Dream Interpretation

I dreamed I went to school with Mr. Feeny. Yes, Mr. Feeny, the teacher from Boy Meets World.

Let's start from where I remember: for some reason I'm married, and I'm cleaning the house. It's a nice house, at least two stories, very spacious. All it has in it is the hand-me-down stuff I currently own and tons of my stuff shoved against the walls in piles, but I'm trying to clean those up before Mr. Feeny arrives.

When he shows up, I've done a decent job and I'm dressed nicely, except for the towel I've still got my freshly-washed hair wrapped up in. Don't ask how I managed to get dressed without noticing that. So we get ready to go to school together, which we've apparently done before, and we're all buddy-buddy as we walk out the back door.

Instead of a lawn, however, there's a busy street and a train going past where my house just was. There's also a guy chasing a fluffy white dog along next to the tracks, and I'm worried one of them is going to get run over. Then the dog changes into a little blonde girl, and so now he's chasing his daughter next to the tracks, and I'm even more worried. I want nothing to do with this. Then the little girl turns into a preteen boy who is walking along the edge of the street instead of using the sidewalk. That's a little less terrifying.

Anyway, Mr. Feeny is trying to hail a police officer. If we can get a ride to school from the police, he saves gas and time because he doesn't have to find a place to park. After a few minutes of this, I point out that it could take a while to do so, and that my car is parked along the edge of the street. I tell him I'll drop him off and he can run to class, and then if he'll just let my tardy slide... An attack of conscience quickly follows that request. How can I ask him not to count me tardy when I would be? In real life I'd have been all about getting that free tardy, but in the dream it offended my moral sensibilities. Go figure.

No clue what else would have happened there, since my alarm woke me up, but I did have another dream as well. I had waken up and was visiting family in a nearby town, keeping in mind at the time that my daughter was at school for the day instead of home sick like she has (in real life) been for the past couple days. I run some errands, and just when something incredibly important comes up, I realize that, as it's the last day before the holiday break, her school gets out at 1:30. (This is actually true. I often have dreams set in the day that will come when I wake up. I guess it lends more realism to the misery about to follow).

I panic. I tell my dad that no, I can't help my sister, I have to go now because my daughter has just gotten off school and the bus will be bringing her home in an hour. It's an hour's drive. I take off, and through traffic and road construction I make my way home, long after the bus should have shown up. I imagine that she's gone home and panicked because no one's there to let her in and the police have been called and I'll end up in prison for leaving a child at home alone. Then I realize that I didn't send her to school at all, and that she was asleep when I left. This gets me out of prison, but how much of a panic must she be to have waken up alone? She must be starving from not having been fed! In what horrible state will I find her?

The answer: Sitting on the couch reading a comic book. (She's been doing this a lot lately.) She's fine, though she wondered where I was, and she's hungry. Could I make her a bagel? I do so, in echoes of this morning, when she came in the living room, sat down with a comic book, and asked for a bagel. That dream is going to torment me all day.

So apparently I want to send her to school instead of staying home again for illness, and I'm feeling guilty about not going to school myself. And I want Mr. Feeny to come bully me into shape or something. I don't know, I totally made that up.

If it's too loud, you're too old.

The neighbors below me have knocking issues, but at least those are during the day. I can't really fault the neighbors next to me for getting up and showering for their day(night) around the time I'm going to bed, but there's something not quite right about the people behind me and their nighttime parties.

It's almost 1 a.m. and they got started maybe half an hour ago. I should have been in bed already, but there was epic shit happening on the internet and I got distracted.

I've tried to wait it out before, but about 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning I usually give up. They have music blasting, people walking around outside who usually end up yelling at each other, and all I can think is, at the other university housing place, Public Safety would have shut them down by now. There are quiet hours, and there are quiet hours in the dorms, too.

*looks up at the title of this post*

Yeah, yeah, I'm too old, what of it? This is family housing, which means that there are adult college students here, at least several of which have kids in second grade and younger. Do they sleep? Do they study? Are there quiet hours here, or am I saving $200/semester to stay up two hours later at night? Admittedly, there's a lot less house to clean when you're in an apartment this small, so it's not all bad.

ZZZzzz... *snorts self awake and looks bleary-eyed around the page*

My bedroom is closer to the noise... I'm putting it off... I'm thinking about napping again. Naps are very nice. I have things to do, though. I need to get my portfolio online so I can get a job, since pursuing a Masters in Marketing isn't working out. Not that I'm lazy or I'm not smart enough, but Marketing isn't my thing. I thought I could force it since my school doesn't offer the degree I want (in fact, no school in the state does), but no. Cannot take my art degree and add math. Accounting has pwned me twice now.

I was going to write about awkward one-armed hugs and the possibility that a friend outed my online persona to my family, but I think I'll go attempt sleep instead. I'll turn on my waves-noise-thing-app especially loud and retire to my imaginary beach house. Maybe my friends are still having a bonfire celebration on my private beach, and I retired with a certain musician, worn out from the festivities.

