intellectual properties

all mimsy were the borogoves

jay got up at about 4:30am this morning to catch a flight, and sometime between then and when i woke up a few hours later, i had a crazy dream.

yesterday i read dooce’s post about her “college dreams” – the kind where you show up to a class on exam day and don’t know anything, or find out you’ve been registered for a class all semester that you never went to (note: i did actually have a couple of very anxiety producing experiences in college there were not quite as dramatic as NEVER going to a class you had registered for, but close, and so for me these dreams don’t feel like total fiction and do produce a lot of anxiety) – and i guess reading her post triggered the dream i had last night.

it was different this time: this time, i was no longer at UMich – i had gone to another school – somewhere in Florida? – for my senior year, perhaps due to having trouble of some kind at UMich. several of my other friends and college roommates (aimee j in particular) were there too. at the dorm in florida, i kept wandering the halls, asking everyone how i was supposed to know what classes to attend. there was no calendar. i did not have a class schedule. everyone else was coming and going but i felt stuck there in my pajamas, unable to figure out how to figure out my classes. it sort of felt like the time i was an intern in DC and my roommates all had these very important intern positions and had to be at their jobs really early and wear suits and my intern position was sort of …undefined… and so i slept in late and barely did anything and was always just laying around in my pajamas while they scuttled back and forth and did important things. anyway, in my dream i was begging people to help me figure out what i was supposed to be doing and they all looked at me like i was nuts as they ran off with their books and papers. i finally found some sort of playbill that had my name listed being in class for something like 4 days, like for a 4 day seminar – and i had already missed 2 of the days. i was confused because i thought that i had transferred for the whole year, but the schedule said i was just there for a seminar.

at some point i stopped caring about figuring out the class schedule and was trying instead to find my friend marc. i had a bouquet of flowers to give him – black flowers, tied up with black ribbons and bows and black tissue paper, like for a funeral. while searching for marc, instead i found shannon, who was swinging from the ceiling in the main entranceway to the dorm (a two story entrance hall made of dark wood, with stairways going up in all directions and stained glass windows), sitting inside a large wooden chandelier that was really just a very large spice rack – like, instead of lights or candles, there were little glass jars of spices, and she was sitting in the middle. she was swinging back and forth, totally enamored with her spices, singly softly. this makes incredible sense, because shannon posted about her new spice rack the other day. it was very Alice in Wonderland, the scene with shannon and her spicerack, with the winding staircases and whatnot, and i think she may have even been dressed like Alice(?), which also makes sense now, because at the disco camping event next weekend, we are having a very large Mad Hatter Tea Party for which everyone is going to dress up in character, and i was thinking a lot about what to do for my character yesterday.

my dreams are obviously very impressionable. everything i read, think, or see gets blended into them. it’s rather amazing, my dreamlife. i’m glad that last night mine ended on a whimsical note and not with the anxious “ohmygodi’mfailingoutofcollege” feeling, as i hate waking up like that. instead, i woke up thinking of shannon, singing to her new amazing spicerack.

dancer dreams

a few months ago ariel reported that she had a dream wherein she was an amazing dancer, but in reality was having trouble living up to her own dream of herself, and i started this blog post in response, because i’ve had that dream. i was the most amazing yogic modern dancer, strong and lithe and moving over the floor like some kind of lightfilled elastic being, both in time to the music yet somehow seemingly effortless. i sometimes still use that dream to visualize movement whenever i’m dancing for performance in front of people. it’s great inspiration to see yourself as you’ve always wanted to be, and even if you think it’s impossible to be that person, to strive toward it, to get as close as possible. perfection is, after all, unattainable.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London

it’s been three months since she had that dream and i started this post, and for some reason i hadn’t wanted to finished it, probably because i haven’t done anything about realizing that dream. i haven’t wanted to really admit that i’m not living up to my own dream of myself. i even had a very explicit conversation about this with a friend not shortly after i started this post, in which he encouraged me to be proactive in taking steps in becoming the person i’ve always dreamed i would/could/should be, and i promised i would and he has tried to goad me forward. yet, somehow, i’m still resistant, and have done none of the things i said i would (might) do that might help me realize the dream of being an amazing dancer. am i scared, or just lazy?

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BUT

i also sort of like being a dilettante. i’ve got my fingers in a lot of pots at the moment, and if i were to take the time and devote myself to just one (like scheduling in time for dance classes), the others would surely suffer. i don’t feel like i’ve found anything just yet that’s worth sacrificing everything else for; that, and i’m already an above average dancer (i can find at least a dozen people to vouch for that statement), so why push it? why not just be happy with my natural ability? i’m far too old to start a career as a dancer, so why bother? but then again, how would i know unless i’ve tried?

