Abuse ~ 10/29/2014

I dreamed there was this college football star, dark haired, green eyed, tall, handsome, talented, a kid with everything ahead of him. Only he'd been growing increasingly unstable, and was now prone to violent outbursts.

At some points I was Dr. House, and I suspected neurological issues. I was working on gaining his trust, giving him football related gifts. But I was getting them from a shadow box his mother had made of mementoes from his high school football days. I considered it a symptom that he didn't recognize them.

At other points, I was his mother. I was deep in denial that my son would ever do or say the awful things reported of him. I tried to rationalize it as stress and irritability because of the pressure of college, and exaggeration by people that wanted to sabotage his career. But I also lived in fear of what would happen if he realized Dr. House was tricking him, giving as gifts things that were already his own.

And I was also the girlfriend he had started abusing. I was afraid to be alone with him. I wanted to leave, but felt guilty because maybe he was just sick. I felt weak for staying when he bullied and insulted me for the smallest things, so I was starting to think the abuse was something I deserved, for my inadequacy and disloyalty. His mother never believed me, and was upset that I'd called in the doctor. I was still in love with the man I'd met and started dating, but I was terrified of what he had become, and I wasn't sure at all which person he really was.

And somewhere in there I woke up.

Restroom and Campground Inspector ~ 10/21/2014

I dreamed I was hiking across Texas, inspecting public campgrounds, and especially their bathrooms.  I had a spreadsheet I was marking things off on and everything.  Most facilities were unisex, but my dad was with me to help out when there was a men's room to be inspected.

The Texas Renaissance Festival had three different campgrounds, each with their own bathroom.We finished those, and set off into the woods.  We got to a large rocky ridge, and I started climbing up with the help of one of my exes. We got to the top, and the view was spectacular. To the left you could see all the way to the canyon where the Mississippi cut through, and far off ahead, past the woods and grasslands, you could see the ocean.

There were lots of tourists admiring the scenery, but I was pretty much terrified.  The ridge was only about six feet wide, slightly domed, and the ground felt spongy under my feet.  I couldn't keep my balance and kept finding myself leaning toward the sheer drop on the other side. My ex had to keep hauling me back, and when I tried to just sit down, I found myself stumbling to the very brink, and staring down into a three hundred foot drop before he hauled me back. After that I climbed back down.

Next, we hiked to La Grange, where Momo's house had become the center of a campground and picnic area the family would rent out.  The bathrooms of her house had each been expanded into large locker rooms. It was too late when I got there to inspect, and all the bedrooms were full, so I slept on a pallet in the biggest bathroom.

The next day I checked out all the bathrooms, and they were each very nice and clean. I went out to look at the campground, and found a large concrete and tin-roofed picnic shelter FULL of a Cajun family reunion.  Each branch of the family had a different thing that they'd yell when you called their name or said "Cajun". Like, "Who dat!" or "SOOIE!" or "Yeah, you right!" It was a boisterous and pretty entertaining sight.

They all seemed happy with the facilities, so I went back inside, where a bunch of little girls were just waking up from a princess sleep over. A gymnastics instructor from Jamaica was giving them morning yoga lessons. They were all super little, and each wearing Disney princess pajamas. Dad stayed there to help out with cleaning up after the Cajuns, and I set off to continue my task.

I hiked west and eventually found myself in a combination hipster coffee bar and pet shop. The pet shop part was only open during the week, so at the moment it was a coffee bar, and there were a couple of guys with guitars and one with a banjo jamming as people sat around everywhere on cushions and low chairs. There were tiny rose and green canaries and aquariums of lizards and turtles, a big cage of guinea pigs, and a television showing puppies from the local shelter, available for adoption.

I had run into the Jamaican gymnastics instructor again, and we were singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which fit perfectly with what the guys were playing. And then I woke up.

Hotel Stay ~ 10/18/2014

I dreamed I was a world class ballerina gymnast. I was in New Orleans for a huge competition. I was the only girl there who wasn't part of a big, famous school. It was just me and my coach/manager/body guard. I finished my performance and won first place, and my coach brought me news that someone who was stalking me was in town and threatened to kill me. Coach got me a suite on one of the highest floors of a big, fancy hotel on Canal Street.

Every time I went out, I felt like someone was following me, and I'd rush to lock myself in the room. Then one day when I was out, a woman sort of fell down in front of me. She had what looked like a Kennedy half dollar buried between two of her cervical vertebrae. There it was, a half circle of silver metal sticking out of her neck, surrounded by a thin line of blood. It seemed like someone must have fired it at her with some weird sort of disk gun.

