Spring dreams

My dreams turn odd every spring. Chinese medicine says this is because Wood Qi becomes active, and Wood Qi rules the Liver, and the Liver houses the Hun, or the part of the soul that wanders through the dream world during sleep. Here are a few things my Hun has been doing while I slumber.

I'm sitting on the couch at my parents' house with one of my shiatsu teachers. We are philosophizing about life. Luna Cat joins us and her eyes glow blue. White curtains billow in a breeze. Sun shines through a skylight.

I'm on my college campus. I need to meet my friend for our Weight Watchers meeting. (In real life, I do drive with a friend to WW. I did not know this friend during college.) We walk across the green campus, past the red brick campus center, to the meeting. The scale says I gained back all the 15 pounds I'd lost. I'm upset. I drink a lemonade, but I don't know whether it was before or after the meeting.

There were more dreams, jumbles of languages and colors and events, but their threads dissolved with morning. Have you had any dreams lately?

P.S. I just remembered another one. I was having an affair with L.L. Cool J. We went to lots of clubs together.

Child Street Dreams, Send Me a Beam

I've been waking up every morning this week with an old pop song running through my head. Raspy-voiced singer, smooth 80s synthesizer. Bizarre, right? What have I been dreaming about? The lyrics, as far as I could hear, went

Child Street dreams
Cast your light on me
You are the magic
You're right where I wanna be
Child Street Dreams
Send me a beam
You keep the spirit alive, going on.

I mentioned this to G., who was all looking at me like I'm crazy, "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've never heard that song in my life."

And I was all, "You must have! It goes,

Charles Street dreams
Shine your light on me
dum-da-dum
You are the maaagic
You're riiight where I wanna be."

And he was all, "Nope."

And I was all, "Well, maybe the lyrics are

Orange Street meat
Send me a fleet."

And he was all, "OK, I'm going back to sleep now."

So tonight, we had dinner with people who are old enough to remember the 80s better, and so I asked K., "Hey K, do you know that song, I think it's Michael McDonald, and it goes,

Chilling Street dream
Cast a light on me
You keep the spirit aliiiive, holding on."

A pause. I added, "I think it's from a movie."

She thought for a moment. Then she knew what I was talking about! She said, "I think it's called, Sweet Freedom."

And I said, "Oh, is that what he's saying?"

And she said, "You can never tell with Michael McDonald."

You can't tell! You can't! Check it out--turn off the sound and try to read the man's lips. You'll additionally note that although Gregory Hines memorized and anunciated the lyrics (it's that theater training!), Billy Crystal and good ole MM are clearly just MSU*.

What he's allegedly saying.

*Makin' Shit Up

Calcium Dreams and Sweetness

I seem to sleep better and have sweeter dreams when I take my calcium supplement before bed. (I discovered this by forgetting to take it in the morning a few days.) Try it. Let me know what happens.

Sweeter than calcium dreams, sometimes too sweet, is apricot nectar. I froze little ice cubes of it last week, wanting just a frozen splash of the pretty juice at a time. This morning, waking thirsty from last night's volleyball, I blended a few cubes with soymilk. It's SO. Delicious.

Dreams of Roma

The city of Rome is a frequent character in my dreams. I'm not sure why Rome--Athens is more deeply enmeshed in my heartstrings--unless my subconscious is making puns. Rome represents freedom, retreat, carefree-ness (carefreeity?), new adventures.

My recurring dream is that G. and I are in Rome, enjoying a retreat far away from everything in a different, beautiful, mysterious world of heart-stoppingly beautiful architecture and infinite places to explore. There are a few variations on this dream. Night falls and either we are planning to meet for dinner after spending the afternoon in different places--very much looking forward to a candlit meal and sharing the day's events--or we are together but on opposite ends of a tour group*. Then, a disaster strikes, and everyone has to make a mass exodus on foot from the heart of Rome. Sometimes a flaming meteor hits the city. Once there was a giant, man-eating monster in the canals (canals are really in Venice, I know) and we had to leave because of that. It almost got me when I leaned over a fountain! It sounds silly by daylight, but it was terribly frightening. We walk and walk, refugees trying to find each other in the crowd.

Rome is taken away and we are refugees.

Dream #2, G. and are on a plane for Rome, and it gets stuck on the runway.

Dream #3, I am in Rome alone, visiting friends or strangers, I'm not sure which. Maybe it's an exchange program. But I'm staying with these people in their apartment, and I can't get out into the city. I just can't leave for some reason. And then it's time to fly home, but I haven't seen Rome at all.

But then! Here, my friends, is where it gets good. After all my thwarted attempts to escape to Rome, and the tragedy or frustration that ensues, I had a wonderful dream two nights ago:

I woke up on a wrought-iron bed with a beautiful white coverlet in a cream-colored room with high ceilings. White curtains were billowing around a window, which framed a view of an Italian courtyard. I felt deeply content, having found a leafy, quiet retreat in the great city of Rome. I would spend the day in the city and then return to my little haven. But first, a cappuccino!--
---BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP--My alarm slammed me into reality, a day of sitting in my car in frustrating traffic in order to sit at my desk. Oh yes, I was grouchy yesterday morning, but as afternoon came and the sun broke through, creating corresponding changes in my disposition, I realized what a gift the dream was! I was in Rome! My longtime dream was becoming reality (albeit in the dream)! I was content, safe, and looking forward to a cappuccino!

