The Lynnster Dream Zone

For some reason I've decided to trek down the road from my parents' house. (I am finding it curious by this point in my dreamblogging that I dream about my parents' house more often than I dream about my own apartment, or any apartment I've ever had.) It feels like I'm westward bound, though the landscape is unfamiliar and I see a sort of suburban cluster of stores and a McDonald's on the horizon. I think to myself, Wow, I never knew there was a McDonald's so close to my house. So I head toward it. Along the way, the paved road becomes a dusty, rutted gravel road, passing between expansive, grassy fields lined with rustling trees. I can hear the crickets and the katydids in the grass — their chirps and hums make the air vibrate.

There is a group of young people playing football in the field to my right. Actually, they're probably practicing. It seems more repetitive and stressful than a pickup game. I reach the end of the road and climb up into some twisted piece of farm equipment whose windowed caboose looks down over the group playing ball. Inside, I encounter other people there, and I realize that they are looking at me in frustration, as if to imply that I shouldn't be there and that I'm disturbing this holy practice session. Which, if it's a high school football team, makes sense.

So I climb down and double back. I can't figure out how to get to the cluster of life I saw on the horizon earlier.

[vague and blurry]

I am heading back to my parents' house with the feeling that I'm in trouble. That someone's following me. I think Amy Rose is there. Someone else is with us — someone she knows. We are snickering at the possibility of getting in trouble. I, of course, and wracked with guilt. But we press on.

[vague and blurry]

I am in my parents' house and I come downstairs and there's Lynnster, who I've never met (add that to the tally of bloggers I've dreamt about), but whose blog I read just before bed last night. I've never even seen a recent picture of Lynnster, but my brain managed to take earlier pictures of her and show me what she might look like today. Very interesting trick, brain. Kudos.

Anyway, so Lynnster comes to hug me and is all "Let me see you!!" She is acting like a long-lost aunt, marveling at how I've grown. We chat briefly and then she and my mom go back to kvetching about things, and I completely forget the rest of the dream.

Look at me, I'm an angry Sim

I keep dreaming that I've had sex with someone other than Craig and now have to tell him what I've done. This no doubt comes from the terrible experience of having betrayed a couple of boyfriends when I was slightly younger, slightly dumber, and providing one part of two in immature relationships.

In these dreams, I agonize over hurting Craig because my dream self wants more than anything to be her best self for such a joyful, unconditionally kind man. I get a sense of longing to get back to my sleeping self, who would rather eat a bucket of flaming needles over whole wheat pasta than stay stuck reliving this particular past.

I wake up with a certain ex-boyfriend on my mind, feeling angry that he dare think himself pure enough to punish me the way he did in November. Clearly, we pay our own debts when we hurt someone. Hope that fits in his pocket, but I doubt there's room with such a huge ego taking up so much space.

Frozen Foods Hissy Fit

I am the manager of a grocery store. I am secretly seeing S.T. and hanging out with her daughter, who is adorable (I've never met her in reality). I deal with staff issues, which include employees ducking into the coolers when I'm not looking and ignoring the people waiting to be checked out. I'm in heels, and I keep having to march from one side of the store to the other, reaming people. I can barely find time to hang out with S.T., except when we duck out together for cigarettes. We end up getting in a fight in the frozen foods aisle, and I throw a barrel of raw chicken in the floor in front of her and stomp away. I get outside to smoke and decide I had probably better clean that up, since I'm a manager. I change into work clothes and fetch a barrel of cleaning supplies. On my way in, however, S.T. is by the side entrance with her daughter, crying. I know what she's doing. She's going back to her husband. I don't beg her, because I can't. I just stand and cry, and she cries, and her daughter cries. And then the door opens and a chap (her husband) looks at me and leads her inside. I feel empty.

Then she and I are outside smoking and discussing how it's been since she left. "April is worst for me," I say. "And Christmas." She says, "Christmas is bad for me, too." "Yeah, but you have a family," I remind her. And then she is gone.

She has left "our" gold Oldsmobile there, door open and everything. Lori says, "Did she leave the key?" "Yeah, I think it's this funny-shaped one." I stick it in the ignition, and when I turn it my alarm goes off.

Algor and the Rhythms

I'm back in college, again unable to graduate because I skipped my math class all semester.

