In Which a Nightmare Rights Some Wrongs

It's amazing how many wrongs you can right before 10 a.m.

I slept horribly last night; I was so worried about the whole voicemail situation. I had the "racing thoughts" they always talk about in Lunesta ads.

Early this morning, after about 6 hours of sleep, I woke up out of a nightmare. The nightmare was gruesome and terrifying. Most of all, though, it was ironic; in it, I was running from something, and then I was captured, and then I was tortured. Lovely, right? The climax of the entire dream was when I was being dragged down to the dungeon by this evil hag, and I thought to myself, "Why couldn't I have just pretended to be someone else? If I hadn't struggled so much, if I hadn't made such a display of stubborness, I wouldn't be here right now."

And then my alarm went off, and I smiled at the irony of it all, and I set out to right my wrongs.

I did the phone interview I was supposed to have done a month ago for the story I was supposed to have begun weeks ago. I called the leaver of the voicemail to make amends. It was me that had to make amends, you know. She was just being honest. I was being unreliable and immature and lazy. I'm 20 years old, but I still seem to be rather good at those three things.

Perhaps I shouldn't complain about not being treated like an adult unless I'm acting like one.

Another Finals Week

Finals week has rolled around once again, and, as you've come to expect, I will spend most of my time from now until Thursday evening:
a) Studying/writing papers/taking exams
b) Complaining to you about studying/writing papers/taking exams

Prepare accordingly.

Here's the agenda:
Monday:
German final from 8:30-10:30
American Lit. final 11:00-1:00

Tuesday
American Lit. response paper due 4:00

Thursday
Art History final 4:00-6:00

And of course I also have to work a lot during finals week, and I have to finish up my study abroad planning, and I have to begin packing up my maelstrom of a room in preparation for my Thursday night departure.

And of course of course the weather right now is absolutely perfect; 66 degrees, sunny, breezy, and bugless. That's what I'm told, at least; the basement of the Science Building doesn't have any windows.

Fun Fact: Last night I had a dream that I was running around inside a Revolutionary War-era house that had belonged to someone named Brady. This morning I did a Wikipedia search and found out that Samuel Brady was a Revolutionary War hero (and an all-around cool guy). It's funny, because I don't think I've ever heard that name before. Apparently my subconscious has.

It's Only a Nightmare

I've decided that in lieu of posting about the nightmare that is finals, I'll post an actual nightmare that I had last winter (while sleeping).

I have to say though, for a nightmare, this one's actually pretty cool:


February 19, 2010

I had a nightmare last night. It began when I took a trip to India with some of my friends from Morris (Tim, Ally, Evan, Miles and Brockman were there for sure I remember). We were in this sort of room playing a traditional Indian game, when all of the sudden some of my friends from elementary school (Mara, Katie, and Colleen) walked in. I was really surprised to see them and we were all hugging and talking until my group had to leave.

Then the dream switched, and Tim, Ally, Evan and I were walking through a mall when we decided to stop at Barnes and Noble. We were disappointed to find that they had very few books; instead they were selling mostly Christmas decorations. I got really upset about this, and decided to untie the bow around a stuffed bear’s neck, even though the lady working there specifically warned us not to, as the bow could not be retied properly. After doing the deed, I hid the bear and we all ran out of the store and out to the car.

Not long after we had left, I felt really guilty about what I had done, so I went back in and offered to pay for the bear. While the worker lady was ringing it up, I wrote a nasty note complaining about the store’s lack of books and was about to put it in the suggestion box when the lady came up behind me and was reading it. She looked sort of sad and said that she agreed with me, but that the decorations would be taken out soon and replaced with actual books. I felt bad and threw the note away and left the store with my bear.

Back in the car (I don’t know who was driving, but Ally, Evan and I were squished in the back seat), we decided to go to a fancy restaurant, but we didn’t know how to get there. Someone remembered that Maggie Smith (yes, the British actress) lived in town, and suggested that we go to her house to ask for directions. We pulled into the road in front of her house, and saw that her chauffer was washing a black Ferrari in her driveway.

