looking at feet

It occurred to me this morning that some people might be hesitant about sharing their dreams with the internet because it reveals secret truths about them. I fully acknowledge the power of dreams to instruct us and bring us a deeper understanding of ourselves than waking life can offer. However, today I bring before you a dream offering than has no power to tell you anything more about me than a passing glance at Wayne Gretzky's left foot would do. 

I think I've been experiencing some less-than-favourable drug interactions, which is how I explain the outpouring of nonsensicality that was my never-ending dream from two nights ago. I still maintain that when I awoke in the wee hours of the morning to discover that I had kicked off four of my six layers of blankets and wrapped one of the remaining blankets around my neck, I kept dreaming while awake. And not lucid dreaming, where I am aware of my dreaming state and can control the events of my dream. Just straight-up dreaming while awake (I always wished my life could be more like a Judy Blume novel). 

Here are some highlights:

I arrived at Chinook Station, which was of course nothing at all like Chinook Station. It was a huge complex surrounded by rolling hills covered in snow. On one of said hills was gathered a crowd of geeky teens all glued (not a figure of speech) to their personal gaming systems, participating in a virtual reality together. A sign on the opposite hill indicated that the site was the only naturally-occurring Wi-Fi hotspot in the world. As I climbed the next hill, I noticed a group of children gathered behind a metal railing, overlooking the train tracks a few meters below. One of the children was a minor character from the British TV serial Skins, and as I approached him, he pushed a boy down the hill toward the train, or at least tried to and was foiled by my fine-tuned reflexes and caring heart. My bravery earned me the attention of a boy I had known back in Regina. 

When I reached Chinook, I discovered that it was a shopping complex, my university, and an abandoned-hotel-turned-apartment-complex where squatters' rights were the only rights. I met up with Rebs and D-rock in Aldo, where I realized that I had half an hour to get to work and open the store. We learned a quick sociology lesson based on sole depth and then Rebs offered to drive me to work in her 'killer truck', which is how she referred to her Neon. Then I spied some Germans giving away free leather purses in the hallway and decided to prioritize. I tried to catch the attention of Prince Goebels and his bedazzled satchels, but was unsuccessful. So I followed him for a while. Eventually I found him crying in a corner because his business plan of giving a way the merchandise wasn't panning out as he'd expected, and his home country was going to disown him. 

Then I found myself walking up some stairs with a friend of mine from high school. He said, "My room's just up here. When we get there, we shall finally make love for the first time." I thought, "Uh, sure, that sounds okay. But maybe just some heavy petting." When we got to his room, a Vietnamese woman was making the beds. There were seven beds in the room, all with identical bedspreads of pale orange and blue plaid. There were two sets of bunk beds. It was like a low-income ski chalet from the '70s. Excited as I was to 'finally make love' with this boy who had appeared out of thin air, I realized that I had five minutes to get to work. I ransacked the room in search of my phone so that I could alert my manager, but I couldn't find it. I also couldn't locate my remote cell phone starter/beeper. But the boy located my remote cell phone starter's starter and hit the locater button. We followed the beeps to another squatter's room. She threw my beeper at me, furious that I was using such outdated technology. 

I knew I needed to get out of Chinook, so I ran to the closest set of stairs. The stairs were like Jacob's Ladder, with streams of figures moving up and down on the stairs. I ran into Taylor Lautner, who handed me a long stick and recommended pole vaulting up the stairs to avoid the crowds. Then when I had vaulted a few flights, Taylor Lautner apparently realized that I was an intruder and could not be allowed to escape. He and his stairwell lacrosse team confronted me and I had to defeat them. We fought each other with oversized spatulas until it was just me against Lautner. I hit him in the face a few times to weaken him, but apparently I just killed him. Uh-oh. With all of Chinook out for my blood, I ran full-tilt until I reached the surface. There I met my mother in her friend's Chevette, loaded full of blankets to shield me from the view of my lynch mob. 

Maybe it was the nachos I ate before bed.

twilight, de-fanged

I wish the word twilight hadn't been annexed by the enemy. Enemy of culture, that is. Because it's a good word, and it holds many great song connotations: Twilight by Elliott Smith, Living in Twilight by The Weepies, Civil Twilight by The Weakerthans... also, for some reason every time I say "masochism" people think I'm making a Stephenie Meyer reference, which- clue in!- I'm obviously not, because it was a word before she kidnapped it for her purposes, a word that I used frequently and for good reason.
Anyway, that wasn't supposed to be my point. I get caught up sometimes- sincerest apologies, gentle viewers (Buffy references FTW, btw).

