Category Archives: Dreams

I was teaching a class, and everything was going just fine, but then the department chair brought in a few parents. They were all tall, blonde women and they had some “important” role, like maybe they were presidents of the PTSO or something. So they came in and started taking over my class. Suddenly there was all this expensive new equipment, none of which had anything to do with my class — things like fancy exercise equipment and other stuff that looked like fancy exercise equipment but was actually just a different way to watch TV or get on the internet.

I was really angry with these women and I told them to get the hell out. I used some strong language. But they just laughed at me.

This enormous beast floated down from the heavens. It was about twice the size of a city bus, and it was a cross between a dog and a dragon. It was black and white, kinda like a holstein cow. I thought it was spectacular, but once it landed on the ground, it took off running, crushing everything in its path. It decimated a small village.

I was a member of something called a Press House. It was me, 3 guys, and about 6 or 7 girls. We were excited, because it was a good team. The guys were small but quick, and the girls were all star athlete types. We had to do things like put on charity fundraisers and compete in athletic events against other Press Houses — all in the name of vying to be the coolest Press House on campus. It was absurd and nothing like the real world.

Then the dream kinda went backwards, and I was driving to a college I had applied to for grad school. It was a small college in Iowa — Iowa, Wisconsin, that is — a two and a half hour drive from Madison. So I went there to check it out. There was one road into the campus, and I had to drive through a group of students playing kickball in the street. The buildings were all very old and they had a lot of character. I got out of my car near the pool and walked into the men’s bathroom. There were two women at the sink, but they were blind, so I used the urinal.

The dream gets kind of foggy from there. I was with the Press House and we were choosing field stones for a small veranda in the park and making rules about where students were allowed to make out.

Now that I’ve been trying to remember my dreams, I’ve actually had less success in doing so. I’ve been remembering tidbits — things like a minivan filled with mandarin oranges in water, or having to go to the bathroom really bad at school and peeing into a bucket of flour I kept in the back room. But I’ve been losing the overall plots pretty quickly cuz I get up and immediately start thinking about what I’m doing at school that day.

So here’s one of the all-time best.

I’m sitting at a picnic table across from a monk. He’s dressed in one of those brown Gregorian robes and he’s got the hood up, obscuring his face from view. I’m reading to him, and it becomes evident that, in fact, I’m tutoring him. Every once in a while, he’ll hold up a hand and repeat a word he doesn’t know the meaning of and I’ll explain it to him.

He’s slightly retarded, and he has a lisp.

So there I am, reading some book out loud, and I come across the word “cahoots,” which the monk doesn’t know. So he holds up his hand, and says, “Cahoot-th-s?” He pauses, lifts the hood from his face and says again, “Cahoot-th-s?”

And I’m a little stunned because I don’t fully know what cahoots means. So I say nothing.

And that’s it. I wake up, and I start laughing.

I’m standing at the deli counter and the grocery store is about to close. I’m the only one there and I’m patiently waiting for the deli woman to turn around and see me so I can ask for some ham. But before she does, this enormously obese woman walks up behind me and says, “I’ll take a pound of the white bean salad when you get a chance.”

I give the obese woman the evil eye, but she’s immune. She doesn’t look at me.

The deli worker doesn’t respond. She reaches in the deli case and pulls out the ham. Obese woman says, “I’ll take the rest of that ham, too.”

Now I’m pissed. So I say, “Can I get a half pound of ham?”

Obese woman looks at me like I’m the one who’s broken the rules.

The deli woman wordlessly cuts the ham, as a third woman approaches and says, “Ooh, you ain’t gonna throw that ham out, is you?”

I’m on the brink of walking away angrily as I watch the deli woman. She puts the ham in a container, weighs it, and gives it to me. “Anything else?” she says.

I’m surprised, and I say, “No.”

And she says, “Let me give you some advice. You need to be a little nicer. You ain’t gotta come in here with your pencil-whipped fancy pants and get all crusty.” (I have no idea what “pencil-whipped fancy pants” are).

I’m about to say that I was angry at the other customers, but I just leave it at “Okay,” and I walk away.