The woman was tall and thin, with short blond hair. She reminded me of Missy Crider, a television actor I've seen in a few shows. She got up and started feeling at her neck, but I insisted she leave the coin in and let a doctor extract it. I helped her to my hotel while dialing 911, and, when I got her there, shouted for the front desk to take whatever other emergency action they needed to.

Half an hour later, help still hadn't arrived. I found out that the front desk had never done anything, and my coach had remanded my 911 call. I was livid. I was yelling at everyone that this woman needed help. My coach tried to take me away to a side room, but then the woman's injury just sort of fell away from her neck. It was stage make up. She was actually an actress my coach had hired to somehow distract me, so he could get me into a room where my stalker was waiting.

I bolted up to my own suite, got there just ahead of my murderous stalker, and locked everyone out.  I fired my coach through the door, called the police on everyone, and went to bed. I stayed holed up in my room for another day, eating cookies and reading novels.  Somewhere along the way, I changed from being an athlete back to being a technical writer working for Shell.

On my way back from work the next evening, I realized I was supposed to have checked out of the hotel that morning, but had forgotten. I checked with the front desk. I had to wait in line, and the marble and gilt wood front desk was too tall for me to see the clerk. I climbed up the front to talk to the guy, and he said it was okay, they'd just charge me for the extra night. I decided since I was paying for it, I may as well spend one more night there. Then I woke up.

Weirdest First Date Ever ~ 10/17/2014

I dreamed I lived in an apartment that was in a part of the Death Star being rebuilt in the Forest of Endor. I was reading Discover magazine, trying to see if the error I'd written in about in the last issue had been mentioned and corrected in the latest one. It was New Years Eve, and I only barely remembered to get ready begore my blind date showed up.

He turned out to be much much younger than me, but he was good looking, spoke Latin, was interested in Discover, and didn't seem to mind the age difference, or that I'd decided to wear a black velvet cloak with red satin lining, so I figured I'd see how things went.

It was almost midnight when my mom showed up to drop off a stray dog she'd found and decided to give me. He was a big, shaggy white dog with a brown patch on his left shoulder. I could t think of a name for him. I couldn't even remember the name of my date. Then my mom said my baby sister was very sick, so dog, guy, and I all got in her truck to go back and be with the baby.

My family lived in an old stone keep with dank passages and torches on the walls. Late late at night I was keeping watch when the baby started crying. I raised her up, and she was burning with fever. I rushed with her down the hall to our parents' room.

Mom leaped up, took her from me, and we all rushed back to the truck to go to the hospital. We were about to turn off the highway when Mom slowed almost to a stop, grabbed the baby, and jumped out of the truck, continuing on foot.  I grabbed the steering wheel, and managed to keep us straight as we coasted to a stop, just past the turning.  I moved over into the driver's seat, backed us up a little, and turned off onto the road Mom had run down.

Unfortunately, there was a Megabus stop right at the turning, and dozens of people were milling around in the road, waiting for the bus.  I drove very slowly, honking at them to move. But they only yelled mean things back at me. I just kept driving, gently nudging them out of my way. By the time we got through the crowd, I couldn't see where my mom had gone.

After driving around for a bit in a panic, I finally found a place to park, and we started looking on foot. This was a good idea, because the dog set off at once in the right direction, and we followed him down a cut in the river bank to a wide meadow by the river, where an outdoor army hospital had been set up.  We found my mom and sister there, but Mom sent us away. She insisted I go swim in the river for a bit, so I did.  But when we got back, the hospital had been taken down, and even the indoor rooms, set up in an old warehouse nearby, were empty.

Then I could hear Mom calling from the truck.  The guy, the dog, and I went to find her, but my baby sister wasn't with her.  They had taken her into Castroville, so we were going there.  I was all dripping wet from the river. I had a change of clothes, but the guy was right there in the truck, and it was broad daylight, so I couldn't change.  Mom finally dropped me off at a La Madeleine just on the edge of town, and said to just go in and use their restroom. She was going on to the hospital.

Now, I hate just using a restroom at a business without buying something, but this La Madeleine was also a small inn, and had a few rooms upstairs. I went to see how much one would be for that night, because maybe it would come in handy, anyhow, if we needed to stay. But I was too dripping wet to feel acceptable in the lobby, so I finally did just rush to the back to find a restroom to change in.

This La Madeleine was actually a Mexican restaurant. The floors were terracotta tile, and the restroom stalls were free standing in the back seating area, wood frames painted turquoise blue.  No one was sitting in the back room, so I figured I'd be okay, even though the stall walls were short. I could look over them standing.  There were televisions mounted up in the corners of the ceiling.