What I am thinking about is the clarity of twilight. As the day is diffused into the sky, maybe it all clarifies in the dimming light. Yesterday, I was consumed in something; I was teetering. Then I reached a place of unexpected relief. It was like a breaking point, but the good kind. A rock avalanche that reveals fresh ground underneath and doesn't kill anyone in the process. New skin. Or like that wonderful empty feeling you get after you throw up and it's like you vomited up your every impulse to sickness. Mine came about in a compulsion to tears that manifested itself when I least expected it. The kind of tears that make it impossible to speak. The kind that get worse the more you try to clumsily apologize for their existence. Anyway, they were happy tears where I expected to find tears of exasperation. Tears of relief instead of fear.
Hope is a strange place if you've been wandering around in a desolate world whose corners hide only bad surprises. But I take comfort wherever I can these days. I take comfort in the distilled wisdom of the day. I take joy in the presence of friends whom I can now appreciate, and the surprising grace of strangers. I delight in the twilight diffusion of a day's closing parenthesis. I treasure the days when I can reach my bed feeling content and not frightened of night, even though sleep takes so long to reach me nevertheless. I dream the twilight till morning, and I carry it with me into the next day, and the next.

the metablog

It's happened: I've begun dreaming about my blog. 

Isn't that one of the cues for the postmodern apocalypse? 

I'm blogging about my dreams, and dreaming about my blogs, and blogging about my dreams in the blog I have in my dreams. Dreamblog, blogdream. Metablog, metadream. Metablogdream (yeah, that's a word, I have the authority to say so).

Last night in my nocturnal, unconscious reality, a friend of mine called me from another province while I was in the library. She offered me a virtual reality book deal, as in, I would write a book based on my blog (sounds riveting!) that would be distributed directly to the Canadian population's collective unconscious. 

Then I dreamed that I bought a male friend of mine an outfit from ML. I boxed it up nicely and everything. Some nice khakis, a black miniskirt to layer over top of the khakis, and one item that we actually sell at the store: an extremely stretchy textured black and white floral short-sleeved turtleneck. I thought it would give his wardrobe some variety. I guessed that his pant size was 34x34, but later in the day when I was sneakily snuggling with him I peaked at the size of the pants he was wearing (a size that was displayed, obviously, inside the neck of his polo shirt) and discovered that they were 40x40. I started to rue the fashion industry and how it destroys men's self-esteem. Then I told all the loud people in the library to stop being assholes and wrote a blog about my social courage. 

Would you rather I gift you with a boxed set of women's clothing, or with my never-ending self-conscious inner narrative? 

iPod, aka dreamcatcher

I've been having trouble sleeping. No surprise there, it's all in a day's work.

So I've been trying out a new sleep-inducing tactic of letting Imogen- my nano- spin her sweet melodies into my receptive ears. Last night, sleep, my errant lover, welcomed me into his arms after several hours of listening to Broken Social Scene and Stars reminded me of why I became friends with these bands oh so many years ago.

But what really matters is that I enjoyed my dreams last night, however much they caused me to wake up even more exhausted than I had been before I tumbled into sleep.

Dreamscape the first: One of my university friends was preparing for graduation, even though she's only in second year. I'll call her Lucy. Lucy's freshmen friends, a gaggle of mouse-haired shortstops, corralled Lucy's respectable and respected older male friend- whom I will call Grant MacPherson- to ask him what Lucy should wear to the grad banquet. He replied, "Something satiny and tight to show off her stellar rack. Sweetheart neckline would be most flattering."

Dreamscape the second: I'm working at Melanie Lyne, which is really a video store that sells designer knock-offs under the table, but my bosses never tell me so. I keep trying to sneak away from work in order to save the world, but my assistant store manager is starting to catch on, so the next time I sneak away I put a mannequin behind the till in my stead. I am hunting down the scary scaly monsters from the videos I rented out that morning. They look like Puff the Magic Dragon but on steroids, with rabies.

