's faces clearly but everything around their faces was cloudy.

I reached down to scratch my leg once more and realized that my leg felt really weird, like there was an indentation in it. I look down and realize I've scratched off a giant chunk of my leg. It was like a canyon. It ran about 8 inches long and 2-3 inches wide, and about 1 inch deep at it's deepest. It was not bloody or anything...it was just this big crater on my leg. There was skin covering it, rough, very bumpy skin that had a lot of scratches on it. There were also parts that were darker, maybe bruised.

I nearly had a panic attack when I woke up this morning because it felt exceptionally real. I reached down and felt my leg just to make sure.

Dead Cat Shrine

I was invited to write on this blog many moons ago but sadly almost NEVER remember my dreams. Not nearly enough to write about them.

But last night...

I was travelling through the woods and came across a vampire. I was scared but found that I could fly effortlessly up and away. I flew to a house in which there was a VERY attractive housekeeper. She was tall and blond and had some type of accent. She was cooking food for herself and some of her housekeeper co-workers. I was very drawn to her so I tried talking with her but was awkward. She showed me an elaborate gravestone/shrine she had created for her cat. Her cat was not dead yet, but she knew it would die eventually so she was prepared. Then the vampire returned and I realized the vampire was my girlfriend and I was a vampire slayer. Our love was misunderstood and dangerous on many levels. We embraced and I returned to the kitchen to find that there was a woman who died in that room. The housekeeper and her co-workers who had been milling about were all gone. So I scraped the food she had been cooking down the drain.

I Just Don't Know That Answer

I was in the basement somewhere and I was surrounded by stuffed animals. They were a mix of sea animals and Sponge Bob characters (I know next to nothing about Sponge Bob, but there they were). I was talking to one, and I turned my back to it for a minute. When I looked back at where the animal had been, there was only a stuffed animal shark. And it was alive. Not like a real shark though - it was the stuffed shark, and it was alive - talking and moving.

I asked the shark where the other animal went, to which the shark replied "Well, I just don't know that answer." This puzzled me, so in order to find out, I turned to the pile of sea animals (stuffed) to my right and started throwing them at the shark. One by one, he caught them in his mouth and swallowed them. Starfish, crabs, a lobster, a shrimp (I don't know what this even looked like, but it was included). Then a "dolphin" (who looked exactly like the shark) started lecturing the shark about eating too many small things. With that, they all turned back into non-alive stuffed animals.

Later, I was in somebody's backyard - it looked like a darker version of my parents' backyard when I was growing up. There was a swing set with a treehouse, a "Mr. Miagi Bridge" leading from one end of the yard to the other, and a small grassy area to the right. I was talking to a woman with five or six kids running around her. She would not shut up. As she talked, one of her sons, who was about 3 years old, picked up this giant bird with a long beak. It looked like a toucan but was all brown. I kept trying to interrupt her to tell the other kids to come look at the bird, and then to tell her that she should ask her son to be careful with the bird, but she would not stop talking.

Eventually, the 3 year old started fucking with the bird enough to break its beak - he made it so that the beak could go in and out, becoming longer and shorter. The bird also had a lot of pieces of wood sticking out of its body.

Boobs

I'm so sick of my stupid, boring dreams lately...

It's Genia's birthday and we're meeting for a party in the "bar part" of a farmhouse. Exes M & S show up with two others. Nobody will talk to me. I scoot closer to Genia and feel like shit. Every time I move my chair it makes an obnoxiously loud scraping noise across the concrete floor and the music stops and the talking stops and everybody looks at me.

Later, we're in a Best Buy parking lot and Andy from college gets mad and breaks a car window by punching it, but then his arm is broken. In real life he'd never do this - he'd talk it out instead of being violent. I try and persuade him to go to the hospital, but he says "there just isn't enough time in the week. But I'd do the other thing if you let me."

"Okay," I say, reluctantly. "You can put your face near my boobs, but only for like ten seconds. Only because your arm is broken."

I'm pretty sure he thanked me.

Also, I remember looking in my purse and seeing a half-empty pack of Winstons. Winstons??

Mindfold

I dreamt that my Mindfold had a couple small cracks in it that let the light in. I was both discouraged from using it and feeling like I was seeing slight slits through The Veil.

Bored.

I dreamed that I was holding either a newborn baby or a big puppy. I don't remember which one. I do know that I was paying special attention to make sure its head was supported. Bored.

Star Wars

I wrote about this on my blog, but it's a pretty great dream so I'm posting it here too.

I think the dream I had last night describes my current state of mind pretty well.

I dreamed that I had a Darth Vader Pez dispenser. When I opened the head, instead of a pez it was my boyfriend Tom's head coming out. He had a completely expressionless face. I closed it and opened it again and it was Barack Obama's head, but he had a giant toothy smile on his face.

And that was it.

Nothing but Eyelashes and Frankincense and Myrrh Here

Reem and I were talking about the ebb and flow of this dream blog, how sometimes everyone is dreaming and writing and sleeptime is so active, and then there are dead zones, the blog is blank, like no one is dreaming. I wonder if it has anything to do with cycles of the moon... I know that with my writing I will be super prolific for a few weeks and then can barely construct an email for a couple and I think that is about moon time. Anyway, I think its interesting that after the time of silence, two of us have dreams to post today.

