Dreams/Nightmares

Last night I dreamed that I was going to pull in some extra money by competing in beauty pageants. Yes, you read that right.

The pageants were audience-voting type of pageants and I'd run up from the audience and enter myself at the last minute. The crowds went wild!!! The audience always voted me as the winner and the MC would say to me, "I can't believe anyone would vote for you" while handing me the award. How RUDE!

I think the most funny part of this dream is that when I told friends and previous co-workers that I was actually winning these pageants, they'd require proof. How RUDE!

So, what's going on in your dreams lately?

So, y'all know that I do some really wacky stuff in my sleep when I'm under stress. The past few days have been no exception. My poor husband has spent his precious sleeping time calming me down, tracking me down or sometimes just watching the entertainment.

I've been particularly active and loud the past two nights. BJ said that sometimes he just watches me and thinks, "is she awake? she has to be awake... no, she's asleep". Especially when I'm doing this:


I photoshopped my face in, just to crack myself up- but this truly is the pose I do in my sleep most of the night. Have I mentioned how sore my elbows are lately?

If I'm not 'watching pretend tv', I'm sitting straight up in the middle of the bed. Or, I'm using my mini laptop. BJ said that on Friday night, he woke up to find me staring at the start page (the desktop) on my computer. When he asked me if I wanted to turn it off, I told him that I didn't know how.

Last night, BJ found me downstairs "watching" some religious programming. I don't remember a bit of this. Gee, I hope I didn't call and donate a bunch of money.

It's always kind of interesting to hear from BJ the stuff I was doing the night before. If he were a mean guy, he could really mess with my mind and tell me I'm doing some really outrageous stuff. "Honey, you made a mess and didn't clean it up" (ha! I'd be so on to him because I'd NEVER do that!)

I hope that once this week is over and all of the "what's going to happen" questions are answered, all of this nocturnal stuff will stop. I'm pooped and BJ is pooped.

• If you'll recall, I wrote a couple days ago about forgetting to turn my oven on. Turns out, I didn't forget at all. My oven is on the fritz. I turn it on and as soon as it's at the correct temperature, it turns itself off. Good and bad timing. Good, in that this didn't happen the week of Thanksgiving, right? Bad in that it happened the week when I wanted to play 50's housewife and treat BJ to some nice home-cooked comfort foods. He's going through a really rough patch at work and I wanted to treat him even better than I usually do (trust, me the man knows he's appreciated and loved every single day of the week!) So, all of these 'need the oven' recipes are put on the back burner (so to speak) until tomorrow when the oven repair guy comes to save the day.



• Oh, and my beloved espresso maker? NOT on the fritz. Turns out she (yes, it's a female- I know this because it is really good at doing many things at one time) didn't like ground coffee. That's something we have in common. As soon as I remembered to buy my precious whole beans, she was right as rain. Phew!



• Still no confirmed word on the job front. Two more weeks and I'll know for sure. One thing that I keep reliving in my head is one of the people from the acquiring company saying to me after my 'interview', "You're someone that I'll never forget". I'm pretty sure a lot of people can say that (maybe good, maybe bad.) Reminds me of a quote I had on my whiteboard for a while- "We never touch someone so lightly that we do not leave a trace."~Ruth Gossen. I hope that I always leave a good footprint wherever I go, if not memorable.
  
  Many of my friends at work HAVE found out their job disposition and it's made for some very sad announcements. Whole departments getting cut at once and being told that they're being given a 60-day notice, but don't bother coming back tomorrow. I think that's really smart of the acquiring company because really, how many people are going to keep their head in the game as they tick down the days? Where will all of these people go? It just boggles my mind, and more so- makes me sad to think about it.
  
  I'm starting to receive email from people that I've worked with in the past, letting me know that they want to work with me (or me for them) again, but they're currently having hiring freezes. That's comforting to me, actually, because I'm not ready to leave yet. Maybe by the time I *am* ready to leave (or shall we say booted out), the hiring freezes will be over and all will be right as rain.
  
  At some point I'm going to have to figure out what I want to do "when I grow up". I've decided to not even give it too much thought until all the cards are on the table. There are SO many ways this thing could go with me. I'm just thankful that I don't have to compete for a job against the people I've worked with over the years. I've had the opportunity to work with many stellar people in my career here. I wouldn't want to even think about competing against any one of them.



