gummy worm infestation
I went through a pretty lame period these last few months, either of dreamlessness or dull dreams. Those aren’t fun to describe here, so I’ve just kind of been ignoring this blog. Not sure what the change has been, but these last few nights, my dreams have been crazy vivid. It feels like the old days!
Last night, I was sitting in a room with no furniture. I felt an awful pain in my left arm. When I looked down at the skin, I saw there was a small bump, almost like a pimple. I went to touch it, and when I did, I made the quick decision that it needed to be pulled.
What follows is kind of gross. Little by little, I pulled out a hugely long rainbow gummy worm. I could feel its body sliding through mine as I pulled on it, and I remember wincing as I felt the other end of the gummy worm trail from my right side, up my right shoulder, across my shoulder blades, and then out my left bicep.
When it was all out, I felt such a sense of relief. I turned around to see that Pete had been standing there the whole time, and I was immediately ashamed.
I’m still pondering the shame-y bit.
baby G!
Last night I had a wonderful, peaceful dream about the birth of my friend E’s baby. She’s due at the end of December, which I guess means that the baby can come anytime in the next 6 weeks.
In the dream, we are visiting her in her “hospital” room (it looked a lot more like an old bedroom in a victorian house–dark hardwood floors with wide planks, a huge queen-sized bed, lots of drapes and draped things everywhere). The light was soft, filtered through some gauzy curtains. We walked in and there were she and B, lounging on the bed with baby. They were so happy! She asked me if I wanted to hold the baby, and of COURSE I said yes. I picked up that little cherub and she was perfect: a happy little ball of flesh and organs weighing in at 8 lbs, 8 oz., with wispy dark hair.
E was walking around while I held the baby, gathering up all her stuff. I saw some laundry and the floor and thought she had been wearing my underwear during her hospital stay. Then I realized it was HER underwear, and it was embarrassing to realize I was wearing the same kind of underwear as a pregnant lady. HAHA. In real life, I’m sure I do wear pregnant lady underwear. Whatever. It’s comfy.
I asked E about the birth experience and this is what she said: “I do not understand what the big deal is. We waited around for a while, came to the hospital, and as soon as we got here it was just like…bwoop! And she was here. It was fine. They need to stop scaring pregnant people. It took like three minutes.” While explaining this to me, she was also doing hand motions in front of her body, with her arms imitating the size of a pregnant belly, and then the hands pushing down fast during the “bwoop” noise.
That’s all. Just thought I’d share. There was more to the dream when I came downstairs and people were at a restaurant eating these weird chocolate-covered sponge cakes that I didn’t like at all. I was at some guy’s birthday party and he was being annoying about everyone eating the cake. But also my mother was there, and we talked about E’s baby, and I told her how much it weighed and said, “That’s not too bad, right?” My mom replied, “That’s a big baby. Your brother was 8 lbs., 12 oz., and that was like Hell.” For the record, this is my dream mom talking, so I don’t know how much my brother really was, but I don’t think I’m that far off.
Anyway, I think the moral of this story is that B + E are going to have a wonderful birth experience and labor will be short and sweet. Then we can all get to meet this baby, already!
fat baby
Really quickly (gotta go to work in like 3 minutes):
Had a dream last night that my family was putting up a huge white tent for me. You know, the kind that people get married under…very tall, with plastic windows and all that. There was a dance floor and a living room area. There was also a nursery.
My aunt walked in with her three children (who are all grown, by the way). She was holding a big ol’ baby in her arms and smiling widely. I asked to hold her new baby, because, why not? And wouldn’t you know it, but that baby was HEAVY. It was so hard to keep the baby in my arms that I had to sit down and play with him on my lap. He was so cute, too! Dark hair, little overalls, big cheeks. My aunt kept going on and on about how happy she was that he was hefty, and that it meant he was nice and healthy. She was so excited! She also kept comparing the baby to her oldest child, also a boy, and how this baby seems to be so much nicer and happier than his older brother.