The rest is private. Stop prying!

hear me roar

I'm a woman. I hope I've made that relatively clear to everyone implicated in my life, slash everyone navigating the interwebs.
I'm also all for the existence of women due to their intrinsic awesomeness. I love the hell out of womankind. I think we deserve all the respect we can get- actually, no, more respect than that.
So, I think it follows that if I'm not feeling respected, it's a sign that there's something grievously wrong with the world.

I don't remember signing up to be some man's mental plaything. I don't remember saying that I'm happy to surrender my life to the whims of a man, whether he be handsome and talented or ugly and psycho. Feel free to remind me if you remember something I don't, friendships. Really.

I never used to, but within the last few months I've become deeply disturbed by the human tendency to feel deserving of attention. Yes, I think I'm pretty great when I'm honest with myself. Yes, I get that we all have intrinsic worth. But we all don't deserve everything that's out there. We all don't deserve everything we want. What I really mean is: your wanting me doesn't grant you the right to deserve me. And your deserving me doesn't make my wanting you a definite eventuality. So where did this idea come from? and I wonder, is this disturbed thinking present somewhere other than in cheap love songs and schizophrenic men's heads? Is it really something that we all feel, a feeling I've repressed so deeply as to forget ever having? Worrisome thought. 

I really do think that the search for love is a legitimate search. I just don't think it can ever qualify as love if the search for it was motivated by a sense of entitlement. Romantic love is a gift, and it's not the kind of gift we all die having received. And as much as the language surrounding romantic love can evoke a sense of destiny and determinism, I still believe that free will is at the heart of "true" love. Choosing to love someone or choosing to accept someone's love is a big deal.  And in a relationship that's worthy of the name, both partners have to choose from both sides. I think that's a given.

So, Mr. Brownhat, subject of my every nightmare and vomit-inducing thought, please clue in. My will is not negligible. I will never reach a divine realization that will cause me to make a choice that treats you with romantic favour. Your life is not a Clay Aiken song. I would rather die by Chinese water torture than look at your face. 

Yeah, that's all. 

do english majors dream of eclectic sheep?

I'm a literature student. I'm a composer. I'm one of them creative types.

I am in Computer Programming.

I signed up for this class because a) I needed another science to graduate, and b) the professor looks like a Russian hobbit and has a rad accent. Upon reflection, I don't think those were good enough reasons. 

This class occurs three times a week at 8:15 in the morning. I spend the entire time on style.com and The Sartorialist and various online shopping locales. The only time I utilize my brain during these classes is to laugh at the hilarious misspellings on the screen and accidentally inappropriate terms the prof implements. Example: n_word and c_word as programming names. I create my own private hilarities, like d_bag as the designator for all dialog boxes. 

Somehow this isn't enough for me.

No creative output or input in my life is making my dreams scarily vivid and long. 

Last night I dreamed that I was a Chinese delivery girl addicted to watching William Shatner-narrated documentaries in hotel rooms with various men. Somehow these little night time adventures were also interpreted by my brain as youth group evangelism opportunities. I delivered ramen noodles in steel briefcases. One day I found a client dead in the shower, covered in blood. He was a friend of mine, but no one took me seriously when I said he was dead. There was no investigation. At an Ambrose chapel service, we were passing the peace when I saw him standing with his friend. No one believed that he had even faked his death; he kept me from saying so by giving me gifts that his mother had made. Pictures of frogs and my campers from KBK. Group photos of the day I found him dead, all of us smiling. All I wanted to do was punch someone or watch more Shatner dvds. 

I wish I could fall asleep and press record. I would re-watch my dreams in this God-forsaken class.

Nelson Mandela is a pinko terrorist!

Today I met Rob Anders.

Scratch that.

Today, I had the opportunity to meet Rob Anders (named the most useless MP in the history of Canadian parliament) but decided that eating carrots would be a better use of my precious time. I was also approached about joining a student Conservative club. I don't think I've ever had to try so hard to withhold laughter in my life.

I wish situations like this could just make me laugh retroactively, but they make me extremely sad. As in, when will people get a clue and realize that some world views simply possess no internal logic and therefore do not merit support by anyone? When will people realize that a person who cannot formulate a sentence probably shouldn't make decisions on anyone's behalf? 

Hanky panky hanky panky pork mobile Tbird supreme! 

I haven't been so disappointed in humanity and Christian culture since people started wearing Crocs in public.