The Importance of a Good Eight Hours

I like to go to bed early, because the early sunrises and chirping birds make sleeping in a non-option.  It's not so much that I really need all that much sleep, but I enjoy getting it nonetheless.  Here is last night's dream, as proof that my sleep life is far more exciting than my awake life.

My neighborhood in Pennsylvania was being slowly invaded by a gang of vampires, led by Lestat, who was portrayed by Arsenio Hall.  They made their mark by digging little holes in the ground in the borders of the neighborhood.  It was so serious that I insisted that nobody leave the house anytime when it was remotely dark outside.  Now is probably a good time to mention that I was a vampire slayer in this dream.*  Even though I wasn't Buffy, I was acquainted with the Scooby Gang, and I decided that I needed Spike as backup.**  So from the couch in my family room, Mrs. Weston (née Poor Miss Taylor) sent Spike a lengthy text message asking him to come and help, and also possibly to marry me--I didn't read the message that thoroughly, but you know how Mrs. Weston can be.

The next part was pretty cool.  I was in this school or possibly abandoned shopping center building fighting the gang of vampires, who were dressed in some very crude armor.  I made my way through by sliding on the floors for great distances, presumably as a result of my own innate slayer strength.  I found Lestat's "right hand man" vampire and was trying to beat some information out of him to no avail.  I was nearly about to chop his head off when he pleaded "you can't kill me--I'm the Elders Quorum President!"  Apparently the reason nobody was killing the vampires (the male ones, at least) was because they were attending the local singles' ward and really bumping up the male population.

We all made our way into a grocery store after that, and one other male vampire was mulling over the pre-decorated cakes.  His dilemma was that he had forgotten to get a cake for Elders Quorum, but it was Sunday and he wasn't sure if he should break the Sabbath to buy a cake.  I was like, "you drink the blood of the innocent...I'm pretty sure buying a cake on Sunday isn't going to tip any scales."  Over in fresh produce, Spike and Lestat (aka Arsenio Hall) were getting into it because Spike thought he told Lestat never to show his face in these parts again and also how can you tell whether a mango is ripe?

That dream left me with so many unanswered questions, but unfortunately, my kidneys hadn't left me with any more unfiltered blood, so I had to wake up.


*I have a complex, probably.
**This part was probably prompted by the fact that I'm thinking about going to Comic Con this year and James Marsters will be there.

Pink Engagement Rings

Last night I dreamed that one of my guy friends took me to a jewelry store to help him buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend.  He picked out something with a "pink sapphire" which was really a rose zircon, which is, incidentally, the less attractive of my birthstones (I prefer opals, even though they're supposedly bad luck).  After he picked out the ring, he thanked me and then told me we couldn't be friends anymore once he got engaged.

I'm not sure if there was something in the water last year in Boston, but a significant number of my friends are in relationships (or pre-lationships, or flirty-text encounters, or they're so hot and outgoing that as soon as they get settled in someone is going to snatch them right up) right now.  Hooray for them doing something to fill the void that was my absence, but it kind of bums me out that I can't really hang out with them anymore.  No matter how awesome I am, I will never be someone with whom my non-single friends want to hang out more than their significant others, and I certainly don't want to be the Token Single Friend that couples allow to tag along out of charity and probably for comic relief.

I guess I have two options:  1) get myself a boyfriend so I can be part of the "club" and therefore be allowed to hang out with my non-single guy friends again without their girlfriends getting jealous (because, let's face it, I'm so threatening what with my Coke-bottle glasses and my inability to operate a curling iron), or 2) get more single friends...and possibly a number of cats.