Then, when the tent was finished, we all sat around, and there was a book we all had to read (that I remembered the name of this morning but now can’t recall). It was understood, though, that this book had been written by one of us, and that it told our story.
go to the head of the class
After a really great weekend up in Portland, ME, hanging out with some of my very closest friends, I got back yesterday and crashed. I ate a LOT on Saturday and slept very little (3:30-7:00 is not what I would call a full night’s sleep!), so Sunday afternoon was spent napping and relaxing. I went to bed around 10:30 and woke up this morning at 7:30 (that nine hours felt gooooood), and my dream was great last night, so it was a restful sleep! There’s no denying that I’m getting older, though. There was a time in my life that four hours of sleep would have been fine. That is, sadly, no longer the case. Also, note to my future self: pizza at 1:30 am is a terrible idea. Stop it right now.
On to the dream!
I am in my high school, searching for my locker. It’s the first day of school and all the students are bustling through the halls, looking down at their schedules and hurrying to find places they aren’t sure of. After trying to open a few lockers that aren’t mine, I realize that I should go into the girls’ locker room to find it. Sure enough, my locker is there (in the dream it’s number 1022, though I’m not sure the significance). People I didn’t go to high school with, but have known since high school ended were all there, bustling about.
I look down at my own schedule to find I’m already late for my first class: banjo! My schedule goes like this: Intro to Banjo, Intro Music Theory, Wheel Throwing (Pottery), and Chorus. It’s a short schedule, so I must have early release or something wonderful like that. In my dreamworld, the first day of school is a half day wherein you meet your teachers, they give you a list of supplies for class the next day, and then you move on to the next class. I was afraid to be late to banjo but it ended up being fine. Dan Kilgour was in my class (the only other student), and he was very excited to be getting started. I apologized to the instructor because I’ve never played any stringed instrument, but he told me not to worry, and that it was called “Intro” because he didn’t expect anybody with experience to come. I felt better after that.
At the end of the day I walked back to my locker to return my schedule to its rightful place. As I’m walking down the hallway, the school changes to look like a replica of Hudson Memorial School. Just like at HMS in sixth grade, my locker is only a few paces away from Mrs. Elgart’s science room. Coming from the room I hear Brady Gerdts singing “How Great is Our God” to his class (he’s a teacher?) and I run to the locker room to find his wife, Emily. When I ask her how he’s allowed to sing the song in a public school she playfully rolls her eyes and says, “He’s singing THAT?! That’s dumb. Well, we’ll see what happens.”
The end!
As a side note, imagine if I just predicted one of Brady’s song choices for this upcoming Sunday? Other side note: why didn’t we have banjo classes in high school? And if we did, why didn’t I know about them? I took ONE art-related class in all of high school and that’s because it was required. If I could do it over, I’d definitely take more. On a more positive note: I can’t do it over again, so I should look into learning some new art things on my own!
castro’s back room
I’m driving quickly through a bad section of an old, weathered, seen-better-days seaside town. It is evening, and the passengers in my car urge me to drive faster and faster; they want to get to their destination before all the gangs come out. As I take their advice into consideration, I realize I’ve taken a wrong turn and pull into a gravel parking lot to turn around. I am not long in the parking lot, because suddenly hundreds of “bad”-looking cars have materialized there–the flames-out-the-tailpipe, spikes-on-the-wheels kind of bad. In other words, they a looking for a rumble.
I peel out of that lot as fast as I can and speed off in the other direction, heading for the section of town that houses all the restaurants. In that dreamy way that only dreams have, I am suddenly alone, and suddenly without a car. I am in a run-down pizza joint, being cajoled by Fidel Castro to buy a slice of his supposedly-delicious pizza. Also, he wants to take me into the back room for some fun. For some reason, though I am totally unwilling to follow him into his back room for whatever romantic encounter he has in mind, I stay in the restaurant and mull over my pizza options. What to get, what to get? Pepper and onion? Mushroom? Sr. Castro has one other employee and she looks exceptionally bored at my inability to decide on a flavor. He looks exceptionally annoyed that I won’t follow him into his sex lair. In fact, after a while of my peering through the glass at the pizza, he pops out from the counter to stand beside me. Why don’t I want to join him? I can help him rule Cuba! We would be a powerful pair, and I could have all the pizza I want. Not to mention that he’s an excellent lover, he says, and could teach me many things. The ways of Cuban love-making are exotic and passionate–none of this boring American business! I begin to wonder.
