Dream Log: February 8, 2001

I think it's all mixed in my head now, but I'll give it a try:

I mostly remember sitting around a table, doing software engineering problems (mmm... I did the exam about a week ago, in fact, I believe I was doing exercises from it), and one of my most hated teachers (which we often compare to Clint Eastwood's character in Heartbreak Ridge (we had a 'swede' in class)), which has nothing to do with the department which teaches that (she does Architectures and that stuff), was correcting us.

It was fun, because I think it was a nightmare, combining as it did two things I hate, but I don't know...

I was in Hawaii at the beach with thousands of other people, mostly kids, and my two sons, (in yet another dream where they were much younger than they are in real life). We rented these small surfboards that had a big umbrella attached to them. Everyone would hitch a ride on a special boat while riding them, and then when we got to the outer island, let go and ride the surf back in.

I was wearing clothes over my bathing suit. I didn't want anyone to see my body. I felt old and fat. I decided after I got to the island, that I didn't care anymore, so I took off my wet clothes and took an inordinate amount of time putting them and other objects into a package. The boys left; everyone left. I was alone and my umbrella was broken. An old lady tried to help me out, and I ended up with another umbrella, but again, I had that awful feeling of being alone and friendless, and having to pretend it didn't matter, both inside and outside, and that it was okay.

Half of the fun part of doing things is doing them with other people, after all. I paddled off into the waves, trying to enjoy the beauty of the islands and the ocean, and ignoring the feeling of being alone and isolated.

I'm watching this basketball game with my friend, who is a dutchess, and the ball comes flying into the stands. I catch it and take a bite out of it. It tastes good, like a juicy apple. I throw it back into the court, and the play continues. Unfortunately, the wrong team scores thanks to me.

Now I'm doing a favor for a colleague. She has asked me to take her skunk to the library. She would do it herself, but she is afraid of the doomsday prophecies.

I am in a classroom with a dozen other people. The teacher, who is female and seems very nice, takes only a few of us into another room, more like a lab. There are several surfing posters pinned on one wall above a counter, and they're all from my 7th-grade yearbook. That particular yearbook (as well as high school, to an extent) was actually heavy on surfing and beach shots of a certain crowd, and my dream made it clear that these classroom posters were the same - but they were different.

anyway....

After one of my peers and the teacher had a brief conversation about a place in Thailand, a short, balding, bespectacled man came in and showed us how to use the steam valves. That was when I noticed pictures on the wall with me in them. The hell? One was of me mid-jump, on the beach, age nine, wearing what I had on for my ninth birthday. The caption was something about me being a new age semaphore. I didn't understand then, and I really don't understand now.

I was also in a group shot of about five teenagers, again in mid-jump on the beach, but I was 19 and wearing shorts almost to my knees, a plain shirt, and belt. One of the girls had a drawing of a monster mouth taped to her mouth - on her actual mouth, not the picture. Another girl's shirt exposed a crudely drawn tattoo of the Izod alligator southwest of her navel. According to the caption, I had my own business, named 'Coup Productions.'

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In what was probably another dream, I was home, in New York. I was to move that very night, but hadn't prepared, so I started going through my magazines. I kept a weathered Rolling Stone with Jack Nicholson on the cover (which I don't actually have). I guess that was all I needed in the world, because the dream pretty much ended right there.

I was late for school, and in line with a bunch of other people, waiting for the familiar yellow bus. There was some discussion about being late for a test because not everyone would fit on this bus^1,2. To my horror, I noticed that I was wearing shorts³, and rushed inside to change. As is not uncommon in real life, I spaced the real purpose for the trip, futzed around inside, and rejoined the end of the line mission unaccomplished. After being passed by a bus for jocks and cheerleaders⁴, I had a moment of panic about still being in shorts. My seatmate assured me that it was allowed.

Interpretation

¹ - At the RSNA conference in Chicago, my hotel was at the end of the shuttle loop, and I kept getting passed (waiting in the snow) by full bus after bus heading to the morning conferences.

² - I had an an inservice exam today which was pretty much totally insane: it asked 530 or so questions about stuff that I wasn't even expected to know for another 3 years. As it is used to normalize me with my peers, I still stressed out in a big way.

³ - Shorts were not allowed in my grade school years. Also, I brought mostly shorts on my 1991 European tour and felt like the big tourist dork that I was.

⁴ - standard misgivings about their special treatment apply