It's probably important to note that later I dreamed that I told my friend the engagement ring shopping dream (dream within a dream? trippy!) and we went back there and reenacted the first part, but then he turned into Bill Hader and also became possessed.  He started freaking out and carried me into the manager's office and told me to stay there no matter what happened, but somehow I popped back outside where some other ladies were being forced to sit still on benches while he dug through the floor, exposing a skeleton in the sand (who builds a jewelry store on top of sand? has the Bible taught us nothing?).  It was apparently the body of a Black woman (I could tell from the skull) that the man whose spirit he was possessed with had murdered decades ago.  I was allowed to work on the case because of my connections but I first had to do reconstructions on all these rat bones.

Clearly this was a sign that I should stop worrying about my relationship status and focus on being a forensic anthropologist instead.

Arranged

I dream about arranged marriages a lot.  I'm not particularly sure why; maybe they're just a good jumping-off point for some interesting plots.  There was one involving a cornfield one time years ago...but that's a story for another day, I think.

Last night I dreamed that, for political reasons, I was arranged to be married to one of my friends, a friend of whom I'm fond enough to write a ukulele birthday song for, but not one that I would marry.  It was fine though, because he didn't want to marry me either.  Thankfully, there was a loophole:  if we could have five unsuccessful weddings we could get out of it.  We had an officiator who agreed to foul up the first ceremony, set to take place in Minnesota.  It's probably also important to mention that in this dream, I had superpowers much like Superman:  flying, x-ray vision, etc.*  This was why we could so easily get to Minnesota.  We were getting ready to leave my house in Medford (I was wearing a green dress that closely resembled a not-amazingly-flattering bridesmaid's dress I had to wear back in the day) when it started to snow.  I decided I needed shoes, so I went back inside and chose the brown shoes that make my feet smell horrible (this was not supposed to be a successful wedding, remember?).

Unfortunately the dream took a different turn when I somehow ended up in a plane and had to use my Superman powers in a way resembling something that happened in an episode of Lois and Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman, so I don't know if my friend and I got out of our marriage arrangement. But I'm going to be optimistic and say that everything worked out happily, and that at least one of us ended up with an attractive Asian man.   



*I figured this out earlier when I was at a New England beach and I flew up past the clouds into this room with a series of doors that opened over various states (I had at first gone too far to the left and ended up in South Dakota).  I ended up in Minnesota to take my father (not my real-life father, but it was the old guy from Modern Family) to a Dunkin' Donuts (which made no sense since we started out in New England so why would we go to Minnesota?) but it was actually this diner that served donuts and coffee and a tuna melt (which is what I ordered).

My Wacky Dreams

I used to have this Google Document that I would use to write down all my crazy dreams that I have (like this one, or this one), but in a mass frenzy of deleting stuff, I got rid of it.  But some of my dreams are too weird and awesome to keep to myself, so here's one that I dreamed last night as I slept in my queen-sized, pull-out sofa bed* in Pennsylvania.

I don't remember the events of the first part of the dream very well, but they included Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer mocking me for being too high-strung and no fun.  This made me really angry, so, in a fit of rage, I smashed a grilled cheese sandwich on his face.  He conceded that he had it coming.

As if any sandwich could mar that face.

The next part of the dream brought back some choir memories!  I was sitting at a desk in what might have been one of the green rooms of the HFAC at BYU, and men from BYU singers were walking by in outfits that would have made Johnny Weir say "whoa...dial it back a bit."**  But I got a phone call from Dr. Staheli (the director of Singers) saying that even though I was only in Concert Choir, they needed extra altos to go to Greenland with them.  I was looking at ticket prices and they were super cheap, but then I asked what the tour dates were and he said it started on 13 August, which was unfortunately the first day of Anatomy classes at BU, and therefore I couldn't go.  It was very sad.

Then I was still in choir, and we were going to sing at the Oscars, but I couldn't find an appropriate black dress.***  I was just going to wear my Concert Choir dress but I had so many closets and I was freaking out because it was in none of them.  Then I realized it was in my crypt!  I had a crypt not because I was dead (or undead) but because it was good storage.  I went to the cemetery and people from my ward in Boston were having a picnic on my crypt.  I rudely told them to shove off, and began looking, and lo and behold! there it was (is this a metaphor for how my choir days are dead and buried?)!  It was wrinkled of course, but I had time before going onstage to sing the National Anthem (they were very Patriotic Oscars) to iron it.  Shortly thereafter, I woke up, so I have no idea how the Oscars went.