I decided to be the one to go up and ring the doorbell while everyone else waited in the car. The house itself was rather small and dumpy, and when Maggie Smith came to the door and invited me in, she went and sat down on a small footstool in front of the TV and offered me one beside her. I could see two comfortable-looking armchairs across the room, and asked her why she didn’t move those in front of the TV. She just shrugged.

All of the sudden, Maggie Smith sort of tensed up, and the chauffer came running in. They both started speaking in frightened voices about something that was coming, though they wouldn’t tell me what it was. Then they tried to tell me where to go hide, but I was having trouble understanding them. I finally got out of them that they wanted me to run across the backyard and into the backyard of the house across the way. I was to lie facedown on the neighbor’s porch steps, and it was very important that I DIDN’T OPEN MY EYES no matter what.

I did as they told me to, running as fast as I could, though it was uphill and I kept tripping. Once I got to the porch steps, I saw that there was a small child playing on them. I threw myself on top of her and covered her eyes with my hands so she wouldn’t peek either. She struggled, and I felt like a monster holding her down, but at that point I could feel the presence of something, and I was scared to death.

I was telling myself so hard not to open my eyes that I couldn’t help doing so, and as soon as I did I knew that I was in trouble. I felt a rush in the air, and as I began to run I was lifted up several feet, and the very sky seemed to turn purple. I remember knowing that I was about to be killed by this sort of monster…and then I woke up.

Imagine Again

Thirty years ago today John Lennon was shot and killed in New York City.
Earlier that day, Lennon had kindly stopped to sign an autograph for his murderer, who traveled all the way from Hawaii just to do the deed.
John Lennon was shot in the back by that man, who carried a copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

The other day, I came across a few quotes by Paul McCartney about John Lennon:
"I definitely did look up to John. We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest."

(when asked if he missed sitting knee to knee with John Lennon, writing songs) "Are you kidding? Of course I bloody miss it. I'm sitting in the room with John, him with me. Believe me, we're both pretty good editors. We were young turks. We were smartasses. And we did some amazing things. I would love him to be here now, saying, 'Don't bloody do that!' – or, more wonderfully, 'That's great!' So yeah, I really had the greatest writing partner."


And I decided to look for other places/ways John Lennon is remembered:

Here (Strawberry Fields, NYC)



Here (Imagine Peace Tower, Iceland)


Here


Here (A CD of my mom's; I grew up listening to it)


Here (The movie Nowhere Boy, about a young John Lennon)


Here (The Beatles)



And Here (John Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono)


Finally, I just have to post the lyrics to that beautiful, beautiful song itself:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Cinderella

Right now I sort of feel like Cinderella, for the following reasons:
1. There's a ball going on, and I'm not going.
2. Because I have to do work.
3. And I'm sitting here watching the girls on my floor get dressed up.
4. And I wish I were going with them.


I'm unlike Cinderella for the following reasons:
1. I have no adorable rodent friends.
2. It's a not a prince's ball in the palace; it's a Yule Ball (that's right-Harry Potter style) in the Student Center.
3. There are no hideous step-relatives preventing me from going.
4. My 'work' consists of papers, and presentations, and general studying, not chores and laundry.

You know, Cinderella used to be my favorite story growing up. According to my parents, I used to beg them to read it to me. Unfortunately for them, it was quite a long read, for a picture book.

Nowadays, I'm not such a fan of old Cinderella. We still own the Disney version on VHS, and whenever I watch it I'm struck by what a weak character Cinderella is.

First of all, she's not very proactive. Instead of fighting to improve her own life, she relies on mice, and a dog, and a horse, and a fairy godmother to help her win her prince. She's constantly singing about the importance of dreams, but does she ever really take any risks to make her dreams come true? Nope. She goes to a ball and dances one dance with an incredibly shallow prince, who doesn't speak two words to her, and probably only likes her for her beauty.

