Always unprepared

The first dream involved the other side of a long-distance relationship finally getting his ass in my general vicinity. He finally comes to see me and my place is packed with people I keep trying to get rid of. I tell them all that he's coming to see me and they need to go away.

He arrives. They're still everywhere. I'm not ready for him to be here, but I do my best not to show it as I continue to try to shoo people away.

Somewhere in there, we're in a park sitting in this bench contraption that forms a square with two other people, one of whom is one of my bosses. The boss and my guest start up a conversation while I notice my guest has very strange feet. His toes are incredibly short and stumpy even though the size of his foot is normal. It's like his toes had to be cut from the slab of flesh at the end of his foot.

The boss ignores me completely and I wonder if anyone notices I haven't even taken a shower.

...

The second dream involved traveling to Europe with a group of people including my mother and a certain person of interest I can't seem to get out of my head. The person, we'll call T, is leading the group around a tour of Germany and keeps looking to make sure I'm right there with him.

I realize I forgot my watch even though we had been explicitly told before the trip started that we would need to bring one.

Then, I realize I forgot my camera. My mother begins to gripe at me that I should have taken more time to pack since I forgot two essentials of travel. This makes me wonder if I remembered to get my suitcase at the airport when we landed. I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Meanwhile, T keeps coming by and tapping me on the shoulder to get me to pay attention when the group moves.

I try to stay lighthearted on the outside and pretend I don't feel like a complete moron or worry that I'm disappointing him.

Dream within a dream.

I'm at Lindsey's place, only it's completely different. It's a house rather than an apartment, and there's carpet in most of the rooms. She has a live-in boyfriend (husband?). We're hanging out and chit-chatting while I help her move the furniture so we can shampoo her carpets. For no reason, a girl I used to see on the sly back in high school (we'll call her Jamie) walks in and it ain't no thing. It appears that she and Lindsey are at least aquainted with each other. Lindsey has to go to take her man some lunch and a package of paper, and encourages us to take a break while she's gone. Jamie and I sit down on the couch and start talking, but then she's Tamara, and Tamara is talking about how much she misses Jamie. I'm like, "I thought you didn't even know Jamie!" to which she replies, "Everyone has a Jamie." Then she is Jamie again. Lindsey is back and she says that since all the stuff is out of the way, ____ (her fella) will finish when he gets home. She said his name but (sorry!) I didn't absorb it or I can't remember it. I stand up and bang my head on a low shelf. Suddenly Mom and I are driving through Germantown and something in my car goes wrong. I have to pull over and Mom says that we need a specific tool from a specific store, and points to an upscale-ish department store, which is closed but we see people inside. One of the people opens the door for us and then we're coming off the escalator and into a beauty-counter area. My attention is drawn to the Chanel counter and I trot over to get a spritz of some Allure, Luke's favorite on me. Out of nowhere, there's a singing man in my way. I immediately recognize him from high school; he was a total jock, one of the "hot guys" and he had a big thing for me which of course was pretty much ignored at school, since I was not exactly a cheerleader. I stopped talking to him because what I needed was a friend and he was disturbingly horndoggish. He never got in my pants, and I think that through high school there was some lingering resentment about that even though he was basically nice to me. We'll call him AJF. Anyway, AJF is between me and the Chanel counter, singing and dancing around. His singing voice isn't too bad, kinda like Michael Buble and in that style, but he looks like a damn fool. And he's singing about all the women he's looking at, making up the song as he goes along. It's creepy; he's singing about all the asses and thighs and how he just can't help himself. He's using the "p" word constantly. I'm the only one who notices him. He's danced off to another lady, so I start looking at the pretty perfume bottles and making a mental note to look for a new atomizer. Then he's back, and he's making a big, grand sweeping gesture with his arm that knocks over and breaks all the pretty bottles. Undaunted, he sidles up really close and says, "Hey, funny-face! My funny valentine! Dance, funny girl?" and breaks into a jig and starts singing about the tall redhead (that's me) whose lady-parts he never knew but still wants to. I'm impressed by his clever rhyming but he still looks like an idiot and I still think he's pathetic. Then I'm suddenly back on Lindsey's couch. Jamie and Lindsey are looking down at me and I realize that when I bumped my head and conked out and that I had been dreaming. I say to Lindsey, "Oh, man... I need to write down my dream quick for Nocturnal Admissions! That was crazy!" and she agrees and starts rummaging through things for a particular dream notebook she keeps. She rummages into the other room and Jamie starts rubbing my shoulders. Then she touches my face and leans in to kiss me and I stop her. I'm very confused and I don't want her. I get mad and tell her she doesn't want me in particular, she just generally wants everybody. She starts crying. Lindsey walks in and hands me the notebook. She notices Jamie crying and looks at me like, "What's her deal?" and I roll my eyes and shrug. I flip open the notebook and start flipping to find a blank page. We hear her significant other pull into the driveway and come up the walk. I flip to a page that has a picture pasted to it, a picture of Lindsey and her ex, and there's a poem to go with it. She gasps that she thought she had thrown it away. Jamie storms out. Lindsey's guy, who is too dream-blurry to identify, comes in and sees the picture/poem in my hand, yells "Goddammit!" and walks back outside and sits in a chair on the front porch. Lindsey gives me a hateful look and I feel really low, like I've gotten her in big trouble. She goes outside too and that's when I wake up.

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.