*Because my parents got rid of my real bed after my sophomore year in college for some reason.
**For those of you who are not well-versed in flamboyant figure skaters, think velour, lots of rhinestones, and tight like unto a dish.
***I'm having a similar predicament for this wedding that I'll be singing at in a few weeks.  Wish me good shopping luck, please!

The New Man of My Dreams

As I mentioned in a post nearly two years ago,* I dream pretty awesome things.  Last night I had an awesome dream in which I shared an awesome dance with this guy:

Peter Tork, from The Monkees, for those not in the know.

It's very strange.  As a young girl, I always had a crush on Davy Jones**--I'd even try to "fudge the numbers" and rationalize that he wasn't actually forty years older than I was.  I guess as a twenty-something, however, my tastes have changed!  In my dream, I had just returned from doing some awesome stunts in a Superman costume, when The Monkees showed up, and Peter and I did this dance to "California Girls" (I think they were covering it for their show).  It was a great swing-dance type of number.  Peter was so professional, making our height differential no big deal.  In true Monkees fashion, the curmudgeon principal of the high school we were dancing through scolded us and gave us (as well as Davy, Mike, and Mickey) detentions.  It was worth it, black spot on my otherwise outstanding academic record notwithstanding.  


*Also, this post used to come up in the Google search results for "Adrien Brody" a lot; or so say my blog stats.
**May he rest in peace.

A Visit from Adrien Brody

My roommate Lindsay recently informed me that I hadn't written a new blog post in quite a while, and therefore I must try to appease her. I'm not super inspired right now, but here goes.

To make up for my very dull conscious life, my subconscious does some very entertaining things sometimes. I'm not the type to keep a "dream journal" because, you know, I'm not twelve, but thankfully I do remember things quite clearly in the morning and often amuse my roommates and friends. For instance, there was this one time with Laura and a cornfield...but that one's still a work in progress.

Sometimes I have celebrity guest stars in my dreams, and I get really excited until I realize that it's not real life and I can't have Matt Damon pick up my dry cleaning (mostly because I've never taken anything to the cleaners in my life). Maybe it's genetic--my mother has recurring dreams about Steven Tyler. A few nights ago, Adrien Brody (who won an Oscar for "The Pianist," made out with Halle Berry for a little bit, and then decided to make a bunch of really crappy movies thereafter) made an appearance in my dream, as a friend of a friend who was coming to visit Boston. I really don't remember what else was going on, but I do remember being ready to call people and tell them that I was hanging out with Adrien Brody. Nothing ever happens romantically with these unbelievably attractive famous men, though...even subconscious Alex can't get any action. I don't know if that's genetic; I don't allow my mother to divulge details about her Steven Tyler dreams.

I do like to play little games in the morning, to try to figure out which parts of my dreams came from which parts of my day (dreams are, as you know, the brains way of defragmenting itself). Last night, for example, was drawn from a "Harry Potter" trailer on TV and ideas for Laura's birthday party: I was hanging out with Harry and Hermione, but all of a sudden, we were on the island from "Lost," immediately after the plane crash. Boone was still alive, and Locke was being creepy. Hermione was quite troubled about the whole thing. Laura was troubled, too, but for different reasons. I tried to give her relationship advice. Harry agreed with me; Dave Alba didn't. However, nine out of ten times, Laura trusts wizards over whatever Dave does in matters of the heart. Then there were a bunch of vicious white puppies and a baby that lived in a shoebox. I really don't know where those came from. Well, the baby probably came from the fact that I'm twenty-five and the clocks they are a tickin', but that's also a work in progress...