“Have A Nice Say”

Was emblazoned on a T-shirt that Big A had in his closet.

And I was coolly persuading him to give it away. Not that it was horrible or anything, it was just another ordinary tee--but somehow, in my dream, i had intuited that it was a gift from someone in his 'Past'.

As I awoke, my dream deciphered itself in my head. Big A and his college g/f have remained good friends since they broke up like ten years ago. And the slogan in my dream is a play on her name, which features the letters “A,” “N,” “I,” “S,” and “A” prominently .

Everything fell into place.

My first feeling was horror that deep down I might harbor harsh feelings about someone who is very likeable and about whom i've heard some awfully nice things.

After that passed, however, it‘s been plain awestruck admiration for the brilliant wordplay in my subconscious :).

___

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.

____________

On Being a Snuggle Slut (in my dreams)

Dreamt that Big A changed the house around--that he brought the dining room into the conservatory end of the living room and moved the chaise to the dining room and that he said that from now on that would be my study.

I was alright about it--not thrilled, not upset, not sad. Then one night after work when I’m turning out the lights, the cityscape springs up all lit up outside the windows and I can see Big A's silhouette moving from building to building bringing darkness and screams with him--he’s committing some sort of crime but in a Scarlet Pimpernel kinda way, for a good cause. It's a cause that i strongly believe in also, but I'm worried about his safety and I walk into the bedroom all mopey aaaaaaaaand...

Jon Stewart is in bed (this is the only time I remember ever having dreamt about a celebrity). He asks me if I can’t fall asleep---I shake my head and look at him ruefully, and he says--well, what shall we do about that?

At that point I realize that in the dream I’m awfully preggers--

And JS smiles that sweet, shy smile and puts out his arms and makes me comfortable and snuggles me to sleep in an extremely matter-of-fact way, much as if he were offering me a seat on the subway.

He's a very kind guy, apparently :).

What Happened to Ammini

She lived in a small village that was in the midst of big communal celebration--someone’s wedding perhaps--except she wasn’t actually there (I’ll tell you about that in a bit). There were streamers and palm fronds and mango-leaf garlands strung across the doorways. Conversations and different kinds of music were both set to really loud and it was crowded the way celebrations in India usually are. There were gangs of excited children running around and a giggly, bedecked, beautiful gaggle of young girls processioning from house to house, picking up more members of their crew.


There was Mathangi and Amba and Rajathi and everyone was looking for Ammini--where is Ammini? Where is she? They kept asking, filching jelebis fresh out of the pan and being so adorably giddy that no one had the heart to reprimand them.


Ammini was in an auto in Bangalore and in the process of running away. Before she did she wanted to collect the diamond earrings her mother had ordered for her at Kashyap Jewellers. Perhaps she wanted to keep the earrings as a memento, perhaps she wanted to be able to sell them if things went badly--I don’t know. The auto-driver sits with his lungi folded in half and his bony knees poking out from beneath the fold. They pass through street after street of closed or closing shops and Ammini asks if Kashyap’s will be open. The driver keeps assuring her that yes, yes, yes--it will, it will indeed.


Ammini is sitting on the ledge of a cliff in Kodaikanal called “The Scottish Seat.” She’s waiting for a bus to take her away to some big city. She looks around warily and sees an old friend called Kamakshi. Hello, she says brightly, I thought you were dead?


Kamakshi tells her that she has wanted to die many times, that in fact once she dreamt that all her friends were sitting on the ledge of The Scottish Seat and she unflinchingly pushed them over. I wanted to be able to touch him, she says. My brother, he is right here, right here, she says, patting the blood-red soil under their feet.


Then she looks at Ammini, it’s ok, you can touch him, she says, he would like you to. Ammini gingerly pats the earth in a soothing gesture to placate Kamakshi. Then her fingers graze a hooked finger, the nail bed encrusted with blood, and the pellets of falling rain reveal the rest of the finger, the hard, grasping hand it is attached to.


You should go and live with him in the earth forever now, says Kamakshi, calmly--I’ll explain to your mother what happened to you.


At this point or shortly before it, I yelped aloud--whereupon Big A who’d been cleaning the study (at 3 a.m., don’t ask) came to check on me and called me “Dorkistani” (though i wasn't really crying that much) and made rude suggestions about my dream that made me giggle.