Tension Makes a Tangle

Twenty-six days since my last post. I'm improving!

Recently, Honey shared with me a link to a program that would allow us to seal in today's college tuition prices for Shortcake's future use. In other words, we could pay X amount each month for a total of Y amount, which would be honored at up to 270 universities around the U.S. - including our alma mater - in 2028, when she starts college. We figure in 18 years, the program will expand to include more than just 270; but for now, we're pleased that it includes our alma mater, MIT, Stanford and plenty of other recognizable, "good" schools. At our present income, the monthly amount we'd need to deposit for the program is not really do-able. This is something that I want to look into further and might likely be the best idea for college savings for Shortcake. But I'll be honest, I worry that discussing how to save for her will lead to a conversation I'm not sure how to have. Carrying my economic weight.

The underlying topics of this conversation, as I see it applying to me: obligation and role-modeling.

Let's begin with the obvious, obligation. I have a child now. I am no longer the center of my own universe, nor is my husband the center of his own. (Well, when we decided to marry, we combined orbits around a collective of two, so we haven't been the centers of our universes for several years.) Now, the focus of our orbit is around this little girl and any of her future siblings, and it is a vital focus. So that means every decision we make, and action we take, needs to be done for the good of the family, and more specifically, the good of her. Wanna move to Ireland? Will that be good for the unit? Good for her? Maybe. Maybe not. So, it seems like the logical response should be: Molly should get a job outside the house. It is her obligation, if she wants her child to attend college. And don't be so selfish, Molly - your husband needs someone to lighten his load. Get over yourself! What makes you so special that you don't have to get a hair cut and get a real job?

And this is where I begin to falter. I'm not sure I'm ready to re-enter the full-time workforce, yet. I'm not sure I ever want to. Let's get the selfish reasons out of the way, first: I enjoy caring for our daughter. I love it. Even when it's at its most annoying,caring for our daughter is still more rewarding than when outside work is least annoying. I enjoy being able to go to the library or go grocery shopping during the day, or take the dog for a walk in the sunlight, or go on an audition. Though mothering doesn't let me get as much done as I'd like to do on any given day, I like the weekly flexibility it offers. An economic reason I'm reluctant to return: childcare is expensive. The last job I almost took - a contract job that would've lasted a few weeks - I turned down, because the cost of childcare would've been about 2/3 my paycheck. Yes, 1/3 is better than 0/3, but it's hard to argue that I should leave our child in the care of a virtual stranger to bring home 1/3 of a paycheck working on a project that I'm actually not enthusiastic about. I've been in the workforce for about a decade or so, and my attempts to climb beyond the bottom rung have met terribly limited success. So, I'm not entirely sure I qualify for many higher-paying jobs to offset the cost of childcare, anyway. Finally, a sentimental reason: I don't want to become my mother.

My mom has worked outside the house in some form or fashion since she was a teenager. In the 34 years I've been around and have seen her work, I've rarely seen her content with her work situation. She usually resents her jobs. She enjoys being employed. Mom is one of those people who wouldn't know how to fill the time if she didn't have a job. She'd be bored and confused. But she's always ended up resenting her job.

And this is where the role-modeling conflicts with my sense of obligation.

I was lucky enough to see my dad switch career paths and find his calling. Ministry is difficult (financially, emotionally, spiritually), but it's what he's best at and what he loves, passionately. Mom never really found that path of passion. She did what she had to do to pay the bills when they were newlyweds, up through my tween years: working for the state in a mind-numbing bureaucracy. She despised it. When she decided she wanted to teach, she was thrilled to pursue it. She learned, after a few years, that students don't give a shit about learning, administrators' support of teachers is fickle and parents are either disengaged or overly protective. She hates it - or, at least, she's rarely had anything good to say about it in the last 15 years. I'm certain some of my mom's resentment isn't so much at her job as it is at the fact that she's always had to be the one whose salary is most stable, and often larger. Try raising a family of four, plus a dog, on $12k a year, the take-home my dad had when I was a teenager, and you can see how Mom was obligated to stick out a job she didn't like.

My goal has always been to provide our children - but particularly any daughters - with a mother who is happy with her career. Whose job is, if not her passion, then at minimum, a source of pride and joy. It has always made me terribly sad that my mom has never been happy in her career choices. The last thing I want my daughter to see, when she sees me, is a woman who lives with personal or professional resentment.

Of course, I realize I have to correct an earlier assertion. My mom did once have a job she was passionate about. She was a feature writer at our town's daily newspaper. Knowing her as I do, these days, I think that was the best job for her personality. It fits her organizational style, her personal curiosity and her writing style. She gave it up about a year or two before I was born. I never knew why until this last year.

She gave it up because she and Dad wanted to have a child. Dad, newly ordained, was chaplaining here and there, and subbing in pulpits, as well as in the local school system as a teacher. His income wasn't steady or sufficient. Mom's was. However, in the mid-70s, if you wanted to keep your job, as a woman, you didn't get pregnant. The only employer who wouldn't fire you if you were pregnant back then, that she knew of - and that would pay a better salary than she made - was the State of Texas. She returned to work six weeks after I was born. Six. Weeks. That's the amount of time they gave her. For those of you who've had kids, you know your body is just then starting to heal, and the baby, who still needs to eat every 2 - 3 hours, is entering the 6-week fussy phase and needs Mommy. Luckily, Dad was unemployed at the time, so he provided the childcare for a few months. Within a year, he got a full-time chaplain job at a local hospital and they had an employee nursery.

And this takes me back to work. I could be wrong, but I suspect that having me at home is an emotionally beneficial arrangement for us as a family, right now. I have had a few auditions (a couple this week, actually) for paying gigs; I'm exploring a paying gig for Shortcake and I'm not without options in terms of working from home or working on occasion. What I need to do right now is decide how committed I am to not subsuming. This would mean more self-promotion on my part, something I am loathe to do. I truly hate tooting my own horn, particularly as a means to an end. It might also mean a little more flexibility on my family's part. Currently, I try not to be out more than 1 - 2 nights a week, for rehearsal and performance. But I could (and would like to) make myself more available for improv teaching opportunities, some of which would be at night. The pay would be a pittance, but it would be pay doing what I enjoy and I'd be getting better at it for future work.

I really do appreciate all Mom has done for us. I just mourn that she decided to sacrifice her personal, professional happiness in the process. For most of human history, women have been the ones who've had to subsume their dreams for the expectations of society, or their subsume their happiness for the good of the family. Though Mom had more options than her mother, and she pursued them, she still subsumed both her dreams and happiness, ultimately. I live in an era when I have more options than my mother had. My dreams are fluid, as is my happiness, but I don't want to subsume them. I want Shortcake to see a woman who is happy with her professional choices, whatever they look like. ... I'm just living in tension about this, right now.

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Aloha!

It's been weeks. I know. Not only me transmitting, but me receiving. Sorry y'all. That's the bad news. The good news? We're leaving on vacation this morning for two weeks. So guess what I'll be doing? Catching up on reading your blogs! And hopefully, blogging as well.

We're off to Hawaii! Woohoo!

Here's what I'm so far most excited about. I slept last night! Typically, the night before a travelling, long-ish vacation, I sleep very little. But last night, I fell right asleep and got some good REM sleep, at that.

