I dreamed I was on a roundtable panel and had to give a speech on something, but I fell asleep and woke up to see everybody staring at me, because it was my turn to give my speech. But I couldn't remember what I was supposed to talk about.

So I started with empty filler observational humor about being a Baby Boomer from SoCal, in the course of which I got an idea for a great improv connecting the San Clemente nuclear reactors and the corruption of the Nixon Administration. Just as I got going, some guy ran in and stopped the whole meeting, there was some kind of emergency, so everybody ran out.

Boy, was I pissed. My great speech, wasted!

I dreamed I took a movie over to my parents' apartment for Movie Night. I wasn't going to know any of the other people there, all young friends of my mother's from the Diplomatic Corps. I got to the apartment after everybody else and had to sit in an oddly-angled and uncomfortable chair off to the side. All of the diplomatic people were extremely, ridiculously, TV-stereotype gay, with big swept-up moussed hairstyles from the early '80s. They took an instant dislike to me.

It took me an hour to figure out where to put the disc in Mom's complicated home-theater setup, which was all clear molded plastic and cellophane. The movie was about a future female president of the USA, who had to act as peacemaker between two warring planets and save the people on a third planet (the bone of contention), while dealing with her own growing love for a homeless bag lady. Dave Thomas of SCTV was in it. It was really awful, actually.

After about 30 minutes of random, nonsensical movie, I shook myself from a doze to notice that the Flock of Seagulls people were all gone. "They didn't like the movie," Mom said. "You want to watch the rest? We could if you really want to..." (in MomSpeak, that means we won't) I spent another hour trying to figure out how to get the disc out of the Plexiglass monster.

I finally got the movie ejected. Then my Dad came in. "Did you start the movie yet?" he asked. "I don't want to miss it..."

And then I woke up. It had all been a dream.

Beloved Tenant told me he dreamed I had a boyfriend, who was 5 feet 4 inches tall and wore a World War I "doughboy" uniform.

And I'm all, like, go back to sleep & dream some more, I want to know more about him!

One of the purposes of Home Depot is the people watching, which worked for me yesterday when I took bestbear_icanbe thither to fetch a new thermostat. There was an adorable hobbit in the Electronics aisle, shyly handsome and rough-hewn in a knit cap; he was helping his elderly and infirm father navigate the wall of audio wiring possibilities. I swear it was pure coincidence that we ended up right behind him in the checkout line. It was not a coincidence that he was in my dream last night.

---

Actually, in the dream, I was him, helping my elderly and infirm father around Home Depot. Dad's attention was caught by a wall of sundries hanging on hooks. He plucked down one item, a "Casino Game Rigging Kit," containing nothing but thumbtacks and pennies.

"Oh my Gosh!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know they still made these! I used to do this when I was a kid. You thumbtack the pennies to the dice. Win every time."

"Uh, Dad... that's not really ethical, is it?" I asked.

He didn't answer, but he could have said that any casino that would let this work would pretty much deserve anything that happened to it.

I couldn't dissuade him from putting the kit in the basket, but my own gaze was drawn to the item hanging next to the kit. It was a small booklet, illustrated in 1910's-style rotogravure, titled Fourteen Questions for the God of War. I had to have it. I glanced about me to make sure nobody was watching while I threw it in our cart. Then I woke up.

I dreamed I was seeing a play (put on by Berkeley Rep, but in San Francisco for some reason), and the play was amazing, and was obviously going to win all sorts of awards, and I remember all sorts of details surronding the play, but I can't remember the play itself at all! Very frustrating. I do know that it made me think that I had to call my parents at the intermission, and I was so long on the phone that I missed getting back in for the second half, and the house manager was going to let me back in to my seat, but I had to sign a complicated release form. "Can I just stand in the standing room area?" I asked.

A look of horror crossed her face. "Oh, no... you can't do that... it's... it's full... of something..."

"Full of standees?" asked I.

Her eyes grew wide. "Not anymore..." and then more patrons came in late, and she rushed off to attend to them. ( Read more... )

A country singer wrote a song that he insisted was about young lovers having an argument on a rainy day. It was used as the soundtrack for a video in which an Elizabethan rogue swings about the Reconstructed Globe on a rope, romancing a series of buxom young ladies. The video went viral, and the country singer had to go on CNN and declare that he was not personally in favor of serial seduction. He spent the rest of my dream on the phone with his mother calming her down.

