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Last night it was all about cruising. My family was there; others were there; it was a great big party. The ship was highly ornate in an over-the-top Vegas style. On our floor was a lounge with a guy dressed up as Louis XIV performing songs to piano accompaniment. One member of our party was so entranced that he missed the elevator the rest of us were on, only seeing us shoot by horizontally past him as apparently this was a multidirectional elevator.
Our ship was in port. I have no idea what port. Most European ports look pretty much the same — very industrial.
That elevator was taking us to the Lido deck at 4 a.m. to get something to eat. We figured no one would be around, and we were hungry after a late night. My ship card, which I apparently needed for securing food much like in a college cafeteria, had a mysterious title on it under my name, something like the Chief Dak of the Fifth Duck. I didn’t know what it meant in the dream any more than I do now.
On deck, we discovered that the buffet was already packed, with a huge line leading out the entryway. I looked up and saw a sign noting that registration for the eating contest was underway. We hesitated. We were hungry, but we didn’t want to wait in line, especially if that line led to registration for a food-shoveling event.
Luckily, we discovered an omelette station right next to the line’s end, with many prepared plates for the taking. I grabbed one with an omelette, potato pancakes, and a ball of sausage. I tried a couple bottles of ketchup and managed to get some on my plate. I requested some bacon from the cook behind the counter, as I always prefer it to sausage. Mmm, bacon.
Turns out my companions for the meal were John and Heidi of Carnival’s cruise-director blog fame. Heidi was tucking into an omelette meal herself, but John (as he is on a diet) only had two slices of whole-wheat bread and a whole lot of cut-up tomatoes in front of him. I commented on the number of tomatoes, and he woefully explained there wasn’t much else he could eat. At that point, the cook handed him some extremely blackened bacon, which had some special name I don’t recall that indicated it had been prepared in such a way as to render out most of the fat. I got my bacon too, though it was a lovely golden brown instead. It was still crispier than I make it for myself (I like it fully cooked by still a little chewy, which is why I often go for thick slices), looking bubbly on the outside as if it had been deep fried, but it was still lovely to have.
I was traveling, exploring an indeterminate tourist attraction. My family was with me, and as we were going through some stone passage (or possibly a cave), my dad and I were having a conversation about banks.
I kept encountering a man and a woman dressed like low-key clowns in red and yellow, who I recalled were part of the experience of the place and were a good thing to get a picture of. They seemed to know this, too, and always picked up on my camera being pointed their way to make large, hammy grins. This embarrassed me, and I would immediately point my camera slightly elsewhere as if I had been lining up a shot of something else all along. Once I even yelled at them, “Why do you keep doing that?!” as I framed my dad’s face quickly with the turned camera.
One of the clowns pulled me aside later and informed me that the reason they had caught my camera each time was because the two of them were keeping an eye on me. He informed me that I was in fact a secret agent. When I denied this, he told me to listen to some video, which seemed to be in Russian. He said I would understand it, and it seemed like I was on the verge of understanding what was going on but . . . the end.
I had to draw furnishings on chalkboard tiles to create the rooms that the characters in this dream would perform in. I did a great job drawing furniture, even pulling off a canopy bed by envisioning one for me to “trace” onto the tile. Still, for the life of me, I couldn’t draw any people. Nothing but distorted, mutated stick figures, which was unfortunate for them when they attempted to come to life.
In another dream, I was back in college and, several weeks into the first trimester, decided to go back to work at my work-study job, hoping that my tardy report to duty would be let go. I discovered we had a new boss in the office, and one who actually cracked the whip to get the place organized at that. She was pretty passive-aggressive in noting my absence up until that point (“You do know how to complete this according to our new policy we went over in orientation, right?” and so on). I got the impression she didn’t like me much.
The Archaeologist (with an Egypt specialty) will have a “sidekick,” a colleague (perhaps a grad student she’s mentoring) with an Indiana Jones complex. The sidekick insists on wearing the fedora a lot and is always looking for adventure, disappointed to be stuck mainly with grunt work archaeology. His/her courage bales a bit in the face of real danger, but he/she manages to stick it out and emerge cocky, Indy-like. Comic relief through silliness; serves to contrast with the heroine and show that she did NOT enter archaeology to be Indiana Jones.
Because I certainly do not intend to write the fifth movie in writing a story about a subject I’ve long enjoyed.
There’s a children’s book being written, about which Disney will be producing a movie or one of their TV series. They are casting for the roles of three children at the center of the story, who are writing their own book in the book. Disney has decided that they will choose either all girls or all boys.
A group of child actors has shown up for the audition, and they are upset at hearing that Disney only wants a quick tape of each one showing a few facial expressions. They argue with the casting people, especially a teenage blond girl who insists that Disney should give the actors the opportunity to show them why they have what it takes for the role. The casting directors do not agree.
The actors are herded into a classroom where they will be read the storybook. One character in the book is a man who is sensitive about being asked about the experience that made him famous, being a castaway, because he feels like that’s all that defines him anymore, but the child authors want to hear about it. The reader in the dream shifts between being that character in the beginning and being me.
The actors are unruly during the reading. Halfway through, the reader takes a break as one of the casting directors chooses to highlight and explain one bit of the story, telling the actors what they’re looking for here. Then the director realizes that the reader isn’t around — in fact, the reader has gone across the parking lot to get a drink. The director doesn’t realize this, though, figuring the reader is at the bathroom or something, and starts singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” to kill time. The reader somehow hears this and knows to come back. The director finishes the song, the actors mill about, and he consults with the other casting directors about where the reader went just as the reader walks in and heads straight for the front of the room again.
Now’s when the reader becomes more like a teacher disciplinarian. She yells for order, though her voice can barely be heard above the racket of chatting actors. When they do not come back to sit in a quiet and orderly way, she stops them, then demands they do it right over again, sitting as she calls them with hands folded and mouths quiet. She reminds them that the Disney people are watching and that they should be trying to impress them. Will the Disney people want to hire the actors if they see now that they can’t take direction?
The actors are a little too dramatic and self-centered performers, though, and while they might try to restrain themselves, most can’t manage it. Blond girl especially is still trying to protest through a hand in the air for a question when she should be ready to hear the reading, and one boy (reminiscent of an old students) can’t stop chatting, despite the looks of the Disney people reinforcing the reader.
After that, the dream starts to go crazy with actor kids running amok in a place reminiscent of Costco. I remember in particular one actor, the younger sister of the blond girl, using a copier on display to make hundreds of color copies of her head shot that she sent flying around the store.
I also dreamed a great deal of dangerous driving (these are the sort of frequent dreams that lead me to confuse dreams with memories and fuel my fears of car accidents stemming from difficult-to-control vehicles). There was a concert in one dream, I think featuring the Smashing Pumpkins. We left it halfway through to get drinks and snacks (maybe there was an intermission?) and had trouble getting back in — the people at the door insisted on seeing not just the tickets but also the stickers we had been given on the way in as proof that these were our tickets. I had left my sticker in the car, thinking it was unimportant, but a companion managed to come up with a second one so I could go in.
There was also some point in my dreams that involved going to a convenience store that offered a wide variety of Icees (Slurpees, to those of you who grew up in 7-Eleven territory). My little brother Zach was with me. He tried one mystery flavor, and I tried another. They were both pretty tasty, though I can’t remember now what the flavors turned out to be.
Overall, it was a seriously active night in my head.
