Odds & Ends

The DMV

Last week, I had cause to visit the local Division of Motor Vehicles. In pre-Covid times, this was a nightmare. One set aside an entire afternoon simply to drop something off at the DMV.

After Covid, in the now, the DMV has figured out it can schedule appointments. It has learned how to speed things through. 

I was doing something that could have, in pre-Covid days, taken hours.

I was in and out in less than 15 minutes. I made an appointment for 11 a.m. I arrived early. I was supposed to scan a QR code, but it said I was too early. It was 10:47 a.m. The security guard waved me on in, walked me past a line of people to an information clerk who was not doing anything, and she checked me in. She told me to go to Line 21.

I did. No one was in Line 21. The woman asked me if I was number thus and such, and I nodded. I told her what I needed. I'd already filled out the forms. She took care of what I needed, and as I stepped out the door I glanced at my watch. It said 11:02 a.m.

Fifteen minutes at the DMV. Who'd have thought it 10 years ago?

The Dream

The other night I dreamed that I was on another planet entirely. There were other people there; it was a settled world, but it wasn't Earth. The ground undulated from time to time, for one thing, but no one said a word about it. Somewhere off in the distance, these things with tentacles on them hovered off the ground, and they had a big orange "5" flashing on them. Some kind of native animal, I guess.

I apparently had written an article, and something was wrong with it, for I'd been called before the journalism board. They told me I'd written the story wrong, and I hadn't solved the crime. It wasn't my job to solve the crime, I explained. But since the crime wasn't solved - apparently it was a murder - I shouldn't have written the story.

"Then I'll go solve the damn crime!" I cried out (possibly even if my sleep) and I leapt up. I roamed around and found bits of human remains by someone's outdoor grill.

They had eaten Charles Barkley (the basketball player).

That was about the time I woke.

I know that Charles Barkley came from a TV commercial I'd seen that night, because I'd asked my husband who the man in the commercial was and it was he, but I don't know where the rest of the stuff came from. There is no "journalism board" that I am aware of or apart of; maybe if I actually worked at a newspaper there would be colleagues who would lay such charges, I don't know. Perhaps that came from watching Alaska Daily, which is a TV show about a news reporter in Alaska. I don't know what the big flashing orange "5" means, but it was so vivid in the dream - and so long in the background - it must indicate something.

The subconscious mind is a crazy place.

Another School Shooting

I don't know why we can ban the word "gay," ban books, ban drag, ban foods, ban drugs, ban the statue of David, etc., but can't do a damn thing about guns.

Hating on Myself

Yesterday, I hated every possible atom of my being. I hated my hair. I hated the fact that I can't wear makeup anymore because I've developed an allergy to it (all of it, apparently, even the ones supposedly safe make me itch). I hated the fact that I am fat. I hated that I feel like I do nothing (even though I know that's not true, just today I washed 3 loads of clothes, vacuumed the house, went to the grocery store, made the bed, did the dishes, and will fix dinner shortly). It was just that kind of day.

Unfortunately, it's carried over into today, and at the moment it's mostly aimed at my inability to cook well (it would help if I actually enjoyed cooking), because the pork loin I'd expected to feed us for 3 days at least turned out to be inedible. I cooked it in the crockpot the way I always do, but it was tough and pretty awful.

But so help me, I do not find satisfaction in reading recipes, and there is nothing about chopping vegetables or playing with naked uncooked meats that makes me happy or content. The only thing I like to do with food is eat it.

The Water Bill Dream

Last night I dreamed that I received a bill in the mail for $26,000.00. It was from the water facility in New Castle, where I used to write the newspaper (I freelanced for the paper, but it's not a lie to say I wrote the paper. I did.).

The letter received with the bill showed a contract I'd signed on behalf of the paper (that's how tightly interwoven I was with this freelancing for this newspaper) for water services for the small office.

The company had never paid the bill, and here, more than 20 years later, I was getting it because my name was on the contract.

I panicked. I didn't have money to pay this off. My credit was going to be ruined. This was devastating!

