July 11
*I have a note that says:
Lawn Jedi… girls playing Jedi
I can’t recall the dream this note refers to, though I know it was in my own back yard.
*I’m in my mom’s house, cleaning up for a visit from a large group of people. S is walking by with two large, full grocery bags in his arms. I can hear the voices of familiar friends and family in various places… I can’t fully understand why we would be at my mom’s house. There are a lot of people playing games… card games and board games, I can’t see into the other rooms to know who is playing what. FB is standing at the base of the driveway talking to a couple of people.
*I’m sitting on a surfboard. I’m wearing a full wet suit, but my feet are bare… my legs straddle the board, the water is very calm. The water is also not deep, my feet touch the sandy bottom and I push slightly with my toes to drift forward. The water/beach I’m on runs down an alley between two buildings. There is a slight breeze and I know the sky is clear blue beyond the buildings. I’m drifting down the alley to one end, then I turn and drift back to the other end. I expect the water to feel dirty, but it doesn’t seem to bother me.
*I’ve just woken up, I toss the covers off of me and I see there is a lot of activity outside. The house (“my” house) is large, sprawling… with fields all around it. Dark brown exterior. I’m running across the back lawn… the people who have been visiting (nieces?) are getting ready to leave. I thought they had already left, but they have come back for some reason. I wave my arms to stop them, they’ve left a few things behind. As I run I feel like I’m wearing jeans that are a bit too tight… they feel uncomfortable and I want to go change into some shorts or something. I found a ring, and there are some shampoo bottles though I don’t know if they are important enough to pick up. They come towards the house to get their stuff and I run inside. I also have things I borrowed from them that I need to return. I have piercings… three tongue piercings. As I talk I feel the studs moving around against my teeth and I remember that I need to return them. One of them falls out on it’s own, another I pull out easily. The third (located on the right side of my tongue) is a little bit painful. I’m worried that it might have gotten infected, and I wonder how you can put medicine on a tongue. I go into a downstairs bathroom to look in the mirror. I pass S in the hallway on my way, he asks how in the hell I managed to put anything through my tongue when I’ve never had piercings like this before? I shrug, I’m not entirely sure, I just don’t remember it hurting. Maybe they are clipons? I can feel the end of the stud hitting the back of my front teeth… it feels like I have a seed or piece of rosemary stuck in my teeth that won’t come out. I pull the backing off and slide the piercing out of my tongue, I can feel it tug a little… it widens at the point (like a hollow wall fastener) to keep it from coming out accidentally, so you have to tug a little to get it to come out when you want it to. I pile the tongue studs on the end of a coffee table along with the ring and a couple other items that belong to the girls. The youngest is standing next to me to give me a hug, she says she wishes she could stay longer, and next time we’ll have to do a trip without her parents, so it can be just kids… no adults. I forgot that she had stayed the last night, we had slept in the same room. I pass through my bedroom, which has my bed in it, but it is in my childhood room. Across from my current bed is a sofa bed, which has been pulled out – both are messed up as they had just been slept in… and there is not much floor space, so the foot of the sofa bed (when pulled out) hits against the foot of my bed, though it is a couple feet lower to the ground. Both beds have white sheets. The bathroom is dark tile, I thought there was one or two shampoo bottles left, but then I see there are more like 5 or 6 different hair products piled up.
*I’m standing outside of a classroom. There are many students, various ethnic backgrounds, standing here waiting to go inside. My friend next to me says something (a phrase from TV, I can’t recall what he said) someone (looks like TN from grade school) makes a snide comment back, changing the phrase. My friend tries to explain “no… what I said wasn’t an insult… it’s a phrase from Food Network”. I place my hand on my friend’s shoulder and murmur in his ear… “they are too young. They don’t watch Food Network, it isn’t around yet.” I get a sense I’m in the past. Some other friends around me are asking the kids in front of us what they thought of a book, or quizzing them on the contents of the book. The teacher comes out and abruptly stops the conversation. She pulls me and my friends into the classroom, lecturing us.
“You have to remember this class is a mixture of 3rd and 4th graders… they haven’t done all the same work you have done and you can’t make fun of them for not having read your books!”
We are seated… our desks are long rows of tables, they look rather worn… like they were donated. The classroom feels like a hodgepodge of furniture. We have a visitor, another teacher (looks like Jason Batemen wearing glasses) he is here to do a presentation… a movie of the book we just read. He has a Mac laptop hooked up to a projector, the movie is stalled and seems to be skipping. He is trying to get it to work correctly, the students are giggling at his struggles with the computer. He mumbles something about “I don’t suppose anyone here works with computers?” I jump up… I have a crush on this teacher and I want to help him. I squeeze between two tables to get around to the front, I press a couple of keys and though I’m not entirely sure what I did… as soon as I touch the computer the movie starts playing properly. A couple of the students clap, I smile up at the teacher and go back to my desk quickly… he says “Thank you” and smiles back, which makes me feel nervous (heart races a bit) I’m too shy to say anything in return, I just sit back in my seat and play with a pencil.
Another teacher bursts in… he is ranting about what a shit hole this place is to work in. He is tall, thin… balding… wears glasses… looks like he is maybe mid-50’s or so. He wears a twead jacket. (looks like the father from Family Ties) There is a tree growing through the middle of the hallway that comes into the classroom through a window. As my vision pans out to see the entire room, it seems as though this might be a science classroom in a jr. high now… lined with sinks around one corner. The tree is… birch? The teacher has his hand on the trunk of the tree (it curves in through the window, then goes up through the ceiling) he is yelling at the other teachers “How can you stand to teach in this kind of environment? They don’t take care of anything around here!”
*I’m working a camera behind the scenes of a TV show… a variety show like SNL. People are being interviewed about their memories of when the show first started. I can hear Chevy Chase’s voice talking about the first night, saying how it was the funniest episode ever… though that seems to contradict what I’ve heard about their opening night. I’m running the camera on a dolly, so my movements are smooth… being wheeled around the back stage area. It is sort of dark, there are a lot of round tables spaced in this main stage area, I’m cruising from one to another trying to get some b-roll.
EDIT: This dream memory came back about an hour after I posted… it seems like it took place within the dream where my tongue was pierced, but I can’t say for sure.
*I’m walking across the lawn towards the house, and I see a table set up at the edge of a covered veranda. Looks like an outdoor living room or office of some kind. S is sitting behind the table. There would normally be a computer here, but he has a series of drum pads sitting on the table top. He is wearing a very bright yellow skin tight short sleeved shirt, and a black leather vest over it (also tight… like what one would see biker guys wearing while riding a Harley) He has a set of sticks in his hands and is playing a basic beat to some music. I recognize it as the game “Rock Band”, though I don’t see a tv or any other components.
“Why didn’t you tell me you bought the game?” I ask.
He stops playing and turns to me. “I didn’t buy it… I got into this with Friend (he says the name, but I can’t remember… starts with F? Frank maybe?) so we could test it out without having the buy the whole thing.”
“Oh,” I reply. “What do you think?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know… I don’t think I like it all that much. It’s not very hard to play.”