Furthermore, what were her dreams in the first place? To fall in love? I mean, this girl has pretty much been locked up in a manor scrubbing floors her entire life. Doesn't she want to see a bit of the world? Get an education? Make some friends? Actually live a normal life for a bit? Apparently not.

To be completely fair to Cinderella, however, I decided to google her. See if she's really just all fluff. Here's what I found out:

The story of Cinderella is actually thought to have originated around the 1st Century B.C., when a Greek history named Strabo recorded this story about an Egyptian girl:
They tell the fabulous story that, when she was bathing, an eagle snatched one of her sandals from her maid and carried it to Memphis. While the king was administering justice in the open air, the eagle, when it arrived above his head, flung the sandal into his lap. The king, having been stirred both by the beautiful shape of the sandal and by the strangeness of the occurrence, sent men in all directions into the country in quest of the woman who wore the sandal. When she was found in the city of Naucratis, she was brought up to Memphis and became the wife of the king...[3][4]

Nothing else I found led me to believe Cinderella has any depth, although I do admire her longevity. I guess everyone likes a little blind romance.

And she does have some good qualities, I'll admit. What do they call her? "Ever gentle and kind." Certainly admirable, but not exactly my kind of heroine these days.

Platypus to Chimpanzee

You know, maybe dreaming about platypuses (I looked it up: it's platypuses, not platypii like I thought), and about chimpanzees who are really orangutans is an omen of some sort. I'm going to believe so, at least. Because about an hour after I had that dream, and a half hour after I posted about it, one of the worst mornings of my life began. And after that? One of the best afternoons of my life began.

You see, when I posted this morning, I hadn't yet looked in the mirror. When I did, I got a huge surprise. Bed head. Major major bed head in the worst form possible. Not sexy "oh my goodness I look a bit rumpled this fine morning" bed head, but "holy man there is no way I can successfully flatten this mess out before I have to leave for work" bed head.
Well, I did eventually succeed at taming a particularly cheeky lock that felt the need to sproing out despite numerous brushings, straightenings, curlings, and gelings. A pint of hair spray finally did the trick (note to self: try the hairspray first).

But that's just the superficial part of my morning. The emotional part was when I dashed out to the garage, already slightly late for work, to find that the Oldsmobile was gone. Oh. Okay. Well I'll just take the van, then.
Grab key from drawer in kitchen, jump over dog, fling open door to other garage.
Van's gone too.
Ready? Here comes the emotional part. My family had evidently forgotten that I worked at 10 a.m., and had gone off to play volleyball and go for a run respectively. That's right; vehicles are needed to go running now. It's the new thing.

(Sorry if I'm sounding bitter here. In all honesty, it was probably my fault; maybe I wasn't clear when I said what time I worked. I'm simply trying to convey this morning's state of mind.)

Pure panic. Dialing numbers, pacing back and forth between windows, muttering, wailing, crying...
I called work as soon as I realized my predicament, and when I spoke to the LOD she sounded kind of annoyed, which freaked me out even more. Was this going to be the straw to break the camel's back? I was getting fired. Shoot.

It all turned out okay in the end, don't worry. Mom got home fairly quickly, and I managed to be only five minutes or so late for work. Also, I apologized in person to the LOD and she was totally cool about it. Said that it happens to everyone, and that she's not worried about me and knows that it won't happen again.

That was the platypus part of my day.
Here comes the chimpanzee:

This afternoon was one of the best working days I've ever had. After the initial carless drama was over, I truly began to enjoy myself. A lot of help was needed cashiering, so I was constantly running up there to back up. I like cashiering, too. I like being face-to-face with guests in that way, and I like being able to stand still for a few minutes, and I like seeing all the strange things people buy. I also like that time flies when I'm cashiering.

