When in doubt, hide in the crisper

Matt and I were driving around downtown Portland at night in a red convertible. We kept hearing gunfire, and instead of putting the top of the car up Matt and I would bend over to avoid the bullets. At some point we knew the gangsters were coming after us. Matt dropped me off at my office and I hid behind the stairwell so no one could see me. Some of the gangsters went into the building and were unable to find me.

When I was sure they were gone I went up the stairs and found a secret passageway, which in the dream was Oregon Children's Museum but was really The Depot in Duluth. I wound along the balconies and passageways, trying to ensure that no one would see me. I concluded that the best place to hide would be in the kitchen.

Hours had passed and more people were filing into the area. Some started to recognize me from TV reports about how I was missing, even though I had artfully wrapped a blue towel around my face. A few were sympathetic to my plight and offered to help me. One person ushered me into the museum's kitchen and told me the perfect place to hide would be the vegetable crisper. He or she removed the contents to give me room, and then arranged bananas, apples and potatoes over me and closed the door.

Diane Arbus

My legs were covered in white fur that pulled off really easily. I yanked out huge swaths of it and discovered my legs were dark purple underneath. Mortified, I vowed never to go that long without shaving again.

***

Matt and I were driving to his dad's house in Iowa. We stopped at a gas station in southern Minnesota. The cashier tried to imply Matt was gay because all he bought was an energy drink and a map of Iowa-- no porn. I overheard another girl there talking to the cashier about her boyfriend's addiction to child porn. She was planning on calling the police to raid him.

A few minutes later we got to a large city that Matt said was Des Moines. I hadn't remembered it being that close to the MN border. He pointed out that the river was low because there had a been a drought. The drought was hurting his family's farm. He pulled off to the side of the road so I could drive. The gas pedal disappeared and was replaced by a foot treadmill, which you had to run on to make the car go anywhere. We slowly trudged up the hill as I attempted to run as fast as I could. When we crested we picked up speed and I started driving like I usually do in dreams: I had no control of the car and we repeatedly came within inches of accidents.

Antebellum awesomeness

My siblings, mom and aunt were traveling in a rickety open-air mini bus up a dirt road in Georgia to the place we'd be staying. My mom and her sister were bickering the whole time. We pulled up to an enormous plantation house that had turrets like a castle. The inside was painted in corals and mint greens, and I thought to myself how ugly I'd consider it if it weren't so old. Mom exclaimed about how absolutely lovely it was-- so masculine. I didn't get it.

We climbed a huge curving staircase to go to our rooms, and I tried to imagine fancy ladies maneuvering up and down it with their hoop skirts. The first room we went into had a pretty boring white lacy bed for my mom and aunt. It had an door leading to the room I would share with my older brother. It had one glorious pink bed and another semi-OK blue bed, and it was clear who would be sleeping where. The room was huge and filled with light. A staircase led up to yet another room, this one festooned with green velour furniture, where my little brother would stay. I explored my room's nooks and crannies, and was over the moon to discover that there were still Scarlett-esque dresses in the closet.