Flying to Montreal

The last several entries have had a theme--they are song titles and/or lyrics that I found particularly inspiring. This entry, however, is about a dream I had last night. It just goes to prove that no matter how creative I like to think my conscious mind is, my subconscious is far far more interesting.

I was on a tour of a very boring building. We were throwing CD's into the swimming pool and then trying to hit them with other CD's. The tour moved on and I found my friend Dan DJing a show in a kiosk. He came out of the booth and we sat on the floor. Neither of us were wearing shoes. As we sat next to each other, we discovered that if Dan put his foot on mine, we'd move around and around the kiosk like a record. No effort on our part, we just slid across the floor. After a while we both laid down on our stomachs on the floor, still touching feet and we started to fly.

We flew around the city for a bit, getting used to navagating. We discovered that if we put an arm around the other we could go faster and fly smoother. So, we flew to Montreal. It didn't take us long to get there. The first thing we did was scare the crap out of a French-Canadian begging for money on the street. (We may have scared him sober for the rest of his life.) We flew around and discovered big pink fluffy clouds. Then, we decided we'd better head home.

On the way out of Montreal we had to stop at a tourist thing and they wanted us to take a bus home. They made us enter this building and Dan was mad because he knew it would take a lot longer to go home in the bus than if we just flew back. Anyway, while waiting I found the best hat with a monkey on it (and the hat came with a pair of goggles!!) so I was buying it and the guy gave me a hot dog. Well, I didn't want the hot dog and Dan's a vegetarian so I held an auction to sell it. It went for $100,002.00 Now, that's a hot dog!

Finally I got my hat, Dan tricked this guy in to opening a window and we flew away. Dan and I had so much fun flying and talking. We saw the world from a different perspective, we laughed, we talked, and we thouroughly enjoyed each other's company.

We could only fly because we held on to each other.

Dan, you're a great friend. I love you very much. Thanks for helping me to fly.

Dreaming About Toys

For my Psych 403 class we have to keep a dream journal. I'm excited about it because I LOVE my dreams. I have crazy dreams that could keep any type of psychologist busy for days.

Lately, I have discovered a theme: toys. I keep dreaming about toys. My stuffed animals, Russian nesting dolls, Legos, board games, etc. My dream world is filled with toys.

They don't just sit there though, I interact with them and they interact with me. We don't talk to each other but we just have a complete understanding of what it is the other is doing. When I was a little kid playing by myself my toys didn't talk out loud. They talked in my head. I guess they're still doing that.

In one dream I had to marry this angry man and I was asking for help. All my stuffed animals showed their solidarity by jumping off the shelves and falling to the ground in protest of what was going to happen to me.

In another a set of Russian nesting dolls was planning a secret strategy to rescue me from this forest in which I was lost.

In another--and by far my favorite--an army of 50 yellow Lego men dressed in brown rain gear were firemen and going to set free 13 goblins from an old wooden chest. The best part is that the leader of the Lego men was "naked" and none of his underlings would take him seriously until he got dressed.

In these dreams I was young. Five in one, ten or twelve in the others.

Is that why I'm dreaming of my toys? No. I think I've figured it out. I think I am one of God's youngest children. Maybe even the youngest. If only you could see inside my heart, you'd know what I mean.

I also think it's because in my real life...no one real ever rescues me. I always have to do it all by myself. Thank heavens for Eddie-Phil, Galoomph, NeeChee and all my other stuffed animals. At least I know I've got that army in my corner.

Did you sleep well? …No, I made some mistakes.

You have read about my dreams before. People often ask me what I eat before I go to sleep to make myself dream such crazy-vivid stuff. Well, nothing. I don’t eat before I go to bed because I read that it’s really hard on your heart to sleep with food in your stomach. I usually go to bed a little hungry. Maybe that’s the problem.

The other night I was sleeping…dreaming that the Apocalypse has started and I was running for my life. (Good thing I’ve been practicing in REAL life!) Anyway, I started really running and smacked my elbow on the table next to my bed. It woke me right up because it HURT like a mean-girl’s comment! I had a bruise and a big red mark on my poor elbow. Not only did it wake me up, but it also kept me up for a while as I debated moving the table far away.

