Divas

My boss and I decided that she would have me go to the opera in the morning and write a report about it instead of going into the office. She was planning on seeing the same show that evening. I think it was Fidelio.

I had excellent seats near the front. During the second act, one of the female singers came into the audience and tried to convince me to get up on stage and dance with her. I insisted that I was extremely awkward and would probably fall down but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She pulled me on stage. She took my right hand and pulled me toward her so our fronts were together, and then pulled my backward so our backs were together. It was a very easy move, but I kept losing the rhythm and stumbling.

Up in the control room, one of the divas was watching me and seething because I was "stealing her best move."

The next morning I went to the office to present to my boss my eight-page report. I know I showed it to her but it got lost between all of my various drafts. She got upset with me for showing her anything but the finished product so I rushed back to my desk to go through the numerous papers I had in my arms to try to find it. Right then the office coordinator came in to tell me about some hand modeling jobs she thought I should apply for. I was scared my boss was going to start to yell at me so I ignored her and ran back to my desk. I sifted through mountainous piles of documents and couldn't find my final draft for the life of me. I searched my computer for "opera" but couldn't find anything there. I couldn't remember if I'd written it at home or at work.

The office coordinator interrupted me again to ask me to be a foster parent to a girl who had just wandered into our waiting room. She had her face painted like a cat. I said that I guessed I could while I continued to frantically sift through papers. Before we could introduce ourselves to each other she left.

Nostalgia

I was on campus riding a bike that had special tracking powers. You could put in the four digit code of the building you wanted to go to and it would automatically steer you there. I put in the same code I saw someone else use and took off. I attempted to steer against its intended path but found it impossible. I was riding on the sidewalk, and I wondered if I was going to get in trouble for not riding it in the bike lane instead.

I ended up at the Daily. I thought maybe I should have called before coming, but I had intended to visit anyway so I thought now was a good a time as ever. A female reporter was having trouble with an interview she'd done with Drew Barrymore. She had done the interview via email, which I frowned upon. She wanted to know if she should just do straight Q-and-A or try to weave in some information about Drew's travels. I recommended the latter. I took a look at the copy and was horrified to see that the reporter kept exclaiming, "OH, BARRY!!!!!!!!!!!" after nearly everything Drew said. So unprofessional.

I went downstairs to say hi to Vadim. He asked my opinion on something and it felt good to know that my opinion still had value there.

An evening with Parse

I was in a gas station. We set up chairs to watch the TV, which had groups of scantily clad female dancers about to play football. Rachel Maddow was the attendant there. I was helping her set up, and she asked me if I ever listened to her radio show (which she was about to do live from the gas station). I told that honestly, I hadn't, but that I watched her video podcast every day. She was upset that I didn't listen to the radio show, so to butter her up I told her my favorite part of her TV show was when she interviewed people who didn't know what they were talking about and she hit them back with, "What about this? What about this???" She looked like she had just come from taping her show-- she had a lot of make up on.

I was settling into my chair, ready to watch the football game when Jake P. walked into the store. I was so excited to see him and rushed up to him to give him a hug. We left the gas station together and went walking along a long hallway. We turned into a room that was usually used by a bear trapper. I busied myself sewing a shirt more securely to a giant stuffed bear while Jake slept. The trapper's alarm clock awoke him with Israeli music. We both jumped up and started doing Israeli dancing around the room.

He peeked out the door to ascertain no one was coming and then ran across the hallway/road to a tex-mex restauarant. There were a lot of chiles roasting on a huge grill in the front. Jake decided he was going to try to work there. He started filling out their application while I inspected their ready-made sandwiches. Some of them, like the roast beef and horseradish, were priced at $17. Others, like the Oregon Special, were priced at $4. I opted for the latter.

Home invasion and boss evasion

I was in the house of a family I used to babysit for, except with a wider staircase, and it was my house. I was there with two siblings. A man and later a woman repeatedly tried to get up the stairs, evidently to murder us, and we had to try to fight them back. I flipped the woman over the railing.

***

I knelt on my bed facing the headboard and started taking a shower with a nearby hose. "This is weird," I thought to myself. "Do I always do this? Don't I get the bed really wet? Won't Matt get mad at me?" I got dressed and drove to the mall. It was 8 in the morning but it was bustling. I made my way over to Macy's, where I wanted to look at some dresses. First I had to wander through the kids' floor, where the cashiers were dressed as if they worked at Wal-Mart. Disgusted, I gave up and went back to the car. I parked it several blocks away from the apartment and called my boss as I walked home. I told her I was too sick to come into work-- I had a sore throat, chills, fever and body aches. She asked why there was so much traffic in the background. I lied and told her I had just been to the store to pick up medication.

