I love the passing of time

Last night’s dream…

I was at a They Might Be Giants concert with Marla (my younger sister). Weird, because she’s never mentioned that she was a fan at all, but anyway… No one else from my family was there. We were in the front row & I kept spacing out, daydreaming. Once, when I came back to ‘reality’, John Linnell was sitting on the side of the stage, right in front of us. Might as well have been sitting with us. At that point, I realized he’d been doing that all along, throughout the whole concert. I said to Marla, “It’s too bad Allison’s not here, she would love this!”.

Concert ended & people were milling around. This was in some kind of huge auditorium. We had windows to see outside, but it seemed far removed from ‘outside’. We heard a kind of siren & everyone was talking about it. “Do you hear that?” “Wonder what that is?”. We looked out the windows & saw the sky reflected in the windows of other buildings. Some of us thought we saw smoke rising up & figured the sirens were for that.

Jim came up to me & I asked him if he heard it & what he thought it might be. He said “I don’t know, I’m sure it’s not some national security problem or anything”. Like it was no big deal.

Just then, a woman soldier came in, had a black/steel blue uniform, gun across shoulder, rounding everyone up & sending us upstairs.

I started up, but realized I didn’t have Annie (Jim had Shelby). I went back to the soldier & begged her, cried, please could I go back & get my daughter. She relented & I ran down the stairs to get her. Annie was playing by some other kids, talked to them a bit even after I called her to come to me. Took her time coming over to me (*aarrrgghh*)… I got her and started up the stairs again.

When I got to Jim, we talked about, worried about, Allison. Where was she? Would she find us? Would she be OK? We didn’t know what to do about her, because we didn’t know where she was. We just hoped we’d see her or find her.

Then, I realized that I’d left my purse down in the auditorium & that it had Shelby’s epi-pen in it. Jim & I talked about whether we’d need it. Figured that, wherever we were going, they would probably give us food & that we would have no idea what the ingredients were. I needed it. I went back to the female soldier & begged & cried again. She let me go back down, but my purse wasn’t where I’d left it. I figured we’d just have to be extra careful. Went back & joined the march.

Next thing, we were all on a bus (still not sure if Allison was with), driving over a bridge, looking over a neighborhood/subdivision. I was talking in a voice-over, over the scene. Something about “We were the lucky ones. No one died. They rounded us up and took us to an encampment, which grew into a kind of artist colony that thrived during the time of the occupation.”

Weird.

I had a dream last night where I was in a department store, walking past the women’s clothing section. Saw someone paying for a cute skirt & heard the price. It was amazingly low - something like $3.99. I went to the rack to see if they had it in my size. They did. Allison was there, then & was encouraging me to buy it. I said that I didn’t think that I would - I would never wear girly clothes like that & didn’t have anything to wear with it, anyway. Suddenly, we were in my bedroom, looking in a drawer in a dresser. Allison was pulling out pretty, girly, hippy-looking shirts that I had there, saying “You haven’t worn this in a long time” & “This would look great with that skirt”.

Maybe the dream Allison is right. Maybe I should start bringing out a more feminine, girly look, instead of my usual t-shirt, jeans & tennis shoes. Hmmm…

Last night I dreamed that someone (allison, annie, me?) accidentally clicked on ‘buy it now’ to buy a horse listed on E-bay. The horse cost $4900!

I decided that we really couldn’t afford it & that it was too far to go pick it up, anyway, even if we were going to go ahead & buy it. It was in Iowa or Ohio, I think.

I retracted the bid. And, decided that, instead of emailing an apology, this deserved an apology in person. So, Annie & I drove there & apologized to the woman (at that point, I told her that Annie was the one who clicked on ‘buy it now’, but in the dream I felt like I was lying, then). She was like, “Well, you’re here, now, anyway - do you want to buy it?”. I said that I couldn’t because I didn’t have a horse trailer.

I’m thinking that I actually made the purchase, but then regretted it thinking about the pickup and about where we would stable it & how we would feed it.

Last night I dreamed I was at a class reunion. (I’ve never gone to one in real life) It was a huge event. I was in the lobby, with Anna, Shelby, Allison and my younger sister Marla, who, in the dream, was still a teenager (really she’s only 2 years younger than me). There was a woman with a clipboard there & she asked me if I had kids. Marla said ‘Yes’ for me & the lady asked how many. I think Marla said ‘2′, but I added ‘and a stepdaughter’. The lady got excited about that & asked me if she could ask me more questions. Said they were getting more details about some people for something they were going to do later in the evening.

She asked about the kids names & ages, then asked about life events - when did you marry & stuff like that. I could see, on the clipboard, that one of the questions was going to be about 9/11 & was kind of excited about that because I’ve was in labor with Annie on 9/11.

Later, we were sitting in a room that was upstairs & just outside of the auditorium, where some kind of big presentation was about to happen. The room had windows where we could look into the auditorium and out to the parking lot. In the parking lot, cheerleaders were practicing for the show. They weren’t our classes cheerleaders, though - one of them was my niece Miranda.

Then, I noticed that Shelby was missing & started worrying about where he was, sending Allison & Marla to look for him.

Then… I guess I woke up.

I think that somewhere in the night last night, I dreamed that I had a beard. I trimmed it down to just stubble. Then, shaved it off altogether. I was thinking the whole thing was pretty funny, while it was happening.

Another fragment of dream - standing outside a Blockbuster. I think we were Christmas caroling or bell-ringing. Part of the dream I was in the store, too - working there. Talking to co-workers about giving to the bell-ringers/carolers. Woke up from the dream wondering what would happen if, for just a day, no one spent a cent in any Blockbuster store nation-wide - if everyone used gift cards or free coupons from the internet. Wonder how that would affect their business. Wonder if we could get everyone to do it…

Don’t know why I was dreaming about/thinking about Blockbuster, except that I had mailed out the gift card that we were sending to my brother-in-law yesterday.