Which somehow connected with the BadgerDome being chosen for a "reality" TV show in which people with nothing in common moved in with each other -- in our case, two middle-aged "confirmed bachelors" had a devout Christian family with 5 kids move in with them. It wasn't just the family, we also had an acapella singing group move in. It was crowded.

The producers of the show had invented a new type of body mike that was completely invisible. I agreed to have it installed before learning that this involved body piercings, in the tongue, the nose and, well, some more intimate places.

The show was one of those stupidities where they have footage of the various contestant houses, and then vote off one house a week until the finale. We were a lock from the beginning, what with the Christian family vote, the confirmed bachelor vote, and the acapella singing group vote. The adorable curly-haired baby who was just learning to crawl only sweetened the deal. On the other hand, she was also learning how to gnaw on the furniture with her enormous beaver teeth, so she may have cost us votes.

At the big finale of the show, broadcast live from a Hollywood studio, we won, and the entire audience stood up and sang along with the acapella group. It was that stupid song from the beginning of the dream. Then the family and the singing group moved out. I was relieved -- peace again! But the microphone piercings were still in my tongue, my nose, and, well, the more intimate places. I studied them in the mirror and wondered how painful it would be to have them removed.

"Leave them in," Scott said. "You're going to be WAY more popular in certain circles..."

And them I woke up, sans piercings and prize money, but still with the BadgerDome and the exact right number of occupants for it. And my pride. I sighed with contentment.

I dreamed my nephews were looking at colleges. One of the boys was excited about the prospect of going to University in Denmark. He had a brochure that promised only $25 a year for it. He handed me the brochure.

...which was an Army recruiting brochure -- join the Army and they'll send you to college in Denmark.

"You know how you'll see an ad for a really great deal on something, and you go to the store, and the salesman says they're not actually selling that, and tries to fob something inferior off on you?" I asked him. He nodded.

I continued, "And you know how people like your Mom will stand up for themselves and tell the salesperson that they had damn well better get what was advertised, or there will be hell to pay?" He nodded.

"And you know how people like me will just think, the inferior thing is okay, I don't want to make a fuss?" He nodded.

"Well... after you've enlisted, and the Army says, we don't have the college in Denmark anymore, you have to go to Des Plaines Agricultural instead... what would you do?" He thought about it for a bit, but he knew the answer.

I think I saved my nephew from a horrible fate. In a dream.

I dreamed I had been asked to audition for a part. I don't know if this was for a play or a movie, because that information was conveyed to me before I fell asleep and was thus not in the dream.

The audition was being held at a community college. A light rain was falling as I walked the mile and a half from the nearest parking space to the Audio-Visual Building. Audition space was in a huge, open space, lined with cubbyholes and filled with elementary-school-sized desk/chairs. The director and the leading lady were wedged uncomfortably into chairs, their names carved into the desktops. They offered me a seat. I chose to stand.

The audition itself was brief, no monolog, no cold read. All the director wanted me to do was improv of introducing myself to the lead character in the piece. The director would fill in for the lead. He got out of his desk-chair, dropped to his knees, and hobbled towards me, doing an embarrassing impression of a "little person." Oh Great, I thought. We tried the introduction several ways, with me stooping over, dropping to one knee, and going down on both knees in my own embarrassing little person impression. The leading lady watched silently.

That was it; I said thanks and walked back to where I'd left my backpack. I had to excuse my way through a crowd of fluttery college girls to get my stuff. The girls were atwitter about some matinee idol I'd never heard of. A feisty female security guard wondered if I needed a ride back to my car.

Director came running up to me. "Don't go yet!" he cried. "We have some more stuff we want you to do!" So, yeah, okay. I walked back to the audition space. This time the leading lady wanted the introductions, and asked me to do a variety of accents. "Thanks," she said after the last one, and turned to the director immediately. "I think the first and the second guys we saw would both be fine," she told him. "Either's good for me, you make the choice."

How freakin' RUDE to say this while I'm still standing there! I coldly turned away from her, shook the director's hand robotically, droned "Thankyouforthexperiencegoodluckwithyourproduction" and stormed off. The security guard still thought I needed a ride.

Update: I woke up, fed the cat, went back to sleep, and got an email in my next dream that I'd gotten the part. I was still kind of offended. I hadn't decided if I'd take it before I woke up again.

I have a new job. It's in Sacramento.

Or at least I was told it was Sacramento.
( Read more... )