I had a dream two nights ago that I met George W. Bush at a cocktail party and he and I ended up in a corner and he kind of leaned on a banister and we were getting along okay, actually, which is pretty surprising, but then he made a comment about gay marriage and the bible and I got really angry and said, You know, you can turn evil just by STANDING next to a gay couple, plus they eat babies and veal and smell like rotten eggs...and he laughed and then sort of started seeing my point of view, which is that gay people are in fact PEOPLE and if they want to get married and have to deal with passive aggressive mother-in-laws and joint tax returns then I think that the government and the baby Jesus should both just smile and say Mazel Tov because the only person who can affect the sanctity of my marriage is my husband, who, if he knows what's good for him, will read that email I sent him about that thing and call that person and take care of that issue before I divorce him and then try to meet a nice lesbian who will maybe hopefully someday be able to marry me because frankly, I would rather eat pussy than swallow my husband's shit.
So I had this dream the other night...
After telling George Bush about my anger at the way gay people are treated, it was time to head over to the convention center (what convention center?) because he is the President and had to give a very important speech somewhere and we were walking and getting along really well again, and in my dream I made mental note to spread the word that George Bush is not an ass after all, it's just that he has bad PR, and it was kind of like the dream I had in which Ben Affleck and I totally fell in love but before falling in love we were friends and I remember my Dream Self telling my Subconscious But Real Self, that Hey, Ben Affleck isn't such a tool after all, you just have to get to know him. George Bush might be a lot like Ben Affleck, I thought in my dream.
Somewhere between the cocktail party (which was held at a loft that morphed into my grandmother's house) and the convention center, George Bush started to have difficulty walking; probably due to the MS my dream gave him which can be blamed on West Wing reruns for sure. So I now had to HELP George Bush along, trying to get him to the convention center and all the while thinking, George Bush isn't so bad after all, George Bush is just like Ben Affleck, and then we got to the convention center and it sort of occurred to me that the Secret Service really could have helped me drag the President to the convention center but I guess that since we were at a party they were just going to meet George Bush at the speech. Or something. We walked inside the convention center and George Bush was leaning on me now, and I realized that we were at the top of the bleachers and had to get all the way down to the floor, which involved a lot of stairs and still, no Secret Service was showing up to offer help. We made our way to the floor, and George Bush said thank you and I told him I enjoyed talking to him and I sat down with some friends and then the Secret Service showed up, and they were very, very rude and brusque and kind of mean and were especially concerned with a friend of mine who was reading a book about Greece, because apparently that is a sign of being a terrorist, so I had to explain that the book was just a travel guide and that it had just been laying on the table when she found it, and that she was my friend, not a terrorist and that she might be taking a perfectly innocent to Greece for all they knew. The Secret Service seemed satisfied and left us alone and then, before George Bush could give his speech, I woke up.
And shuddered and washed my mouth out with soap because HOW ON EARTH AM I HAVING DREAMS ABOUT GEORGE BUSH ESPECIALLY ONES IN WHICH I KINDA DIG HIM???
Of course, once I woke up I realized that if I ever cornered George Bush at a cocktail party the Secret Service - who probably aren't given the night off for social events - would have a serious security risk on hand because I am both clumsy and vocal and if you put cocktails in my hand there is no telling what I may do or say.
If I met his wife and/or daughters at a cocktail party, however, and had consumed enough liquor, there is a chance that I might corner her/them and start singing sorority rush songs because some things are bigger than politics and the ability to sing a rush song to the tune of Laura Brannigan�s �Gloria� might be one of those things. Sisterhood and all that crap.
Weird dream.
I like the dreams in which I open my closet and discover a forgotten wing of the closet and it is full of all the clothes I wanted to buy but never did, because somehow God knew that I really, really wanted that dress and those pants and even that bathing suit and my special, special closet has all those clothes in it, and my head spins with the possibility of all the outfits I can create with my magic closet full of forgotten clothes, although that is a sad dream from which to wake up. Also sad to wake up from are the dreams in which I can do cartwheels, or have shiny blonde hair. Once I dreamt that Jennifer Aniston and I became best gal pals and even though nothing really happened in that dream, I was just happy hanging out with her and it was kind of a bummer to wake up and realize that I can�t just call her up and say, Hey Jen, let�s take the dogs for a walk in Runyon Canyon�
If you asked me what, if any, recurring dreams I had I guess I�d tell you about the recurring Late And Unprepared motif, although those dreams haven�t been as bad lately. Before I was married I used to have dreams about forgetting to get married and showing up to the church late and without my dress, or late and with no time to put on any makeup. Sometimes I have dreams about my dog taking up all the space in the bed and the air conditioner making a lot of noise and then maybe I get really hot or really cold and then I wake up and it�s exactly the same as my dream and it�s like I get more tired from the meta-dreams than if I had just stayed awake the whole time.