My mother and I are sitting at a restaurant table. Someone else is there, but I don't have a positive ID. I'm making a case for my screw-up.

"Do you know what algorithms are?" I ask my mother. "It's that ten times this to this power and you have to count zero, zero, zero, zero, all the way up."

As I'm saying this I'm making air zeros with my finger. Mom is laughing.

What's truly funny is that algorithms are much more complicated than the second-grade process I described. Which might explain why I'm not making it through college in my dreams.

Joey and the Fatman

I don't hate fat people. But last night, I killed a poor rotund bastard in my dreams.

The Fatman would loiter by my apartment stairwell, licking his chops as I hovered on the top stairs.

"Top of the morning to ya," he'd say.

"You're not fucking British," I'd tell The Fatman. He wasn't British, and his cockney Westchester accent really pissed me off.

But the little dog-and-pony show and cockney-isms continued, so I eventually I pulled out a handgun. "You're not fucking British," I stammered again waving the handgun at his head.

The Fatman had a splooge of wax encrusted in his puffy brown mane and these big soulful brown eyes, which drooped pathetically as he stared down the barrel of the handgun.

"I'm sorry. You're right. I'm not British," he started.

But I didn't let him finish. I just emptied the chamber into his hunks of lard.

Ka-plunk. Ka-plunk.

The Fatman crumpled up in a ball on the floor. He looked like a beached whale.

But I didn't care. I just stepped over his body and went back into my apartment. Clearly, I had paid my debt to society, ridding the world of one more faux Briton.

All in a day's work.

I lit up a cigarette.

Blips

Something about running away from a murderer stalking me and three kids in the movie theater, Demi Moore giving her husband a striptease, and trying to dial a phone with a busted keypad.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn't the same...

Kibbles 'n' bits

Dream No. 1: I am looking out the second-floor window of a school or a stadium or an auditorium. There is a line out the front door of people milling about, waiting to get in. A car is parked damn near in the actual line. A dude reaches into the car and pulls out a ginormous AK-47 or some large killing machine and proceeds to rain bullets upon the crowd inside the doorway. I scurry away and look for some place to hide.

Dream No. 2: I drink a Coke with dinner and don't even realize it. All hope is lost, I feel guilty, etc. (In real life, I haven't drunk a sip of soda since October.)

Chain of Fools

I blame Craig Brewer and Lindsey Turner.

Before I dozed off into beddy-bye land, I caught a dose of Mr. Brewer's Dirty South blaxploitation pic Black Snake Moan (released on March 2 with Justin Timberlake!), which features Christina Ricci chained to a rusty radiator. I also read a snarky e-mail by one Ms. Turner, a lethal double decker combo, my friend.

As luck would have it, I dreamt of Ms. Turner attached to a rusty 20-foot chain.

I don't remember much else except that an Al-Jazeera version of Johnny Cash was somehow involved.

Moral barometers regarding chicken and nothing else

I'm at a summer camp for competitive athletes. We're in the middle of our intramural games and I'm hot for a surfer already in a rocky relationship. But he likes me too, despite my shakiness while practicing for the tightrope competition. He seems shy and kind (this particular countenance reminds me of a certain poet I once thought hung the moon) and quite attracted to me. We must be together and we both know it. We casually agree to rendezvous back at the cabin before everyone gets back from practice. At some point, I remember having a boyfriend. But where is he? Can I call him? He's fuzzy and I can't remember...

The gang of campers arrives early. Lindsey naps on her cot wearing thick combat boots. I giggle at her for sleeping in her shoes. I ask what she thinks of desiring another while in a relationship. I could just not tell my boyfriend, right? Consequence and guilt are foreign but I can sense them in the distance. Anyway, it's too late. He comes back and we're surrounded by people. He offers me a chicken nugget and I tell him I don't eat those.

Death and the Olsens

My fellow students and I file into a classroom where the TV is on. One of the Olsen twins has died. Ashley, it seems. Mary Kate is on a stage with a whale's giant corpse. A sonogram revealed a skull in the whale's belly, so someone brought the creature up for Mary Kate to cut open. She ceremoniously slices it open with a knife and reveals the skull. A wrist bone is also found; she pulls a bracelet from her pocket and tries it on the remains. It fits and she concludes that Ashley was eaten by a whale. Not so, say scientists.