What did I dream? That I was back in desert West Texas town of my youth. But this time, I was a grown up, with my parents and brother. We were back at the house we lived in there. It was late Easter Sunday or maybe the day after. My childhood dog was there, as were some miniature dachsunds we apparently had inherited from friends. What was different was that this time in this dream, I was with my family and I wasn't just gasping for breath with joy for being there. I was at peace, and happy, but almost indifferent. I say almost, because I was still very happy. I just didn't feel compelled to stay for better or for worse - which, in my dreams, I normally do.

Ponder my brain. I've got a plane to catch and some islands to visit. I'll catch up with y'all in the coming days!

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 8

I slept harder last night than I had done in relatively recent memory. Here is the journey I took through the sandman's world:

I had dinner with Tina Fey. She and I were eating massive sandwiches and I was talking to her about my recent health issues and how I'm still trying to cope with those, physically and emotionally. The ear she lent me was completely sympathetic. Poor thing was basically my therapist over hoagies.

Then I dreamt that I was at home with Honey, but we were in an apartment from which we would be moving soon. Our apartment looked like a larger version of one of my childhood bedrooms. I ventured into our kitchen and discovered we were hosting a sorority reunion (Kappa something or other), which was particularly interesting since I was never in a sorority and Honey scorns collegiate social fraternities. I didn't mind so much except that they had brought all these fantastic cream puffs, vegetable platters and liquor and it was all off-limits to me. In my own kitchen! They weren't even going to leave any leftovers with us! Ugh. One of the sorority sisters was a girl I went to high school with, Leah. Leah looked fantastic and had a great job and a little daughter and was happy. ... I still just wanted some puff pastries.

Then I was at work. What my job was was not entirely clear, but it did involve rolled fondant and it took for-e-ver! I was chugging along and chugging along and chugging along and when I finally looked at the clock, it was 4AM. I had been at work for 19 hours! The sun was beginning to paint the black sky periwinkle. I decided it was time to go home and sleep for a few hours ... because there would still be work to do in the morning. More fondant to roll, or whatever. And the staff I was working with was still plugging along. No one was quite sure when to leave.

Normally, when I post a dream, I'm a bit befuddled by my dream and want to hear if any readers have any thoughts as to what the dream "means." This time, I have no doubt.

Tuesday night, I had dinner with my best friend from high school, who was in town on business for a few days. She mentioned that some of my quirks reminded her of Liz Lemon, Tina Fey's character on 30 Rock. She agreed with Honey's assessment of me, in an imagined alternate choice-path, living as Liz Lemon. Why the apartment and why the sorority reunion in my kitchen, I still don't know. Why the denial of food? Still unclear to me, but I LOVE food, so maybe I'm feeling deprived of something and it's manifesting itself in my dreams as happy, sweet, puffy food. But I know exactly why I dreamt the third part of my dream: I am working lots of long hours, lately.

We've got a massive project at work, which will churn on for at least another 6 weeks, for which my average day has become 10 to 10.5 hours long, frequently longer. Yesterday was about 11 and a quarter hours, about 11 and 3/4 if you include the time I left my front door to the time I returned. This has been going on since about mid-June and will continue till early October, if I'm lucky. I'm feeling very stressed out; I'm not getting paid any extra and though I've finally been given responsibilities commensurate to my experience and capabilities, as well as delegation authority, my title still languishes in the dusty entry level.

I'm a zombie. I haven't been reading half of the blogs I normally keep up with - not because I'm not interested, but because I'm exhausted. I have to make appointments to leave at a decent hour (6PM) just so I can have a life or get home to feed my dog on time. And even then, it raises the eyebrows of my superiors, like I'm a slacker. I really like what I do but I detest that I can't have dinner with my husband every night, or that if friends want to meet at 7 for drinks I can't promise I can make it.

I'm feeling really stuck. Family is vital to me. I want to have dinner (preferably before 7) each night with my husband, just like we used to, just like my family did when I was growing up. Outside interests are vital to me. If I have a rehearsal at 7:30, I don't want to have to feel like an asshole for leaving at 7, or 6:30 or 6 or 5:30! Or even if I just want to go to a play or a movie. But, it's not just my office, it's like this anywhere in my line of work. In fact, my office is probably on the better side of work/life management for my industry, so I'm not sure looking elsewhere would improve the balance. I really love my line of work, though. Even though this particular project has a terminus, the time-stress will continue. Maybe not 11 and 12 hour days - though, why should I complain when everyone in this area works those hours in every industry, because we are all hyper-acheivers - but the stress of feeling like an asshole for leaving on time or at a reasonable hour.

I'm between a rock and hard place, I think. I love what I do. I hate that it impedes my real life. I despised my last long-running office. It was an insult to my intelligence and my creativity. It accounted for 70% of the reason I went to grad school - anything to keep the synapses firing. But I was out by 5PM, sharp. This job insults neither (though I'm not a fan of our products, per se), but the dinner hour is ruined.

So sorry to be dour. So sorry I haven't checked your blogs in a long, long time. Maybe in October?

What's Molly dreaming now? Edition 7

Another strange dream last night. This one was themed a "Saved by the Bell" wedding. I dreamt that I was in Dallas for reasons I could not recall and I found myself at the wedding of Principal Belding. The wedding was actually purely a work of fiction; this was a movie set. Jessie Spano was the photographer, and Elizabeth Berkeley looked totally lived-in for someone who's only 30-something. The weird thing was, though this was a movie set, we were treating it like a real wedding. There was no lighting equipment, no cameras, aside from general wedding videography and people were mulling about the open bar waiting for the ceremony to begin.

I'm not sure why I was there. Not only was Principal Belding never my principal, or really anyone else's according to this piece, I was never in any of the casts (Miss Bliss or post-) and though I did watch it more than a rational, ambulatory, articulate person who has the fine motor skills to tie her own shoes should - which is to say at all, much less sporadically - I found the show blazingly stupid. (My brother liked it, and we both liked making fun of it.) It also became apparent that this was going to be a full out Esther Williams-style musical, since the synchronized swimmers were practicing in the massive swimming pool around which the ceremony was to be held. The place was crawling with sinfully rich, Hollywood-hot young people: mostly teens and college-aged. I felt way out of place and didn't know how I got an invitation. Zack Morris was there with some curly-haired brunette who wasn't the vapid vixen what's-her-name from the TV show. I heard "wooooo!" like a wave, come from a congregation of teen girls behind me. I looked over my right shoulder to see Slater strut past, wearing a tuxedo vest that had been cinched tightly around his waist. He, of course, looked like a moron. I rolled my eyes.

I needed to figure out what I was doing in this musical. I wore high-heeled saddle shoes which had rollerskate style abilities. I somehow discerned that I had a short solo during a poolside number. There were two lines of dancers across from each other, stretching the length of the pool. So I skated down the middle of them, doing the splits at one time - a feat I could once accomplish without wincing; these days, not so much - singing something all the way. I was curious why I was in this musical when I could not sing or dance half as well as throngs of other talent out there. Then I turned around and began to skate down the middle again and noticed that smoke was rising off my left shoe. I stopped skating. The dancers were now in the pool doing some synchronized number. And I decided I was supposed to be in the pool, too, so I dove in.