“I asked [Phyllis Diller], ‘How do you do so many things?’ And she said, ‘I don’t do anything that isn’t easy. I try things, and if they’re not immediately easy for me, I quit instantly.’ That’s some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.”
-Penn Gillette

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a couple of weeks ago i went back to the gym and renewed my membership. i was having a bad PMS day, and all i really wanted was to go read all the gossip rags while slowly spinning my legs on the exercise bike, working out some of the physical tension, and then to go sit in the sauna. that’s what i did, telling myself that i’d start out slowly and work my way back up to regular workouts. that was 3 weeks ago. i just went back to the gym again today, and i haven’t been going to yoga either. i have grand plans to start going to the gym in the morning before work; i hear it makes you feel good, but honestly any time i can get myself there 2-3 times a week would be an improvement over the zero times a week i’ve been going.

rambling long story short:
need to get off ass and start having a little discipline. i never want to regret not doing these things. there’s a drop-in modern dance studio in berkeley that has evening classes. i think i should go check it out.

wedding dreams

oh no. it’s not what you think.

i’m literally referring to the dream i had the other night, in which jay and i were getting married, and it was either the day before or the day of the wedding, and i had this ugly, lacey, traditional looking white dress in my arms that had just come back from the cleaners.

i held it out to the circle of women surrounding me and said “look! it has holes in it!”

down the front of the dress, the seams were split and the lace was torn. huge holes that could not easily be repaired, due to sequins and boning and such.

“you have to wear it anyway!” they cried.

“but can’t i wear something else? i don’t even LIKE this dress. i HATE white wedding dresses. i want to wear something red!” in my dream, i had THIS in the back of my closet, and that’s what i really wanted to wear, but even if i had to wear white, couldn’t it be more like THIS? i know all these amazing designers and i have so many options! why would i wear this ugly fucking relic?!?!?

“no! you HAVE TO WEAR IT!” they insisted, with the tone of urgency that if you didn’t, the world would implode.

there were trees and a meadow and maple trees and sunshine. it was otherwise a beautiful day. but i was standing with this torn wedding dress in my arms, wondering why the hell i was even in this predicament. i didn’t recall even wanting to get married, and why was i being accosted by a gaggle of middle-aged women insisting i wear this thing? i felt sick.

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i had this dream after watching the video clip of ariel on TV talking about her book, offbeat bride, at the beginning of which she says something like “you know you’re an offbeat bride if you look at one of those enormous bride magazines full of diamond ads and romantic white dress photos and get a little nauseated”.

i get more than a little nauseated. it obviously gives me nightmares just thinking about it.

related link and most excellent rant: diamonds are for never.

parking nightmares

a week ago today i went to lunch with some friends and parked in a lot that i thought was available because 2/3 of the businesses in the building are permanently closed. we came out of our wonderful lunch, full and satisfied, into the rain to find our cars had been immobilized by those yellow “boots” they put on your tires. $60 CASH, she said, to take the boot off. the nearest ATM is 6 blocks away, through the pouring rain. i asked for phone numbers for their business. the attendant gave me 3 – none of them worked. she couldn’t help me, she said. pay up. no way – it was too sketchy, too abrasive, too offensive. they had forcefully immobilized us and were forcing us to stand in the rain and feel small. my friends forked over the cash, as they had jobs to get back to and weren’t feeling they had a case (there were signs clearly posted). i, however, despite their rights, didn’t feel their approach was reasonable. the parking lot was nearly empty. it was raining. and you’re only taking CASH? i entered the one remaining business associated with the lot and asked for the manager. who is responsible for this? she suggested that perhaps “if i were nicer,” the lot attendant would let me go. “nicer?” i had already spent 15 minutes with her trying to validate their action without successs – none of their phone numbers worked and they no longer take credit cards? please, woman. give me a break. i lied and said i didn’t have $60 in the bank, so what was i supposed to do? i bitched, i said i think you’ve got a racket going on here, you are holding people prisoner without good cause, and when i get out of here i’m going to file a report with the city. seeing my incorrigible anger, she backed down and let me off the hook with the purchase of $1.78 worth of blue window washer fluid.

