Analyze this....

So somewhere out there are people who still claim to be able to analyze dreams. I have read two books on the subject... OK, that's a half truth. I read parts of two books on the subject. I quit both times, because they were utter crap, at least where I was concerned. Not one of them had any mention or section on turning into a werewolf..... ort a 30 foot tall winged demon. Neither discussed the deep meaning of having lunch in a railcar-turned-diner filled with ghosts. At no point did they discuss being Angelina Jolie in a fantasy film about Luck Dragons and Chimera..... these are not excerpts from nightmares, by the way. These are just snippets of these unusual epic dreams I have. I get nightmares also, but they tend to run along the same lines. Two hour epics that might actually make great films, if they had more damn continuity.

This morning however I woke up from what has to rank among one of my oddest. Not because I was changing gender, or species, but because it actually had a structure.... if I had eaten some magic mushrooms and wandered around Wonderland, maybe....

It began with me meeting my friend Kimi at a huge mall, like Stanford Shopping Center. We were going to have drinks and lunch at this new trendy bar and grill. Sitting at the bar, I was fascinated by the behavior of the two waitresses. One of them seemed to be flashing customers randomly, both men and women; the other, a small blonde woman, was making the simple act of picking up empty drinks a twenty second seduction. I pointed this out to Kimi quietly, to have her watch as the blonde girl picked up an unwanted beer from my friend Elayne, who was suddenly there as well. As the waitress reached for the beer, she slowly slipped two fingers inside the glass, then made a little gasp as if surprised. Looking right at Elayne, she then put both fingers in her mouth to lick the beer off.

She took the glass and twirled away, walking back in my direction, smiling at me and winking. As she passed behind me she looked over her shoulder; then she poured the rest of the glass (quite a lot, actually) over my head. I sat there in my favorite suit, a tailored black silk one (yes, I own suits. Yes, one of them is tailored black silk from Japan.) Several people were making comments and waiting to see what I would do. For a moment I made jokes about beer being good for hair, and how nice it was to smell like yeast; then I got up and confronted the blonde girl. To my annoyance she not only had no reason for dousing me, but was angry at me for being upset by being wet and reeking of beer. When I demanded to speak to the owner or the manager she actually called me a stuffy fuck.

I moved to the back of the place, which looked more like a corporate lobby. The secretary seated there rushed about (secretary??), brought me a business card for the owner, and brought over an assistant Customer Support person... in a BAR? Meanwhile the crazy waitress was continuing to yell at me. Kimi was watching in shock, and Elayne looked more and more concerned as I visibly lost my slightly amused detachment at the incident and got angrier and angrier. What began as "I want my suit cleaned and an apology" was now "I want my suit cleaned, an apology, my hair washed and combed, a free meal, and you fired" because the waitress wouldn't shut up. I finally had enough, and as I left the waitress got right in my face. I looked at her and said "What exactly do you think you are doing?" She punched me in the mouth three times. Fairly hard. Hard enough, in fact, to knock out a tooth or two and chip some more.

Everyone froze in place as I picked out the bits of teeth and looked at them. With a now rather lop-sided grin I said "Thanks. I think you pretty much just gave me half ownership of the place on a platter." The Customer Service girl and the secretary grabbed the soon to be fired waitress and tossed her on the ground, as Kimi and I walked out. Elayne was either still inside, or had left already.

Kimi was walking out to my car with me, asking if I was OK and apologizing for choosing the place, as I put my bits of teeth in a pocket and poked about at the now vacant areas of my gums. It ached, and I had a fat lip, but nowhere near the amount of pain one might associate with broken teeth... and I was back to amused.

That is until we got to the far side of the parking structure. I was parked on the third tier, near an edge, and for some reason a helicopter had landed half way on the railing, getting the landing struts caught in the side rail and pulling it free. Below on the ground (about fifty feet) was some weird sort of flatbed/crane combo, hooked to the helicopter. Just sitting there, no one operating it, like the driver had said "Oops, lunch break. Back in 30 minutes!" and walked off. Sigh. Union Journeymen....

Naturally I had to take a closer look and see if this was being done correctly. Kimi was fascinated, and announced "I've never gotten to be in a helicopter before!" She scrambled over the broken concrete and the rail, and hopped inside the pilot area of the helicopter. Umm, yeah. Right. OK then.... "Kimi! What the hell are you doing?" She laughed and said "Oh ni-san, you always do things like this.." then yelled as the whole thing slid off and tilted forward, almost dumping her to the ground still some forty feet below her.

