Bad Dreams

I wrote a thot last night, but it was too early to mail it and I was tired, so I went to bed. Then, as it has been so often the past three years, I had a bad dream. Waking up drenched and upset, I could not go back to sleep, so I got up intending to mail the earlier thot. After reading it, I realized it no longer seemed right.

Now, here I am. I cannot go back to sleep, or rather, I do not want to go back to sleep. It would be like revisiting a very bad experience. I am not sure why I dream these dreams. They are really not based on my own experience of similar things and they are all very unique in their own right and there does not appear to be a theme. Unless it is making me feel bad.

In this dream I was in the center of a very large university in a city full of lights. It was night and my acting class had to put on a skit. We gathered outside a large building with a steep, very wide set of steps leading up to a large colonnaded building, sort of like the Lincoln Memorial. Our theater Prof. was Linda McCoy, my high school P.E. teacher in real life! She told us we should each bring a prop and be ready to improvise. I went around the block looking for a prop, but I was so afraid I'd run into dogs that I could barely think. All I found was an old tree limb about five feet tall and about four inches in diameter.

She told us the general idea was that a man and woman had come here, looking for a place to stay and could not find one, so they were staying in this small shack. We were supposed to bring them something they could use. We started to set up on the space by the steps and I was talking to one of the male students, a tall gangly boy with blond hair, wearing a black cape. (Not, Harry Potterish, but more like Sherlock Holmes.) He was asking me what part I was going to do when a female student came storming over and snarled, "What...are you doing?" She was so nasty and mean spirited I just wanted to be away from her. She followed us as we walked away saying, "Why are you even here?"

I knew I was there because we were all in the class, but I knew she was angry because we were not as good as she thought she was. She had the main part, but I had a good one too. Before we could really discuss this, our teacher moved the class inside to the basement of the building. There was a cheer leading convention at the university and there was too much confusion outside. Now, as I stood back in the dark, watching the skit start to unfold I was afraid I would not come up with any appropriate lines, but decided I wouldn't worry about it. I would just let go and see what happened. It had always worked before. I always seemed to come up with the right words.

Just before it was my time to go on, the elevator opened and a group of cheerleaders wearing pink and gray pleated skirts and gray sweaters with pink letters came rushing out. The leader asked Mrs. McCoy if they could present their program to us. She asked them how old they were and where they were from and then said, no, they could not. I was really shocked at the way she responded and I was also embarrassed. They milled around over by the elevator, talking among themselves and making snotty remarks with sidelong glances at us, as if she would change her mind. I finally asked her why she refused to let them perform for us and she said it was because they were wearing gray and pink and the school's colors were red and gray. If they couldn't wear the right colors, they could not perform!

I heard a marching band and just as the elevator doors opened for the cheerleaders, a row of skinny little tuba players in full uniform came marching down the basement hallway in a straight line. They were dressed like the band in Music Man and marched right into the elevator without loosing a step, or breaking formation. The cheerleaders just stood there gaping, as if they had been insulted one more time and suddenly it was my turn to go on.

I dashed forward, toward the little pool of light where the skit was, hoping I would not make a fool of myself, more worried now because of the girl who thought I wasn't good enough -- and woke up.

I have never taken an acting class in my life, although I did perform with a local theater. I never had any of these experiences, but it still felt very real and made me feel very bad. And now, as tired as I am, I do not want to go back to bed.