I Had a Dream

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and I celebrated by looking at intricately painted mandalas from Nepal at the Rubin, and eating delicious pizza and pasta at Donatella. Thanks, Dr. King, for giving me a day off to celebrate the diversity of New York City. And for having a dream... Which brings me to my actual topic. Dreaming. Because I had some very bizarre dreams last night.

Dreaming has always been an important part of my life, because I have crazy vivid dreams that I tend to remember pretty well. I have intense memories of images and thoughts and experiences from dreams from many, many years ago that will stay with me forever. I have written stories based on dreams--maybe because I read so much and have to imagine so much in my head, I am able to do so in my dreams as well. I have had so many post-apocalyptic dreams that I sometimes feel that internally I am living in a bizarre dystopian novel or movie. I happen to love those kinds of books and movies in real life, so it makes sense. Perhaps I put too much weight on the meaning of my dreams at times, but I don't care. I love to sit back and dissect why I dreamed about a particular person or place or experience, and analyze my reactions in the dream and after waking. Sometimes I realize they're just a warped reflection of my day, a movie, a book, a conversation... But sometimes I really do feel as though I gain insight into myself from thinking back on the crazy things that happened as I was sleeping.

One part of last night's dream involved me driving my dad's car, and I was late getting to school, which was some weird boarding school. After school I had a concert to go to with a friend and I was wearing a pretty white tank top. Upon pulling out of the driveway, to my horror I realized I had not put on any deodorant. This was unfortunate. Luckily, another friend lived along the way to school and I stopped by her house. Only her mother and brother were home, because she was on a fabulous island vacation with a bunch of her friends. For some reason, it seemed that since she lived in Chicago, it was really easy to get to this tropical locale from O'Hare, which really didn't make any sense at all. I commented that I wished it was so easy to get there from New York, and her mom suggested I go somewhere else, a tropical island very close to the city. This of course makes no sense, but it did in the dream. Well, lucky for me, I found some deodorant amidst a bunch of other household crap. Only it was spray on and melon-scented, which was disgusting to me, but I used it anyway. Then I decided it wasn't good enough, so I went back home. Some weird shit happened that I don't remember.

Then I was driving again, quite late for school, and it was pitch black outside. This is the scary part, though it doesn't sound scary at all. I was wearing little wire-rimmed glasses that I suddenly realized did not have any lenses in them. Yet I was obsessed with making sure they were properly affixed to my ears, and I wound the wire arms around my ears to secure them. I guess I was on the phone with someone, telling them I should just turn around and have my dad drive me in the morning, since it was much too dangerous and dark to be driving. But I didn't. I kept going. It sounds stupid, but it was INCREDIBLY FRIGHTENING. Imagine driving a vehicle when you are completely enveloped in darkness and you're completely blind. I was simply using my imagination and memory to steer the car, and it was horrible. Then there were these ghostly girls riding bikes ahead of me, and they shed some light on the road because they had these glowing hoodies with weird white sparkly patterns and shapes. But then the shapes became so bright they were the only things I could see, and the road disappeared and I had to concentrate on these glowing shapes to lead the way. I realized I had to make a turn, and somehow asked the girls ahead of me to turn their backs so the glowing shapes would illuminate the road. I could just barely make out the lines, and was able to turn.

I continued driving in pitch blackness, terrified. And then I don't know what happened. I'm going to be brief about this, because it was terrible and unclear and I don't really want to talk about it. I was suddenly out of the car, hiding behind a weird cornered wall next to the road, desperate for bad people not to find me. But they did. And I died. And no one could identify my body. That was really scary, but oddly enough, this part of the dream I don't remember so well and was actually kind of quick and boring and more like a movie than anything. The most terrifying part was driving blind, not hiding from murderers. Or dying. Weird. Maybe because it didn't seem as real as the other part.

I had another dream, too, which involved being at college, which was more like a summer camp full of mean girls who I didn't know, and I got stuck with a bed in the corner of a huge common room next to a terrible girl who I really didn't like, while other people got cool rooms with dressers and posters and closets. I remember thinking, "The first time I went to college I had an apartment by this time." Apparently I was a junior in college, for the second time. I know, it doesn't make any sense. I called my old roommate from college to ask if she wanted to room together, wondering why we hadn't just planned that in the first place, then realized she didn't go to this school. And the dorm looked eerily like the cabins I stayed in when I was a camp counselor in high school. Ugh. Dreams don't make any sense at all.

I am not gaining a whole lot of insight from these dreams, except that a few things seemed to have a "Harry Potter" feel to them--being late for boarding school, for instance--and seeing as I've been reading those books nonstop for nearly a month, that just might have something to do with it. And I was getting all existential on myself the other day about needing girl friends, and maybe that's why the whole mean-girls-roommate-summer-camp-dorm thing came up. Driving? Dying? I really don't know.

I should use this blog to record my dreams more often. Not that they're terribly interesting, but it might help me remember them, seeing as I never seem to write them down anymore. I'm also thinking of taking a short class at NYU about the psychology of dreaming... It's only 8 sessions, but it might be a good thing to do. Anyway, I'll think about it. And maybe dream about it, too...

Working Hard

I'm stuck at work... doing work... I don't really have anything to blog about, but I do have "Ave Maria" stuck in my head because I got distracted for a moment and was gazing at the sweet little shrine to the Virgin Mary I have up on my wall next to my computer monitor. Lots of pretty little prayer cards. I don't pray and I'm not even Christian, but I love Mary. She's just beautiful.

So here for your viewing pleasure is a link to "Ave Maria" as shown in Disney's Fantasia. This might potentially be my favorite part of any movie of all time. It just gives me hope...which is what I need right now. You might need it, too.