A crowd assembled instantly to "ooh" and "ahh" as I looked around for a way to get her out. As I leaned over the railing two men walked up to the... tow truck? ... whatever.... then began to rock it violently. One of them was Dr. Martin Luther King. No one seems at all surprised to see him there. I raced down some magically convenient stairs, just in time to see that the rocking has caused the helicopter to tip slowly forward and down, and dropped Kimi a much safer six to eight feet. Into a shrubbery arrangement that surrounds a small cemetery for victims of AIDS. I helped Kimi up as she brushed off her clothes, and Dr. King nodded solemnly to me and walked off.

We left in separate cars, but went to my house (my actual one) in order to clean up. Kimi seemed to be very flustered, while I am only damp and slightly embarrassed over the condition of the house. It's not dirty, but it was absurdly cluttered in the back. This was because I was not only sleeping in one room (my real bedroom) next to my home office (also real), I was using them for temporary storage to help some friends.

More specifically, the costume departments for TheatreWorks and Wilcox Stage Company. The office was filled around three walls with an assortment of small boxes, all over-packed with shoes, shirts, dresses, belts... my room was a bit less cluttered, but I had been in the process of emptying and sorting two boxes, the contents of which are lying on my bed, my armchair, the TV.... and around the walls are numerous hats hanging alongside my own. Teanca's witch hat from "Maskerade" hangs alongside my RenFaire hat; Emily's was hanging on the peg with my Mardi Gras hat. On a number of new pegs (hey, where did my dresser go???) are hats from "Suessical the Musical" including a big Cat in the Hat hat.

I was trying to do two things at once. Get my wet suit off, and straighten my room. Neither was really going very well. In the midst of adding a third task, putting dry clothes on, there was a knock at the door followed by someone opening it into me. Two women were there, bowing and apologizing and trying to come in, to give me my compensation for the earlier soaking and punches. In my haste I pulled on a rather bizarre smoking jacket instead of my robe, and the damn thing wouldn't close in front. I eventually gave up on holding the door while trying to dress and clean, and the women came all the way in, trailed by my brother and Kimi.

They seemed fascinated by all the clutter, and kept trying to pick things up and look at them as I explained why I had them. They are like small monkeys or little kids; as soon as I got one thing away, they picked up another. I was not really annoyed, just... puzzled and frustrated. Then I heard a whole lot of barking and yowling from the front of the house. These two women had also brought in their dogs, all of whom seemed to know me and love me. The problem was that there are about five of them, all fairly large... and our cat was freaking out, even though the dogs were paying her no attention.

The dogs were now fawning all over me, and I was petting them and trying to calm them all down. I'd given up on the robe completely, and only had on a t-shirt, underwear... and socks. Socks? I took time to put socks on? The cat was now outside, and seeing me petting other things had infuriated her. She was howling and scratching the sliding glass door, when a large squirrel ran up next to her. It was carrying a tiny rectangle of paper on which someone (probably not the squirrel, but who knows?) had written "Help Me!" The squirrel waved the paper frantically, rather like it was taped to its paw, then struck a weird pointing pose while standing on its back legs. The cat yowled at the squirrel, the squirrel darted away, and Kimi and my brother started shooing the dogs out.

This gave the two nutty ladies a chance to make a formal presentation to me of the settlement being offered; a $300,000.00 check... and a gift certificate for a free dinner and drinks for two. I didn't really have time to mull over the absurdity of this, as I had a cat to deal with. She was now hiding in the garden and I had to partially dig her out from under my Artichokes. Kimi had now vanished, because the women discovered she is wearing a garter belt with no underwear, and kept pulling her skirt up to try and get a look and some pictures. Apparently this might have made them revoke the gift certificate, as Kimi's racy lingerie was possibly what sparked the beer dunking. What?

My brother was now fully engaged with shoving them and the dogs out the front door, where a news team had gathered to interview us all. I managed to recover the bathrobe, primarily to protect myself from the still angry and struggling cat I was now carrying. I stood in the front door and watched as my brother chased off dogs, women, news teams and the squirrel by swinging our marble topped coffee table at them like a giant swatter.

I woke up from that at six thirty this morning. After a few moments of sitting there in baffled thought, I got up. No way was I going to try going back to sleep. I might have found myself actually using the gift certificate.

Meaning? to that dream? I don't think so. Oh, sure, you can say it's an expression of stress and frustration, or uncertainty... but you might also just as well say that dreaming about a rooster means I am dreaming about success. It could also mean I am worried about being dinner, don't you think? Analyze THAT Sigmund...