Scene from inside a nap

I'm in China, riding in some sort of cart that's being pulled up a steep steel contraption by a pulley system. It's some sort of rigged-up public transportation system. For tourists. It dawns on me how unbelievably unsafe it is, and how there is probably no federal or state or municipal oversight of this ride's safety. And how you always read about freak accidents in China where tons of people -- including clueless tourists -- were killed. I was going to be one of those people, because I thought I saw a runaway cart come slowly creeping over the hill, at which point it was going to careen into our cart, which was slowly climbing the hill.

I don't think I actually saw it, though. I just dreamed that I thought I saw it.

Color-changing fun

I don't remember much of the dream except for the encounter with the lizard.

I'm back at my childhood home looking out the dining room window at a back yard full of palm trees, which aren't there in real life. On the tree closest to the window is a gigantic lizard that has changed color to blend in.

It doesn't quite look like a chameleon. It's more like a cross between a gila monster and an iguana, but it's freaking huge. It's massive. The thing is somehow perched along one of the leaves and its tail extends back to wrap around the trunk of the tree. In my estimation, it's about 8 feet long.

Somehow, the trees are changing color a little bit and unmasking the lizard. This is how I first noticed it. I start watching it blend back into its surroundings when a sense of foreboding comes over me. This lizard is a wretched monster, I realize.

I call over some people (I think a few were family members) and show them the lizard. "We have to get rid of this," I tell them. Their concern mirrors mine. The monster moves and stares at us. We freeze in fear, watching for its next move.

Who needs college when there's Jenny McCarthy?

I am really behind on dream posting. This is from a couple of days ago. I dreamt that I was at Al's, but there was a new manager, and I was effing up everything that I touched. All the knowledge I had had been stripped from my mind - I didn't know what clefs instruments read, I couldn't read a tenor clef, I couldn't work a cash register, and I couldn't turn on any lights. I stood in the dark pressing buttons on the cash register, and the receipt was in a shard of streetlight and just kept coming out wrong. I kept voiding everything, and the manager kept yelling at me. The store was dark, but it was fully staffed with strangers. People gathered around after their shift and I chit-chatted with another employee. The manager walked up to the back counter - which was still the actual back institutional sales counter but was located in a restaurant back room of some sort - and set down the botched up receipt and made a remark. I was fearing that he was about to fire me. He said something quietly that sounded like, "Get the hell out," but I didn't really understand him and I was afraid to ask him to repeat it. He turned to go, but I stood frozen. After a second someone said, "I thought he was going to fire you." Another said, "He told us that he was, so I don't really understand." I was livid that he had gone behind my back. I threw open a back door I've never seen before and stomped out into the rain. I am sloshing across the parking lot when a tall blonde asks me what the matter is. She's partly a character named Lane from Curious Wine, and the rest of her is Jenny McCarthy. I go into the spiel about my boss and the manager being dicks and gossiping about me and she says, "You should come work for me." And I return jokingly, "Yeah, personal assistant to Jenny McCarthy might look really good on a resume." She smiles and looks at me hard. "Really?" I realize that she is offering me a job. I realize I'm about to get fired anyway. "Yeah," I say, summoning my courage and tromping through the downpour to where she's standing under the awning. "Great! You can start tonight!" she says, and my gut sinks in horror as I realize that I will now have to blow off my next shift at Al's because she's Jenny McCarthy. She starts circling things in a planner and looks at me and hands me an umbrella. "First, you hold this umbrella for me while I get to my SUV," she says, and points to a big silver tank of a truck. I realize I have no idea what a "personal assistant" position entails. "You'll do fine," she assures me, reading my mind. I scurry along with her, but keeping the blue umbrella centered over her proves challenging. Then I'm back at Al's, and the unhappy group is surrounding me, and I'm sweating and trying to explain why I blew off my shift.

This Isn't Technically a Dream

But I kept waking up last night and this morning thinking I was lying in a pile of Crackberries and Sarah's and Lindsey's pictures. These were waking dreams, I guess. Then I woke up a few times thinking that I was lying on top of Lindsey and Sarah, and I was embarrassed and sat bolt upright and started to apologize before realizing that I was just in bed. Thoughts like these made my sleep last night fitful and confusing.