As I was changing, I noticed they were showing some sort of gaucho games, taking place down in Guadalajara, where Mexican cowboys did all sorts of riding and roping tricks, along with more stylized things like the blanket toss. They each had 8 foot square, heavy, elaborately decorated blankets. They'd get them spinning over their heads like a pizza crust, then do high tosses in the air, and perform some sort of gymnastic move on the ground, leaping up just in time to catch the blanket and keep it spinning.

A man dressed in a matador outfit of black and silver was just getting his blanket, embroidered and jeweled in the pattern of the Mexican flag, up and spinning and in the air in his first toss, when I woke up.

TBTT#7 Perfect for Halloween ~ 3/19/2012

This one requires a bit of background.  My journal entry for March 19, 2012, recounts my night spent at the Myrtles Plantation, often described as the most haunted plantations in the country. I was there with several friends for my friend Jayna's bachelorette weekend. We stayed in a little cottage on the grounds. One of the most famous apparitions is of Chloe, a slave woman who worked in the house and allegedly poisoned the family's children with a birthday cake.

I dreamed all night that I was lying awake in bed, afraid that the haunts were coming.  At one point in my dream, a small, ghostly white puppy came over and wanted to play, and I reached to touch it.  It felt so real, and when I looked over at Nathalie, she said she could see it, too, but I knew it must be a ghost puppy, because it was playing tug'o'rope while hovering a foot off the ground.  Then I dreamed that I was lying stock still under the covers, knowing Chloe was in the room, but if I stayed still, she'd let me alone.  In all of these dreams, the details of the room itself and my sleeping arrangement, on my back or on my side, and Nathalie on the other bed, to the left of mine, were exactly true to reality.

Weird Hauntings ~ 10/15/2014

I dreamed my friend had this beautiful white tomcat with an orange patch on his left shoulder and enormous amber eyes. This cat did not like me at all. He hissed at me all the time. But my friend had a death in the family, and had to leave the cat with me, and suddenly we were best friends.

The cat went with me to look at the house I wanted to buy uptown. It was a modest but adorable double shotgun, painted bright royal blue with sky blue accents, on a huge lot. The only reason I could afford it was that most of the lot was taken up by a crumbling storage barn, also bright blue.

The cat and I were in the barn, trying to decide how much it would cost to demolish vs. renovate the thing when a hawk swooped down through the gaping, collapsed roof, landed at out feet, and started screeching and making little hopping runs to peck our legs. I stomped at it, ang it fluttered back, but then a large old hawk as big as an eagle, with pale, ragged feathers around his head and down his wings, swooped in and was even more aggressive. The cat had had enough of this, and darted forward, yowling. He ran the hawks off, and I bought the house.

Just in time, too. I went back to my grandmother's house, where I'd set up an office in the back room so I could work remotely. I was logged on to work when my mouse cursor started moving on its own. I just figured an IT person had taken control of my desktop by mistake while helping someone else on a call. But then the wireless mouse started to jerk in my hand, and one of the IT women came in to say that it wasn't coming from them. Then the mouse flew out of my hand and sailed around the room, pelting itself at our heads. It smacked me in the right temple as I jumped up, and we decided the room was haunted, and ran out.

I went back to my new blue house and met up with my dad in the old barn. He was doing some sort of sales work, and had agreed to set up shop out front, and start tearing down the barn when business got light.  When I got there, he was talking to a young naval officer that had stopped by. My dad was talking about his time in the Navy, and how he'd enlisted in 1927 and got out in 1934. That the reason he left, and the thing that still sticks with him, was the day he'd watched an officer take sacks of letters home, and just dump them in a refuse pit, instead of mailing them home.

I went into the house to say hello to my friends who were there to visit.  This included Cordelia Chase, from Buffy/Angel, Greg Sanders from CSI, my school friend Emily, and, over Facetime, our mutual school friend Lisa. We were going to do some work out in the yard, but suddenly we were getting pelted by these little barbed yew leaves that pierced our skin and made us feel bad. The weird thing is, there weren't any yew trees in my yard. Cordelia and some other blond girl, a friend of hers, started acting very oddly, because of the toxin, and went inside to drink water and sleep it off.

Greg tracked down and captured a talking rat that lived in the root ball of a a huge old tree in the middle of the yard. The tree was six feet across at the base, and the root ball rose out of the ground six feet high and at least ten across, all gnarly roots and packed in dirt. The rat was the leader of a colony that lived inside of it, and told us a story, handed down by the leaders from father to son, of a yew tree that had been planted when the house was built, centuries ago. It no longer stood in the yard, but a young woman had been murdered beneath it, and legend was that the spirit of evil had entered the tree, and lingered above the ground where its roots still rotted. That when new owners came, especially women, the yew tree's ghost, or the young woman's, would hurl these poisonous darts for a while, but that it would calm down eventually.

