Friday, March 28, 2008

Dreamscape

I am at a Tim Horton's with friends at night. I think we are in Texas, or western PA. Jackie and the others get a table while I place my order. I choose both oatmeal and an almond croissant because almonds lower the glycemic index of the pastry. It comes to $17.95, which I think is steep, but I hand the cashier a twenty. She hands me my change. There is a check for $500 shuffled in it. The check is made out to the "Jesus Love Association" or something like that. I realize that this Tim Horton's is also an evangelical Christian recruiting center of sorts. For a nanosecond I am tempted to pocket the check and try to cash it, but instead I return it to the cashier, as it rightly belongs to the Tim Horton's/evangelical church.

The chubby, nice teenage cashier becomes flustered and embarrassed. She thanks me for my honesty and promises to make it up to me by getting me $500 in cash from her friend who's the son of an oil baron.

Then I return to the giant, Victorian house I'm staying in with my husband on a visit to family. Everyone else is already asleep. I am elated because I will receive $500 soon, thanks to the law of karma operating even in a Christian doughnut shop in Texas/western PA. But it is cold and pouring rain outside, and the rain is leaking through the roof of the old house and pouring in everywhere. A Dad Person, an amalgam of my dad and my father-in-law with no distinctive features, tells me I've made too much noise coming in the house.

I wake up to find I've cracked the window above our bed for air and it is, in fact, raining outside.

7 comments:

Ann Forstie said...

Can I have a turn?

I'm watching a video online about the difference in square footage between an average 1950s house and one today. There are bunkbeds and a lap pool and a suspended bathtub and an ENORMOUS fireplace. People are tearing the bright blue carpeting out of an upstairs bedroom.

I'm in the house. Paula Abdul walks in with her two children. (It's her house.) I begin interviewing some of her many servants. They tell me she's a nice person and employer, but very messy.

Suddenly everyone's gone except for me and my sister. A short bald man walks in the door. (It's his house.) The American Revolution is taking place on the front lawn. It starts to rain, and all the soldiers melt into puddles. The short bald man is actually a 90-year-old wizard, and water nullifies his powers.

My sister and I lock him in the living room. I use my own magic to bolt the door shut. We gather our belongings and pets -- one tiny elephant, two bunnies -- and leave.

(This was just a brief portion of a very long, very convoluted dream. At one point I had switched bodies with Homer Simpson, and during another part I swam underwater to travel to a different world.)

(I love my insane, beautiful dreams.)

Narya said...

Good lord! It turns out I actually remembered some fragments of my dreams last night (which I almost never do), but they were really quite boring; from where do you people GET this stuff? My dreams typically are versions of whatever is going on in my waking life (I'm not subtle when I'm asleep, either, apparently).

Larry Jones said...

I would sleep all the time if it were as fascinating as those two dreams! My favorite line? "I think we are in Texas, or western PA." I seriously laughed right out loud.

kStyle said...

Ann: Awesome. Do you find sometimes you're even more tired in the morning, after all the nocturnal adventures? I do.

Narya: I didn't even get into the dream where I was fishing recyclable salad dressing bottles out of a toilet in my cubicle. My boss came up wearing a splint on her way out. Then there was a garden center/botanic garden.

Larry: Glad you enjoyed that. My husband really thought it was funny when he turned over in the middle of the night, and I murmured, "G, are you just coming to bed?...Oh, oh! I thought there were basketball players."

Larry Jones said...

urns out Blue Girl is dreaming a bit lately, too.

kStyle said...

Excellent, thanks for the link!

Spring is the time for dreaming. In Chinese medicine, we learn that the Liver is most active in the spring, and the Liver houses the corporeal soul, or Po, which is what travels away at night and goes into dreams. (If you have enough nutrient-rich blood, it will come back in the morning.)

kStyle said...

PS Larry, say hi to Rosario Dawson if you run into her at Trader Joe's again.