Reluctant Dreams Week One

I know I said I was NOT going to put dreams here, but, what the hell. No point in being shy now.

My dreams are always very scattered and disconnected. Kind of like me. And quite frankly, I think most of them are just a form of processing recent events with no other significance. At least the not unpleasant ones. My dreams tend to be either completely benign and pointless or else extremely disturbing and scary. I have trouble remembering the former and do everything I can to forget the latter. Then there is the matter of those peaceful ten minutes to write down dreams before getting out of bed in the morning. Yeah, right. They don't exist when you have small children. Trust me, I tried to write things down, but they escape very quickly when you are constantly interrupted with, "Mom, did you know . . .?," "I'm hungry. What can I have for breakfast," "What are we doing today?," "Can I have a friend over" all at six in the morning.

With that said, here's what I've got:

1. After playing with a friend’s unbelievably soft, friendly, and playful – demanding, actually – dog, I dreamt of a creature that seemed to be a cross between Fred the Dog, a manatee, and a hippo. Large and shaped like an aquatically-inclined mammal, but very soft, slightly furry, and insistent upon playtime with me. By the way, I saw two manatees at the Dallas World Aquarium and was fascinated by the way their mouths moved when they ate. This creature had a manatee mouth.

2. Last night I dreamt that for some unexplained reason I went to teach Melanie’s 121 class, but when I got there, they were the wrong students. Last semester’s students were in this term’s class and no one who was supposed to be there was. I guess your students really liked you, Melanie; and maybe I liked them. Then I went to teach my class, and no one showed up. The students were boycotting my class, or in some other way made an organized decision not to come.

3. In one dream that I only have a brief memory of left (I do know it got much more interesting, but I can't remember how), I was having a very ordinary and trivial conversation with my mother in an office. It was right on a busy, noisy highway which was extremely distracting (waking life note: North Rouse Ave was closed that morning and traffic was redirected down my street). My mother got really upset about underage driving which of course I also associated with underage drinking. It was a weekday morning, but the local high school band and assorted floats went by. I remember having the impression that it was a rehearsal for a parade and not the "real" thing. Though in waking life, I'm not sure I understand the difference. If you are parading down a street, it's a parade, right?

4. One last dream. For this one you get my almost completely unedited notes. Good luck deciphering.

I forgot how much fun it was playing in the snow. Chris comes. great train/bus - not moving. Kitchen worker, working a double on a holiday? Gripes when I order a latte and I almost reconsider, but don't because I'd been helping with a coffee "situation" - overflow on counters due to clogged filters. She asks me if I've seen the small cake mixes but I know that the larger boxes have the smaller recipe on them. Then she wants to know where the boxes are now. I want to go back to my seat. She makes my coffee and even puts a sticky note with my name on it on the lid. Chris had enough coffee already. The people around us all seem to be well-off, dripping money, as it were. I'm invited to this dinner, but when I get there, everyone is done and already paying. They were all old people.

If this makes any sense to you, then there must be something wrong with you.