Frantic, I tried to contact the former editor I wrote for. He's retired. I finally found him in a parking lot, and I jumped in his truck and told him I needed to talk to him. He said he didn't want to talk to me. I told him I knew where there were a massive herd of deer and that he should see it. He agreed. (I knew he'd never turn down a chance to see wildlife.) He said we were going to the Northstar (that's a restaurant in Buchanan) to eat breakfast first. Then we came to my house, where there was a herd of about 1,000 deer roaming in front of my house, and I panicked again because they were eating all the grass and the cows were going to starve.

I woke up with my jaw locked shut (happens sometimes) and my heart being over 100 beats per minute.

Now where did that come from?

So I Had This Dream

Friday night, I dreamed I was in the Epsilon Quadrant (wherever that is), and I and others were trying to stop these men who dressed up in black top hats, white face, and suits that looked like a zebra who, when they sang, entranced people who listened to them. Those people would then do their bidding (rob banks, kill people, whatever), and then fling themselves off a cliff.

Somehow we captured them. I believe it involved ear plugs.

While we were taking them back to Earth for trial, Spock came in and did a mind meld with one of them. He then walked away saying we couldn't keep the men, and he let them all go. He'd been taken over by the guy and Spock flung himself out of the space ship.

By then we were near some other planet and we landed. My aunt lived there. I kept telling her not to listen to the men but she wouldn't listen to me. In fact, no one was listening to me, and it seemed only I knew how dangerous these men were.

The men immediately began setting up their singing trap at intersections of streets. My aunt heard them and was heading out and I had to lock her up in a closet.

That's all I remember.

My husband says I dream vividly when I eat mushrooms. I had mushrooms on my chicken marsala at dinner.

I am thinking now I should eat more mushrooms. 

I Dreamed About a Door

Last night, I dreamed I was being imposed upon, one might say, by a door that had a stained glass inside with wood around it.

The door was alive and evil. It killed people. It ordered us to plant a garden because it wanted to see flowers, so we did, but then it killed the garden.

It was constantly wanting things, and if I did not oblige it, it beat on me until I did. For some reason, it didn't want to kill me. Perhaps it needed a willing being with legs, I don't know. Dreams have their own ways about them.

We locked the door up in boxes, in rooms, in attics, but the door always found a way out, and went on a killing spree. It did this on its own, but we would hear about it the next day, that so many people had died. We knew it was the door but had no way to prove it and who would believe us, anyway?

The door warned us not to try to break it or smash it, as its shards of glass would then all go after even more people, allowing the door to do more damage than it would do if it stayed whole. Even if we ground it down to fine sand, the door said, it's evil would live on and the sand would simply spread it that much more.

I despaired, finding no way around this mess. I could not outrun the door, I could not trap the door, I could find no way to defeat the door and make it stop its evil killing spree.

After a while, I decided my only recourse was to see if the door was lying, and grind it into fine little bits. 

Then I woke up.

I am fairly certain this door dream is an analogy for what is going on right now. The deaths would be from the coronavirus. The door would be the people who are walking straight into fascism. The strong hint with this dream is that, no matter what, even if we stop the door, evil will spread.

The evil and violence will spread.

We Went Searching

In a dream, I looked all around me for something I'd lost. I climbed over a mountain and ran across a meadow (you can do all that in your sleep).

Thing is, I didn't know what I'd lost. But I was frantic for it, whatever it was. Finally, I found my husband, who was in a cornfield chastising a calf for running through the electric fence (they've been doing that for real recently so I know where *that* came from).

"I've lost it!" I cried, throwing myself into his chest. His arms folded around me.

"We'll find it," he said.

So we started looking. He didn't ask me what I'd lost, and I never told him, but we went searching for it.

I looked under couches and in drawers. We were in our house now. He went into the garage.

The scenery changed and I was in a desert, very hot. My mouth was dry. I was still searching, though. Sand fell between my fingers as I pawed at the landscape. 

I wondered why my husband wouldn't come in from the garage and bring me a glass of water.

Dreams are so very odd sometimes.

I woke with the alarm, so I don't know what I was looking for, or if I ever found it.

The sense of loss has stayed with me all day. What did I lose? What have I lost?

What am I missing?

Who have I forgotten?

We live in perilous times, but we have always lived in perilous times. There are things going on now that I find awful - I think it there is something seriously wrong with a country that has so many poor people who can't feed their children that the schools have to turn buses into food trucks and send them to ensure children are eating.