i felt badly afterward, not only for my friends who paid their atrocious fee, but for lying, for being a bitch, for getting out of something where i was clearly in the wrong, like a kid who gets away with handing in a note written by “mom” in their own handwriting. but i felt a great injustice was taking place – i did have $60 in the bank, but i know a good many other people who don’t. if you didn’t pay the $60 by close of business, your car would be towed, which is usually at least $150. so here they were, instead of issuing a parking ticket that could be paid later, immobilizing people and forcing them to hand over cash money. i suppose they could have just towed immedately which would have been worse, but given the circumstances (an empty lot, closed businesses), i wasn’t about to pay into their scheme. the thought of handing 3 $20 bills to that attendant made my stomach turn with deep hatred for the capitalist system, and i fought.

last night, a week later, i dreamed i was in downtown Chicago, the wind blowing cold air down the tunnel of Michigan Avenue, and i came out of a store to find a yellow boot on my car. the attendant this time was a gorgeous blonde with soft eyes and a cascade of ringlets that framed her face like an angel. she knelt beside me on the sidewalk next to the tire, and i begged her. i lied. i pleaded. please, i said, let me go. it’s a $7000 parking ticket, she said. if she lets me go, what will i do for her?

high standards

last night i had a dream that i was hooking up with Eddie Kaye Thomas from American Pie – also known as the guy who does Stifler’s Mom. In my dream I was 15 years older than he, with him being about 14 and me being about 30. My friends were grossed out, but his were all excited and kept asking “so are you going to hit it?”. At one point him and a friend were sitting on a bench discussing his planned course of action, but i could hear them through some sort of microphone system from the other room. I casually approached them and confirmed that yeah, he WAS going to hit it. And then…. we did.

my whole rationale throughout the dream was that if Stifler’s mom thought he was good enough to do (at least twice), then he was good enough for me.

broken dream

there was no reason to stay alive anymore, we thought. there was no sense of urgency; no heart-wrenching, armageddon-like global event to give cause to our decision. more like a general sense of ennui. malaise. exhaustion at the thought of going foward for no apparent reason other than we’d been born and were expected to wait until an external force caused us to die. instead, we decided to do it ourselves, in our own calculated way, in our own time.

we went on a group shopping trip for coffins, and determined for one reason or another that the 3.5′ – 4.0′ length would be suitable, even though it meant we would be forced to fit in fetal position. perhaps the subconscious logic was because that is the way we came into the world, and therefore poetic justice dictates that we should go out in the same form. at the time, however, the decision was based more on the economics of space.

we then threw a sort of going-away party for ourselves. it was a quiet party, with a warm room and soft conversations. a sense of relief that it was all almost over, and we were in complete control. as our lives were ending, we took liberties with ourselves and eachother. we shared lovemaking and beds and ate food with our fingers and felt no shame about it all.

i determined that i would need a test run. as much as i thought i was completely resolved to the process, i felt the need to at least get in and get out of the coffin once, of my own accord, before settling in for good. i squeezed myself in, and closed the top. someone began shoveling what should have been dirt but instead were raw, chopped sweet potatoes into my shallow grave. i sank into the soothing idea that soon i would just go to sleep. forever.

that didn’t last long, though, and the most intense moments of the experience were not in trying to get out, but in determining the best position in which to rest in peace. the coffin was unlined mahogany, and the wood against my joints was painful. there was just enough room to move around, and i kept wiggling, trying to determine if lying on my back or on my left side would be more eternally comfortable. back and forth, back to side, never finding a balance. i eventually got frustrated and quite disenchanted with the whole idea. i signaled that my trial-run was over and i was dug out.

heated and perspiring, i immediately found my closest companion, and relayed my experience. i simply could not go through with it, i determined. it will be too difficult. i cannot spend my last moments of consciousness uncomfortable. perhaps it was not such a good idea.

i abandoned the plan, and convinced everyone of the same, though feeling not free but even more enslaved. we sat again, soft and depressed, in the warm red room, an opium den of those who had given up hope.

in my waking moments my back and shoulder pain became real, and i could not sleep. i kept moving, lying first on my back and then on my side, back and forth, while the pale grey glow of dawn slowly lightened our undecorated room.

dreams

i wish there was something i could do about these dreams. my subconscious (and, really, my conscious self as well) is full of these awful, terrible, anxiety-ridden images and feelings.

on saturday night i had one of the most horrible dreams i’ve had in quite some time. i’m home alone and have ordered a burrito for delivery (it would be awesome if you could get mexican food delivered around here) – an extra large burrito, and it was $6 plus $4 delivery. a $10 burrito, so i was really hoping it would be good. the delivery guy was big – looked something like the big blonde gay guy in American Wedding (which we just watched). he shows up with my burrito, and comes into the living room. it’s bright daylight out, not dark. it’s warm; i’m wearing something like short and a tank top. he begins to make moves on me; i don’t recall any words being said. just a big body against mine. he’s pushing himself on me, and i realize that he’s going to try to rape me. it’s not a frantic, screaming, pushing, shoving rape scene – more like slow-motion, muscle-tense and sticky scene. i think i remember biting his ear, or digging my nails into his back. but it was all very silent – and less physically violent but mentally very intense, as though the rape is occuring less with bodies and more via ESP. i eventually get him off me, and he leaves.