Then somehow, some time had passed and I was out of the pool, dry, still in my dress and switching out my skate-style shoes for another pair. (I did this at my hallway locker, of course.) The guests were all waiting for the ceremony to begin, again. And I felt even more out of place than ever. I was there by myself, I didn't know any of the guests. It was clear that I was too old and plain and not rich enough to talk to. Then, at the end of my dream, I spotted a friend of mine from my college theater department who I have not seen or heard from, nor really thought of, since graduation almost a decade ago. She looked as miserable as I did. Before I could go greet her, I woke up.

I never really liked that show. I found the characters too stereotypical even for lazy sitcome archetypes. Like the show "Friends," I knew these people would not be friends in real-life, particularly not during class-conscious adolescence. And the storylines were always weaker than tissue paper. I haven't thought of that show in years. I think I read a post somewhere recently in which someone referred to Mr. Belding, but as I've been scrambling to get caught up on my post-vacation blog reading, I can't recall who wrote it or what the reference was. I'm sure that was the trigger for the cast in my dream; but why a wedding?

And more importantly, this is the second high-school, "feeling like an outsider" type dream I've had in a week. Is this some new anxiety dream theme for me? I have a doctor's appointment in about 90 minutes for which I'm anxious because I'm hoping it'll shed a good deal of light on what's going on, but why high school? Why not tornadoes and aliens like my normal anxiety dreams? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Rain, Rain go away

Chispas! This has been a rainy (and chilly) spring! And for all the wetness, I'm still sneezing and the roof of my mouth still itching. What gives? I thought rain tamped down pollen? No matter. It's rainy (uh-gain) this morning and I'm not feeling particularly inspired to go to work. Rainy days make me want to do puzzles, play Scattergories or read the paper. That said, I thought you might enjoy doing a puzzle yourself. Don't worry, it's a simple 12-piecer:



I don't have any neato function that allows you to play Scattergories directly on my blog, but if you click here, you can go to their online game site. It literally takes a minute. Their timer is pretty strict. Or if you feel like reading the paper - one other than yours - search for one here. I've never used this site before, I usually use another paper search site, but what the hay?

I've been obsessed with Flickr lately. (Welcome to 2005, Molly!) For about a year, I've been bugging Honey to add more photos to his account, so I finally just started my own. I've been adding new pictures every day and seeking out groups with pretty pictures that interest me. I've got a few "contacts" and I'm slowly stealing contacts off of them. Anyway, in the spirit of Flickr - taking pictures of my life and finding beauty in the banal, I thought I'd include this little snapshot:

I bought these this weekend from 10,000 Villages. I like the repurposing of "waste." When we visited South Africa, local artisans commonly transformed aluminum cans, plastic bags and other items most of us would consider refuse, into truly cool works of art.

With no clear exit strategy for this post, I'm including a portion of a quizzy-meme that Pearl - who discovered the tasty tragedy of high fructose corn syrup while visiting America - did a few weeks ago. It seems like a rainy day activity. The original is long, so I'll just do a few. Feel free to tag yourself.

What would you do if you opened up your front door to a dead person?
I'd freak out that a dead person was able to ring my door bell. Then, I'd call Devinoni, because he'd help me prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse.

What were you doing at 8:00 this morning?
It's 7:45, now. I'd best be in the shower by 8, if I want to get to work on time.

When did you last throw up?
May 3: morning. As I didn't have much to blow, I'd call it the slightly-less-than dry heaves, but Honey insists that even thin watery spew counts as vomit. All due - I suspect - to me scarfing down the gourmet pizza the night before with fresho-licious garlic, to which I am woefully allergic. Why do I throw caution to the wind?

Do you want to get married & have children one day?
Checked one. .. and yeah, I'd like to get as many experiences out of this life as possible.

Do you like ice cream?
Why is this a question? Do I like air? What mental case wrote this?

Would you ever consider moving to another country to be with the one you love?
Well ... I moved to Oklahoma to be with Honey. So, yes. Another country wouldn't be much of a stretch.

Do you have strange dreams?
Clearly you've never clicked on my "dreams" tag. Which reminds me: two nights ago, I dreamt that Javier Bardem put me on this massive monster truck. When I started driving it, I lost all control of the vehicle and accidentally drove over other people's cars in a parking lot - in reverse. They were all angry and threatening to sue. And then Justin Long (the Mac kid) offered to represent me. Last night I dreamt of shoddy cruise ships, I think.

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 6

I'll try to keep this brief because I still have to walk the dog and take a shower and go to this little shindig called work.

Until I heard some poet on NPR this morning talking about his grade school teacher, I'd forgotten what I'd dreamt. But it was this - or this was the part I remembered most:

I'm in a school building. A student friend/acquaintance tells me that I need to leave within a few moments. He's wearing a black trenchcoat and has an ominous bearing about him radiating a nefarious purpose. It's clear he's warning me, giving me a heads up. He doesn't want me to get caught in his cross-fire.

I go into a detention hall being monitored by my 4th grade teacher (whom I loved) and Amy Poehler. They both seem pretty intent on making sure detention is served. "Mrs. H, Amy, you've got to get out of here! We have to leave, now!" They don't quite get it, and I can't tell them directly what's going to happen, because I don't know details and mostly because I don't want to alarm them and send the other kids into a panic. But I'm straining to stay composed as tears begin to well up in my eyes. I don't remember if they catch on.

The next thing I know, I'm outside the school and some teachers, hall monitors and cops inside have taken up guard like positions, awaiting the coming violence. But there are no guns drawn by the cops. Everyone is just standing openly, waiting. Their at once both watchful defense is both defiant and inviting, like by their physical vulnerability they're daring them to let the cowards bullets fly but also asking the perpetrator(s) to approach them civilly for comfort and reconciliation. And I'm frustrated that my teacher and Amy Poehler didn't quite get it and I'm sad that my friend wants to unleash such violence on his peers and I'm confused and scared. And the dream ended with us all just waiting. We knew what was coming and people were preparing what defense they could, but we were all just waiting.

Any prognosticators or diviners want to take a crack at this one?

ink, exercises in futility, fuzzy ambitions

Three beautiful things this Earth Day, a la Clare's blog, yet again.

1. The handstamp ink from last night's show faded into the back of my hand. The way the ink sunk into the crevices of my skin, the resulting pattern reminds me of a faded screen door, or a lesson in cross-hatch shading from 7th grade art class.

2. The mother in the grocery store yesterday with 3 children in her cart, negotiating with her son in the basket and her son hanging off the basket to stop fighting. "If you can be nice to eachother for 7 whole days, then you can pick out whatever toy gun you want. ... we'll make a chart and put it on the refrigerator so we can keep track." I couldn't hide how this cracked me up. I looked over at her and she glanced over the tops of their heads at me. We exchanged and amused look. We both know those boys can't last seven days, but we also both know that if they last at least one, she's gotten what she wanted out of the deal.

3. Dreaming last night that I was part of the Daily Show creative staff, even if the staff was completely fictional. Rob CordDETT?

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 5

First of all, my apologies to Joe and Honey. Apparently both men felt misled by the title of my last post. For the record, "orgasm" referred to the video I embedded.

Honey wanted to know if I was blogging about our sex life again. Again?! When did I start? ... so I've decided that must be what his poorly-hidden secret wife blogs about. At least I hope it's his secret wife; I'd be heartbroken if it were someone else entirely!