But we have always had poor people, and children who needed to be fed. (That is no excuse, we should be better than this.)

I have read many, many issues of old newspapers, local and national. I like to read those old issues. Because you know what? The discussions are generally the same.

How do we pay for this or that? Is this the role of government or the private sector? How much is too much and when is it not enough?

I don't even need to look up anything to know we've been through epidemics before. Not just the Spanish flu in 1918, but also polio, tuberculosis, whooping cough, measles, etc.

What am I looking for? I think in my dream I was looking for comfort, for solace, for some kind of control over something over which I have no control - as we all are, when we buy toilet paper or comfort foods or whatever we do to feel like we have some grasp on a situation.

We searched for an intangible, my husband and me, as we waded through my nightmare.

I would like to see leadership during a pandemic but all I see is someone parading the leaders of big companies out in press conferences, shaking hands when they should all be standing 6 feet apart. Certainly no leading by example there.

What else am I looking for? Maybe self-direction. Maybe assurances. Maybe nothing. Maybe I have nothing to look for, I just think I do, because we live in such a lackluster world with lackluster lives.

We went searching, my husband and I, in a dream. He went into the garage. I ended up panting in a desert.

At least in my mind, I sent him some place safe.

These Dreams

I have been dreaming a lot lately. Strange dreams.

Last night, I dreamed that I opened the door to find a naked woman there. She was my tenant in my rental house (though not actually the person who lives there now, and not someone to whom I've ever rented. Actually I think it was my cousin's wife, who is not named Meaghan, although that was the name of the tenant in the dream. I've also not seen my cousin's wife in several years.). Meaghan (?) said she'd sublet the rental and the person had changed the locks and locked her out.

This did not explain the nakedness, but I invited her in (after telling my husband to go in the other room) and told her I would see if I had some clothes she could wear, though I doubted I had little that would fit her. I found a few things and a piece of rope to hold up the pants (even in my dreams, I know I'm overweight).

Then the two of us took off to wander around the streets of the city until I could find a lawyer. Apparently we did so, for the next thing I remember is seeing paperwork written up with myself and my tenant as plaintiffs against  . . . someone. Some person who would not leave and would not let me back onto my own property.

I remember too the sound of a gavel, the nasally voice of a female judge, and sirens.

What I don't remember is a verdict or an ending. I remember fussing at my tenant a great deal, because I'd not given her permission to sublet in the first place. I remember feeling badly for her because she had no clothes. I was doing my best to help but my efforts to ensure the safety of my tenant and restore my property were proving rather fruitless. I felt helpless and began to roam the streets again, alone this time (I don't know what I did with Meaghan). Everything was askew and I didn't know where I was.

My husband's snoring woke me up.

My little abridged book of dreams from Zadkiels Book of Dreams & Fortune Telling, purchased when I was 10 years old for the steep price of 35 cents, tells me this . . .

Misfortune - to dream some misfortune has happened to you is a dream of contrary - you will be very fortunate in business and in love. (Oh, yay!)

Naked - to be naked foretells disgrace, misfortune, business losses and unhappiness in marriage. Hmm. I wasn't the one who was naked, though. That was someone else. So somebody else can worry about all that bad stuff, right?

Lawsuit - dreaming you have a lawsuit or any case of litigation prognosticates very heavy losses in business and great difficulties. Avoid lending money or making purchases immediately after this dream. Oh dear.

I don't really believe dreams foretell anything except for things that may be weighing on my mind. I do like reading the implications from the dream book, though. 

However what, if any of this stuff in this dream is weighing on me is beyond me. I've been so busy working on the official county 250th anniversary magazine I have not had much time to worry over much.

You Have the Wrong Narrative

Last night I dreamed I was in a crumbling city, a world falling to pieces.

A crew of people were with me, but I'm not sure who they were. Warriors of some kind, I think (maybe my imaginary friends from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim). They went around the corner and stopped.

I moved forward and went from apocalypse to Alice in Wonderland, a colorful corner of the world's ending where a woman named Jaquelyne (she spelled it for me twice) wearing a tailored suit with leggings and a top hat, brought me up short.

"You have the wrong narrative," she said.

"I know what a narrative is," I replied. "I'm a writer."