Besides cashiering, the other duty that took up most of my work afternoon was covering Kyle's breaks back in electronics. I think we were both kind of surprised that I was the one covering; I have very limited experience in electronics, and don't know anything besides the basic "sure I can unlock that game case for you, sir."
Despite said lack of experience, I actually came to enjoy working back there. Electronics is its own little world in a way. If I really wanted to be metaphorical, I might say that the prow of the boat pushes against, but doesn't quite puncture, the bubble of the rest of the store. Waves break over cameras and high definition TVs, and dolphins leap across the surface at the flashing of lights from the Wii display. -end metaphor-

Anyway, what really made my afternoon over in electronics was this elderly man who came over wanting some help finding the correct ink cartridges for his printer. He flagged me down (I was over by the DVDs) by actually getting up out of his power chair and walking over: "Miss? Can I get some help over here?"
He handed me a splattered plastic baggie. Inside were the two cartridges he wanted replaced. Unfortunately, one of them was so covered in splotches of blue ink that I couldn't' read the number on it.
Well, I did the best I could, and managed, through some clumsy deduction, to find the correct package of ink for his printer. Kyle arrived at just the right moment (I think I might have actually let slip a "thank goodness") to confirm that I was right about the numbers.
And do you know what that old man did then? He stuck out his hand, shook mine (I saw Kyle grin from off to the side), and told me that he was one of the original Target employees; he had worked at the very first Target (in Roseville) back in the 1960's. He said that he had hired a lot of people in his time, and that I was one of the good ones.

That, my friends, is what turned my day from a flesh-eating platypus into a best friend chimpanzee/orangutan.

A Dream With Good Timing

Have to quickly record a really, really strange dream I had last night.
In the dream, I was watching a bad movie. I mean, the entire dream was literally the movie. Here's what I remember of it:
This little boy's mother was getting remarried to an awful guy, of course, and while the wedding preparations were taking place, the boy and his pet/best friend chimpanzee (in the dream I called it a chimpanzee, but it really looked more like an orangutan...) ran away to a jungle in South America.

While they were exploring the jungle, they came upon a wild platypus that was wandering around. They didn't know what it was, had never seen one before, so they decided to go up and pet it. The platypus obviously wasn't too happy about this, and was getting kind of ticked off (this was where tension rose in the movie), but the chimpanzee kept petting it anyway.

All of the sudden, the platypus struck; it turned around and bit the chimpanzee in the face, and then proceeded to start to eat him. The boy shrieked, "He's eating him!" and ran to save his friend. He somehow managed to drag the chimpanzee away and escape.

Meanwhile, back at the house, the wedding was about to take place. The boy's mother and soon-to-be-stepfather weren't too concerned about the fact that the boy was missing. That is, until they realized that they needed him to be in the wedding photographs.

Meanwhile, back in South America, the boy and the chimpanzee were resting by a waterfall, having successfully outrun the platypus. Suddenly, the platypus popped out of the water, and at the same time my alarm went off and I woke up.

It's a Laugh

I had an interesting dream a few days ago, and I thought I'd share. The dream was so vivid that I actually still remember it, which doesn't happen very often. Here you go:

I was in a library with a bunch of other people (I think it was actually the old Forest Lake library), and there was an award ceremony of sorts going on. All of the people in the room were aspiring writers, and a list was being read aloud to them. The list had a bunch of book titles on it-books that had been written by the writers there, and were now being published (as the writers were just finding out through the reading of the list).
The deal was that if your book and name were on the list, you were supposed to go find the book on the shelves in the library and bring it back to the front. It was a kind of ritual, I guess.
Anyway, the title of a book was read from the list, and my name after it. In the dream I was confused, however, because I hadn't written the book; it was a well-established classic. For the life of me I can't remember the title, but I think it had something to do with a nightingale, or a bird of some sorts. Or maybe it was A Tale of Two Cities? I don't know.
So I went to grab the book, but when I flipped through it I saw that it was just the existing story, except in the form of a new edition. Apparently, a line that I had written made it into that new edition while it was being edited. I was the only one on the list who didn't write an entire book. Just one paragraph.
I wasn't embarrassed about that fact in the dream, however. I remember being honored and really proud of the line I had written.
Strange dream, huh? Especially strange because I never ever dream about writing or reading; my dreams are always (or usually) big, epic adventures. Nice change of pace, I guess.