So, sorry boys. Maybe next time. Onto today's post!

I had a fantastically strange dream two nights ago that I really wanted to blog about immediately upon waking. Unfortunately, I got distracted by a project I had begun the night before. But it was completely fun, diversionary project, so not a huge loss. All that is to say, I'm going to try to recall it as best as I can, because I thought it was an interesting one as my funky dreamlife goes.

Queen Amidala/Natalie Portman. I jumping between first and third person in this one. Sometimes I was Amidala as portrayed by Ms. Portman, and sometimes I was watching her in this adventure. I was in danger. In a shack. I was being hunted, stalked, really. And who was after me? OBI-WAN KENOBI! Not the hot, young Ewan McGregor Obi-wan, the old Alec Guinness Obi-wan. (Let's be clear, Ewan McGregor stalking me would not be terrifying at all - or unwelcome, for that matter.) But here I was Amidala/Portman, in a shack by a road and the doors wouldn't lock properly and people would kind of come in and out to check on me and the whole time I felt like I had to catch my breath because I was never sure if it was my assailant. They would bring word of him, or would tell me they were returning shortly. For my part, I would lie on the floor of this crummy two and a half room shelter, and keep my eye on the window facing the front. This was where Obi-wan was sure to appear.

The windows were large, taking up a huge portion of the wall. The shack was on the side of a rural mountain road, like just off the shoulder. The road curved off toward the north. From the window I could see the bend in the road and the gravel shoulder and a cluster of trees at the bend. I would get up off the floor occasionally and check the doors. They would shut and semi-latch, but not lock. I had to hold them against the wind. Outdoors, it was beautiful - about as beautiful a day you could ask for: 80 degrees, sunny, the grass was dappled with the shadow of the trees' leaves. Inside, the shack was three shades of grey occasionally accented with a mud-colored table or cabinet. It was chilly inside, and the floors were covered in dust. It was filthy and depressing inside - Dickensian, almost - and beautiful outside. I kept trying to decide when I would sneak out the back of the house, to escape Obi-wan. For some reason, I thought it prudent if I saw him coming toward me, first.

Then some visitor - Anikin, maybe? - alerted me that Obi-wan was on his way, and he'd stop at nothing to kill me. He knows my thoughts. There is no place where I could hide from him. At this point, I seem to remember jumping to third person and seeing Natalie Portman; I was hovering over her. She was Amidala, but dressed more like Padme. (Just rent the frakking movie, Virginia Gal, it'll make a ton of more sense!) Then, somehow, Padme had escaped. She/I was on a bus - like a school bus - riding into ShangHai. Though it was definitely a school bus, the seats were arranged more like an airplane. As we drove into ShangHai, it became clear to me that Obi-wan was going to attack me on this ride. I was back in first person now, sitting in a window seat. The bus began to fill with smog. Not LA smog, not Mexico City smog (which is formidable, let me tell you), but vengeful, wicked ShangHai smog that was doing the bidding of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The smog was so thick that I couldn't see the bus driver or the first few rows of the bus, and I was only in the middle of the bus. I knew it was Obi-wan, after only me. Slowly, all the other passengers dissipated. Hanging from the roof of the bus was a leather trunk-like compartment. It resembled the emergency raft roof hatches on some airplanes, but was much more primitive. It unlatched and drifting down from it, towards me, was Obi-wan, like the angel of death. Alec Guinness in his brown cloak floating toward me like Voldemort before he had his body. I had been breathing deeply for a spell, while the smog had been rolling in. I was having some sort of asthma attack. As Guinness approached (wow, actually, a Guinness sounds really good right now), I jumped to third person and watched as he wrapped his hands around Natalie Portman's throat. She was scared and gasping.

I know the dream went on longer than that, and that I and Padme/Amidala/Portman survived, but I can't remember it. I just know that Obi-wan was neither conquered nor sated. And I woke up both scared and excited.

So, what do you think this all means? Background/caveats: I did watch the last half of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" Monday night because TiVo thought we'd like it and captured it. But I have no idea where the rest of this came from. Thoughts?

Getting in my own way

Last week, I took a freelance colleague of mine out to lunch, since it was her last day on the project. She told me about a cousin she and her husband are hosting in their house. He's trying to make a new start of it in the area and they were happy to help. Except now it's been several months more than they all originally thought it would be. He's not taking temp jobs, not really actively seeking out permanent employment and is basically being a drag on a pair of newlyweds who were just trying to offer the kind of support they hoped someone would offer them if they were in a similar situation.

During our conversation, my colleague told me that her cousin, who is 30, often complains to her that he doesn't have the degrees that she does - bachelor and post-grad - so he's not as marketable as she is and that's why he's not getting jobs. She was frustrated by this because even though she is degreed, he is prior military, which counts for a lot in the marketplace. Additionally, she has been busting hump looking for work in our field since she got her graduate degree, and having mixed success. Here's what struck me though: he's imprisoned himself with his negativity.

That got me thinking about how much and how often we define ourselves by what we are not (or what we have not) as opposed to what we are. I am not educated, married, a parent, accomplished in my field, living in the "right" town, wealthy enough, religious enough, traveled, fashionable, and so on and so on. There may be plenty of people who don't do this, but the majority of us do, that's why we're always impressed with the people in the world who accomplish things; they're not stopped by their own naysaying.

The silly thing about naysaying is that it shackles us to the very negatives we supposedly resent about ourselves. I can't do this, I'm too old. I can't do that, I don't have enough experience. Nobody would let me do this because I'm not "insert reason here." Anytime we think we can't because of some "no" hanging over us, we certainly can't, because we won't. We won't even give ourselves the opportunities to try and fail or try and succeed because we're too married to the "no" of our situation. I feel like I wasted a lot of my 20s because I told myself I was too old for some things or too inexperienced for other possibilities. And it was fucking stupid. I wasn't too old. I'm probably still not, but as long as I put that speed bump in front of myself, I couldn't proceed.

There are plenty of roadblocks we cling to that are largely beyond our control. For the last two years, my body has been telling me "no" about some things. And this last weekend, it shouted "HELL NO" at me. I don't know if or when it will ever give me a resounding and final "no." I'm hoping and praying not for some "yes" from my body. But I'm feeling very beat down, crushed and angry these days. Life can still be good even if my body ever gives me a definitive no, but right now I just don't know how. But I want to learn how to climb out of this hole I've been sliding deeper and deeper into. It hurts and there's a whole world of happiness out there, if I only remember how to find it. My body's telling me "no" has been impeding my happiness. I want to learn to live with the "no" and realize that there is still a pulsing, vibrant world of "yes" beyond this ugly shadow of "no" that hovers over me.

In the meantime, I want to start dispelling all the nos I've put upon myself all my life. I am exactly as pretty as I am. I am exactly as young as I am. I am exactly as talented as I am. There are aspects of my life I can control, and I want to work to be in charge of them. There are aspects of my life that I cannot control, and I want to work to not let them be in control of my happiness. I don't want to be a prisoner to my own insecurities anymore, the way my colleague's cousin is. It's self-defeating.