Watch Fantasia's Ave Maria

Epic Fail

Again, I fail at blogging. Ah well... I guess I have no choice but to press on...

I just read over all the things I posted in the past year and a half since I started this blog, and my how times have changed. I won't bore myself with the details (because God knows, I'm the only one who reads this thing...ever 6 months), since I know what happened in that time, but it is strange to look back on life since June 2008 and wonder how I got here. And where the hell I'm going...

In my last post I discussed my new healthy lifestyle that would enable me to shed 10 pounds by October and basically just eat more fruits and veggies. That didn't last very long. Now another friend is getting married in June and I made that same resolution last month. Again, not happening. I think the reason that I'm not putting too much effort into it is that I know I don't eat too much crap to begin with, and I feel pretty confident in myself and my body anyway. So fuck it, I'll try to work out more, and I'm eating more green stuff in general, but as far as setting weight loss goals? That's a bunch of baloney. Not that I eat baloney...it grosses me out. See? I'm already super healthy, right?

Anyway, I also posted about the bar I had just started working at, and yes, I still work there, and yes, I know many people now, and yes, I love it. Does it stress me out, does it exhaust me, does it drive me insane that I never get enough sleep and I have to deal with crazy people and then I have to go to my day job in the morning on 3 hours of sleep? YES. But the money is totally worth it, of course, and the awesome people I've met basically make the decision for me. I've become good friends with some good folks since last April, I've listened to a lot of great music, and poured a hell of a lot of beer, and I've saved some money that will help me out quite a bit in the future. So I'll stay.

Speaking of the bar, I was just working there last night... Thank God I didn't have to go to my day job today... Although I still woke up at 9 a.m. after going to bed around 5:30, so I guess my biological clock is (as usual) out to get me... But we had a lovely time taking shots of Blackhaus, making fun of a drunk couple as they made out in the corner (it was Valentine's Day), yelling at the regulars to get the hell out of the bar, and then coming home so my drunk boyfriend and I could order greasy diner food at 5 a.m. and play with our hyper and hilarious cat on the carpet for a while. Ahhh, life when you're 24. Such a waste of time and energy, but so worth it...

Since I woke up so goddamn early and needed to just chill, I used this nice quiet day to read about feral children, a longtime passion of mine. I watched a BBC documentary on Genie that oddly enough, I'd never seen, discovered a new confined child named Dani, who is absolutely fascinating, and resolved to finally break down and buy Susan Curtiss' thesis that you can only find for about $100... A horrid price, but worth it. I'll get it after I pay the next rent check. Unfortunately, I can't buy a DVD of "The Apple" because it's an Iranian movie that was never released on DVD in the States, so you can only get the British DVDs, which are a different format than U.S. DVD players. I'll have to search the NYPL instead. Silly continental drift.

So even after all the Blackhaus, I have still retained my intellectual and scientific pursuits that have stayed with me for so long. My freshman year roommate will never let me forget how many a night she would find me sitting up on the computer reading everything there was to read on feralchildren.com and most likely thinking, "Who the hell is this psychotic pothead that Fordham University thought would be a good roommate match for me?"

Oddly enough, we're still good friends, and although we don't see each other enough, I have the sneaking suspicion we always will be. As a matter of fact, we're going to see "The Tempest" in a few weeks at BAM, which I couldn't be more excited about. I can't wait to see old Prospero... What a guy. I haven't been to see a play in such a long time it's kind of disturbing. I really ought to. I live in the center of the universe with so many cultural events going on all the time, and my life seems consumed by trivial pursuits.

Another friend of mine from college (yet another fellow English major!) wanted to go to the ballet recently to either see "Cinderella" or "Romeo & Juliet," but unfortunately the discounted tickets were only available the one week I could not get my bar shifts covered since a coworker was out of town. The irony. Ah well, we will have time for such cultural events again.

Back to my day...I'd been getting drowsier, so stopped reading I flipped on the TV and as a guilty pleasure (or horror, I'm not sure which), I watched "Little Miss Perfect" about those psycho beauty pageant moms and their creepily made up daughters. Weird. That is a world I will never understand, but one of the mother-daughter teams inspired me to write a new short story. They were different than the others... She was an older mom who did not want her daughter competing in these glitzy pageants - the girl had done natural pageants before, which I suppose involved less makeup, no fake hair, no "flippers" (creepy false teeth), etc. But this little girl was determined, and she had such amazing stage presence and sparkle you just knew she would be a real performer someday, even though her somewhat dowdy mother was really not into it. They actually seemed like a healthy duo, with the mother holding back instead of pushing...unlike the overdone, overweight, trashy moms who grill their daughters on their routines while yanking their hair and applying false eyelashes, and forcing them into these ridiculous costumes and dances when the child really has no inherent talent, just a cute face. Sad. So yes, the natural duo was interesting... But I eventually had to just put it on mute because it was sucking at my soul. I can't imagine what I'll do when I have a daughter...probably make her take ballet lessons until she rebels, because I just love ballet... but forcing her into pageants? Now that's just sick.

While still reading and writing, I moved onto "Hoarders" on A&E, another ridiculously distrubing show but in a completely opposite way. Every time I think my apartment has gotten a little messy, I will think of this show and realize it's not so bad. And every time my apartment has gotten really messy, I will think of this show and realize I don't ever want to become like that, and I will CLEAN IT UP.

This has got to be the most schizophrenic blog post ever, and the most self-absorbed, but at least I'm writing again. I am going to try to do this as much as possible now... I really, truly am. And I'm going to advertise it to my friends, who actually do seem to follow my Tumblr blog, which is nice, so maybe if they read it then I'll be more encouraged to post.

Of course, I'll have to watch what I write... So in advance of anything I might ever post that could be construed in the wrong way, I'll just say...... Fuck you. I love you.