I got the idea from my uncle, and yes, I know I'm rambling when I should have just stopped. He's one of those lucky few who falls asleep the second his head hits the pillow, because "I'm in my hot tub." The app that makes the waves-noises is better than a little hot tub. I have the Pacific Ocean, baby. I've had trouble falling asleep since I was a kid, and since I started the white noise and hanging out by the beach every night, I've been out in less than half an hour. BOO. YAH.

Goodnight.

The Key Debacle

Part I

I have locked myself out of the house. You'll find once you've known me a while that things like this happen with striking regularity. I am Sod's Law embodied, absent-minded enough to miss things like the keys I keep by the door (so I can't forget them), yet focused enough to write a blog on my phone while walking to the student housing office and stopping, as appropriate, at all street corners and crosswalks to check for traffic.

Why not go find your RA? you may ask, since you apparently live somewhere on campus?

Ah, I reply. I don't live ON campus, not in a dorm, anyway. I live in school-owned apartments for non-traditional students. But we'll deal with that another time. Point is, no RA.

There's a Student Apartment Manager, but as I write, it's 8 a.m. and I'm not sure which apartment they live in. I suppose I could walk door-to-door, knocking and asking like I did during the summer, but somehow I doubt people will be very friendly and eager to help if I wake them from a sound sleep. I should probably have the S.A.M.'s number in my phone, but I don't, because I'm just that good.

I've done this before. The response is, Come to Student Housing and get a spare key. So I'm walking and I'm almost there, and at this point not only am I getting my month's worth of exercise, but I'm also determined to find a bloody place to hide my spare key outside, since the tape thing didn't work. Let me digress a moment.

I locked myself out of this very same apartment on Labor Day. This means that very few people were home as I walked through the stifling heat in sweats, a New Kids on the Block t-shirt, and flip-flops. I didn't find the S.A.M., but I did find someone who'd been a locksmith at some point, and after he failed to get my door open (the locks are sturdy here, nice to know, and cannot be fooled by credit cards), he called Public Safety for me.

Immediately upon getting into my house, I drank a ton of water. Then I got my spare key, went outside, and taped it somewhere so this would never happen again. Well, I live in the Midwest and tape doesn't like humidity. They key fell, and there was literally nowhere else I could hide it. My porch is slats of wood, so hiding it under a doormat (besides being the first place I'd look if I were going to burgle myself) would be a surefire way to lose the key entirely. And I'm not tall enough to reach the top of the door frame, so no putting it there. My spare key, therefore, might as well not have existed, and so I was fated to repeat history.

Part II

Did I mention that, aside from jeans and a winter coat (it's 52°F, but you know how it feels colder when you're sleepy), I'm wearing a fuzzy purple pajama top? Yep, fuzzy, purple, and very obviously pajamas. For those of you who haven't tried this, power-walking plus hardcore-new-plushie-flannel plus a coat equals sweat. 

It's a college campus at 8 a.m., everyone's in their pj's, take off your coat, you moron!

No.

I'm vain enough that bedhead is plenty. I can pretend that I have a really awesome, enviable mane of flowing locks, but the moment the coat comes off, I'd look like I was taking a Walk of Shame. I'd rather boil, because I hear enough about my imaginary sex life/preferences without adding fuel to the fire. I can see it now;

Oh my gooooosh, I haven't seen you in forever! What were you doing walking across campus half-dressed? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

See, I forgot my key in the...

Hahaha, riiiiiight.

No, seriously, I...

Mhm, just keep saying that.

Okay, fine, I was at some barely-18's dorm room, shagging them silly all night, and I sneaked out at dawn to creep home.

*eye roll* No, you weren't. And no, you didn't.

Uh-huh, and it was awesome because I'm an effing God in bed.

Nuh-uhhh.

Yeah-huh, and you wouldn't know anyway.

So why were you really walking around?

Grrrr! By the way, I have these imaginary conversations all the time, and no, it's not schizophrenic, though that's been suggested to me as well. Healthy imagination is a completely different animal. Apparently I have the most perfect reactions to being teased though, and it's soooo much fun. No matter how much I expect it, or how much I'm aware of it happening, I almost always take the bait. There are, of course, the odd occasions when I fight back.

So, since you're not gettin' any, me and your cousin thought we'd get you a gigolo for your birthday.

I'm saving myself for H~ (an out-of-state friend). We're in love, and you can't break us up.

*pauses, eying me like I just grew a second head, then turns to someone else for new convo*

Honestly, if you can't take it, don't dish it out, and yes, I see the irony in that. Hush, you.

Part III

I made it home and got into the apartment without a problem. I've been talking about making a blog for a while, and I guess I finally wrote something that entertained me enough to want to share it. Now I should be job-searching. While spell-checking the horror that was me typing all this on my phone as I walked, I got a phone call from the school reminding me that I owe them my soul, and they want it in monetary form now. I'm tired of school, but that's a story for another post.

I promise I'll figure out the formatting at some point so you can read these things, and here's to hoping your morning was better than mine, or at least that my adventure gave you a moment of schadenfreude. ;)