Not Just a Game

(I had while sleeping at a Rest Area on the drive back up from Tennessee to New York): I am with a group of people in an office building and we have decided to play a Game. It comes in a box, and once you open it you are bound to the rules - no cheating - which basically confines us to the building we opened the box in. You can't leave until the game is finished. We are running around and playing the game jovially with the miniature robots that come in the box. Apparently the game consists of frolicking about and challenging the robots with trivia and answering when they challenge us. Suddenly a woman bursts into the room I'm in and says, "They aren't losing," with such finality and doom that I realize that we're going to die because of it. I turn to see the little robots shooting lasers at their human opponents, and random bodies flying through the air and exploding. I make for the exit, panicking, but a voice suddenly says, "No cheating." That's when I realize that the no leaving part is what ends the game - everyone must stay present so everyone involved can be killed. Once everyone is killed the robots will return to their box and the game will be over. If someone leaves the robots will unleash a death spree on the unwitting public. I resign myself to my fate and lock myself in a room with others to wait. Then it becomes a refugee situation, as if we have been in that room for years. Three naked men with pot bellies choose from the group of females to be that day's sexual partner. A large, swarthy man chooses me. I am numb to it by this point.

Sunday School

I'm back in my parents' church again. This time I'm doing the "churchy" thing going to several Sunday School classes.

I start off in the college/young singles class and sit down on the end of a row. Then I notice this certain person who has been a part of my life fairly recently has walked through the class. He smiles at me, says a few words to the teacher and leaves. A couple of people look at me with serious expressions. I stare straight ahead.

Then later, I walk down the hall to the 5th grade Sunday School class. I've been asked to join the class for reasons unknown to me. I go in and sit down. The same man walks through, smiles at me, says something to the teacher and leaves. I feel like he's following me.

Then I'm asked to wait in the hall while the class discusses a few things. I go out into the hall and wait with another girl who was asked to do the same. While we're waiting, the guy I keep seeing is out in the hall talking jovially with some church members.

The girl with me gets called back into the classroom and I hear the teacher asking her about how she lies. I wonder what the hell I'm doing out in the hall when I'm called back in.

The teacher holds something like a cordless phone to my face as she starts asking me about the affairs I'm having. I'm stunned into silence. Then people start milling around like class is over.

This is the most obvious dream I think I've had in my life. Good grief.

The More You Ruv Someone

I'm listening attentively to a kabuki-style lecture series on the persecution of Asian-Americans at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, Tenn with my high school AP English class.

"Welcome, Engrish shittirens," the lead Asian-American says.

Right in the middle of the lotus flower presentation, a corpulent young man begins teabagging me. But it's not a fratty John Belushi-type teabag. It's more of a wink-wink type teabag.

I don't take too kindly to this. "This fat young Asian man is raping me with his scrotum," I cry out loudly.

The kabuki performers are aghast. Faces turn in the crowd.

Finally, my beloved English teacher Kristen Carwile escorts the teabagger to the nearest exit. Once outside the Belcourt Theater, a muscled Village People-esque SWAT team proceeds to beat the shit out of him.

Late May marathon dreaming

I had another night packed with insane dreams last night.

The only bits I remember clearly:

• I'm on a plane and apparently we've got to jump the interstate to get to our runway. There's no overpass; we just have to do a miniature takeoff and landing to get to the other side of the road. And then when we do, suddenly we're on the interstate itself, trying to take off from there in between those huge green exit signs. Harrowing.

• I'm in a grimy public restroom, peeing, when I see this frumpy middle-aged dude walk past me (apparently there are no stalls) and ogle me. He continues to watch as he walks away. I am simultaneously enraged and embarrassed, and as I berate him for being a creepy asshole, I tell him, for some reason, "I'm sorry." When I come out of the restroom, I find my dad and he wonders what took me so long. I tell him about creepy asshole guy and dad gets so pissed off that he is shaking. He wants to kill the guy for treating his little girl that way.

• A very portly gentleman is telling me something about America and colonial political theory. He says, "Benjamin Franklin felt that everyone should be able to fly whatever kite they wanted, but that no one should be able to see your key." He leans back and begins unbuckling his belt, and I freak out, thinking he's some kind of perv. He reassures me that no, he just wants to show me his belly, which is portly because there's a baby in there. He cups his right manboob and tells me that he's lactating.

I wake up to the sound of a loud thud and realize that one of the five books on my bed has made its way to the floor. There's no one in my bedroom but me, so perhaps I was thrashing around and knocked it off.

FUBAR

I'm changing out the lenses on my camera and I look down and realize I've gotten an amazing amount of dirt and dead leaves in the interior of my little kit lens. I blow into it, thinking I can just dispense with the mess, but when I look down again, there's even more debris inside the lens. I tug on some kind of string, thinking it will pull the bad stuff out, and the entire guts of the lens come tumbling out into a pile.

There are people around — presumably people who know how to deal with camera equipment — and as soon as I show the lens (what's left of it) to a white-haired older gentleman, he shakes his head as if to say Too bad, that lens is FUBAR.

I set about trying to reassemble the lens shortly before realizing I have no idea how a lens' interior should even look.

I feel like a total fuckup but I'm not too disappointed because I've been wanting to get a new primary lens for a while. And yes, I did think of that exact lens in the dream.