Excellent Night; "What's Molly Dreaming Now" November edition

I'll start with the excellent night. Some girlfriends and I went to a concert last night, and not being one who does live music a whole lot, I wasn't sure what exactly to expect. I like live music fine enough, I like concerts, but I very rarely feel like that, for me, they're the emotional events that so many other people - heavy concert-goers in particular - experience. Too often, when I see a band or an artist perform, I feel like I could have had the same emotional experience at home, listening to to them on my stereo/iPod/Pandora. The only thing that ever makes it more personal for me, is if the artist is a good storyteller, or my proximity to the stage, or if I get to meet the artist afterwards, like I did with the Indigo Girls once. (Yes I did have a witty quip for Amy Ray, and she liked it!)

The band before last night's big act was no different from what I normally expect, which made me nervous for the act I had come for. But one of my girlfriends, for whom this was her third time to see the big act, assured me that they would be way better. They were. Largely because their music bloody rocks, anyway, and because they know that spectacle is important, but is nothing if you don't have a good delivery. And they had great delivery. Plus, you can tell they just really enjoy being up there; they love singing these songs with each other. As a performer myself, I love that, too, so it's relieving and joyful to see they do. At some point, near the end of the show when people were still rocking out, it reminded me of what people used to describe Heaven as to me as a kid: a non-stop party where people were just in ecstasy to be in the presence of God. That was definitely ecstatic and their music is so positive and powerful, it felt Heavenly; and the energy was such that no one wanted it to end.

It turns out last night was their last night of the 2007 tour and people from all up and down the East Coast had turned out for it. The lead singer solicited city call outs from the audience. That was really great. People like to represent. I hope one day I can draw folks from miles around! I decided I wanted to be one of the back up singers when I grow up. One of my friends and I kept trying to mimic their hair-whipping and we paid for it afterwards. After two extra-strength Tylenol and a mostly full night's sleep, my neck still hurts. The show overall left me pumped: I wanted more of their music and felt like I'd been jumping on a rainbow!

Now for the weird dream: it was brief, but strange. Maybe it was inspired by yesterday's post. I dreamt that Honey and I needed to get from point A to point B, presumably in Texas for some reason and that it was a 5 or 6 hour drive. Honey had BabyDog with him, and I was still in some medium-large city. We were supposed to leave a little bit before 2PM, he was impatient and we must've been in separate cars. I had to stop by a casual friend's house for something and he kept telling me I needed to help him lure his stoner friend out of the basement. I did my part, and by then it was 4PM and I surmised that Honey was already en route to our destination. I called him on his cell and told him I had one more thing I had to do and I'd be on my way. Why all these delays, I don't know; I know they were mandatory and I resented them.

So I'm at a movie theater with one of my girlfriends from the concert last night. We step into an elevator. It's one of those elevators that has a window in the primary door that closes you in, as well as window in the outside door, so you can see everything. I press the floor number we need, and as we go up, I see that my favorite scarf is stuck in the outside door of the third floor. And for some reason, it's being held there by escalator teeth. And for some reason, I can reach through the doors and loosen it. I do that on my first trip up, but it's still stuck. All I need is one more go of it. The third passenger riding with us gets off at 4, and we go back down to one. We press 3, and when we begin to reach the scarf I begin to pull, but as the car comes level with the third floor, there's a group of sadistic, educated-looking, European men standing and sitting there. Severely standing and sitting. They were waiting for me. One looks like Adam Ant, another like Bill Nighy. The others, I can't recall: just that they look angular, European and mean. They say nothing, and as I reach for the scarf, evil-Adam Ant shakes his head and draws up a sheet of paper that looks like a scantron and a pen. I let go of the scarf and he teases with his pen as if to say, "which bubbles will I fill in?" He circles the number 96 and 10 and then lifts his hand with a gesture for the number 3. For some reason it becomes apparent to me that my friend and I are supposed to travel up to floor 96 and floor 10, 3 times each as some punishment for crossing evil-Adam Ant and evil-Bill Nighy and their gang. All I wanted was my scarf! I don't know why they thought it was bad that I wanted my scarf!

So, I push the button for the first floor, and by this time, my girlfriend and I are clinging to each other, scared and whimpering. The moment we hit the bottom floor, we remember, this building is only 14 stories tall. How do the evil English guys expect us to go to 96? But we daren't just get out at the first floor, because these guys just materialized out of nowhere to begin with and they're sadistic: somehow, they know I hate elevators and love my scarf! So we began our journey, deciding we'd just do the ride to the 14th floor several times anyway. What sucked was that other people could get on and off as they pleased as we were forced to continue riding. And the worst part was: I really needed to get on the road to meet with Honey and this was another, inescapable delay. And I was almost out of power on my cell phone! Argh and yikes! Damn you, Adam Ant!

So ... any thoughts on what the dream means would be greatly appreciated. Put your divining caps on!

Memory Museum

There are at least two new movies that I know of which were filmed around the town where I spent my adolescence. Luckily, they're both movies that I'd want to see anyway, with fantastic actors and directors. Last night, I got onto Apple's movie trailer site and decided to watch their trailers. The second shot in the first one, one of those outdoor shots that helps establish the physical realm in which a story unfolds, made tears well up in my eyes. I paused it. My dog, who always rushes to my side when she hears me sniffle, did not fail in her habit.

The image was of a sunrise over a mountain that overlooks my hometown. But it was shot from behind the mountain - or rather, from the side that does not face the town. I watched the rest of the trailer, scanning the horizons of the panorama shots to see if I could recognize any other geographical features. I only spotted one other which I thought I could place immediately. But either way, it was such a treat to see all of it; I still recognized the undulations and vegetation of the Southwest Texas desert floor. After I watched the whole trailer, I showed it to Honey and paused on the second shot. I explained to him where the camera was in relation to the highway connecting my town and the next, roughly how far out from the town the shot was taken (maybe 7 to 10 miles), where the town was in relation to the shot and what time of day it was, based on where the sun was. He gave a polite, "neat."

I've blogged before about my hometown and how I haven't spent more than 48 hours there, since the summer after I graduated from high school, in 1994. I haven't even seen it at all since we scattered part of my childhood dog's ashes there during an 18 hour trip in 1996. (At Christmas that year, we decided to scatter his ashes in every place he'd ever lived. This meant we drove around the state of Texas, from the Gulf Coast where we lived at the time, to the Panhandle, where both my dog and I were born, to the Big Bend and back to the coast. For those keeping track, that's about 32 hours of road time alone.) There are times in my life, when things get hectic and scary, when I retreat to my hometown in my dreams. In the past few years, each time I'm there, I convince myself that I'm actually, physically visiting the town and when I wake I'm crestfallen. As a teen I hated the isolation of my town; as an adult, it can be alluring. Lately, I have not been having those dreams. Nor have I had any dreams about tornadoes or aliens - other common themes which tell me that I'm stressed - in many, many months. But about a week ago, I dreamt I was on the road which drives right by the mountain described above. I don't know why; I haven't been missing my town or feeling too stressed. (Well, I can think of something in my life from which I'd like reprieve, but you good folks shan't be privy to that today. But the dream was still surprising.)