I dreamed that I lived in the Beetlejuice house. Well, it was the Beetlejuice house from the outside anyway. Inside it was more like a loft, clean and airy and there was a metal spiral staircase from the kitchen to my bedroom. In the kitchen there were many shelves filled with colored glass bottles. When I looked to see what was in the bottles, I thought to myself "nothing but eyelashes and frankincense and myrrh here." And then I had to yell at my friends who were sleeping over becuase they were going to wake up my parents.

My biggest Fear is Sharks

Scuba Diving among sharks and realizing they are getting feisty; I won't make it to the boat, so I go to the bottom of the ocean because if I am 'grounded' the sharks can't touch me. But they keep circling and I am going to run out of air if I stay here and there's no way I'll make it to the boat before they will get to me and the panic wakes me up.

Almost immediately I fall back asleep and am in the car having decided to go to the airport to use the shower. I go to park in front [which would likely get me arrested in real life] and almost pass by an empty space so I try a tight turn but hit the car next to me into the car next to it. Damage seems minimal so I start to leave but a guy I went to middle school with comes hurrying up to me and I try to ignore him because I figure its about the cars, but he asks, incredulously, "why do you have to make everything about your divorce?"
"I don't, in fact I'm only just beginning to use the words 'K----' and 'ex-wife' in conversation and mostly only with close friends." I am relieved this is not about the cars I hit.
"But I've been watching you [I haven't seen him in 17 years] and your conversations always turn towards it."
"Well," I begin, "let me tell you why the last 8 years of my life were devoted to her in a variety of ways..." then I tell the whole story [which I will not repeat here] which feels like I talk in my dream for half an hour, with other random people arriving and taking interest in my story. I find it interesting, but am releived, that he does not point out the fact I made this conversation about my divorce.
[I wake up depressed and its snowing outside. I lay in bed wondering what part of me is stuck in middle school and is incredulous about my divorce...I hope to get back there and talk more with 'him']

Getting Places

I dreamed that I was with Sarah L. in Chicago and we had to get across town to go see DeVotchKa. We looked up and saw the Eiffel Tower, which meant that we had a long way to go. Sarah started flying. "Can't you just fly me too?" I asked? She did. It was awesome. She did it effortlessly.

Later, I was tricked into going into a warehouse where a man was making a map of where the strippers should walk on stage. They each had their own territories, marked in different color markers. One of my friends tried to escape out this back door but the door slammed shut and I think it's possible that her hand got cut off...

Then there was a basketball game in the warehouse, but I was next to the bleachers, kind of underneath and could only hear - not see - what was going on in the game. There was a teenage girl talking to the point guard on the team. "Let's go to the top of the bleachers so we'll be able to see better," he said, and she followed. "They're not trying to see better," I whispered to nobody in particular. "They're on a date."

I finally got outside the warehouse and Emil picked me up in his blue car. We drove under the L tracks and somehow "by accident" we ended up just having parked the car in a garage. We told the guy working there that we needed it back so we could go see Moby. He was Italian, and friendly, and he got us to the car right away. As we drove, Emil pointed to the dashboard. "Good," he said, "look how many Saturday Night Live episodes downloaded while we were in there! We can watch them on the way home." He pointed his finger towards what I assumed it would be a number, but I looked, and it was the letter R. "Seventeen episodes!" I said. "Not bad!"

Baldy

I dreamed I shaved my head. I was really confident about it at first, but then when I ran my fingers through it, I started to freak out a bit. I looked in a mirror and saw that I still had some hair left - it was like a long curly mohawk.

At a different point, I was living in a big fancy house and had a "new roommate." He was handsome, and we went on lots of dates. For one, we were in the audience of So You Think You Can Dance, as Tara was a few weeks back. He said to me "I'm starving - I think I'm about to pass out." I told him I didn't have any food, but then I realized I was holding two square slices of pizza in a paper towel. I gave them to him.

Also I'd been at the drink in real life.

Busted!

I had an awful dream last night that I was throwing a huge party at a club (which I am in a couple weeks) and I was walking out midway through it to go to the McDonald's across the street (which I totally wouldn't do). As I'm walking out, I see police walking in.

Fuck. I know there is pot everywhere. So I run back inside and tell my cousin Laith to start taking care of the mess before the police get inside. I meet the police at the door and turn on my dealing-with-police charm. They are friendly to me and say that they don't want make trouble, but they smell pot so that gives them the right to come inside.

I let them in, I have no other choice. Miraculously, the party which is now in my house and not the club, is immaculate. The house is as clean as it actually is right now immediately following a visit from my parents. The cops walk through and see nothing, but walk past my room as if they think its a closet. I'm leading them out, relieved that its over then one of them says to me- "things look alright, we just need to look in your bedroom and we'll be on our way."

Sure enough my room has piles of pot and paraphernalia everywhere. Fucking hell. I know I'm getting arrested. Every now and then as the cop looks away I hide some of the pot under a pillow, in my waistband, under a shoe. That is until the cop says "I see you hiding that."

I start begging him not to arrest me, to let this go, that I have important work to do that would be impeded by a conviction. I say something like "I won't be able to visit my clients in prison!" or something similarly ridiculous.