Yesterday I was making my bed, (not a daily occurrence I’ll have you know—I learned it from my Daddy who always said, “Why make your bed when you know you’re going to be all lekker-a comfortable in it the next night?” (lekker is Dutch for nice)) because…ok, I have three blankets on my bed, and the top two were right as rain, but the bottom one was completely sideways. I don’t know how I accomplished that one, but I most certainly did.

I’ve always been a crazy sleeper. When we’d sleep out in the backyard no one wanted to sleep next to me because despite the fact that we’d all start out in a straight line, by the morning I would be sideways or upside down from everyone else. Or, I’d be gone because I’d have left in the middle of the night to go sleep in my actual bed because the earth was sucking every bit of warmth from me…or the dew was on me…or a spider was watching me…or just because it was a stupid-ass idea to sleep in the backyard in the first place.

Once I went to bed with pajamas on only to find them clear across the room the next morning. I sleep all night long holding on to Eddie-Phil (my teddy bear with multiple personality disorder) so I’m confused as to how I can keep a hold of Eddie-Phil while strewing around my pillows and blankets and pajamas for that matter.

And, here is the final question for you all:

Am I the only one who has to straighten my mattress after a good night’s sleep?

Repressing My Inner Fairy Princess

Last night I had a dream that I was a pirate. But, I wasn’t a very good one. Okay, here’s the dream. I was a pirate and I was wearing a long white dress and no shoes. (Again I’m dreaming I’m not wearing shoes? I know the importance of proper footwear! Maybe my feet are wanting to be naked more often.) Those of you who know me, know that I am not a girly girl and in fact don’t even own a dress. The reason, in my dream anyway, that I was wearing a dress and worrying about how I looked was because what I really wanted to be was a Fairy Princess. I don’t even know what the proper definition of “Fairy Princess” is, but that’s what I wanted to be, not a pirate.

Anyway, there was the captain who wore a blue coat and the first mate who was a blue teddy bear (I believe he is an incarnation of a teddy bear named Bluey that my grandma crocheted for my little brother over 30 years ago). He was sweet as all get out but in my dream he was as dumb as a post. Poor captain to have such a lousy crew. While the captain sailed the boat, the first mate and I wandered the ship pulling on random ropes and saying “aye” a lot. After a while, the sea got stormy and the ship started taking on water. We were sinking. (What are you sinking about?)

The first mate and I started trying to rescue things. The captain wanted us to get things like the gold booty we’d pillaged, but instead I was rescuing things like the dishes and snow globes. I was mostly worried because I knew we should have stopped at Home Depot to get some wood and nails and just repaired the ship instead of trying to sail all the way home with a big hole in the boat.

I think I had this dream because I am neither one. I’m not a pirate nor a fairy princess. I think that’s pretty much a summary of my last post: “Maaike…if you were a girl…” I can’t seem to find the world I fit in.

I guess I’ll have to make my own. Anyone want to join me?

Maaike…if you were a girl…

I’d rather play baseball than dolls. I’d rather dig in the dirt or swim in the canals than have a “tea party.” I’d rather watch explosions, par cour, car chases, and gunfights than a bunch of women trying to “solve” what’s wrong with men. I’d much sooner laugh at MXC and poop jokes than paint my nails and think I’m above all of that.

Hi. I’m a girl. I have C cup size boobies, have pretty hands, nice lips, a fantastic booty…and, if you’re still not convinced that I’m a girl, I also have a vagina.

People have heard me say that I'd rather watch an action movie instead of a romance because "It's far more likely that aliens will come down and try to take over the earth than it is that a man would carry a woman through a puddle." Don’t get me wrong, I believe in romance. Totally and utterly. I just had to quit “believing” in it because I happen to know that in real life that crap doesn’t happen to me.

I fantasize about coming home to my apartment to find a vase full of purple and yellow irises, a beautifully written card, and the guy of my dreams standing there with open arms.