In any event, I think seeing my town's mountain inspired my train of thoughts when I woke. Touring the terrain of my childhood. All I could think about was the inside of my grandparents' house in the Panhandle. They moved further in-state about 5 or 6 years ago to be closer to my aunts and uncles and parents. The last time I visited them in the Panhandle was shortly after New Year of 2000, almost 8 years ago! Not that I wasn't aware of it, but I hadn't meditated on this thought in a long, long time: I'll never see that house again; certainly not from the inside. So I took a tour of it in my mind. I felt the fresh summer air from their porch, went inside to hear the whirring of the window air conditioning unit, looked at all the family photos and Grandpa's paintings on the walls, smelled the gas from the kitchen, placed my hand on the stack of books and magazines that Grandpa kept on the corner of the kitchen table ... I laid in bed tracing the terrain of their house for what felt like 10 or 15 minutes. I was kind of surprised by how much I remembered. I remember it as well as, or maybe better than, the two houses I lived in growing up. It was the constant. Then I toured what I could remember of the church we attended till I was 12 - with a brief stint out while Dad pastored a church for a few years in the mid-80s. That, I remember more in chunks: the yellow-white brick, the arched breezeway on the east side of the west wing, the L shape of the building and that the only two sets of stairs were located on the ends of the L, the brown carpet in the hallway, the library on the east end of the building, the kitchen that was right across from that, the playground just north of the parking lot where, when I was a kid, we had the old cab of a semi-truck to play in (all the kids loved pretending they were truck drivers); the vast field across the street from the church where, in 1982 on Mother's Day, I saw my first - and so far only confirmed - tornado; that field is full of houses now. Progress.

Sorry I've been absolutely awful about blogging anything this Fall. And I'm sorry my first post in over a month was pretty self-indulgent. And, I'm sorry I haven't really been cruising other blogs a lot (or at all, really) in the last 6 or 8 weeks. I'll try to be better on all counts.

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 3

It has been almost a month since I've blogged anything. Why is this? Because my thesis will never die and it has been keeping me out of the blogosphere (and rehearsals for my show had begun). My professor wanted it to be done, forever and ever amen by next Friday. But due to some delayed communications, it will probably be at least another month. Chispas!

In any event, stress over my thesis has definitely been affecting my dreams. Namely, I've been dreaming of tornadoes again. Tornadoes are Molly's shorthand for sinister mayhem in her life. Quite often I won't even know that I'm under stress until I begin dreaming of twisters. It's the dreamworld tornadoes that often reveal the stress that I've been suppressing and bring it to the surface for me to acknowledge. (And sometimes deal with.)

But the tornadoes haven't plagued my dreams for a few days now. No, what surprised me was theme of my dream last night.

It was current day. Bush had just suspended the Constitution and taken sole control of the government. Another terrorist attack had just occurred on our soil, but it was not as vast or terrifying as 9/11. All I remember from my dream were the feelings of anger, disenchantment, disillusion and utter sorrow - not at the attack, but at the totalitarianism, at the fragility of our democracy that I love and take for granted and our apparent willingness to cede it so quickly to a single person under the guise of security. (A person who consistently displays no regard for the lessons history or promise to the future, no less.) And in my dream, I was terrified that I would be jailed and my family disbanded, simply because I - and my family - don't like our president and have been "foolish" enough in the present to actually exercise our freedom of speech both publicly and privately, against him and the policies he pursues in my name.

I wandered the streets of my neighborhood wailing like madwoman; hands in my hair, mouth agape. The image that flashed in my mind in my dream was that of an American flag. It was like any other American flag, except that the second red stripe under the blue field had been stripped out and replaced with a black stripe.

What triggered this dream, I don't know. I just know this morning, talking to Honey while he had breakfast, I had a feeling of dread. I seemed to worry that there would be a terrorist attack in the near future. Then I remembered my dream. Maybe it was the story in the news lately of the JFK plot. That's really scary, but I haven't really been following it closely. I also seem to remember hearing on C-Span radio a few weeks ago, though, that Spanky had quietly signed some piece of legislation essentially allowing him to suspend the Constitution and assume all control in a time of crisis if he felt it necessary. But I don't know the details of that, either. Quite frankly, the prospect of a single person taking over our government is equally terrifying to me as another 9/11 or a more invasive attack from a foreign agent. In fact, it's more terrifying: how can we fight to preserve our democracy, our "freedom," if we don't feel it can stand in times of direst crisis?!

What's Molly Dreaming Now? Edition 2

Since going full throttle on trying to slay my thesis, my dream life has been waning. Friday night, though, I had a very strange and vivid dream. I'll do this like the last one and give you the details and let you guys tell me what you think.

Honey and I have apparently moved to a new house which he bought without me having seen it. I am not upset by this; it was a good purchase and the previous owners left a lot of their old furniture so that saved us money and effort. I can't tell what city we're in. It's clearly some old East Coast American city with a colonial history: Philly, Baltimore, Williamsburg, I dunno. It is a monstrous townhouse in the middle of a row of townhouses. I'm not talking a big, modern townhouse like you see in developments all over the place. I mean a monstrous townhouse amidst other other monstrosities amidst the quaint, colonial historical part of town. For some reason, the Disney company has seen fit to run a monorail tunnel through the townhouses. Not through the living areas, but there's a tunnel beneath the first floor; like we don't have basements because the tunnel is in our basements. And the tunnel for this transport system emerges outside our kitchen window. We're not an end unit, but still the tunnel spits out and turns basically between our house and the neighbors. It's odd. Odder still, people emerge from the tunnel on foot, not just on the monorail cars. (Incidentally, here's an adorable diversion.)

Okay, so I've taken Babydog on a walk and come home and then I've gone out and run some more errands. Each time I come home, I comment on how I like the paint on the walls or how the old furniture still jives with my style or whatever. When I come back from running errands. I see Honey lying on the sofa with a tiny baby on his chest. The baby's wearing a pink onesie. I don't remember the dialogue that transpired between Honey and me, but for whatever reason it became apparent that this child was our daughter. ... and I didn't remember having had a baby.

So I take the baby into my arms - she's probably a month old - and try to become familiar with her. We haven't given her a name. She has a soft nest of dark hair, an incredibly round head, very round eyes and large, jutting, Stephen Colbert-shaped ears. Essentially, she looks nothing like Honey or me. I rifle through my memory and begin having vague recollections of being pregnant, but only 5 or 6 months so, not enough to have produced a baby. But I accept it and begin to grow comfortable with the idea that I have a baby - not that I am a mother, but that I have a baby. I'm happy that it's a girl. I then remember she was born on January 15, 2008. So it's now like April, 2008 in my dream. I hold up the baby by her armpits because she's able to hold her own head at this point, or at least do that weird neck-scrunch thing. And now, she's naked. I think to myself, "well, I hate January, but I guess I'll like it, now."* She begins to cry - scream really - and her mouth opens wider than anything I've ever seen. It's freakish and hilarious. She's like a wide-mouth bass or a cartoon baby (as illustrated above) and she's letting it roar. ... and that, we decide, she got from me.

The dream dissipated shortly after that. But what was weirdest to me was that I didn't feel an instant affinity for the baby. Honey and I were tickled by her and we were fully committed to caring for her, but it was more like she was a new curiosity than our child. I was not indifferent to her, but I wasn't inspired by her.

*side note, because I know VA Gal will say something: a ton of my favorite people are January babies, so I know the month in which one is born has no bearing on one's character. I'm just not a fan of January past, say, the 7th or 8th. If I could I would jump from January 10 directly to April 1, every year.

