Thursday, September 14, 2006

Dream a Little Dream of Pandolins

I spent most of my school life in an all-girls Catholic school. With the result that highly-anticipated and highly-chaperoned “socials” to the boys’ school or even casual trips with my parents or a driver to the parking lot of the boys’ school to pick up a cousin were occasions for heightened giggling, an extreme heartrate, manifest shyness.

High-school boys don’t do a thing for me anymore. And I’m too cool to giggle and too zen to hyperventilate.
But I’m still shy.
Of high-school boys.
I’m sure of myself with everyone else, including the college freshmen that were in high school right before they landed in one of the 101 courses that I teach. But stripped of my authority, my position at the head of the class, I’m afraid that they won’t recognize my non high-school status and that they’ll say or do something inappropriate. Like the time I briefly talked to a student in the library and the high-school posse he was showing around started to tease him, until he proclaimed with exasperated bashfulness, “She’s my teacher, ya morons.” Another reason to love teaching--for the immunity from innuendo.

It all came back when I had to make a short trip to the local high school yesterday.

And it returned last night in this dream I had:

I’m standing in the twilight on a windy mountain peak with a young person who introduces himself to me as “Gestuktwolf.”

Then he fixes me with an evaluative eye and asks me if I didn’t think that was a good name for a “pandolin,” which in my dream, I immediately recognize as vampire argot for 'rogue vampire'. He continues to look at me speculatively, trying to gauge my reaction to his admission of vampirism, and I’m trying to disguise my mounting terror, because of course, as everyone knows from horror movies, once you’ve revealed your fear, you’re done. : )

Then Gestuktwolf tosses his head the way world-weary teenagers do and says, a little remorsefully--heck, I don’t know why I play it like that.

Standing next to us is an elderly priestly/bounty hunter-type man who is thoroughly amused by the whole exchange--my fear, Gestuckt‘s posturing…he looks at me and breaks out a smile and a crazy electrical storm breaks out around the three of us.



____________

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

SO YOU LIKE BOYS OR MEN?

Anonymous said...

Freud would love you my dear! :)

Anonymous said...

What Scott said.

ps. How do you remember dreams?

maya said...

If by "love" y'all mean Freud would like to analyze me, perhaps :)

Though i never dream about death, so he might quickly lose interest.

Scott, dreams linger as you awake and telling someone, or yourself, right away helps to fix them in your mind. Actually, i just checked on amazon.com and they have tons of tomes on dream recordings and interpretations.

What--no one brave enough to interepret my dream?!

The Elephant said...

beware those vampires.

Let me try an interpretation:

The "world weary" Gestuktwolf represents you. That's why he said, "--heck, I don’t know why I play it like that."

The elderly priest is also you but the more evolved you. It is who you know you will become when you get to the top of your mountain and overcome that mounting fear. The bounty hunter in him represents that mostly unused power that you have...that you know you have.

Or maybe you just like young gothic boys. :)

I have vivid dreams too.

maya said...

Dr. TMB,

Thanks much. Dunno if that's what it means, but i'm going to use it (fear holding me back etc.) to fuel the dissertation completing drive.

>Or maybe you just like young gothic boys. :)

Umm, doesn't everyone :P ?

>I have vivid dreams too.

Share 'em!

maya said...

TMB,

Just read your interpret and my dream again and i must say it works *great*!

Perhaps the electrical storm will fuse all three characters and i'll get to be my own Freudian trinity!

Anonymous said...

Maya sez, Another reason to love teaching--for the immunity from innuendo.

Um, clearly, the PocoBrat hasn't been watching enough MSNBC. ;) (Which means that you are also missing out on Olbermann and his special comments....)

maya said...

Pied:

Tcheeeeeeeee!!
For shame!

OTOH, I like Pied Piper world very much indeed :).

And you are right, I had no idea who Olbermann was until this evening. And he gave me goosebumps when he channeled Murrow. I'm glad someone is saying this on network television.

The only stuff i watch with any frequency (2x/week) are Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. And my only complaint about them is that Stewart's theme music is too geeky for him and Maher's is too sexy for him.

Anonymous said...

Well, if you had so much as flipped through MSNBC this week you would have seen Debra LaFave -- the hour-long special is airing over and over and over again. We could link this up to the discussion about Kincaid (I wanted to watch Olbermann, I kept seeing Debra LaFave), but I think we've beaten that horse into the ground.

But clearly 2x/week of the Daily Show isn't enough -- Debra LaFave even made last night's show, albeit in (of course) the most backhanded way possible. Poor Matt Lauer....

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