I never used to have I�m Giving My Book Report And I�m Naked dreams, but I have on occasion dreamt that I was outside and Oops, I forgot a shirt. I�ve also had I Need To Yell But Have No Voice dreams and I Need To Run But Can�t Lift My Legs. Those dreams are awful.
I don�t think I�ve had a good night�s sleep in about seven years.
Yes, I�m exaggerating but not by much. We have a small bed. A �Full� bed, and by �Full� I mean FULL OF DOG AND HUSBAND. I have spent the last few years sleeping curled up in a ball on the edge of a saggy mattress while my husband sprawls on his back with one arm over his head and one arm over MY head. Then we added a dog. I am a light sleeper, a very light sleeper. When the newspaper delivery person drops the Wall Street Journal at our neighbor�s across the street, I wake up. When an ambulance pulls into the ambulance bay at the hospital three blocks away I wake up. When my husband snores, loudly, every single night for at least an hour, I WAKE UP. And the bed is small and crowded and saggy and my neck hurts all the time and when I got to hotels I want to weep it feels so good to actually have my whole body on the bed, all limbs at the same time. So we went mattress shopping a few weekends ago.
I almost applied for a job at Sleepy�s because I kept thinking how nice it would be to have all those lovely mattresses available, all the time. I wanted to cry when I lay on the special NASA foam mattress, and I wanted to spoon the saleslady when I lay on the 820-coil-firm-but-covered-with-a-cloud mattress. Everything I laid on felt like heaven. My husband, however, walked around the showroom pressing on mattresses with his left hand and nodding. Babe, do you want to lay down with me? I would ask him, and he�d give me a meaningful stare and tensely shake his head while I squinted up at him and kicked off my shoes. Apparently he is uncomfortable LAYING on things in public, even things whose sole purpose is to be laid upon, things that we are going to pay more than a thousand dollars for and things about which we have opposite views. I am a firm-firmer-FIRMEST person and Kent would sleep in a dumpster full of cotton balls if he could. I knew that he would not be happy with my top choice of mattress, which felt not unlike a few sacks of rice on a concrete floor and was divine, according to my back and neck. I found a mattress that was soft yet firm, kind of like Mrs. Garrett on The Facts of Life and I gestured to my husband to join me on the bed. He shook his head, and circled the room again, pushing on THIS mattress, pushing on THAT mattress. Go on, lay with your wife, the saleswoman said, pointing him towards me. I stretched out and snuggled with my purse and Banana Republic bag while Kent made his way towards me. He sat on the bed. He bounced up and down a little. While he bounced, I remained undisturbed, fully supported by the 820 coils. He laid back. He took one foot off the floor, then the other. He scooted back and lay next to me. I closed my eyes. It�s like sleeping on a fucking cloud, I heard him say. We were sold.
I am still dreaming about that mattress. We didn�t buy it because we are foolish yuppie assholes who can�t decide if we want a bed frame or a platform bed and all of the beds we like cost a million dollars and take eight weeks for delivery. Sleepy�s could have had the mattress (AND BASIC METAL BEDFRAME WHICH IS NOTHING TO SNIFF AT!) in our apartment by 7pm that night. We are foolish. Yuppie. Assholes. If we make one more trip to Design Within Reach I am going to stab my husband in the neck with a ballpoint pen because then maybe he will understand the pain that I feel every single day with all the knots and pinched nerves and whatnot in my back and neck, caused by shitty mattress and spoiled dog and genetics dictate that I will carry my stress in the place where my neck hits my left shoulder blade.
I would gladly pay one thousand dollars for a decent night�s sleep, preferably free of any and all dreams involving presidents, aliens, book reports or any combination of the three.