Holly's Best Ever No. 2
Another thing I would like to touch on this fine evening is the power of laughter. We all know that it's been scientifically proven that laughing is good for you. Besides the science, even, laughing is simply fun. It feels good.
Despite these encouraging reasons to do it, it's not often that I laugh really, really hard. Tears rolling down my face, stomach hurting, lasts for about five minutes laugh. It's quite rare. Most of the time I guess I just do the little heh heh sort of laugh that is certainly genuine, but not as uplifting.
Tonight, however, I really laughed. It was while we were playing Mexican Train, and I won't explain the joke because if you don't know the game it won't make any sense at all to you. Needless to say, however, it was a funny moment. The laugh felt great as well, and seemed to fill me up and bring me down to earth at the same time. It also felt, as always, like something I should do more often. It felt like the best ever.

Something Russian

Okay so I'm just going to blog I think. It's about 1:39 a.m. here, and I've been trying to fall asleep for the past 4 hours. No joke. I've done just about everything to try to help myself fall asleep:
I started reading Crime and Punishment.
I put aloe on my sunburn.
I crept out of bed and turned on the air conditioning.
I imagined things.

But if there's one thing I've learned in my almost 20 years of life, it's that there's absolutely no point to tossing and turning in bed when you know you won't be able to sleep.

My Fourth of July (if you'll excuse the abrupt change of topic,) has actually been fairly uneventful (in fact, if you're having trouble sleeping as well, this post may help you). We spent part of the weekend anchored in Big Bay, Madeline Island, Lake Superior, Wisconsin (sorry but I felt clarification was necessary). While Mom and Dad chatted and waded on shore with a bunch of other, older boaters, Amy and I pretty much sat on the back deck with the dogs and read all day Saturday. Hence the sunburn.

We headed back to the harbor Saturday night, and I happily slept through the first few hours of the Fourth. This morning (or yesterday morning technically, but you know what I mean) I awoke to the boat rocking fairly violently. Apparently, there was some sort of storm coming, so we decided to just pack up and start the drive home early so as to avoid it. While everyone else carried stuff to the car, I sat by the dogs to make sure Ruby didn't do another nose dive into the water (she did one Saturday morning and one of our neighbors had to rescue her; she can swim and all, but since she was tied up the leash was sort of strangling her as she paddled).

Once we were home and unpacked, I promptly got into bed and slept for three hours (certainly a factor of my current insomnia). After dinner we played Mexican train, and then drifted off to do separate things. I showered and headed back to bed. And here I am, 4 hours later. Still here, still awake.

You know, I wouldn't mind this at all if I weren't so sure that work will be an absolute nightmare tomorrow if I'm exhausted from lack of sleep. I really do like this time of night (or day (again, if we're being technical)).

Crime and Punishment, eh (gosh, I fail at segues)? I guess I can elaborate on that a bit. I got the book for a graduation present from a neighbor who lives down the street from me. It was actually really sweet of him to give it to me; I don't know him especially well or anything like that. It's a beautiful edition, too. Heavy and green and embossed with gold on the side. Beautifully intimidating.

I've been meaning to read it for this past year, but just haven't got around to it. It is a rather large undertaking. It is Russian. But I'm hoping that if I make a goal of getting through a few chapters a day, and if I have another book going on the side, it won't be too bad. Oh no, I'm sorry if I'm making this out to be a punishment (no pun intended with the title) of sorts. I'm sure that I'll enjoy it once I get started (it's not a classic for nothing), it's simply that with books like this, getting started is usually the tough part.

What is really making me adamant about reading Crime and Punishment (you might as well know before you erect a statue in my honor), is that I had a dream about it the other night. I don't remember much of the dream, just that in it I read Crime and Punishment, and I was telling someone that I had read it, and they were quite impressed with me. That's it.

