Debating with Inanimates

Remember Sports Night? I rented all the DVDs a while back and love that show. The writing is sharp, the dialog snappy and witty, the actors excellent. One of my favorite lines was delivered deadpan by Joshua Malina in the following exchange:

Isaac: Let me add, Dana, that things I say in my office stay in my office.
Dana: Natalie's my, my second in command. She's the only one I told.
Natalie: Jeremy's my boyfriend. He's the only one I told.
Jeremy: I told many, many people.

Anyway, this is totally beside my point today. My point today is the reason I like this kind of fast-paced dialog is because I find it funny. The same kind of dialog takes place in The West Wing, which, coincidentally, is also created by Aaron Sorkin (and has declined in quality since he left).

The other morning, I felt like I was having one of those conversations. Someone was talking about something or another -- I think it was politics of some sort -- and I was answering back with a question of some sort. The person I was talking to, however, either didn't hear me or simply ignored me, and continued with her talking points. As she finished her second talking point, I again asked her a question, and again she ignored me and moved on to a third talking point. I started getting annoyed, until I realized....

It was all a dream, I wasn't really talking to anyone, and the woman with whom I was having my little discussion was actually a manifestation of the NPR voice coming from my clock radio. I was dreaming about arguing with someone's interview.

It was then I decided I should probably wake up.

The Return of USM

So I IM'd with my buddy Mark about the dream with him and USM and his OOI in it. Here's part of the ensuing conversation:

Mark: In yours, I think I symbolize something you wish you could be or some kind of person you perceive me to be.
Mark: Envy or desire to emulate or something.
Dennis!: really? strange. i just put you down as some random guy who happened to be you.
Mark: And you try, but it's awkward, and clearly you fear and expect the rejection that occurs.
Mark: Ah, but if it were truly random, it would be Random Guy making out with Random guy.
Mark: The fact it's me says something about how you perceive me.
Dennis!: the "you" character was almost completely pointless in my dream. well, except to rub in the fact that USM wanted to make out with every other identifable person in my dream except me.
Dennis!: USM was, more or less, anderson cooper.
Mark: Anyway, that's my dimestore interpretation.
Dennis!: the only other dreams i ever remember are exam anxiety dreams.
Dennis!: i've been out of school for seven years and i still sometimes dream about an algebra or history exam which i know i have not studied for, or even attended the classes for
Dennis!: once i had a dream where i was a mutant, like in x-men. even lived in a xavier academy-type place with other freaks.
Dennis!: my power was kinda like drew barrymore's in "firestarter"
Mark: I won't begin to discuss what the ramifications of THAT dream are.
Mark: flame. flaming. flamer. flame on.
Dennis!: and i got hit on by a really cute boy... then my frigging alarm clock went off.
Mark: lol
Mark: don't u hate that.
Mark: I'm not often so caught up in a dream I don't realize it's a dream.
Dennis!: how sad would that be if i could switch to that in my dream? i'd be saying "wow, you're cute. wanna come back to my place?" and he would respond, "of course. i'd love to go back to your place. it's your dream, after all."

Competition in Bed

Continuing the ongoing thread of "Wow, I am so pathetic" lines of thought:

Last night I had the strangest dream. I wish the dream had involved me sailing away to China in a little boat, only to meet someone who had to get their laundry clean, but it does not.

The characters in this odd dreamscape: Mark, my friend in Seattle; an Unnamed Sexy Man (kinda reminded me of Anderson Cooper, but it wasn't him, alas); and a third man with whom I know USM has been flirting all night. USM and the third man are not "together" -- yet -- but if all goes according to USM's plan, they will be. I find USM incredibly sexy and nice, so of course, I'm kinda crushing on him as well.

I forget the circumstances leading up to the events, but the setting basically is this: Mark, USM, USM's Object of Interest, and I have somehow been brought together for an evening. It could have been a party, or perhaps we were all volunteering for an event together and were chatting during down time. In any event, we were all gradually getting to know each other over the course of a few hours. (I don't know if I knew Mark in my dream, or if he was just some random avatar of Joe Everyman.)

At some point, USM kisses his OOI. This does not make me happy, but I'm cool because, frankly, I'm used to not being anyone's OOI. The dream takes a turn, however, when Mark expresses his interest in USM as well, and somehow draws him into a kiss of their own. This is remarkable in and of itself as Mark (in real life) has a boyfriend of several years. This, of course, annoys me.

So, being the upfront and ballsy guy that I am (literally, in my dreams), I decide it's my turn. I take USM's hand and gently direct him towards me, where I have every intention of making out with him. Unfortunately, even in my dream he turns his cheek to me so that I don't make contact with his lips, but the Forceful Me takes a hold of his face and directs it back to me so that I actually succeed in making lip contact with him. And he doesn't resist, and in fact, it's quite nice.