So what does my dream mean? ... a little history: a lot of our friends and family are having babies these days. We are in the process of replacing windows in our house. Have fun!

What's Molly Dreaming Now?

I have always had strange, evocative dreams. To me, they're just dreams, but when I explain them to other people, they tend to cock their heads to one side, raise and eyebrow and walk slowly away backwards, so I'm assuming that means the dreams are strange. Quite often themes and locations repeat in my dreams: tornados, alien invasions, my small nowheretown; but just as often - more probably - they're just strange cinematic quilts.

Tonight I think I should start a series: "What's Molly Dreaming Now?" Whenever I have a particularly vivid or bizarre dream, I'll post as much of it as I can remember and I'll let you, the readers tell me what you think it means. I will also include a little background on what I think some elements were inspired by and you may feel free to agree with me, or come up with something entirely different.

Here goes:
~Dream January 27, 2007~
I have just stepped out of some building that serves a public service. A school, a church center, a community recreation building, something. I step into the courtyard. The place is teeming with people. They're all wearing bright colors, period, professional or cultural costumes or otherwise funky fashions. The courtyard is huge: easily half a football field and the building - a deep red brick color, four or five stories high - encompasses the whole courtyard. (though i suppose that goes without saying.) It's probably summertime or late spring. People are dressed loosely. It's pleasantly warm outside; 80 degrees at least. No breeze, but no humidity, either. It's about 4:30 or 5PM, but because I'm inside the courtyard surrounded by the walls of the huge building, it feels like twilight.

For some reason, I think I'm wearing a pinstriped Edwardian era day dress, along the lines of what darling Kate wore boarding the fated ship in Titanic. But mine was less suit like and more regular waisted and breezy, if that makes any sense. If the sun is setting in the west, then I enter the courtyard from the southeast corner. I believe I'm looking for someone, or at least I feel deeply compelled to consult with someone. I can't recall if I was told to seek someone or not. The courtyard is just teeming with people - they're all content. I think I'm content, but tinged with malaise about something.

A woman comes up to me. She is molto pregnant and wears a two piece beach garment. (I don't want to call it a swimsuit, because it may be a skirt or something on the bottom; I pay more attention to her belly and her prescence than her bottom.) She is black and her hair is short, kept in stubby, springy baby dreads. She smiles alot and is pretty darn comforting to be around. I'm mostly at ease, but I'm still unsure. What if she's not the one I'm supposed to consult? What if her consultation leads me awry? Her outfit is burgundy and on the left side of her bikini top are a cluster of tiny sea shells that run from just above her breast up an inch or two up the strap of her halter. The sea shells are also at her hip. She is very pretty, but more than that, she's captivating and magnetic. She knows she is the one I am supposed to confer with and as soon as I see her, I accept that she is the one I'm meant to meet. We trade greetings, but before we can go any further, something is happening on the northeast corner of the courtyard.

A massive space ship - probably an acre at the base - that looks like the tip of a giant bullet is preparing to blast off. I'm a bit concerned that maybe we should clear the area, but say nothing. I know that this ship is important to us for some reason and I'm as excited as anyone about its departure. Then a crane next to the ship, which ostensibly assists the ship, swings its arm out in front of it and dangling from the arm are a quartet of tall, limp men. They hang from some support under their armpits. They seem to be unconscious and quadruplets at that. They wear blue pin-striped pants, and button-down tops. Everything about them is a pale wash of blue, from their hair - long and natty - to their shoes. They look like a cross between the scary twins from the Matrix sequels and the 5th Element from the 5th Element. It becomes apparent that these men are essential the liftoff sequence for the ship, but I don't really know exactly why. I don't know if they're strapped to the outside or what. And I infer from the woman beside me that sacrificing them is both evil and necessary and that they are equally good and evil and that there was some question about whether they really volunteered for the liftoff.

When I look back, the ship is roaring off the launchpad. No sign of the blue guys. I'm filled with fear and awe and hope. This launch is very important for some reason. The ship produces no smoke, but rather burns clear fumes, lots of them, like what you'd see on a really hot day in Phoenix. It slowly climbs into the sky and leaves a white vapor trail. The sun has begun to set.

Other random items not part of the "plot," but there viscerally: a younger friend with whom I trade emails once every 6 - 18 months, whom I have not seen in 10 years and who is doing well in his industry and for and about whom I am very proud; Tony Danza; the year 2003 and feeling bad about that year until I started recounting to someone in the dream the trips to Europe I took that year.

The only item from life I can think of that may have inspired this dream, or one part of it: we watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica last night that we had been hanging onto for a month in which the diaspora-ed humans, starving to death, had to go to a planet covered in algae to find food.

What do y'all think?
Have fun!

Malone pines for her desert home

Before I begin my post in earnest, I would like to begin with praise for Daniel Craig, the new James Bond. Honey and I caught Casino Royale yesterday afternoon. I only went on the glowing recommendations of coworkers. I, too was skeptical of a blond Bond; moreover, I'm past tired of Bond's objectification of women. Must I really suffer through Denise Richards or Halle Berry stiff acting and cooing over some guy twice her age just to get to the intrigue and action? Casino did not disappoint - probably the best Bond I've ever seen; thanks in part to a screenplay cowritten by the writer of Crash - and Craig rocked my world! His performance wasn't the Bond archetype that we all know, love and yawn at. It was alert and in the moment. Best since Connery? Hell no: better than! Way to go Danny-boy! I can't wait to see the next offering.

Now, to the real point:
I had the dream again the other night. I don't know if I've ever blogged on it or not. I'm back in my hometown - not the city of my nativity, but where I spent puberty and adolescence - just visiting and I 'm happy to be there. These dreams are usually so vivid or so emotionally compelling that I convince myself that I am actually there. In the last year, I've wanted so badly for my presence there to be real that I pause, take in my surroundings and think to myself or outright proclaim: "this isn't a dream. I'm really here! I'm here! I'm not dreaming!" ... and of course I always am. On occasion, I've woken up actually sad or angry that it was a dream. In retrospect, the landscape of my town is rarely accurate: the temperature is too cool or the mountains too young, like the Rockies, not like the wizened old mounts that they are.

I haven't been back to my hometown, for all intents and purposes, for over 12 years. After I graduated high school, my family moved, I went off to college and the only times I returned were to pick up a friend en route somewhere else, and to scatter the ashes of my first dog. 48 hours total between the two trips in a dozen years doesn't feel like enough.

Sometimes I ask myself why I should care. It is a small town hundreds of miles from any city most outsiders might recognize, closer to Mexico than the nearest mall and I never completely felt like I fit in there. Most people scoff at places like that; and when folks never quite felt completely like they fit in, they write off that place and move on. I think I care for two reasons.