shortly after that, my mother shows up, wearing a white hospital-gown looking nightdress, and she’s looking very pale, and she has a bloody nose.

derivative

so. uh. hey there. how ya doing?

i’m tired.

last night i had one of those dreams again where i’m failing calculus. not failing because i’m studying and i don’t get it – failing because i haven’t gone to class in weeks/months. incredibly stressful dream, this is, realizing that you totally flaked on something that may or may not determine your future (bringing down your GPA with a 0.0 grade). at one point in the dream i was curled up in fetal position CRYING, CRYING for someone to just get me out of it. make it go away. i don’t want to be here anymore. please make it stop. not quite suicidal, but close.

i have this dream often. sometimes i’m in college, sometimes high school, but always failing calculus. my calc teacher in high school was a real hard-ass, god bless her, the kind of teacher who’d yell at you between classes for hanging out in the halls talking to your friends instead of going directly to your next class and reviewing your notes. the kind of teacher who made it VERY CLEAR that you did NOT slack off in her class. EVER. in real life, i passed 4 years of her classes (geometry, trig, calc, etc) with pretty much straight A/A-s. i hated math, but i was good at it, and by the 4th year of classes with her we all loved her dearly. she really cared.

in these dream it’s that tough-love mentality that creates such a horrible nightmare- YOU CANNOT BE LATE. YOU CANNOT MISS CLASS. YOU SHALL NOT FAIL. YOU MUST ABIDE BY THE RULES. realizing that i’ve disobeyed all those rules – practical, life-long lessons – and that i’m going to fail miserably is almost intolerable. extreme self-anguish. utter loss of faith in your self and your ability to go on. the feeling that you will not ever be able recover what you’ve thrown away.

these dreams exhaust me. i wake up tired, and stressed. my body aches. my brain thinks it’s been awake all night trying to fight its way out of these nerve wracking situations, exaggerated by the dream state to a point of inhumane emotional torrents.

i’ve been really stressed. organizing the workshop that i just helped to teach for 2 days is something that i’ve done more than 10 times. i know how it goes – i know what to bring and when to do what and when to say what, etc., but every time i get really stressed. it’s all on me – if i don’t show up, the show doesn’t go on. that, combined with the stress of the breast exam on wednesday and the past two weeks of nerves associated with it, has been tiring.

this dream – it tells me i need to deal with my stress better. i’m not managing it well. i do not thrive on stress. i need to keep myself on track. i need to get organized. i need to know where all the balls in my court are and what i need to do next. i’ve been letting things slip. too often. things have been slipping, and in my dream they’ve slipped too far. i think if i can be self-assured that i’m handling everything in my waking life as well as i can, the dream will stop, and i can wake up unafraid.

burst

i dreamed last night that i was six months pregnant. i don’t remember the full dream or context, just me rubbing my belly, perfectly round and stretching against my t-shirt, heavy, like a beach ball full of sand, pressing against my bladder. i was terrified. it was one of the worst dreams i’ve had in a long time.

thieves and wild animals

last night i had the most vivid dreams. first, shortly after i had woken up at 4:00 a.m. and had fallen back asleep, i dreamed that we were being robbed. i was in my bed, and it was as if i hadn’t fallen back asleep. suddenly i heard people in my house, coming up the stairs, and then my front door to my apartment (which i can see from my bed) opened, and two people entered; a man and a woman. they were talking, and slowly moved down the hall toward my bedroom. they didn’t appear to be interested in stealing anything in our apartment; didn’t even stop to look for the stereo or computer or anything. they just came straight for the bed, and as they entered the room i sat up and the woman attempted to put a gunny sack over my head. as she did, i screamed and jerked away from her. when i did this in my dream, i also did it for real, and since i was sleeping with my arms across my chest, when i jerked i scratched myself (i have pretty long fingernails) across my left breast and totally drew blood. it hurt so badly that i woke up, terrified, breathing heavily and wondering what the hell the pain was on my chest, still totally expecting to see the two people standing in my bedroom . i went into the bathroom and saw the scratch marks and was really surprised. i don’t think i’ve ever actually physically hurt myself before because of a dream. i’ve definitely woken up several times scared as hell, but never do i remember suffering physical damage.

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