Must... have... coat

This one's from two nights ago, so the deets are a bit fuzzy: I flew into New York and was planning to take the Subway to a movie theater to meet Anna. The train didn't have a clear explanation of what stops were coming up, and I was concerned I was in the wrong one. Just to be sure, I stayed in one a stop longer than I should have. I had to cross the tracks to back-track, and then I realized I had no idea what train number I had been on in the first place, and the train I got on could very well be headed someplace else entirely. I took the risk and went one stop. I walked and walked through the tunnels, before coming to a grand, carpeted staircase lined with movie posters. Anna was waiting for me.

I was in DC, I think, again to visit Anna. I quietly put my bags in her apartment (she was sleeping) and went into a mall area that was attached. Most of the stores were closing down, but Anthropologie, where I really wanted to be, was still open. I browsed through the sales rack and considered buying sweaters even though it was summer. Then I saw it. The most perfect coat I had ever seen in my life. It was a combination of my two winter coats-- thigh-length raspberry red felt with a hood and toggle closures, and thick enough to withstand Minnesota winters. I checked the price. It was $100 off-- down to $44.50. I knew it had to be mine. Anna came into the store and I tried on the coat for her. She agreed. It was perf. So I whipped out my credit card.

Sites and trains

I'm hanging out with Perez Hilton, the gossip blogger, and charming his socks off. He's about to hire a cadre of employees to help him run the site while he takes on various other projects. I'm applying for the animal reporter position. "You do understand that I would be writing pure snark because I'm not a huge animal fan, right? Is that OK?" I ask him. "OK??? That's PERFECT!" he said.

I'm in Paris with my parents. We're trying to get to a castle called Rouilly, which is near the Bois du Bologna. I'm getting frustrated with trying to direct them, because they don't believe in my metro navigating skills. And, unfortunately, I've left my guide book, along with the Victoria's Secret bag containing a bottle of water, a jacket and an umbrella, in another train. I was pretty sure the guidebook said the castle was only open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, and it's nearing noon. I manage to find some information about it on a map in the station, but just says it's open from "Atlantic time to Pacific time." Does that mean three hours? My parents decide it means all day. I have frequent freak-out fits at them. I tell my mom to remind me to call my friend Marcy that night to hang out since she lives in Paris. I'm worried I'll be too tired to call her.

Hair power

My brother was chasing me up Spirit Mountain. It was an evil, dangerous chase, not a fun chase. I had a hair dryer in my left hand and a brush in my right. I raised both above my head and began to float up and over the mountain, but they couldn't power me enough to rise very high. Jake managed to wrest the brush from me and raised it over his head. He started to float, too, and wasn't very far behind me. The city was spread below me like candy-colored Monopoly hotels.

I ran into George Clooney. I knew Julia Roberts was going to be in town, so I pressed him for details. He brushed me off. I knew in my head that he wasn't interested in talking about it because he was gay.

I was in my boyfriend's dad's apartment. He had a hot tub that had a mattress cover you could zip on to make it a bed. There was a toilet attached in the corner of the unit (it had separate piping and everything; it was just modeled that way). "I could live here," I thought.

Anxiety and underwear

I had just moved back in to my apartment in Arlington. I was upset to be back in that dump, but happy if it meant I had another job in DC. I was greeted by Tim-- shirtless, of course-- and his girlfriend. I was shocked any girl would want to be with His Disgustingness. He had left dirty tighty whiteys all over my room. I yelled at him to pick them up and he gave me lip in return. I tried to reason with his girlfriend that he really shouldn't be leaving his dirty underthings in my room and all over my bathroom, and she just shrugged it off, saying he was going through a lot at the moment.

I went to BAM to get my hair cut. They were mad about my article.

I could hear party noises coming from my dad's office at my house. Perez Hilton, the gossip bloggers, was having a birthday party for his dog Teddy. I made sure he was a hypoallergenic before I picked him up. I asked Perez if he would do a post about me when it was my birthday. He declined.

I was Samantha from Sex and the City. I was in Younkers to buy Giorgio Armani boxer-briefs for my boyfriend.