School is out and I'm in the backseat of my own car. I sense something terrible is about to happen, so I cover myself with a bright green afghan. A car pulls up behind the car parked next to mine and a passenger fires a machine gun at the rear windshield. The car pulls up behind my car and blasts mine as well. A man gets out of the car and comes around to the side window. He points the gun at me and fires over and over again. I feel the bullets hit my body, but I play dead by rolling my eyes into the back of my head. The car drives away and I get out of my destroyed car. It's now raining and I tremble my way into the parking lot where other students are terrified. Some of us are bleeding, but we're all alive and functioning. Despite the close range of my attacker, I'm not even wounded. I think, I'm lucky.

Man Lover and Man Hater

Mom, Brooke, and I lived in a communal apartment with 15 other people. I was trying to photograph everything when a young kid grabbed my camera and dropped it. "What the fuck?!" I screamed in his face, and he lurched back in fear. Then Ken moved in, and kept leaving to get food on his crotch rocket. I had a romantic epiphany with some dude, who said that we had been smitten with one another for five years, and we locked each other in a passionate kiss. Then Mom was driving a truck, Brooke was in the passenger seat, and I was holding on for dear life in the back. I could barely hold on while Mom flew around corners and squealed her tires. My foot flew out of the truck and hit a sign, ripping my boot to shreds. Finally stopped, I held out my boot and started bitching, when the truck began to move again. Mom and Brooke were down the sidewalk. "Wait, who's driving?" I screamed. The truck began to pick up speed down a hill. Mom jerked, as if remembering something, and said, "Oh!!!" The driver's door slammed shut on an empty cab and I yelled, "Mom!!!" It weaved down a hill, and I held on, bracing for impact, until I saw flashbars from a cop car. I leapt out of the back behind some bushes, knowing that if the cop saw me in the back he'd arrest Mom. I hid there until he passed and followed the empty truck.

Then I dreamt that Lindsey and I got married, which is - I'm sure - a direct result of viewing Michi and Dezarhea's wedding pictures right before bed. We were sitting on a windowsill outside, talking jadedly about something, when LT offered me a ring. She said she had given up, and wanted me to give up, too. I said, "Why not? Nothing's ever going to work, anyway!" It felt more like we were initiating each other into a man-hater's club than actually marrying one another. So wedding plans started, and long, twisting versions of her parents' and my parents' houses became the backdrop. I picked out my wedding garb, and she hers. Hers was brown and pink. I said, "Oh, that will look pretty!" I can't remember what mine looked like. I recall having to ride a bicycle for a great distance, and that was my sole form of transportation. Her Mom was very sweet and understanding, but her Dad kept shaking his head and refusing to speak to us. I knew Mom and Dad supported us, but that they'd be late and miss the ceremony (they got there in the nick of time, even after stopping off to play billiards). The ceremony began, and I realized that we hadn't rehearsed anything! Who was supposed to be where? Which side did I stand on? Who walked down the aisle? Who waited at the altar? What music would play? Certainly not the fucking wedding march! We blundered up and down the aisle, and when I started to drag my train I realized that a sheet and comforter had gotten wrapped up in it. Lindsey laughed as we passed each other in the aisle, and said, "Well, we managed to royally fuck this up!" Finally we found ourselves at the altar, but the person marrying us was saying the wrong stuff. Neither of us knew which finger to put the rings on. "We can change it later if it's wrong," I whispered. Then it was time to kiss, and we both looked at each other like, "This is going to be awkward." We finally managed a swift peck and then ran down the aisle with people throwing purple and red glitter and stars.

Then I essentially had the same dream with Michi instead of Lindsey.

Indoor flying

I can't remember the whole dream, or even when I had it, because it just now popped into my head as I was recounting my recurring dreams last night, but it has been within the past week. I can say that for sure.

The only thing I remember is standing in a bedroom, one with soft red and yellow lighting, at the foot of the bed, facing away from the bed. And I recall realizing I was dreaming, and deciding to do something outrageous — I'm always thrill-seeking when I shift into lucid mode, and the only outrageous thing I can ever think of doing is flying — so I just sort of lurch into the air, and do an exaggerated and very graceful back flip, esentially, even though it felt like I was flying up and then over and finally landing on the bed. The ceilings in the house must have been very high, because I recall looking way down and seeing the bed before I landed on it.

