Confidential Briefing

I dreamed that I was at the theater and it was unusually crowded and bustling.  There had just been a sensory-friendly student matinee (which was no small feat for the Victorian lesbian thriller...).  There were patrons, actors, and staff streaming the hallways.

I was trying to find our executive director, and spotted her in one of our odd, glass-enclosed offices (think fishbowl, but more cramped and less stylish).  The room was crammed with people; some were sitting on the floor or leaning on the wall.  I thought I could sidle in and ask her my question, but the door was locked.  I tried the other door, and was able to sneak in.

It was only then that I noticed who was among the crowd:  Donald Trump.*  He was at the theater, apparently, to receive a confidential briefing.  One of his staffers whispered to me that I had to stay silent, and that they'd already swept the room for bugs, and they'd been able to get a secure phone line.

The noise and bustle in the hall increased, and it was getting harder to hear the discussion, and nearly impossible to hear the voices of those on the phone.  Then we all started to realize that there was some order in the bustle outside, that it wasn't random.  The voices converged, and we could hear that everyone outside, with one voice, were singing "All we are saying is give peace a chance."

I laughed out loud, and Trump and his staff were furious, rising to leave.

As everyone dispersed, our executive director said, "Come see me later, please."  I said, "Am I fired?"  She said, "Well, we all know we didn't hire you for your poker face."  I wasn't sorry for laughing, though.  I wished I had joined the singing.







*Trump had grown his hair into a mullet, and had it pulled back in a greasy ponytail.  He looked as skeevy as he is.

Another day at work

  

I dreamed that I was at the theater[1], working, when a colleague came to see me, to remind me that I had an upcoming interview for the role of Bob Brustein’s (the Founding Artistic Director of the A.R.T.) executive assistant.  I was in an office crowded with not-office furniture.  Though I had no recollection of scheduling the interview, I pretended I was all set for it.  My colleague said, “You’re not wearing that, though.  When are you changing?”  I assured her that I was about to change into something more appropriate, and started going through the wardrobes and closets to find something to change into.[2]  I chose my outfit:  a white, scoop-neck t-shirt, a black flowy skirt, and an aqua vinyl blazer.[3]

                On my way to the interview, I got side-tracked.  DEVO was hosting a huge event, and there were cloth-covered tables stacked with bottles of champagne, and crowds of people mingling.  I found a DEVO colleague, and asked her what was going on.  She said, “It’s for Harvard Business School – help yourself!  They’ll never notice.”  I grabbed a class of wine and weaved through the crowd.

                By the time I got to Bob’s office, I was more than twenty minutes late.  We had a brief but pleasant conversation, and agreed to reschedule for another time, since our interview had been so abbreviated.  (I was so embarrassed about being so late, but tried to just focus on the conversation.)

                As I headed back to the theater, I passed through three enormous wood-paneled ballrooms, with wide doorways connecting each.  There were five or six guys in there, playing an unrecognizable and complicated game, involving throwing balls and Frisbees back and forth to one another, and occasionally ricocheting them against the walls.  The wood-paneling – once elegant – was chipped and splintering.  I thought to tell them to knock it off, but remembered that we had an upcoming capital renovation, and figured those rooms would be demolished as part of that.

                Suddenly, the theater doors opened and patrons started pouring out of the theater; I hadn’t even realized there was a matinee going on.  Bob Brustein came out of the theater, and beckoned me into an office.  Kelsey Grammer joined us there, and Bob and Kelsey spoke for a while about casting for Finding Neverland.  Kelsey was insistent that it was important to find a big-name star, in order to attract families to come to the show.  Bob handed me some crumpled material and a ripped off strip of paper, and asked that I ensure that my colleague, T, got the items.  I set off to find an inter-office envelope.

                I passed through another office, crowded with staff, and stopped to listen:  The box office manager and the producer were having a debate.  The producer was saying, “There’s absolutely no way.” The box office manager was saying, “Don’t be ridiculous.  It’s really good, and you should give it a shot.”  It turned out that he was trying to convince her to watch The Great Muppet Caper, and DB was having none of it, insisting that the first Muppet Movie was so bad that she certainly wasn’t going to watch a sequel.  I joined him in trying to persuade her to give The Great Muppet Caper a viewing, but did caution her that it wasn’t nearly as good as the first.[4]  I remembered that I was supposed to be finding an envelope, and excused myself from the debate.

