Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Nightmares and Dreamscapes. True Confessions.

(Just out of curiosity: do these pictures make you feel warm and fuzzy, or do you kind of want to barf?)

My friend, mentor, and fellow BBC drama watcher, Daniel, hates to hear people talk about their dreams. HATES IT. (I dedicate this post to him, though he doesn't even read the slog.)

I had this dream last night...

I was doing a crazy round of speed-dating in an empty parking structure. You know how it is. For each round that a girl makes it through, she runs up a level on the structure. The goal was to reach the top, and be paired off with the person of my dreams. But, I kept getting distracted, and then allowing myself to get swept up to the next level without actually choosing anybody.

When I reached the top, a bossy woman asked me who I chose. "I don't know," I wailed. "I forgot to decide." Well, she gave me a list of the names that were leftover. But she said I could pick two. The leftovers! I picked the first one, "Eric Smith." I remember so clearly, because I thought Eric Smith had had really cute glasses. (Who is Eric Smith? No idea. In my waking life I don't know any Eric Smith.) Then, I picked some girl, because I am apparently pansexual in my dreams.

But, when they emerged from the crowd, it was a different Eric Smith--no glasses. He stood there, smiling at me, not the person I thought I'd chosen, and then the girl came forward. She walked toward Eric, and he reached out and put an arm around her, and they started kissing. I just stood there like, "What just happened?" Even leftover, odd man out, not-the-right Eric found his match.

And the cheese stands alone.

I woke up in a cold sweat, with my heart pounding, knowing FOR CERTAIN that I don't want to end up at the tippy-top of the parking structure of Life, without having picked somebody.

When I forced Scott to listen to the dream, he said, "Well, there's not too much subtext to figure out there."

Here's why I had that dream:

1. My friend Wendy just recently told me that she knows someone who filled out an eHarmony profile, and was REJECTED. From eHarmony. Millions of people on the site, and a person can just get told, "Sorry, you're on your own"?? I've always assumed that if nothing else works out, there's eHarmony--but MAYBE NOT! This fills me with dread. If eHarmony told me they couldn't find a single match out of millions of profiles, what kind of chance would I stand in 3D? None. None chance.

2. At the grocery store, I told someone I was moving to LA, and she said, "Why not? It's not like you have a baby or anything." Which, though inarguably and wonderfully true, also unsettled me because...

3. I recently read an article about women having babies later in life. It said something like, "What most women don't realize is that their fertility takes a NOSEDIVE in their late twenties, and continues to PLUMMET into their thirties." And isn't that language dramatic?? But also, oh my god, I'm LOSING TIME!!

4. I watched a Paul Newman movie directly before bed. Suffice to say, of all people in the world, ever, he's who I would choose as I ran the levels of any garage--I'd pick him again and again and again. Forsaking all others.

In my waking life, I don't much care if I'm climbing the levels of the parking structure in solitude. I like it fine. But apparently, in my subconscious, I'm going just a little bit crazy.

Daniel would say it's something I ate. My subconscious brain free-associating. Nothing to puzzle over. But I'm puzzling.

In honestude,
Kendall

5 comments:

  1. I know two people who found the love of their lives on Match.com but somehow I see you meeting your future spouse at a book reading or in a fender-bender.

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  2. Oh snap, I just ate cheese. Wish me luck in my dreams! Hopefully I won't get any popple monsters eating my brains while I mow the lawn in my snuggie, oh and I'm eleven. OH NO IT'S STARTED ALREADY! AAAAHH!!

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  3. I love your self-interpretation of the dream! And as to your first question regardin the pictures - they always make me feel a little of both.

    oh, and don't you just hate it when ppl say things like, "Well of course you can be selfish, with no husband or children to worry about." It's like, What? Whoa! I didn't know wanting to take my 5 days of vacation & go on a road trip constituted being selfish, but thanks a lot! LOL Too much? Sorry, that grocery store lady just pushed a button. Heh.

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  4. 1. All of those parking levels sound like the makings for a Mario-like video game for women. Can you imagine? And we'd be jumping and hitting our heads on fruits and golden bars for strength and shit...
    2. My friend I told you about said that E-Harmony can't place 1% of the people who fill out the profile. But at times, I've wondered if she's not cursed or something (not that I don't wonder this about myself...). For instance, she dated a blind guy and was sort of breathing this sigh of relief thinking he wouldn't be all judgmental...and then he distinctly felt him size her up. Literally. Like grab hold of a pound of flesh. And then he said, "My other Asian girlfriends have been more....petite." It sounds like a Lorie Moore story.
    3.)I know the anxiety you're feeling, which makes me feel more anxiety filled, considering that I'm EIGHT years older than you. And if YOUR clock is ticking, mine must sound like a bad sound effect from a movie wherein there's a bundle of dynamite rigged up to a giant watch.
    4.) After having been dumped (again)--this time by TEXT (sweet) yesterday, I was talking to my friend Laura, who said I was going to meet the man of my dreams at farmer's market. I told her that the only men I saw yesterday had girlfriends or wives in tow. She said, "Have patience! No self-respecting single man would go to farmer's market when it's just crafts. You just have to wait until the produce is on." Yes, Kendall, that is when the pickins become good...when the vegetables come.

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  5. Refreshing, I'm not the only one.

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