pretty (miserable) in purple

 

In a department store, I am looking for the perfect outfit to wear to my family's Easter celebration.  I come across the most beautiful purple prom dress and decide this is exactly what I need.  Cut to Easter Sunday.  I put on my purple prom dress and am delighted about how it looks and feels.  It's strapless, so I have to wear pasties (stick-on bra) under it.  The dress keeps slipping down.  After a while, I notice that the rest of my family is not, in fact, donning formal wear.  Even my sister, who usually gussies-up is wearing jeans.  I suddenly become painfully aware that I have made the WRONG fashion choice for this occasion of ham and grandmothers.  I am totally distraught.  How could I have been so stupid?  What the hell am I going to do with this dress now?  What am I going to wear instead?

My entire family is dressed and ready and waiting for me.  I don't know what to do.  All I know is that I'm still wearing this fucking pasties.

"If You Wear That Velvet Dress" ~ U2

maybe you would have been something I'd be good at

We are on a cruise ship...a HUGE cruise ship.  The rooms are the size of normal hotel rooms.  I am bunked with two friends from college and a former roommate that no one likes.  Our room is on the bottom deck of the boat and you have to go through a trap door in the floor of the "rich people" deck to get there.  We are in and out of our room and exploring the ship.  Apparently we are on this cruise to celebrate our college friends' wedding.  However, there are people here from my grade, middle, and high school, as well as college, years.
I receive a phone call from a girl who I previously dated and have been thinking about and I am very excited to talk to her.  Of course, the ship is very loud and it's hard to find a place to have a conversation.  Instead of staying in my room where there were only three people, I walk around the ship and come to the main deck.  The main deck is flooded to chest level, but it's not a pool.  People are wading through it in their clothes.  I'm not surprised, so I must have already known this in the dream.  I'm desperately trying to play it cool on the phone while battling the noise, the impromptu pool, and VERY crowded ship.
At some point, I hang up the phone, sad about the outcome of the conversation, and wade past the bride's family.  They are showing home videos of her.  I stop to watch one featuring  the tragic pubescent years that we never want anyone to see.  I think to myself that we were so alike at that age.
I'm making my way back to my room through the labyrinth of the ship.  I run into a friend as I get to the rich people deck.  Several white monkeys approach us and start climbing on my friend.  She seems to know how to handle monkeys and is intending to bring them back to her room.  I also notice several squirrels running around on this deck.  As we start to go through the trap door to the poor people deck, a ship employee informs us that we can't have those monkeys.  We are sad and worried about what will come of the monkeys.  Nobody seems to care about the squirrels...

"Maybe I would have been something you'd be good at.  Maybe you would have been something I'd be good at." ~ Tegan and Sara, "Call It Off"

partial nudity, caramel girls, and rock n' roll

I am in the dorm bathroom at college, but of course, it's not actually the college I went to.  I have taken a shower, so I have a towel wrapped around me and my hair is wet.  A friend, who I've never met before in real life, comes in and is telling me to hurry up and that we have to get out there, etc.  I don't know what she's talking about.  We exit the bathroom and are now in the main university student center.  I'm still in a towel.  The place is bustling and I am ushered over to what looks like a book and DVD sale.  Nothing has prices and I'm trying to figure out if these things are free.  I pick up The Terminator and Bourne 3-disc sets, yes!  Then we move over to books, and my "friend" is pointing out books that she thinks I would like.  None of these books are real.  She points out a tome that is the history of The Legend of Zelda.  I remark that I have this book, but haven't had time to read it.

It's very noisy and chaotic in here and I just want to go back to my room and get dried and changed.  My friend (I don't know if it's the same one because all of my friends in this dream are apparently petite Latina girls that look very much alike.  I am not racist) is pulling me away from the books and movies.  As we turn the corner of the kiosk, I notice a small crowd has gathered around something behind a screen.  A closer look reveals that Tegan and Sara are performing a small concert in our student center and have been there the whole time I was looking at stupid books.  OMG!  Why didn't she tell me!  Fuck, I'm not dressed, but I don't want to miss anything so I can't leave.  Now I see that two of my real college girl friends are singing with Tegan and Sara!  I assume this is because they were in an a cappella group at school.  I hate them, but then think that I could use their "in" to meet T&S.  But, shit!, I can't meet them looking like this!
I can't tell what song they are singing, but the crowd keeps pulling in and out like ocean waves.  The crowd becomes huge and pushes me within touching distance of Tegan and Sara.  They are adorable in real life.  Then the wave pulls me backwards and the crowd dissipates to only a few listeners.  This wax and wane happens several times.  It's very irritating because it is distracting me.  My friend and I are dancing around to the music and naturally, fall into of those "are we going to kiss moments".  We do and it's nice.  She suddenly breaks away and yells, "yo, chill out!". I am very confused by this because I don't know what the problem is.  I'm also embarrassed and a little angry. I take her by the arm and explain through my teeth that it was really inappropriate for her to yell out in front of everybody like that.
At some point, I abandon my hopes of meeting Tegan and Sara and any interest in listening.  I have to pee, so I go into the bathroom.  It's crowded and hard to get a stall.  A bunch of my spicy friends are now in the bathroom, yelling, gesturing, and peeking over my stall door.  I just want to go to the bathroom.  I'm still wearing only a towel.  One girl goes into the stall next to me and starts talking about people having sex in public bathrooms.  She then sticks her head under the stall divider and puts her face in my crotch.  (I haven't peed yet).  She pulls back into her stall and continues talking.  I shake my head and sit down on the toilet.  Then I realize that not only did I just sit on a public toilet seat, I did so after just showering...