                I went into the next room; it was nearly empty, but there was a shoe-box on the floor.  I decided that could be a reasonable stand-in for an interoffice envelope, and dropped the items from Bob into the box.  Before I closed it up, though, I noticed there was already stuff in there.  I turned on the overhead light, and saw that the box had lots of tiny figurines[5] -- too many to just put in my pockets – so I left the box behind, and continued my search for an envelope.

                I had a sudden revelation:  I didn’t want to be Bob’s assistant.  I like my job as it is.  I decided that I had to drop everything, go home, and draft a letter to Bob (with copies to HR) to let them know I was withdrawing my candidacy.  As I was rushing back to my apartment, I passed a parade of huge inflated floats[6] and laughed, assuming that the props department was up to hijinks.  I got to my building, struggled to find the right key to open the front door, and climbed the narrow, twisting stairway to my apartment.  Before I could get my apartment door unlocked, I woke up.

                Never did find an envelope!

               

---

[1] The theater didn’t resemble the theater I actually work at in any way.

[2]In real life, I just gave away about 7 pairs of business-attire trousers, since I never wear them anymore.

[3] In real life, I just bought a Kate Spade bag at TJ Maxx that is aqua vinyl, and I love it.  It would be a hideous blazer, though.

[4] To this day, The Muppet Movie is in my top-five all-time favorite movies.

[5] Calico Critters.  Any given shoe box in our house is likely to be peopled with Calico Critters.

[6] Think Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

A visit from Jason's family

We were at home together, including a large crowd of long-term guests (though not the ones who IRL are staying here), when I looked out the window and saw three or four minivans pull into our driveway.  I went out to investigate, and realized it was Jason's family -- his mother, father, two sisters, nieces and nephews, brothers-in-law, the whole clan.  I was so happy to see them, and ran down the driveway to give them all hugs.

When I got to them, Charna explained that they were there to do some memorial plantings beside our driveway, to accompany the other memorials already installed.  I looked around, and noticed a few pieces of playground equipment and a little prie-dieu (that was constructed from the same plastic composite as the other playground toys) and realized I'd never seen them before.  Charna and her granddaughter went to kneel briefly at the prie-dieu; I presumed they were sending a prayer to Jason.  (Also odd -- IRL they are Jewish and would never have a prie-dieu.)

I left them to their planting and went indoors to get started on a big feast.  One of the guests offered to cook supper, and I said that I wanted to prepare the meal, especially since the Schoenagles had arrived.  I planned to make a few big pans of lasagna, and asked the guest to go to the market for the ingredients I needed.  She hesitated, reluctant to do so.  I got irritated, asking her what the problem was, and she said, "I'm not sure that lasagna is the way to go..."  I got even more annoyed, saying that it was a great recipe and she shouldn't sweat it.  Still she demurred, so I said, "FINE.  I'll make a big pot of spaghetti -- will that satisfy you?"

I woke up grumpy that I'd had to defend the awesomeness of my goat cheese lasagna.

Journalism in St. Louis

I dreamed I was rushing to an interview at a newspaper in St. Louis.  Traffic was terrible, and as we got closer, I decided to ditch the car and go the rest of the way on foot.  There were emergency vehicles screaming by, cutting around the stopped cars, and as I got closer, I realized they were heading to the office that was my destination.  By the time I got there, though, the fire had been put out, and all the bystanders were cheerful, congratulating the emergency personnel and each other on a job well done.

I went into the office -- a large, brick and stone building with enormous arched windows -- and up the steps to reception.  I immediately spotted my friend and neighbor (who is IRL a realtor, not a journalist) and knew that I would be interviewing with him.  We sat at a round table, and chatted about mutual friends.  He offered me the job on the spot, and I was pleased and proud.

He took me on a tour of the offices; the desks were densely crowded together, spilling from one office to the next, and all the desks were piled high with folded fabric of all patterns, textures, and sizes.  People were seated at their desks, their computers nestled between the stacks of fabric, and would stretch to peer up over the cloth to greet me.  One person explained the fabric kept them warm when necessary, and indicated the huge, arched window behind him.