And then I woke up.

I Don't Think We're at Hogwarts Anymore ~ 10/7/2014

I dreamed I was at wizard college with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. I was there to solve a mystery and catch a killer. Everyone thought it was Harry, of course, until an attack put Ron in a wheelchair, possibly for life. I figured out who it was. The problem was going to be proving it.

See, the killer was a hugely popular young man, a few years ahead of most of his victims, good at his studies, no apparent motive... and he was using a time turner to establish his alibis. Most of the attacks happened while he was in full view, playing guitar out in the main quad.

So I spent a lot of time reading some subjects and pretending to be a college student, compulsively brushing my teeth because I had to use a regular brush and not my sonicare, and dealing with Ron's angst that I hadn't come sooner and solved the mystery before his attack. Then I woke up.

I Make a Lousy British Spy ~ 10/6/2014

I dreamed I was in Napoleanic France as some sort of spy. I had the powdered wig and big skirts and beauty patch and everything. (Yes, I know I was a bit out of date on that.) I was being shown around by some sort of count. We were buying a dessert sold in corner shops that was a kind of cake ball with a gelato center. I dug around in my reticule for the coins I needed, but all I could find was American and British paper notes. The count paid for me and rushed me back to my rooms until we could get my money sorted out.

I decided I needed a shower. My bathroom was nice enough, but it was hung with all these curtains, and I couldn't find a light switch. I pulled enough curtains aside to get some light from the window, and was brushing my teeth, when a bunch of my friends came in and sat down on some bleachers. I decided I didn't need a shower badly enough to take one in public.

Instead my friends asked me to show them around Houston, so we all went out. I drove them around the Rice and West U areas, then pointed out our super colorful downtown. We were going to get TexMex for dinner, so I left them at an Astros game down at Reliant, an went to run some errands. But I kept finding myself driving on the wrong side of the road, and then I woke up.

Wealth, Weddings, and Jumping out of Airplanes ~ 10/3/2014

I dreamed I was super rich and lived in an enormous house with a butler and a sort of cook/personal assistant. The butler lived in a two bedroom suite with a huge, luxurious bathroom. My PA and I had selected smaller but just as luxurious suites. Everything was done in white and cream and gray and black with pewter fixtures.

We had just moved in, so I went down to check out the kitchen. There was a huge pantry stocked with a dozen types of cereal, two or three boxes of each. Just then, with a loud, bell tower-like knell, the doorbell rang. I paused to examine the sounder, mounted high on the kitchen wall. It was a convex disk of bronze, about a foot across, with a deep green and black patina of age, carved with a bull in the center, and raised Greek characters around the edges.

I went up to the entrance hall, then, to greet my guests. Two of my friends had come to be married from my huge house and grounds. I was in the wedding party. The wedding was the next day. My jobs were to polish the gold and silver cutlery and hang up these clear plastic file trays near the doors and fill them with programs.

I got to work on the silver. I had this polish full of gold flecks that would adhere only to gold, but would abrade and polish silver, so this was perfect, since the cutlery had gold accents on it. This would brighten those up, too.  Then I found a bunch of religious statuettes in soft colors, with gold trim, so I ran the polish along the gold, and they brightened up, too.  But after I finished that, it had taken all night, and I still hadn't hung the program holders, and the guests were going to be coming soon, so we decided to just stack the programs on a table near the door.

Then the wedding party all went to get dressed.  The bride was wearing a very pale pink with white lace, and the bridesmaids were wearing black dresses with bright pink and purple accents, in a 1970s retro style, up around the neck line. I, for some reason, was supposed to wear white, but my shoes were black and shiny, and decorated with foot-long strings of blindingly bright pink feathery puffballs. Every color and detail meant something, but I kinda didn't get it.

But then there was an emergency. One of the musicians was stuck across town. So I pulled some of my super-wealthy strings, and went over in a small plane to get him.  But on the way back, he fell out of the open door, and wasn't wearing his safety vest with parachute.  I had mine on, so I dove out of the door after him, grabbed hold of him, and pulled my chute.  I knew we'd be to heavy for it, but it would hopefully still slow and control our fall.  I angled us out away from town, and we landed in the ocean, not too far out.

We swam back into town, got back to my house, put on dry clothes, and the wedding went off without another hitch.  We were all curling up to go to sleep that night, camped out in the big ball room like a church lock-in, but instead of falling asleep, I woke up.