My dreams make flying seem so fucking simple it's laughable.

Over and over

Last night when I was trying to fall asleep, as I hovered in that fragile state between full consciousness and the first cycles of black sleep, I kept dropping into the same dream at slightly different points and then forcing myself to wake up when I realized that I was having the same dream I'd had just a few minutes ago. This happened at least four times. The first time I forced myself to wake up just because. The second time, when I realized I was having the exact same dream as I'd just had, I forced myself to wake up because that was just too freaky. Then it kept happening. Falling back into that dream, starting it over and then making myself wake up because it felt wrong to go to sleep and enter into a used dream.

I didn't stop having that dream until I flipped over and fell asleep on my stomach.

And I can't remember what the dream was about. Just that I consciously took note of what was happening and, luckily, thought to myself, You have to blog about this.

What You Don't Expect When You Order Male Strippers

At the end of a dream that involved lots of my school friends and current friends (Lindsey, Amber, Sarah, Allison, Lori, etc.) I segued into a sort of TV show called "What You Don't Expect When You Order Male Strippers." The theme was duck bills, apparently, and each skit started with a small group of frumpy ladies opening the door in frenzied anticipation, and then the What You Don't Expect part. There were several that involved duck bills, but I only remember the last one. The announcer said, "What you don't expect when you order male strippers." The ladies opened the door. Then a huge gang of black dudes went filing in. The announcer said, "Twelve brothers in duck bills who are wearing nothing but their instruments." And then I watched one by one as each guy in a duck bill made a cheesy pose for the camera, hiding his dangly things cleverly behind his instrument.

You should be dancin'

I'm at a party. There are children running around and adults talking about the various joys and pains of raising children. John Travolta is here. He's sitting on an ottoman and checking his watch every ten seconds. He's clearly ready to leave.

I feel boastful sharing a room with John Travolta. Look at me, I'm nonchalant.

Baby you can drive my car

I'm driving through a town which looks distinctly European. The buildings aren't stacked too high and they've got that thick, older look to them. I can't see through my windshield save for a tiny opening at the bottom. I'm peering out through my steering column in order to drive. Suddenly I lose control of the car. My eyes are closed and I wait for a crunchy impact. When it doesn't arrive, I realize I must be careening off a bridge. Open your eyes, I think. Open your eyes. You're about to die and this is the last thing you'll see.

I obey myself and open my eyes. My bedside table is right where I left it.

Not ready

It's morning. I'm in my old bedroom (the one my brother now inhabits) and it's time to get ready for school. I feel awful. Unprepared. Nothing to wear. I look bad. I don't want to leave.

I can hear my family out in the hall, going about their morning routine. My grandmother is there, asking my dad when he got those new shoes.

I keep walking to the window and thinking, Wow, I sure do have a view now. The view is like that from a high-rise instead of a modest split-level. I can see plots of land far below me, and many houses under construction. It's like I'm watching Sim City 4 — Real Life — from the God view. I keep returning to the window to watch, instead of rifling through the closets to look for something to wear to school. I don't bother because none of my clothes are in there anyway.

The Titty Chomping Christian

I'm at this genteel Southern bar, where the womenfolk wear billowy dresses that barely cover their powered ankles. And I'm sitting at this old-timey bar, downing a bottle of Scotch and watching the new Dresden Dolls video on my video iPod.

The dark cabaret lead singer of the Dolls, Amanda Palmer has decided to make a music video documenting her female-to-male sexual reassignment surgery.

And as I'm showing this video to high school classmate Katherine Heirs and New York cable access iconoclast Barry Z, I notice a haggard-looking country-and-western performer out of the corner of my eye.

She's singing parody songs, but with racially charged titles such as "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Niggers."

Now as a pot-smoking Christian homosexual, I'm offended by this epithet, so I begin heckling the performer.

"You need to find Jesus in your life, honey," I tell her. But the haggard-looking country-and-western performer shoulders on. She's undeterred.

"Old niggers, children and watermelon wine," she sings.