Above all else, though, I think I'm slightly being guilted by the fact that a 19-almost-20-year-old English major who has never read anything Russian is slightly disappointing, and slightly at a disadvantage to all the other 19-almost-20 English majors who have read heavy Russian novels.

Alright, I think I'll leave off on the rambling and try once again to get to sleep.
A final shout out to the neighbors: the Fourth of July has been over for two hours and twelve minutes now. Please cease the fireworks and the wild hollering so that your lovely neighbor's upcoming attempt to drift off will not be in vain. Thanks much.

I Dream of Murder

I had a really strange dream last night, and I thought that I should write it down, because I’m almost certain that it has some kind of deeper meaning (though I suppose all dreams do).
First of all, it was really complicated and kept shifting, so I’ll just record the main parts in order to avoid too much confusion.
It began with my whole family rollerblading in the streets of a city (I think it was St. Paul). I think that Dad and Amy were there, but I mainly remember Mom and Grandma E. (though Grandma wasn’t skating).
The funny thing was that we were rollerblading in the middle of winter; the streets were covered in slush and big snow banks separated the sidewalk from the road.
Anyway, Grandma E. and I decided to go back to the house, so I skated back beside her while she walked. When we arrived, I saw that the house was huge and Victorian-looking. At that point, I knew for some reason that my Grandma G. was about to be murdered inside.
I had this idea in my dream that she had died because she had gone to some sort of meeting (not a cult, but a domestic meeting like a sewing circle or something), and they had poisoned her so that when she got home she had a heart attack. I’m not sure why I was certain of this in the dream, because in real life I know that she died of cancer. Also, this dream involved some sort of time travel, because I was the age I am now, and I was going back in time to stop the murder that I knew had happened.
Meanwhile, I left Grandma E. outside the house on the sidewalk because I didn’t want her to get hurt. I entered the house. Inside were two women, a twelve-year-old girl (who was clearly in league with the women), and my Grandma G. The women and the girl had cruel, sinister looks about them, and I knew in the dream that they were really going to hurt my Grandma G.
Grandma G. was sitting on a chair chatting (I don’t think she had any idea what was going on) with one woman and the girl, and I sat down across from the third woman, who glared at me suspiciously. I remember that I sneakily took a large, serrated knife from the table and slipped it in my pocket in case I needed a weapon.
The woman sitting at the table must have seen me take the knife, because immediately she and the other woman jumped up and brandished knives at Grandma G. and I. We were backed into a corner, and they started slashing at us. I stood in front of Grandma G. and slashed back. The interesting thing was that no one got seriously wounded; we all simply made shallow scars on each other’s arms and faces with the knives.
While the fight was happening, the girl kept trying to offer Grandma G. something to drink, and I kept pushing her back because I knew that the drink was poisoned.
Finally we managed to get out of there unscathed, and met Grandma E. on the front walk.
In the road in front of the house the three appeared again, but this time the girl was trying to get Grandma G. to eat chewable Tylenol (which was also poisoned). I kept her away, and we all escaped down the road.

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

Title explanation: I just really like that song and thought that it would make a neat title. It's by the Smiths, if you wondered.

Here's what's going on right now:

1. I'm sitting on my (loft) bed listening to the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack.

2. In theory, I'm writing essays for my lit. final.

3. In actuality, I'm on Facebook, playing with Play Doh, texting, and writing this blog entry.

Here's what I'm thinking about right now:

1. How much I love everyone in Pine Hall and how much I'll miss them over break. A few people finished their finals today and went home. I was perilously close to crying; I honestly hate to see them go, especially since I don't get to head home until Thursday evening. Being left behind is never fun.

2. Usually I'm so excited for Christmas, but this year I've hardly given it a thought. Probably because I've been so stressed out about finals and the end of the semester. Also because we don't have any decorations up! It's ridiculous! I should make a few snowflakes or something for our window.

3. I really should go back to my lit. essays. I want to get both done tonight.

So goodnight dear blog readers. I hope you all have amazing adventure dreams (the very best kind) tonight, and that in them you get to fly at least for a little bit.