I woke up with a migraine that had a heartbeat of its own and nausea to boot.

Puppy Dreams

So our little dog Pepper sleeps in bed with Tom and I, and I think she has been controlling our dreams this week.

The other night Tom dreamed that we decided to get a second dog (something we talk about during the day a lot, Pepper needs a little brother.) So in the dream we found a cute little dog and decided to adopt him. But for some reason we thought that since we were getting this new dog we had to get rid of Pepper. So Tom was on the phone trying to find someone to adopt her. He finally found a woman who came and picked her up. But later in the day we realized what we had done and started freaking out! (Pepper is pretty much like our daughter) In the dream Tom was on the phone at all these different locations- at one point we were at Austin City Limits while he was on the phone trying to get Pepper back! We were in our living room on the phone with this woman telling her we made a mistake!! He says he doesn't know how it ended, but he woke up spooning Pepper!

I had a dream last night that we were visiting my parents in Wisconsin. We had driven up from Texas with Pepper. When we got to my parents house my dad told me that they had become a foster home for dogs. There were dozens of dogs there in addition to the two my parents already own. They were running around in the house and backyard, though in the dream the house that was my parents didn't look like my parents real house. We went out back to see all the dogs and found this little rat terrier mix puppy. He had a white face, white feet and belly, but his back had brown and black spots. We started playing with it and holding it and thinking that maybe we wanted to keep him! We ran around the house and outside and he just seemed perfect! He had a ton of personality just like Pepper. But we wanted to make sure that Pepper liked him so we had them meet. We walked into the living room where Pepper was sitting on the couch, like a person- on her butt. We put the little rat terrier puppy in her arms and she held him like a person holds a baby! She cradled him for a while and we knew that they could get along! We were afraid that the new dog might have more personality than Pepper, but then Pepper started stealing peoples socks and running around the house with them so we knew it would be ok.

So we went home for the night (I guess Texas and Wisconsin are quite close in dreams) and when we got up in the morning I saw that one of my goldfish was dead, I yelled at Tom "Why did you kill my goldfish and leave it in the tank? That's bad for the other fish!" He came in and looked at it and apologized, no explanation as to why he killed it. Then we drove to my parents house to play with the dog again. But when we got there all the dogs were gone! I started freaking out and got super upset! My dad said that all of the dogs had found a home! Tom and I were really sad and looked out the window into the backyard. We were talking about how perfect that dog would have been and how we were so sad that he was gone. We were looking out the window at a little tiny orange kitten, the size of a hamster, that was playing in a little area in the yard. I said, "Awwww that must be the area where Spot peed last!"

And when I woke up, I was spooning Pepper!!!

Dream Journal

It might seem odd that I have decided to start a paper-bound dream journal what with the One Second Time Machine at my fingertips, but even the act of getting out of bed can erase a good chunk of dreams. So here is my new dream curiosity journal. I found it as I was unpacking - a gift from mother and now its found its proper use.
Remember dreams are like bunnies, but you will wonder whether it is a a cuddly one or a not-so-cuddly one until you catch it.

Another Dream From the Nine-Year-Old

My student told me another one of her dreams today...

My little sister and I were pulling a train, but then the train fell into a lake. Then there was this girl sitting on the railroad tracks. She was wearing a purple jersey and a purple skirt.

She said "Look at me - a hobo."


No, I'm serious. She rules.

Horse

I dreamed that I was standing outside Mickey's (a bar) with Genia. I heard the sound of a horse walking behind me - like the clip clop sound. I turned around to see a horse and carriage with two horses. The driver guy was patting one of them on the head, but then the other one got loose and started running towards us. The driver was yelling something at us, and I yelled back "do you want me to stop it?" Right as the horse got to us, I held out my hand and grabbed the reins and caught the horse. I pulled the horse closer to me and put my arms around it's neck. It folded into my arms and as it grew smaller, I cuddled it as if it was a kitten.

Barf-O-Matic!

I had a dream that somebody barfed on me! Also last night.

I was in a bar and I was meeting two friends - one woman and one man. I was standing next to the man and he took a drink, but couldn't keep it down and his face got all gross looking and I knew he was going to barf, so I turned my back to him and then felt him barf all over me. It splashed everywhere and messed up my clothes.

The worst part is that then I had to go sleep in a bed with the boy I like, and for some reason, I couldn't take off my clothes. All barfy in bed! Terrible...

Toilet

Ugh, so annoying...

In my dream, I was flushing vegetarian chili down the toilet because I don't have a garbage disposal. There was a pile of it in my sink, and I tried to force it down the drain. Corn and kidney beans and, for some reason, cream cheese got all mixed up with each other and wouldn't go anywhere. I turned to the toilet, which was starting to overflow. I lifted the back of it and pulled the little chain that makes it drain, and as I did, a large Thanksgiving-looking squash/pumpkin thing came shooting out. It was a pale yellow with green stripes and dots. It was the size of an effing volleyball.

I tried it again, but it overflowed again and shot out in the air.

Then I woke up and had to go to the bathroom in real life, but I was nervous to use the toilet.