I agree to visit his home behind the pizza parlor. Just as I do, the dream changes again. Now, we are in Fidel Castro’s apartment. It’s decked out in that pastel geometric+brushstroke kind of art that’s only found in 1986 and at the beach. The couches are a light pink and teal, with a flowing brushstroke pattern. Everything looks at least 25 years old–faded, worn, shabby in an un-chic way. Fidel sits on one side of the living room, looking at me. I sit on the other. Also there are two librarians and my brother. I pick up a book that Fidel has on his plastic coffee table. It’s a picture book of an odd shape, and it looks very familiar to me. I suddenly realize that this tall, skinny book was written by my brother for a school project and illustrated by my famous artist uncle (actually, that I have such an uncle is a real thing! You can find more about him here). I am encouraged to read the book aloud, and so I do. The book is all about a journey to find the best pizza in town, but it’s very wordy and the illustrations are terrible. As I finish reading, I wonder aloud whether my brother got a good grade. “I got the best grade in the class,” he retorts. Ah, of course. I forgot he was sitting right there.
The librarians loved the book and found the illustrations interesting. They enjoyed it so much that they wanted to add it to the library’s collection. Just as I was about to tell them that there was only one in existence, my brother produces 3 or 4 smaller soft-cover versions of the same book, and the librarians smile in delight.
Then I woke up!
four part dream
This dream was from about a week ago, but I wrote it down so that I could relay it later on the blog. It had four parts.
First, there was anthropomorphic lightning that actively tried to electrocute us (not sure who the “us” was). Then tourists arrived on our deck (this time, the “our” is Courtney + Pete), and we had to explain why the lightning was attacking us. I can’t remember our reasons, but the tourists ate it up.
In the second leg of the dream, I am at the gym changing into a tennis skirt and a long sleeved shirt. I am not in the locker room, but rather out in the middle of the tennis court, while matches are being played. Tennis balls whizz by my head as I basically get naked and then re-dress. I remember the shirt was very tight–probably a compression shirt of some sort–and it made me feel extra powerful.
Third, I am sitting on a wooden swing with a friend. The swing is attached by some ropes to a very tall tree. Before us is a huge Olympic-sized swimming pool, with a VERY high diving board. As we watch, a man makes a graceful leap from the diving board into the pool, making only the smallest of splashes as he enters the water. I begin to tell my friend all the reasons I love watching the high dive, and ask her lots of questions about her favorite Olympic sports. I also start heading into “personal question” territory: what does she do in her free time? Where does she see herself in five years? Is it weird to be pregnant? You know, personal stuff. She finally ends my line of questioning by callously answering, “I think I’ve heard enough questions.” Snippy! We watch the high dive in silence after that.
And finally! Julia Berry was in my dream that night, and she wouldn’t let me throw anything away. We were going through my house, finding old magazines and clothes to either give or throw away, depending on the condition of the items. When I picked up a small stack of two-year-old magazines (National Geographic, mostly), she grabbed them from me, exclaiming that it was simply wrong to get rid of such useful objects. I promised I would recycle them, that they wouldn’t end up in a landfill somewhere. She opened one of the magazines and out fell a bunch of clippings. “You can’t recycle these because I’ve already started repurposing them for collage bow-ties in my shop,” she replied. I figured there wasn’t much I could do, but I was frustrated that I couldn’t just get rid of the magazines once and for all.
not a dream
Hey! Just want to let you all know that I’m still here, and still dreaming, and still doing things. I just haven’t written in the blog for a while. I didn’t forget about it, and I didn’t forget about you!
Anyway, here’s a regular old blog post (read: journal entry) for your reading pleasure. For the purposes of this post, I’ll just play a game called “Good Day/Bad Day.” My sister introduced the family to this game a few years ago. The idea is simple. Everyone sits around the dinner table and each person is proposed with the same question: “So, _______. Good day? Bad day?” The rules are simple. You must give one instance of a way your day was a good day, and one instance of your day that was less than desirable (i.e. bad). You must give both.
With that said, on to good day/bad day!