Sleepyhead

I am in my mom's bedroom and it's very early in the morning.   It's still dark outside and there is only one dim lamp on in the room.  I am looking in the mirror.  It's pajama day at my high school, but I didn't know that until this morning.  Even though it is well before I have to be at school, I have no time to get ready and I am panicking.  I can't remember if I took a shower last night or if I have to this morning.  I stand there frozen, unable to make any decisions.  Do I go shower anyway?  I'm wearing pajamas now, can I just go to school like this?  What time is it?  Am I packed for school?  I go into my room and pack my school bag with an extra pair of pajama pants and some books.  I have a test today that I have not studied for.  I don't shower and throw on my college sweatshirt to wear to high school along with the pajama pants that I'm already wearing.
I look out the front door and see my sister, as a little kid, standing at the bus stop.  I go out to the bus stop, but only stand there for a few minutes before I come back in the house because I decide that I am very unhappy with my outfit, my pajama outfit.  At this point, I am rushing around frantically, but not actually doing anything.  I decided that the pants I'm wearing will be too cold, so I will put the other pair on over them.  Even though I have made this decision, I don't actually do it.  I realize I don't have any makeup on.  This makes me really upset, but I don't put any on.  What shoes should I wear? (apparently I didn't have any on up until this point).
Now I decide that I don't want to think about pajamas anymore and want to try on outfits that I could wear in the future.  I find an old sweater in the closet that I had forgotten about and put it on with some jeans.  I look in the mirror and see that I am fatter than I thought I was.  My mom tells she she hates that sweater and asks what the hell I'm doing when I have to go to school soon.  I'm just trying on outfits when I don't have time for it, duh!
I look out the window and see the bus stop empty.  Oh my god! I've missed to bus because of my costume changes.  I will have to drive myself to school.  Wait, then why was I worried about the bus?

I wake up with a stiff neck and this running through my head:
"You can't start a fire, sitting around crying over a broken heart" ~ Bruce Springsteen, "Dancing in the Dark"

Tegan and Sara - Dancing in the Dark
Passion Pit - Sleepyhead

blood fucking

I'm on an elevated train.  It's supposed to be in Philadelphia, but looks more like New York.  Two college friends who now live in NYC are there, but get off at a stop before me to go to work.  Now I'm alone and not very sure where I am.  I get off the train and the setting turns into Stone Harbor, NJ, a very ritzy, slightly uptight shore town that I haven't visited in years.  I'm walking the streets and come across an adult toy store and decide to duck in.  They have kitschy old porno stuff from the 30s and 40s upstairs.  I find a staircase that leads downstairs to where the hardcore stuff is.  As I'm walking around, I begin to realize that this store is run by vampires.  There are erotic vampire porno and acutriments and the employees are wearing long black clothes, dark eye makeup, and lots of red in their hair.  I don't want to look like a crybaby, so I try to pretend that this is totally normal.

The layout of the store keeps changing, and although I am trying to look as though I am browsing, I decided as soon as I walked into the store that I wanted to buy a vibrator.  I finally locate my goal in a back corner of the store.  There are shelves and shelves of unorganized phallic shapes and other pieces that I have no clue what their function could be. There is one older lady who is not a vampire and I ask her for help.  However, she is not in charge of the vibrators so she pushes me onto the girl who is and is also, naturally, a vampire.  In the meantime, a girl in the store faints and all of the employees rush over to suck her blood.  I am annoyed by this because it distracts my salesperson and I am on a mission.  Quickly after the gorging is over, a bunch of moms with strollers and toddlers by the hand come into the store.  I am trying to ask the sales girl to recommend a vibrator to me.  She is avoiding the question and finally tells me that she can’t sell me anything because there are kids around.  I am told to come back in a few days when there won’t be children.  I explain that I cannot come back in a few days because I am only here on vacation and will be gone by then.  I leave with nothing and realize that I didn’t need to take the train here, because it only would have taken 15 mins to walk from my vacation house.

the long road to breakfast

My friend and I wake up after a night of drinking and decide that we want pancakes.  After a long conversation, we decide where we want to go.  We walk all the way through the streets of Philadelphia to find the restaurant closed.  Heartbroken, we decide to go to another place.  We are now at the Jersey shore on a boardwalk.  We find a back alley pancake place, but still don’t eat.  We are walking through the streets of Philly again and run into a mutual friend.  The two of them decide to play hide and seek in the streets, forgetting about the pancakes.  I find my friend hiding in my car and think the game is over and we will finally eat.  I wake up hungry.

The pen is mightier than my nerves

I’m at a bar or some kind of event, which eventually turns into a sort of high school reunion.  There are many faces that I haven’t seen in years.  Of course, anyone who I would want to see from high school is not there, so I am forced to hang out with people who I barely liked 10 years ago.  After a bit, I begin talking to people who wouldn’t have given me the time of day back then.  There is one girl in particular who I always thought was gay, and in my dream, I realize that I have apparently always had a crush on her.  We are all leaving now and as we exit, they are handing out updated contact information for everyone who came to the event.  Despite this, I decide that I MUST give this girl my phone number.  I have no pen or paper.  I’m frantically running around the back alley of this bar asking my former high school quasi friends for something to write on and with.  I finally gather the necessary items and lean on the trunk of a car to write my phone number.  My target is quickly escaping in the other direction.  I try to write and I can’t.  It comes out all scribbles and I soon fill the entire scrap of paper with gibberish.  I wake up.