ADDENDUM: I just told my father this on the phone and he laughed really hard and said "This is the perfect dream, you know."

Bunnies and Bees

I had two dreams last night, but I think they were connected because both dreams take place in the same fictional big back yard. . .

I dreamed that I was outside in a big field, that I think was supposed to be my back yard. I saw a tiny grey bunny hopping across the field and called to it. It came running over to me and hopped right into my arms. I was so surprised and startled that I was able to catch it. I held the bunny for a while and decided I wanted to keep it, but I wasn't sure if I should. I took the bunny inside and let it run around my house while I tried to figure out if it was ok to keep it. I asked Tom if the bunnies you get at the pet store were just wild bunnies? He didn't know. I called my friend Nick, but he didn't answer. I left a message asking him if the bunnies in the pet stores were wild bunnies. I didn't see the bunny in the house so I called to it, it came hopping over to me and into my arms. It had grown since I brought him inside and he was now a little bigger and white with brown and black spots. I was starting to get nervous, that if I kept him too long that I wouldn't be able to let him back into the wild. I really wanted to keep him. My dog Pepper didn't even mind the bunny and would go over to it and sniff it, but left it alone. I went online and tried to look up information about bunnies, I wrote in a forum asking people "Are the bunnies in pet stores wild bunnies?" All of the responses were not directly answering my question and just said things about how to care for it. I called to the bunny again and it hopped into my arms. It was still getting bigger, still white, but a little bigger now. I walked outside with it in my arms and into my big back yard. I stood at the edge of the field contemplating if I should let him go . . .

I had a dream that I had a huge back yard. Parts of it were fields and beyond the huge yard there was a forest. Just before the forest of trees there was a huge telephone pole. It was really fat and went up into the sky, past where you could see the top because of the clouds. While we were outside in the yard Tom and I noticed that some bees were making a hive way up high on the telephone poll. We didn't think much of it. When we came back the next day there were more hives. Small little mini hives, 5 in a row. We were a little concerned because there were a lot of bees buzzing around them. Then the next day we returned to the pole and there were dozens of hives! Some of them little small round ones, but some of them were really elaborate hives that looked like mini bird houses. They were all lined up in rows on the pole. Tom and I looked at each other concerned. We didn't want thousands of bees flying around the back yard. So we decided we had to call someone. But we didn't want someone to come would would just destroy the hives without getting the honey! We called around and finally found a woman who said she would get the honey out! She said she had a special spray. She shimmied up the pole and sprayed into the little hives and houses. At first I was sad that all the bees had to die, but I knew we couldn't have them in the back yard! She began extracting the honey from each of the houses with a spoon and collecting it in jars. We watched her work from down below. . .

Good to See You

Last night it poured in Atlanta. In my dream I woke up and looked out my window and saw my car had been picked up by the stormy wind and dropped in the tiny area between my bedroom window and the fence outside it. The windows, even the windshield were shattered. I went outside to examine the damage. I held my face in my hands and cried, this problem seemed insurmountable.

I walked down the street away from my house because I couldn't take it. I walked and walked, away from Grant Park, away from Atlanta and the rain, through neighborhoods of grand houses lit up by the sun. One house caught my attention and I thought to myself, this is the house that will take me to Mohammad. He can fix this mess. I walked up the steps and pushed gently in the door, expecting it to be locked. To my surprise it swung open, moved by Mohammad himself. He beamed when he saw me. He held a plate of food in his hand and I could see there was a party behind him- it was Eid al-Fitr.

His smile was so big and his hands so familiar as he led me inside. The house was open air and luscious plants hung above us, it looked more Italian than Arab. We sat on a bench, as close to each other as physically possible, our backs leaning on a picnic table behind us and his arm around my shoulder. "Good to see you," he whispered in my ear. I tried unsuccessfully to keep my tears from spilling and said "I can't believe teleporation really works." He nodded and kissed my cheek, knowing that this has been my number one wish in the world since I was a child and my grandmother lived across an ocean.

He walked off to get me some food and I looked around, taking in my surroundings for the first time. I saw that I was sitting with the men, and that the women were all sitting together at the other end of the piazza. I felt self-conscious in my gauzy tank top. I glanced over my shoulder to see who was at the picnic table I sat at and looked straight into the eyes of Mohammad's father, a lovely man I only know from pictures and his son's stories. He left this world on April 13 this year. His eyes were tender and watery like my grandfather's, and he smiled warmly as he looked me over. I shyly smiled back.

Mohammad returned to me with a plate of maklube. We ate it together and kissed; every bite and kiss was salty from my tears. I woke up to the sound of pouring rain...

washed away, a dream of you
but nothing else could ever take you away
cuz you'll always be my dream come true

I guess sometimes this is a blog of hopes and dreams.

Rainbow Coral

I dreamed that I was swimming through black water inside a house. I had special goggles (perhaps Mindfold inspired!) and when I put them on underwater I could see beautiful rainbow coral. As the water moved the plant-like creatures waved gently and changed colors like Buckingham Fountain. There were also jellyfish that looked like raindrops and squid that looked like calamari (yes, fried) in the black water. The instructor said to be careful becuase the squid would burn us if we touched it. Unable to avoid one as it floated by, it brushed my skin and I was happy that it didn't hurt at all.