Good day:
I finally went back to step class this morning! It has been four weeks since I was there last. When Pete said the other day, “Um, if you don’t want to go to the gym anymore maybe we can cancel your Y membership…” I realized that it was time to get myself in gear again. I was feeling great! I want it again. So, anyway, yup, that was a good day thing. Also good: I went grocery shopping and bought myself raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries! Yum!
Bad day:
Dreary outside again. And late day at work tonight. Not looking forward to the dark, drizzly ride home.
strummin’ on the ol’ leather strap
I’ve already been awake long enough that some memories of last night’s dream are pretty hazy, but I felt that this one was worth putting in.
I’m at my father’s 50th birthday celebration, hanging out with my cousins and chatting with friends and relatives. One cousin approaches me and asks me to join her in some song in honor of my dad. I think that’s a great idea, because — SURPRISE! — I am an awesome bassist. And I play an upright bass that has only one string. That string is a leather strap, kind of an old dingy belt. I pull the strap tight to make sure the sound is right. I have the bass in one hand and the bow in the other. The bow’s string is also a leather strap, so what I’m doing is really just rubbing two leather belts against each other. Magically, they produce this deep, fantastic sound. I’m feeling pretty good about myself and about the song.
At some point, an old roommate from college approaches me and asks me if I’d like to join her band in Colorado in like, five minutes. I am nervous about letting such a great opportunity slip out of my hands, so I agree, but then remember I’m at a birthday party and isn’t that rude? I try going to the bathroom to think it over but the bathroom doesn’t have any walls. It’s just a big open tiled space with a toilet, a shower head (no stall or walls for the shower), and a very large commercial sink on the wall. There are new orange towels soaking in it. An old lady comes by while I’m peeing and turns on the shower, drenching me and everything else that was hanging near the shower (some dry towels).
I get annoyed and run out of the bathroom to the backyard, where I see a half-inflated blimp, with the former roommate standing by it, waiting for it to fully inflate so we can all get in it to go to Colorado. As it fills up, my mind keeps shooting from one possibility to the next, and I still can’t make up my mind about whether I want to go. But, since I told her I would, I feel like I’m duty bound to go, even if I half don’t want to. We get into the balloony part and just as we’re about to take off, I break down. I cry. I can’t go to Colorado! I’m scared and I’ll miss my family! The former roommate is pissed–why didn’t I just tell her that in the first place so that she didn’t make plans? I try to explain to her how awful I feel about the entire situation. I hate feeling confused. I hate feeling beholden. I hate having doubts. I hate not being able to make up my mind. I hate going back on a decision. I hate that I’m a poor planner. I hate that I can’t ever just take a leap. I hate that I couldn’t tell her sooner. I hate disappointing people. I hate being scared of every possible situation that could arise in life!
And she was annoyed and went to Colorado without me. I went back to my family and was mostly happy, but still had some doubts. And then I woke up.
…and anyway, that’s pretty much how I feel about my decision-making skills in a nutshell. So, I’d say this dream is a pretty accurate reflection of how I feel about life when it comes down to making choices.
detective brain
Last night’s dreams were SO VIVID. They were the most real-feeling dreams I’ve had in a long while. Work has been going great, I’m finally getting into the swing of balancing hobbies/work/hanging out/doing other things, and it’s really nice. I feel like life is settling in to a neat and tidy routine that leaves room for spontaneity, and that’s a good feeling. Anyway…on to the dreams!
I am at a cheerleading competition. It appears that there are many levels here: elementary, middle school, high school, and even CYO teams. The gym is very bright, and the blue mat in the middle is enormous. I am wearing a uniform, but I’m not on any team. Sitting with the mothers and grandmothers and all the other fans, I cheer loudly when a team I know gets up to the mat. I am sitting next to someone who seems to be in the same boat as I am: she’s wearing an old cheerleading skirt with a souvenir tee-shirt from a competition past. She cheers for different teams, but we occasionally nod at each other when we notice an impressive move or when someone nearly falls.