International travel

I was in Paris visiting my friend Sarah and her friends. We spent a lot of time at a café and I checked my itinerary to make sure we would have enough time to do everything I wanted to do while I was there. I was shocked to find out I was scheduled to leave at 3:30 the next day, and from an airport I’d never heard of: Mairie Montreuil. I figured that I had gotten some sort of deal on the ticket that only let me stay there for a day in a half.

Concerned about getting lost trying to find the airport, I went into several shops to ask the proprietors in slow but grammatical French if they could tell me which way to turn. They responded in English that I should stop wasting their time and ask people in the metro stations instead. I eventually found a way there by consulting my handy metro map.

Before I left Paris I made sure to eat some Turkish Delight.

Instead of making it back to the United States, however, I ended up in Japan, which was about to host the Winter Olympics. I rode a bullet train around a snowy mountainside that had gigantic, curled, wooden ski-like things stuck into the ground in lieu of trees. There were bullet trains similar to mine that followed different, colored tracks. I looked back out my window and saw another train that was shrink wrapped with Disney characters on it.

I think a little girl was molested on my train, a practice that was apparently considered OK in the country. I tried to escape the train, and ended up clinging to its red, curly-cue track and making my way slowly to the ground. When I got there I thought about how jealous other people would be that I had made it to the Olympics, however peripherally.

A hog, a hoochie, I'm hungry

I was supposed to ride down to the Cities Friday night with my coworker Sarah. Instead, she told me, we would have to ride with Peter, the business reporter, on his Harley. I was extremely nervous about doing so as it was winter and I was afraid A. my toes would freeze off B. I'd fall asleep and fall off C. we'd get frozen in place and D. there just wouldn't be room enough for three people on the back of a bike. We ended up making it to about Proctor when his hog broke down and we had to ride bicycles back into the city so we could find Sarah's car.

I was in a shopping mall in DC. I went to get a smoothie and they gave me a lemonade-blue raspberry-chocolate chip combination that was utterly atrocious. I tried to complain but decided to just suck it up (pun!) instead. I turned a corner and saw my sister wearing shorts so tight they were giving her a muffin top and a skimpy tank top. I told her in no uncertain terms that she looked like a skank. She got upset and turned away from me. I caught up with her and tried to explain that she should buy clothes based on the way they fit her, not for their size. I've worn a size8 since middle school, I told her, but there are times when a 6 or a 10 worked better. This information amazed her.

My mom and I were waiting at a campus for Anna to meet up with us. I ended up going down to the cafeteria because I was hungry. My cell phone didn't get any coverage down there and I was worried she'd be mad at me because she couldn't find me.

Beloved B 'n B

It had just snowed a foot despite it being May, and I trudged through the snow from my temple. I snuck into Olcott House, the bed and breakfast where my boyfriend and I spent our anniversary. There were dishes of pecan ice cream on the table, and I started grabbing gobs of it with my fingers, thinking it would go to waste otherwise.

The house’s owner happened upon me and asked me what I was doing there. “I just love it here so much,” I told him. He laughed good-naturedly and told me it was time for me to go on home.

A few nights ago I had another dream I was at the Olcott House. I stopped in randomly and asked them if they had any openings for the night. The owner told me they actually didn’t have anyone staying in the entire house. In that case, I asked if I could stay in the master bedroom even though I had paid for one of the smaller ones. He said I couldn’t even look in the other bedrooms, much less go in them.

Destruction and Disgustion

-I was driving to work and intending to take the highway downtown. A vicious storm was brewing, and the lake was cresting with 10-foot waves. It had washed a good portion of the highway away. I finally got to work, and was shocked at the state of my desk. There were newspapers and other debris everywhere. Since my managers were in a news meeting I decided to take some time to clean it. I had practically a whole kitchen in my desk, with half-eaten granola bars and cans of soup and bottles of wine everywhere. One of my co-workers told me that if I recycled the glass bottles they would later be ground up and turned into astroturf. I was keen to help the environment.

-I was in an amusement park in a mall. I was hugely pregnant. I was concerned my water would break while I was on one of the rides and I wouldn't have a way to get to the hospital. A chase scene might have ensued... the details are fuzzy. All I can remember is being disgusted by the popcorn on the floor.

-I was in a parking lot and my car wouldn't start. I decided to try driving it in neutral since the way home was all downhill.