Dreams From My Parents

Mom: I dreamed last night that I cut off your father's ear! I didn't mean to...there was something wrong with it, so I was just going to cut a tiny bit off, but I cut off the whole top half! The worst part was that then I had to do the other one so they would be even.

Dad: Oh, the Christian right were trying to convert me again.

The Blue Feather and Butterflies

Also short and sweet: I dreamed that I woke up and realized that the beautiful blue feather that Jill recently sent me - that I hung on my bed above where I sleep - had been eaten away. It was skeletal but for a few wisps and the silver spiral remained.

I showed it to my mother who said "Looks like the butterflies ate it. Those butterflies eat everything."

Quilts

Short and sweet...

So I moved into my room in Ashevegas and last night it was pretty durn cold.  This I was not prepared for and had a slight shiver through the night.  Consequently I dreamt that I was in a room full of quilts my mother had made and was looking through them to pick one out.  They were all marvelous and with bright, warm colors.  I found one she had sewn an electric blanket into and I said "yes, my mom is this awesome."  I then woke up cold and without her magnificent quilt.

Baking

So my neighbor asked "Whatcha cooking?" yesterday. He meant was i knocked up. I yelled "I'm not pregnant I'm GETTING FAT!" Of course, this really made me realize just how much I have gained lately on my sugar diet and then I had nightmares about it. I was pregnant and embarrassed and miserable but also having fun shopping for it and then I realized it was a horrible idea and then it was too late to do anything about it. UGH. I may go throw up lunch now. I'm working on a new eating disorder.

I wrote a song

Man, I had an awesome dream last night and I barely remember any of it. I think I was watching So You Think You Can Dance or something. There was a huge stage, all black, with some risers in the back. Some mid tempo music started playing, oh I wish I could describe it- kind of electronicy. Anyway, a spotlight came up on a girl dressed in bright yellows, aquas and greens and started singing. Then she did a little dance move and froze. Another spotlight came up and a guy was standing there and started singing. This continued for a while until the song started to rock out and they all started dancing and singing. The most awesome thing about this dream is that the song they were singing was not a real song, it was like I was writing a song in my sleep. I woke up like right after the dream and knew I would forget all the words to this awesome song, but I remembered one line. The line right before the song started to rock out, the last girl in the spotlight sang "You can keep time by the beating of my heart!"

Terrapin, and the whistle is screaming

I am walking down miles of sand where I reach the tallest dunes in view.  I climb them and it gives me a view of a vast beach where there are giant sea turtles, six feet tall and ten long, their craggy shells covered with 6 to a dozen children who are hollering with joy at the ride.  But as I near I see the fear in the kids faces and realize they are screaming.  Somehow being held captive on the backs of these turtles and being hauled into the ocean.

But one of the turtles shells has suddenly been wiped clean of children and I see my uncle [an avid sportsman who makes his own arrows for bowhunting] leaping on the back of a turtle halfway into the surf.  He then takes a hand-carved arrow-head, larger than his head, and twice stabs it into the back of the turtle's neck.   The children are safe. 

Locks

I am riding up a ski lift over an unsowy mountian.  Not knowing wny I am here, or even thinking to think such a thought I ride to the top where something in the view reminds me I am looking for an old school-teacher of mine.  I go inside the cabin and decide that I need dreadlocks (my real-life hair is not down past my cheeks yet).  Within seconds I have rolled the short, thin, straight hair into tight dreadlocks down to my ass.  I can't believe the sensation as I wave my head around.  I can feel the weight - like I have a whole new set of appendages.  

Now I feel prepared, but as I walk towards the exit of the cabin I am suddenly in a motel room with an unknown younger lady lying on the floor between the beds on a pile of pillows, she is wearing a Mindfold and her face turns towards me as she tells me how beautiful my dreads are becoming.  This confuses me because they already are.  So I turn to look into the large vanity mirror facing every motel room bed.  Lo and behold I have at least 5 of those glass 7-day candles woven into some dreads, and birds are hanging a nest on another, along with the assortment of beads and other colorful devices.  

This menagerie is more than my belief can suspend and I awake.   

Shocked

I was in a room that was underlit enough so I couldn't see the walls.  The guy across from me was a hard blonde with eastern european or russian sharp looks.  Without warning he launched himself at me and I was startled.  He knocked me to the floor and flipped me over on my face.  I couldn't see what he used to puncture my spine through the back of my neck.  It opened a hole out of which I slipped and, with this removed perspective, watched a milky smoke swirl follow me out.  From outside my prone body I felt panicked that the smoky substance would drift away.  This fear shocked me into that suspended state where I was only half dreaming so I quickly thought the smoke into a diamond-shaped glowing lightness that shimmered and disappeared.  The fear was neutalized and I woke with a feeling of peace.    

No gas, no food

I am one hundred percent sure that this anxiety dream was caused by Atlanta's gas crisis and the fact that my car is down to the red line. I dreamed that my family wanted to have a dinner party and invite a family friend who is going through chemo over. Because there was not enough food we could only invite her and not her parents, husband, or siblings. When they all showed up we all looked nervously at the sparsely covered table. My mom leaped up to try to find more food so not to offend our guests but the cupboards were empty. We all looked at each other with great anxiety and then I woke up.