I love romance. I absolutely melt when Colonel Brandon sees Marianne for the first time. The look he has on his face when she’s playing piano…that makes me want to believe in love. When Elizabeth meets Mr. Darcy on his property and he treats her so well when in other meetings he was so awkward that she learned to despise him. When Mr. Knightly is so adamant about the fact that he and Emma are NOT brother and sister. I LOVE those things and I absolutely fall to pieces when Jane Austen talks about romance.

The other night I had a dream that I gave up 10 IQ points for true love. And the truth is, I’d do it. I’d go from getting mostly A’s to getting B’s if that meant that some guy would reach over nervously to hold my hand for the first time. Not knowing if I would accept or reject his attempt, but he’d take that chance. Mmmm. Then I’d take his hand too and he’d stop being nervous. Until the next step…to lean in for a kiss. Mmmm. I totally believe in romance. I just don’t “believe” in romance.

Does that make any sense?

Drawing My Dream

Today I was writing a letter to my friend Daniel in England. Well, it was a bit ambitious of me to actually write a letter and not type it because writing takes FOREVER. At the end of the letter I abandoned prose and turned to art. I drew him stick figures to show him what I dreamt last night. After I drew them I realized two things: 1) it was a CRAZY-ass dream and 2) it was typical of all my dreams. Here’s what happened:

I was in a fabric store. It was closed and dark. It was filled with small children and the baddie: a girl who was thin and blond (that can be explained by the fact that I decided to write a play called “I killed all the little girls” about a big girl who kills off all the petite women because she’s sick of them bitching about being petite. And it's further explained by the facts that I don’t like blonds…or, really, a lot of women). I managed to load up all the kids into a yellow raft suspended to the ceiling and lit by glowing green lights. To set them free I had to run a gauntlet through the fabric store while the baddie lobbed cannon balls at me. I tried to get some sleep before the madness began but the baddie sneaked up to where I was sleeping and put a coffee can there so she could mark where to start. Now, I had to plan this perfectly. I couldn't run the gauntlet too fast as it could put the children in danger, and I could also not run it too slowly as the portal to safety wouldn't open. I had to do math to figure out where to really start running. (This is probably explained by the fact that I wanted to start practicing “running for my life.” If you want THAT explained you’d have to ask me directly).

Math is not my strong suit...especially if I'm asleep. I guess my mind couldn’t handle it either, because I then dressed up as a pirate (a la Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean”) and went to the record store. As I was standing in line, two vampires were really bothering me. For some reason they really didn’t like pirates…and I didn’t have anything against them, but they just weren’t treating me nicely. I guess that’s vampires for you…never thinking they have to explain anything. So, my brain put me back into the fabric store.

The baddie was distracted (probably watching herself in a mirror) so I, dressed as a pirate, wandered the store and found a bunch of discarded furniture. That’s blonds for you, they always get whatever they want so they don’t need to treat anything with care. Then I suddenly realized that I’d dreamt this before and had already saved the children so what was the point in doing it again.

The dream then took me to a magic show. I walked in to the room and it was set up for a buffet. They gave me a plate and told me to help myself. The room was empty except for one table with two guys sitting at it. I made myself a plate and asked the guys if I could join them. They said yes and we had a wonderful time conversing. As we talked, more and more people came in and suddenly I caught a glimpse of a sign that read: “magic show and dinner $7.00”. Well, I didn’t pay for it but everyone thought I did. I was really feeling guilty and didn’t know what to do. Should I pay? Did I have money? All of that stuff… Then the good looking guy I was sitting with said, “I am really busy, but I’m going to give you my phone number because I like you and I’d like to get to know you better. My number is *28.” I don’t know what star 28 means, as far as phone numbers go, but maybe he programmed my phone for speed dial. I don’t know. But he got up and started to perform. Turned out, he was the star of the show. Then I felt really badly that I hadn’t paid the seven bucks.

I woke up after that. My dreams are weird. They're often like that. But, it was nice to have some guy think I was pretty enough that he wanted to be with me. I wonder who I’ll get if I dial *28?