No guns this time

-I was in a building in DC, stacking barrels of crude oil. I saw my friend Conrad and tried to catch up with him. I was running up an interminable set of stairs to try to reach him and getting tres winded. I considered adding the stair-stepper to my workout routine.

-I was writing a story for the paper about my ex-boyfriend's brother Roy, a musician. I was looking at pictures of him with the photo editor and pointed out my ex to him. Then we jumped inside the photo and I was in his home in North Branch. They had done some major remodeling to their kitchen area that added a whole wall of windows. I congratulated his mom on a job well done and then went out on a mission. The ex was following me and telling me how pretty I looked. I told him to go away and get a life.

-Puppies! On my mission I tromped through a backyard full of dogs. There were some basset hounds and whatever kind of a dog the Target dog is. There were also mini-Target dogs that I considered stealing because they were so small they fit in my hand-- a puppy wish of mine.

Hung out with a kitty all night

I'm uber allergic to cats, which makes it weird that I basically had one attached to my chest all night.

I was in a big mansion with my boyfriend. At some point he left and a man with a gun came in. (Aside: why oh why must I always dream of guns??) I had a cat sleeping on my chest and I think the man was asleep too, and I had to keep the cat asleep to keep the man asleep, and to do that I had to constantly pet the kitty. My clothes had disappeared, so I was using the cat to cover myself as well.

My little sister came in and was being very loud. I tried to whisper to her that she had to leave or hide to avoid the man with the gun. She didn't get it. I suggested several hiding places to her and she didn't see why she should have to hide when I didn't have to hide. I tried explaining to her that I would hide if I could but I had to keep the cat asleep, but to no avail.

At some point the man left and several people, including my mother, came into the house. I explained that there was a madman with a gun on the loose who wanted to kill me, and her strategy to stop him was to pull all the shades and make everyone wear plastic shower caps so he couldn't see us. The shades were made of red and green flimsy, see-through crepe paper. My mom wanted to tie them in the middle to make them look better. I got angry at her because that was entirely besides the point-- it enabled outsiders to look in that much easier.

The man came back and started shooting at us through the walls.

Faulty dream memory-- I blame matzah

I've had a lot of trouble remembering my dreams the last few days, which is unusual for me. The one dream I did remember from Sunday night involved something I plan to surprise my gentleman caller with for our anniversary this weekend so I must keep mum on that for now.

I have a very hazy memory of a few dreams I had last night:

-I was flying in a plane completely empty but for two other guys. Despite the bevy of open seats, I had to sit in the middle seat between them in the very last row. I think we were flying Sun Country because they seats were leather.

-I was throwing a party of some sort in the home of a friend whose brother recently died. I was concerned at the amount of crumbs we were creating and was frantically looking for a vacuum before the family got home. The brother's ghost was following me but not speaking. I think I knew I was dreaming at that point, and really wanted him to say something to me so I could repeat it to my friend when I woke up to make her feel better. He stayed stubbornly silent.

A trip to Brooklyn

I flew in to Brooklyn to visit a friend I've had differences with and haven't spoken to in months. Our mutual friend Liz, as well as two other girls we went to high school with, also lived there. It was a very nice apartment and had a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. It was nighttime but all the buildings' lights were out. The frenemy said it had looked the same way during 9/11, so we were worried there had been another terrorist attack.

Their sink was absolutely full of dishes, and the frenemy wanted me to help her wash them. I hate washing dishes more than absolutely anything else in the world, but I did it anyway. I was frustrated with myself for always doing what she wanted me to. I thought it was weird that I had come all the way to Brooklyn to visit her when we hadn't talked for so long and I still harbored a lot of resentment toward her. I was about to confront her about the things that made me upset with her when she told me it was time to visit Neil, who also lived in Brooklyn.

By this time it was fully dark and I was very nervous about walking by myself in a city I wasn't familiar with, but the ladies there refused to come with me. I tried to call Neil on my cell phone to get directions, but it was malfunctioning and kept scrolling through all the pictures and videos I had taken on it.

I ducked into a gas station to ask for directions. At this point my perspective changed to being omniscient and it became daytime. The man at the cash register, who was the spitting image of Jay-Z, was whistling a song when a machine gun started shooting outside. A man who was the spitting image of John Leguizamo stumbled in, shot in multiple places. Jay-Z caught him before he hit the floor and was murmuring encouraging words to him. The machine gun guy came in too, intending to steal all the money in the cash register. Apparently Jay-Z had saved this guy's life in the past, so they all muddled the irony that his life was saved only so he could take the life of one of his friends. "He was my bro, man!" Jay-Z wailed.