What The Hell??

Okay, so I dreamed a lot last night, and only remember bits and pieces, and it feels very disjointed. I know it looks long, but it's FUNNY, so here you go:

I had to take four tests for a class. They were all in different languages - I remember that one was obviously Spanish, but one was a word that looked kind of like Valencia but wasn't, and had a ton of those accents over the letter A. Like this: à. The first question was "What does this word mean?" and I answered that it meant "czar," even though the paper had been copied wrong and I couldn't read all of the multiple choice answers. The test was ridiculous and hard. Another question said "Go find a piece of roadkill and make a shopping list/cooking instructions out of it." I got fed up at that point, and complained to the teacher, my friend Lisa, who winked at me and said "Yeah, the test is real hard Reem, go finish it." Her winking, however, made me realize it wasn't a real test and I didn't have to do it.

Then later I was on the second floor of my cousins' house in Buffalo Grove and my friend Matt was there and something bad happened, and all the lights went out, and a third person (I'm not sure who it was) got turned into something else. The lights came back and I ran out of the room before I could see. Matt and I ran downstairs to the living room to tell everybody, and he had seen what the person had been turned into - half gum and half tobacco. "It's probably because I'm chewing gum and he's smoking," I thought to myself. THEN! when I realized I didn't know what had happened, I came to the interwebs and read this very blog, and Matt had posted it as a dream, so I really knew what happened. Yes, I read this dream blog whilst dreaming. NERD.

At another point in my dreams, I was with Shane and Nick ("How the Hell Are Ya" Nick) and we were in the backyard somewhere and there was this dead buffalo or elk or some giant animal laying in the grass. Nick went behind it and was "acting like a caveman," which meant having mud on his face and pounding on the carcass like a drum. As he did, I realized the animal wasn't really dead; it was raising its head and trying to communicate with us - I think it was trying to talk. "It's still alive!" I yelled at Nick, who got scared and grabbed the horn of the animal. The horn broke off in his hand and the animal's facial features disappeared, which made it hard to tell if it was still alive. This reminded me of the peacock dream.

Nipples and New Orleans

I had a dream that Tom had his nipples pierced. In the dream he was changing and took his shirt off and I saw the shiny metal rings and looked at him shocked. He was looking at himself in the mirror and couldn't decide if he wanted to keep them or not. I told I thought it was kind of ridiculous. I was trying to figure out how I didn't know he had them pierced.

When I woke up Tom was actually changing and getting ready for class. For a second I actually thought my dream had really happened and was going to ask him if he had his nipples pierced. I fell back asleep telling him about my dream.

Speaking of Tom, here is a dream he had and e-mailed to me the other day:

My brother and I were driving around Charlotte, and he was getting annoyed with me because I was driving and not doing too good of a job. For whatever reason I was driving from the backseat -- the steering wheel was behind the normal passenger seat and my brother was sitting in front - passenger side. I could barely see and was running red lights and nearly causing accidents all over town. We were getting close to a highway and I decided I shouldn't be driving so I pulled the car over.

When I got out, there was an old African American woman dressed like New Orleans sitting up against a building on the sidewalk. She was looking at me intently and said, "Bring me that blue bicycle." I was puzzled, but I looked back at my brother's car and sure enough my beloved bike was sticking out of the trunk. Apparently we were taking it somewhere. So I brought it to the woman and she began to slowly and carefully decorate it with Mardi Gras beads. Long purple green and yellow beads, it made me really happy.

Grappling Hook

Only a snippet of this dream poked thru the memory veil:

I was walking a dusty trail in The West.  Coming towards me was a wagon and a giant man walking alongside the horses.  He must have been 12 feet tall and well-muscled.  Without thinking my hand went to my gun, but he just looked down at me and smiled as he pulled back his duster to reveal the full-sized shotgun he had in his hip holster.  So I gave up on confrontation in my mind and he seemed to recognize this and dropped his coat back over his gun.  

Then, so quickly I am not able to see his movements, he whips out a grappling hook and swings it around his head a few times and launches it backwards without even looking and grapples the face off the driver.  This is not disgusting in any way as his face simply 'pops' off.  The giant laughs and I feel relieved.  Then I think "I'm not sure a grappling hook works like that,"  recognizing this as a true statement wakes me.

Cupcakes and Mom

I dreamed that I woke up in a room with a glass ceiling covered in snow and cupcakes. The cupcakes were chocolate with pink frosting and because they were face down on the glass, I could make out the tiny heart-shaped candies that decorated them. I felt the weight and warmth of the sage green quilt over my body and thought about how finally nothing hurt.

"Good Morning!" my mother smiled from the doorway. Not wanting to move from the coziness and comfort I asked her to get me a cupcake. She went outside the little room which now appeared to be the greenhouse that my grandmother used to grow tomatoes in, and propped up a ladder against the glass. As she climbed up and reached for the cupcake snow fell down around the places she touched.

When she handed me the cupcake I saw that some of the hearts were missing. I looked up and saw that they remained on the glass in the spot where the cupcake used to be.

Celebrity Dreams

I have been having a lot of guest stars in my dreams lately. I've also been having a hard time remembering all of them because they all seem to be super long and detailed.