I think this series of dreams is about the frustration a long PhD process creates. The non-PhD spouse (me) may get stalled in a despised career in order to bring in the steady paycheck, thinking it would be best to stick with the same, steady job until the PhD candidate finishes (lest they both end up refugees, on the street unable to pay the mortgage). The PhD candidate also feels stuck, at the mercy of his adviser. Both are working very hard, but not bringing in much money. They just can't get to Rome. Eventually, perhaps the non-PhD spouse decides to move ahead into a new career without waiting for the PhD process to be over (going to Rome by herself), and this creates a sense of relief for her.

*I wouldn't do a tour group in my waking life. Just sayin'.

Dreamscape

I was at a party trying to ask Barack Obama whether my friend would pass the Bar, and whether he had lots of stress when he took the Bar. But Barack was distracted by trying to flirt with my coworker, Therese, who is very blond and pretty. Then there was a complicated interlude I can't quite remember, involving dancing to Soul Coughing songs on a disco floor and someone picking violets. As I was leaving the party, this woman I know who runs an art gallery in real life told me to check my mailbox. Barack had left his lucky deck of playing cards in my mailbox. He left his lucky card--8 of Clubs--face up, with a note apologizing for his distractedness. He said my friend would pass the Bar, and then asked that I serve on his religious advisory board, because he needs a Buddhist.

The interpretation is where it gets interesting. In real life:
Therese is my friend's middle name as well as my coworker's name. (My friend is really prepping for the Bar.) The day before I had the dream, another friend was talking about picking violets. Last week, the woman who runs the art gallery left me a bunch of stuff in my shiatsu office cubby. Best of all, the 8 of Clubs corresponds the Tarot card 8 of Wands, which represents things being up in the air but falling into place.

Facebook Is a Time Suck, and Other Notes from the Weekend

• Facebook. It sucks me in. It also just plain sucks, in a sense. But I can't turn away. I will probably use it intensely for 2 weeks and then never log in again. Like I did with Friendster.
• The Best recipe for PB Cookies Anywhere Ever is Peanut Butter Crisscrosses, page 303 of The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook.
• We are still scraping ancient wallpaper glue of the bathroom walls, and still hoping it isn't carcinogenic.
• Thanks to a groovy idea in Domino Magazine (I got a free subscription for some cross-promotional reason I don't quite understand), I made a master grocery list containing the major things we usually buy, in the order they appear in the store. Before shopping, we can cross out what we don't need and write in anything extra we do need.
• I threw off my anticipated timelines by being accepted to a graduate program way faster than expected, and now I'm looking at registering for courses and applying for financial aid rather than prepping for the GREs, and it's got me a little unbalanced, like, nightmares about forgetting to do my social studies homework and being the only 35-year-old (older than I really am) in a class with 15-year-olds, who incidentally are all the old high school friends I found on Facebook this weekend.
• I like Nia. We had a dancin' Beltane celebration Friday night. Awesome.
• I tried to mail my sister some gluten-free mixes purchased at the local Trader Joe's. The enthusiastic bagger/manager handed me a list of all the many gluten-free products Trader Joe's carries. I thought, what the hell, and threw the list in the package to her. I've been to the post office no fewer than 3 times this weekend, but the package to my sister is still not mailed.
• The Best of the Colbert Report: funny stuff. Its mood is less cynical than The Daily Show.
• Finally, Jacques Pepin has had a fascinating life. I highly recommend his autobiography.

Dreamscape

Chefs Ming Tsai and Jacques Pepin are teaching me how to make casseroles. Ming's creation is rather like a mooncake, with a characteristic flaky, stamped crust on top, only filled with red pork and gelatinous pork fat. Mssr. Pepin's has a bechamel sauce, into which we are putting broccoli and cauliflower. Because of all the fat in the dishes, I'm feeling grateful I did aerobics earlier when the moon was full. Jacques is about to add some sort of meat to the casserole when the air raid sirens start going off.

Damn alarm.

I keep hitting snooze and drifting back into the dream--Ming is trying to tell me something, and it's more real to my consciousness than the sirens and the room beyond them--but my husband helps me get up.

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.

Dreams

Last night, I was checking out at Trader Joe's, and I saw that Johnny Depp was bagging in the aisle all the way to the left. So that's why all the women are trying to get to that aisle!, I realized. I asked Mr. Depp why he was working at Trader Joe's. He said, "I can come and go, and no one tells me what to do. There's no expectation. It's fun." I said, "But don't you have to work a regular shift?" The manager was suddenly next to Johnny (but he'd been there the whole time, too, in the way of dreams). The manager said, as he wrote on his clipboard, "This is Johnny Depp. He can come and go whenever he wants to."

Johnny Depp and the manager were both wearing blue shirts.

I was going to ask another question, but my alarm sounded. Damn the alarm.