"You have the wrong narrative," she said again.

"What's wrong with it?" I wanted to know. I looked around but I was alone now. My warriors had vanished.

"You have the wrong narrative."

She kept repeating this, twirling around, producing a cane from somewhere and doing a little two-step.

"You have the wrong narrative."

Then, in the way of dreams, I found I was at a baptism. My father came in dressed in a blue robe and said he was Elvis. He was followed by lots of other people in blue robes, and someone handed me one and told me to put it on.

"I don't want to wear this," I said.

The woman with the top hat popped back into my dream.

"You have the wrong narrative," she said, and then danced away, twirling her cane.

Welcome to My Nightmares

I dream every night. Usually they are vivid, in color, and dramatic. I don't always remember them, but my husband, at least once a week or so, wakes me to stop my yelling or screaming out in my sleep.

It's an unfortunate routine for him and tiring for me. My brain does not shut off well.

Last night was particularly bad. I woke myself up a few times talking aloud, and he woke me as well. "Wake up, baby, you're dreaming," he says. It usually takes me a minute to get back to this world.

In my dream, I had a chain around my neck. There was a mass of dirt before me, and it was full of dead bodies.

My job was to walk around this mass of dirt in a circle, stepping on the bodies, to crunch them down and make them rot faster.

Isn't that a horrible thing to dream?

As I trudged along, crying and sobbing, and noticing how awful it smelled, I looked in the sky to see a line of people coming to help me. My husband, my father, a couple of friends, and my physical therapist were walking along the sky, sort of like a popular vision of the fellowship in the Lord of the Rings:

Actually it looked a lot like this, except the sky was a brilliant blue behind the shadow figures, which I perceived as angels. I grew very excited and I tried to get my camera to take a picture of the people coming to save me as they came across the sky, but I could not reach my camera. When I looked back, they were gone.

So I kept trudging along my mound of dead people, but I had hope now.

Somehow, then, I got loose, and I found myself opening a garage door to reveal a doe and fawn laying in hay on a wooden floor. A voice over my shoulder said, "We have to get them out so we can lock you in there."

Holy crap on a cracker. I wasn't free!

I think that's about when my husband woke me.

Dreams are weird. I don't have a problem with the Lord of the Rings imagery - anyone who reads my blog knows I'm obsessed a bit with that - but the rest of it? It was very Holocaust-like, the trudging on mounds of death.

I haven't watched or read anything about World War II recently, so I don't know where that imagery comes from. Maybe these comments I see comparing each presidential candidate to Hitler brought it up, or maybe it was Bill Maher's reference to gas chambers last night when we watched a rerun of his Friday show.

Perhaps that was enough to trigger such an intense and ghastly image in my head.

I have a couple of dream books, one of which I purchased for the fine price of 35 cents new, bought, I think, when I was about 10 years old. It's a little "pocket book" that I've kept on my desk all of these years.

It says, if you dream of dead people, it "denotes affliction and mental suffering."

If you dream of angels, it "indicates prosperity, peace, happiness, and sweet fellowship."

Those two are odds with one another, eh?

To dream of chains "tells that enemies are trying to harm you, but you will escape their meshes. Being confined in chains predicts severe trials from which you will be extricated in time."

To dream of deer "foretells quarrels and dissensions. In trade it denotes embarrassment and failure."

Well, okay then. Lots to look forward to.

Fortunately, I do not believe that dream books tell you anything. They are fun to look at and sometimes, if I am lucky, a line in a dream book might help me figure out what a dream means.

But generally my dreams are simply weird and terrifying.

My husband says tonight we will not eat salad, which is what we had for dinner last night. He has requested pork chops and mashed potatoes.

That, he believes, will give him - and me - a better night's sleep.

Left Its Seeds While I was Sleeping

My nights are busy nights. I haven't slept a full eight-hours in more than 18 months. I wake up after about four hours of sleep and take a pill, and then eventually my eyes close again.

But that's a new thing. The old thing is, as always, my nights are full of visions. I dream the dreams of everyone in the world, I think.

I dream crazy, silly little dreams where I roam the roads chasing after rabbits that turn into fairies that turn into mushrooms, leaving me standing in a field of flowers.