Last night I dreamed about Lyle Lovett. He was at this huge beach side house that was all white. Everything inside was white. He was inviting people over to talk about a new book he was writing called "Sex, Lies and Money." One of the people he invited over was Brooke Shields and she was dressed in all black. A lot of other stuff happened in this dream, but I can't remember any of it.

I had a dream a couple days ago that I was at an outdoor presidential debate. Except the people debating were Barack Obama and George W. Bush. The even was on a closed off street. Bush and Obama were seated at long tables across from each other. The tables were decorated red, white and blue and they had big microphones. There was a huge crowd behind both men. I don't remember much of the debate, but there was a part where Bush was attacking Obama for being too liberal. Obama responded by saying Bush was too "Masonry" to which the crowd ooohed like that was a huge insult. In the dream I appeared to know what that meant and it has something to do with religion? Like Freemasons? Or like building structures? Weird. I really wish I remembered more of the debate.

There was another one with Mariah Carey and Ani Difranco but I cannot remember any of it! Damn, it had to be good.

(continuing foodsperiment)

I was on the top of some decently high building where there was an unknown man with a shotgun.  He shot me in the stomach before we even had an exchange or I could do anything.  It was impactful but not painful.  I reeled and wove to the edge of the building and he kept shooting at me, but missed each time.  But each shot hit an innocent bystander on the ground.  

I jumped off the building and landed safely on the ground.  There was a bystander lying bleeding much worse than me and his ladyfriend was screaming that it shold have been me that was hurt so bad, as if it were my fault.  I felt very sorry for her his predicament, but the shotgunner was up there somewhere so I had to keep going.

Grunting along under the stomach-wound, I had to hold my guts in.  But when my hand covered my abdomen it was fine and I realized I was dreaming...

[I ate a bowl of chicken enchiladas right before bed last night]

Beach walk

[I must second Sara's excitment on recalling the dreams as I have been drinking my dreams away for months.  Being invited to this blog brought me to not drink last night, and I even ate chips and salsa at 3am to try and induce wild dreams (as hot food in my sleeping stomach riles the psyche); also it must have been five years since I became near-lucid in a dream like this. Synchronously intriguing.  Enough about me, onto the dream:]

I find myself walking down a beach i've never been on before.  There are thin, long barrier islands running along the beach not too far out, but there are still giant waves crashing.  The islands are covered with overgrown jungle.  This thick greenness is over-colored with the sunset's burnt oranges, but they are not colors that I have ever seen in the waking world and their brightnesses are in odd patterns and rows of light -- but there are no clouds in the sky.  These perplexities and the waves crashing onto the shore when the islands should be stopping them give me pause.  I feel a slight jolt of consciousness but it slips away. I fall back into the dream.

I find myself walking again.  I come upon beach chairs where my ex-wife and her best friend are chatting.  The ex- looks up at me and nonchalantly asks if I am here for the wedding celebration.  This question slices the veil completely open this time and I know I am dreaming, which lends me some semblance of control of what I 'say' to 'her,' "I am not going anywhere with you ever again.  We have agreed to let go of one another's life.  You no longer need be here."  This I think towards her figure as gently as I can because I know its not her, and yet she's in here with me.

I surround her in a thick white light -- and am waking from the dream as I do so -- and she glows into a white silhouette and melts/lowers into the ground, leaving in her place a hovering image of Jupiter (the planet) which is collaged together from the same oranges the trees should not have been able to reflect...

Wolf Spiders

I'm excited to write about this dream for two reasons: 1) it's the first dream I've remembered in weeks because I've had to take sleeping pills and can't remember anything and 2) I have visual aids. And boy do I love me some visual aids.

I dreamed that I woke up and my room was filled with "wolf spiders" which really looked like these giant crabs I saw at the Georgia Aquarium earlier this summer:



There were thousands of giant, prehistoric creatures and they rolled around roboticly, clawing their way across my floor, bed. There were so many of them that they ambled across the backs of others. One of them had gotten tangled up in a ball of red yarn but it didn't slow him down.

I thought they were wild looking and I liked watching them but I didn't like that they were on my bed. I keep a water gun next to my bed to shoot my cat when he claws the curtains in the middle of the night and meows incessantly. The water gun is in the shape of an orange dolphin. I decide to shoot the wolf spiders with this gun. They fall, immobilized off the side of the bed when they get hit.

Peacock Beak

I had a dream that I was in somebody's backyard with my siblings and cousins. There was a gigantic peacock walking around like he owned the place. Somebody said that if he put his feathers up, he was "showing off." And indeed, his feathers went up.

Later, I sat across from my cousin Laith and the peacock settled on the table between us. He was giant. He sat down and tilted his head up in the air, pointing his beak straight up. The beak was as thin as a needle. Laith reached over to try and point the head downward and the beak broke off in his hand. As he looked up, horrified, holding the needle-nosed beak, the peacock didn't move. He seemed to freeze in his position and become what looked like a stuffed bird.

ticks

i was in a room that was "my room" (it totally wasn't but in the dream i understood that it was my room). and my exboyfriend was there. the one from high school. and we were sitting on the floor talking. and then i look over and i see tiny tiny bugs crawling all over a blanket that's on the floor.
and i'm like "shit, john. get up. i think the floor is covered in bugs!" and i'm trying to look at them to see what kind of bugs they are. and then i decide to lift up the blanket to see where they are coming from and under the blanket are HUNDREDS of ticks.