Red Candy Apples

Prince Harry and Prince William delivered an impassioned speech on land mines at my alma mater, Page High School.

They stood in the parking lot with little oil-caked tykes bobbing around them with their arms outstretched. The children looked like little skeletons dripped in wax. You know, the sort made famous in those damned Sally Struthers infomercials at 2 o' clock in the morning.

Anyhoo, I didn't give two shits from a gnat's behind about Prince William. Of course, I wanted to prod Prince Harry's red candy apples. Always have. But I chomped my lips at the bit, instead.

My Mom drove over to Prince Harry and asked if she could make a donation.

"That's be great," Prince Harry said.

So my Mum swung open the driver side door. In the process, she smacked a little oil-caked tyke in the back of his head.

Prince Harry didn't seem to notice.

One big cart

My parents' church tends to be a recurring scene set in my dreams. This time, I'm in the parking lot with several people I know from that church including a recently married couple.

We're getting ready to make a trip somewhere, and the husband is having a hard time getting his large family to give him enough space to get ready to go. He has been loading a shopping cart with food items we're supposed to take with us.

The large family comes over to bother me for a while. At one point, they gather around me holding hands in a circle and start singing. I freak out and break away from them.

The wife tells us to all jump into the shopping cart, which is now empty of food items. It's the couple, one other girl and me. I don't know the other girl, but she's ridiculously underdressed for as cold as it is. We talk briefly and I ask her how she stays warm in her purple sweater dress. She replies that she's wearing Spanx.

All during this time, the wife is moving back and forth putting the foodstuffs back in the cart. She's doing a remarkably good job in her feng sui as I don't notice a decrease in available space at all. When she's not nearby, her husband is being ridiculously affectionate toward me. He rubs my shoulders, kisses my head, and does all sorts of sappy little touches that seem to be reassuring.

I'm really ignoring this, not because I feel any sort of guilt or embarrassment. It just seems like nothing to me and I don't give it another thought. I don't reciprocate and I just watch where we're going as the cart coasts around the parking lot closer to the SUV we're going to take on our journey.

Floods.

Ocean flood/tsunami dreams for the past two nights. Both with my family nearby, though in one I was mainly hanging out with Jessie and her husband. Last night I was on the beach when the water pulled out and when I saw the big wave coming back in, I hauled ass up a hill, scrambling and tugging at vegetation, to get away from it.

Lindsey doesn't need any sushi

I was at my grandparents' house in Cerro Gordo, apparently living in my sister's room. I was getting ready to go somewhere, and the blue early morning light was streaming in the window. I got dressed and looked down at my heels to see if they matched okay, and then got a text alert. It was a telemarketing text, and I replied, "No." Only, somehow I forwarded it to Lindsey, because she texted back, "No pa hai need sushi, y no pe ha any sauce, either, but thanks." I read it and understood that she was texting in Japanese, even though once I woke up I realized that it was clearly Spanish-inspired gibberish. I was embarrassed that I had forwarded the text to her, and didn't know what to say in return, so I just threw the phone on the bed.

Bad weather and a wedding

My father instructs me to get all gussied up; we're going to a wedding in less than an hour, and would I mind getting ready even earlier because we have to stop by the store for something on the way? The wedding is happening at the Parkers' house. I played softball with the Parker girls throughout my school years and we were always good friends (I've not seen or spoken to any of them in years; I don't think they're on Facebook). Apparently Faye (Jo Ann's mom) has cancer (that's true in real life) and even though Jo Ann just met this guy thirty minutes ago, they're getting married immediately and everyone's got to get dressed up to come to the house and watch it.

So I do my best to put my dress on and look pretty and it's tense because we're running late because of me. We pile into the car and my cousin Keri — a younger version of her — has to sit in my lap and I'm afraid she's getting mud on my skirt because she's just a kid.

The weather has started to get nasty out and we are trucking it over backwoods hills, topping them with no tires on the ground, screaming for my mother, who's driving, to be more careful each time we meet another speeding vehicle at the crest of the hill. We have so many close calls that eventually something happens and we're all exposed to the elements and we're wet and my hair is all effed up.

The sky is the heaviest color of dark grey, like it's ready to just flatten us all.

[][][]

I'm in a high rise, in what I've come to understand is my editor in chief's office. It's super swanky, with its own little breakfast stand and attendant in the lobby. There are jars of candy on the stand, as well as doughnuts. The office is sparsely decorated, but seems incredibly, frighteningly open because it's surrounded completely by giant plate glass windows. And glass for a ceiling. The storm is still raging outside and I wonder who would want to work in a place like this when the weather gets sour. I notice a small, black, high-walled, completely enclosed cubicle. It is there that the editor actually keeps his desk, I discern.

I imagine a tornado sucking the entire thing out the window and carrying it across the fields that surround the building.