Flavor Flav and the Magical Barn

I dreamed that I lived in a beautiful old farmhouse that had so much potential if I only had the time to work on it. It had this rundown but charming barn behind it that was my favorite part.

I had to leave my farmhouse to run a benefit for Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. We fed people southern barbecue there. In the middle of my speech Flavor Flav started heckling me and being a total jerk. He offended everyone and people started leaving. I started crying at the podium and then ran backstage.

When I saw Flav in the hallway I yelled at him "you cost us $10,000!! you have to give me a $10,000 donation to make up for this!" Then I made myself a to-go plate of barbecue and went home.

When I got home I saw that my friends had all been working on the barn - they turned it into a magical wonderland place with chinese lanterns, lots of blue ceramic tile and antiques on shelves. Ela had built a sweat lodge inside the barn and Mica had assembled a tea party with old cast iron tea kettles.

Dead Animals. Awesome.

This morning during one of the five-minute stints between my snooze alarm, I had a dream. I was in my bedroom but was aware and could hear that there was a group of people in my kitchen. I knew they were making a huge mess, and I was dreading going out there. I wanted them to leave. After much anxiety, I finally went out to the kitchen where three or four guys were standing. It was an absolutely mess; dirty dishes, broken eggs, beer spilled all over the floor...gross. I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to clean up the mess, and I opened the refrigerator to begin putting away things. When I opened the door, I saw, laying on the shelf, a dead skunk. "Who put this here?" I exclaimed? As I looked at all these men, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. There was a dead possum on the couch. I looked to one man in particular (who I barely know in real life) and asked him to help me clean up. He held up his hands and waved his fingers in the air. "I can't," he replied, "I have to play a gig later." I screamed at him that he was bullshit. Then my alarm went off.

A Year in India

I dreamed I was in India with my friend Alex. We were inside an apartment that was full of open windows with long pink (light pink and magenta) curtains blowing in the breeze. Several rooms in the apartment were round, or maybe hexagonal, and lined with these windows. There was a big white bed in one of these rooms.

We left the apartment and stood out on the street, looking back at the door through which we'd just exited. It was at this point that I realized I'd committed to spending the next year in India. I immediately felt anxious, mostly about things like finding a cell phone and appropriate cell phone plan, and paying my bills back home. Later, I realized the big picture problem; I also didn't want to spend a year in India. I spoke out loud to my mother (who wasn't there physically) "I'd spend maybe a month here, maybe two. I want to go other places too - like China."

Alex and I stood on a street together. The street was gray and filthy and full of trash. There were bits of garbage in the gutter, like the red and white cardboard from a case of Coca Cola, and flattened aluminum cans, and bits of old newspaper. It felt really lonely and desolate and scary. Alex was about to leave. "Wait, which door do I go through to get back to the apartment?" He looked back and I followed the path of his eyes, and saw a sign that said something like "Beautiful Babies" or "Bathing Beauties" or something like that. Double Bs.

I was so relieved when I woke up this morning, and had to remind myself about six times that it was a dream and that I didn't have to go to India.

Saturday Night: Shopping, Orchestra, Late

I was supposed to play cello with my high school orchestra at 2:30. But I was also waiting for my bff to come visit from out-of-town. The recital kept getting postponed. So I decided to do some shopping for presents. I went into one store and it turned out to be a salon but they also sold really great belts and bags. I looked at some hot pink hair dye, thinking of presents for my bff, but it was $36.00 for a little tube. "Forget it!" I thought. Then I saw bags upstairs. One was in the style of the Mr. Men characters AND on clearance. I was so excited! But then it turned out to be a hat for a little kid. It would be too small. I walked into an athletic clothing store but it was too crowded. So I went to get something to eat. I wanted a veggie hot dog, but accidentally ordered a veggie burger instead. And it was $6! I was sad, as the veggie hot dog would have only been $3.50. The guy at the counter was very cute and alternative looking. He was a friend of my BFF, and I explained I was waiting for her. Then I remembered I had a concert to play! I checked my cell phone. The concert was post-poned until 5:30. Phew. I said good-bye to the nice guy at the counter and said, "I'll be back." His co-worker made fun of me, like, "Oooh, good to know you'll be back" but BFF's friend said, "No, she's cool, she's a friend." That felt cool and as I left I skated down the stairs like I was on skis and it felt really cool. I looked at 1 other store-front and saw my full name - first, middle, last - written in lights on their wall. I ran to look at it. Another girl did the same thing - she saw the same lights but it said HER name instead. As you get closer, you realize it's an optical illusion. "That's how they get you!" I realized. Inside the store were many exotic animals. Small tigers, miniature lions. I saw a little mammal eat a rabbit and got sad. The girl I walked in with got upset at this as well. Then I realized I was late for the recital. It was 5:30 now! Plus BFF was supposed to arrive and here I was dilly-dallying around the stores.