• I'm starting to have some weird dreams about the outcome of the imaging I'm having done on Friday. I'd like those dreams to go away, thankyouverymuch. I have enough on my mind without worrying about the outcome of this test. I think it's reading the words "high risk" from my doctor on the order that is kind of freaking me out- to tell the truth. I'm REALLY good about putting stuff away in a little box to worry about later. Unfortunately, that little box is alive and well in my dreams. I really wish I'd start worrying about George Clooney or Hugh Laurie. I wonder if I can place an order for that sort of thing in dreamworld? I'll give it a whirl and let you know.

Two nights in a row, I've had HORRIBLE nightmares. In fact, last night's nightmare was a continuation of the nightmare I had the night before. Now really, who does that? Wanna be grossed out? Sure you do.

Tuesday night I dreamed that I went outside to do some yard work and came across a big hole. Looked to be about 1.5 feet wide, so I went to investigate. Inside I found (yech) live rats and live snakes and puppies and kittens. Some dead, some alive. There was blood and slime everywhere. I wanted so badly to save the puppies and kittens but the rats had big teeth and the snakes were rattlesnakes. I decided to just bury all of it, so shoveled dirt into the hole and cried.

Last night, I dreamed that my girls (Kathy and Jess) came for an overnighter- just us girls. I told them about the hole with the kittens, puppies, snakes and rats and they wanted to see. So, we went out to my garden, and there was that huge hole again with the same stuff as I'd dreamed the night before. The dream went a little further and even more disturbing when this little kid (not related) came running into the room where we were watching movies (SATC if you must know), and said, a cat had kittens in a frying pan on top of your stove. We wanted to wait to go look until after the movie so it was a good 1/2 hour or so. Unfortunately, the kid decided to turn on the stove to keep the kittens warm and by the time I found them, they were all dead.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what these dreams mean. To me, it's just my mind working through all the things I like 'dying' around me. Maybe now that I've written it all down, the gory dreams will stop.

On one hand, I'm glad I was blessed with imagination and creativity; however I think this same blessing is a curse because that imagination and creativity does not end when I go to sleep.

Welcome to my circus. Or should I say funeral home?

Whoa, last night was CaRaZy dream night. I didn't have dinner, so we can't blame it on that. The only thing different is that I had grapefruit juice instead of grape koolaid to drink. Anyhoo- I'm sure you couldn't care less about that... let's get on to the dreams!

It all seemed like one big dream because they weaved in and out with similar pieces. In *most* of the dreams I was with my ex-husband and he was a drug addict (note- he is NOT a drug addict, and is in fact probably one of the healthiest health nuts on the planet). We were living with a bunch of other drug addicts in this weird drug addict resortish town. It was kind of like a mini drug addict vacation resort area. Since I wanted to make our marriage work, I became a drug addict too. I actually saw myself going to this weird dive bar and getting my 'stash' and I saw myself shooting up. Ick.

In the drug haze, I decided that it was time I become a singing legend. So, with the help of Barbra Streisand, I got an act together with some other strung out drug addicts and hit the road. I wore this horribly 80's outfit, which included a tutu and chucks.

My ex-husband decided that it was time to clean up his act and get a job, so got a job at a fast food restaurant (that had a bowling alley!). He worked for a couple of days and then it snowed horribly in this drug addict resort town. I watched as truck after truck jack-knife and slide off the roads. Cars were crashing everywhere, and my ex couldn't show up for work, so was fired. He ended up moving out of drug-addict town and I stayed because I had a good thing going with Barbra Streisand and all.

It ended with me finding one morning that I'd dyed my hair completely BLACK. Michael (my bro) was visiting at the time and told me that he could fix it. (yeah, he has mad skillz when putting together meat and cheese trays, but I'm not sure I'd trust him with my beloved hair). It was then, that BJ entered the dream. He took one look at my hair and said that I looked "hot" and I should keep it that way. He also loved the tutu and chucks.

I'm assuming that I gave up my druggie ways now that BJ was in the picture, and that's where it ended.

I woke up a little freaked that "what if I did dye my hair black in one of my weird sleep-walking incidents?" I had reason to worry, because yesterday I'd purchased dark brown hair dye to touch up my bangs this weekend and I wouldn't put it past me to dye my hair in my sleep. I've done plenty of other weird things.

So the first thing I did when I woke up was to run to the mirror.

All is safe and secure. My hair is still blond, and I haven't become a drug addict.

(shooting up? What's up with THAT? ... not to mention Barbra Streisand...)

Thank you, and enjoy your day.