My Dear Alma Mater

I am sorely tempted to drive the 2-hours-and-change to my alma mater on Sunday. Why?

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.

Better.

Lots of sleep, lots of resting, and the beautiful weather is making this week much better than the last. Lots of laugh therapy, too: We're watching The Best of the Colbert Report.

I think I've found the right graduate program for me (I think), and I'm looking forward to that. Explaining to the admissions counselor why I want to teach ESL was helpful, too; reaffirming, I suppose. It seems that whenever I make a big decision, Supporters of the Decision line up on one side and Detractors on the other, even among the few people I tell. (Incidentally, this is why I tell very few people about Big Decisions.) I can be susceptible to the Detractors, who often voice my own reservations about the Decision, and whose arguments are specific and logical, topic sentences supported by details in a 5-paragraph essay. The Supporters are vague and enthusiastic--a pep rally--because if you see the plus side, there's no need to elaborate. Explaining my goals and reasons to the admissions counselor, then, was like having the chance to rebut the Detractors to myself by making the unspoken argument of the Supporters.

Do you experience this phenomenon of Detractors and Supporters? It strikes me as universal.

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.