I can't believe my faith-based heckling isn't getting anywhere. So I do what any rational pot-smoking Christian homosexual does in these situations: I decide to bite the bitch.

I chomp down on a tuft of her left titty, and the country-and-western performer lets out an ungodly shriek.

"I'm taking it to the street, bitch," I tell her between titty chomps.

The incident later shows up on YouTube, of course, where I receive minor fame as "the titty-chomping Christian."

Kissing Daniel Radcliffe

I was in a Harry Potter movie. Someone was talking about doing a hat trick (which is a hockey term and, as far as I know, has nothing to do with Harry Potter). We were on one train, and we saw the big red train that we were supposed to be on. Except we were calling it, "The rail." As we taxied in, Daniel Radcliffe, with his young face and big round glasses, expected a kiss, as the script stated. He leaned forward and puckered, and I leaned in to kiss him. I had masked my attraction expertly, and continued to do so by making sure it was a stage kiss.

Then we got up to the train, and instead of getting to ride in in a car, there were literal automobile cars that were attached to it. We were supposed to attach our car. But, for some reason, I was with the Gold's Gym crew, and Michi and I were expected to attach ourselves. She and I fought for the front spot. I ended up giving it to her and she plugged herself in. Then the train started and we lifted off the ground like kites. I tensed up and we maneuvered ourselves together and hung on to the back of the car in front of us.

The hellish ride was punctuated by what seemed like hours of my wandering long hallways and urgently trying to keep doors shut and people out who wanted to be in.

That Jerk-Off Employee

I'm in an English class, and loving it, when the teacher says we're running out of time and has written each of our names on the board and has told me personally to come up for the assignment for the paper. I'm so excited I can't stand it. A paper to write! As soon as the others begin to file out the door, I dart up front and ask her. Then she tells me that I'm not in her English class any more. Then she becomes Cary Duncan and he tells me that he's not sure where my new English class is, but it can't be that one.

Then I'm in another class and I'm reading a newspaper. But we're all reclined on cluttered sofas that face each other. I am snuggled with a male that I am lusting after (Ken?). But his girlfriend is sitting across from us, staring at us evenly, trying to assess the situation. I don't care, and nestle into the crook of his neck. He nestles against me. We share the newspaper. I am ecstatic to be in his arms. But then, eventually, he gets self conscious and pulls away from me.

I wander through a parking lot, looking for somewhere to ditch my parka. I find a minivan whose hatch is unlocked. I open it and something falls out. I replace what fell and toss my parka into the mess. I throw my keys into the back, take off my shirt, and wander through the parking lot in my tank top. I wander back to my dorm room with an armful of stuff, and when I walk in there's a guy in the bed across from mine. "What are you doing?!" I ask him, seeing clearly what he's doing and that he's my employee Jason, and he replies, "Buttering the bread!" (He's masturbating.) "IS this my room?" I ask, to which he replies, "If you let me finish it is!" I wander through the hallway with my things.

I realize that I threw my keys into that minivan, and if I lose the parka it's fine, but if I lose my keys I can't drive and I'm screwed. I find the minivan and open the hatch. I can't seem to find my keys. I'm rooting around when the family who owns it catches me. They know me, and I realize that the driver is a combination of Dan and Jeff. Dan/Jeff berates me and strips me of my possessions. He puts me out of the van without shoes and tells me to walk to wherever I'm going. It's suddenly night and raining. I find a shelter and suddenly have a magazine to read. The magazine turns out to be the print edition of my dream. I rifle through, amazed at the photographs of what's been happening to me. I read updates and realize that Jason has left my room. I flip to the beginning and there's a bunch of ads for dating. There's a big picture of two guys having sex. I wonder how I missed that part in the dream.

I have created a new blog and it pleases me greatly.

Dead babies

I'm pregnant. And apparently very close to going into labor. I can look down and see a generous bulge beneath my floral-print dress, and sometimes I place my hand protectively over it, the way you see people in the movies do (and possibly in real life, but honestly I've not been around all that many pregnant women to notice).

For some reason, I'm high-tailing it to a hospital (to give birth, I presume) in Philadelphia. I gaze out the window of whatever vehicle is being used to get me there; I'm not sure if I'm being driven in a car by someone I know or if I'm in a bus or a train or what. We are driving through some sleazy-looking sex ghetto where gay men line the streets in skimpy outfits that show off their massive bulges. I wonder to myself why straight men are never so well endowed. I talk to my family on the phone and tell them with amusement where I am. I can't recall their reaction.