I was about to ask where I'd be sitting, when I remembered that I live in Cambridge with my family, and couldn't commute to St. Louis every day.  I also remembered that I am not a journalist.  Regretfully, I declined the job, and headed back down the steps and outside.

The Locomotive

From 4/15/14 (I was re-reading archival data.)

There was a big, raggedy pile of cardboard and feathers and rags -- a huge heap.  There was a lady beside it; she had a big mop of wild grey hair and was also wrapped in brown rags.  And someone -- Lila? One of the kids? approached her and asked if she wanted to join in.  The lady looked surprised, and then pleased.  And the big pile of rags and junk started to move and shake and layers fell aside, and out puffed a giant locomotive, as big as a bear.  I thought at first it was made of cardboard, but soon became clear it wasn't.  It scooched along, accordion-ing itself forward, to and fro, sloughing off its layers and working its way out of the box / pile that had contained it.  I was dumbfounded but others around me weren't; they were pleased as they hadn't seen one of these in so many years.

The locomotive chuffed outside and turned onto the sidewalk.  It was a narrow sidewalk with a sapling planted near the curb, and I was sad because I could easily tell the locomotive was going to get stuck, there was no way it could fit.  And before my eyes, the locomotive kept chugging and shrunk down, condensed, so it could chuff easily between the tree and the building, with room to spare on the sidewalk.

The locomotive kept  having encounters with little animals, but the only one I recall clearly was the opossu.  There was an adorable baby 'possum, and the locomotive chuffed to it.  Again, I was worried, afraid he'd steamroll right over the 'possum, but instead somehow it picked it up and cradled it.  I heard someone -- I guess the lady who'd kept the lcoomotive all that time, explain that opossums had always been the locomtive's favorite.  And the 'possum grew, and then there were many of them, the cutest, tumbling-over-each-other 'possums you could imagine. 

There was some confusion as the locomotive chuffed on.  Something flying got caught in some strings & beads & birds.  Hands came in to help untangle everything and someone said, "Doesn't anyone have a light?" and a girl said, "Here!  There's a light here!" and she tossed me a pale blue compact, about the size of a Thin Mint cookie. 

I turned it over and finally realized that it had discs that could slide out and swing around, but instead of there being mirrors, as I expected, each one as a charm of some sort.  One that I opened had writing in a language I couldn't decipher, so I closed it again.  The next produced a girl, like a hologram, explaining what she could do for me.  I got freaked, closed it, and tossed it back to the girl. She laughed at me.

Tooth dream within a tooth dream

We were all staying in a big mansion – there were lots of bedrooms with adjacent bathrooms on the first floor, opposite a large ballroom and dining room.  The staircase was wide and curved, and gave a view over the ballroom, almost like a balcony, as it swept up to the second floor, where there were more suites of rooms, both large and small.

We'd come there for a party; some of us staying overnight in the suites and others just arriving for the celebration.  There were kids and grown-ups everywhere, enjoying the music and performances and food, laughing and singing.  It was a swirl of joy, and I wandered from spectacle to spectacle:   the Blue Men setting up paint-filled drums along the sweeping staircase; the tables piled high with fancy looking desserts, shiny and colorful.

When the party died down (faded away, really), I went into one of the en suite bathrooms on the first floor.  I had braces, and the wire on my back molars was uncomfortably poking my cheek, making it raw and bloody.  I looked in the mirror and tried to untwist the protruding bit of wire, but instead of just folding down the offending poking part, I removed the entire wire.  I knew right away that this wasn't going to be good, and sure enough, as I watched, my entire top row of teeth folded in, as though on hinges. 

I rushed out to the foyer, and frantically looked for someone to help.  Most of the revelers had left, and I couldn't find any friends or confidants in the dwindling crowd.  I ran to the dining room, and found a little cup, because I could feel my teeth coming loose and knew I'd need someplace to stow them.

My sister appeared, and I told her that I needed help – that we had to get in touch with my dentist and my orthodontist as soon as possible, because my teeth were all falling out.  She chuckled and said, "We're in New York – what could they possibly do for you down here?"  I urged her to call them anyway, and she did. 