Then, I get angry. I suddenly realize that all these teams are doing are sideline cheers and not much else. There is little skill involved, and everybody knows the same cheers. I note that two teams are doing the same cheer with the same moves, and that it lasts only one round of chanting. They’ve barely gotten out of their seats in the bleachers! For some reason, this enrages me. I start yelling negative things. I’m pretty sure I actually start boo-ing when girls only manage one measly cheer. I feel angry and jealous. I’m not a cheerleader anymore, but I know bad cheering when I see it. A young woman–a judge for the competition–approaches me from the other side of the mat. It’s an old trainer of mine, a girl who taught me many of the basics I know about cheerleading. When she helped with my teams I was young, maybe 11 years old, and I thought of her as a cheerleading goddess (she was just a high school kid who volunteered for the Pop Warner and CYO coaches). She had a huge smile, she was very thin, and she had lots of those things that “older girls” seem to have: a boyfriend, a boombox, CD’s of bands I’d never heard of, midriff-baring clothes (it was the 90s!), a bra. At any rate, for much of my childhood I looked up to her, and now, here she is in my dream, letting me know that it’s my turn to go on! I thought she was going to yell at me for yelling, but she seems to confirm that those sideline cheers were just a preliminary round, not the real deal. The real competition is about to begin, and I should be joining my former team.
I can’t believe this. I haven’t practiced, I came here alone, but somehow my team knows they need me. The thing is…I kind of suck. I haven’t practiced! I don’t know the moves! It’s my time to shine and I mess it all up. They (this is the Alvirne Varsity squad, now) seem to recognize that there is no way I could know the moves to the dances and cheers, since I haven’t been to a single practice, but as I clumsily try to follow the person in front of me, I feel their angry gazes melting my skin. Someone has given me a second chance at cheerleading, and I have to leave the mat about 20 seconds into the routine because they are all doing back-handspring back-tucks, and all I can do is a cartwheel. I run off the mat, finally recognizing that my glory days are over–I should have just stayed in the bleachers.
DREAM SHIFT
A man and I approach the home of an elderly woman. When she answers the door, it is immediately evident why we are there. She is the woman who has murdered countless people, and we are there to apprehend (or kill) her. Her build is slight; she has very short gray hair and a kind expression is nestled into her wrinkles. She wears a pastel Grandma sweatshirt, with some cutesy phrase about grandchildren embroidered on it. She shuffles slowly around the small house, making us tea and bringing us cookies as my partner and I (we are on the police force, I think?) share knowing glances across a glass dining room table.
The table has a kind of display shelf beneath the glass top, and as the old woman sits and talks with us over tea and cookies, my eyes meet my partner’s, and together we glance slowly and (we hope!) inconspicuously to a shining object on display below the table: a giant gleaming knife–just the kind that might be used for murder. I get excited thinking that we finally have our perp, when suddenly the old woman smiles a knowing–and menacing–smile. In one swift move she makes it clear that she has seen our gazes fall to the weapon and, tilting the table top up, knocking sharply into my friends chin and neck, she grabs the knife and then lunges at him, blood instantly pooling everywhere. I leap to my feet before she has a chance to knock the table over onto me, and for a few long moments she and I are fighting hand-to-hand. I work to wrestle the knife out of her bony, arthritic clutch.
A minute or two goes by and I see a figure pass into the living room out of the corner of my eye. I allow myself to quickly look in that direction and see it is hired help. The cleaning woman has arrived with her young daughter, who is probably 4 years old. The daughter is clearly terrified of the battle she is witnessing, standing wide-eyed in the corner, clutching a stuffed animal. My hand softens as I think about the girl, and the old woman takes advantage of my weakness, freeing her hand and jabbing at the hot air in front of my nose. She misses, but it’s close.
The cleaning woman decides that she will help me, and not the old woman, and quickly scurries over to help me up before the old woman can attack again. With the power of two, it’s much easier to pin the old woman to the wall and grab the knife. For some reason, though, I need to take it further. Instead of handcuffing her and bringing her to jail, I go Hannibal Lecter on this old lady and cut off the top of her skull, leaving her brain exposed. I take her to the bathroom, take a small piece from the front of her brain, and flush it down the toilet. I take the child and the maid with me, leaving the old lady behind, her lilac-colored brain pulsing with childlike confusion. I get the feeling, though, as I exit the house, that I will have to come back. That this won’t be the end. That the old woman will kill again.
And now, as I read this back, here’s my one attempt at interpretation: I think my fear of aging has finally manifested itself.
Upstairs is gone. 