Reading The Tea

last night I had a really weird dream

Last night was full of dreams I remembered. I had a variation on my usual Running Away from Bad People Who Want to Get Me dream. I came to a place where the only way forward was along the narrow, narrow ledge of a cliff, with nothing to hold onto and a gravel surface. As I edged my way along, I lost my balance and fell. I managed to grab the face and find a good hand hold, but there were no others I could see or feel. I realized that eventually my grip would fail, and I would fall. After an excruciating amount of time, it did, and I went falling, falling, falling. Somewhere in the falling, the dream became lucid and I realized that it was a dream, but I was still afraid of what would happen when I died in a dream — I usually wake up right before. This time I eventually hit the ground.
Later I dreamed that I was making dinner with my friend Christina (who I’ve known since I was 8 ) and that Joey (my other best friend from then) knocked on the door. We all hugged, then continued making dinner.

Last night, dreams of tangos past and somewhat future. Dances of forgiveness with people who weren’t quite.

I’d forgotten the joys of Oregon March. Today is drizzle dreariness, but yesterday the sun was shining and both D & I stripped down to our T-shirts on our Hill Walk. Yes, capitalization is intended. We are addicted to the walks put together by Laura Foster in Portland Hill Walks We did our 5th walk, walk 15 “Leach Botanical Garden to Mount Scott Loop.” Generally speaking, I have very little patience for guide books. This book has won me over. It’s like taking a walk with a friend. A friend who has a great deal of esoteric knowledge about the history of the area your walking through, and just happens to know all of the uses that native americans had for the specific type of fern you’re passing. Oh, and one who knows that the seemingly private drive right next to that person’s garage is actually public property, and that when you walk down it you’ll be in a tunnel of tree branches that seems right out of fairyland. Thus far we’ve done walks 1,2,4 and 6. Walk 15 had a marvelous start, wandering around the Leach Botanical Gardens and a breathtaking perspective of Portland amid all of the mountains from the Willamette National Cemetery, but the neighborhoods in between weren’t as delightful as the rest of the walks we’ve taken. It could also be that D & I both tend to hate houses that are less than 50 years old.

In the media consumption category, Lost has fully gained me back as a viewer. Yay for Brian K. Vaughn! I think (fingers crossed) that it might actually be going somewhere. Last night we watched the newest episode while sipping gin and tonics and ooh, not going to say more in case you haven’t watched it yet.

Last night D & I also watched The Big Sleep, the 1946 Bogart and Bacall film. Did you know that it could have been released in 1945? It was pushed back by the studio as they rushed to release all of the war-themed movies before they became too dated. A detective flick? It could wait. According to the commentary special feature with the film, it was a good thing for Bacall’s career. She’d been a big hit with their earlier film To Have and Have Not, but received bad reviews after her next film, Confidential Agent. Her agent contacted the director about his concerns about Bacall’s part in the original edit of “The Big Sleep,” and in January 1946 Bacall and Bogart (now a couple) shot some new scenes. While we watched I knit square 18 of my afghan. Yes, I’m very behind on posting photos of previous squares. Not to mention other knitting projects…

Recently I’ve been contemplating rock climbing as dance. Watching how people move across the routes. The light change-step across a hold. What’s the difference between climbing and dance? Could climbing be a form of dance? Is it about the intent, or the performative aspects? That falls apart a bit — in a dance class I’m not considering performance; I’m more introspective. And in the rock gym… well, I’d challenge anyone who says that some of the people climbing there aren’t performing. Something to consider more later. Concepts that help both my tango and my climbing: relax, breath, engage the core. Thought: wall as partner?

“Don’t worry, I know how to fold the space-time continuum,” I reassured D today, as he was trying to wake me up, “I can keep sleeping.” I was dreaming that it was just like folding laundry, that simple. The reason no one had figured it out before was that most of the researchers who were working on it were men, and thought that folding the laundry and other such domestic ideas were below them.

I also dreamt that Cruella DeVil was back, and had an army of zombie-vampire cats who were after everyone.

A few nights ago I had a dream that rather than moving to Portland, I moved to Eugene. They had declared a state of emergency there, and were advising everyone to get into one of the UO campus buildings so that they could lock them down. “Because the Yankees are amassing in the streets,” someone explained to me. “They haven’t declared their intentions yet, so who knows what they could do?” [Yankees as in the baseball team.] I decided that the library would be the best place, as at least I’d have plenty to do there if we ended up being there for a long time. I was trying to figure out how much food would be stored in the cafe when I woke up.