Soon I'd filled the little cup with teeth and tooth fragments.  By now all the metal had been pulled off my teeth, and I left those aside.  My sister gave me a bigger bowl, and I kept feeling more teeth falling out, and spitting them into the soon-overflowing bowl.  To anyone who would listen, I said, "I told you this would happen.  I knew that this was going to happen some day.  I've been dreaming about it all my life." 

I pulled out my phone so that I could take a picture of my mouth, with the jagged nubs where teeth used to be, so that I could prove to anyone who wasn't there that I'd been right all those years, that all those tooth dreams had been prophetic, not paranoid.

Much to everyone's surprise, the dentist did turn up, with two of his assistants.  They co-opted one of the upstairs suites that had a sink, and set up a make-shift workstation.  One of the assistants applied some kind of paste to my upper gums, to take a mold.  I didn't know what they were going to do, but I didn't care – I knew they were going to help.  I asked the dentist if he'd be able to salvage anything, and pointed at the overflowing bowl of tooth fragments.  He said, "We'll check through what you've got there, to see if there's anything big enough to reuse.  Maybe the canines..."  I said, "Oh never mind – the canines were fake anyway.  Just make it all new."

What the soul looks like

We were all preparing for a presentation about how artists capture and represent the soul.  They had tried to get someone very famous – I think it was Seamus Heaney – but the soul he'd captured (his mother) was too big and hard to show.  So instead, we were using illustrative examples rather than real samples.

They decided that more of us needed to participate in the presentation, so instead of just a few of us going, they asked everyone in the school to come.  We queued up, and loaded into three giant school buses.  I kept moving from seat to seat, trying to find an open spot.

While we were on the bus, though, something happened.  At first we all thought it was a hurricane or a tornado – wind was blowing, bushes were flying through the air – but then someone shouted, "Look!  There she is!" and there was a colossal woman stomping through the countryside.  She looked like a little old granny, like the one who owns Tweety Bird, except for being more than forty feet tall.  I suddenly understood that it was Seamus Heaney's soul released.  Our presentation was, needless to say, cancelled.

We all piled off the bus.  There was a man there herding his goats back behind a gate, and I stopped to talk to him.  He seemed unfazed by the giant lady who had crashed through his meadow; he was very calm about helping his goats back into the field.  A young man (who looked like a young Daniel Radcliffe, so I'll call him Harry) was with me, and he casually plucked a leaf off a bush that the goats were nibbling at.  We walked with the goat-herd towards a large, ornate building and Harry popped the leaf into his mouth and ate it.  Before we got to the door, Harry's lips started to turn blue and he said, "I can't breathe!  What's going on?"  The goat-herd said, "I figured this would happen, though I didn't know it would go so quickly.  It's because of the leaf you ate.  It has traces of arsenic in it."  Harry collapsed to the ground, and died.

We pulled his body into the building, which turned out to be a library.  The room was filled with burgundy leather chairs and heavy, antique books and black and golden velvet couches.  Someone approached and took Harry's body away.  I sat on the plush couch, taken aback by the turn of events.

The person who'd taken away Harry's body returned quickly and handed me a clear plastic form, molded into the shape of a head.  Inside the head container was a hard object rattling around.  When I peered at it more closely, I realized that it was Harry's jaw that they'd cut out of the corpse, and tucked into this container for me.  I found it grisly, but knew it would be rude to refuse it.  I said, "Thank you.  I'm sure his family will be grateful for this."

I asked out loud if anyone expected his soul to be around, and it was explained to me that it was too soon.  One of the teachers idly picked up a book he'd been looking at – not one of the heavy antique books, but a small bedraggled paperback book.  He flipped it open to where he'd dog-eared the page, and out popped a tiny Harry (just from the waist up, as though he was sitting at a desk).  The teacher said, "A ha!  Not too soon at all!  I guess we will be taking this Calvin Trillin book with us!"  He smiled and handed it to me.

Laden with the plastic head containing Harry's jaw and the beat-up novel containing Harry's soul, I left the library.  I knew that I had enough now to bring Harry back.