I get to the hospital — alone, far as I can tell — and it's a sprawling, dark wood-paneled spread that looks more like a high school from the '70s then a hospital. There's a big plate glass window at ground level that looks onto some sort of campus where I see people walking around, going about their business.

I reach down to my belly and hold it to comfort myself. Something's not right; something is stirring and making me incredibly uncomfortable in a way I can't describe. I take some stairs to an upper level, when it becomes clear to me the other reason — besides having my own baby — that I'm there: To visit Twisty while she has her baby.

[Reality interlude: Twisty Faster is a blogger living in Austin whom I've never met, but whose blog I adore because it's searing and brilliant. Dreaming that she's having a kid is fairly laughable because she is a self-proclaimed spinster aunt, who basically believes that as long as women are the biological child-bearers, they will continue to bear the brunt of social and political oppression. So she's not exactly a subscriber to Babytalk magazine, if you get my drift.]

The entire floor seems empty. I see a stack of paper sitting on a table in a seating area at the end of the hall. I pick it up and see that it's a stack of e-mails for Twisty that she had printed out and placed on the table to share with everyone. Included in the bunch is one I sent her offering up the "Lesbians are people too!" guy for a skewering. [Reality interlude: Yes, I really did e-mail her and tell her about that guy in the hopes that she'd write about him.] It occurs to me that other people must be here, that her loyal group of admirers must have all come out for the birth of her kid.

So I walk down the hall until I get to what I know is her room. No one is in it, but as I enter, I see something horrible: She's hung herself on the back of the door before ever going into labor. She's wearing a red robe and she's just dangling there. No telling how long she'd been there, since the entire floor seems devoid of anyone working in the hospital. I leave the room and frantically search for someone, anyone to tell.

[vague]

I am back in Twisty's room, except now there are about a dozen people there with me. I surmise that they're all internet acquaintances. We are in Twisty's room, mourning. Finally someone speaks up and tells me they know who I am from my pictures and why haven't I said anything? I tell them because I'm the one who saw her dead body dangling there before anyone else knew. At this point I'm an emotional wreck and my belly is giving me fits of discomfort.

I am told unceremoniously — over the phone, I think, almost like an afterthought — that I've lost the baby. My family tells me that they found it in a backpack, like somehow it slipped out of my stomach and into a bookbag and just didn't make it. But I look down and still, there's that belly. It makes sense to me, though; I think back and can't remember being pregnant or having any nausea. I begin to cry and shake because I just don't understand what has happened or what it means for me.

The people in the room are utterly unamused. One even tells me to "get over it." I sniffle and kind of laugh, and say, "This is just like a chatroom." Only I meant "comment thread," because it kind of is. Twisty's commenters can be brutal.

If only

That last awful incident in Murfreesboro is happening all over again. Only this time, one of our friends is taking up for us.

"This is my house as well. You're my guest," he says.

I put on some crazy outfit. Something with leg warmers and high heels and belts that buckle around my neck before gracing my waist. I'm excited because we're going out to celebrate the reunion, the two kids in town and our supporters. Things that matter are being treated as if they matter. Night birds are chirping. Planets are vibrating. We're entitled to at least one more night, if not many more.

And then I wake up in a bed sweaty with my decisions and no-hard-feelings clauses. I feel sad, then defeated. I know there will be many more dreams like this because the fright and confusion are registered like tender college freshman. Though I know it's silly, I'm pissed that no one cared enough to protect me, to protect us, from a lifetime of bad dreams.

Definitely dreaming

The dude sitting across from me in a booth who we'll call Mike (from a previous dream) is totally charmed by me. I can see it in the way he looks at me with a grin — a genuine, toothy one. And by the way he is laughing at all my jokes and looking at me intensely. And by the way he says, "Lindsey, you need to come see my dorm room some time."

"Yes, I do," I reply, squirming in my seat. It's almost too much for me to handle, finally getting this guy's attention and him making a move like that.

He smiles at me. So fucking handsome. I smile back, wondering what that stubble's going to feel like later.