On the Island of F*d Up Dreams

Another night of interrupted sleep, and the dreams take me to places familiar and strange. Last night I made Coq au Vin for dinner, and it turned out so good that apparently my inflamed mind decided it was ripe for a dreamland dinner party. Only it didn’t start out as a dinner party.

I cooked up this dish and placed all four pieces of chicken on a single dinner plate with barely a cup of white rice – for Veruca, O, Todd, and me. And my brother. But then my mom was there. And then two more friends were suddenly there and I was like, I didn’t know you were staying for dinner. No matter, surely we can divide that plate up amongst us. In the kitchen, the table was set for a dozen people and I turned around and there they were. And I’m like, MOM – you could have told me you invited more people. There’s not enough food.

I started prepping to make more Coq au Vin, thinking I’d just begin serving the older gentleman – who was a peculiar (and rather quiet) combination of Bernie Sanders and my lawyer – with what was already made. I turned back to the counter and found two more friends eating directly from this small plate of chicken and rice, and now there’s none left! And I was furious. 

I stormed off to the basement to gather more food from the backup refrigerator and got lost in this dank forest of dusty old things… until Todd came looking for me. I crawled out from behind a pile of stuff with dirty, torn Christmas stockings on my hands and started ranting at him about all the people who have come to dinner and nothing’s prepared. I was saved by the alarm for a 2 a.m. blood sugar check, and thankfully didn’t have to make Coq au Vin for what became more like 30 people.

Back to bed and back to school. I have these recurring dreams about being back at NYU, where I don’t ever go to classes and suddenly realize halfway through the semester that I’m going to fail out if I don’t start going. But this is compounded by the revelation that I don’t even know WHAT classes I’m registered for, let alone WHERE they are.

Thankfully, I didn’t have this dream last night. Instead, I was in O’s high school – there to pick him up but apparently he’d gotten on the bus to go home. I walked out of the building and saw my neighbor, who apparently is now the principal and head of the zoology department, and handed him a foil-wrapped package of leftover meat (from a different dinner, I suppose) to feed the lion. He reminds me that he cannot accept food from outside the school, for liability reasons. I toss the package in the trash can and I cross the street with Veruca to enter the “mall.”

I tell her we must hurry in order to beat O home, but first I consider stopping in this shop to buy him a shirt. We hurry past the store and into a department store, where the aisles are crowded with people, and I’m just trying to get to the door. Once outside, I bend over to tie my shoe laces and somebody kicks me hard in the calf. We don’t get the chance to see who did it, and the pain in my leg slows us down. We never find the car… because I wake up again.

I told Todd I think it’s my medication that weaves these Alice-in-Wonderland-like dreams, and while it helps anxiety during waking hours – it’s allowing it to run wild in my sleep. He suggested that this is a problem.

*There is no political endorsement between the lines.*