Last night I dreamt that Dustin and I were pulling up in front of “home” (which turned out to be a huge Victorian) and saw, on the porch, a little girl ringing the doorbell in frustration. We realized that it was Halloween, and that we had forgotten to buy candy. I felt horrible, since we’d forgotten and left the lights on, so I ran up the stairs to give her a green popsicle that I had with me. Dustin left to grab some candy so we’d be prepared for the rest of the night. I’d no sooner gotten to the porch, when I heard a horrible sawing sound issuing from the basement. The girl and I looked at each other in terror, and I said, “We have to get into the shelter of the house.”

She looked torn, as did her brother, who seemed to be with us now, and said, “We’re not allowed to go into stranger’s houses.”

“Quite right,” I said briskly, “but these are extenuating circumstances.” They were still hesitating, when we saw three enormous monsters climbing up the stairs. We all ran into the house.

For some reason the door was really heavy, and I could only get an inside, flimsy one close, without locking it. I leaned against it to keep the monsters out. “I’m not sure how long I can hold it,” I gasped. There were two another adults there, someone who was sort-of-Dustin and sort-of-not and a women who was fretting about packing. She kept insisting that the children put their shoes into the suitcase in the correct order (Because evidently they lived there, now.). The man passed me my “wand,” but it snapped, since it was made out of a shishkahbob skewer. I called that I needed another, more sturdy one — why not a knitting needle. My plan was to hold the door for as long as I could, while the others got the children out.

As I slumped against the door, I contemplated death calmly, and was sure that it was nothing that “Miss Julia Edwards” couldn’t handle. (Not sure why that was my name.) However, I could feel the door starting to open in, despite my best efforts, and the children were still there. In a last effort, I stuck my white nylon 10-inch needle through the mail slot, not sure what spell I was trying to cast. Suddenly there was a flash of white light, and the three monsters turned into a frog, an otter and a duck. A river began to form in the driveway, washing them away. They managed to call, before they disappeared, “We’ll be back!”

“Get in line,” I retorted. Then, turning to the rest of the people in the house I asked, “Or should I have said, ‘take a number’?”

I woke up this morning mumbling that I hadn’t finished my Charms homework. Dustin insisted that I had to wake up and go to work and I said, “Work? Have I been expelled?”

For work I’m planning a weekend event in another city. Actually, right now I’m planning three weekend events in three other cities, and two of them are in the middle of registration, so I’ve been sending big groups of people a lot of e-mail. Last night I had a really long dream where I was trying to get an e-mail out, but I had to include with it a specially designed knitting pattern. It was really frustrating because I kept making a prototype only to find that the pattern was off by a couple of stitches. When I woke up this morning it took me a few min. to realize that I didn’t actually have to finish a pattern.

Last night I dreamt that Bronwen had an interview for a potential tutoring job for a very rich person at an old, creepy mansion. Dustin and I decided to go along with her on the interview, just in case. The mansion people acted very strange, including leaving us for a long time in a room that was obviously bugged and under video survailance. I had a stake out at the ready, in case they turned out to be vampires. After a while they came back and asked B what she knew about anthropology, then invited us to come to the living room for a short performance. It turned out to be a modern dance performance, and there was a stage at the front of the room. The dancers kept running and falling, running and sliding to the floor. One of them landed near me, and I recognized her. She recognized me too, and whispered, “Hi! I’m kinda self-conscious about my falling. I haven’t done it in a long time, and I’m out of practice.” I whispered back to her, “You’re doing fine. In fact, I think that you’re the best faller here.” Then I woke up.

Or at least, the space station that I live on. Last night I dreamt that I lived on a fairly large space station, and aliens came and took over. They did it for the good of humanity — they said that they were sick of us making a mess of things. The only problem was that they didn’t understand what made people happy. They observed that people usually seemed happy at the beach, so they made us all march down in a long line. They confiscated all swimsuits, and handed them out at random, to avoid inequality and jealousy. There was a shady part and a sunny part of the sand. Everyone was required to be on the sunny part, but they had to stand so that there was enough room for everyone. We also weren’t allowed to have large gatherings beyond our family groups, to avoid disquiet. Jenny, Sarah (my sisters) and I got together to start planning an uprising. We figured that since we were small no one would notice. I woke up before we could really get it going.