I dream shaming, morbidly fascinating dreams, where I turn up in the classroom without my pants on or my hair all messy. The teachers yell and the students laugh, and I flee, throwing my notes high into the air.

Sometimes I can't find my locker. Or my keys. Or the answer when I don't even know the question. Sometimes I run, breathing hard and fast. Usually I am younger, and in much better shape, which at least gives me a chance to get away.

Occasionally I have sleep paralysis, where my mind is awake but the rest of me isn't. I have also been known to walk in my sleep. After my father-in-law passed away, my husband found me asleep in our closet, going through his clothes. I told him I hadn't picked up his suit from the cleaners and he was going to need it.

He woke me up and I went back to bed.

The worst, though, are the bad dreams where I don't wake up. I have nightmares, but sometimes my dreams are beyond even those scary images. I dream in color, too, and the pictures in my mind are vivid and real.

Psychologists call those night terrors, and according to the Mayo Clinic, only a small percentage of adults have them (lucky me). My husband will wake up to find me screaming and shaking, tears rolling down my face. He shakes me until I wake up, disoriented and terrified. I seldom remember what the awful was, but it was obviously very, very bad.

For many years, I dreamed the same dream over and over. Darkness, a bathtub, blood. Screaming. A big hulking monster. Crows cawing in the background, ready to rip me apart because they weren't really crows, they were . . . something else. And the something else was so terrifying, so inexplicable, that to turn the knob on the door was akin to . . .

Well, you know, perhaps. Many people have nightmares. Not everyone has night terrors, but most folks can appreciate the drama that the brain can create in the dark.

Strange dreams seem to run in my family:

On a cold December night in 1975, my grandmother dreamed that Jesus came to her. She was in a beautiful apple tree grove, and the Lord came to her and took off her wedding ring. "You won't be needing this anymore," Jesus told her, and he walked away.

My grandfather died of a heart attack a few days later.

Doesn't that give you chills?

My dreams have not foretold any events large or small, at least, not that I recall. Instead they reflect the mish-mash that is my mind, the things I read, see, or hear. The past looms large in there, I think, though not as much as it once did. Childhood fantasies have given way to more mundane worries, such as health concerns and paying bills.

The last few mornings I have awakened with my cheeks wet, my eyes overflowing, like founts of dew spilling out to greet the morning. I do not remember what I was dreaming of. I have no idea why I'm crying. But I lie there spent and tense, as if I've already lived a day that has not yet begun.

The seeds of my night seem to be planted very deeply, indeed.

Wedding Gowns and Zombies

Last night I dreamed that I was young again. I was getting married! There was much ado and fuss about my wedding gown, I remember. And then we had the nuptials, which were not the nuptials of my memory but rather some sort of fanciful affair. My husband looked so young and strong, though! And handsome.

After we married, we left and went to a cabin by a lake for our honeymoon. The lake had an island in the middle of it. During the night, there was a massive shaking of earth and multiple explosions! The power went down by half; there were emergency lights on only. We couldn't get water from the well.

We found a battery-powered radio and it said the world was in chaos; there were zombies! I looked outside to see fire raining down from the sky. I saw something huge and red and realized that there was fire racing through the tree tops on the far side of the lake.

Embers flew through the air and landed on the island, which was only separated from the cabin by a small ankle-deep eddy, and I raced out in my wedding gown to cover burning embers with dirt. James grabbed a bucket and began drawing water from the lake to keep the flames from burning down the cabin.

And that's when I woke up.

It's an odd dream to have had on the morning we wake to find that a meteorite has terrorized a community in Russia, eh?

I suspect the wedding gown came from Valentine's Day, the zombies from a book I am reading. I hadn't thought much about the asteroid that is approaching earth today, but perhaps my subconscious registered it.

Dreaming

Last night I dreamed a friend chased me out of her life. I woke up distressed and wondering what I had done wrong. This friend and I are not arguing or fighting so I am not sure where this came from.

Earlier this today, just before lunch, I fell into a kind of stupor while I sat the computer. I think I began dreaming almost as soon as my eyes closed, though I am not sure I was asleep.