Other tidbits: Michelle Lee and Barbara Reyelts, TV news anchors here, cowering in the face of HD TV and wrinkled as prunes. The apartment of a friend that was decorated like an Indian palace and that had the most comfortable bed in the world.

A Bad Painting, Bad Yarn and a Bad Haircut

No. 1: I was going to go camping with my boyfriend, brother and brother's friends. I couldn't figure out what to wear other than a sports bra. I tried to convince my boyfriend to bring along the art supplies I got him for his birthday in case there was a tree I wanted to paint. I ended up making a cool painting of a woman with really small dreadlocks, but messed up when I did her mouth. It was way out of proportion.

No. 2: I was in a different city, not one that I've been to before or know the name of but that I visit in my dreams sometimes. It was rainy. I stepped into a store that looked like it was selling yarn. The main floor was selling cheap-looking flats and pleather purses, and really expensive but small skeins of yarn that weren't that great. Downstairs they were selling books. I couldn't find anything that appealed to me. In the level below that, they were selling CDs and I found three by Jenny Owen Youngs, a singer I really like but haven't purchased anything from yet. I was pleased.

No. 3: I was on the U of M campus with my friend Aleta. I was doing some sort of project or on some sort of mission and decided I needed to talk to someone who worked there. We crossed the Washington Ave. Bridge, which was painted with a weird design to make it look like there were 3-D fences coming up everywhere. I saw a very tall man with gangly limbs and an atrocious mushroom haircut (like the one in No Country for Old Men). He began telling me the history of Dinkytown, which he claimed to have created, while riding a bike in wide circles because his limbs were too long for him to walk very well. Aleta was wearing a very pretty blue polka-dot dress with tulle underneath. She was bored.

From Tuesday night: A Ride and a Rebuff

No. 1: A friend with whom I've been fighting lately and I were on a crazy elevator ride at an amusement park. It hoisted us up really high and then was supposed to let us down pretty fast. But we were going in free-fall. I was afraid I was going to die so I told her I loved her and that we should let bygones be bygones. Right before we were going to hit it was suspended. When we got out I went to the ride operator and yelled at him for being so irresponsible. He gave me a key to the ride that I put around my neck.

No. 2: I was at work and got an extremely angry email from my co-worker Patrick. Apparently we were supposed to have co-written an article for the next day's paper and we hadn't even chosen a topic yet. The email said he had to stay home with his small child that day and I had ruined everything. I called him right away and told him not to worry, that I'd just write it myself, and he responded that that wasn't the point. I told him I didn't like working in groups anyway and he should just let me do it, and he got frustrated and hung up on me. It got to be noon and I was working on the medical marijuana bill story, but I couldn't think of any sources who would be opposed to the bill. Finally I thought of calling a county commissioner. That's all I remember.

A madam, a raid and a movie

No. 1: I was in a friend's apartment in D.C. We were eating pizza with a lot of spinach on top. A man who wasn't her boyfriend but whom she was intimate with was coming over, and she didn't want to see him because he was physically violent with her. I begged her to run away before he got there. She ended up escaping to the top floor of the building when he came to the door. He had seen her car in the parking lot so he knew she was there. He started to chase her.

Possible origins: I ate pizza last night and I'm going to DC in two weeks.

No. 2: I was in my parents' house. It was the middle of the night. I woke up when a group of college-aged boys swarmed the building. I looked down from my window and saw they had guns and swords. I knew they were coming for prescription drugs. I ran up to the third floor bathroom, the only room in our house that has a lock. I had a silver pistol. Two of them, including one I went to high school with named Dave, followed me. I was so terrified that I was too weak to properly lock the door and they wedged themselves in the bathroom with me. I tearfully asked my fellow alum why he was doing this. He started crying too. I told them that the only pills we had were anti-nausea ones from when my brother was undergoing chemo. He took them and left. The other boys ransacked my mom's jewelry before they all left. I went to the basement and surveyed possible hiding spots should they return.

Possible origins: I'm reading a book about Napoleon and I was reporting an article about a man who has to take a bevy of prescription drugs yesterday.

No. 3: I was in my friend Dom's apartment, again in DC, and we were watching a movie that was a strange amalgam of Lady and the Tramp and All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Possible origins: My boyfriend sang one of the ADGTH songs to me on Sunday.