I don't know what happened next. I don't know if that's because I woke up, or just because I dreamed on but don't have a recollection of it.

Even in my dreams, I play second fiddle. Something's not right.

Dreamscapes

Okay, my life has officially hit the realm of the impossibly pathetic. Although I'm reassured that this happens to others frequently, I'm still bemused at my immense reaction to this.

The other day I was having a strange dream. And I do mean strange. Part of it involved my superpowers. Yes, superpowers. I was able to set things on fire with the sheer power of my mind. Wait, it might have been the power to make things explode. Well, something like that. At one point in the dream, like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter, I had to turn my attention to a large tank of fish to make sure I didn't do anything disastrous. (Unlike Drew's, however, my re-channelling of energy caused poor little fish to jump out of their tank, which has suddenly become a teakettle thanks to me.)

Then I came to realize that the strange superpower I had was actually in context: I was somewhere pretty much akin to the Xavier Institute, where everyone basically had some kind of power. I know this because everyone else around me was a student (because, you know, I'm so young as to still be in school), and because no one really batted much of an eye when my superpowers threatened to go awry.

At some point in this dream, I was actually unable to restrain my powers, and entire plates of sheet glass which served as windows to the academy shattered. I laughed and basically just said, "Uh, oops. At least that shit is replaceable." (I know what you are thinking. You are thinking something else happened at the same time that this big explosion occurred in my dream. You are wrong.)

But the point of my patheticness (is that even a word? Well it is now) comes from this: At some point in my dream, a really cute boy starts hitting on me! I mean, he was really cute. Despite the fact that I dream-lived right across the street from the school (now complete with tremendous amounts of shattered glass), he was insisting that I hop into his car and spend the night at his apartment. And the thing is, I was going to go. I was actually kind of excited (again, no pun intended), in a freakishly schoolgirl kinda way, that some really cute boy was so into me.

At that point, my alarm clock started going off. Somehow, Bush's economic recovery theories made their way into my conversations with this boy. Which, I think you'll agree, is just plain wrong, on many levels.

My patheticness derives from the fact that I spent the better part of the waking morning quite sad that, in fact, I was awakened from my delightful slumber before ever getting to see my (literally) dream boy naked. I guess you can say I was a victim of premature awakening.

***

Earlier in the week, I had my recurring dream again. The one about the algebra test. As usual, no one in the class was remotely sympathetic to me about my dilemma. It's amazing how stressful those dreams are. It's amazing how quickly I revert to the stress of academic life. The strangest thing is, I'm pretty sure I'm capable of controlling my dreams, at least to some degree. I remember once I dreamed I was making out with someone who looked remarkably like an ex of mine. In my dream, I promptly changed his name and even the color of his hair because, Gawd, who wanted to be making out with him? And yet, I remain unable to change anything in my algebra anxiety dreams, and I continue to panic over a non-existent set of LaPlacian transforms.

Exam Anxiety

First, let me be clear: I've been out of school for a loooooong time now. Midterms and finals are a thing of the past, forever banished to the annals of my personal history, like Kathleen Wong, the girl I thought was "cute" in the second grade.

From time to time I have this strange anxiety dream about exams, though. There are slight variations on the theme, but at its core, the dream is the same. I'm told others have similar dreams all the time.

Me, I'm running through the crowded hallways of school. I usually don't label it as high school or college until some later point in the dream, but I'm running because I know I don't want to be late for the exam. Problem is, I know that I don't know anything about the subject matter on the test. I suddenly realize that I had never attended a single class on this matter, nor had I done any of the homework. The class is usually math (the teacher manifests herself as my seventh grade pre-alg teacher), and the thought that runs through my mind is that I am utterly unable to perform Laplacian transforms (a concept I "learned" -- but not really -- in my freshman year in college). And I get scared that I'm about to fail the exam.

At some other point -- usually in the same dream -- I realize that I have a history class on Wednesday afternoons which I have also never attended. (It's always history. I never was a strong history student, which I suppose is why I never attended the class in this dream.) In my dream I make a mental note to myself to go to the Registrar's office after failing the math exam to see if I am in fact still enrolled in this history class, and take steps to drop it if I am in fact enrolled.

Strangely enough, the exam anxiety dreams never manifest themselves as something important in my current, "adult" life, like the bar exam or something.

All I can say is, I'm glad i never have to take another exam ever again, especially in classes like math (which I actually did well in in high school) and history (which I did not do so well in). The dreams ... well, they can just keep coming.