My daydream went something like this:

I had been missing from the Hollins campus for several years - a very long time. But I am making a return - a triumphant one. I am svelte and small, not a big lump flopping along like I am now. I have on an assembly of stylish but artistically ecclectic clothing (not sure exactly what that looks like, but it isn't Alfred Dunner brand). My hair is perfect.

I am breathing regularly, not asthmatically. I have a healthy glow about me. I am fit and full of energy. I am not old, my hair does not have gray in it. My face is not wrinkled.

I am also the author of three - count 'em! - three books.

The campus embraces me with open arms. "You look so different!" gasps one of my old professors as she hugs me. People begin cheering me. Someone slaps me on the back.

I stop the dream.

I opened my eyes to stare at the blinking cursor in my word processing program. The words are tepid, silly, unworthy.

I hit delete, and they are gone.

It is Kindness, Not Hate, that Elevates

So last night the aliens came to me.

I knew they were there. I was with several other people, and we knew there was a problem. We began searching for signs and resolutions.

Someone was anxious, and I gave her a teddy bear.

The aliens came to me, looking not fierce and ominous, but friendly and angelic. Their bodies were faint, but there was a glow all about their faces. They had silver around their hair. I grew calm in their presence.

Because my acupuncturist used a pillow beneath my arm when she was gave me a treatment, and because I gave a girl a teddy bear, and because of thousands of other small kindnesses they had observed on this night, there was hope for mankind, the alien said.

It is kindness, not hate, that elevates.

They will be watching.

Yes, it was a dream.

But great things start with a vivid imagination.

So this morning I imagine a world of love, one where we are all kind to one another. One where we set aside our differences and embrace each other as friends.

It is kindness, not hate, that elevates.

Namaste. I bow to you, my friend.

Bears and Elephants - This is a Dream

I saw the bear, standing on its hind legs, from a distance, and then it dropped to all fours and scrambled over the green grass along the ridge of the farm. I chased after it with my camera. I ran on foot, stopping every now and then to take a picture.

It was a small black bear, a cub. I did not see its mother. I kept running after it. It was hard to breathe!

The bear stopped, and I did too. Suddenly from around the tree came two baby elephants - and they were white! They lifted up their trunks and blew at me.

I turned around and the bear was coming toward me! But just as it reached me, it turned into an elephant, too, and it reached out with its trunk, and kissed me!

That was a very vivid dream. Yes, it was in color. My dreams are always in color.

I woke up feeling my cheek for the elephant kiss, but nothing was there.

I have on my desk a very small paperback book called The Book of Dreams: a guide to the mystic meaning of your dreams. On the front it also says abridged from Zadkiel's Book of Dreams and Fortune Telling, and it marked with a price of 35 cents. It is a Dell Purse Book and its copyright is 1972. I rather think I have probably had it that long, which means I bought it when I was nine years old.

According to my little guide, "If you dream of seeing a bear, expect great vexations, and that some enemy will injure you. If you travel, you will meet with hardships, but the journey's end and intent will be safely accomplished."

But, if you dream of elephants, this "signifies luck, health, strength, and association with respectable society."

Grass also denotes prosperity.

So I would say that, according to this dream and the book's, whatever the vexation, I will overcome the problem.

Now, Zolar's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams gives a different interpretation.

According to this book, seeing a bear cub means "a friendly hint will be given" or that there will be "great competition in every pursuit." That I saw the cub standing for a time means "insecurities toward your mother."

Seeing an elephant means I "will enjoy much independence and influential connections" and since there was more than one, my "remarkable memory will lead your prosperity."

The bear was black, and a black animal means "transformation of unconscious drives." The elephants were white, and seeing white means I will "erase all previous problems and begin again."

And then there's The Dreamer's Dictionary, by Lady Stearn Robinson, et al, which tells me:

"To see wild animals in your dream is generally a good omen pertaining to business, but the interpretation depends on their attitude; if they were calm, your affairs will prosper, but if they attacked you you can expect some reverses."

The elephant means "an omen of great good luck."

Apparently I'm in for an interesting time of it, eh?

Thesis Dreams

I dreamed about my thesis last night. Or rather, about not writing my thesis.

For those who may not know, I have to write a thesis in order to obtain my masters of arts in liberal studies degree at Hollins University. It is the last thing I have to do. It must be at least 50 pages long and it must be completed in March.