1. Unlike most people I know, I can't return to my hometown for a casual visit. My family no longer lives there, so I have no draw, and it's so remote that to get there would take two plane rides and a car ride that lasts longer than an Oscar-length movie. Because of this inconvenience and my absence from the place, I have no way of dealing with the ghosts of my youth. Honey can drive by his old high school anytime he visits his parents; he can see random old friends still in the area and old haunts for the same reason. I don't know what's up with the Pizza Hut where my friends and I used to hang out and where I had my first date. I don't know if the movie theater still has the John Travolta, Stayin' Alive poster from 1983 in the lobby. I lived in that town from ages 12 to 18, six very important years, which really help shape who one becomes. I feel unresolved a lot of times, not getting a chance to go back and just peek. And I'm terribly jealous of my brother and parents who return every year or two to visit friends. They report back on how much (or little) the place has changed and I feel like it's a kid growing up without me.

2. I long for the simplicity of that isolation, these days. The push and shove of metropolis life, of this part of the country can be overbearing. Elbow room, clean air and drinking water and inky night skies are a luxury anymore. I go in my dreams, maybe to reckon with ghosts and get away from the congestion here.

For almost ten years, when Honey and I started dating, I've been wanting to take him there. But we've never managed to go. My throbbing desire to get out there has only become palpable in the last 3 or 4 years. (Hmm. I wonder if that has anything to do with the war.) I know we'll go out for a visit sometime, but I joke that the only time we'll get a chance is when I die and Honey has to go scatter my ashes at the crook in the river where I want to settle. That would suck, because then I couldn't take him to my favorite places alive! Note to self: don't die at least until you can get Honey out there.

In this last dream I dreamt, Matt Dillon was waiting at a restaurant where I was eating in the old burg. Sounds strange, unless you also know that a neighboring town to my burg has become a mini-mecca for New York artists and the faddish richies who like to cling to the newest chi-chi art-spot. Why Matt Dillon, I don't really know, but that's incidental. As for the neighboring town: I am truly excited that in the last 5 or 6 years, there has been an arts injection into the area. Had there been a movement like that when I was a teen, I may have been less disaffected. (However, I'm sure all that stuff takes money, and I remember having to skip out of a community theatre show I really wanted to see because I had only half the $6 admission.)

What gives me pause though are the wealthy NY hangers-on who are jetting out to the middle of nowhere to visit these new spas that have cropped up in neighboring town and frankly probably my old burg. According to a magazine I read recently, published by a Manhattan retailer for the uber-rich, one of the new hotels to cater to the elite charges $425/night. In an area where the poverty rate is twice that the national average, the median income is rougly $25K and where "school choice" is not an issue because there is only one school to choose from in each town, that kind of stuff breaks my heart. While I'm sure it's good for some locals, I worry about the effect it has on the already depressed local economy. This is a part of the country where housing prices generally go at their own pace, but my family reports that in the last five years the prices have gone through the roof. When the NY Times first did a piece on neighboring town, within days, there were offers to buy property flooding in from the Northeast corridor. The new richies coming in might make it harder for the locals to buy in their own back yard. Additionally I worry that this rapid, specialized attention for neighboring town might balloon into the next Santa Fe. I love Santa Fe dearly - my family traveled Northern NM virtually every summer till I was 13 - but for all the excellence of its history and the art, both old and noveau, it has lost some of its soul to Hollywood and New York. I don't want to see this for neighboring town. I truly, truly hope that the community will continue to benefit from the newfound attention from the artworld (I do genuinely believe it has), I just also hope and pray that it doesn't become the next Park City or Santa Fe playground for the wealthy at the expense of local character. I feel kind of like that person whose friend finds fame: Do well! Benefit! Don't totally sell out, though!

The question still remains: Why Matt Dillon? Guess I'll have to sleep on it. Maybe he'll tour me through my old burg tonight and quell my fears for neighboring town.

More on Dreams

I think I'm feeling homesick. Last night I dreamt that I was on or near the campus of my college alma mater. And we were playing the University of Tennessee and for some reason both the cheerleading squads of my school and of Tenn decided to hang out at my dormroom/apartment. (It kept morphing.) Now, I've never been a gal who's popular with the likes of cheerleaders. Their ilk were the ones who'd laugh loudest when human stains in high school would knock books out of my hands or otherwise harass me. But in my dream, I felt older and wiser and all these kids wanted to know was where to get good coffee or chinese food. And it had been such a long time since I'd spent time on campus, and in reality, so much has changed on that campus and the surrounding area that I really wouldn' t know. I gave them my suggestions anyway. And I teased the Tenn cheerleaders: "Congratulations on winning the Rose Bowl!" They rolled their eyes. "Oh! Yeah. Not you. Sorry!"

But the whole dream felt like that song from Avenue Q, "I wish I could go back to college." The line "these kids are so much younger than meeee," kept repeating in my head.

Then later in the dream, my honey and I were travelling to the center of the state for some reason. And we kept suspecting there was a German Fest going on somewhere that we really needed to get to. I've never been to a German Fest, but it seemed really important that we go. There was to be cake involved, apparently. But each time we were almost there, a morose sense washed over me.

Normally when I dream of places of my youth, I tend to focus on the small town in the middle of nowhere where I spent my adolescence. I've not been back in 10 years, and have spent maybe only a whole day there since I graduated more than 10 years ago. I mostly hated it when I lived there; so backasswards provincial, I thought. But now that I live in a buzzing, bustling, city on the Eastern Seaboard, all I've wanted to do for the last 3 or 4 years is just spend a week in that middle of nowhere provincial town. I think part of it is because unlike my Honey whose family still lives where he spent his youth, and virtually all of my friends, because my fam doesn't live there anymore, I can't really return and settle with the ghosts.

As for my alma mater. We return to the city every year or so. I feel like I kind of deal with those ghosts. But I'm just overall homesick.

My hair is still wet and I have to leave for work in 15 minutes. VA Gal, have fun in South Africa for me. Pet some cheetas!

Fun Dream Last Night

So I dreamt last night that I was in the house I lived in while I was an adolescent. There was something amiss about the carpet. Like it hadn't been laid properly, years earlier, so there was a huge lump in it. I think that stems from the episode of Mythbusters we watched last night, in which Adam and Jamie try to find the body of Jimmy Hoffa at Giants stadium. Anyway, so I leave my old house and I'm walking up the street, past a bakery, where I had to stop in and see if Keiffer Sutherland had been stuffed into a wicker basket. He had already escaped by then. (He IS Jack Bauer, you know.) So I walk on up to something resembling a high school cafeteria-meets the cosmetics section of a Whole Foods supermarket and gradually I find myself in a sketch out of Little Britain with Matt Lucas. (He's the chap on the right.) It's not a sketch I'd seen on Little Britain, but nonetheless ... I surmise that I'm supposed to purchase a sucker at a counter, but since this is England - and my dear, imaginary Niamh, I'm sure you can correct me on this - for some reason, it's really called a "sucky pop." And Matt Lucas' character is wearing a druid-style hood and has the personality of the hypnotist guy that he does in some of his sketches. He is supposed to haughtily deny me the sucky pop because I'm vaguely morally repellent or something. So we run the scene - which is completely improvised on my part, btw: remember, I didn't have a script going into the sketch, whereas Mr. Lucas did - and we depart. And as we leave, we pass a few people whom I actually do perform with on occassion and they're acting out some scene of American high school braggadaccios (sic), using finger gun shooting gestures. So then Mr. Lucas and I go into a conversation about violence in comedy and violence in America. At this point, my cat was making a lot of noise on our bed, knocking around a cellophane bow, so I woke up. It ticked me off; I really wanted to complete that conversation.