Too Much News

I had a dream that I was watching TV, it was CBS evening news. Instead of Katie Couric or whoever it regularly is, it was the local Austin news lady from CBS. I watched for a while and then tried to change the channel. When I changed the channel the picture/show was different, but the sound was still CBS news. I started flipping through all of my channels (I only have like 15) and every channel was the same thing, the picture was correct for the station, but the sound was still the CBS evening news. Friends was on another channel, but the sound was the news! I started getting super annoyed and turned the TV off, but even when it was off you could still hear the news like it was on! I wondered for a while if I could get used to it, if I could stand watching sitcoms with the news as the sound. Annoyed, I just kept flipping through channels. . .

I think this is what happens when you don't have cable and the news is on more than anything else.

Animals and Hitchhiking

Friday night: I dreamed that Sarah and I were on an adventure on some kind of wooden boat/obstacle course. We had to eat at Noodles and Company, and my brother joined us, but instead of buying lunch, he bought a "soccer ball." It was actually a multi-purpose ball; you could play football or hockey or baseball or whatever. It was plain white and about the size of a volleyball, but soft and completely versatile.

Later, Sarah and I were being chased by an elephant. It kept charging at us. We tried to hide behind thick wooden posts but the elephant broke them. The only way out was to hitchhike. But everybody on the road was either on a bicycle or in a little red wagon. Later, I was scared of this barking dog who kept leaping at us. Sarah looked at me, and at the same time we said out loud "Wow, Reem, for somebody who likes animals so much, you sure are afraid of all of them..."

Such a Stupid Dream

I had a totally stupid dream last night.

I had a dream that I was writing a cover letter for a job application (something I've been doing a lot in real life). It was like I was sitting at a computer typing because all that I could see what the words on the screen. This is one of the first times that I could actually see words in my dream, usually they are too blurry. I kept writing sentences and read them out loud and realize they were really dumb and I had to erase them. One sentence was "I am writing this during my break." Yeah, they're going to hire me now. Such a stupid dream. It was really long too, I just kept writing sentences and deleting them.

both hands

I had a dream that I was at a party and someone said something (cant remember what) but I answered that

"women are not born they become women, its existentialism."

Suddenly this girl turns around. She happened to be this girl I went to high school with ahd she repilied
"you mean Ani Difranco?" She then tried to convince me that Ani had invented existentialism. We were arguing about it.

all off a sudden she was going to puke so I had to empty my purse and this girl from high school puked in my purse and it was all beer.

The Bat Dream...Finally

I had an encounter with a bat in my apartment a couple of weeks ago, and I knew that I'd have the bat anxiety dream sooner or later...

I dreamed that my family and I (parents, siblings, a few cousins) were sitting around my current living room and a bat started flying around the room. Everybody seemed kind of bored by it. It would swoop by people's heads and they would duck slightly out of the way. I tried to remain calm/bored as well, but eventually I lost it a bit and started swatting it with a pillow. "This is what I keep telling you guys!" I yelled at my family. "This is how it was the last time this fucker was in here!"

I think my dad realized that I was somewhat distressed, so from his cross-legged sitting position on the floor, he reached up and slapped the bat. It was as if he was giving him a high five. Also, he was dressed in a plaid button down shirt and 70s-like pants. He was really skinny, even more than he is now. The bat fell to the floor and I covered it with one of my blue couch pillows.

About twenty minutes later, I lifted the pillow to see it. It was tiny, no bigger than my thumbnail, and kind of a beige color. "Oh," I said. "I guess it was just a moth."

A New Baby for the Totonchi Family

I stayed the night at Reem's parents house with her last Thursday. I proceeded to have the following dream:

Reem's sister Sara is visiting her parents house and she has this adorable, chubby, little non-white baby (the ethnicity is unclear..sometimes it appears to be black and other times brown) with her. Apparently she has adopted this baby and I'm holding it and making a big fuss over the baby because it's just so damn cute. It's a girl baby who is around a year old and she's only wearing a diaper, but she has white ribbons in her black hair. The baby's name is June. The Totonchi family is very excited about the baby because they never knew about it before and Sara is real nonchalant about the fact that she suddently has a baby.

So, I'm holding this baby June and suddenly my Aunt Mickey is there. She is insisting that she needs to blow dry Junes hair. So she starts blow drying her hair, but she's putting the blow dryer really close to the her head and, of course, it's too hot. I tell my Aunt Mickey that it's too hot for a baby and she's probably burning her head and she says "I did it to all of my kids, it's fine". So, I start putting my hand between the baby's head and the blow dryer to protect the baby.
So, I'm expecting the baby to cry, but it doesn't at all. The weirdest part of this dream is that I look at the baby's face and it's all contorted with pain from the blow dryer burning her scalp, but you can tell that she doesn't want to let out a peep, she WILL NOT CRY. Kind of like adults do, you know, when they don't want people to see them cry.