It has been haunting me since I returned to school in February. So it is no wonder that now I dream about it.

In my dream, I visited someone named Mary Prophet, and she told me to go see Dr. Charles Fuller, the pastor at the chapel, because he would help me. (Local folks who have lived here for a while will recognize the name. A pastor at one of the churches in downtown Roanoke had that name; he used to do God's Minute or something like that on the radio. I have no idea why the name came to me in this dream.)

For the longest time I wandered around the Hollins campus trying to find the chapel, and along the way I realized the problem wasn't that I couldn't write, but that I was fearful of writing things that would bother other people, like if I wrote about something terrible I did as a teenager it would tip off my mother that I had done that bad thing, or what-have-you, and as I pondered this new revelation, I finally found the chapel.

A big burly man stopped me and asked me if I had an appointment to see Dr. Fuller. I said no, but Mary Prophet sent me. He bade me sit in the entryway on a very hard bench, and he disappeared and then came back. I told him he looked like a Gestapo policeman, and he folded his arms and said, "Hmmph."

Then a very small man tossing flowers behind his back came in, and the Gestapo man nodded and said there he is. And I was surprised because Dr. Fuller was absolutely crazy; he was like a nice version of Gollum (from Lord of the Rings), with a bit of Yoda (from Star Wars)thrown in for good measure, and he talked about his daffodils. A small child was also with him, a young boy about 9. The man prodded me forward, and Dr. Fuller looked at me expectantly, and I finally told him I was having trouble with my thesis.

"Smell the flowers!" Dr. Fuller cried, and he ran away. The small boy took my hand and led me toward the gate.

"Why doesn't anyone know about this? This isn't right," I asked the boy as he led me away. I was distressed that this man who was supposed to be helping me and other people was, for all intents and purposes, a lunatic.

"We have to keep our secrets," he said.

"But this isn't a good secret," I cried. "This hurts people."

And the boy nodded, shut the gate behind me, and I stood facing a daffodil-covered meadow at the edge of a forest.

The Perfectionist Nightmare

All of my life I have had recurring nightmares.

Some have been with me for years. When I was a child and up into my teens, I was haunted a dark dream of a garden with a black scarecrow.

Another dream was of a bathtub full of blood. It followed me around for years.

Lately, the dream has been one of passages. Dark and narrow passages, like those in a cave, perhaps, and in order to move forward you have to push the rights or turn the right lever. A false move means certain doom.

The dream returned last night. I was in the throes of it when my husband shook me awake. "There's no button," he was saying. "There's no passageway, either."

I struggled from sleep, trying to make sense of what was happening. My body was rigid and tears dripped from my eyes. I was shaking, and I had to get up and walk around. It took me over an hour to relax enough to even think about sleep.

"You shouldn't eat those mushrooms," my husband murmured as I tossed and turned. I had put mushrooms in the meatloaf we'd had for dinner and he was blaming my dreams on them.

The dream for me, without looking up any dream interpretations, means that I am always trying so desperately hard "to get it right" that I can't find my way through. There are always buttons to push, hoops to jumps, tests to pass, before the end is in sight.

I like to do things correctly; I am a perfectionist in many ways and I battle this constantly. If I'm going to blog, dammit, then I'd better blog pretty much every day or what is the point? If I'm going to be a housewife, then by George I shall be the bestest housewife this side of the Mississippi! If I'm going to make fudge, it shall be the greatest fudge in the land! If I'm going to be a writer, then I'd better be the best ... well, we know where that is headed and astute readers will lay a finger aside their nose and go ah! This is why she struggles with that book.

Easier not to do it when one thinks anything less than the best is failure, I fear.

But back to my dreams.

One of my dream books says that dreaming of a "good path predicts success in love, trade and farming. If the path appears crooked in your dream, and filled occasionally with thorns, it shows disappointment and treacherous friends." This was a rocky and dangerous path in my dream, so I go with the latter.

Of the darkness in my dreams, this book says, "Dreaming you are lost in darkness and stumble denotes a change for the worst - by imprudence you will dreadfully commit yourself. If you emerge and see the sun, you will ultimately be happy."

I suspect my own interpretation is more apt in this case. Otherwise it looks like I am in for some really rough roads - murky and dangerous passageways - in the new year.