A jungle

I had a dream that I was at an office building. I was working there. I feel like maybe it was the same building that the TV show "Ugly Betty" takes place (I've been watching a lot of that show latley). But I was on one of the lower levels. I was doing something with the post office.. or maybe just with paper and letters.
I left and called my sister to tell her my cell phone was dying and that I was on my way to the Alliant Energy Center. I was taking the bus there. I was with someone else. I know they were male but I'm not sure who it was. Maybe my brother.
We got off the bus a little late and had to walk further to get there. But it didn't look anything like the Alliant. We were at the top of a hill that was surrounded by a jungle. And I looked out over the trees and saw a tennis court.
I looked to my left and saw a lion come out of the trees. I was terrified. Then there was some sort of old ruins around us. That had window type cut outs. We tricked the lion into climbing up into the window and I told him that I didn't trust him. The lion could talk for some reason. So he was sitting up in one of the windows. I pushed him out. But somehow he lived. And said "I guess you're the one that can't be trusted" and he began to attack us. But it was a teasing kind of a attack. Not using his full strength. I got behind him at some point. I think the other person I was with had him restrained somehow. I wrapped my hands around him and started to pull out his eyes with my hands.
Then my alarm went off.

Reverend Run and Jelly

I have a recurring dream about school. It's always high school, and it's always the end of the semester and I need to go take finals but a)I haven't been to class all semester so I don't know what we're studying and I haven't done any of the work and b)I don't know where the classroom is. What a boring recurring dream. It crept in a bit to the dream I had last night, but slightly more interesting. Only slightly - don't get excited...

I was in a high school english class that was being taught by Mr. Katimsky from My So-Called Life (I've watched over half the series in the last 24 hours in real life). We were supposed to do research papers on somebody. I had no idea who, or what the point of the paper was, or what we were supposed to include. My partner was Michael Masters, who I went to grade school with, and he was making his oral presentation. WHen he was finished, Mr. Katimsky said "Do you have anything to add?" and all I could think of to do was to come up with adjectives to describe the individual. First, I realized that Michael had been talking about Run from Run DMC. Next, I described him as "out there," "over the top," and "a spitfire."

Then Mr. Katimsky asked if I'd like to share my paper. I told him it wasn't done. My friend Johnny appeared and said his wasn't done either. I was bummed because I thought it could have been a cool paper - Run is interesting, I'm sure. I kept wondering how I'd be able to do the paper that night, since I went to school and worked teaching piano full time. Later, after I woke up, I had to tell myself like 5 times that I did not have to write that paper.

In the dream, I did offer to share this other thing with the class. I reached out the window and my arm stretched all the way to the blacktop ground outside, even though we were on the 2nd or 3rd floor, and I gathered some apricot jelly out of a jar with a long-handled white spoon. I passed it around the class to whoever wanted it. "I have strawberry or apricot," I told them. I was surprised at how many people had open faced peanut butter sandwiches sitting on their desks.

I got to Stephanie, another person I went to grade school with. "Do you have any apricot?" she asked. "No, only strawberry and apricot," I replied. She said "Ew" and I gave a serving of apricot to Rachel (also from grade school) who was sitting next to her. At this point, the spoon was gone and I was serving handfuls of jelly. I laughed about it. My hands were not sticky.

Nursing School, Sex, Hairy Toes, Oh my!

11 hours of sleep + melatonin = ...

It was the last day of school, as I work in a university. We were closing it down but also I was there with my current coworker M and a past coworker K. M, K, and I were all taking exams to get into nursing school. The exam was given by my current boss, who looked nothing like my actual current boss. I felt huge anxiety about this test and ended up leaving. We only had 20 minutes to do it and it was multiple choice. I could actually see the questions and answers in my dream, they were very scientific. Like "The Knee Cap and Petella are the same thing: true or false?" That's just an example, most were very hard and full of jargon. Time was up and I only did about a quarter of the exam.

This boss lady came to talk with me. She said she was very surprised and disappointed in me but that she would give me some extra time. I told her I was anxious about taking the test but also anxious about going into nursing school as I am squeamish about needles. She said I would get over that. I finished the test and she said I did very well.

Then in the school I was working as a hairdresser who only dyed people's hair jet black with a tar-like substance. There was someone evil across the way who tricked a person to sign up to pay a million dollars a month to get their hair done. This person was not too worried about it, but I tore up the contract and dyed their hair for free. That black stuff was everywhere.

At some point I had sex with a lady. It was fun.

Then I was back in time. It was the '50s or '60s and bowling had just been invented. So we were at a bowling alley and everyone looked like a greaser but you had to shower before and after you bowled, like at a swimming pool. So I came out of the locker room in just my underwear. No big deal. Everyone was exclaiming about this wacky new phenomenon of bowling. We bowled.

Then I sat in the corner with my shoes off and noticed that my toes were disgusting. I had really long hair growing between my toes. Like, as long as the hair on my head. It was thick and glossy. Someone commented, asking if I had noticed the hair before, and I said no! And quickly cut it off.

There was much more to the dream, but that's enough for now. Phew.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

$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.

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.

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??

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']